Deck Discussion - MBC

[raybomb]

This is for the new post-ban MBC achetype. Yes, there is a pre-ban thread, but this is a nice, new, clean post ban thread :p

31026

Another version...

// Lands
1 [CHK] Shizo, Death's Storehouse
16 [UG] Swamp
1 [CHK] Boseiju, Who Shelters All
3 [MR] Stalking Stones

// Creatures
3 [CHK] Kokusho, the Evening Star
4 [BOK] Yukora, The Prisoner
3 [CHK] Nezumi Shortfang

// Spells
3 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [DS] Echoing Decay
4 [CHK] Distress
2 [MR] Barter in Blood
3 [MR] Consume Spirit
2 [CHK] Hideous Laughter
3 [8E] Phyrexian Arena
3 [8E] Dark Banishing
3 [MR] Wrench Mind
2 [BOK] Sickening Shoal

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [8E] Persecute
SB: 4 [CHK] Cranial Extraction
SB: 2 [MR] Barter in Blood
SB: 3 [CHK] Rend Spirit
SB: 2 [CHK] Hideous Laughter
SB: 1 [CHK] Boseiju, Who Shelters All


Discuss!

[ZACO01]

Is it just me, or is that my build from the old thread? I could swear that is the last build that I posted in the pre ban MBC thread. That is pretty cool. Just in case I don't mind you posting it, but I would appreciate if you put my name and/or at least the deck name. If you wish to make the changes just PM me and I will provide you with the info. later.

[towarmforacoat]

Here's my version from the last thread.It needs some tweaking....Maybe NoSB....

Lands//
22 Swamp
2 Blinkmoth Nexus

Creatures//
3 Greater Harvester
2 Ogre Marauder

Spells//
2 Darksteel Brute
4 Wayfarer's Bauble
4 Talisman of Dominance
3 Rend Flesh
4 Death Cloud
2 Befoul
4 Barter in Blood
1 Distress
3 Echoing Decay
4 Consume Spirit

Aby suggestions would be appreciated!

[Angelfire]

Stick to what mbc is known for, discarding and spot removal. These decks are lacking in both departments. Running about 10 spot removal and 14 discards is good. You need to gain the early hand advantage and keep the board clean for Kokusho and then finish them with a Death Cloud or a Consume Spirit.

[Galvatron]

yeah i run 3 clouds 3 stones an 3 consumes3 areanas 4ofs include koko yukora
hidiouslaughter rend flesh

[Wild Card]

Stick to what mbc is known for, discarding and spot removal.

Yes... even if it doesn`t work in the current metagame ;)

These decks are lacking in both departments. Running about 10 spot removal and 14 discards is good. You need to gain the early hand advantage and keep the board clean for Kokusho and then finish them with a Death Cloud or a Consume Spirit.

O. k. ... these would be 24 Spells (spotremoval and discard)... adding about 24 lands will leave 12 slots for Kokusho, Death Cloud and Consume Spirit? Is that the deck you have in mind? (No carddraw?)
Then I would be interested in your exact build...

[Grimwall]

What are some of the standards you guys have come up with?

I thnk the must up to now are:

Discard

4 Distress
4 Waking Nightmare / Wrench Mind

Removal

2/3 Death Cloud
4 Echoing Decay
4 Rend Flesh
Consume Spirit

Creatures

3 Kokusho
3 Yukora
2/3 Greater Harvester

Card Drawing

4 Night's Whisper
Phyrexian Arena

What else have you come up with? I am still in the early stages of testing with my build, it seems to be promising, i'm just starting to tweak it. Any suggestions/techs?

My List:

4 Distress
4 Waking Nightmare
4 Night's Whisper
4 Rend Flesh
4 Echoing Decay
3 Oblivion Stone
3 Sickening Shoal
2 Death Cloud

3 Kokusho
3 Yukora
2 Greater Harvester

4 Chrome Mox
15 Swamp
1 Shizo
4 Blinkmoth Nexus

Sideboard:

3 Persecute
3 Nezumi Shortfang
4 Cranial Extraction
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Death Cloud
3 Hideous Laughter

I'm thinking of Phyrexian Arena, Night of Souls' Betrayal and Consume Spirit, any ideas on whether I should play them and what to take out for them?

And what do you prefer, Waking Nightmare or Wrench Mind?

[Galvatron]

you don't realy need the harvesters at all you culd go up to 4 koko(if you have them) and yukoras
IF you find you have to play decay alot run nosb an laughter in the main deck wakign nigh mare is ok but id rather run D34th cloud.( it causes discard too)
my reasons for not running harvester simple. with ponza becoming populer again harversters drawback becomes worse as ponzas G4m3 progresses

[Grimwall]

It's not a matter of Waking Nightmare or Death Cloud. I run them both. The thing is what do you prefer, Waking Nightmare or Wrench Mind?

For one mana you get to sometimes have an artifact discarded instead of 2 cards. It only becomes relevant in some matches however, MUC will maybe discard Shackles, which is not too bad anyway and BG still has no artifacts. Nightmare is better against Ponza, which can pitch an occasional late Mox and WW which can pitch an unneeded equipment. I still prefer Waking Nightmare though.

The Harvester is played to seal the deal, only when you know the opponent will have nothing to block it or you can remove the blockers. It's not a chump blocker or an occasional attacker. Testing shows it to win most games than it loses and there are many times where you can play extra Moxes to sacrifice. I love it...

[Phenix]

Waking nightmare isn't that hot really. The mana cost makes a lot of difference. If you need a lot of discard spells, I would use both distress and wrench mind.
Nezumi shortfang and Persecute are also very good maindeck options, and these two defenitely need to be in the side if they're not maindecked...

A few questions for in the new thread:
1) Which finishers? The best three are definitely kokusho, yokura and harvester, but what combination would be the best?

2) Death cloud or no? This is a very simple question, but a very important one too, because you really have to build your deck around it. I'd like some good explanations on this one... :)

3) Diabolic tutor and/or Extraplanar Lens. These are two slower cards which might become playable again in the new environment.
The tutor allows for a very stylish deck, with a lot of silver bullets in the form of one-ofs.
The lens allows for quick threats and huge consume spirits, but of course it's vulnerable to removal.

4) Removal package. We've already discussed this a lot, but there doesn't seem to be a general consensus. Some people hate echoing decay, some swear by it. Same for terror, rend flesh, shoal, laugther, barter, etc. - you see my point ;)
Some removal cards that aren't widely known, but are still viable in the right deck:
-Vicious hunger: can kill a decent amount of the crits around, and the life gain nicely compensates for our card drawing.
-Sever soul: can be very useful in a deck with good acceleration.


Think about these things guys :)

[SteffenS]

what do you think about this Deck:

4 Kokusho

4 Horobi

Spells

4 Consume Spirit

4 Dark Banishing

4 Distress

4 Echoing Decay

1 Cranial

2 Diablolic Tutor

1 Death Cloud

Artifacts

4 Wayfarer Bauble

2 Oblivion Stone

2 Lens

Enchantsment

2 Phyrexian Arena

Land

23 Swamp

Sideboard

4 Nights Souls of Betrayal

3 Cranial

4 Eradicate

1 Death Cloud

3 Nezumi Graverobber

Please give me some respons...

[towarmforacoat]

OK. I have a crazy idea for mono black that just might work.Don't remark without reading the ENTIRE idea.

First, use many mana accelerating artifacts like Guardian Idol, Talisman of Dominance, Wayfarers bauble etc.(Darkseel Brute doesn't hurt either) to accelerate a Death Cloud, wiping almost everything from the board.

But, you must have enough cards in hand NOT TO DISCARD March of the Machines. Play it next turn, and beat down with your Talismans, Idols, and Brutes. What makes this great is you don't need to constantly activate your Brutes and Idols.

This DOES NOT have to be the only win condition whatsoever. Kokusho and Yukora should still be used, this is just an alternate kill condition.

[Galvatron]

what?!
ok in firs of all in few weeks march isn not going to be that great. second you leave your self a victem to MD artifact h4t3. you also make youself to eradicate and splinter if all your going to do is splash blue for just march that idea is just plain bad. (and yes i read your whole post before i responed)

[towarmforacoat]

Why would somebody maindeck splinter, and why would somebody use it on a Wayfarer's Bauble or Talisman of Dominance?

With Affinity gone, there wil be no more maindeck Oxidizes, let alone Splinter. I am also not worried about Erradicate, because it can only target a creature, and wouldn't they rather use that on Kokusho?

Also, March doesn't have to be maindecked, it is a good sideboard choice and should be there no matter what!

[URABAHN]

Here's the deck I've been running on MTGO with modest success. I got the idea from the various Top 8 States results in Japan and Ohio. The thing they all had in common? AEther Vial. Of course, those results were before BoK, so I've had to make changes. One of the most important would be based on my opinion that Horobi isn't very good anymore. A perfect fit for the closer fattie spot would be Yokura, but he's terrible against U/G control packing Bribery, Shackles, and Echoing Truth.

18 Swamp
4 Ravenous Rats
4 Wrench Mind
3 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Chittering Rats
4 Echoing Decay
4 AEther Vial
3 Cranial Extraction
4 Nezumi Shortfang
4 Rend Flesh
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
4 Wicked Akuba
3 Yukora, the Prisoner
Sideboard
3 Royal Assassin
1 Terror
4 Distress
3 Hideous Laughter
4 Skullsnatcher

They way I've been boarding is as follows:

WW: -4 Akuba, +4 Distress, -4 Chittering Rats, +3 Royal Assassin, +1 Terror. Most WW decks I'm seeing are packing Karma or Ivory Mask in the SB and you've gotta get rid of it. Akuba is more for the control matchup as well as the Chittering Rats.

BoK Goblins: -4 Akuba, +4 Hideous Laughter. Unlike WW which has Glorious Anthem or Crafted Wargear to make their guys >2 toughness, Hideous Laughter serves as an excellent creature sweeper.

U/G Control: -3 Yokura, -4 Echoing Decay, +4 Distress, +3 Skullsnatcher. Gotta rip that Shackles from their hand, can't let them bring it back with Witness, don't let them Bribe your own 5/5 Demon SPIRIT that you can't deal with.

Tooth: -4 Echoing Decay, +4 Skullsnatcher, -4 Chittering Rats, +4 Distress. I believe Sensei's Diving Top makes Chittering Rats a non-threat which can be better served by Distress.

MBC: I haven't played a near creatureless or true creatureless version of MBC, which I think is indicitive of the new format. I've also seen all out Rat builds that play 8 removal spells and make use of Grave Pact. If you're playing against a rat build, I think you side in Hideous Laughter. If you're playing a hardcore control build, you need Distress. What you take out, I'm not sure.

There are a few questionable cards I've been thinking about. I like to hear everyone's view and experiences with the following cards and on the build I posted.

Terror - I wonder if this shouldn't replace Echoing Decay in the maindeck.

Eradicate - In testing, I never found a really good use for this card. Is it just me?

Nezumi Graverobber, Scrabbling Claws, Skullsnatcher - Will the best card for anti-Witness tech please stand up?

I hope this help expand the MBC discussion, feel free to PM me, e-mail me or say hey online, my screenname is bahnbahn. Look forward to hearing or reading from you all soon!

[Galvatron]

they wont man deck it silly they might side it though but all march was realy good for was all of rafinitys lartifact lands antre mox and jar after the ban takes efect marce is not that good anymore and mono black has better tech you might as well run genjus instead

[Titan33]

Waking nightmare isn't that hot really. The mana cost makes a lot of difference. If you need a lot of discard spells, I would use both distress and wrench mind.
Nezumi shortfang and Persecute are also very good maindeck options, and these two defenitely need to be in the side if they're not maindecked...

A few questions for in the new thread:
1) Which finishers? The best three are definitely kokusho, yokura and harvester, but what combination would be the best?

2) Death cloud or no? This is a very simple question, but a very important one too, because you really have to build your deck around it. I'd like some good explanations on this one... :)

3) Diabolic tutor and/or Extraplanar Lens. These are two slower cards which might become playable again in the new environment.
The tutor allows for a very stylish deck, with a lot of silver bullets in the form of one-ofs.
The lens allows for quick threats and huge consume spirits, but of course it's vulnerable to removal.

4) Removal package. We've already discussed this a lot, but there doesn't seem to be a general consensus. Some people hate echoing decay, some swear by it. Same for terror, rend flesh, shoal, laugther, barter, etc. - you see my point ;)
Some removal cards that aren't widely known, but are still viable in the right deck:
-Vicious hunger: can kill a decent amount of the crits around, and the life gain nicely compensates for our card drawing.
-Sever soul: can be very useful in a deck with good acceleration.


Think about these things guys :)

Here goes;
Discard Package.
I currently Run as of the new Bannings,
4 Distress
4 Wrench Mind.
I chose this package after some testing reults that showed almost completely that the discard packages are never dead game one vs ANY deck. Observe some things. ALL the agro decks have little to no ways to recover the card advantage lost. They have No card drawing engines to refil whatever losses they take. Also if one were to have a hand, which comes up often enough, where you have a turn 2 discard then you are easily removing a threat. Namely threats like Gloious Anthem. But even otherwise any threat removed is one less that sees play. Also in these decks' artifacts are at a minimum so Wrench Mind often goes all teh way. I dont think there is any need to explain these for the control matches.
For side i actually do run
3 Shortfang
3 Persecute
Obvous reasons

2. I have found that 4 Kokusho, 4 Yokura, 3 Guardian Idol, 1 Consume Spirit, 2 Stalking Stomes, 2 Blinkmoth Nexus. Are the best ways to deal damage. They also provide early defence vs Agro and early beats vs Control.

3. I am a Huge advocate of removing Dc from the deck completely.
Here i go again. Reasons:
A/: Vs control where you think you need it most. You have to focus on ramping up your mana inorder to use DC well. If you try to use it early say for 3 (6 mana) you a control deck has to 1. Discard, 2. Destroy your own lands, 3. remove the creatures you need to deal damage. the counter argument is well so what, the oponent hates it more. Well this is not true. Lets look:
1. MUC- they have thirst, Serum visions to draw . So these are 8 spells all playabe after a DC for three to easily recover. This will happen often. they have a total of 8 copies of these cards. They also have Meloku. If the player is smart all they have to do is one bounce some lands and make creatures this one action defeats ALL of DC's advantages. they fill thier hand to discard lands, they make creatures to counter the creaure loss, if necessary they even retain lands to play again. Oh BTW they have counters. The counter to this argument is well i'll just allow them to discard. So you intend to fight counters, Shackes, which can alow them to sac your creatures, and a resolved meloku before they gain board on you. Good luck, not impossible but unlikely.
B/: Tooth the main reason people advocate for DC.
Well lets take another look.
12 ways to get land, STE, Scrying, Etc.
3 of 12 lands that couple to make more than 3 mana (Urzatron).
Sensie's top to stack the deck after a DC.
Some Builds now have Solemn, who gets a land after you kill him.
Man it really seems like they hurt soo much. But you can nuke their hands some say. Tooth player might just hold 1 Witness. The counter: DC + hand disruption= GG. Well not so fast they already have more land advantage than you so you are supposed screw w/ hand quality. Now you want to DC which will in effect make you loose your Hand and make this a game of 2 Control decks, both topdecking. One with at least 4 ways to shuffle with better topdecks, Sensie's top, Witness and more land the other player. You w/ Phyrexian Arena, few lands, little ability to play around w/ anything in your deck. God forbid you draw a second DC. wow you just threw away your best match.
C/: U/G control
really same as MUC only add better mana accel and Eternal Witness.
for now this the Main control gauntlet.
The Agro. well do i have to explain

Tutor/ Lense:
Nice cards bad idea. Lense is easily removed by the U decks and suffers splash damage vs non U decks. Tutor is nice but you effective ly tap out for it. Their realy are no "bomb spells" to go for. (no not extraction) he best reason i think is Splice tricks w/ the Shoal. probably not worth it.

