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Magic the Gathering Arena

anvi

Prophet
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Tried bo3 with that control deck, first match, rdw killed me in about 2 seconds. Second match, every spell I played got counterspelled. Fun.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,382
Black enchantments? The most powerful black enchantment would be Lich's Mastery and that would be historic. In any case, that never really worked as a monocolor.

If you want some enchantress shiznit, black's got a decent Hateful Ebolon which draws you cards as you kill with Dead Weight, Mogis' Favor etc., which you can then turn into zombies with Anemia, the Cacophony. However, you would still need to pollute your chakras, cause I don't think there's enough stuff in mono black to carry it. Green or white ilooks like it's got all the other good pieces for enchantment-based strategies.
Not sure which one is better, Settesan Champion seems like a logical centerpiece, but it's always been shitty to me.

That deck's probably isn't gonna be any good as well, between UW control and mono red that's everywhere on the queue, you really need a brutal and decisive approach to keep up.

The only mono-black that sorta, kinda works in standard is Devotion. Basically the plan is to Shadowspear a Regisaur, which means mono red can go fuck itself unless they maindeck Claim the Firstborn for some reason.
For control, you put that discard to work, it's also quite amusing when they wipe you, you play Ayara and suddenly all the Gutterbones and Riders can just bounce back to your hand.
Surprisingly for a devotion-based deck, it turns out was almost never happy to play the gay merchant, so I kept cutting back on them. He's still lifegain, so I keep a few around.
Deck
3 Shadowspear (THB) 236
4 Rotting Regisaur (M20) 111
19 Swamp (THB) 283
2 Castle Locthwain (ELD) 241
1 Witch's Cottage (ELD) 249
1 Mobilized District (WAR) 249
4 Knight of the Ebon Legion (M20) 105
4 Gutterbones (RNA) 76
4 Agonizing Remorse (THB) 83
4 Murderous Rider (ELD) 97
3 Ayara, First of Locthwain (ELD) 75
2 Rankle, Master of Pranks (ELD) 101
4 Deathless Knight (ELD) 208
2 Gray Merchant of Asphodel (THB) 99
1 Duress (M19) 94
2 Tymaret, Chosen from Death (THB) 119

Feel free to dick around with it, you can safely cut on one Deathless, all the Merchants and Tymaret if you feel like more interaction is needed. I keep putting Blacklance Paragons in and out.

A lot of guys put the cat/oven combo into this, I've also seen plenty of cutesy shit like Burglar Rats or Fenlurkers (I suspect the latter is because some fag at channel fireball told them so), but you don't want cutesy, you need stuff that affects the game.

Unfortunately, a lot of the fun cards to brew with mono black are out in Historic, Kitesails, Phylactery Liches, Lich's Mastery.
 
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anvi

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I played against that last night. He had some creature which draws a card or something every time an enchant enters. And then everything he played was an enchant, even creatures, and he killed my stuff with Dead Weight which drew cards too. And the other creature which exiles enchants from the GY and makes a creature. It works but it wasn't that good, I board wiped him and then exiled his GY and he quit. I think your Dimir deck with the kraken would be way better. I wish I had more of those cards.

I kinda lost interest in the game though cuz the tier 1 decks bore me and my homebrews aren't strong enough anymore. I think that az control is not strong at all, I can't imagine how it wins any tournaments. The fires deck is so strong but it is so boring. And mono red is even worse. I was surprised to see that janky Reclamation deck come back because one ego and it is fucked. That said, it beat me 3 times yesterday. I even had a chance to ego him but forgot I had that in my sb to I got an ashiok instead and almost milled him completely but he had 1 explosion and 1 reclamation which was enough to kill me :/ Overall my interest has gone. The only one I might wanna play is the ramp deck that uses agents and nissa but I lack some of the key cards and don't wanna spend them on a tier 2 deck. Might just quit and come back next release.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,382
You can try getting one or two Mogis' Favor somewhere in there. If it can't be used as removal, buff a creature and reclaim cards with ebolon if it dies.
That's the problem I keep getting with mono black, by the way, either you stock up on creature removal and aggro matchups get good, or you stock up on discard...
which is near useless vs. mono red. Although, duress seems near-maindeckable if it nabs Light up the Stage or Embercleave.
If you mix both of them in one deck, it always comes up wrong.

Perhaps an underworld dreams or two could help you in the control matchup? it's always +3 devotion for gay merchant.
Not sure how many zombies you routinely generate, but perhaps some mass (and moar Tymaret Calls the Dead, but They Don't Pick Up Cause They're Dead? It's not exactly History of Benalia
but looks solid) buff would be in order? Heraldic Banner is one thing I can think of, should let you shave off a land.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,382
Shame that Starfield Mystic is the color it is. Think of all the on-death triggers, and getting things out for cheaper.

Yeah, I was surprised that Tymaret thing doesn't actually drain. Thought it was a given, it's a rare Saga ffs...
So if zombies aren't too important, I'm quite partial to Elspeth's Nightmare in that slot. Depends if you can get a full effect reliably, but it looks like a better card overall.
 

anvi

Prophet
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I played against an Underworld Dreams deck the other day. It pained me to beat him because I appreciated someone not being a tier1 netdecking shitlord.
 

anvi

Prophet
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I'm still getting 99% red deck opponents. But I made 3 new decks that I'm really happy with and one of them is pure anti aggro. It is fun as fuck to completely dismantle those assholes. It wasn't easy to achieve though, I tried several times with decks full of board wipes (like 8) and lots of removal but it didn't work because it needed to be instant not sorceries. Like if he has Chandra and a Cavalcade in play, you can wipe the board all you want but it wont help. Then next turn he plays Torbran, the two chandra tokens are going to do 12 damage to you before you get a chance to wipe the torbran. If he has a few Spark or whatever, that can easily kill you. Just no good, and not enough good instants. So I went with a lifegain deck instead and it is :smug:
 

Dawkinsfan69

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck Bethestard
Joined
Jun 3, 2016
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inside ur mom ᕦ( ▀̿ Ĺ̯ ▀̿ )ᕤ
mAtZcwI.jpg


hmmm...
 

Destroid

Arcane
Joined
May 9, 2007
Messages
16,628
Location
Australia
awwwww yissss

duress followed by spyglass followed by ego followed by erasure followed by uw deck holder rage quitting. This is how i want to live my life now

Dimir/Esper feel pretty good against Azorius control but I dunno how they go against the rest of the field.
 

lukaszek

the determinator
Patron
Joined
Jan 15, 2015
Messages
12,624
deterministic system > RNG
 
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