I really like this deck. Control and aggro elements. However, I have some suggestions:
-22 lands seems really low for this curve. I would do 24 at least, maybe 25.
-4 Read the Bones seems enough card draw to me. You could swap the 2 Bitter Revelations for 2 Kothopeds. More flying face smashing, and you've got Bottles Gnomes to compensate for life loss.

Thanks for the post and the suggestions!

Although 22 lands seems a bit low, most of the deck is 2-3 drops (23 cards) which includes Read the Bones that can grab you more lands. I used a shuffling simulator to help decide on lands. All you really want is 3 in opening hand but 2 on the draw is perfectly reasonable or with Read the Bones. Also with 22 lands the difference between 2 and 3 lands in your first 7 cards was less than 1% after 1 million plus shuffles. Sure with more lands you'd be even more likely to get 3 lands in opening hand(a few percent higher chance), but then you're also more likely to continue drawing lands throughout the game when really all you want is 5. I'd rather be top decking powerhouse rares and removal than more lands to never tap.

Card draw! I pretty much tried everything, 4 just wasn't enough, I wanted to make sure I drew into at least one every game.

And as far as Kothophed, Soul Hoarder goes I just don't find this card very good at all. It's a pretty inconsistent card, 6/6 flyer for 6 is nothing special and its ability is a mess. More times than not when I played it it was actually a detriment to the current game state and caused me to lose. It's also a 6 drop meaning I'd have to run more lands and there's really nothing to cut in the deck for them.

This deck works great and I won't be changing it again until the next set arrives in October since I feel I've tested all the cards in this limited pool already.

But feel free to take my list and make it your own variation and tell me how it does!

Ehm, i sense i don't get something, but how can you bring the Titan back if you don't use Necromantic Summons?

Erebos's Titan

when a creature leaves the opp grave discard a card and add Titan back to your hand

step 1) necromantic summons any creature in your opp grave step 2) use Titan's ability step 3) profit

Yeah but he didn't use Summons, that was the reason i asked. Anyway, i'm an idiot, he probably just meant gravedigging, not the ability

did you take a card out of you grave? cause that can trigger titan too

Hm, how exactly? It says"opponent graveyard", doesn't it?

Baba, your making more mistakes than Fox. Opponent graveyard only.

you were asking about an opponent's titan getting put back in his hand right?

I don't run Necromantic Summons but Gravedigger and Cruel Revival can bring him back enough times already. He's also just 1 card, so I'm not gonna run Necromantic Summons just for the off chance I draw him. If you bring Erebos's Titan back to your hand with Necromantic Summons you also have to discard a card, which doesn't excite me too much when I can just bring him back the other ways. I also don't like the fact I'd have to be taking a creature from my opponents graveyard much either, I'd rather just rely on my own creatures.

Summons puts bombs directly in play, not in your hand. And gives it +2/+2 in most control decks. I'm not saying run a full set, but it's an amazing singleton if your running Erebo simply because it gives you options. Nothing hurts more than taking your opponents GR they sacrifices, putting it on your side of the board, and smashing their teeth in. Same can be said on an enemy Erebo. You take theirs, discard a lands, and play your own next turn.

The chances of this happening is even less than me just getting my own Erebos's Titan draw. And I don't care it puts their guy into play and not my hand, it puts my Erebos's Titan into my hand if I use it on their GY and I discard a card. Not to mention majority of games Necromantic Summons isn't gonna get me a Mythic or even a decent sized creature or two Erebos's Titan. The card has too much variance for this deck. Also it's another 5 drop, what do you suggest I remove from the deck to add this situational at best card to it? Also keep in mind the deck is running only 22 lands. Adding more 5 drops would require a bit more deck tweaking than just simply adding it in because it can be good sometimes. I want consistency in my deck, and Necromantic Summons is not that.

Necromantic Summons is a decent card that I've had great success with in UB control. I also did run Necromantic Summons in my mono black deck before I had access to all the cards. There just isn't any real place for it in my deck now. But feel free to take my list, add Necromantic Summons to it, and play it yourself! Prove me wrong. But you should just play this list card for card because it is great the way it is.

One Gravedigger for one Summons. That's just me though. I did the switch in my Golgari Control and am running with 23 land. You get better effects for one mana more. And the +2/+2 applies whether it's your graveyard or theres. It's giving you options, which any control deck wants imo.

Just as a quick feedback - i'm loving your deck so far, it feels really refreshing from the usual meta-deck and still exceeds expectations

I could try it I suppose but it just feels unnecessary. I don't really like running 1 of cards much either. It's hard enough to get consistency with the duels restrictions as it is.



Thanks so much! I'm glad you love it! It's really nice to see some people playing it. I hope it continues to serve you well.

Most people don't, but with the restrictions on Mythic Rares, you are already. What difference does it make for a singleton Uncommon vs a singleton Mythic Rare? You want to include cards that give you advantages. Summons does that by giving more options. It's a situational card, so you don't want to see a lot of it. But it gives you options when it is in your hand. That really is the point of singletons in these decks.

Maybe I'm an idiot for not running one but I don't see Necromantic Summons being very impressive. I don't think it's as good as a mythic and I don't think it's worth running 1 of. This is just my opinion and I don't think the card is bad either, I just don't think it's great enough to include.

And thats cool, we might be on different Meta. On Xbox Live, I'm getting tons of value out of it. Hence when I have 2 Gravedigger and 1 Summons. Does the same thing, but each have value for different reasons.

You seem pretty convinced that it's the correct thing to do. I dunno if I like that it's one less creature in my GY for Despoiler of Souls and Graveblade Marauder or Cruel Revival if I am to remove Gravedigger for it. Also not particularly excited that it puts the 2/2 body of the Gravedigger onto the Necromantic Summons target making it an easy target for removal. But regardless, it is something I haven't tried and if you think it'll make the deck even better I should stop being stubborn and just test it out.

I guess for now I'll just simply remove a Gravedigger for a Necromantic Summons and see what happens.

Thanks again for all the suggestions/comments on the deck!

Hello to other mono-black lovers out there! I bear the bad news which you are probably already aware of.

Finally being able to test my decks (Wizards' support finally fixed shop for Russians!) I've come to the conclusion that MB is not playable at the moment. It dies to the most popular archetypes in the (Steam) meta and have troube fighting against other mid-tier decks. CovertBlue was totally right saying that Black is far more solid with an accompanying colors like green or blue. Golgari and Dimir don't leave MB decks a chance - that's my verdict after 15 or so games using different MB decks. The most reliable one was Eriatarka's, so kudos to him

What problems I see. Not enough cheap instant removal. Too much life loss on our card advantage tools and late-game creatures. No access to enchantment removal, which rocks current meta. Finally - not enough advantages for running mono-colour. Yeah, you can run the single copy of Erebos's Titan, but that's it. Lossing access to Evo Leap, Vines, Visionaries and other cool green, blue or red cards just isn't worth it at the moment, IMO.

I will still try to build a decent deck able to stand vs the top ones but I don't think it is actually possible with the current card pool and meta.