A no-gimmicks take on monoblack control which just aims to control the board, but not throttle your own plays with Dark Confidant and pox-style discard and land destruction. This allows for big scary finishers like
Phyrexian Obliterator
, Tombstalker and Batterskull. This deck also plays an extremely stable and life friendly land base of exclusively swamps, which allows you to play extremely colour intensive and powerful things like a kicked Gatekeeper of Malakir or a
Geralf's Messenger
leaving mana up for Victim of Night with any 5 lands.
Note that this currently isn't a black devotion deck - this is more about board control through removal and wipes, and big finishers which don't need much setup. I may play test a single Gary at some point.
This is very much a work in progress, and would welcome suggestions and comments, other than "play 8 rack instead".
Geralf's Messenger
Almost garenteed 4 damage and a 3-4 damage beater. This improves the game vs control and combo significantly, providing a decent clock. Also, turn 3 messenger into turn 4 mutilate and swing equates to 8 damage and resetting the board in your favor.
Gatekeeper of Malakir
A definite turn 3 play, making it almost always a 2 for 1. Also allows you to deal with boggles and emrakul main deck.
Phyrexian Obliterator
Shuts down aggro without path to exile. He survives a 4 land mutilate as well which can be a back breaking play.
Victim of Night
Hits just about anything in modern at the moment.
Sign in Blood
As our land base is very life friendly, we can afford to pay a little some for some cards. The double black mana cost is no trouble compared to nights whispers, and it allows us to point it at the enemy if we have them low enough.
Lashwrithe
Synergises excellently with the land base and provides a big creature that leaves behind an amazing piece of equipment when it dies. The equipment allows you to protect creatures from your mutilates as well as provide some unexpected finishing damage when you equip it straight away.
Mutilate
Started off as a budget Damnation, however it has the unexpected side effect of allowing you to wipe your opponents creatures whilst saving your own - by equipping a lashwrithe or by keeping your swamp count at 4 or by simply having 5 toughness creatures. Killing your living weapons isn't the end of the world either.
Tragic Slip
Without the activation this hits a ton of relevant creatures - Snapcaster, vendillion, bob, young pyromancer, unflipped delver etc. which is great as most of these are from URx decks which are a bad matchup for this deck. It also fills a great gap on the curve, allowing you to remove stuff while playing threats. This could easily be a Dark blast but has the potential to hit much bigger threats so works main deck and isn't dead vs green and white.
