#mono black devotion

[casualplaneswalker]

Mono Black Devotion In Modern – 8/21/18 Update I updated my mono black devotion deck for modern. Check it out! Watch On Youtube

[indefinite-free-pizza]

Is it a coincidence that ¨Thoughtseize¨ rhymes with ¨Nazis¨?

[athenadjg]

@Dack-fayden this is my decklist for mono black devotion. The only problem is i love this dexk so much i want to play with it.

[zingiestend]

I literally hate anyone who plays mono black in standard just fuck you

[mtgspikes-blog]

May 2nd: Todays Topic: Mono-Black Devotion

Hello I am very sorry about how long this took me to post, i have just been really busy and my father had a heart attack, so I haven't been able to sit down and do this I will try to post as much as possible.

Anyway here is my deck review of Mono-Black Devotion, This is one of my favorite decks to play in standard. It is a very competitive and strong deck, it is chock full of removal and really strong creatures to take your opponent down one big chunk at a time. Here is the list of Nicholas Schoolcraft 2014 StarCity Open Standard - Dallas - 4/12

4 Desecration Demon 4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel 4 Lifebane Zombie 4 Pack Rat

2 Bile Blight 3 Devour Flesh 4 Hero's Downfall 4 Thoughtseize 2 Ultimate Price 4 Underworld Connections

4 Mutavault 13 Swamp 4 Temple of Deceit 4 Temple of Silence

SIDEBOARD

3 Dark Betrayal 1 Devour Flesh 3 Doom Blade 2 Drown in Sorrow 4 Duress 2 Erebos, God of the Dead

Okay, so how this deck functions, it has a large control aspect to it and a strong leading aggro role late game. This is why this deck is classified as a mid-range deck. This deck utilizes the card Pack Rat, this allows you to use cards in your hand that wouldn't be the best and turns it into a threat the more you use its ability which is....

Pack Rat's power and toughness are each equal to the number of Rats you control.

, Discard a card: Put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of Pack Rat.

 This pretty much allows you to turn each card in your hand into a three mana Pack Rat.

This deck also has access to a lot of the best removal available (ie. Hero's Downfall, Ultimate Price, Bile Blight, and Devour Flesh ect.) It also uses Underworld Connections, which can fill your hand with cards to make into rats or slaughter your opponents teams.

This deck has a quite strong late game due to the connections and the rats, but also Desecration Demon is really fun to watch people struggle with.

Side-boarding for this deck is quite straight forward you put in Dark Betrayal for the mirror and I personally think Duress is not a bad choice for the mirror either. Erebos, God of the Dead goes in agaisnt things with  lots of life gain, and control for those pesky sphinx's and their revelations. Duress would go in for control as well. The other removal is for aggro and heavy aggro mid-range decks.

That is all for today, Have a great day, I hoped you learned a lot of why the deck is the way it is and maybe a little bit of how to pilot it, Have a great day, and stay safe out there, See you next time. 

[abc-topdecking-blog]

Standard FNM

Last night I went to a Standard FNM. Despite my most recent writings where I wrote of how amazing Orzhov was, I ended up playing Mono Black again. This was for two reasons. For one, MonoBlack has too many free win situations to overlook. The other reason being I sold my Blood Barons to get Modern cards... haha. Anyway, I ended u going 3-1 for the night which was good enough for 1st on tie-breakers. My only loss was to a BUG Control list when I couldn't answer a Kiora. I beat the mirror, Naya Hexproof, and Maze's End. This isn't meant to be a big write up, just a check in, but here's my list I ran.

4 Pack Rat 4 Nightveil Specter 4 Desecration Demon 4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel 4 Thoughtseize 2 Bile Blight 2 Devour Flesh 2 Ultimate Price 4 Hero's Downfall 4 Underworld Connections

4 Mutavault 4 Temple of Silence 18 Swamp

3 Duress 1 Pithing Needle2 Doom Blade 2 Drown in Sorrow 3 Lifebane Zombie 2 Erebos, God of the Dead

Suggested changes: -2 Ultimate Price, +2 Devour Flesh

[abc-topdecking-blog]

A Black Mage's Guide to Murder

Playing in this weekend's TCGPlayer event taught me one serious lesson; there are a lot of different things to kill right now in Standard. There are things like Brimaz and Precinct Captain that bring along buddies with them. Then there are black creatures like Desecration Demon, multicolored creatures like Fleecemane Lion, and the unfortunate that are both like Nightveil Specter. We can't also forget the guys who simply blank most of our removal all together such as Blood Baron of Vizkopa. So, needless to say, the black mages of today really need to put a lot of thought into how they plan on killing things. Sadly, your murders need to be premeditated. That all being said, let's look at the instant speed removal black has available to it right now in Standard.

