Okay, that’s actually a complete lie, but it felt like a fun thing to say. Sometimes, writers get a little too much into their own hype over a deck, and players suffer as a result. I feel that’s what may have happened with mono-black control in these past two weeks. A handful of excellent players played a Rock deck in an unsuspecting metagame and came out on the right side of their fifty-fifties.

If the story ended there, it’d simply be a nice story, but instead, it broke out and won a highly inbred tournament by one of the best players with said Rock deck. Now, it wasn’t just a fluke, right? Now it was a bona fide deck to beat, and suddenly, Magic Online was twenty-five percent black! Nearly as quickly as the deck sprang up, though, the metagame adjusted and started crushing it. Now the archetypal Rock deck became a forty-sixty deck and was no longer a strong choice. People still played it in droves, though.

This week was a reckoning, though, and it was absolutely dominated, from the StarCityGames Open to the TCGplayer Invitational to Grand Prix Santiago to Magic Online. However, there are still plenty of MBC players looking for what to do next. So, this article is about exploring and expanding upon MBC to see if I can make a two-colored build still based on black devotion. While I really liked Yasooka’s take on dual-color devotion decks from the Pro Tour, this time, I want to try thinning out the blue side and expanding on the black. Let’s start with the core I want to take from current MBC decks and expand upon.

"Mono-Black Control"

• The Core (20)
• 4 Pack Rat
• 4 Nightveil Specter
• 4 Underworld Connections
• 4 Hero's Downfall
• 4 Thoughtseize

Buy This Deck

No matter what I build the deck as, odds are very high I’m going to run these twenty cards in my seventy-five. Gray Merchant of Asphodel may be a solid, but ultimately, its usefulness falls upon what else the deck wants to do. If the answer is not pressuring with Desecration Demon and instead going for a long game all the time, Gray Merchant loses some value.

Nightveil Specter is a very good blockers early and promotes devotion if we take it down the Gray Merchant route. It’s also invaluable in the mirror and against other control strategies. That third point of toughness also means it blocks well against small-ball aggro and means Specters will just bounce off each other in the case of a mirror.

Just like Pack Rat, Underworld Connections stands in for planeswalkers as threats that become better the longer they remain in play. It provides a hard-to-kill draw engine that serves as the backbone of this deck. Meanwhile, Hero's Downfall and Thoughtseize shouldn’t require any real explanation past the fact that both are excellent cards that give the black deck a unique amount of reach.

So, what does each color add to the equation?

Green – I feel this was the first stop for many people after they played the MBC mirror and promptly realized it was the worst kind of mirror. Abrupt Decay and Golgari Charm both go a long way toward dealing with opposing Underworld Connections, and Decay also solves Nightveil Specter in the mirror. You also gain Reaper of the Wilds, which helps fill the reasonable 4-drop quota for the deck if Desecration Demon isn’t to your liking.

Here’s a sample list to start with:

"B/G Control"

• Creatures (15)
• 1 Shadowborn Demon
• 2 Desecration Demon
• 4 Nightveil Specter
• 4 Pack Rat
• 4 Reaper of the Wilds

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Vraska the Unseen

• Spells (19)
• 2 Abrupt Decay
• 2 Golgari Charm
• 2 Putrefy
• 4 Hero's Downfall
• 4 Thoughtseize
• 4 Underworld Connections
• 1 Whip of Erebos

• Lands (25)
• 14 Swamp
• 3 Forest
• 4 Golgari Guildgate
• 4 Overgrown Tomb

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Golgari Charm
• 2 Duress
• 1 Whip of Erebos
• 1 Erebos, God of the Dead
• 3 Scavenging Ooze
• 4 Lifebane Zombie
• 3 Mistcutter Hydra

Buy This Deck

The green splash seems to be a gimmie if the immediate metagame switches to Esper, MBC, and mono-blue devotion. If the R/G and Naya decks become big again, moving back to MBC or picking another color seems reasonable since you have better weapons to fight Voice of Resurgence and Assemble the Legion. We’ve also been seeing an increase in normal creature decks, which Reaper of the Wilds punishes heavily. Having a fifth point of toughness is paramount to beating red decks, and its scry ability can give the deck a filtering engine while just trading off like normal.

