My latest paper deck isn't the most original, but it's a blast to play. We're doing a theft!
Gonti is an incredibly fun card, but they're a bit slow in today's environment. Lobelia here offers the same kind of gameplay but a taste of EVERYONE's decks, as well as free casting of the stolen spells, though requires a bit of effort to build around to have artifacts to keep feeding her. Gonti still has a place of honor in the 99 though.
Because we're in black, and it makes people slightly less miffed, most of our theft in the deck is from the opponents' decks or graveyard, cards they aren't actively using or used resources to deploy. But to add some spice, the deck as at least one card capable of stealing from most zones, so that nowhere is safe from being yoinked.
As a result of stealing from the graveyard, we also have some reanimation package, nothing groundbreaking here. Note that not ALL our reanimation can target other people, the stuff that can only target our graveyard tends to be repeatable, to sac and bring back Lobelia, as she can easily run out of good cards to cast and need to be killed and brought back for a new batch of larceny.
Wincons are important in any deck, and if ideally this deck prefers snagging an opponent's wincon and using that as OUR wincon, in practice sometimes opponents aren't cooperative in their deck choices. As a result, we have a few finishers of our own to turn the very act of thievery into a threat, and also Rise of the Dark Realms which DOES steal all opponents' entire graveyard as part of winning the game.
Another important things is generating artifacts to fuel Lobelia. Here, we mostly morph our generic choices around that fact to have a critical mass of them. It's not really difficult to do so in a world of treasures and clues and food and blood.
The theft itself is exactly what you'd expect. Though the benefit of being mono-colored is that you can dig a bit deeper as far as fun cards for the theme.
Even our interaction package has a tendency to nab things along the way!
All in all, I'm very happy that I assembled this one in paper, so far it's been a blast, and keeping secret the cards stolen face down by Lobelia or others can lead to very funny moments. The big advantage of these kinds of decks is that every game is fundamentally different, since you'll be stealing from different decks every time.
Third verse, same as the first two. This does come with the caveat that from my recollections when trying to design cubes, Black’s walker options are honestly kind of lacking- like, outside of a few exceptions, they’re a bit more mediocre than one would expect from a colour filled with such value. And those exceptions tend to have a price tag to match.
Let’s see if I’m right?
Liliana Vess
Liliana 1.0 does not hold up in the year 2021. Her +1 may be card advantage, but it’s going to do stone nothing or effectively nothing a frustrating amount of the time, and while she can tutor with her minus the fact that it puts the card on top rather than in your hand makes it exceptionally mediocre. This is a card that effectively never affects the board, basically being a 5-mana do nothing that even the weakest of cube environments can do better than.
I think a lot of flak gets sent Chandra Nalaar’s way as far as mediocrity from the original Lorwyn 5, and while she’s not incredible, I can at least see her being functional in a cube environment. But the way I see this Liliana playing out is largely as a 5-mana Mind Rot or Vampiric Tutor that gains a little bit of life, and that’s just kind of terrible.
Sorin Markov
I remember this card as a scourge of Commander tables, dealing 30 damage to people in the blink of an eye. I don’t think he’s quite as terrifying in a cube environment, though. What he does do, however, is stablilise relatively well- picking off small threats while gaining life is quite potent, and on an empty board he can put your opponent on a pretty effective clock.
Expensive Mono-Black planeswalkers are, however, going to suffer from the key issue of not being creatures- so their usability is worse because you can’t Reanimate them. And if your opponent has creatures bigger than X/2, he’s going to struggle to keep them at bay. As such, I can’t give him too strong a recommendation- at least for smaller cubes. I could see it at 720, maybe.
Liliana of the Veil
Look, it’s fucking Liliana of the Veil. You know if you want this card, because you’ll already have it. She’s powerful, she’s grindy, she’s 3 mana, and she goes great with a lot of cards you’ll already playing in the list. She’s also 80 dollars, and has some of the worst Magic art ever put to paper.
Talking about LotV as a card is redundant. Talking about LotV as a piece of art just makes me kind of sad. It’s an abhorrent twisting of what could generously be called human anatomy that makes the entire game look bad. I get that Liliana as a character is supposed to be confident in her sexuality, but there are ways of depicting that trait without this level of gross exaggeration. In a word, it’s embarrassing.
Basically, Steve Argyle is a hack and if I ever play this card I’m using the proxy I designed that uses the art from Command the Dreadhorde. You know, the card where she’s actually using the fucking Chain Veil.
