For starters, look at this twitter conversation, focus on Todd, PVDDR and the Ryan Brommel guy:
https://twitter.com/lansdellicious/stat ... 2453483520

Here's BBD's winning list, giving Todd all the credit of creating:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/A ... /deck/1346


And here's Yamamoto's PT top 8 list:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/a ... op_8_decks

Here's Todd's justification for taking credit for creating mono-black:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BXENkjRCcAEjRkl.png:large



Like how the list is completely different than the list that they ended up playing, and yet they're all slobbering Todd's knob for being an innovator?

It honestly just annoys me that I know there will be tons of people in the coming months who will laud Todd as being a great innovator because of this mono-black deck.

Once you figure out that it's worth going all in on devotion (which many people did figure out, because there's basically 4 or 5 different devotion decks), the skeleton for the black one isn't terribly hard to come up with. 4 nightveil specter is obvious because of triple black in the mana cost. 4 grey merchant is obvious because it's like the best black devotion card. 3-4 desecration demon is obvious because it's the black win con of the moment. 3-4 thoughtseize is obvious because the card is amazing. A few whip, because whipping grey merchant back is just stupid good... Obviously you want to play a few Erebos, but not too many because he's really not as amazing as some of the other gods are (but he's still a huge indestructible dude, so why not). Add to that your typical black removal suite and a few creatures to curve into your large devotion and bam, you got a deck.

The tricky part was fleshing out the skeleton and that's where Todd's deck diverges. In particular, that pack rat tech was a pretty awesome idea.

Yeah... so what?

Nothing new here, only insecure hobbits want to own ideas these days.

Wow, someone created a deck based around a mechanic. So innovative.

Who cares?

The thing with the internet is now everybody can share thoughts and have it somewhere and the information travels really quickly. Yeah, Todd was working on this mono-black deck from the outset of the format but so was a lot of other people. However, this version of the deck was tuned by them and became very good. I'm not going to say Todd is an innovator but he got his teammates to play the deck and they fine tuned it and put up awesome results at a GP. That is impressive.

I honestly don't see why people care so much about getting credit for something. Lots of teams figured out mono-blue existed as well but nobody is claiming credit on that because a lot of different people showed up to the pro tour with it. Not many showed up with mono black but I'm sure teams knew it was a deck because it's pretty straight forward in the sense that you figure out devotion is a really strong mechanic and then you can build the deck in each color.

Wait, does that mean I get some sort of existential points for playing Pack Rat all last Standard season?

We all knew Pack Rat was a good card. This isn't new information or new cool tech to slip some into a black deck.

All I know is someone's trolly quote on Islands about Pack Rat = Tarmogoyf + Bitterblossom isn't quite so funny anymore.

No you don't. Pack rat wasn't good last season. One reason why it's good in the black devotion deck is because it increases your devotion significantly. You also get some minor synergy with the whip.

It's like saying you should get recognition for playing flash before protean hulk was printed.


We all knew it was an amazing limited card. It was never worth playing competitively until the black devotion deck came along. A bunch of rogue players tried it, but it just wasn't good enough.

Point of order: I was under the impression that Pack Rat tokens didn't have a converted mana cost (because they were tokens), and thus, would add a whole lot of nothing to devotion. Has this changed?

Your impressions about pack rat were never right so nothing has changed. Copies of cards are exactly the same while tokens made from something such as Call of the Conclave have no mana costs to begin with.

The rulings for Pack Rat in the Gatherer don't meantion CMC though...


EDIT: I'm cool with being wrong, I'd just kinda like to know why.

It's in the comprehensive rules. I'm too lazy to check but it's problem in a section about token copies of cards.

Rulings only address the most common questions about a card. Now that devotion is a thing, they may update the ruling to clarify this, but at the time pack rat was printed, it wasn't really relevant enough to have a ruling about it.

Here's the actual rules about this (emphasis mine, although bold doesn't seem to show very well on this forum).

So whatever tokens I get out of, say, Rite of Replication retain a mana cost as well?

I believe so, yes.

~SE++

Exactly. Similarly, when you clone a grey merchant, clone has a mana cost of 3bb, not 3u, while on the battlefield.

Ben only knows this because of the time I pointed out that engineered explosives in mono brown tron is NOT sideboard tech vs twin.

This is literally my Mono black build minus a few minor changes (also no Thrill-Kill).


I knew I should have gone to GP Louisville....

On a side note, is Nykthos not worth playing in the mono black deck? Obviously not 4 of, especially if you want to play mutavault, but I could see 1 or 2 being good. Does the devotion not get high enough?

I haven't really tested the deck yet, but it seems like it could get mana hungry with whip and pack rat, while connections is tying up one of your lands.

The "Pack Rat tech" was there at the Pro Tour, and Todd wasn't "on it" until after that, referencing the decklist he says proves he thought up mono-black on his own.

I'm just glad Brad Nelson didn't win the GP, though I am kind of tired hearing about how he was Player of the Year, created Act II Aristocrats (which is like bragging about creating the iPhone 4S) and won an SCG Open and nothing else.