Mono-black to the future!

Posted on April 6, 2010

If Trick keeps my original title, then I apologize for my awful pun ahead of time! [I did - Trick] I've just returned from Grand Prix Houston and I must say I'm exhausted. A Grand Prix might seem like a fantastic vacation type event but it can actually be quite a bit of work. I put in over thirty hours on Friday/Saturday and another eight or so on Sunday. Judging can be difficult but still very rewarding.

The judges you meet rather rapidly become like family. When you spend a large amount of time together in a relatively confined space you bond fairly quickly, especially when you all have a common interest! It's not uncommon to find pickup games of EDH firing off in the hotel lobby and I desperately wanted to join a game. Unfortunately, after both days of working I was ready to crash and the first game I had a chance to participate in was at the airport waiting on the flight home.

The participants were Michael Fortino (newly crowned level 2 in Tampa!), Todd "Jazzhands" Palmer, and his hetero-life partner Matt "soggy bottom" Williams. Michael is playing his five color allies deck, Todd is battling with Rith, I'm piloting Progenitus and Matt is bringing my Maga deck to the table. For those of you who do not remember Maga was designed as a budget EDH deck and proved to be fairly fun to play. My original list:

[cardlist]1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals

1 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni

1 Helm of Obedience

1 Mindslaver

1 Mind Twist

1 Eternity Vessel

1 Sanguine Bond

1 Beacon of Unrest

1 Mirari

1 Myojin of Night's Reach

1 Mind Shatter

1 Chainer, Dementia Master

1 Puppeteer Clique

1 Promise of Power

1 Undead Gladiator

1 Phyrexian Arena

1 Wound Reflection

1 Nightmare Incursion

1 Neverending Torment

1 Whetwheel

1 Polluted Bonds

1 Helldozer

1 Syphon Mind

1 Sign in Blood

1 Relic of Progenitus

1 Mind Sludge

1 Tower of Murmurs

1 Mutilate

1 Damnation

1 Hero's Demise

1 Tendrils of Corruption

1 Decree of Pain

1 Duplicant

1 Death Cloud

1 Oblivion Stone

1 Neverinyrral's Disk

1 Bane of the Living

1 Consume Spirit

1 Corrupt

1 Barter in Blood

1 Innocent B lood

1 Reiver Demon

1 Infest

1 Altar of Shadows

1 Magus of the Coffers

1 Solemn Simulacrum

1 Coalition Relic

1 Extraplanar Lens

1 Gauntlet of Power

1 Prismatic Lens

1 Mind Stone

1 Coldsteel Heart

1 Liliana Vess

1 Crucible of Worlds

1 Expedition Map

1 Journeyer's Kite

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Beseech the Queen

1 Diabolic Tutor

1 Demonic Collusion

1 Planar Portal

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

1 Cabal Coffers

1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse

1 Temple of the False God

1 Vesuva

1 Unholy Grotto

1 Urza's Factory

32 Swamp[/cardlist]

The deck is of course still in its budget form. Matt crushed us both games we played as it turns out generating tons of mana and then casting stuff is actually quite a bit of fun. The deck has a good amount of synergy already and I feel like adding some money to the deck can do nothing but improve the fun.

First and foremost there are a few key cards missing. Sensei's Divining Top, Scroll Rack and of course Sol Ring. In order to make room for these cards a few cuts need to be made. Sensei's Divining Top helps smooth mana difficulties and as such is a natural replacement for Journeyer's Kite. Sol Ring is a straight replacement for the inferior Prismatic Lens, I have almost never used the ability of Lens to tap for black mana.

There is a significant amount of mana excel in the deck and I'm a big fan of redundancy in the program. Sculpting Steel is a fantastic addition to the pool, allowing us to copy other players Crucible of Worlds, our own Solemn Simulacrum, or best of all Gauntlet of Power or Helm of Obedience. There is another clear card to be cut, Neverending Torment. One of the more fun effects of the deck is milling cards and Torment doesn't really help us accomplish this.

On another note of redundancy we could use another way to recur Cabal Coffers aside from Crucible of Worlds. One of the original contributors to the deck was Grim Discovery. I originally cut the discovery after deeming it ineffective and I must say I was wrong. The ability to return one of my few creatures and my most important land is too crucial to pass up. Again we have a card not pulling its weight, Polluted Bonds. The bonds never quite interacted with my powerful enchantments like I hoped it would. In fact I just ended up being a target more often than not, not quite what we want!

Infest is the last card to be cut. Unfortunately for us Infest almost never kills a number of creatures which merits a slot in the deck. Creatures are gigantic in the realm of hundred cards and simply shrinking them at sorcery speed is not getting the job done. Instead, I suggest Doubling Cube. Doubling Cube is yet another piece of that fantastic Redundancy I strive for while still being reasonable with its mana cost.

There are a few key rules pieces to remember. Sanguine Bond will trigger off of Eternity Vessel resetting your life total, potentially being very damaging to opponents! Remember too that Cabal Coffers and Doubling Cube are both mana abilities and can't be responded to, meaning that even something with split second (I'm looking at you Krosan Grip!) isn't fast enough.

Before I wrap things up a few suggestions for improvements that could be made if anyone were so inclined. Vampiric Tutor is a card which could certainly be added to the final hundred as is Imperial Seal and Cruel/Grim Tutor. Two more cards which I plan on testing shortly are Sorin Markov and Rings of Brighthearth. As you all know I'm a big fan of Mindslaver effects and the ability to fork Planar Portal and top might prove too good to pass up. Until then I hope you all enjoy the new and hopefully improved monoblack list: