Another thought on re-animator decks and snapcaster is to run 1 or 2 Bojuka Bog . This still provides mana but deals effectively with opponents graveyards. Just another thought!

You might want to run at least some amount of Ghost Quarter or Tectonic Edge

Demigod of Revenge -5 devotion, haste, flying, can reanimate, whats not to love

I playtested your deck against my Get Bullied by Goblins!. I saw that someone said you cannot draw Gray Merchant of Asphodel or Phyrexian Arena . I drew Gray Merchant of Asphodel ]] twice, I never saw Phyrexian Arena . Also I won 4-1.

Phyrexian Arena is basically never run in modern competitively. It's way too slow and effective. You only have 5 killspells - that's an extremely low number for a deck in modern.

You have no reliable and fast board clear in your sideboard (where's Damnation ?). You will need this, judging by the above comment about getting beaten by a goblins deck.

At the moment you seem split between creature presence and discard / control. The two don't go together awesomely well. For example, most mono-B discard decks run virtually no creatures. I would really consider having a think about what you want to achieve with this deck because it seems muddled at the moment.

*way too slow and ineffective

Actually, he has 9 removal effects if you count the gatekeepers when they are kicked. And his obliterator can remove a whole slew of things if it gets touched. I do agree that a damnation or that new card that gives all creatures -2/-2 and scries should be in the sideboard to counteract aggro.

ChiefBell I don't know y u r posting that Phyrexian Arena isn't modern playable, I assure u that it is. Even Pre DRS Ban Rock ran a single copy in the SB in addition to Dark Confidant . It's the 2nd best draw option for mono-black and in decks with high CMC like this, the best.

Also, ur bit about discard isn't true either. His setup is fine considering he has no Lilly to progressively fight combo, he could even run more.

I agree he's in need of some Drown in Sorrow Mutilate Damnation or possibly Killing Wave .

"Even pre DRS Ban Rock ran a single copy in the SB" - yeh that's really not convincing. Especially when we're talking about a deck that has 2 mainboarded.

Sign in Blood / Night's Whisper is so much better it's unbelievable. Compared to the arena it costs one less mana and draws the cards far quicker. We're comparing something that nets you 2 cards T2 to something that will only net you 2 cards by T5. I know it's not the absolute authority on modern but a quick search on mtgtop8 reveals far more decks playing Night's Whisper / Sign in Blood than the arena. I just think there's so many better things you can do in a fast format than pay 3 mana to then draw cards in the next few turns. It makes logical sense when you compare them side by side. Arena is way more heavy on cost, and way slower.

Well yeh...... that's sort of my point. If he added more discard then he'd have to cut creatures and the deck would start looking like your average cookie cutter mono-B discard deck. Or, if he added morre killspells to complement the creatures then he'd have to cut discard (most likely). My point is you can't physically have both to the best of their abilities in a 60 card deck. You're arguing that increased discard needs to present; I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying that it will lead to creatures being cut. As my original comment said "at the moment you're split". It's better to go more heavily in one direction.

matbyrne - both the gatekeeper and the obliterator give the opponent control over what is removed. They're ineffective against combo decks. They're obviously not bad cards, but they don't fill the role of killspell very well.

Okay, reality. Mono black (of any build) is not competitive. U need to splash another color for it to stand a chance. ...That's why as popular as 8Rack is, it's not a proven archetype. (not to mention slow, boring, and frustrating to play). However neither is Mono Black Control/Infect/Suicide/Pox.

In response to... "Well yeh...... that's sort of my point. If he added more discard then..." the problem is that there is no Lilly. She is the balance that fills both those rolls at once. Removal + Distortion.

I like Sign in Blood a lot. However in this deck, Arena is the better choice. It's a devotion deck after all. He's running both so I don't really see y it matters lol. I've used Blood & I like that it gets u 2 cards right away but so many times did it leave me wishing I had a different draw engine. The way this deck is set up, it's definitely not for a quick win.

Metroid_Hybrid I see Affinity & Possibly Twin giving your deck a lot of trouble. Affinity will have u dead before u can play a threat. Wrench Mind will suffer game 1. I would certainly consider some Infest or Bile Blight for the SB.