Removal Package: i cant tel you to choose one B/c it is Metagame dependent. REnd Flesh is obviously terible if you see lots of Sprits and MBC. Echoing decay is bad unless Meloku and Rude awkening are goin crazy. The most i can say for this is KNow your meta game and choose wisely and remember you have a SB for a reason.
Always tryingto help

[Galvatron]

no waycloud is still needed ho do you plan to get rid of the troll? he cant be targeted and you don't always draw barter in bl00d

[fookachu]

A few questions for in the new thread:
1) Which finishers? The best three are definitely kokusho, yokura and harvester, but what combination would be the best?
Harvester is fine in a tempo style deck where you are looking to press the board advantage by generating a lot of permanents you can sacrifice. Hopefully you'll get through and make it more painful for the opponent than for you.
IMO/E There is no real reason to run Harvester in a control deck, especially now that The Prisoner is present. Costs one less than Harvester, no upkeep cost. Ok, one point skinnier butt, but the speed advantage more than makes up for that.
Koshuko is just good. No doubt about it, so as you mention the only trouble is deciding numbers. I would suggest that a lot of it will have to do with how you want to play the deck. Brilliant!
If you want to go aggressive discard and perhaps a bit lighter on creature removal, I would run 4 Prisoner, 2-3 Koshuko. My (limited) playtesting with this configuration has TP functioning as virtual removal, so you can go about emptying the hand without worrying too much about any creature in play by turn 4.
OTOH, if you are looking for the war of attrition, you're probably removing everything in sight for the early game. I found that when I was playing the heavy removal package TP would hang out until later as I would be busy trying to kill things early on. Koshuko could have been cast instead.

2) Death cloud or no? This is a very simple question, but a very important one too, because you really have to build your deck around it. I'd like some good explanations on this one... :)
And it has an equally simple answer. It depends. What is the average cc of your deck? How curvy are you? Land ratio and alternate mana sources? Everything matters. Mox and Cloud go together, while Cloud doesn't play very well with Consume Spirit unless you are really into the whole alternate mana thing. I recognize its utility, but I personally do not like it in a control build. To me it has more of an aggro feel to it. It could just be me though.

3) Diabolic tutor and/or Extraplanar Lens. These are two slower cards which might become playable again in the new environment.
The tutor allows for a very stylish deck, with a lot of silver bullets in the form of one-ofs.
The lens allows for quick threats and huge consume spirits, but of course it's vulnerable to removal.
Lens allows you to give your opponent 3:1 advantage. Card, Land and mana. It is too bad, but I think artifact hate may diminish a little bit, but it is the arti-freaking-fact block after all, so the hate will still be out there. Maybe not maindeck, maybe not 4 Oxidize deep, but it'll be there. Which artifacts can you ignore? Swords? Jitte? The Lens is just collateral damage.

4) Removal package. We've already discussed this a lot, but there doesn't seem to be a general consensus. Some people hate echoing decay, some swear by it. Same for terror, rend flesh, shoal, laugther, barter, etc. - you see my point ;)

See point 2. Early Prisoner? No Barter in Blood maindeck. Barter in Blood and Koshuko go nicely though. Prisoner and Laughter are actually OK, just have to time it right. Laughter EOT, then attack. Laughter is good for a lot of matchups I see: Insects and Meloku tokens, Rude Lands and WWeenie.
Decay works for a lot of the same matchups, but it just isn't as effective IMO/E. Terror is still a good card, maybe a bit better as the number of artifact creatures may decline. In the end you are largely on your own. Let the shape of your (expected/sampled)meta make some decisions for you as well.

I'm going to end by making a plug for a card that IME does not get the respect it deserves: Beacon of Unrest. Consider it black's Eternal Witness. It gets your dead creatures. Your Prisoners and your koshukos. It gets your artifacts: Oblivion Stone and (techy)Mourner's Shield, Bottle Gnomes or whatever you want. It also gets all that from your opponent's graveyard. All that stuff you've been killing and making him discard. Yours! Brilliant!.


COM

[Galvatron]

Yeah i run 2 beacons in my deck its so fun to randomly there fatti that jus bought it again as foock detailed abob good for geeting your tech back too.
normaly me and fook don't se Eye to eye But we both can agree that beacon has a place in MBC.

[DarkDamon]

I find deathcloud isnt as needed now that affinity is gone, mainly because as a control deck, you dont want to hurt your mana base if possible. Barter I think is an important card vs tooth, because if they manage to get a tooth past your card discard, you can barter the cards they bring out, one of which will more than likely be a collossus.

[Wild Card]

About Splinter

We can expect for sure that artifacts will be played... Vendalken Shackles, Isochron Scepter, Talismane, (Stalking Stones/ Nexi), Mox, Extraplanar Lens...

Splinter will remove all of them for 4cc... I can`t see how this can be bad in an environment where Raffinity and KCI are gone, less artifacthate is needed maindeck to make all these other artifacts playable again.

Eradicate - In testing, I never found a really good use for this card. Is it just me?

Eradicate on an opposing Eternal Witness seems a good start for me...

[Titan33]

no waycloud is still needed ho do you plan to get rid of the troll? he cant be targeted and you don't always draw barter in bl00d

Hideous laughter is Better and far more versitile.
I like the Beacon tech though. Combine it w/ the discard and you can be doing some krazy shiz.

Oh now its official: Karma is in evey white SB. Mourner's Shield Anyone? Just joking i find a heavy discard package works well versus Karma and Karma/tempo (ramping up mana to play karma)

[Galvatron]

cloud is still needed aganst the tot and nail matchups as well as some control matchups it help you slow the opponents down

[lbg]

This is what I'm running right now. I don't have a playset of moxes, Kokusho or Cranial Extraction, otherwise I'd probably run all of them somewhere in the deck.

19 Swamp
1 Shinzo
2 Stalking Stones
//22 Land

4 Greater Harvester
3 Yukora
//7 Creature

3 Distress
3 Persecute
3 Hideous Laughter
4 Horobi's Whisper
4 Sickening Shoal
3 Phyrexian Arena
4 Guardian Idol
3 Consume Spirit
4 Barter in Blood
//31 Spells

SB
4 Eradicate
3 Oblivion Stone
1 Hideous Laughter
1 Distress
4 NOSB
2 Boseiju

My version runs heavy removal, but it's critical to clear the way for the harvester so he doesn't sit there eating your land while getting chumped. While I can live without the moxes and dragons, the lack of Cranials hurt as it hoses so many decks and would make O-Stone unneeded.

[Galvatron]

not ba i lik ppl who can make amazing decks with wit only what they have it shows you have inteligence and don't rely on sites to xerox your list. take this as a compliment. you have ingenuety.

[Wild Card]

My version runs heavy removal, but it's critical to clear the way for the harvester so he doesn't sit there eating your land while getting chumped.

Why not play NoSB maindeck then? Greater Harvester will stay big enough, but many chumpblockers won`t hit play at all...

[ZACO01]

Black Beast v.2
// Lands
1 [CHK] Shizo, Death's Storehouse
16 [UG] Swamp
1 [CHK] Boseiju, Who Shelters All
3 [MR] Stalking Stones

// Creatures
3 [CHK] Kokusho, the Evening Star
4 [BOK] Yukora, The Prisoner
3 [CHK] Nezumi Shortfang

// Spells
3 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [DS] Echoing Decay
4 [CHK] Distress
2 [MR] Barter in Blood
3 [MR] Consume Spirit
2 [CHK] Hideous Laughter
3 [8E] Phyrexian Arena
3 [8E] Dark Banishing
3 [MR] Wrench Mind
2 [BOK] Sickening Shoal

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [8E] Persecute
SB: 4 [CHK] Cranial Extraction
SB: 2 [MR] Barter in Blood
SB: 3 [CHK] Rend Spirit
SB: 2 [CHK] Hideous Laughter
SB: 1 [CHK] Boseiju, Who Shelters All

I find that the deck is doing fairly good. I have lost some games do to the deck I am up against, i.e. MUC. I also find that I really want Robo Jens MD. Yukora is a great card, but it doesn't play nice with Stabwhiskers. I find that if I were to put Jens MD and maybe Mr. Whiskers in the SB, the deck would gain massive advantage. Their removal would go from 1 for 2 (or 3) to 1 for 2 (or 3) look he gains a card and I loose 5 life wait!, he also gained 5 removal. I am trying to see where I should put him. What should I take out of the SB to make run for Mr. Whiskers. Also, should I be running O-stone. Please let me know what you think about the build? later.

[Grimwall]

Zac, I definitely think Oblivion Stone should be in there. It's not for Karma, I don't see White playable any time soon, but look at it this way:

MUC hates it, because the Stone destroys the permanents that hurt you: Shackles and some renadom card-drawing method, like the Honden or Tomorrow.

WW hates it, it is mass removal for them and it also takes out their equipment and Anthems.

Ponza hates it, it destroys their monimal threats, Slogger and the Genjus.

It also gives you a way to deal with randomness at any Tournament you get into and gives you a way to get rid of your Phyrexian Arena if it starts becoming much of a pain..

I'm all in for it. Other than that I like your list a lot!

[DarkDamon]

as far as MUC and WW goes, I found that culling scales works wonders against them. At the very least, its good for taking out shackles.

[Phenix]

Yea, culling scales can get about anything WW plays, with the sole exception of horobi (and karma). Only thing is that it's a little slow.

[ZACO01]

Grimwall: Thanks for the inside info. It made my decision to put it in even greater. Now the big question is, MD? SB? or a little of both? What do you think about the jens yukora deal? Thanks for saying that you really like my list, somehow it gave me a big boost, which I totally needed. I been really down as of late, but thanks to you I am excited about this build.

Yeah, I thought about scales but is no good if at least you got 2 in board and even then it could mean auto kill for each other. I agree, it is too slow.

[DarkDamon]

i was thinking of scales as more specifically, as a way of getting rid of shackles

[towarmforacoat]

Why not play NoSB maindeck then? Greater Harvester will stay big enough, but many chumpblockers won`t hit play at all...


NoSB should definately be included in the maindeck, or the sideboard at least. Especially in this deck that isn't creature heavy to begin with, the big MBC beaters like Kokusho and Greater Harveter won't be hurt that much.

The only one I don't see using with it is Yukora because then he becomes a 4/4 for four mana, which is decent, but not that good.

[Kulrog]

Yes , we should also play Hideous Laughter for it kills all but the most powerful creatures in current metagame (Kokusho , Meloku) . Futhermore Greater Harvester will not suffer greatly , mostly because his power work we he hits player .

As for lens : We shouldn't play more than 1 with some Diabolic Tutors to search for it . In early game it gives almost nothing but when it hits in the late game , lens with consume spirit can end the match .

And what do you think about playing Plague Wind (w little big aid of Lens) ?

[Grimwall]

Well, Zac, I run 3 Oblivions maindeck and 1 more in the sideboard, it makes me feel confortable against Shackles and anything else.

Culling Scales could starrt destroying Shackles, but only after having taken out your Moxen, which makes it even slower. Besides, the deck runs so much discard that you can deal with them in other ways. Did I mention that against MUC, the first Extraction usually hits after you have hit them with Distress/Wrench Mind/Nezumi Shortfang? Then you can deal with Shackles and you just need to draw one Oblivion to destroy the one already in play (if any).

Definitely Oblivions in the build. NoSB seems right, I'll playtest it. i'm still not solid on the Phyrexian Arena/Consume Spirit/Night's Whisper issue. More playtesting is at hand, but I really cant decide whic I prefer.

Zac, keep up the good work!! There come times when we all need some boost...Take yours as a well deserved one.

[ZACO01]

// Lands
1 [CHK] Shizo, Death's Storehouse
16 [UG] Swamp
1 [CHK] Boseiju, Who Shelters All
3 [MR] Stalking Stones

// Creatures
3 [CHK] Kokusho, the Evening Star
3 [CHK] Nezumi Shortfang
4 Yukora, the Prisoner

// Spells
3 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 [DS] Echoing Decay
4 [CHK] Distress
2 [MR] Barter in Blood
3 [MR] Consume Spirit
2 [CHK] Hideous Laughter
3 [8E] Phyrexian Arena
2 [8E] Dark Banishing
3 [MR] Wrench Mind
2 [BOK] Sickening Shoal
2 [MR] Oblivion Stone

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [CHK] Boseiju, Who Shelters All
SB: 2 [MR] Barter in Blood
SB: 2 [CHK] Hideous Laughter
SB: 3 [8E] Persecute
SB: 3 [CHK] Cranial Extraction
SB: 3 [CHK] Rend Spirit
SB: 1 [MR] Oblivion Stone

This is what I came up with. It kind of hurt taking out the 4th decay and the 3rd banishing, but it is basically swaping creature destuction for creature/more destruction. Ithought about putting an extra stone MD but that would put me at 61 cards and that is a total no-no. Ok, here is my other issue I am having:

[b] I also find that I really want Robo Jens MD. Yukora is a great card, but it doesn't play nice with Stabwhiskers. I find that if I were to put Jens MD and maybe Mr. Whiskers in the SB, the deck would gain massive advantage. Their removal would go from 1 for 2 (or 3) to 1 for 2 (or 3) look he gains a card and I loose 5 life wait!, he also gained 5 removal. I am trying to see where I should put him. What should I take out of the SB to make room for Mr. Whiskers?

Let me know what you all think. later.

[Titan33]

cloud is still needed aganst the tot and nail matchups as well as some control matchups it help you slow the opponents down

Hate to get over zealous but I have explained this so many times. Ill even show you over aprentice. Testsing shows complete ly to opposite of what you think:

Here goes;
Discard Package.
I currently Run as of the new Bannings,
4 Distress
4 Wrench Mind.
I chose this package after some testing reults that showed almost completely that the discard packages are never dead game one vs ANY deck. Observe some things. ALL the agro decks have little to no ways to recover the card advantage lost. They have No card drawing engines to refil whatever losses they take. Also if one were to have a hand, which comes up often enough, where you have a turn 2 discard then you are easily removing a threat. Namely threats like Gloious Anthem. But even otherwise any threat removed is one less that sees play. Also in these decks' artifacts are at a minimum so Wrench Mind often goes all teh way. I dont think there is any need to explain these for the control matches.
For side i actually do run
3 Shortfang
3 Persecute
Obvous reasons

2. I have found that 4 Kokusho, 4 Yokura, 3 Guardian Idol, 1 Consume Spirit, 2 Stalking Stomes, 2 Blinkmoth Nexus. Are the best ways to deal damage. They also provide early defence vs Agro and early beats vs Control.

3. I am a Huge advocate of removing Dc from the deck completely.
Here i go again. Reasons:
A/: Vs control where you think you need it most. You have to focus on ramping up your mana inorder to use DC well. If you try to use it early say for 3 (6 mana) you a control deck has to 1. Discard, 2. Destroy your own lands, 3. remove the creatures you need to deal damage. the counter argument is well so what, the oponent hates it more. Well this is not true. Lets look:
1. MUC- they have thirst, Serum visions to draw . So these are 8 spells all playabe after a DC for three to easily recover. This will happen often. they have a total of 8 copies of these cards. They also have Meloku. If the player is smart all they have to do is one bounce some lands and make creatures this one action defeats ALL of DC's advantages. they fill thier hand to discard lands, they make creatures to counter the creaure loss, if necessary they even retain lands to play again. Oh BTW they have counters. The counter to this argument is well i'll just allow them to discard. So you intend to fight counters, Shackes, which can alow them to sac your creatures, and a resolved meloku before they gain board on you. Good luck, not impossible but unlikely.
B/: Tooth the main reason people advocate for DC.
Well lets take another look.
12 ways to get land, STE, Scrying, Etc.
3 of 12 lands that couple to make more than 3 mana (Urzatron).
Sensie's top to stack the deck after a DC.
Some Builds now have Solemn, who gets a land after you kill him.
Man it really seems like they hurt soo much. But you can nuke their hands some say. Tooth player might just hold 1 Witness. The counter: DC + hand disruption= GG. Well not so fast they already have more land advantage than you so you are supposed screw w/ hand quality. Now you want to DC which will in effect make you loose your Hand and make this a game of 2 Control decks, both topdecking. One with at least 4 ways to shuffle with better topdecks, Sensie's top, Witness and more land the other player. You w/ Phyrexian Arena, few lands, little ability to play around w/ anything in your deck. God forbid you draw a second DC. wow you just threw away your best match.
C/: U/G control
really same as MUC only add better mana accel and Eternal Witness.
for now this the Main control gauntlet.
The Agro. well do i have to explain

Tutor/ Lense:
Nice cards bad idea. Lense is easily removed by the U decks and suffers splash damage vs non U decks. Tutor is nice but you effective ly tap out for it. Their realy are no "bomb spells" to go for. (no not extraction) he best reason i think is Splice tricks w/ the Shoal. probably not worth it.

Removal Package: i cant tel you to choose one B/c it is Metagame dependent. REnd Flesh is obviously terible if you see lots of Sprits and MBC. Echoing decay is bad unless Meloku and Rude awkening are goin crazy. The most i can say for this is KNow your meta game and choose wisely and remember you have a SB for a reason.
Always tryingto help
__________

NoSB is bad it has little to no effect on the board position and turns into a liability if you even dare tapout for it when you need it. The creature that might die to it have little effect on the game by the time NoSb hits play.

[TRIP0D]

This is what I have been working on latley,
It is based on a lock with greater harvester after a light death cloud

Creatures
3 Greater Harvester (lock)
4 Solemn Simulicrum (great sac effect after Cloud w/land get)
2 Ink Eyes, Servant Oni (buying creatures after persecute is easy)

Non-Creature Artifacts
4 guardian Idol (excellent for mana or beats after a Cloud)
4 chrome mox (if unneeded then toss to a harvester or use w/Night)

Spells
3 Phyrexian Arena (the number one draw card for black)
3 Night of Soul's Betrayal (kills 60% of the great creatures out there)
3 Echoing Decay (kills 20% of the useful creatures out there)
2 Barter in Blood (kills other pesky 20% of the creaures out there)
3 Death Cloud (Wrecks House, 50% of all decks fear this card)
4 Distress (sets you up in better position for persecute or extraction)
3 Persecute (the other 50% of all decks fear this card)
Land
4 Cloudpost (accelerate for high cost things)
17 Swamp (i thought this might be cool to test out)
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse (AWESOME with INK EYES)

Sideboard
4 Cranial Extractions (nuff said)
4 Mourner's Shield (one card black hates KARMA, answer)
3 Culling Scales (kills white weenie equipment)
4 Eradicate (takes out kiki's or witness)

[ZACO01]

// Lands
1 [CHK] Shizo, Death's Storehouse
18 [UG] Swamp
2 [MR] Stalking Stones

// Creatures
3 [CHK] Kokusho, the Evening Star
3 [CHK] Nezumi Shortfang
3 [BOK] Yukora, the Prisoner

// Spells
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 [DS] Echoing Decay
4 [CHK] Distress
2 [MR] Barter in Blood
3 [MR] Consume Spirit
2 [CHK] Hideous Laughter
3 [8E] Phyrexian Arena
3 [MR] Wrench Mind
2 [BOK] Sickening Shoal
2 [MR] Oblivion Stone
3 [BOK] Horobi's Whisper

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [MR] Barter in Blood
SB: 2 [CHK] Hideous Laughter
SB: 2 [MR] Oblivion Stone
SB: 3 [8E] Persecute
SB: 3 [CHK] Cranial Extraction
SB: 3 [CHK] Rend Spirit

After some games with some people I have made some changes. This is what I am running. I have come to the conclusion that boseiju is a pile of crap, and a bag of chips! I totally cut it. I am really thinking about also dropping the moxes for something more versatile, but don't know if that is final. Nezumi is teh hotness. Card is gold. It is midnight so I will go more in depth tomorrow. later.

[TRIP0D]

I think 3 bojitsu is essential in the board, I don't know why I dont have them.

[Galvatron]

yeah i got my bo trees i have a control heavy meta ialso run nosb main as well it dose help and it gets stonger with the bannings

[lbg]

This is what I have been working on latley,
It is based on a lock with greater harvester after a light death cloud

Creatures
3 Greater Harvester (lock)
4 Solemn Simulicrum (great sac effect after Cloud w/land get)
2 Ink Eyes, Servant Oni (buying creatures after persecute is easy)

Non-Creature Artifacts
4 guardian Idol (excellent for mana or beats after a Cloud)
4 chrome mox (if unneeded then toss to a harvester or use w/Night)

Spells
3 Phyrexian Arena (the number one draw card for black)
3 Night of Soul's Betrayal (kills 60% of the great creatures out there)
3 Echoing Decay (kills 20% of the useful creatures out there)
2 Barter in Blood (kills other pesky 20% of the creaures out there)
3 Death Cloud (Wrecks House, 50% of all decks fear this card)
4 Distress (sets you up in better position for persecute or extraction)
3 Persecute (the other 50% of all decks fear this card)
Land
4 Cloudpost (accelerate for high cost things)
17 Swamp (i thought this might be cool to test out)
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse (AWESOME with INK EYES)

Sideboard
4 Cranial Extractions (nuff said)
4 Mourner's Shield (one card black hates KARMA, answer)
3 Culling Scales (kills white weenie equipment)
4 Eradicate (takes out kiki's or witness)

I do like Ink-Eyes, and think it's an overlooked card. The real question is, with your build is it better than Kokusho? With Barter and Death cloud, losing your own Kokusho isn't a real loss - in fact, you might want to many times as it can deal those last 5 points with no way to stop it.

I don't think the Cloudposts are good idea. It worked for Tooth and it worked for white back in Onslaught, but they could search for more. At best you can usually hope for 2 the whole game. That just doesn't make up for the inconvience of getting them into play tapped.

You don't have any targeted removal maindeck? With only 2 barters, what you do if your opponent drops something out of decay range? Having to play a poorly timed deathcloud isn't something you want to do.

SB looks good, but I'm not sure Culling scales are a good idea. Yes, it's pretty devestating to WW, but the MBC is general is pretty devestating to WW. Just throw some more removal in instead to kill their stuff before it hits you.

[Grimwall]

I must admit that I prefer Death Cloud over Barter in Blood. More versatile and you have early removal anyway to survive. Phyrexian Arena definitely needs to be coupled with Consume Spirit, otherwise the life loss is too great. Consume Spirit should go in the place of Echoing Decay I think.

Other than that, I like NoSB in the maideck but I cannot find room for more than 2, and the sideboard is loaded with stuff that I'm not willing to replace yet. Sickening Shoal seems like it could be replaced with something better. Yeah, ok, we have it and it is a really cool card but, do we need it?

[ZACO01]

I think we do need the shoal. It is really good to be able to tap for koku and not have to worry about much. Man, you can even hardcast it no prob. I like the little tricks with laughter or whisper. I decided to cut banishing for whisper b/c the ability to splice it is insane, plus the few cards that regenarate can't be touched for the most part. Also, boseiju is totally not needed. Most of the stuff you really need for it to resolve cannot be protected by "Mr. I can protect you all". Maybe is my bad experiences with it. I am thinking about dropping the arenas for Night's Whisper. Arenas are showing up too late, plus I just need little boost at certain times and I think whispers can do that better. I will have to see how to up the number to 4 but is do-able. later.

[TRIP0D]

the only reason I run the posts is to cloud for big, and no black dragon for this is a plus because it is not as aggressive, it is more control, Ink eyes, meets devestating when grabbing a slogger, or a kiki, It just plays more controllish, and the only reason I am not running consume, is that when I get an arena, If I feel it is getting dangerouse, then I will sac it to the harvester, it works everytime. I went undefeated against all legal decks tonight and played against, T&N, Ponza, MBC, Belcher, Green beats, and finally MUC. It was wonderful.

[Galvatron]

koko combos with youkora and cloud its so good
heres a snippedt of what i run
4koko
4 yukora
3 cloud
2 nosb
3 consume spirit
4 mox
3 areana

[Grimwall]

I have been running Night's Whisper in the deck, they are ok, it's just that the Arena gives you the edge. It's more of a late game card, but I prefer it.

Consume Spirit is necessary when you play the Arena, you won't always draw a Harvester when you need it and it absolutely sucks to die on your own... Besides, the Consumes are removal on their own, and whaen was the last time you got card advantage with Echoing Decay which you couldn't get with NoSB?

[ZACO01]

I love arena but it always shows up too late. Have you guys had land problems. I seem to find myself more than I would want with land problems. I am going to test the whisper ad see if it works out. Probably, I will put jens back in. I'll see. later.

[DaMan12]

has anyone thought about using mind sludge?

[Phenix]

Persecute is generally better that mind sludge. The most important decks right now are mono colored or do rely heavy on a single color.
The one mana cost makes a huge difference, as with mind sludge your enemy can usually still cast one of his 4-5cc bombs, while persecute gets them before they can cast it.

[Galvatron]

I love arena but it always shows up too late. Have you guys had land problems. I seem to find myself more than I would want with land problems. I am going to test the whisper ad see if it works out. Probably, I will put jens back in. I'll see. later. i run 3 i see it early enough all the time to wer i dra it on turn 2-3 ir have it in my starting hand

[ZACO01]

i run 3 i see it early enough all the time to wer i dra it on turn 2-3 ir have it in my starting hand

I guess I am just too unlucky. I am giving whisper a try and if that doesn't wrk, prolly I'll try arenas again. My favorite card draw of all time (that is black) would be Tainted Pact. If something like that god printed I would be so happy. later.

[Galvatron]

just work on your shuffling techneques by the way the 6 pile shuffling dosn't work most of the time for m4 just good ol fasion riffle shuffling can making a few cuts in between

[Titan33]

Your phyrexian arena count shod depend on your build of MBC (there are multiple builds that work). If you choose to run a build that has both Chrome mox and Land fetchers (Bauble/solemn) and cards lie sickening shoal these cards cot you agdvantage even if they are a net good they still cost you advantage which can bite you. If the above is the case then you should run 4 copies of arena. therefore you have a greater chance of having the arena in your opening hand and replenishing your card loss. Also if you insist on playing Death Cloud (bad move) you realy should play 4 it can become essential to your control deck recovery after your own DC.
However the conditions for playing 3.
1.
More Agro Build:
You need this only to replenish your gas. so instead of a main reason to win (as in a card advantage war vs control decks) it works only to reinforce your threats.
2.
Mana Curve.
If your build has too many 3/4 spot cards you almost have to run 3 arena. If you choose to run more you will be stuck with a decision (arena or removal/persecute/yokura etc.). if you make the wrong decision you are stuck w/ -1 card due to your missed draw from Arena or yout comparative loss of card advantage to your oponent.

You really should not try to just blame it on shuffing as we are trying to improve the consistency of the deck. If shuffing is simpy the problem this has very little to do consistency. If you have a nice randomization your arena could be every 10 cards over a 30 card spread (if you play 3) that spread could be anywhere w/ respect to the top card of your deck down. But the need of arena depends on your build. if your deck matches any the above criteria you will know your needyness. some builds can survive w/o arena (running 3) some really need it (running 4).

Anybody want to apprentice your deck lists. I still have to prove how sup par DC is in MBC. Or if you jus want to test. Speculation is no good. Not testing your speculation vs reality is even worse, infact its irresponsible.

[Galvatron]

hey if my folk swaould let mt put apperentice on this box I would Btw i find DC to be very effective it combos well with kokusho witch i run 4 of by the way
yuou only need 3 DC it also dose not hur to main some NOSB

[towarmforacoat]

Persecute is generally better that mind sludge. The most important decks right now are mono colored or do rely heavy on a single color.
The one mana cost makes a huge difference, as with mind sludge your enemy can usually still cast one of his 4-5cc bombs, while persecute gets them before they can cast it.

I agree, Persecute should be included in the sideboard. Some MBC decks run Wayfarer's Bauble, and the Talismans, so this can be accelerated into turn three.

However, I think we need to include 8 maindeck discard spells. 4 Distress, and 4 Wrench Mind wrecks opponents. I have tested it extensively, and this type of "hand removal" as opposed to creature removal is the best kind. These spells can be taken out for Persecute in game 2.

[Galvatron]

I main 2 persicutes and 4 distress i us DC as my other 3 scources of discard

[Kulrog]

I think we should play 2 persicutes main plus 1 mind sludge

[silverwolf727]

Just a question for those who like DC in MBC. What mana base, ie lands, accelerators, artifacts are you running to recover from the DC?

[Rhino408]

Chrome Mox guardian idols and draw land from arena while desperately hoping for consume spirit.

Tainted Pact wasn't that cool and is not a draw spell that's just a tutor which in that case give me Demonic Tutor.

Best black draw that's a sorcery/instant is skeletal scrying no competition.

I think the kill is not gona be kokusho it's either Greater Harvester/Deadly Consume Spirit(s)

[arky305]

Would Horobi possibly be an option for the current Standard? Just wondering.

[ZACO01]

Rhino408: You are but a fool to think Tainted Pact wasn't cool. Scrying is good but is no pact. Fool!

IMO, DC is big as pile of :something:. The card wins games, I'll tell you that. I totally dislike it and would never play with it. If you wish to do so, go ahead.

arky305: You could test Horobi but I don't think you will get much out of it. Let us know how it goes. later.

