Black Sideboards

Modern Deck Help forum

Posted on April 16, 2021, 3:27 p.m. by Whitelionq

I'm needing a good sideboard. for my all black deck i just cut out red so I lost out on my artifact hate and blood moon's and having a hard time filling the gap's I'd appreciate the help my vampire modern deck is darkside and has gone through many brews

RNR_Gaming says... #2

Well, you may want to link your deck list or at least tell us what your sideboard is now.

If you're struggling with artifacts your only good option is going to be Ratchet Bomb .

Oblivion Stone and Engineered Explosives are options too but are very sub optimal in a mono black aggro/vampire deck.

As for a replacement for Blood Moon ..well, that's a bit rough Field of Ruin or Ghost Quarter can help a tiny bit but it's not the same. More hand hate is probably the route you should go. Duress , Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek have always been all stars for me.

April 16, 2021 3:41 p.m. Edited.

Hardhitta7 says... #3

Yeah the discard can be good, especially if you aren’t running it main deck.

I would also recommend having some Surgical Extraction / Tormod's Crypt or the newer artifact that I can’t remember the name of.

With the new set I expect Prowess to become even more popular so having some extra 1 mana removal like Fatal Push and Bloodchief's Thirst for Monastery Swiftspear / Soul-Scar Mage / Clever Lumimancer .

And Plague Engineer can be useful as well.

April 16, 2021 4:27 p.m.

legendofa says... #4

Is Darkside the one you're talking about?

April 16, 2021 9:24 p.m.

lagotripha says... #5

There are some straightforward options - the 'kill an enchantment' card patched a lot of holes. I've had success with Whip of Erebos and Mimic Vat , Collective Brutality , Raven's Crime , Ravenous Trap , Profane Command and so on, but right now lumimancer looks like its going to be flavour of the month, so 1 mana instant speed removal is the game. Fatal Push , or spice like Human Frailty . If you need to kill somewhat bigger creatures, Dismember does a lot of work answering those 1 drops.

April 17, 2021 6:35 a.m.

TriusMalarky says... #6

What are you trying to hit? What decks do you have trouble with, what decks do you face the most often, etc?

April 20, 2021 10:56 a.m.

Xica says... #7

From your current sideboard i would only keep the 3x Feed the Swarm - its a great card for creature AND enchantment matchups.




Seeing that you run Agadeem's Awakening  Flip i would surely play some creature based hate cards.
- 2x Blight Beetle - hates out heliod, humans & hardened scales & decent blicker against green fatties like Tarmogoyf , Elder Gargaroth , Tireless Tracker ... etc.
- 2x Yixlid Jailer - good grave hate
- 2x Plague Engineer - against tribal, tokens (and bloodghast)


For the rest 6x slots i would play:
- 2x Ashiok, Dream Render - good against grave decks,tutor decks (tron to a degree, titan, heliod, STORM ...etc.)
- 2x Bontu's Last Reckoning - fastes boardwipe in the format, you should only need languish in situations where you give up your board for better topdecking - in such situations, the drawback is minimal, while the cmc 3 means you can play it in time (for example even if you fail to hit land drops, or thalia is on the field ...etc.)
- 2x Damping Sphere - decent against storm, tron, izzet blitz, and the now OMNIPRESENT boros blitz.



In your maindeck you can do much better.
Viscera Seer is very underwhelming if you only have bloodghast to go with it - i would repkace them with 1x more fatal push, 1x targeted discard & 1x Vampire of the Dire Moon / Vampire Cutthroat / Shadow Alley Denizen (latter gives evasion).

And for now maindeckable lifegain is king, so contemplate running a number of Feast of Blood or Collective Brutality (i recommend the former, as its harder to partially fizzle with prowess & less punishing when countered)

And sincyou are monoblack you can affor to run decent black utility lands. Ghost Quarter & Field of Ruin is a must in some number. Castle Locthwain is great in topdeck wars.

And since you run fetches, i woul advise getting 1-2 Witch's Cottage for more recursion.




So for sideboard:
- 3x Feed the Swarm
- 2x Blight Beetle
- 2x Yixlid Jailer
- 2x Plague Engineer
- 2x Ashiok, Dream Render
- 2x Damping Sphere
- 2x Bontu's Last Reckoning

April 20, 2021 7:46 p.m.

TriusMalarky says... #8

Xica has some good suggestions, but a lot of them depend on matchups and meta. Surgicals can 100% win you the game when cast at the right time against the right decks, like sniping the path they were targeting with snappy or the Karn you hit with Seize.

I actually wouldn't consider Feed the Swarm at all. You're a creature based mono black deck in Modern, where the list of enchantments that see play is Blood Moon(doesn't hurt you at all), Leyline of the Void and RIP(You have 4 cards that care), Stony Silence(nope), Deafening Silence(again, don't care), Rule of Law(at that point, just Sorin them in) . . . you get the point. Outside of a meta filled to the brim with Bitterblossom, Bogles, Hardened Scales, and the good fun jank of Pillow Fort, Curses, Shrines, etc . . . don't bother. If it said exile it would be a whole nother story as heliod is tier rn, but it says destroy so just Thoughtseize stuff.

That's another thing -- black has TS, IoK and Duress. These are catch-all sideboard cards. They are central to black's strategy in Modern anyways and they do so much work. In fact, if I'm brewing with black I start with 4x Duress 4x TS 4x Inquisition of Kozilek (many in SB) and trim from there.

April 21, 2021 12:58 a.m.

Please login to comment