Thanks for the feedback lexxx! These are pretty much the same thoughts I have. The thrall would kind of be a diffferent deck adding tempo instead of damage and or discard. I really love discard mechanic though and it seems to work pretty good. Wish we had some better options.

What would you take out for the thralls and rites?

Overall still happy with the deck. I would say it's almost top tier and have gone 9/1 with it so far at the 30ish rank realm.

I'd personally take out the Wasteland Stranglers for the Vampiric Rites and probably the gravediggers for the Carrier Thralls. But your deck does not look like that is what you are trying to do...to take it that route you'd might as well add in Nantuko Husk and go mono-black Aristocrats.

How has 4 Mortuary Mires held up for you? That seems to be a lot of tempo loss. Also, you max out at 5 mana for Ob Nix, any reason you aren't playing some higher-end threats like the 6/6 black flyer for 6 or Oblivion Sower?

Think of Thralls as 1) two activations of Rites and Abomination for one time cost of 1B or 2) +4/+4 on Husk for 2 mana. So, you ate actually adding damage and fuel for your engine in the same time

What to cut... I'd cut all the Shamans because of their cmc, I guess. And Rites - I don't actually know... This needs testing. 1 Gravedigger seems totally fine to cut.

hi, I hit rank 40 playing mono black again.

pretty much the same thing I was playing in Origins, only really added Ob Nixilis.

enjoy

4 x Perilous Myr
2 x Despoiler of Souls
4 x Reave Soul
2 x Shadows of the Past

3 x Bottle Gnomes
1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
2 x Graveblade Marauder
3 x Fleshbag Marauder
4 x Read the Bones

1 x Erebos's Titan
2 x Gravedigger
2 x Languish

2 x Priest of the Blood Rite
2 x Gilt-leaf Winnower
1 x Cruel Revival
1 x Ob Nixilis Reignited

21 x Swamp
3 x Rogue's Passage

I like the list. However, there's a nonbo between Despoiler of Souls and Shadows of the Past. Also, I understand Bottle Gnomes' value here but its defensive nature does seem at odds with the Despoiler's aggressive nature.
Maybe it just means the deck can take both roles well, though Also, the Gnomes are good at flipping Liliana.
In your experience, are the Despoilers worthy recursive threats?

a deck that tries to be both offensive and defensive will fail to do either

Shadows of the Past is for scry. The active on it is just a bonus that happens to work well in a deck such as this. By no means does this have to be your win con, it just has the potential to be one. Gotta keep your options open, not every will play out the same.

The deck is full of creatures that either don't mind being in the graveyard or can end up there fast if they're doing their jobs. As you and your opponent continue to fight for board presence, you're fueling your graveyard making for more options in future plays. As much as the deck doesn't look like a control deck, it really is one and Despoiler is just value in a long game. If your opponent is going card for card with you, you're winning. there's also those games where you just play Despoiler turn 2 and the game ends 6 turns later.

Graveblade Marauders... yeah nonbo again with Despoiler but the way you should look at it is all 3 have synergy with your graveyard.

Gnomes basically just destroy any hopes someone might have of rushing you down. every extra turn you can provide for yourself is one step closer to putting a lock on the game. also great fuel for Despoilers, Shadows, and Graveblades. as well as flipping Lili(and sac loop w/ coin). I've even just sac'd it for scry on occasion.



tl;dr It's all a facade. Fear the Despoiler and its deceptive ways. Is it killing your 2 drop or is it killing you?

It's killing both.

the deck doesn't try to be both, it does do either.

