Hello folks and welcome back to my Set Review of All Things Conspiracy: Take the Crown. This is my third entry into these hallowed pages. In the first I looked at Blue and Artifacts, and then we looked at White and Lands yesterday. Today we’ll hit up both Black and Conspiracies before heading to other stuff on Monday and Tuesday.

You know what a new set brings! New cards, new options, new attitude, and new stuff. Decks, cards, drafts, it’s all here. Multiplayer Limited fun is about to commence!

One mechanic Limited to these Conspiracy sets with draft triggers that go off as you draft them. It’s highly unusual stuff. In my opinion, Black has the best slate of draft triggers. Each of the colors has three, one each of common, uncommon, and rare. All three are interesting here.

Regicide — So let’s talk about Regicide a bit. There is a card from the first set called Paliano, the High City. It was really good. You always got one color you needed. When you draft it, the person you are feeding tends to give you a color that you want, in order to keep the peace. The one who is feeding you often chooses a color as a signal that they are not playing it. You know to look at it more. You get useful draft signals you can exploit. The same will be true of Regicide, only in reverse. The two people flanking you won’t want to name their colors. So if Bob is drafting Izzet and Steve is in Golgari, then Steve may give you Green, Bob will give you White, and you can choose Red or Black or something. Now you know what colors they have. Depending on where you drafted Regicide in the draft, you could use this information early in to help, or you may know their color and use your choice for the threats at the table (if you saw a pair of powerful game ending Green creatures, for example). Regicide is interesting.

Smuggler Captain — You can play this and Diabolic Tutor for the drafted card that will make your deck work. All you have to do is reveal the drafted card and sure, everyone will know what you grabbed, but you now have card advantage here. Note that you do have to search your library for the card when our good Captain arrives at the battlefield all ready to serve you. That means you have to shuffle and play the drafted card, you can’t leave it in your sideboard and fetch it up. Here’s something I want to do — grab the best 5-drop you can, and then curve from the Captain to the 5-drop.

Archdemon of Paliano — I suspect that this is the best of the draft triggers in the set. Draft it face up. Draft three cards at random. Then you have unlocked a 5/4 flyer for 4 mana. Normally you’d pay the Demon it’s toll in flesh , blood, sanity or other sacrifices. But here, the cost is different. I doubt the Archdemon gets first picked often. But when is a good choice? turn five? 6? Figuring that out is going to be fun. And if it winds up lower in the draft as a result, I really like it.

After these draft triggers, what’s next? Well how about the Black(ish) Conspiracy?

Assemble the Rank and Vile — This Conspiracy lets you pay a Black mana when the drafted creature dies, and you make a 2/2 Zombie token. Of the cycle of common color-based fun cards, this feels like one of the weakest. How many creatures would you have to draft with the same name in order to make this worth the draft slot? 3? 4? 6? I don’t know, but two ain’t good enough. (Especially for multiplayer Limited. It’s one thing to spend a slot on this in a normal eight man pod draft. But Conspiracy: Take the Crown?)

What about other non-draft centric cards?

Thorn of the Black Rose — Thorn of the Black Rose is one of my favorite hidden Monarch Makers out there. There are some good ones like Custodi Lich or Keeper of Keys that have useful stats and other things going on. But the Thorn is different. It’s not a powerful card. But the free 1/3 deathtoucher will keep folks back, and you can occasionally plink someone through a defense that doesn’t want to block. Blocking, attacking, getting the Monarch for a card — this Assassin is a total package.

Marchesa's Decree — I was looking at my top three cards for Black, and this comes in a close 4th. The Decree of Queen Marchesa awaits. As you might expect, she is sending out dictates for quelling issues with her subjects. In this case, she is protecting herself. Want to move to attack her? Then be ready to be cut down! Similarly you'll cut some life off anyone foolish enough to attack into your bad self with their creatures. Your Decree even protects your Planeswalkers from being attacked. And the best part is that someone loses a life for each creature that is coming your way. That can really put a damper on someone looking to send their Squirrel army at you. And if you have blockers, Maze of Ith, and stuff like that where it could take three or four attackers to nip through, then you could deal more life loss to them than you would sustain yourself. The Decree has a lot of value. And you know what? It replaces itself too since it makes you the Monarch! But even without the crowning, it's still a very good Black based iteration of Propaganda and Ghostly Prison

And while those cards are certainly good, what’s the best out there?

The Top Three Black Cards:

3. Deadly Designs

I like the fun here. Not every card that’s got something going needs to be the next powerful broken combo engine or giant beater. Here we have a cheap 2-mana enchantment that has something interesting. Other folks can layer counters on your Designs for popping the good stuff. The card has a level of politicking baked into the card. “Build up my counters, and let’s kill our mutual enemy’s stuff!”

2. Capital Punishment

This is the next iteration of the expensive Black sweeping mass removal spell, only it’s less powerful than Life's Finale, and yet, can be more flexible. Yes, you don’t share the ability to choose the best option with others. But none of it effects you. Your foes will either be discarding, losing creatures, or both. And yet you are fine and ready to go. Rock and roll at the drop of a hat. Are you ready for this?

Mono-Black Punishment ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (8)
• 2 Liliana's Shade
• 2 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
• 4 Nantuko Shade

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Liliana of the Dark Realms

• Spells (24)
• 1 Drain Life
• 2 Mind Sludge
• 2 Nightmare Incursion
• 3 Capital Punishment
• 4 Bitter Revelation
• 4 Consume Spirit
• 4 Mutilate
• 2 Armillary Sphere
• 2 Lashwrithe

• Lands (24)
• 20 Swamp
• 4 Cabal Coffers

Buy This Deck

Capital Punishment seems like a really strong card to build around for a Mono-Black engine. As a 6 mana spell, a Cabal Coffers fueled deck was a great chance to give it a turn in a natural home. I think it’s a great three- or four-of here to try out. In any multiplayer game, it’s a strong Mono-Black late game card. Now I’m not cheating the deck. You still have Consume Spirits, Mutilates, and such. But we also have the powerful Capital Punishment as well.

I thought a quick modern decklist built around the Mono-Black cards from more recent days would intrigue you. Here’s a natural home for our new Capital Punishment Monarch. Long may she reign.

1. Custodi Lich

As I‘ve mentioned before, becoming the Monarch is something that draws you a card, later, so dropping the Lich out on the battlefield gets you a card. And when you become that Monarch you can Diabolic Edict someone. That’s a pretty potent combination. That puts Custodi Lich on the same playing field as cards like Wei Assassins or Predatory Nightstalker. Only it’s bigger and draws you a card. I’ve long discussed the value of the Assassins and Nightstalker, and I’ve run them in various shells. They are great creatures doing yeoman’s work in the same vein as Keening Banshee, Shriekmaw, and Skinrender. It’s bigger and draws you a card as well. You don’t need anything that works specifically with the Monarch to give yourself some serious value.

And if you drop cards like Marchesa’s Decree and Knights of the Black Rose, you’ll be doing a lot of Edict action. How about a sample with Blue?

Monarchs 'R' Us ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (24)
• 2 Silent Arbiter
• 2 Sphinx of Uthuun
• 4 Custodi Lich
• 4 Garrulous Sycophant
• 4 Keeper of Keys
• 4 Thorn of the Black Rose
• 4 Wall of Tears

• Spells (10)
• 4 Spite // Malice
• 2 Probe
• 4 Marchesa's Decree

• Lands (26)
• 11 Island
• 11 Swamp
• 2 Maze of Ith
• 2 Throne of the High City

Buy This Deck

Here’s a fun Monarch deck that works around a cool U/B Control shell. The deck wants to draw cards by being the Monarch, so you don’t have to waste stuff on card drawing. It has a bit of a pillow fort theme with the Decree of Old Marchesa and her Thorn keeping people from attacking and stealing the Monarchy from you. We have Silent Arbiter to shut that down. One attacker, one Maze of Ith. Wall of Tears is here bouncing and keeping the peace. Meanwhile Custodi Lich is present and accounted for, killing off good stuff while Keeper of Keys is giving your team unblockable to kill folks quickly once you can keep the Monarch. Or you can bleed them with the Sycophant.

Sure, the cards and central concept may be new, but that’s not dissimilar to a U/B Control deck I could build back in 1995 or 96. And yet, you have to admit, that this stuff works well together, and brings a different way of hitting folks on the drawing of cards, creatures, and more.

