facebook

CoolStuffInc.com

Turn your cards and minis into cash! Maximize your value with our 25% store credit bonus!
  
Account Meeple
Location IconLocations
Account MeepleLogin
0 Item
Advanced Search
   Sign In
Create Account
Main » Articles » Every Shade of Black in Standard

Every Shade of Black in Standard

CovertGoBlue
Posted on October 15, 2019
 Reddit

As a content creator you have to keep yourself motivated to play. A while back I invented a series called The Color Challenge where I tried to win seven games in a Competitive Constructed Event with a deck from every color or color combination. It was fun, but too competitive. Some colors just couldn't hang with Mono-Red Aggro, and that deck was often 40% or more of the Competitive Standard Event metagame in MTG Arena. The series was designed to keep me challenged, but instead it was burning out my competitive drive.

Last week I relaunched The Color Challenge and I have been thrilled with the changes. Instead of basing the series around winning an event, it is based around playing a different deck every day for five-to-seven days all within one color or combination of colors. Last week was Mono-Black week and I want to write about the decks, what worked and what didn't, and finish by ranking the decks from best to worst.

The Mono Black Color Challenge Playlist on YouTube

Deck #1

Mono-Black Aggro | Eldraine Standard | CGB 10-9-2019

For me the biggest draw to aggressive Black strategies is the mana. With br and bg aggro lists I have found myself struggling to make 1bb on turn three to cast Spawn of Mayhem. Keeping everything Black solves the problem. It also lets us run Mobilized District, a creature land that hasn't had many opportunities to shine in Standard so far. Mobilized District can be a lethal follow-up to sweepers if Mono-Black Aggro hits the opponent hard enough early.

Rotting Regisaur
Spawn of Mayhem

The biggest draw to this deck is the hard-hitting pair of Spawn of Mayhem and Rotting Regisaur. These are two huge monsters for the low cost of three mana. If size matters in the format this duo should run the yard. Unfortunately for Mono-Black Aggro, every creature that costs three mana or more looks like a 3/3 Elk to Oko, Thief of Crowns. Do you miss Teferi, Time Raveler bouncing you 3-drop yet? At least you could still cast a 7/6 Dinosaur next turn instead of making more Elk meat. This deck could be a lot better with some hand disruption like Duress and Drill Bit. Unfortunately I found both of these two unreliable for best-of-one play, but in best-of-three I would include five-to-six cheap discard effects to disrupt the opponent while beating them to death.

Deck #2

Mono-Black Aristocrats | Eldraine Standard | CGB 10-10.2019

I was very excited to try out the new Aristocrats shell with Ayara, First of Locthwain. This card is burn engine on her own, but when you combine her with Gutterbones, the Cauldron Familiar/Witch's Oven combo, and Gruesome Menagerie, her drain triggers stack up. The deck needs a lot of creatures to sacrifice to Priest of Forgotten Gods, and I found Lazotep Reaver and Orzhov Enforcer to be the best.

Ayara, First of Locthwain
Priest of Forgotten Gods

This deck faces two significant issues in current Standard. The first issue is that Priest of Forgotten Gods on turn two used to be a powerful card against Green decks. I say "used to" because now Green decks have Wicked Wolf coming down on turn three or Oko, Thief of Crowns on turn two or three. These cards embarrass Priest of Forgotten Gods and Ayara, First of Locthwain. Many Simic decks are also running Brazen Borrower and Voracious Hydra as well. Bant decks have Teferi, Time Raveler as early as turn two and Sultai decks accelerate in Vraska, Golgari Queen. It seems like every deck has the means to 187 your key creature before it does anything cool. The second issue this deck has is that it plays too many weak creatures. Nothing about this deck looks good against any curve that includes Questing Beast. The deck has value and synergy, but it lacks real power. Perhaps the most powerful card in the deck is Rankle, Master of Pranks. He turns your low-power sacrifice fodder into useful removal when he hits the opponent and makes each player sacrifice a creature.

Deck #3

Discard Tribal | Eldraine Standard | CGB 10-11-2019

I worked on a version of this deck for the Standard 2020 events on MTG Arena before Throne of Eldraine was released. I was doubtful that the deck could survive the influx of power from ELD, but the deck held up better than expected this week. I am constantly amazed by how good Heraldic Banner is with fodder like Burglar Rat, Yarok's Fanluker and Order of Midnight.