[Galvatron]

I dis agree cloud has won me several comined with koko and some consume spirit horobi could se life in the sidboard beings how equips like the swords and the jitte are becoming populer i woill probably run idols maby 3 ill probaly run robo jens too if i can get them

[ZACO01]

Here is the lastest build I got. It is working wonders, with the occasional land screw. Right now it has been playing really smooth, and coming through for me when I need it the most.

Beasty in Black v.1
// Lands
1 [CHK] Shizo, Death's Storehouse
18 [UG] Swamp
2 [MR] Stalking Stones

// Creatures
3 [CHK] Kokusho, the Evening Star
3 [CHK] Nezumi Shortfang
3 Yukora, the Prisoner

// Spells
3 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 [DS] Echoing Decay
4 [CHK] Distress
2 [MR] Barter in Blood
3 [MR] Consume Spirit
2 [CHK] Hideous Laughter
4 [8E] Phyrexian Arena
3 [MR] Wrench Mind
2 [BOK] Sickening Shoal
2 [MR] Oblivion Stone
3 [BOK] Horobi's Whisper

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [MR] Barter in Blood
SB: 2 [CHK] Hideous Laughter
SB: 1 [MR] Oblivion Stone
SB: 3 [8E] Persecute
SB: 4 [CHK] Cranial Extraction
SB: 3 [CHK] Rend Spirit

[b]Galvatron: I specifically said that the card wins games. Rather unfortunate, but the big pile of :something: wins games. Read entire post before you go around disagreeing. later.

[Rhino408]

FLAME FLAME FLAME haha I flamed you.

Control with 21 lands??? UHHHH

Yukora or greater Harvester? Give me the Harvester

Barter in Blood and Hideous Laughter with shortfangs?

How can you play MBC w/o DC? It is not pile of :something: ur deck is lol.

Galvatron is right zaco

[ZACO01]

Please give me some constructive criticism. If not, then shut the hell up! later.

[Worsel]

Titan33: I sure would like to see your current decklist. Any chance of that? What removal do you use?

Here's what I've sorta' pieced together:

4 Distress
4 Wrench Mind
4 Kokusho
4 Yukora
3 Guardian Idol
4 Consume Spirit
3 Phyrexian Arena
4 Beacon of Unrest
3 Hideous Laughter
4 Horobi's Whisper
2 Barter in Blood
2 Stalking Stones
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
16 Swamp

Sideboard:
3 Nezumi Shortfang
3 Persecute
3 Mourner's Shield
3 Culling Scales
3 Eradicate

How does this compare to your actual list?

[Galvatron]

yuo need to runn or end flesh for som spot removal it wouldnt help to run rend spirit in THE SB

[ZACO01]

Yeah, I totally agree with Galvatron on this one. Another thing, 4 beacons? Isn't that too much? Plus you got the power of arenas. I wouldn't run more than 2, but that is a personal call. Either you kill a threat or beacon up one, tough call. The question must be asked, do you really think that beacon will come in more handy than a creature killer? I am not saying, " Do Not Run It!!!". I just think you couls use the extra 2 for something else. Please people let me know what you think about my build. I wish Grimwall was here, he does criticizes (constructively) other people's builds. later.

[Galvatron]

i run 2 beacons tops it great for getting back your stone or kousho or sombody elses duplicant but wouldnt run 4 thats way to much you dont use beacon that often except when you need to get your cretrs and artifacts back to keep the threats aqnd awnsers coming

[DarkDamon]

Rhino 408. Yes most MBC's use 21 lands, but they also use 3-4 chrome moxes and 2-3 guardian idols. So its more like 26-28 mana sources.

Greater harvester can be good, but its drawback is makes it fickle. yukora is a 5/5 for four, and its drawback barely affects mbc.

Obviously you don't play hideous laughter when your opp is locked by shortfangs.

using Deathcloud really depends on your build. I don't find it as useful now that affinity is gone, and control decks have taken that tier one spots. Hand discard seems to work better against them.

[deleau]

ZACO01,

I like your decklist a lot and have it put together and will playtest it this week and try it out in FNM. I will try and post some thoughts/results as I get them. On paper, I really like the build.

One thing I was going to test is to put the Nezumi in the board in place of the Cranial Extractions and put Guardian Idols in the Nezumi's place. Might be better synergy that way. Is there a match-up or card that I'm forgetting about that makes Cranial Extraction absolutely necessary to the point where no other card in the deck is capable of handling it?

[fookachu]

Another thing, 4 beacons? Isn't that too much? Plus you got the power of arenas. I wouldn't run more than 2, but that is a personal call. Either you kill a threat or beacon up one, tough call.

I agree. Just the duo of Beacons would probably serve you well enough.

COM

[ZACO01]

deleau: CE is a very necessary card. You need it. There are tons of matchups where this card shines. Also, do not put idol in unless you are running something like DC. T1 shortfang is very dangerous. I have won games where there was no way of winning just b/c of the early guy. They are going to try anything to get rid of it. Plus when you start throwing Distress and Wrench Mind at them it totally opens up for the fang to do the most damage. Test it out if you like, but if I were to move fang out of MD I would just swap him with something in the SB. later.

[DarkDamon]

if im not running deathcloud, what would you recommend playing in idols place then?

[Rhino408]

if you were ever online i would love to constructively criticize you

[ZACO01]

DarkDamon: If you are not playing moxes and using idols in its place then I guess it is cool. If you can get your hands on moxes. If you can't then just use idol. later.

[arky305]

Just more kills spells, I guess?

Anyway, here's my build (at present). Still working on it. Constructive critism appreciated. I only own 1 Death Cloud and 1 Stabwhisker. So...here it is.


16 Swamp
4 Blinkmoth Nexus

3 Beacon of Unrest
4 Distress
3 Cranial Extraction
4 Consume Spirit
4 Night's Whisper
4 Lose Hope
4 Rend Flesh
3 Eradicate
3 Barter in Blood

1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
3 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Horobi, Death's Wail

[Yayo-dude]

again :

how does MBC survive against ponza ?
karma ?
shackles ?
burn ?
decking ?

please answer ASAP !!!!!!!:b: :b: :b: :t: :0:

[arky305]

:confused: Wow, uh, I haven't a clue. Make sure they discard the good stuff and beat away as fast as possible, I guess. :b::D:b:

[Yayo-dude]

again :

how does MBC survive against ponza ?
karma ?
shackles ?
burn ?
decking ?

please answer ASAP !!!!!!!:b: :b: :b: :t: :0:

[jakethamac]

the best way to deal with ponza, karma, shackles, burn, and decking is discard.
you need to pack main deck wrench and distress and board in 3- 4 persicute. any mbc deck needs to pack mana acceleration with talisman, mox, gardian and simulacrum. you don't need to pack all of em, but most of them will do. and you need to keep them in check by out drawing them with nights whisper and phyrexian arena. by making them discard all of their countermagic, burn,and the other stuff they have nothing to play and you either consume spirit or beat down to win. and by packin so many arifacts you have mana to beat down with idol after the cloud. mbc has good synergy and is one of the best type 2 decks.
I play MUC in tourneys and my hardest match is MBC cause of the mana acceleration and discard but i manage to beat it about 50-60% of the time, mostly cause the person who plays it doesn't have mox or simulacrum for more acceleration.

[ZACO01]

Yayo-dude: This is the thing, if you are a MBC player you should have some idea of how to take of those problems. If you are just trying to be an @$$, just let me know and I'll get one of the mods to take care of you. Why do I mention the @$$ thing, b/c you are being one by posting the same thing. Now if you ask politely and decide to go into an in depth discussion of this, maybe one of us can help. later.

jakethamac: wow, you post was fine from line 2-3. Before and after those lines, you made almost no sense. A Karma will not care about your DC, it will still be there dealing you damage. Actually it might thank you for dealing yourself more damage. Ponza will keep at such a small amount of lands that you won't have time to DC to be able to stabilize. Read through your post and you will see what I mean. Read each sentence and think about it. Picture yourself playing against the deck. You pointed out the way to beat them or help yourself stabilize. The rest just made you look bad. later.

[DarkDamon]

i have moxes, i thought you said dont use idols if you arent running dc.

[ZACO01]

Srry, maybe I came out wrong. What I meant to say was. Use moxes over idols, but if no moxes then use idols or talisman. Hope that cleared everything up. later.

[Evanerick]

Ive played MBC ever since Odyssey rotated. not a lot but have done well with it in a few local tournaments. when ravager came about i just gave up on MBC, now that ravager is leaving...

MBC is about hand disruption and board control.
I dont think you need uber 15$ rares to win tournaments.
Maybe 2-4 depending on what cards you have and if they really help your deck.
so heres a budget build.

Spells

4 Mind Sludge
4 Distress
4 Barter In Blood
4 Consume Spirit
4 Dark Banishing
4 Echoing Decay
2 Diabolic Tutor
2 Genju of the Fens
2 Phyrexian Arena
2 Promise of Power

Creatures
2 Nezumi Graverobber
2 Nightmare

Land
24 Swamp

sb
4 extraction (if you have or can borrow them)
4 stone
4 terror
3-4 ??? maybe coercion, shattered, psychic spear (coercion suprisingly good when they are land screwed)

I still have to playtest this deck but cards like chrome mox and echoing decay can be dead weight late game when it counts, if i find something better for 4 maindeck ill just put the decays in sideboard. Promise of power is excellent late game when you have 11+ lands out. I dont know how it would fair in t2 after ravager since I havent played in a while but im optimistic.

[Galvatron]

JC wuy the night mares? imean you could run Yukora hes fairly easy to get it dosnt help to run hidious laghter an NOSB either

[Grimwall]

ZAC, I'm back!!! Thanks for the "I miss you" statement, it works wonders to my self-confidence.

On the matters that are being discussed lately:

First of all I have changed my build slightly, i won't post it again btu the changes from my last one (it should be on page 2 if anyone is interested) are:

-3 Night's Whisper
-1 Sickening Shoal
-4 Echoing Decay
-4 Blinkmoth Nexus

+3 Phyrexian Arena
+2 Night of Soul's Betrayal
+3 Consume Spirit
+3 Stalking Stones
+1 Swamp

I'm very satisfied to see that the deck rolls smoothly with the Arenas, Consume Spirits go very well with them and the NoSB fills the gap of Echoing Decay very well.

From then on, I still like Death Cloud, although I only play 2 in the maindeck and 1 more in the sideboard. Now that I'm running Arena I can't even think of cutting them, they are our only answers to creatures like Kodama of the North Tree, Troll Ascetic and DS Colossus, which cannot be removed by any other means short of discard and Barter in Blood, which I don't like.

4 Moxes are I think enough to help you recover from DC, as well as accellerate to turn 1 Shortfang/Distress/Wrench Mind. Guardian Idols are good, but they only have a place in a more controlling, DC-based build, which is not what I'm running.

Solemn, while good and tasteful, doesn't seem to have a place in this deck, more so due to the fact that I rarely have mana problems, and definitely prefer more removal over it.

P.S. Whoever doesn't see Troll Ascetic and Kodama of the North Tree having a place in the post-Bok metagame should definitely read again the card Enshrined Memories.

[Galvatron]

no argument from me kodoma north and troll ar nothing to lagh at Its one of the reason i run 3 clouds main you could use hidous laughter thogh it hurts trol and kira glass spinner if it becomes populer too

[Phenix]

Barter usually takes care pretty well of the untargetable baddies. Use spot removal on their other creatures to get them down to two or less, then barter away the irritating crits.

[ZACO01]

How are we suppose to deal with BG Death Cloud? I am having a hard time with the deck. Discard hits them but not as much. I really want to hear the strategy for this, specially from the players of MBC with DC. later.

[Kulrog]

Hm...I think running nightmare in board is good , just to deal with this annoying shackles :D

[Grimwall]

To deal with the BG matchup, you just need to see what strategy it uses to deal with the mirror. They side in discard.MBC is definitely better at it, Death Cloud is sided out anyway against them. Just bring in Persecute, Nezumi Shortfang and Cranial Extraction and start beating with the usual suspects. It's not the easiest matcup, but it's not that hard.

As for using Barter to deal with untargetable fatties, you should know better. You can't possibly count on drawing the necessary removal to eliminate ALL other creatures from their board and get them with Barter. Oblivion Stone helps against Kodama-North, Troll Ascetic can fortunately be dispatched by Hideous Laughter for those who run them main, although the Troll alone is not much of a proble, Yukora is much bigger...

[Yayo-dude]

seems like ZAC001 does not like simple minded questions neither amateur posters.
Any way , if I am an A$$ what´s to be done with it , lemme be so and stop your monodimensional and minimalisticaly correct existence.

what do you think about endless whispers ? ive been running a mono B deck with lots of removal and kill spells with 4 of EW plus 4 kokusho and scrabling claws .. . .works wonders.
Horboi´s also good , weird not to see him often , though.

[ZACO01]

The reason you don't see most people running horobi is b/c everyone is packing a legendary land of each type of basic land they running so they can deal with him.

I find that EW is somewhat slow and dead for the most part against a lot of decks, but at the same tyime it could be major power house against others. I have tried it and not liked it. If it works for you, congrats. I am really thinking about running the claws. It could mean gg sometimes.

[Yayo-dude]

My endless whisper deck , by the way

4 Endless Whispers
4 Devour in shadow
4 rend flesh
4 echoing decay / terror
3 barter
4 distress
3 pulse of the dross
4 guardian idol
3 scrabbling claws / wrench mind
4 kokusho

3 stalking stones ( blinkmoth nexus if i get some )
20 swamp

SB :

3 nezumi shortfang
3 mox
3 defense grid
3 sun droplet
3 yukora

it seems to hanlde very well every archetpe on my meta , except maybe Mono U Control :u: :t: :X: , whaddya thinka ?

yayo dude is everywhere !

[Galvatron]

Hm...I think running nightmare in board is good , just to deal with this annoying shackles :Dif you wanna deal with shackles just run damping matrix it hoses alot of other stuff too

[ZACO01]

I totally agree with you on matrix. It is wrecking ball. A lot of decks hate to see it. later.

[knax_15]

how about this build?

4 lose hope
3 rend flesh
3 horobis whisper
3 distress
3 mind sludge
3 nights whisper
2 divining top
1 cranial extraction

4 nekrataal
4 ogre marauder
3 horobi
3 kokusho
3 yukora

16 swamps
4 blinkmoth nexus
1 shizo death storehouse


SB:
3 cranial extraction
3 eradicate
4 hideous laughter
5 ??

its been doing good lately when i playtest it.. ive played against TaN, freshmaker, UG control and ravager affinity..

feel free to comment :)

[Galvatron]

knax ho dose it handel vs ponza,mono blue and mono white. Btw wouy the mind sluge? i did nor se any acceleration for it decent agro build thogh

[jakethamac]

hey could some people help me out with my MBC deck?