[abc-topdecking-blog]

Being Appreciated by TCGPlayer

So, I figured I'd finally do another tournament report since I did reasonably well at this Saturday's TCGPlayer Appreciation event. It's been a bit since i played in anything more significant than an FNM and considering I had no real experience playing my deck, I was pretty happy with my result. Speaking of which, here's the list I ended up registering.

RatSeize 4 Pack Rat 4 Nightveil Specter 4 Desecration Demon 4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel 4 Thoughtseize 3 Bile Blight 3 Devour Flesh 4 Hero's Downfall 4 Underworld Connections 4 Mutavault 2 Temple of Deceit 2 Temple of Silence 18 Swamp

2 Dark Betrayal 4 Duress 1 Devour Flesh 1 Doom Blade 2 Drown in Sorrow 3 Lifebane Zombie 2 Erebos, God of the Dead

This is a pretty stock list, but I'm going to go over the few of my personal touches.

2-Drop Removal Package: I ended up going with a 3/3 Split MD of Bile Blight and Devour. Many lists are running 4/2 in favor of Blight, but Blood Baron is too real of a card to ignore. For the sideboarded removal I was going with two Doom Blade but at the last minute switched one out for the fourth Devour Flesh in fear of Blood Barons. If I were to run it again I'd probably go with the second Doom Blade.

Lands: I went with a 2/2 split of blue and white Scry lands so I could potentially cast stolen spells off of Nightveil Specters from MonoU and Control easier. I didn't include any BR Temples simply because I didn't see casting red cards as relevant. I also went with 26 lands just because of multiple sources saying that it was best for Pack Rat. Sometimes you just have to trust others.

That's basically it for my touches. Everything else is fairly basic and stock. Anywho, onto the part everyone and/or no one cares about, the actual games.

Round 1 Vs Bu Aggro My opponent was obviously more of a casual brewer, but his list was definitely cool with some potential. It was mainly Mono Black Aggro with Hidden Strings to get value from Pain Seer (from what I saw). Games one and two played out pretty similarly with me holding removal for relevant threats then taking over with Specters and Demons.

2-0 1-0

Round 2 Vs Orzhov Midrange Game 1: I knew what my opponent was on before we started and I wasn't excited. I honestly don't remember a lot of Game 1, but I know his Blood Barons never got their Flesh Devoured very quickly. Game 2: This game I decided to be super tricky and technical with my plays. I went Turn 1 Thoughtseize into turn 2 Pack Rat and he never drew an answer. Game 3: I kept a slow, but decent, hand of 4 land, Zombie, Specter, Connections while my opponent mulliganed to a sketchy 5. He proceeded to Thoughtseize my Connections, kill my two creatures, and then beat me to death while I was punished for keeping a slow hand by drawing infinite lands.

1-2 1-1

Round 3 Vs Orzhov Midrange Game 1: So excited for this matchup again. Luckily for me these games went much smoother. First game was locked up by resolving Demons/Specters and then playing Gray Merchants. My opponent never applied much pressure and was punished for it. Game 2: See Game 1.

2-0 2-1

Round 4 Vs Esper Control Game 1: My opponent mulliganed to 5 on the draw while I kept a solid Thoughtseize/Packrat 7. He never made it in sadly. Game 2: I kept a disruption heavy hand in hopes of my Demons taking the game. My opponent was able to rip removal for my few threats and resolve a Blood Baron to lock me out. Game 3: Once again my opponent mulliganed heavily and couldn't escape Pack Rats and Mutavaults.

2-1 3-1

Round 5 Vs Orzhov Midrange At this point due to the somewhat small turnout we had 1 player at 4-0 and 7 at 3-1. After realizing this fact and seeing none of the 3-1s got paired down, we all drew into Top 8.

ID 3-1-1

Quarterfinals Vs Naya Midrange/Combo Game 1: My opponent was the 4-0 layer with a sweet brew. It was similar to RG Monsters, but due to Boros Charms and Ajani he basically would kill in 1 attack with a super pumped creature. Luckily, disruption and removal are pretty good against combo oriented aggro strategies. I had Downfalls and Devours for any real threats he dropped while beating face with Desecration Demon. Game 2: Against a mulligan I went T1 Thoughtseize, Turn 2 Thoughtseize, Turn 3 Lifebane Zombie with Doom Blade in hand.

2-0

Semifinals Vs Devotion to Ephara Game 1: This was a good friend of mine who I had tested with before the event. My record in this matchup was 0-4 and I wasn't too happy, haha. For the first game I was able to disrupt his plan long enough for a Demon and Gray Merchant to steal me the game. Game 2: I didn't stand a chance. Brimaz, Precint Captain, and Gods made short work of me. Game 3: I kept a slow hand and was punished for it.

1-2 3rd Place

Overall, I'm happy with the deck. My performance could have been better. I learned that a huge part of this deck is mulliganing properly and realizing what won't get you there. The only change I'd make would be the Doom Blade addition in the board.

Anyway, thanks all for reading, and hope I can get some more content out soon.

-Alan Alanmore on Twitter