Problem with Twin is they want u to tap out T3 and your cheapest creatures are all T3 plays. Sure game 2 u can be more prepared but your setup to give Twin a free win game 1.

It's not highly competitive but mono-B discard does occasionally turn up in tournaments and does ok. It's not great, I agree, - its just ok.

Yeh I agree with Apple (which links in with what I was saying) - you need more answers to things.

-2 Thoughtseize -1 Dismember +2 Raven's Crime +1 Inquisition of Kozilek Raven's crime is a godsend to have when you're flooding out.

Interesting thing to note is, in my mono black deck, I resisted running Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx because many of my zombies cost entirely black mana symbols (Geralf's Messenger , Highborn Ghoul , and my one drops) as does another spell (Sign in Blood ). However, after testing, it's almost never a stumbling block, and it REALLY makes a difference. I'm not sure exactly how much playtesting you've done with it, but it's really worth looking deeply into.

Playtested this against my Swarm and Conquer V 2.0 and I had a blast. Great deck!

Have you thought about playing Child of Night instead of Go for the Throat ? It hits more creatures in modern (the popularity of Affinity makes Go For the Throat risky) Also, I don't want to be the guy who suggests standard cards for modern, but a good sideboard card against Affinity is Drown in Sorrow , it's one of the only ways to get rid of an Etched Champion as well. Also, you may want to have Disfigure somewhere in the deck, just to lower your mana curve and start killing things immediately.

I actually have a deck just like on my webpage called 'Phyrexian Devotion' Metroid Hybrid. The differences between this deck and the one I have is that I put in Erebos, God of the Dead against the UW control decks. I also mainboard in two copies of Whip of Erebos for awesome effects with "Gary" if he every gets killed. I also have three copies of Bile blight against token decks and for cheap removal too. And just for shits and giggles, I decided to run just ONE copie of Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief so that I can pick off my opponent's creatures with pumping her up at the same time. Make sure to +1 the deck if y'all get a chance to look it up.

Fulminator Mage might be a better form of land hate than Rain of Tears because of the two devotion

ChiefBell, you say Arena's too slow but not Damnation ? What are you talking about? Damnation has a higher mana cost...

You're comparing apples and oranges. I don't know how to properly address that comment. It completely misses the point.

Emrakul, Arena is slow because every turn you want it to take effect, you need to toss down ANOTHER three mana, and even then, it only effects two creatures. Something as simple as Titan's Strength can completely make that card a bad move, and wind up doing nothing more than killing your creature (I'm assuming you would be using this with the Obliterator, but still).

Damnation is a single cast reset button. No regeneration, and unless countered, it just take effect, hence why it is faster.

He was talking about phyrexian arena I think.

Phyrexian arena is slow because it takes many turns to build up an advantage. A T3 arena will only have drawn you two cards by T5 - making it essentially a very slow and more expensive Sign in Blood .

Damnation, on the other hand, affects the board as soon as it is played.

Hey, I know people have suggested a green splash before, and I was just wanting to say that I think your mana base would be fine with 4x Woodland Cemetery and 4x Temple of Malady instead of paying for fetches. I've been playing with a similar deck on Cockatrice, and the Temples are fantastic since the deck is so mana inefficient, and yours probably is too.

I really like this deck. I see that you reset the comments, but have you ever tried/ has anyone mentioned Bloodghast ? I think he would be great in this deck as you could use a solid 2 drop that gives BB (I consider Gatekeeper of Malakir a 3 drop for all purposes sake). I was looking at building this deck but ended up building this deck instead Poor People Obliterator as I already had most of it. I would be curious in running a Mono-black deck sometime.

I think Black Knight Would be a strong two drop. It can block, it has a higher toughness, and it has protection against white, so it's a beautiful starter against white decks. The protection also negates a lot of white removal AND Pacifism which would be a huge negative on this deck (and anything standard). Granted the landfall ability is nice, but I don't think Bloodghast would get there often enough.

I'm too cheap for messengers right now, and I don't have the money for two more obliterators, so I'm subbing with a few knights and they've worked really well so far.

This might not be a great idea; but, why not put Erebos, God of the Dead in the deck? I think that he would be killer against deck with life-gaining abilities. Help me with this case.