3 Kokusho, the Evening Star (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=12073)
3 Yukora, the Prisoner (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=12392)

4 Barter in Blood (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11378)
4 Consume Spirit (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11381)
4 Death Cloud (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11603)
4 Distress (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11980)
3 Hideous Laughter (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=12017)
3 Nausea (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11108)
3 Phyrexian Arena (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11112)
2 Talisman of Dominance (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11561)
2 Talisman of Indulgence (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11563)
4 Wrench Mind (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11405)

2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11953)
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=12167)
18 Swamp (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11293)

i know it needs spot removal and a little more mana acceleration and eradicate but i don't know what to take out and what to put in. i thought you guys could help

[Rusted]

@jakethemac
well imo i think echo is better then nausea...since affinity is going byby echo does the job pretty good usually. all tho it does target. i think the boseijus should be sideboarded as well. rend flesh is pretty good removal aswell.

maybe get rid of nausea, put in echo
swap boseiju for stones
maybe take out a consume and a dc and put in another of each talisman.


i do have a question for the others...whats a strong card against other control...i seem to be having the most trouble with muc.

[arky305]

I was working on my build today, and came up with this. It doesn't play bad, any suggestions would be welcome.

NOTE: I only own 1 Death Cloud, and didn't know if it would deserve only one slot, so I built around it.

Creatures -
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
3 Solemn SImulacrum

Spells -
1 Cranial Extraction
2 Hideous Laughter
4 Distress
3 Waking Nightmare
4 Consume Spirit
3 Beacon of Unrest
4 Horobi's Whisper
3 Rend Flesh
4 Night's Whisper

Artifacts -
2 Talisman of Dominance
2 Talisman of Indulgence

Lands -
1 Stalking Stones
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
15 Swamp

Working out a sideboard, I'll flip through these pages to see what everyone else would feel is a decent sideboard for the general metagame.

This deck destroys my red deck (3-0) but puts up a great fight against my WW. (Still loses, though. 0-3)

[Galvatron]

you could go down to 1 beacon try to get your hans on som persicutes.
it not half bad for a deck wahit waht you have on you se if you can get som yukoras too they go for no mr than 6

[Wild Card]

i do have a question for the others...whats a strong card against other control...i seem to be having the most trouble with muc.

A strong card against MUC? Discard in the form of Persecute (or Mind Sludge, which would take lands and Shackles) powered with Boseiju...

Playing 2 Boseiju maindeck could be one too much... but there is the possibility that MUC (U/G) will also play Boseiju to get rid of them... a second would not hurt too much.

[Galvatron]

okay jus becay rafintys gon dosnt mean you satrt maining them sluge righ now is terrable you have ponza ran RG ld to worry about i would rather get a spell throgh rather than hop to wrech ter hand and not get the mana i need or have the spell be countered and if that bouce deck becomes populer in my area i dont think i wana hope they run out of bounce spells to quote the arctiect " hope. It is both humanitys greatest strengh and weakness" in magic hope and being gullible is a BIG weakness

[jakethamac]

i got a tourney next week and i'd like to have this up and running by that time

3 Kokusho, the Evening Star (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=12073)
3 Yukora, the Prisoner (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=12392)

4 Barter in Blood (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11378)
4 Consume Spirit (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11381)
4 Death Cloud (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11603)
4 Distress (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11980)
3 Hideous Laughter (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=12017)
3 Nausea (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11108)
3 Phyrexian Arena (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11112)
2 Talisman of Dominance (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11561)
2 Talisman of Indulgence (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11563)
4 Wrench Mind (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11405)

2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11953)
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=12167)
18 Swamp (http://www.brainburst.com/db/search_result_card.asp?id=11293)

any help would be appreciated just picture me holding up a sign that says "help my deck out"

[ZACO01]

Change Nausea to Echoing Decay. I would love to help you but this is a type of build of MBC I don't go into. IMO drop DC and go the other way with it. Also, drop the indulgence and make them all dominace. If you play DC, play mox. You need to be able to do something first turn. Since this is not BG, you need as much acceleration as possible. One of the DC, can help even further. later.

[towarmforacoat]

What creature base are you guys using? Is Kokusho better than Greater Harvester? What makes Yukora so good?

If you guys could tell me how many creatures you run, and which ones, that would be really helpful. I can't make up my mind which ones to use.

[Rune13lade]

could someone please post a basic decklist of this deck so I can playtest with it?

Thanks

[magic_gazz]

Been working on this deck for some time, still not sure about how to build it. The problem is I dont really have anyone to test with.

This is what I have at the moment.

20 Swamp
4 Chrome Mox
4 Talisman of Dominance
4 Arena
4 Distress
4 Persecute
4 Echoing Decay
4 Devour in Shadow
4 Nezumi Shortfang
3 Kuksho
3 Death Cloud
2 Beacon of Unrest

Sideboard

4 Cranial Extraction
4 Oblivion Stone
4 Terror
3 Consume Spirit

I think this deck can probably handle most match ups but im open to changes if anyone can give me good reasons.

[The_Jolly_Imp]

hi im new...............:o

[The_Jolly_Imp]

wot does this deck aim 2 do?
tnx........:rolleyes:

[arky305]

Er, MBC is a black deck that has its eyes set on the total oblivion of all that is good and pure! *cough*

Accelerate mana, kill opponent's creatures, hopefully kill by attacking for mass damage with Yokura or Kokusho and Drain the hell out of them.

^^

[Kulrog]

Creatures in MBC are (the most popular of course) :

Kokusho, the Evening Star (javascript:void(0);) - one of the best creatures , when he lives it hurts , when he dies it hurts even greater :D

Greater Harvester (javascript:void(0);) - a true contol creature , it keeps enemies low , buying us time . Howerver he sometimes overdoes and kill opp w/o any help

Yukora, the Prisoner (javascript:void(0);) - he is quick and powerful plus his drawback does not hurt us much

Nezumi Shortfang (javascript:void(0);) - good control creature , but this little one dies just too quickly

what do you think , which one is the best in MBC ? (i skipped Solemn Simulacrum (javascript:void(0);) because he is not black :P (a mean in MtG card colour not skin :P))

[Galvatron]

simulacrum is good but you can only drop it 3rd-4th turn (asuming you play with chrome mox) thats the only poin all agrue other then that hes a good 3 for 1 deal

[towarmforacoat]

Simulacrum is good, but I'd rather use my four mana for something that will truly disrupt my opponent. Barter in Blood, 2xEchoing Decay, Persecute...

Simulacrum just chump blocks for a turn, and can't prevent nearly as much creature damage as any other black removal spell. And next turn you can tap out for a Greater Harvester anyway.

Solemn is a good card, but there are othe ways to accelerate your mana. And early game one needs removal.

[Galvatron]

I would too on 3rd turn id rather kill a creature or drop an areana on 4th tun i susualy persicute or extract orr drop Yukora. the only reason i MIGHT run them is becaus i main 3 clouds

[ZACO01]

If you are running DC, you want to have a guy like robojens around. He gives an extra land plus he gives you a card after the cloud which is good stuff. IMO, robojens is better than yukora for DC players. The idea is to kill the opponent with DC and/or kokusho and/or consume. I may be wrong for I am not a DC player. later.

[Galvatron]

yeah but i use clud as a finisher or just to hos the other player board i might run solems if i can get my hands on 2 more

[TRIP0D]

what does mono black do about shackles?
do they run culling scales or what?

[spedred6]

hey guys wats up again, i see alot of MBC decks that look like they have potential but u guys are missing someone that will be the deciding factor of MBC i think, Toshiro Umezawa, u only need to use about 16-20 instants to make this guy damn effective!! ive been using him in a build kind of like The Rock using green istants to get lots of mana and using black instants for spot removal, and i think hero`s demise is great whether your shooting down ur own kokusho for a ten point life swing or taking out there legends which u will surely see lots of them! well hope you take the info

Sped-:b::b::b::b::b:

[DaMan12]

Heres my evrsion of MBC, its slightly different from what you guys have been listing but not really, right now i have 5 open slots, i have currently been filling them with 3 diaboloic tutors, 1 cranial and 1 persecte, but ill leave those out for now, but i do really like the ability of a game 1 cranial or eprsecute, besides that for my mana acceleration i really like extraplana lense because it teams good with the genju or consume spirit for big damage. Ok here it is...

2x Yukora the Prisoner
4x Echoing Decay
4x Terror
2x Genju of the Fens
4x Distress
4x Consume Spirit
3x Extraplanar Lens
3x Kokusho the Evening Star
2x Phrexian Arena
3x Barter in Blood

1x Shizo Deaths Storehouse
23x Swamp

[spedred6]

Black is about constant beatdown with disruption its as simple as that. Look at Mike Flores MBC decks from way back when that won the Grand Prix with finkel piloting it! It was constant beatdown in the form of a decent size creature with spot removal, graveyard recursion through yawgmoth`s will and hand disruption! Guess what it won against everything, i think u guys are going about this MBC thing at the wrong approach, but thats just my oppinion, im going a totally different way with my MBC, i dont think harvester is the right answer anymore! Yokura and kokusho and toshiro umezawa are the way to go, the genju fens are ok but not really werth playing unless ur playing harvester which is going to b useless in the new format i predict. well ill leave it up to u guys to hopefully figure out! ill post my winning deck up later then.
Sped-:b::b::b::b::b:

[DarkDamon]

spedred: thats a good point, ive played mbc b4 and lost cause i couldnt get a win condition going. thats why in mbc id play 2-3 yukora, 3 kokusho, and stones/nexus.

[arky305]

My MBC plays 1 Kokusho, 3 Solemn Simulacrum, 1 Stones, and 4 Nexus. I used to run Horobi, but I decided to move them to the sideboard to wait for other decks. I definitely need more Stones, and more Kokusho. I wish I had Yukora.

And the Toshiro idea isn't bad, but it isn't for MBC.

[ZACO01]

Toshiro is an excellent card, but the card is designed to have decks built around it. Toshiro can control the board all by himself, but it also needs like 20 bodyguards b/c he cannot do it on his own. Red decks look at the guy and laugh. You will see more of him but not right now. later.

[Galvatron]

My MBC plays 1 Kokusho, 3 Solemn Simulacrum, 1 Stones, and 4 Nexus. I used to run Horobi, but I decided to move them to the sideboard to wait for other decks. I definitely need more Stones, and more Kokusho. I wish I had Yukora.

And the Toshiro idea isn't bad, but it isn't for MBC.
you can ge yukoer in the dark devotion precon
as for my MBC ereadicate saved my rear from tooth ERadicated his DS colosus and sundering titan It works belev me

[DarkDamon]

eradicate seems like an anti tooth sb card. too bad it doesnt work on black creatures. or else it would be good against enemy kokusho's.

[ZACO01]

If tooth gets colossus or titan, that means you might have taken too much damage already. I don't think Erradicate is that big of an answer but I guess it has to be tested before disregarding it. later.

[Galvatron]

If tooth gets colossus or titan, that means you might have taken too much damage already. I don't think Erradicate is that big of an answer but I guess it has to be tested before disregarding it. later. you know its funny toyu mention that caus thats exactly waht i revoved with eradicate the only thing i could se aganst koko is another koko or duplicant

[arky305]

No, Cranial Extraction is anti-tooth. Try it. Eradicate does nothing. I wish Rain of Tears was T2, then black would have something to do about the Urza-Tron.

[Galvatron]

cranial ex traction donst necicarly hurt thooth it just slows them down and force them to change gears.
You cranial there tooth chances are an experienceed tooth player has a backup plan a good player will be running sets of witness and tribe elder not to mention plow under.
Plow under stalls you out till they can drop a titan or a colosus. if you barter you slow them don a little and they in tun will witness back whatever they can.

see cranial is really efective if you cast it before they tooth or plow but eradicat is good AFTER thery tooth if you RFG the colosus after it hits the table they can't do that much damage to you.

duplicant costs 6 eradaicate costs 4 dont get me wrong duplicant is good but aganst tron tooth(yes pple are still running it) eradicate is more eficiant IMO duplicant should now be used to remove oposing dragons like keiga and koko.

[knax_15]

problem = answer

tooth and nail = cranial extraction
eternal witness = eradicate
plow under = mox/talisman
mirror match = persecute/distress/psychic spear
ponza / LD = mox/talisman/jens/death cloud
white winnie = hideous laughter/echoing decay

[Galvatron]

thanx for the info knax ill put it to som good use

[Worsel]

Galvatron, I don't want to get on your wrong side, or make an enemy, but man, I can't read a thing you write. Couldn't you slow down just a bit and try to spell a little more correctly... maybe even use some proper grammar and punctuation. I realise that the rules on this board are quite lax, but in some places you'd be booted off for your terrible spelling and grammar. What you have to say is important, but it's just so very difficult to read.

Anyways, I hope you don't mind me bringing it up.

[keyblade]

wow, seems like everyone is bashing him for that.

[Worsel]

I'm not bashing... I think I was quite polite. I believe what he has to say is very important... it's just kind of illegible.

Anyways, we probably shouldn't waste space talking about this... some boards kick you off, or delete your posts for straying off the topic.

[fookachu]

wow, seems like everyone is bashing him for that.

Not bashing, gently trying to effect a change in his writing that would benefit all. I've tried. I still ride him about the really bad ones, but Galvy seems immune to pleas from the squinty eyed masses.


COM

[silent_hound]

I just generally ignore his posts and speed on to the next (unless it's also his)

[TripleAgent]

Question: I tried top to complement arena in my last tournament, and made top 4. Pretty good interactions. But with no shuffle, I still had to filter past some bad stuff. My question is, should I just run pendant instead, and just be sure the top card of the 2 I draw will be useful or be gone? All opinions welcome.

[Titan33]

problem = answer

tooth and nail = cranial extraction
eternal witness = eradicate
plow under = mox/talisman
mirror match = persecute/distress/psychic spear
ponza / LD = mox/talisman/jens/death cloud
white winnie = hideous laughter/echoing decay

I would have to critique some of your answers here. the first two are acceptable (as far as i an concerned)
Um PLow Under answer is Talisman and Mox. I would have to disagree. Mox alreadys costs you one card presumably in the early game. and the talisman can be treated a acceleration. however when you are at a certain point say the 4 mana mark due to talisman and Moxen if you get plowed here you loose 2 and go back to 2 mana sources. next turn its 3. also now you have 2 turns to draw land. this is also no good as they now have tremendus tempo advantage on you. Almost all plans if any are posponed 2 turns. An idea that a mox in hand is good b/c it will regain your tempo is bad. because now they have taken your option (the imprinted card) away from you.

Mirror- Psycic Spear??
decent tech but wrench mind does much more. Or better yet how about mourner's shield. this way they cant damage you. (at least if it resolves). Shield also buys you time w/ karma.

Ponza/ LD- all your other options work out however Mox can be a liablity. You can end up loosing much advantage due to it. And i wont do an Anti DC rant but. DC is about useless here. You really dont ramp up enough especialy if they are using LD.Youll hurt your self more trying to use it vs. them. Just try to resolve a Yokura (yes even over solemn) and you will now have thier attention. then try to keep Arc-slogger of the board and youll be fine really. most Ponza builds dont play Volcanic Hammer so Yokura take 3 for 1. your thirds option is persecute and Hand Control. Ponza folds worse to hand control than a "control" deck. they really cant recover from loosing their opening hand.

