Murder, Inc. -- Rock Midrange *retired*

Standard* BG (Golgari) Competitive Midrange Rock Suicide Black

NerdPounder

Land (23)

• 3x Forest
• 4x Llanowar Wastes
• 3x Mutavault
• 4x Overgrown Tomb
• 4x Swamp
• 4x Temple of Malady
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Planeswalker (2)

• 2x Nissa, Worldwaker

Instant (11)

• 3x Abrupt Decay
• 2x Devour Flesh
• 1x Golgari Charm
• 4x Hero's Downfall
• 1x Ultimate Price

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Sign in Blood
• 4x Thoughtseize

Creature (16)

• 4x Courser of Kruphix
• 4x Desecration Demon
• 4x Reaper of the Wilds
• 4x Sylvan Caryatid

Enchantment (3)

• 3x Underworld Connections

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Sideboard

Creature (7)

• 1x Erebos, God of the Dead
• 2x Mistcutter Hydra
• 2x Pack Rat
• 2x Polukranos, World Eater

Artifact (2)

• 1x Bow of Nylea
• 1x Whip of Erebos

Sorcery (4)

• 4x Duress

Instant (1)

• 1x Bile Blight

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Liliana Vess

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:: Destiny exalts a chosen few, but even heroes break ::

When I first had the idea for this deck, I honestly thought "Well, it will be worse than GB devotion, so I shouldn't even try." However, it kept nagging at the back of my brain that I should give it a whirl on Cockatrice, if it was bad then no harm done, back to other deck ideas. After the first game I knew that I might have a real winner here, and it hasn't disappointed me ever since. The strength of this deck lies in its simplicity. I thought green based decks were doing great things right now (Courser/Caryatid giving you lots of mana, a solid defense against aggro, and Courser's card advantage in the grindy games), and black decks are obviously doing very well, so this deck takes the best of both and puts them into one deck.

I decided to play Reaper of the Wilds in this deck for a lot of reasons. For one, it's just a 4 mana 4/5 rare with 3 lines of text, how bad can it possibly be? But, those abilities really matter because Desecration Demon was already hogging the big idiot position in the deck, and I needed another big threat that dodged removal. Also, in the creature matchups, the card advantage of scrying all the time is awesome, I've used it to find cards with the help of Courser, Demon sacing, and Underworld Connections that killed 3 creatures in one turn, completely decimating his board. I've also gotten to scry 12+ times because of an Elspeth, a Supreme Verdict, and 2 Reapers. Against control, Reaper is an all star, and besides all of that, Polukranos, World Eater is a little hard on the mana base for what you get.

My worst matchups are Burn and Hexproof, but neither of those decks are getting played a whole lot anymore, and I can bring in Polukranos, Pack Rat, Duress, and Whip of Erebos against burn and have a fair chance to win the game. My best strategy against them is to hopefully duress them on turn 1, then accelerate to an early Desecration Demon and race. In fact, Desecration Demon is my best card in both of my worst matchups. Suffice to say, that card is just real good. Also, he kills things, and in case you can't tell I really like killing things.

I think this deck does some things better than BG devotion, and there are good reasons to play it over it. For one, it's not the best deck in the format, so you don't get called mean names if you take it to FNM. Two, it has 8 reliable card advantage engines thanks to Courser of Kruphix instead of 4. Three, one of the ways people have tried and succeeded to beat MBD before is playing decks that get out in front of the removal spells by going ballistic on the first few turns. Courser of Kruphix and Sylvan Caryatid both shut that down pretty quick barring a pump spell. Four, Reaper of the Wilds is a lot better by himself than Gray Merchant of Asphodel against MBD, Control, and Loxodon Smiter decks. Although we do miss the big lifegain swings from Gary, we're not quite as vulnerable to being ran off of the table by 1-drop knucklehead decks thanks to Caryatid/Courser, so our life generally stays higher than the devotion deck.

The mana can be kind of picky, considering we want to be able to cast Courser of Kruphix, Underworld Connections, or Hero's Downfall on turn 3, so I've gone for the full 12 dual lands and only play 3 Mutavaults. I don't feel like 3 mutavaults is that big of a sacrifice compared to the times I couldn't cast spells because of it, and since Pack Rat isn't in the main we aren't missing out on tribal synergy that often.

I tried to be proactive in the SB, and bring in cards that I can just cast regardless of what my opponent is doing, which is how I usually like to set up my sideboards. Pack Rat didn't make the MB because that card has gone downhill since Bile Blight came out. Sometimes I can trick people into thinking I don't have it by leaving it in the board game 1, so they board out Bile Blight while I board in Pack Rat. My Bile Blight was originally in the SB for Pack Rats, but I also bring it in against Planar Cleansing Control to deal with Elspeth tokens since my Abrupt Decays don't have a ton of targets, and as 2 mana removal spell # 7 against knucklehead beatdown.

I really think the deck is powerful and can be successful in competitive tournaments because it's best matchups are the decks that were dominating the scene recently, but I don't have the time or money to get it to a major tournament and try it out there, I just play it on cockatrice a lot. If someone wants to test it out or ask questions about metagame issues/deckbuilding issues/anything else, feel free to ask me on here, I'll answer to the best of my knowledge. I would love to see this take off, but it is kind of hard to get a deck noticed without taking it to an Open or something along those lines. Let me know what you think, good or bad!

Date added	9 years
Last updated	6 years
Legality	This deck is not Standard legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 4 Mythic Rares 38 - 6 Rares 6 - 1 Uncommons 3 - 4 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.78
Tokens	Copy Clone
Folders	black green