Red – There’s not a whole lot here to actually add to the deck. You have to go pretty heavy on the red for anything of value, such as Chandra, Pyromaster, Stormbreath Dragon, or Anger of the Gods. The only cards I could imagine splashing are Rakdos's Return and Sire of Insanity, neither of which is particularly well-positioned right now. You could conceivably make a more aggressive variant abusing Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch, but otherwise, you’ll need to wait until Born of the Gods for a serious contender.

White – Awkward mana costs aside, there are a few very strong reasons to consider a white splash. One of the biggest reasons is that you gain Blood Baron of Vizkopa, which absolutely dominates black and red still. It also makes your mirror match incredibly strong when combined with your usual discard component.

You also gain Last Breath as a respectable 2-mana kill spell against Pack Rat and Nightveil Specter, the latter of which can’t be hit by Doom Blade or Ultimate Price. Sin Collector remains a solid companion to Thoughtseize against opposing control.

"W/B Control"

• Creatures (17)
• 2 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 3 Desecration Demon
• 4 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
• 4 Nightveil Specter
• 4 Pack Rat

• Spells (18)
• 2 Ultimate Price
• 3 Last Breath
• 4 Hero's Downfall
• 4 Thoughtseize
• 4 Underworld Connections
• 1 Whip of Erebos

• Lands (25)
• 12 Swamp
• 2 Plains
• 1 Orzhov Guildgate
• 4 Godless Shrine
• 4 Temple of Silence
• 2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

Buy This Deck

In the end, it comes down to how much you really want to commit to white. Having eight reasonable lands instead of just four makes white an easier justification. The heavier you go, the more options you can run, such as Elspeth, Sun's Champion and Obzedat, Ghost Council. Elspeth, Sun's Champion is a great option against green and devotion if you can commit to her cost. There are only a handful of good answers to her from devotion decks, and even MBC only has so many Hero's Downfall to sling around.

Blue – This is the primary color I was interested in when I started the project, alongside green. While many of the better blue cards require double costs, blue brings a lot to the table. Counters are an obvious possibility, and if we stick to devotion, Cyclonic Rift is among the best end-game cards in the format due to overload, and if you can manage the costs, Jace, Architect of Thought comes to mind.

If we go heavy into Dimir—only possible with the scry lands we’re lucky to have—we become an inverse Yasooka control build. For example:

"U/B Control"

• Creatures (13)
• 2 Aetherling
• 3 Desecration Demon
• 4 Nightveil Specter
• 4 Pack Rat

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 2 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
• 2 Jace, Architect of Thought

• Spells (18)
• 1 Devour Flesh
• 2 Ultimate Price
• 4 Hero's Downfall
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 3 Domestication
• 4 Underworld Connections
• 1 Whip of Erebos

• Lands (25)
• 11 Swamp
• 3 Island
• 2 Dimir Guildgate
• 4 Temple of Deceit
• 4 Watery Grave
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Returned Phalanx
• 2 Jace, Memory Adept
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 1 Duress
• 2 Negate
• 1 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
• 3 Doom Blade

Buy This Deck

People will have to adjust in some fashion, though, even if they want to keep up with the metagame. Red and Boros decks came back big this past weekend, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if G/W with more trickery saw more play as well. Normal MBC simply isn’t positioned to do well without an overhaul—just being the king of one-for-one trades isn’t going to work. Whether that means taking a more aggressive stance with Golgari by including more creatures or slowing down and instead adding more control elements with Dimir, something is going to give.

Alternatively, you could simply shelve MBC for the moment and instead choose to bring it out again a few weeks from now when the heat dies down. Standard feels very cyclical and is constantly changing. If anything, the results from today better reflect the results from a month ago than anything a week ago. While the decks are becoming more refined, in the end, the metagame may simply be a game of trying to be ahead that particular week. In that case, as long as you're comfortable waiting, you won’t have to worry about it.

For everyone else, though, I recommend getting down to brewing. Otherwise, it’s going to be a bad time having a target painted on your back and your opponents knowing seventy to seventy-five cards of your deck every single match. Best of luck, no matter which you choose.

Josh Silvestri