WW- Hideous Laughter only works if no Anthem is on board. if so you just lost a card slot. Mind you even if Anthem is on board it helps take out the samll dudes but it cand go the distance. Echoing Decay is a good spell but i really prefer terror. especially w/ all the equipment out there. You will often find yourself topdecking (or atleast hoping to topdeck) some answer. becasue of this my curret removal package is ....versitile.

[knax_15]

I would have to critique some of your answers here. the first two are acceptable (as far as i an concerned)
Um PLow Under answer is Talisman and Mox. I would have to disagree. Mox alreadys costs you one card presumably in the early game. and the talisman can be treated a acceleration. however when you are at a certain point say the 4 mana mark due to talisman and Moxen if you get plowed here you loose 2 and go back to 2 mana sources. next turn its 3. also now you have 2 turns to draw land. this is also no good as they now have tremendus tempo advantage on you. Almost all plans if any are posponed 2 turns. An idea that a mox in hand is good b/c it will regain your tempo is bad. because now they have taken your option (the imprinted card) away from you.

Mirror- Psycic Spear??
decent tech but wrench mind does much more. Or better yet how about mourner's shield. this way they cant damage you. (at least if it resolves). Shield also buys you time w/ karma.

Ponza/ LD- all your other options work out however Mox can be a liablity. You can end up loosing much advantage due to it. And i wont do an Anti DC rant but. DC is about useless here. You really dont ramp up enough especialy if they are using LD.Youll hurt your self more trying to use it vs. them. Just try to resolve a Yokura (yes even over solemn) and you will now have thier attention. then try to keep Arc-slogger of the board and youll be fine really. most Ponza builds dont play Volcanic Hammer so Yokura take 3 for 1. your thirds option is persecute and Hand Control. Ponza folds worse to hand control than a "control" deck. they really cant recover from loosing their opening hand.

WW- Hideous Laughter only works if no Anthem is on board. if so you just lost a card slot. Mind you even if Anthem is on board it helps take out the samll dudes but it cand go the distance. Echoing Decay is a good spell but i really prefer terror. especially w/ all the equipment out there. You will often find yourself topdecking (or atleast hoping to topdeck) some answer. becasue of this my curret removal package is ....versitile.

youd have to use mox/talisman early game to avoid getting screwed when you get plowed. basically plow under can be casted in turn 4 or turn 3 with BoP.. during that time, youd have 5mana on turn 3 and 6 mana on turn 4 meaning you can play kukoshu or yokura before they can plow you..

on the mirror match, i choose psychic spear over wrench mind simply because you can look at your opponents hand which is more important to me than them discarding 2 useless cards from their hand. mostly MBC decks have lots of arcane spells like extraction, sickening shoal and most creature removals are arcanes.. also most creatures are spirits, so this is good naturally for mirrors..

ponza/LD = i agree with you that DC is a litle useless here but with acceleration in hand with mox/talisman/jens, DC could be an option but more importantly a finisher as LD tends to loose steam in turns 5 to 6.. however, persecute is the best thing here as you can play them in turn 2.

WW = i go with hideous laughter and echoing simply because black still lacks that mass creature kill ala mutilate.. im not saying those 2 are the only removal spells in the deck. of course there are other cards as well.. terror, dark ban, rend flesh, horobis whisper, barter in blood, eradicate.. the only mass kill worthy of being in MBC is O-stone but is rather slow against WW. maybe good against SB to destroy karma, anthems and other enchanments..


feel free to comment though.. :) as all of us know, its always a different game everywhere.. really depends on the meta.. :)

[Galvatron]

I was playtesing a gansty a rock build last night Man that is a tough matchupf for MBC he kep witbnessing back his plow eventual i Eradicaetede his witness that hurt him alot. eradicat saved me in a couple matchups VS tooth eradicating ther colosus an titan wrecks them I dropped night of souls so hoe could play his tribelders and his wines became a 3 cc regrowth. that bought me some tim to frop koko daraw a cloud. after he drops an angel i clouded for the win I definitl;y see the need for DC and eradicat in the main board

[lotus petal]

Try

4 cocoa puffs
4 yukora
4 rend flesh
4 hideous
4 midnight covenant
and please run shortfang
its pure genius on a stick

[Galvatron]

I alredy run all of that LP i don't like to post my list thats all

[Worsel]

Sorry, but what is a "Cocoa Puffs"?

[Galvatron]

probably kokusho I just call it koko the magic dragon LOL

[Yayo-dude]

i say

F
U
C
K

U
zac001 ! let there be some advisor ban me from here !!!!!

[TripleAgent]

Question: I tried Sensei's Divining Top to complement Arena in my last tournament, and made top 4. Pretty good interactions. But with no shuffle, I still had to filter past some bad stuff. My question is, should I just run Darksteel Pendant instead, and just be sure the top card of the 2 I draw will be useful or be gone? All opinions welcome.


Anyone????

[DaMan12]

how come no one runs the black genju? i find it great late game or even once turn 4 or 5 hits and i got a lens out.

[ZACO01]

i say

F
U
C
K

U
zac001 ! let there be some advisor ban me from here !!!!!

I have no idea what your problem is with me or with anyone, but I will contact someone to take care of your childish behavior. And btw, I was right. You know what I am talking about. Oh, and I would appreciate if you stop posting my name in random threads. Have fun with the mods. later.

[Blackness]

I know this group is split between the Cloud MBCers and the Technical and old Fashioned MBC decks. I have a proposal that might be very well at handling all types of decks; it has a transforming SB from DC MBC to Aggro. I havent refined/tested it, but it's just a thought.

3 Persecute
4 Distress
4 Chrome Mox
3 Guardian Idol
4 Phyrexian Arena
4 Death Cloud
4 Eradicate
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Kokusho, the Evening Star
3 Blinkmoth Nexus
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
18 Swamp
4 Terror
SB: 4 Wicked Akuba
SB: 4 Cranial Extraction
SB: 4 Nezumi Shortfang
SB: 3 Yukora the Prisoner

It isnt very refined or tweaked, I would like to find room for Night of Souls Betrayal or somehow work out the killing package because I dont think terror is too strong right now. Just an idea, maybe we could go from aggro MBC to Cloud MBC the other way around from SB, pick to your choosing.

[DaMan12]

I just don't like death cloud MBC decks, the card is better kept in the sideboard. Once you bring deathcloud into the maindeck many other cards such as idols and talismans must be brought in with it, and then many key cards must be eliminated only to help you survivie your own deathcloud. Once that is done the deck is left without enough key cards to win with unless the death cloud can be pulled off.As well this deck does not have the mana recorvery to survive after a cloud and many faster decks will take advantage of that.

[jakethamac]

i hate when people post MBA decks in an MBC forum in your standard MBC decks you will see mana acceleration, hand control, draw power, creature control and very few big fat creatures to take down their life. but in MBA i've noticed that there is mana acceleration and they hope to beat down the oppenent faster than goblin bidding decks did, there is almost no control aspect of MBA, maybe a distress here and there and the basic creature destruction spell but thats it. thats the difference is between MBA & MBC

MBC
mana acceleration-you have talisman of dominanace, talisman of indulgance, crome mox,and maybe gardian idol, personally i hate idol because it comes into play tapped.
the hand control is mainly 2 different cards in the main deck. wrench mind, and distress. i know it's missing persacute. but i think it's more of a sideboard card.
your draw power also comes from 2 cards. phyrexian arena and nights whisper. i prefer the arena because its every turn you draw an extra card.
your creature control comes alot of places, terror, rend frlesh, rend spirit, dark banishing, and a number of other spells
your big fatties/win conditions are yokura, the prisoner, kokusho, the evening star and consume spirit. they send the beats while you consume them for life gain to counteract the arena and death cloud, and as a win condition. now every little aspect-card draw and +land d is death cloud. it kills creatures, no questions asked, it makes them discard, makes them lose life, kills their land and owns their arse.
any MBC player that is not running cloud should not play mbc or even call their deck mbc because it is then more aggro and less control

now MBA uses very few control spells and sucks alot and should not be posted on an MBC forum. make a seperate thread to have MBA. never try to combine MBC and MBA because then it takes away the dignity of MBC and the little dignity MBA has.

[ZACO01]

i hate when people post MBA decks in an MBC forum in your standard MBC decks you will see mana acceleration, hand control, draw power, creature control and very few big fat creatures to take down their life. but in MBA i've noticed that there is mana acceleration and they hope to beat down the oppenent faster than goblin bidding decks did, there is almost no control aspect of MBA, maybe a distress here and there and the basic creature destruction spell but thats it. thats the difference is between MBA & MBC

MBC
mana acceleration-you have talisman of dominanace, talisman of indulgance, crome mox,and maybe gardian idol, personally i hate idol because it comes into play tapped.
the hand control is mainly 2 different cards in the main deck. wrench mind, and distress. i know it's missing persacute. but i think it's more of a sideboard card.
your draw power also comes from 2 cards. phyrexian arena and nights whisper. i prefer the arena because its every turn you draw an extra card.
your creature control comes alot of places, terror, rend frlesh, rend spirit, dark banishing, and a number of other spells
your big fatties/win conditions are yokura, the prisoner, kokusho, the evening star and consume spirit. they send the beats while you consume them for life gain to counteract the arena and death cloud, and as a win condition. now every little aspect-card draw and +land d is death cloud. it kills creatures, no questions asked, it makes them discard, makes them lose life, kills their land and owns their arse.
any MBC player that is not running cloud should not play mbc or even call their deck mbc because it is then more aggro and less control

now MBA uses very few control spells and sucks alot and should not be posted on an MBC forum. make a seperate thread to have MBA. never try to combine MBC and MBA because then it takes away the dignity of MBC and the little dignity MBA has.

Rhino408 has told me that he doesn't want to post in this website b/c there are endless amount of players that are just good at all and don't want to take an helping hand. Now I know what he was talking about. He was talking about people like you. You are the biggest fool I have seen post in this thread, other than Yayo-dude (he owns you at that). If you are last post was about Blackness' post, then you are an even fool than what I thought. The deck he posted was a control that can shift to a quasi MBA. There are changes that can be made to make it 100% control. I like the fact he has put 2 types of MBC together. I totally dislike DC, but if it is offered that way I could try it. I will hit the changes that should be made to his deck later. jakethamac, there are tons of versions of MBC. Some are more aggro than others, but doesn't mean the deck is MBA. You need to be able to comprehend that fact. Sometimes being a little bit more aggro is what define the outcome of a match in your favor. Your post had good parts and awful parts. The part where you go in to define what MBC is , had some pretty decent points. Then you make to make comments like the following:

"any MBC player that is not running cloud should not play mbc or even call their deck mbc because it is then more aggro and less control"

I have seen MBC decks that are less aggro than DC decks. This statement let me know the fool you are. Use the gray matter that was put in that skull, it is there for a reason. My MBC doesn't run that big pile known as DC, and it is as MBC as yours or even more. Imo, you are a total fool and everyone should disregard anything that you post. Instead of making unproductive post, why don't you help other people out? Oh, just so you know, there are plenty of MBA decks that kick MBC decks' @$$ all the time. I have wasted enough of my time on you. Now, to the real reason why I am posting.

I know this group is split between the Cloud MBCers and the Technical and old Fashioned MBC decks. I have a proposal that might be very well at handling all types of decks; it has a transforming SB from DC MBC to Aggro. I havent refined/tested it, but it's just a thought.

3 Persecute
4 Distress
4 Chrome Mox
3 Guardian Idol
4 Phyrexian Arena
4 Death Cloud
4 Eradicate
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Kokusho, the Evening Star
3 Blinkmoth Nexus
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
18 Swamp
4 Terror
SB: 4 Wicked Akuba
SB: 4 Cranial Extraction
SB: 4 Nezumi Shortfang
SB: 3 Yukora the Prisoner

It isnt very refined or tweaked, I would like to find room for Night of Souls Betrayal or somehow work out the killing package because I dont think terror is too strong right now. Just an idea, maybe we could go from aggro MBC to Cloud MBC the other way around from SB, pick to your choosing.

I love what you have done. You have made 2 families come together for the biggest reunion. I am not one of those DC lovers but I can see myself playing this. It needs to be tweaked. Now, something you want to do is be able to change from DC MBC to traditional MBC. You SB is making the MD too MBA. Now this are the changes I would make to make it work as you want:

MD changes
-4 Erradicate
-4 Terror
-3 Persecute
+4 Wrench Mind
+3 Horobi's Whisper
+3 Sickening Shoal
+2 Hideous Laughter

Sb changes
-4 Wicked Akuba
+3 Persecute
+1 Hideous Laughter

Those changes make the transition from DC MBC to Traditional MBC, and vice-versa. Let me know what you think. I will give it a try. later.

[Titan33]

Some stuff:
Knax:
1. I see you are using the talisan as "tempo evasion" to replace teh loss due to Plow. However if a player were to see a resovled fatty this would dramatically change the game plan of said player. I can rarely imagine a case where the right play, after seeig a Kokusho on my oponents board, is to Plow under. Its just rare. iun the usual case i would expect the green player to try for a race by playing more creatures otherwise he just time walked you. I guess in this way the accel is more of a deterent that could lead to a non Plow under game state. If you take this however this means you must have a threat or my old argument stands.

I still have to maintain Psysic spear is inferior to Wrench mind in the mirror. yes you do take a spirt or arcane. for the mirror however cranial extraction (if you play it) and the creatures are teh only relevant cards PS takes. w/ Wrench mind you can possibly net anything. I also think i just enjoy the idea of getting a potential 2 for 1. if you like PS more the WM play it but be warned.

true Ponza on average does loose gas by turn 5-6 (unless teh have top) but w/ teh hand-D package (WM,Distress, Persecute) you can cut thier turns to turn 3 -4. I really dont likethe idea of keeping a dead card around till they migh run out of gas.

WW- a bad match any way you cut it. i have mourner's shield to come in so karma is somewhat placated.
__________________________

teh Dc debate

DaMan12 :::
I just don't like death cloud MBC decks, the card is better kept in the sideboard. Once you bring deathcloud into the maindeck many other cards such as idols and talismans must be brought in with it, and then many key cards must be eliminated only to help you survivie your own deathcloud. Once that is done the deck is left without enough key cards to win with unless the death cloud can be pulled off.As well this deck does not have the mana recorvery to survive after a cloud and many faster decks will take advantage of that.

this is why i ahve found myself removing DC from everywhere. and its really not all that good vs tooth (the main reason many play it)

__________________________
The Agro switch is a nice idea but b/c of the nature of MB-Anything our SB's have to be used to improve matches. there are way too many threating cards that come of SB's against MBC. I dont know if you noticed this but many of the testing losses in MBC come in games 2 & 3.
_________________

to the idiot, Jake the mac running DC + consume good luck w/ that. Also You have just said DC must be in every MBC deck or it is not a control deck. well i guess up until teh time you draw your DC or even till you get to play your DC your are playing some agro deck right. I mean Hand CONTROL, creature CONTROL, board CONTROL elements make no difference. No DEc no control. and if your tired you might want to get some sleep, you might need it more than the rest.
_________________

Black Genju:
great little dude but if you get him early he usally sits there whist you try to gain control. he really isnt nantuko shade by a long shot.
__________________
Sensie's top is a good card but so is DS pendant. see arena, top and pendant are all replenshable. compared to depletabe liek thirst, A. recall etc. these cards will always generate CA. But if you have too many they becom redundant this is a big prob w/ MBC in general. How do you efficiently get your CA spells consistently. 4 Arena, 2 DS Pendant, might me a good number to try. ill look into it. And yes w/ top you need something to shuffel. Just like brainstorm. and multiple tops are usually no good.

[knax_15]

is promise of power still playable in todays meta? i find it better than nights whisper simply because it draws 5 or becomes a creature when nedden to. however the drawback is that it loses you 5 life and it costs more.. but with arena, turbo lands and consume, we can really use this card than whispers.. or am i wrong? :)

genju is not that bad however its not that good either. unless you have lotsa mana, its deemed useless till you have board control..

for me, the best creatures for MBC right now are: yokura, horobi and kokusho. 3 of each in a deck are enough with other removal spells, hand-D and mana accel.. of course theres always blinkmoth nexus and stalking stones to go along with it..

most difficult match-up for MBC would have to be ponza and WW. it doesnt have that much problem with TaN, BG cloud, and mono blue..

DC is not that good for most MBC decks, unless you build your deck around it. it needs lots of mana, mox, talismans, idols.. thereby lessenig your chances of getting removal spells and creatures.. persecute is way better to put in maindeck rather than DC.

[Galvatron]

Dc is amazing vs tan n bonza is not that populer yet i have to put up with green players so i played agans a cpupel of beacon decks and tooth

[Titan33]

Dc is amazing vs tan n bonza is not that populer yet i have to put up with green players so i played agans a cpupel of beacon decks and tooth

DC is amazing, just not in MBC. What it gives you isnt enough to justify the main deck losses it makes you take in the form of extra accel and additional cuts your mana curve must take. add to that the FACT that other decks just recover from it so much better than you and that these decks can easily avoid it inthe first place and DC becomes a loosing proposition. And how is Dc good vs beacon. i have updated my list to put NoSb in the board for this purpose (plus the Meloku factor). there are so many other things your deck could be doing that provide true advantage.

[lbg]

I'd have to say no to DC in this deck as well. Sometimes it can win the game for you and sometimes it can lose the game for you. I often found it to be a dead card in my hand, as it would hurt me as much or more than my opponent. It works in B/G because they have the acceleration to recover first from it. Unless you have an arena and a couple artifact mana sources out, this deck recovers slower than most other decks. It's not really something you can side in and out as your decklist will often be built around it. I'd rather use Consume Spirit as a surprise finisher here.

Also, why use DC against Tooth when Cranial works so much better? One Cranial will hurt them badly, two and it's probably game for them.

[lbg]

is promise of power still playable in todays meta? i find it better than nights whisper simply because it draws 5 or becomes a creature when nedden to. however the drawback is that it loses you 5 life and it costs more.. but with arena, turbo lands and consume, we can really use this card than whispers.. or am i wrong? :)

genju is not that bad however its not that good either. unless you have lotsa mana, its deemed useless till you have board control..

for me, the best creatures for MBC right now are: yokura, horobi and kokusho. 3 of each in a deck are enough with other removal spells, hand-D and mana accel.. of course theres always blinkmoth nexus and stalking stones to go along with it..

most difficult match-up for MBC would have to be ponza and WW. it doesnt have that much problem with TaN, BG cloud, and mono blue..

DC is not that good for most MBC decks, unless you build your deck around it. it needs lots of mana, mox, talismans, idols.. thereby lessenig your chances of getting removal spells and creatures.. persecute is way better to put in maindeck rather than DC.

Promise of power could be of use in B/G, but you're never going to get the entwine here. 5 mana and 5 life for 5 cards is steep. Not only does it hurt you a lot, but you get hurt a lot while being tapped out. By the time you hit 5 mana, it's unlikely the creature option will be useful without entwine.

I agree the Genju is crap. There's simply no reason to use it with Stalking stones, Blinkmoth, and Guardian Idol being better options.

I'm not sure about Horobi. A 4/4 flier for 4 is nice, but not when he drops dead to pretty much anything. Plus most decks run a legendary land just for fun, which gives even green an easy out against him.

MUC isn't a bad matchup? Black has nothing to get rid of Shackles, aside from subpar choices like O-Stone and Culling Scales. If they get a Shackles out, it's pretty much game.

[Galvatron]

I'd have to say no to DC in this deck as well. Sometimes it can win the for you and sometimes it can lose the for you. I often found it to be a card in my hand, as it would hurt me as much or more than my opponent. It works in B/G because they have the acceleration to recover first from it. Unless you have an arena and a couple artifact mana sources out, this deck recovers slower than most other decks. It's not really something you can side in and out as your decklist will often be built around it. I'd rather use Consume Spirit as a surprise finisher here.

Also, why use DC against Tooth when Cranial works so much better? One Cranial will hurt them badly, two and it's probably for them.
actual i do raun areana idols an moxen of then it dose win for me and help sablize if it seems a card in 1 its imprint fodder for my mox

[jakethamac]

"to the idiot, Jake the mac running DC + consume good luck w/ that. Also You have just said DC must be in every MBC deck or it is not a control deck. well i guess up until teh time you draw your DC or even till you get to play your DC your are playing some agro deck right. I mean Hand CONTROL, creature CONTROL, board CONTROL elements make no difference. No DEc no control. and if your tired you might want to get some sleep, you might need it more than the rest."
first, to titan
you see if your playing a control deck titan, you need to control all the aspects of the board. that might be why it's called a "control deck", by controling all aspects of the board, hand and life total. and look DC does all of that plus a little bit of land d. thats why death cloud is put in MBC. and if ya look real closley at consume spirit titan, you gain life. but wait! doesn't the arena make you lose life too? i think so dingleberry. so not only does DC+consume work well, it's f-ing awsome. i guesse your deck building skills went down the toilet.
now on to zac001
hey you don't gotta reem me for stating my own opinion on a forum alright. i just think it gets quit annoying when people post decks on a forum where it doesn't belong. like last week i saw an extended deck in a standard forum. it just gets annoying. and i appreciate your helpfullness, and towards other members and i try to help but i just do it in a bigheadedness sort of way. and i was just trying to say the deck was crap in a 2 paragraph sort of way. i mean he maindecked things that were suppossed to be sideboarded and sideboarded things that were suppossed to be maindecked. and my opinion that deathcloud is the back bone of MBC is still gonna be the same i just don't see why you don't like it or anyone else doesn't like it. in my own mind it's the backbone but see it your way.

[Titan33]

"to the idiot, Jake the mac running DC + consume good luck w/ that. Also You have just said DC must be in every MBC deck or it is not a control deck. well i guess up until teh time you draw your DC or even till you get to play your DC your are playing some agro deck right. I mean Hand CONTROL, creature CONTROL, board CONTROL elements make no difference. No DEc no control. and if your tired you might want to get some sleep, you might need it more than the rest."
first, to titan
you see if your playing a control deck titan, you need to control all the aspects of the board. that might be why it's called a "control deck", by controling all aspects of the board, hand and life total. and look DC does all of that plus a little bit of land d. thats why death cloud is put in MBC. and if ya look real closley at consume spirit titan, you gain life. but wait! doesn't the arena make you lose life too? i think so dingleberry. so not only does DC+consume work well, it's f-ing awsome. i guesse your deck building skills went down the toilet.
now on to zac001
hey you don't gotta reem me for stating my own opinion on a forum alright. i just think it gets quit annoying when people post decks on a forum where it doesn't belong. like last week i saw an extended deck in a standard forum. it just gets annoying. and i appreciate your helpfullness, and towards other members and i try to help but i just do it in a bigheadedness sort of way. and i was just trying to say the deck was crap in a 2 paragraph sort of way. i mean he maindecked things that were suppossed to be sideboarded and sideboarded things that were suppossed to be maindecked. and my opinion that deathcloud is the back bone of MBC is still gonna be the same i just don't see why you don't like it or anyone else doesn't like it. in my own mind it's the backbone but see it your way.

lamo, dude you are funny, no really i insist.
Card advantage lesson here
1. Control decks do not have to control aspects of the board only a few. Some decks run on the basis of mainly permission, i.e. hand control by either counter or discard. with a minor removal backup. or Vica Versa. then it is followed by a finisher. so control decks usually do not control life total they only keep thier own steady until ready to end the game this can be done may ways. instead it uses this as a comodity such as card advantage that can be exploited. This is the main purpose of a control deck card advantage whether virtual (card quaility) or real (number difference, 2 for one spells, 1 for 1, key permission spells etc.). Control decks should be decks that dont play fair using cards like Wrath of God, Arena, TFK, Mutilate, Wrench mind to get more cards for one. and using other cards like Duress, distress, Counterspell, etc. to nail key spells for virtual card advantage. Now in MBC real card advantage spells are P. Arena, Persecute, Distress, Hideous laughter and any card that take one and gives you more. Virtual Card advantage spells are Targeted removal and Distress in most cases. Now lets look at DC in 2 decks, G/B and MBC.
G/B- Creatures + denial, Agro Control, uses DC most efficiently
Every creature in this deck gives real Advantage except for Troll Ascetic and Kokusho. Ascetic gives Virtual adavantage b/c of regen and Untargetability and Kokusho is the main finisher. This deck also produces a lot of land very fast. Combine this w/ CA creatures and you have a fast tempo deck that almost completely depends on what happens on the board. DC is soo ood in this deck BC of tempo. They abuse DC b/c of the comparative advange. they dont really care about thier hand, they now top deck very well b/c of the low land count they have and they also have Witness. They dont care about land b/c they have enough to run on efficiently. And thier creatures absorb the last DC effect, BOP's, Tribelders, maybe Solemn absorb the DC so they cope well. Now lets look at their (control) oponent's board. Assuming DC resolves the Complete control player has lost his/her hand (more or less) which is most valuabe to a control player. His/ her land, the second most valuable. and now what few finisher's you had are sitting either in your library or g-yard. Now both players lost the excat same amout of cards but olny one benefited... the G/B deck why? Virtual Card advantage. The B/G deck spent the entire game essetialy preparing for your its own DC. to now gain almost complete advantage everywhere even in the top deck.
Now For the MBC deck. ill assume you have your decktuned to even RECOVER. So you are playing talisman, Chrome Mox, Maybe guardian Idol.
The MBC player's turn starts and you have the Chrome Mox so you have now traded 2 cards for no advantage but speed. C. Mox is only a tempo move nothing else. you loose one card to get a turn jump. B/c you now have talisman you have to spend your first turns ramping up in mana. Also i will assume you Arena out (this is how you would play right first few turns get arena and some Accel out) Also you now have less Card advantage spells b/c you now run mana accel over the more removal spells and other CA spells you have less board control and less hand control. you will net many key spells but the "minor spells" like Tribelder, witness, suntail hawk etc. will become threats. Oh by the way your arena Clock is ticking. You do play a few creatures, Oh they are Legends so you have 2 maybe 3. Your CA is gaining and you have your finishers and your CA essentialy you have enough to win. Why DC now? In this case DC turns out to be a wasted spot as you will now have had no need for it.

The above game was one of those Any MBC deck would want. even w/o DC cause it isnt needed.
Case 2 for MBC w/ DC: The bad game
You start out with Accel and Arena right, so far so good. Entering into mid game the DC deck starts to lack removal due to those spots going to Accel and DC. You draw your DC and now DC has to play the part of a removal spell. DC does not allow you to choose any sacrifice so any small little Magpie, tribelder, witness, etc will gladly take the Bullet for his big bro(s), you loose a few cards from hand your oponent looses a few cards in hand but nothing spectaular. Here's this kicker for this. All your dudes do not compensae for each other. So if you have to sac a creature it will be either your accel spell (guardian Idol), your land, (nexus, stones etc) that is if you want to keep your big dude. Now you are at a lesser life, and are at the mercy of a top deck. This really wasnt a bad Game But the DC just gave you bad options. Virtual CA them

Case 3: the average game
Both control decks come out well, (MBC and whoever). Both get threats out both get CA spells off. You go into Attrition war. you top deck DC. Think its over right. (This has been my main argument Against DC.)
Pick any control deck. ANY, and i do mean ANY will recover from your magnitude DC better than you will.
Tooth has been ramping and searching up mana the whole time. couple that w/ sensie's top and thier top decks are set, thier lands already do more work that regular. so if they tank a couple of forrets its no prob. thier creatures can be played by hand if need be b/c of the mana generation. You (MBC player have to top deck all your lands and your threats. you get 2 cards for one due to arena butthis does not save you in the TNN match B/c of Sensie's top they play of the top deck.
MUC, should DC resolve they dig via thirst and if Meloku was on the board this one card just defeated your DC as they kept lands in hand as a scapegoat for DC and made creatures. serum visions and TFK dont help matters all of which can be played after DC.
Ponza (yes this is a control deck), well they have LD so DC help them outright.
DC becomes no good (or less good that it is in other decks) you have no good way to recover from it w/o givving up what you cant really afford to.

And come on dude. DC eats lands Consume Spirit needs lands to be a good finisher both need a lot of lands to be effective. You put them together and you now have to wait howlong to get a good consume off. this concept is known as synergy, card that compliment each other are good together, cards that hurt each other are bad together.
Oh yeah My deckbuilding skills defineately went down the toilet. BUt when i went to get them I found yours down there but i can now see why you flushed yours down in the first place.
Your still a funny guy. Keep it up one day you might be an out of work comedian.

[chopstyxnryce]

I noticed that a lot of the deck lists posted here don't run any rats. Can anyone tell me why? Ravenous rats are discard and blockers/early beat down and chittering rats is "don't draw a card" for your opponent and a blocker/beat stick early on. Plus they're rats which lets you run Patron of the Nezumi and get him in at instant speed for 4-5 mana depending on what rat you sac. And at 6/6 he's bigger than yukora.

[Wild Card]

you see if your playing a control deck titan, you need to control all the aspects of the board. that might be why it's called a "control deck", by controling all aspects of the board, hand and life total.

This is not quite true... Ponza or R/G-LD control just through destroying your opponents lands. MUC controls through counterspells (and bounce). U/W adds massremoval to that. And also MBC has to concentrate at least a bit on discard, removal depending on the metagame...

and look DC does all of that plus a little bit of land d. thats why death cloud is put in MBC. and if ya look real closley at consume spirit titan, you gain life. but wait! doesn't the arena make you lose life too? i think so dingleberry. so not only does DC+consume work well, it's f-ing awsome. i guesse your deck building skills went down the toilet.

at least there are some things true here... Consume Spirit lets you gain life, Arena lets you lose life and Death Cloud lets you lose life.