Cavalier of Night

Cavalier of Night is an amazing card against any strategy that revolves around creatures. The fifth toughness outsizes Gruul Spellbreaker, Bonecrusher Giant, Runaway Steam-Kin, and Questing Beast to name a few. If you mana to kill Cavalier of Night, the death trigger usually nets another discard effect or gets you a Knight of the Ebon Legion who can always rumble with anything. Overall I was surprised by the good performance of the discard meme deck and it could be a solid deck against an aggro and midrange meta should one of those ever arise.

Deck #4

Adventure Knights | Eldraine Standard | CGB 10-12-2019

This was my most popular tweet in a while (mostly because I am terrible at Twitter!).

I really did go 7-0, and this deck really doesn't have a single card valued over $10. What is going on here? In a nutshell, Adventure is a sweet mechanic. When so many cards in your deck represent two spells instead of just one, you get to play some long, fun games of Magic.

Smitten Swordmaster
Lucky Clover

All of the creatures except for Rankle, Master of Pranks are Knights. Lucky Clover copies the Curry Favor side of Smitten Swordmaster to double the drainage. This gives the deck an amazing burn-based endgame. As long as we get some damage in early along with the occasional hastey Rankle, Master of Pranks hit, the game will eventually end in a flurry of Curry (Favor). I feel this deck over performed because of this burn/combo finishing move. While other decks struggle to "get there" with big creatures, value, and death-by-a-million-cuts Cauldron Familiar/Witch's Oven combos, this Adventure Knights deck goes over the top with a massive finish.

Deck #5

Trying to brew a Mono-Black Control deck lead me to the edge of my sanity, which turned out to be at the edge of Clackbridge (shouldn't it be The Clack Bridge?), where I met the biggest troll I have ever seen! Clackbridge Troll is a huge 8/8 Trample, Haste for just five mana! If the opponent sacrifices a creature to tap the troll, you gain three life and draw a card! Of course, sometimes we want to attack and kill and opponent of a planeswalker, so the plan of this deck was to have lots of respectable ways to remove the Goat tokens if necessary. Cry of the Carnarium and Legion's End did the job, and I had Witch's Vengeance instead of Foreboding Fruit for a while. I swapped the two because I lost a few games to missed land drops, and I convinced myself I needed some card draw to always get there. In hindsight I would switch Foreboding Fruit back into Witch's Vengeance.

Clackbridge Troll
Revenge of Ravens

I was surprised by the effectiveness of Revenge of Ravens. After all, sometimes the opponent has a sneaky way to pump the Goat tokens such as Domri, Anarch of Bolas or Cavalcade of Calamity. Revenge of Ravens in multiples is amazing, and it also means if you hit the opponent with your Clackbridge Troll they quickly get into a place where they cannot attack you for the rest of the game. I enjoyed dunking on Mono-Red Aggro over and over with this deck. Mono-Red Aggro has always been the most played deck on MTG Arena, and even though it isn't very good in the meta right now the deck still shows up to every Competitive Constructed Event in droves. Unfortunately I couldn't reliably beat any deck that wasn't a full-blown aggressive deck. If it ramped mana, gained card advantage, or made 2/2 zombies with every land drop the Clackbridge Troll and friends just couldn't hang with it.

Ranking the decks:

  1. Aristocrats

  2. Adventure Knights

  3. Discard Tribal

  4. Aggro

  5. Con-Troll

I don't think I found the best Aristocrats shell in my time with the deck, and it seems to have the best engine. The deck's problems feel solvable by Noxious Grasp and Duress out of the sideboard, and I think Aristocrats is the best Mono-Black shell overall. Adventure Knights overperformed and I can see why the Golgari Adventures deck might be a serious contender in Standard. The overall card quality was weaker than Aristocrats, but the endgame goes bigger. Discard Tribal is solid against all manner of creature decks, but it struggles to beat big endings. Mono-Black Aggro doesn't seem like it will have a place in the meta as long as Oko, Thief of Crowns, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and Realm-Cloaked Giant are heavily played cards. Don't play Mono-Black Control unless torturing Mono-Red Aggro decks brings you immense joy.

Bonus list - Historic Chromatic Black

I <3 Ali Aintrazi | Historic | CGB 10-13-2019

Next week begins my Mono-Blue Color Challenge as chosen via poll on YouTube. Let me know what you think of the series. I can tell you right now I have no idea how I will make five-to-seven Mono-Blue decks but I can bet it will be fun.

TAGS articles, standard, constructed, decklist, mono-black, arena, mtg arena, covertgoblue, eldraine standard, 10152019, deck-building challenge, magic arena

Recent Articles

View Archive
Sell your cards and minis 25% credit bonus