Liliana of the Dark Realms
…Look, I don’t like this art, but it’s an improvement at least. I also wish I’d picked one of these up when I was newer to the game, since she was The Liliana Of The Day, but I didn’t play black then and now she’s 20 bucks. Sigh.
I appreciate Mono-Black payoffs, obviously, but this ain’t it, chief. Hitting your land drops just isn’t the most important thing in the world once you’re already at 4, unless you’re specifically a control deck, and unless you’re mono-black then the -3 doesn’t do particularly much. It also kills her if you activate it immediately. This card is not good for cube, for the record. It just doesn’t do anything.
Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath
Ob Nix is another one of those Planeswalkers that is kind of just a creature. His +2 does somehow even less than every other card we’ve seen so far, so you’re leaning on the -2, making him effectively a 5/5 flyer for 5 mana. This wouldn’t be good enough on its own, but he does at least come with the ptotential to make another one every other turn.
This is, of course, predicated on him living beyond that first turn cycle. And that first -2 is going to take him to one loyalty, which means this guy will die to a goblin token. Two goblins, I guess, since you can block with the Demon, but that’s not exactly a tough match. At 5 mana, Black gets some spicy creatures as well as some of the better planeswalkers from further down this list- you can do better.
Ob Nixilis Reignited
Ob Nixilis 2.0 is representative of a different archetype than his predecessor. He’s kind of the defining piece of said archetype, the Planeswalker’s planeswalker. +1, draw a card. -3, protect itself (via removal or tokens). Ultimate, win the game. 5 mana, easy peasy, safe and printable.
He is not going to be powerful enough for Unpowered lists. 5 mana is too much for these effects at that power level. But the thing is, he’s kind of perfect for lower powered or more restrictive environments. Like, you want a planeswalker for your Black section? Here you go, that’ll be 60 cents. He’s not particularly interesting, but he sure does get the job done.
Liliana, the Last Hope
The other 3 mana Lili which honestly I don’t think should be living in the shadow of her older, uglier sister. There’s a reason modern decks have had a tendency to mix both in their lists.
LtLH is exceptionally good for higher power environments. She’s a 3 mana card that works great for both faster and slower decks, she’s able to generate a bunch of value or time depending on the situation, and she’s surprisingly good in control. On the play, she can come down on 3, kill or neuter their 2-drop, and if you have enough removal or countermagic in the back then protecting her until she ults isn’t actually that difficult. My one fear is that this Liliana is too oppressive against aggressive decks in weaker environments, but her price tag does kind of keep her out of most of those.
Liliana, Death’s Majesty
I see this Lili as kind of just a more interesting Ob Nixilis Reignited. They’re both 5-mana black Planeswalkers whose prices hover around a buck, but while Ob Nix’s abilities are basic and efficient, Liliana’s are splashier but slightly more situational. She’s much more midrange-focussed, seeing as control is less likely to have things in the graveyard for her -3 to hit, but she’s still more than playable in other deck archetypes- playing with the graveyard is just something Black does and isn’t really specific to one or another particular deck.
I have a lot of fond memories of this card as a 1-of in my Mono-Black control deck in Standard. That deck ran a lot more creatures than the typical build would, but it meant that her -3 got to reanimate Gonti fairly often. And if there’s anything I want, it’s for my cube drafters to get to do that.
Liliana, Untouched by Death
Speaking of cards I played in standard. This is also the subject of one of only two called shot’s I’ve ever made when cracking a booster pack, which was good, because I was building zombies. (The other, for those keeping score, was Kaalia, Zenith Seeker at a friend’s “I’m just cracking this box but we might as well draft it” night. People cut me on all the angels and dragons.)
Tribal cubes are… awkward. As fun as they sound, as soon as you find your lane the draft gets kind of automatic unless you’ve managed to pull off the masterful task of mimicking the masterpiece that was triple Lorwyn draft’s feel. And, unfortunately, I don’t think most cube designers are up to that task, so most of the drafts are going to be pretty uninteresting.
Liliana, Untouched by Death basically only fits in a tribal cube- all three of her abilities need a critical density of Zombies in the deck to work. Except not only that, it needs to be a Tribal cube with Zombies as an archetype, and it also has to be a weak enough cube that this Liliana is actually good enough, and it needs to have a high enough budget to justify spending 10 bucks on this, because I doubt you’re already going to have one. Unless you picked them up when they were like a dollar, which is kind of the price tag this card deserves…why is this card 10 bucks?
Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage
We…hang on, we’re at War of the Spark already? Yeah turns out a lot of the Planeswalker deck cards were mono-black, so I’m skipping a lot of this already limited list. Davriel is one for the Peasant players…but I’m not sure they’re going to want him.
I do currently play this card, for the record. I’m going to be cutting him next update (maybe?) but he’s here for now. He doesn’t impact the board whatsoever, and his passive is whiffing most of the time, and he has low loyalty, but he sure is solid in pox-style decks. I dunno. I like him, but he sucks most of the time? But also if you want to support Pox or like, Rack (good luck! No seriously good luck you’ll need it) then here he is.
Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted
Hey look, we put both of Ob Nixilis Reignited’s abilities together into one! And there’s an extra card draw! Wait hang on that’s not how that’s supposed to work.
This card has two modes, which is convenient since it gets to activate twice. It’s either 5 mana for two dogshit removal spells, or for two ludicrously overpriced Village Rites, or for one of each! And top it all off with a passive that does nothing unless your opponent’s hand looks like Brainstorm, Brainstone, Riverwise Augur, and JtMS. To be fair, I’d want to see that list, but I’m not sure I’d want to play it.
Liliana, Dreadhorde General
Now that’s a 6-drop. She clears the board reasonably well (unless you’re playing against tokens or an elf-heavy ramp deck), and her +1 still protects her while generating threats that can eventually win the game, or die for value. And since that +1 is so strong, the -9 is actually viable to push for a reasonable amount of the time and will win the game 99% of the time (notice it doesn’t say nonland).
As a result, this is kind of the de facto Big Black Walker if that’s something your cube is after…and a lot won’t be. The kinds of cubes that can afford this are often ones that would rather just play a 6 mana creature like Grave Titan that can serve a similar role while also being more easily cheated out and supporting more variable strategies. This is not a universal case, of course- reanimator is a popular archetype, but not universally, and it’s combo-ish nature can turn people off- and so there is still a slot for Liliana, Dreadhorde General in many a cube environment.
Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord
Take everything I said about Liliana, Untouched by Death and copy it here, I guess. Except Vampires instead of Zombies. Also ignore the part about being low power enough because this Sorin is actually quite good, but he’s even more pricey, so…
Liliana, Waker of the Dead
So she’s basically a more expensive but more balanced Liliana of the Veil? I dunno, sounds pretty good to me. You’re not playing her in the same cube as LotV, but that’s perfectly fine- that card is oppressive enough anyway.
I kinda only just realised that this was the first real 4 mana option available on the list, unless my quick scan missed something important. This card is quite reasonable for that price- a +1 that attritions people out and makes sure you always get at least something from your opponent, a -3 that usually kills something relevant (and importantly isn’t literally suicidal), and an ultimate that you probably won’t gun for most games but isn’t unviable and will eventually win the game most of the time. Just a perfectly decent lower-powered walker with a lot of potential play.
Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools
Aw fuck I forgot to mention these commander-specific walkers when I was listing out things I wasn’t going to discuss in the first one of these. Welp, can’t be fucked changing it, here we go.
Commander Legends kind of solved EDH drafting, and it involves lots of partners. If you’re playing an EDH cube, then, you’re probably playing this card, since it partners with things and is decent enough value.
If you’re not a commander cube, then this card sucks ass. Having a +2 isn’t too impressive when your ultimate does literally not a single thing, and the +1 is solid but very slow. If they kill this 5-mana card the turn after you cast it, you’re left with two 0/1s. And that’s just kind of sad.
Professor Onyx
Sneaky secret Liliana here made a lot of waves when she was first revealed, many of which were as a result of some infinite combos you can do with her and repeatedly copying a spell. That’s…not really particularly viable in cube, seeing as I would hardly call Chain of Smog exceptionally playable outside of the combo, and also it arguably works better with cheaper cards (mana wise) than Onyx. So what does she do?
I guess she’s the biggest competition to Liliana, Dreadhorde General for the 6-mana walker slot, seeing as Sorin isn’t seeing much play at this point. She’s significantly worse at protecting herself, but much better at drawing cards. She also…doesn’t really win the game that well on her own unless you can ultimate, and the +1 not impacting the board means it’s more likely that you’ll be forced to -3. And let’s be real, that passive isn’t winning the game or keeping you alive that well, especially since she’s coming down after you cast most of your spells. Long story short, I’m not sure this is it, chief.
