Yay, was Black the first thread created?

So, let’s discuss my favorite type of deck – Mono-Black Control! This year we don’t have a lot of bombs like in 2013’s Obedient Dead or 2014’s Lords of Darkness but we do have a lot of fun sorceries with decent costs, an array of relatively cheap creatures with interesting (and flavorful!) abilities and our very first (and only) black Planeswalker – Lili herself! Also, Languish! Thank god, last year black felt weak without any mass removal.

Let’s get over the cards that are must-have-all-copies-of in every MBC deck (IMO, of course):

Erebos's Titan – 5/5 for 4 is a must-have condition itself, but besides that our Titan also has a conditional indestructability. Regarding the second ability: sadly we’ve got no GY-hate and can rely on enemy’s misplays only. Anyways, prepare to put a target on his head as soon as he enters. Also, instant-speed black removals are costly so don’t plan to play a lot of tricks with his indestructability (removing an opponent’s only creature in response to removal on the Titan, etc.).

Priest of the Blood Rite – as I’ve said earlier we don’t have many bombs in here, so a 2/2 body + a 5/5 flyer for 5 mana is a god bless. Wish we had 3 of these.

Graveblade Marauder – another must-have inclusion. Deathtoucher with the ability to ruin your opponent’s day every turn late game. Make sure to get those Lili’s Loyalty tokens up.

Kothophed, Soul Hoarder – a classic black 6/6 flyer for 6. Also a drawer that unfortunately wouldn’t tick on your own dying creatures. And sadly only one of. “Duels: Origins – now fat free!” (c)

Read the Bones – wow, what a nice (and) cheap way to control your draw! Not an instant speed (that would be way too OP) but allowing you to accept or refuse the next two cards for 3cmc is not something to underestimate. Blue should be jellyous.

Languish – perrrrfect for the MBC, the thing I missed the most last year – mass sweeper! Eat that, white weenies, goblins and tokens! Not as flexible as Mutilate but still golden and auto-included.

Liliana – a card to hunt and die for. Must I say that this is the most valuable card in whole deck? Make them discard, return your own dead or discarded creatures and activate the “I win” mode when you hit 8 Loyalty. All on a 2/3 body with a lifelink, easy activation cause AND a 2/2 friend after that. Damn, this girl is good!

Gilt-Leaf Winnower – now, Menace is a pretty decent mechanic but I wonder how aggro-friendly will the meta be this time. Seems to me that wouldn’t be an problem to counter on T5. An ETB Removal makes us include it either way though. Additional board presence, a removal and a conditional evasion all for 5 is too cool to miss.

Other cards:

Gurmag Swiftwing – a flying first striker to stale the board till you gather more mana to control the game eventually. Early removal magnet and nice counter to weenie decks.

Despoiler of Souls – a 3/1 for 2 is decent but inability to block and somewhat inconvenient return cost (I mean, we need these creatures in our GY… for later use) made me change my mind about including it ASAP. Haste would have persuaded me.

Bone Splinters – sac outlet providing a targeted removal. Perfect to use on Deadbridge Shaman or a creature with Infernal Scarring if you have to. Sorcery speed kinda ruins the surprise factor but I still would like to give it a try.

Shadows of the Past – IMHO, not so useful in a MBC as in aggro but here we can afford to cast it on T2 instead of spawning elves. Another way to control your draw, which is one of the things MBC aimed for.

Deadbridge Shaman – nice way to stall the game starting T3 if your opponent refuses to discard his cards and/or losing a creature. Deaththouch would be perfect on that one, but I guess that’s too much to ask.

Eyeblight Assassin – card to help us deal with annoying weenies, tokens and goblins. 3cmc slot is kinda flooded but I think it will make it in.

Fleshbag Marauder – ah, so many memories from 2014 unstoppable Deadwalkers, crushing your opponents’ dreams to win with Geralf’s Messenger/Black Cat+Marauder combo… If only we had more death triggers this year. Not sure how to use it the best.

Bitter Revelation – ah, yet another card to control our draw. 2 cards for 4 mana and possible GY-returners later. Will give this a try.

