MBC - Mostly Black Control

Standard Wylmryk

SCORE: 7 | 18 COMMENTS | 2265 VIEWS | IN 2 FOLDERS


Oct. 22, 2012

Tweak update - Took out the singleton Curse of Death's Hold and Slaughter Games in favor of Rakdos Keyrune. I really like the former two cards, but they're much better board material, no matter how useful they could be game 1, the Keyrune will always be useful. Also fit in a second Rakdos's Return main deck as it has been a star recently. Took out the Diabolic Revelation/Elixir of Immortality combo in favor of Sever the Bloodline to help a bit in the control matchup if they get Entreat off and add some more spot removal. Changed up the walkers to 2 Lili/2 Chandra rather than 3/1. Trying Curse of the Pierced Heart in the sideboard for the control matchup.

RedSeries says... #1

I have yet to be hit ONCE by a Desecration Demon . I don''t think he fits in here without Blood Artist honestly. With the kind of deck you want to play (via desc), it might be better simply to drop the singleton of card:Curse of Death's Hold and the two Desecration Demon s for 3x mainboard card:Rakdos's Return (toss the Curse in place of the return in the sideboard). Maybe even make this into a discard-ish deck and slap in Shrieking Affliction . As a control player that would freak the crap out of me, and with the amount of removal you have you might as well not worry about aggro.

Some cards you have I think are just not too helpful for you:

Diabolic Revelation is useful after turn 7 or so only, and that's assuming you hit every land drop. It's not a good card, sorry to say. Perhaps some Duress ?

Slaughter Games is definitely a game 2/3 card to get rid of an opponent's win condition. I'd put it in side for another Pillar of Flame .

Liliana of the Dark Realms is good, and I get that she feeds Mutilate , but why not Liliana of the Veil ?

Of course, that would take this deck in another direction, but these are just suggestions. Discard as a mechanic is actually viable from what I've been playing lately and it's interesting to make a deck around right now (provided you don't go nuts).

Either way, these are just friendly suggestions! Play the way you like, with the deck you like to play. Magic is all about having fun!

October 12, 2012 4:31 a.m.

skittles says... #2

I play a similar list to this, only playing Jund rather than just Rakdos. I think Blasphemous Act might be a good sideboard boardwipe. It allows you to sweep things like armada wurm reasonably consistently (although you do play one more swamp than me)

I really like Sign in Blood . Occasionally it's a shock, but it mostly just lets you fill up on gas. I also really like Underworld Connections but 3 may be too much. If you're trying to draw to a certain answer earlier on, it seems better.

I would like to know what you think of Desecration Demon . I've found the card to be very good. With the vast amounts of removal, the card puts the game away quickly.

Mono- Black Jund. This is my decklist if you want to compare ideas. I think our decks are pretty similar and I'd like to know what you think. +1 from me

October 12, 2012 5:31 a.m.

Wylmryk says... #3

@Red - It seems like your feedback is generally leaning toward turning the deck into a discard focused deck, and I think the removal suite that is there is far too heavy were that the route to take. I think there's definitely something there, but it's not really the focus I was going for. The format seems so heavy in aggro/midrange that I felt like a Mutilate focused creature control deck could do well, and so far it has. There's very few things around that I could Duress that scare me enough to do so.

Diabolic Revelation is in there for turn 7+, 8+ most often. The deck was designed to force a late game, but seemed to run out of steam around then. Cracking that with a good board position on turn 8 means I can grab the second revelation, Elixir of Immortality , and whatever I want. I agree that, for a tutor effect it's pretty bad, but it fits surprisingly well here, at least in the playtesting I've done so far. Don't get me wrong, I've got my eye on it and if it starts to under-preform, it's out, along with all the singletons as they're just there to be fetched. Even fetching a card:Rakdos's Return by turn 8/9 to rip out big things like Entreat the Angels , Sigarda, Host of Herons (who is pretty scary), or even the rest of their Thragtusk s is pretty good. If I pull it in my opening hand, based on the colors I can assume the bombs - if there's green, call Thragtusk , if it's U/W/x, Entreat the Angels is likely to be around, I could even make them mad and rip Snapcaster Mage . At this point in the meta there's some staples floating around that, even if I don't yank them, I'd be happy in game 1 knowing they're not around.

As far as Liliana of the Dark Realms vs Liliana of the Veil , it really came down to synergy. I did test with Veil for a while, but she almost always was a 3 mana edict and single attack shield. Wanting to drop my mana every turn and minimize card loss, her +1 was rarely if ever appealing. Dark Realms is slower and does not fit the curve quite as well, but feeding Mutilate / Diabolic Revelation every turn is glorious, her mini Mutilate is an awesome backup plan, and if I ever get lower than I want, I can -3 my Vampire Nighthawk and just swing into something and soak up the lifelink to buy time. Not to mention, her ulti makes Diabolic Revelation into card:Rakdos's Return game over.

October 12, 2012 7:49 a.m.

Wylmryk says... #4

Desecration Demon . Love him or hate him, I hear very little in-between. I fully agree, in most any deck, he's pretty bad. But, in a deck whose sole focus is keeping your opponent's side as clear of creatures as possible, if you have a clear board on their side turn 4, which isn't abnormal, he's an absolute bomb. In fact, even later on, if their side is clear or they only have 1 creature, he's pretty scary. Not only are they dealing with your removal, but they're trying to manage to keep him from hitting them in the face. He also ducks under 90% of your Mutilates. Turn 4 him, turn 5 Mutilate , have fun. Or, vise-versa. Just because the deck is designed to go late game doesn't mean I won't be happy with the Demon winning before I can get to tutor anything. And he has. Even if he just pulls spot removal, it can pave the way for an unanswered Olivia Voldaren , which has also happened to me, and has won me the game. So far, I've not played DDemon and later felt is was a mistake, but like I said in the description, I have my eye n him in a big way.

@skittles - I had seriously considered Blasphemous Act , and I might do some playtesting with it. It feels like it's much more at home in Jund control though, as it's more of a frontlines battle - your creatures vs. theirs rather than spell removal keeping the board clear. Using it on just Armada Wurm would be 7 mana to kill 2 creatures, which doesn't feel efficient. May toss a couple in the board for vs/ Entreat the Angels though. I love messing with people playing Entreat.

I think my real issue with Underworld Connections and Sign in Blood is that I don't have a lot of leftover room for card advantage, which is surprisingly less of a problem than I'd expected. Ideally, I'd run 2x Underworld Connections and 3x Sign in Blood if I had the room, but with the tutor combo and the one-ofs taking a bit of space, I don't feel like I can lighten my removal even more. If I do decide to remove the tutor stuff, I'm running both no questions. I also playtested Bloodgift Demon for a while, but I ended up taking him out. Not having a choice hurt more than I expected.

Anyway, TL;DR - Thanks for your input! :D

October 12, 2012 7:51 a.m.