Hey all. Got a new deck tech and gameplay video up this week. This time we're playing mono-black aggro. It's a fun and competitive build. Super low curve. Just straightforward aggro for the most part. Hope you enjoy.

https://youtu.be/Ox3I-hYlg6g

Decklist
Walking Ballista x2
Dread Wanderer x2
Reaver Drone x3
Thornbow Archer x4
Fatal Push x3
Despoiler of Souls x2
Bearer of Silence x2
Glint-Sleeve Siphoner x2
Gifted Aetherborn x3
Scrapheap Scrounger x2
Smuggler's Copter x2
Grasp of Darkness x3
Rush of Vitality x2
Plague Belcher x2
Liliana, The Last Hope x1
Bone Picker x3
Never/Return x2
Swamp x17
Aether Hub x3

Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvqrFE ... bESYQW1-bw

Twitter
https://twitter.com/HinterlandSage

this is acceptable

17 black sources can't reliably support T2 grasp or aetherborn. Those aether hubs should be swamps.

For the purposes of a turn 2 play, those Hubs ARE swamps, since they work as black sources....

the hubs are there to ensure we get a t3 upkeep draw with a t2 wizard-sleeve siphoner? Is that it?

I'm assuming it's for a colorless source to activate Bearer of Silence, but it also combos with Siphoner.

ooooo i see. right. makes sense. i didn't realize hub produces black.

Is it just me or isn't that nearly the same build Goblin Rabblemaster's posted in another thread?

It's not just you. It's funny cause I saw this video yesterday on YouTube and watched some of it - then came here today and saw Goblins list and did a doubletake. Only difference I noticed is Goblin's runs 18 Swamp 2 Hub instead of 17 Swamp 3 Hub. With Bearer of Silence I'd prob rather run full hubs.

I'm just happy that Despoiler of Souls is coming back. Sure, it's more difficult to activate than Scrounger, but I'll pay that price for a 3rd and 4th recurring threat.

It's better than Dread Wanderer, because of it's ability to activate EOT.

Yeah, the Hubs are there for Siphoner and Bearer. I haven't seen the similar list to this one, but the deck is not a very complicated build so not all that surprised.

I agree on Despoiler...have barely been able to use it until now, and I think it's a bit of an underrated card, especially with us only having access to two Scroungers.

LOL I just noticed this, we literally built 1 card different. I put 2 hubs instead of 3, because the upside they can give to me doesn't weigh up to the risk of drawing multiple hubs i an opener and losing a game due to missing a source in the later turns. 2 seemed like a good compromise. Our lists are otherwise identical ! Great minds and all that

I have since considered to play 2 aethersphere harvester over the 2 tricks. The tricks are nice, but one has to wonder wether the harvesters just don't add more overall reach the deck wants. This would also help with the siphoner.

Wow! I can't believe the lists were that close! That's cool. Harvester is interesting, especially for races. Someone also suggested Erebos's Titan, which I thought could work as well bc its a really good deal for four mana.

Could you please explain the inclusion of walking ballista?

Confirmed Sage and GoboRab are the same person.

They eat up the drawback on Reaver, and/or function as not-entirely-awful removal for small critters/PWs/opponents. Their versatility outweighs that you will almost never X > 2.

I was actually testing vs Light playing mono-red, and flooded out to 6 land, then topdecked this bad boy. The following untap gave me an attack that, whilst not lethal on board, gave him 0 outs on his turn I got even avacyn's judgemented on my first 2 1 drops t2 that game ! true story !

I saw Rabble say my showdown entry was similar to something posted here so I decided I would look for the thread and give my 2 cents.

Land
2 Aether Hub
20 Swamp

Creatures
2 Walking Ballista
2 Dread Wanderer
3 Reaver Drone
2 Despoiler of Souls
3 Gifted Aetherborn
2 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
2 Scrapheap Scrounger
2 Smuggler's Copter
2 Aethersphere Harvester
2 Plague Belcher
2 Yahenni, Undying Partisan
2 Bone Picker
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

Other
3 Fatal Push
3 Grasp of Darkness
2 Murder
2 Never/Return
1 Liliana, the Last Hope

The 1 drops are at an odd position because having one in your opening hand is like starting the game on turbo and autowins games against people who stumble during their first few turns. On the other hand, they're terrible draws later in the game and black is full of quality 2-3 drops and removal that to finish close games with. A hypergeometric calculator gives 5x 1-drops around a 50% chance of having one in my opening hand and drastically lower chances of drawing them in place of better cards later on IIRC. I figured that was good enough.

I love Yahenni. I can't think of a single creature that has turned around more games for me than this hasty, indestructible vampire that grows out of control as everything dies around her. She's incredible..

I love the Picker but I suspect he's a lot better in ladder where folks won't be playing around it and 1 of every 3 matches isn't creatureless or near-creatureless control. Thus, two instead of three.

22 Lands sometimes feels like a lot, but more often feels like I can just safely mulligan away 4 land hands and keep the risky 1 and 2 land hands. If the Siphoner wasn't an amazing 2-drop I might have ended up removing the hubs and gone with 20 swamps though.

I was this close to adding another hub, Westvale and more Eldrazi for a higher reach like Atma's Black Eldrazi deck... but having Grasp and Murder ready to go at any given time is also one of this deck's big strengths and if I'm not going to play the most efficient removal in the game then why am I even playing black?

I ended up being... Somewhere along the middle between the most aggressive builds and the eldrazi version, I guess. I'll admit it's definitely not as tuned as I would have liked it to be, but it is what it is.

Nice defense of your build.

My reasoning (and I suspect, hinterland sage as well) was that if you are the only deck that can play so many 2 power 1 drops, then it kinda defeats the purpose of the deck to not do so. You aren't there for the long game. You wanna get em so behind on curve that unless they have a sweep, they will die to whatever garbage you topdeck after t4. You can straight mull to 6 for a hand that does this because your mana will be perfect anyway. Same reasoning for picker, although I agree with your reasoning to not go all in there is sound, I just don't think the quality of the opponents you will face on average necessitates it In the mean time, trading a 1 drop and dropping 2 picker makes me go AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
Yahenni might be the ticket, and it might have been a mistake of mine to not have included him, I just got soured on the card previous season. Considering you added murders and harvesters and yahenni, your choice to go to 22 land is the right call.

Good job man, whish you luck in the tournament !

Murder feels wrong. If I were going to add more removal, I'd go with a sac or exile effect to get rid of Rhonas.