Necromantic Summons – a nice way to return your favorite bomb back to the board or some fatty your opponent just lost to removal, buffing them at the same time. Sorcery speed once again, but I think I’ll allow it to pass in.

Cruel Revival – an instant speed removal, what a rare guest in this year’s black! Also returns your precious Planeswalker or a bomb in the process. We don’t have a lot of zombies, so that part wouldn’t be a problem, I suppose. I mean, Doom Blade was… doomed in 2014 zombie-flooded meta but we still ran it, right? At least I did.

Shambling Ghoul – now, aggro can’t afford untapped 2cmc creature even if it’s a 2/3 but we have nowhere to haste, right? I think it’s okay to take a couple to stale the board till we get something more interesting.

Reave Soul – oh look, another Sorcery-speed removal, now with a condition but only for 2… A tough choice, it will depend heavily on our future meta.

Thornbow Archer – our 1cmc slot is kinda empty and our T1 also doesn’t have any other actions so I guess we can run it. Also, can fool our opponents into thinking we run aggro. Sometimes it helps. 2 damage a turn if unblocked for 1 mana is also decent.

Infernal Scarring - cool control card, perfect to put on Deathtouchers

A sample deckbuild, first try at Origins MBC by me:

Black Disaster v1.0

Swamps x 24

4 x Thornbow Archer
2 x Shambling Ghoul
2 x Gurmag Swiftwing
1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
2 x Graveblade Marauder
2 x Eyeblight Assassin
1 x Erebos's Titan
2 x Gilt-Leaf Winnower
2 x Priest of the Blood Rite
1 x Kothophed, Soul Hoarder

2 x Bone Splinters
1 x Infernal Scarring
2 x Reave Soul
2 x Shadows of the Past
3 x Read the Bones
2 x Languish
2 x Bitter Revelation
1 x Necromantic Summons
2 x Cruel Revival

Curve is 6-9-8-5-7-1. Win cons are consistent damage starting T1, bombs, stealing bombs from opponent’s GY and Lili. Also, Graveblade Marauder I hope we would get the achievement for finishing the opponents with that damage

Too many creatures? Too many draw? What did I miss? Did I under- or overestimate anything? Waiting for your comments, critics and suggestions!

MBC is my favourite deck type too
I like your card analysis and deck but I have some questions.
How come Kothoped is a one of? As a rare, shouldn't we have two copies?

I agree with most of your card choices, except for the one drop Elf and Infernal Scarring. I don't see its merit for control, and would rather run more Reave Soul (because ramp sucks right now so most things will get destroyed) and possibly two Gravedigger for card advantage and to recur some of our awesome bombs.
All hail Languish

Thanks for your comment! Appreciate it.

Oh, for some reason I thought Kothoped (that sound very funny in Russian, btw ) was Mythic... Glad I was wrong though!

Elf is just something to play on T1. It might be just me but I hate having nothing to do on the first turn Might as well start the pressure, 2 damage a turn. But you might be right, that's not too important for the Control deck. Will def cut it at least to two.

Scarring. It just seem like a cool thing to apply on the creatures you value the most. I took 1 because I'd like to give it a try.

You're totally right about Reave though. Looks like in current meta it would indeed be more useful than I thought.

Gravedigger never appeal to me for some reason. But I won't refuse to give it a try

Would like to hear if anyone noticed any cool interactions I missed.

Fleshbag Marauder can make for some easy Liliana flips and is a card to buy back with Cruel Revival. I think Perilous Myr could be a strong low curve option over some of those other cards too. Helps deter aggro and has some synergy with other cards like Bone Splinters or the previously mentioned Fleshbag Marauder.

By running monocolor, I think you could squeeze in at least two Foundry of the Consuls. I'm not sure how good the card actually is, but it's at least a potential value land to run without hurting your manabase.

I'm pretty impressed with what black offers to the table for control, although I'll personally be looking at pairing it with another color.