Most of the new Black cards are more like tools than obvious deck engines. Imagine I told you that you had to build a deck around Murder. How would you even start? How about Island? It’s the same thing here. It’s hard to figure out all of this stuff with a tool rather than an engine or creature or something. But the Monarch deck seemed like a good place to hit up.

And there you have it! But wait! This set has a ton of reprints. So what new cards are out there ready for another dose of quality time at your kitchen table?

Top Three Black Reprints:

3. Fleshbag Marauder

Fleshbag Marauder has always been a great card, and everyone loves it. Lots of versions of this card have been printed, and Black has always been a good home for it. I like reanimating it when I need to kill an isolated creature now. Because you know you are playing it, you can time the sacrifice to lose something minor of your own. And don’t forget you can always just sac the Marauder if you want, turning it into a decent variant on Innocent Blood.

2. Unnerve

I still play Unnerve. It’s that good. It’s one of my top three or four default discard effects for multiplayer after Syphon Mind and Liliana's Specter. Play it, and cause all of your foes to discard the goods. We don’t have a lot of mass “everyone discard” effects out there rocking the block. So it’s good to go!

1. Avatar of Woe

Among powerhouses of casual Magic, the Avatar of Woe’s reputation is well-earned. You can play it for little mana later in the game, drop it, and then bring the heat. It’s big, evasive, cheap, and can tap to kill stuff. It’s the perfect synthesis of everything you want in a casual powerhouse. So it’s reprint is no surprise here.

Black is looking sexy!

But other than Black, what else is out there?

Conspiracies:

In the other color-based reviews, we are looking at the color-focused common cycle of Conspiracies, such as Hired Heist and Assemble the Rank and Vile. But we have a number of true colorless Conspiracies here. Below I want to look at the colorless Conspiracies that can be drafted anywhere.

Some of the Conspiracies are pretty tame for most uses outside of this set. I’m not sure it’s easy to build a deck around Echoing Boon as a good example. You have to have both a number of creatures for using it, as well as enough spells that target it that you can spread across to one more player. That’s hard to secure in a draft. I’m not sure that’s worth trying to set up in Cubes or other sets out there. Here are some that tweak me.

Meanwhile we have some other cards that are great early, when you can focus your deck, but weaken later. Here are some examples of that:

Hymn of the Wilds — It’s hard to build around this card. But if you manage to crack it early, you will likely break the game. Dropping a 2-drop on turn one, a three on turn two and so forth is going to spiral out of control immediately.

Weight Advantage — Again, if you draft it early and build around then, then you are in a great place. Otherwise it’s unlike to really work.

Sovereign’s Realm is another in that category. But there are three that really interest me.

Emissary’s Ploy — This is a great Conspiracy card as it fits a lot of needs. After you snag one, you can draft around it. Did you grab some off-color powers at the 2 mana or maybe three? Then call that and you can play them for free, no matter what mana you have available. It flexes your draft and maximizes your creature-based draft decisions by enabling all of the colors. It also will fix any mana problems you have at that color as well. After all, how many times have you had a or creature in hand on the third turn, but you lacked that two specific mana, just having drawn one? This is one of the best Conspiracies in the set.

Hold the Perimeter — I love this card. You have a 1/2 defender Solider. Everyone gets a 1/1 Goblin that can’t block. They will be attacking each other and dealing damage to each other early on while you hide behind your wall. It’s a great way to organically shape a table and begin to get those life totals down without doing it yourself and getting in trouble. This is a strong card that really groks what multiplayer is about.

Summoner’s Bond — On the other hand, this is really easy to figure out. Choose two creatures. When you cast one, you Eladamri's Call for the other. The obvious play here is to link an early creature you have a few copies of with your big beater that’s one a single copy. Most decks wind up with two or three true major forces in their creature selection. This’ll make sure you get it. But you could use it to link two cards together where you have multiple copies of each. Imagine if you had three each of Thorn of the Black Rose and Child of Night. You play the Child and get a Thorn. Then you play the Thorn you got and grab another Child. And back and forth it goes. That flexibility for getting your best dork or for chaining two creatures is really useful.

And there we are! Both Black and Conspiracies are odd, fun, supportive, and head off in new directions. Are you ready to Take the Crown today? The set is releasing! So go out there, fetch some packs, and grab your Monarch!

Check Out the Other Conspiracy Set Reviews:

1. Blue and Artifacts
2. White and Lands