A mono-black control deck, that tries to strip the opponent of resources and then proceeds to win slowly.
I always enjoyed playing these kind of decks, so I wanted to build one for this Standard. Id greatly appreciate your help in case you have any suggestions, advice or critisism!
Please help me to make this deck as competitive as possible. I know that this wont end up as tier 1 or anything remotely close, but Id like to at least put up a fight.
Heres a quick rundown of why all the cards are here:
Creatures:
Gifted Aetherborn: At this point I think this card has proven itself as quite a strong one. It helps us slow down the game and is serves as at least somewhat of a problem card for Ramunap-Red, which is a big problem for us.
Glint-Sleeve Siphoner: Its main purpose is to draw us some cards. Once weve stripped their hand of removal this is actually quite easy to accomplish. Its not as amazing early game, so Im not 100% set on this, but I think its a pretty good fit for the deck.
Kitesail Freebooter: Essentially a Duress on a body. Im not running this atm, because the opponent does get the card back once this dies. This means its only temporary discard and not perfectly suited for a resource-denial deck like this.
Dreamstealer: One of the pieces we really need for this deck to work. Hes a nightmare for control decks and still pretty decent against most other things. If he discards 1 card he pretty much did his job, but you can protect him and strip entire hands should the opportunity arise.
Gonti, Lord of Luxury: Amazing vs any kind of midrange deck. As Im expecting quite a few Temur Energy deck to make their way into XLN Standard, he seems like quite a solid sideboard option.
Aethersphere Harvester: Id like to have this as an opiton vs Aggro, maybe in the sideboard, but Im not sure on wheter I have enough creatures to consistently crew it.
Non-creatures:
Fatal Push: Were playing black, so yeah this is in the deck
Duress: Its back! One of the best discard spells ever printed. I see no reason not to run this.
Harsh Scrutiny: Sadly this is very narrow in its targets, so Id only consider it in a very creature heavy meta. Lets see where XLN takes us.
Battle at the Bridge: A Hazoret answer. Well need those...
Walk the Plank: Im not expecting Merfolk to play a huge role in the upcoming Standard, so this looks quite promising. Always good to have (almost) unconditional removal and especially with all those big Dinos on the horizon.
Lay Bare the Heart: With the new planeswalker rule change I dont really see myself playing this, but I feel like it should be mentioned for completions sake.
Crook of Condemnation: We struggle hard vs graveyard-utilizing decks. This is pretty consistent amog all discard-type decks. This feels like a solid option post-board.
Doomfall: Solid option as a discard spell looking at LBtH's unfortunate demise due to rule changes. Its removal mode is not terrible eighter. It can even answer Hazoret and The Scarab God, so all in all I really liked this card so far.
Bontu's Last Reckoning: We need a boardclear. Im afraid this is the best one we get... I dont like the downside. but much like in the Modern counterpart of 8-Rack we dont really cast much later in the game, so its actually suprsingly managable.
Yahenni's Expertise: Doesnt kill the large guys, which can be quite problematic. 4 cmc is also not nothiing for this deck, as our curve is not all that high. The free-cast is nice, but we empty our hand quite fast, so dont expect to have a card to play 100% of the time.
Lost Legacy & Dispossess: Answers for problematic cards. Were playing black, so I guess we should run these. The final split will likely be determind by the meta were about to head into.
Sword-Point Diplomacy: This could be an interesting way for us to get card-advantage and deal damage to our opponent. Late game if theyre already on a clock due to Torments they cant really afford to take the damage too often. However I am aware that this card is considerd bad because only 3 life to take out the best card of the draw is usually easily payed...
Trespasser's Curse: Could be a solid option vs Aggro and go-wide decks, fitting witht he taxing their life-total theme.
Never: Solid Hard removal and pretty much our only way of dealing with planeswalkers. I should probably consider runnig more of this. The Return side is sweet as its a main-deck option vs graveyard-decks.
Torment of Scarabs: This is our main win condition. If our opponent is empty handed, they'll have to take 3 or start sacing their board. Eventually this will kill them. Its not fast but suprisingly effective. Ive even seen this as a 1-of in Modern 8-Rack lists, which should help emphasize the power of this card.
Raiders' Wake: Seems pretty good, but the problem with this is, that if our opponent is already empty handed, this does absolutely nothing. This is the same reason why no-one plays Lilianas Caress in Modern. However seeing how starved on wincons we are in Standard, Im willing to give this a chance as it also is a way for us to have a permanent discard by simply attacking.
Torment of Hailfire: Im a bit iffy on this card. Its a bunch of Torment of Scarabs triggers in one card, but you need a lot of mana to make this worthwile. We dont always have that. However sometimes we really need to close out a game and then this could be useful.
Essence Extraction: Could be an option to deal with Aggro, maybe.
Lands
Ifnir Deadlands: Fine removal in a pinch, Seeing as we are mono-colored we dont even really need to pay life for black mana like ever. Seems quite an easy inclusion.
Desert of the Glorified: Again, were mono-colored, so these would be our only tap-lands. It seems worth it to me to have the option to cycle lands late game, so Im running some for now.
Scavenger Grounds: Like I said before, We kind of need grave-hate. This can easily be included in the main-deck and helps quite a bit vs certain decks.