Lolth, Spider Queen
I’m not 100% sure how this card plays…but it seems very strong. She might not have a plus ability, but she kind of doesn’t need it- her -3 is going to be a -1 enough of the time, and she can just draw you a card whenever it isn’t one. And of course, she’s going to be fucking nuts in any sort of aristocrats deck. She makes tokens to sacrifice and they pump her up? With an ultimate that goes great with the tokens those decks are likely to produce? Hello?
I would very much like this card to drop in price so I can try her out without resorting to the old printer. She seems a bit more specific a piece than a lot of Planeswalkers, but also more than powerful enough to justify her inclusion. She comes down on 5 and leaves you with 4 power across two bodies with a relevant offensive and defensive keyword, and that leaves her enough loyalty to start drawing cards or to replace the spiders should they die. That looks like a powerful enough package for me.
Davriel Soul Broker
Okay, so. The +1 is kind of medium being purely defensive, and the -3 is just not big enough to kill things that really matter but the shrink being permanent alleviates a lot of that. It’s 4 mana, so it’s not too unreasonable for midrange and control, and the -2 does…uh…
Black is amazing at removal, second only to White. It’s so good, it doesn’t settle with merely destroying something when it can be exiled. There are going to be instances where you will want to destroy instead of exile, such as reanimation targets for Black. If we wanna really remove a threat, the best way is exile.
Ashes to Ashes - $0.30
5 life is a pittance for two threats removed from the game. This is especially negligible when Black has some great lifegain to incorporate in the deck.
Scour from Existence - $0.15
This is high in mana, but the ability to remove any permanent in the game is a showstopper. There’s not a single limitation on what it could be. The only way to stop it is Hexproof or Shroud, but those can usually be dealt with pretty easily.
Silence the Believers - $0.36
4 mana for instant speed creature exiling is pretty good. For only 3 more mana, you can take out two creatures. Late-game, this can be a great mana-sink boardwipe.
Sever the Bloodline - $0.30
If you are in the unfortunate circumstance to be the only one without a Blightsteel Colossus, this levels the field. This also has the benefit of wiping the field of whatever token is the most threatening to you. Since each token’s name is, for the most part, their creature type, all Elf Warrior tokens disappear, Rats are gone, Soldiers go AWOL.
Lux Cannon - $4.27
This take time to charge up, but it can take out anything that doesn’t have Indestructible. Just having it on the board can really scare people from playing things.
Gild - $0.29
Exile a creature and get a mana to use at any time. It essentially makes it cost 3 mana instead of 4.
Duplicant - $3.42
Get rid of the biggest threat on the board. In addition, you get your own version of that threatening creature. it may not have the abilities, but it most likely will be pretty beefy.
Unstable Obelisk - $0.23
This serves a dual purpose. It’s ramp until you need removal. If you don’t need the removal, it just keeps being a mana source.
There you go, folks. Black has a plethora of removal spells, but we can get pretty brutal with them. Take out the largest threats and...
Victory shall be yours.
--- Jake M, @apok-the-combomancer
All cards are priced according to Magiccards.info mid price on the date it was written. These prices are subject to change.
If you have questions, comments or concerns, please head on over to our commentary blog to discuss it.
Today we’re looking at a unique card in Black that offers an interesting combination of card selection and graveyard fueling. Moonlight Bargain is a rare from the original Ravnica: City of Guilds that allows you to quickly refill your hand at the cost of a bit of life.
An immediate comparison piece for this card is the popular Blue spell Fact or Fiction, and Moonlight Bargain is able to fill much the same purpose as that more familiar spell. The card goes a little further, though, in that it allows you to make the choice for yourself as to which of the cards you get access to. While Fact or Fiction has the potential to be a bit more political by way of offering up information to your opponents, Moonlight Bargain is a bit more self-serving and gives up no extra knowledge about your cards. This comes at a tradeoff of some life, of course, but most players that build in Black know that a bit of life is a small price to pay for a strong effect.
Moonlight Bargain is able to serve another purpose, though. In a deck that’s more openly concerned about graveyard interactions than cards in hand, this card is able to quickly and easily stock up the more relevant zone on its own without a lot of extra work. Being able to offer multiple benefits and work inside the bounds of different deckbuilding strategies means that Moonlight Bargain is worth taking a look at -- it might be just the card you need.