I'd say this deck is a good representation of the old definition of 'Midrange': 'a deck built to be either the Aggro or the Control in a matchup, depending on how the opponent's deck plays.' I'm not sure, what the cool kids call it these days, though. The closest thing I can think of are those tier 2 decks, which were built to be strong against tier 1, but are bad against tier 1.5. Some people choose to play these in tourneys with a clearly defined meta in the hopes of buffing there chances, as they are expecting people to play mostly tier 1 decks. I assume you could call such decks 'metadecks', or some such.

the problem here is that his late game end to this deck sucks so... it's just a bad aggro deck at this point

this deck is basically the reason not to play monoB

opinion: me

bo3? lmk

So you're saying, that e.g. Kothoped would be viable as a late-game bomb, but for as long as there are no Drain Life effects available to enable him, this deck is lacking the endgame it needs to be competitive?

kind of, what I'm really trying to get across more for this though is that everything B does another color can do better

all multi-color decks really want from B is cruel revival/fleshbag/ob nixilis/Languish

and even most of those have better versions in other colors. basically the power level of mono-B is too low for this archetype to be justified over something like say.... mono-W

Big K, Wasteland Strangler and Gilt Leaf Winnower are worthy cards too. I heard that Wasteland Strangler is making some waves in Modern.

Thanks for the explanation, Eriatarka. Makes more sense now.
Mono B has its merits over mono W, for example draw, repeated scry and recursive threats. Just gotta make the most of the available resources, and accept it probably won't be a tier 1 deck.

Neither will mono white. The lack of draw is a brutal disadvantage.

So, Orzhov it is? That's what I'm doing atm, till they give us more viable reasons to run mono-B. Have to say, its actually fun - exiling all those enchantments, putting bonds on PWs and Outbursting whole board. And I can still keep all my favorite toys from Black! Will post the list tonight.

I played 12 games using Eriatarka's deck below (which I realize has been slightly altered but I don't think the one card would have changed many games)



I went 7-5, playing in the mid-thirties. It lost to various versions of the Moss / Ulamog deck (mono green, Naya, Golgari, BGRU) and to a life-gain Orzhov.

It's not awful, but I definitely didn't find it a whole lot of fun to play. Like someone said, it uses the same black cards that are used everywhere else and the play style is also fairly standard. I get there aren't a whole lot of black 2CMC choices, but I have to say I don't understand the attraction of Despoiler of Souls I almost never am in a position where using its ability makes sense, and it not being able to block can be a huge pain in the ass. In all fairness, it's not changing it that would suddenly make this a tier-1 deck, though.

Will try DJ's deck once I have unlocked enough cards - switching Despoilers for Bone Splinters!

Here's my mono black list. It's not tier one, but it's a solid tier two, and for some reason I really like playing it. I've put in about 40-50 games with it over the last couple weeks. It used to have Wasteland Strangler but I couldn't activate its ability consistently without running Sludge Crawler, and I don't want Sludge Crawler as I feel Thornbow Archer is objectively better at doing damage. I tried Mire's Malice and Deadbridge Shaman.. but it's just not impactful enough. Despoiler of Souls is here for more solid early damage, since that's pretty much all its good for. It could be swapped for Graveblade Marauder if you want.. Graveblade is good with Rogues Passage, which is a two of here.

The basic premise is to go early aggro and finish with Kothophed, Priest of the Blood Rite, Oblivion Sower, Gilt Leaf Winnower. There is a truck load of removal here but not a lot of draw.. enter Shadows of the Past. I want Shadows EVERY-SINGLE-MATCH as the Scry is simply bonkers in a deck like this. Shadows has also closed out more than its share of games with the drain ability. Playing max copies seems extreme, but the card is so critically important that I am willing to devote 3 slots. You can always Scry away extra copies, or play them for double Scry.

I give you: The Blackness - 25 creatures, 12 non-creature spells, 23 land
Curve:
1cmc - 7
2cmc - 12
3cmc - 7
4cmc - 3
5cmc - 5
6cmc - 6
4 x Thornbow Archer
3 x Bone Splinters

4 x Perilous Myr
2 x Despoiler of Souls
3 x Carrier Thrall
3 x Shadows of the Past

1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
3 x Fleshbag Marauder
3 x Complete Disregard

1 x Erebos' Titan
2 x Languish

2 x Priest of the Blood Rite
2 x Gilt Leaf Winnower
1 x Ob Nixilis Reignited

2 x Kothophed, Soul Hoarder
1 x Oblivion Sower

17 x Swamp
2 x Foundry of the Consuls
2 x Rogue's Passage
2 x Mortuary Mire

Why not run Read the Bones?