I'm not keen on the artifacts, so I think I'm gonna stick to the black cards only

Yeah, he has synergy with Lili, but for 3 mana I want something more, because she's a singleton. Now, stuff like Black Cat or Grave Pact would be perfect to include him.

Also, I've just noticed that I didn't add Deadbridge Shaman as I was planning to do Still need to cut something. Eyeblight Assassin maybe.

Foundry of the Consuls seems pretty cool actually. Deadbridge Shaman seems like a strong option too.

I'm curious whether Shadows of the Past is going to pull its weight in MBC. It probably will though.

So I got bored and crunched some numbers on black removal. Of the 147 creatures in the game;

• Only 24 creatures can't be killed by Reave Soul
• Only 13 creatures can't be killed by Languish

So yeah. Run them. Do it now!

For those who are interested the list of creatures that can't be killed are;

You guys have no idea how happy I was when I found Languish. Like.. My eyes got teary..

I hear ya. After 2015 I was kinda worried about Black this year - and now here we are with some of the more powerful control options in the pool. Fun times.

The ETB effect of Gilt-Leaf Winnower is optional

So, are Child of Night and the new kill spell with spell mastery our only means of gaining life?

A couple of the colorless cards also allow you to gain life.

Shadows of the Past -

Put one of these in every black deck just to try it out. The scrying matters, and the late game drain/gain is the life recovery you need and a way to win against control decks. A much better card than I thought it would or could be.

So, a second version I compiled based on your suggestions. God, this is hard to do without playing an actual game!

The changes are: more targets to sac (Myrs are good vs so many creatures I felt like I should try them out; Deadbridge Shaman are in because I forgot them last time), more means to sac: Fleshbag Marauder + 1 more Bone Splinters (because Priest will soon become pain in the ass without any proper lifegain). Also, no Winnower because I wanted to lower the curve and try Gravedigger instead, might switch them back again if Gravedigger underperforms though. No Gurmag Swiftwing and Eyeblight Assassin, spell base looks solid to me right now.

Still not sure if I want to try a pair of Foundry of the Consuls – sometimes hitting BB or BBB might be crucial and all my sac effects are sorcery based, so no neat tricks with it.

Black Disaster v2

Swamps x 24

2 x Perilous Myr
2 x Shambling Ghoul
2 x Fleshbag Marauder
2 x Deadbridge Shaman
1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
2 x Graveblade Marauder
2 x Gravedigger
1 x Erebos's Titan
2 x Priest of the Blood Rite
2 x Kothophed, Soul Hoarder

3 x Bone Splinters
2 x Shadows of the Past
3 x Reave Soul
3 x Read the Bones
2 x Languish
2 x Bitter Revelation
1 x Necromantic Summons
2 x Cruel Revival

The new curve is 3-9-10-7-5-2.

Here is my take on a MBC deck

24 Swamp

18 Creatures
4 Deadbridge Shaman
4 Perilous Myr
1 Erebos's Titan
3 Fleshbag Marauder
2 Graveblade Marauder
1 Kothophed, soul Hoarder
1 Priest of the blood rite
2 Gravedigger

18 other
4 Bone Splinters
4 Reave Soul
2 Cruel Revival
2 Languish
1 Necromantic Summons
3 Read the Bones
2 Shadows of the Past
1 Liliana, Heretical Healer

Nice! After realizing the value of Myrs I'm too thinking of switching Ghouls to them.

I'd make more late game heavy build though. With so much removal we'll more lilely have no problem hanging till 5-7 lands and you'll want your bombs then. So, 2 Kothoped and 2 Priests for me. Gonna wait for the meta, though.

It's a pity I won't be able to play the game until monday

I don't really like Kotophed here since we play so much cards with lifedrain mono b (priest and carddraw). He will just kill us often against weenie decks and also, if he's on the board, languish will be suicide...

The thing is, mono black control will not be that low of life to where that will matter. More often than not casting Languish while Kothophed, Soul Hoarder is out will just be a better read the bones (imagining Languish killing at least 4 things).

I agree with Brony. Having 6/6 flier after Languish hits the board is more important than losing 4-5-6 life, IMHO. But I still can't play the game to prove it