Arena and Consume Spirit work well together because Arena doesn`t hurt your manabase allowing a bigger Consume Spirit. Death Cloud forces you to sacrifice lands you need for a Consume Spirit.
So these cards only work together if you can afford just to play a small Death Cloud. It is quite the same discussion like Rude Awakening and Death Cloud in B/G-Control... If you are forced to play a bigger Cloud you will probably never win with Rude Awakening after that.
If you did not recognize that, you should go on further testing. If you have been lucky to get away with playing just small Clouds, I hope you keep being lucky.

I noticed that a lot of the deck lists posted here don't run any rats. Can anyone tell me why? Ravenous rats are discard and blockers/early beat down and chittering rats is "don't draw a card" for your opponent and a blocker/beat stick early on. Plus they're rats which lets you run Patron of the Nezumi and get him in at instant speed for 4-5 mana depending on what rat you sac. And at 6/6 he's bigger than yukora.

I think we had variants posted that used Ravenous and Chittering Rats. Concentrating further on rats would be better in the MBA-Thread (or a thread about rats).

[Grimwall]

Zac, I can't believe that the whole thread is still arguing on whether DC is good for the deck, maybe some people should just move on, platyest some more and reach their own conclusions on whether to run it or not. I hope you can lead the thread to constructiveness, ignoring stupid flames against you and avoiding to cause them. There are indeed 2 types of mbc, one needs DC, the other doesn't (it can use it but it doesn't NEED it.)

On another note, I'm sticking with Waking Nightmare over Wrench Mind and switching to Horobi's Whisper over Rend Flesh. I'm already running Sickening Shoal in the maindeck, giviong me 6 spells to splice Horobi's Whisper onto, 10 after sb, when Extractions come in. And the graveyard fills up really fast. The card advantage possibilities are not something to laugh at. I urge you to try it.

And people, play Night of Soul's Betrayal. It's better than you can imagine it is...

[Kaosmatic]

First off, I'm of the school that while DC is a great card, it has no place in MBC. Why? People try to run it as if it were Pox, and it simply isn't. Why? DC cripples you as much as it does them. Most of the time you'll ramp up to the mana needed to cast a solid DC much too late to stop aggro, and control decks will likely be able to counter it. Due to DC's heavy cost, you also can't reasonably expect to float enough to cast a decent fatty afterwords either. Against MUC, they have enough cheap search to simply draw out of it and recover (most of the time) faster than you. If they get Meloku out, it's even worse. Vs. Tooth, all the land fetching in the deck simply counteracts it all, and even if you cripple their green mana they'll hardcast a couple of fatties like sundering titan and own you. Guardian Idols simply aren't quick enough. Pox decks won through Rack more often than Steel Golems, and while Stabwhisker is a great rack, he's also a creature. Enough said.

One card I'm surprised not to see more of is oblivion stone. I know it's expensive and not a very good replacement for disk, but its slowness is counteracted by MBC's strengths - spot removal and discard. If your opponent's hand is empty (and if it's not you have other issues), it's a great time to cast Stone. Stone gives MBC the answer black decks always struggle against - artifacts and enchantments. MUC wants to bounce the stone? Fine, that's one less bounce spell for Stabwhisker or Prisoner. MBC should be about heavy disruption, then stabilization of the board followed by fatty beatdown/direct damage. Stone allows all of this. I wouldn't run 4 main deck, but I think a full set should be present between maindeck and sb because it's rare that you'll need to cast is AND blow it in the same turn due to the heavy disruption.

[fooligan]

black blazes all the way.
disruption removal and wins that have very few answers to, that is the way to go.

[fookachu]

Does anyone know what happened to Galvatron to get him banned?
Just curious...

COM

[Wild Card]

He (and not only him) was banned for three days because of fruitless posts and discussions... further information in the Beacon Green Thread.

[chopstyxnryce]

Playing 4 ravenous rats and 4 chittering rats makes you MBA? I don't think so. They provide some early damage and allow you to be some what aggressive early on but i dont think you're aggro just cause you have them.

Heres what i'm playing (its off the top of my head so forgive me if it doesn't add up to 60)

1x Kokusho
3x Greater Harvester
4x Nezumi Shortfang
4x Ravenous Rats
4x Chittering Rats
1x Patron of the Nezumi

4x Terror
4x Rend Flesh
3x Hideous Laughter
4x Phyrexian Arena
4x Distress
1x Sensei's Divining Top

22x Swamp
1x Shizo Death's Storehouse

[Strider204]

I've been testing alot against tooth, b/g control, mono-black beats, and white weenie. And I have found Greater Harvester to be really good and death cloud to be very sup-par why because tooth and b/g both out acelrate you and will always have the mana advantage after cloud causing me lose alot of games. Then I decide to up the greater harverster count and some acel for a faster harverster and he helps so much to get there tempo under controll. 1 smash is game and his synergy with arena is amazing. Against white weenie he is a big help often turning into an edict every turn and once you draw into a hideous laughter your golden. Well let me post my deck list and explain why I think cranials need to go main now. When using cranial main I think it should be used more as a cabal therapy after a distress to maxium card advantage and its second ability to remove those cards just as bonus. Because we can usally win while the other deck is trying to recover kinda like the rock from extended. Or when you play against arrgo you can mox the cranial. I haven't decided yet about a side board but I have been thinking about defense grid and persucute side.

//NAME: MBC
// Land
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
2 Stalking Stones
19 Swamp
// Artifact
4 Talisman of Dominance
4 Chrome Mox
// Spells
1 Night's Whisper
4 Consume Spirit
4 Distress
4 Hideous Laughter
3 Phyrexian Arena
2 Sickening Shoal
4 Cranial Extraction
1 Beacon of Unrest
// Creatures
3 Greater Harvester
4 Kokusho, the Evening Star

[Wild Card]

Playing 4 ravenous rats and 4 chittering rats makes you MBA? I don't think so.

I don`t either as I wrote...

I think we had variants posted that used Ravenous and Chittering Rats. Concentrating further on rats would be better in the MBA-Thread (or a thread about rats).

Shortfang is also good for sure and has a place here... But I think Koskusho is better than the Patron... If they chump the Patron they just lose 1 point of life and just nothing when blocked by Troll Ascetic...

[thejackal917]

heres my current deck list, let me know what you think.

3- chrome mox
4- talisman of indulgance
3- phyrexian arena
3- damping matrix
4- distress
4- persecute
4- dark banishing
3- sickening shoal
3- Night of Soul's betrayal
1- beacon of unrest


2- Yukora, the Prisoner
4- greater harvester


19 swamps
2 stalking stones
1 shizo

sideboard
_________________
3- hideous laughter (aggro, WW, rude awakening)
3- eradicate (aggro, witness, dragons, slogger, ect.)
3- defense grid (U/*)
3- mourner's shield (karma, red)
3- cranial extraction (control, combo)

[Losthope2905]

I'm personally against dc because whenever I played it it would normally be a dead card because I would have a much greater tempo loss than my opponent would. I've noticed though that my hardest matchup is mono blue. Vedalken shackles owns me once it gets into play. Is there any advice as to what to do about this. I know I could use discard to get it beforehand but that normally doesn't work and it comes down faster than cranial does. Oblivion stone is all I can think of.

[silverwolf727]

The patron isn't a bad card but there are better cards that most MBC decks are currently running. A 6/6 body is nothing to laugh at especially if you have the black legend land out to give it fear. It makes your removal spells deal damage and if you like rats it can be an instant creature. The problem is that Yukora is a 5/5 for 4 mana which can get though via black legend land, kokusho is a 5/5 flyer for 6 mana with a 10 life swing attached when it dies, and the greater harvester destroys permanents when he gets through causing lots of damage. I can see some versions of MBC or MBA using the patron but they need to be built to utilize the offering mechanic.

[Grimwall]

Kaosmatic, I have already discussed the merits on Oblivion Stone and the need to run 4 between maindeck and sideboard in the first 3 pages of the thread. I still believe them to be golden, giving not only a maindeck solution to aggro and Shackles,but also a solution to randomness as I always say and another way to get rid of your Arena if it starts getting dangerous.

I currently run 3 main and 1 sideboard and I'm happy with it.

I agree with you on the DC issue, but we'll still need a solution to deal wth untargetable fatties, like Kodama-Nort, Troll Ascetic and Colossus(well, he's not untargetable, but you get my point...). If it's not DC, it should deinitely be Barter in blood, which I hate because they will always have some fodder to it and you rarely get what you want, whereas a big DC will take them all.

Open to suggestions...

[Wild Card]

I agree with you on the DC issue, but we'll still need a solution to deal wth untargetable fatties, like Kodama-Nort, Troll Ascetic and Colossus(well, he's not untargetable, but you get my point...). If it's not DC, it should deinitely be Barter in blood, which I hate because they will always have some fodder to it and you rarely get what you want, whereas a big DC will take them all.

Do they really have fodder when playing Spotremoval in addition to Barter in Blood? Sometimes perhaps but normally you should hit what you want...

[Strider204]

I'm personally against dc because whenever I played it it would normally be a dead card because I would have a much greater tempo loss than my opponent would. I've noticed though that my hardest matchup is mono blue. Vedalken shackles owns me once it gets into play. Is there any advice as to what to do about this. I know I could use discard to get it beforehand but that normally doesn't work and it comes down faster than cranial does. Oblivion stone is all I can think of.
Run damping matrix side and try to bait counters with distress. I think that obvilion stone is a little slow against shackles but try that to.

[fooligan]

im looking to make a non dc oriented version what are the current suggestions on card choices and reliable stratagies, there are just so many options.
and if any one has a good build or article theyd like to share im all ears

[Titan33]

im looking to make a non dc oriented version what are the current suggestions on card choices and reliable stratagies, there are just so many options.
and if any one has a good build or article theyd like to share im all ears

My current Deck List is this. I have had most success w/ this Build

4 Kokusho
4 Yokura

4 Phyrexian Arena

4 Distress
4 Wrench Mind
2 Persecute

3 Hideous Laughter
2 Barter in Blood
3 Rend Flesh
3 Horobi's Whisper
2 Terror

2 Consume Spirit

4 Chrome Mox
3 Stalking Stones
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
15 Swamp

SB:
2 Echoing Decay
3 NoSB
2 Beacon Of Unrest
3 Mourner's Shield (best option i've found vs. Karma and Mirror)
1 Persecute
1 Barter In Blood
3 Horobi

yes no cranial, cranial is so overrated. yes one resolution vs tooth = easy game but. thats only tooth. every other deck cranial makes you just wonder what to name. the only other match it seems valuable in is MUC naming Bribery after board. this is my most recent update. fooligan if you like it use it other wise..... shove it.( just joking) but lmk what you think.

[Grimwall]

Titan33, your build seems solid, although I might have some fears about the 19 lands there. Some things to consider:

Running 4 Arena is risky. You'll have it more often than not, but once it is down you have no way to get rid of it. That's why I would switch your removal package to at least 3 or 4 Consume Spirit.

If you plan on playing Horobi's Whisper, you should at least try to take advantage of its splice by running some Arcanes. Waking Nightmare is the best substitution I can think of, maybe even some Shoals if you can get them. They have worked very well for me up to now.

What do you side Horobi in against? Is he good against anything other than Affinity to warrant sideboard slots in place of Oblivion or Damping Matrix?

[packrat2488]

OK, I this is where I've gone with MBC. I just need to work out a few bugs.

2 Kokusho
4 Solemn Simulacrum
3 Wicked Akuba

4 Horobi's Whisper
3 Hideous laughter
2 Barter in Blood
3 Death Cloud
3 Consume spirit

4 Distress
3 Guardian Idol
3 Phyrexian Arena
2 Cranial Extraction
2 ???????

2 Bosetju
1 shizo
2 blinkmoth nexus
17 swamp

Sideboard:
2 cranial extraction
2 eradicate
3 devour in shadow
3 damping matrix
2 barter in blood
3 persecute

Ok now for some explanations. First off the deck plays much like a mono black rock. The creature base seems light but with consume and death cloud to back it up I have plenty of win conditions. Notably missing is Yukora, After alot of testing I've found that he is just not effective enough in MBC where you are waiting for a large tempo swing (death cloud, kokusho, ect) before going in for the kill. He is most definitely MBA's favorite guy though.

Onto the removal. It may seem a little wonky but again think Rock. Most of these death cards trade better than 1:1. The whole idea is to achieve card advantage though death spells. There are some very noticable absences here, echoing decay, terror, a few others. Echoing decay was just recently cut and replaced with hideous laughter, I found that it was trading 1:1 more often than I liked and weenie decks were rushing me faster than I could handle. Terror is good, really good. But it can't kill artifacts. and there are just too many artifact creatures wandering around for my taste. (ever die to solemn or nexus with 3 terror in your hand?)

I love guardian idol. That's really all I have to say about it. It give me the jump to 4 mana, without costing me card advantage (MOX), and provides a body that is immune to death cloud. I have tested talisman in its place and found that 9 out of 10 times you want idol.

Now I know what you're going to say. you don't need 2 bosetju. I wanted to say the same thing. But in this deck there is just too many spells that you can't afford to be countered. (Think deathcloud) Blinkmoth also helps work around death cloud.

I've found that most of the problem artifacts and creatures can be stopped by matrix. (shackles, slogger, crystal shard, kiki-jiki, etc) Also I like it much better than O-Stone. O-Stone costs you too much in the way of time and mana. If you drop it without blowing it, it is often destroyed. Dropping and blowing all at once costs way too much. I know matrix won't stop problem enchantments like COP and Karma. But both are white cards. White isn't the biggest color right now so I'm willing to take the risk. If my opponent is playing COP, I will have to slowly bleed him out with lose life cards. If it's karma I bring 2 extra cranials and we race to see who pulls what first. (I win that race more often than I lose it thanks to accel and and the fact that I have 4 cranials, they often only have 3 or less karma) The rest of the side board consists of more and different types of death and hand disruption.

Now what is missing? With 2 card slots still free I've been wondering what to put in them. So far my best ideas have been: sensei's divining top and sickening shoal. I've been leaning toward shoal but it always seems like I have nothing worth discarding to it so I have to pay into it. It's not a big problem but then why not run devour, which is far cheaper (in terms of mana)?

Any thoughts or input? Feel free to comment on any problems you might see with the deck.

[Strider204]

OK, I this is where I've gone with MBC. I just need to work out a few bugs.

2 Kokusho
4 Solemn Simulacrum
3 Wicked Akuba

4 Horobi's Whisper
3 Hideous laughter
2 Barter in Blood
3 Death Cloud
3 Consume spirit

4 Distress
3 Guardian Idol
3 Phyrexian Arena
2 Cranial Extraction
2 ???????

2 Bosetju
1 shizo
2 blinkmoth nexus
17 swamp

Sideboard:
2 cranial extraction
2 eradicate
3 devour in shadow
3 damping matrix
2 barter in blood
3 persecute

Ok now for some explanations. First off the deck plays much like a mono black rock. The creature base seems light but with consume and death cloud to back it up I have plenty of win conditions. Notably missing is Yukora, After alot of testing I've found that he is just not effective enough in MBC where you are waiting for a large tempo swing (death cloud, kokusho, ect) before going in for the kill. He is most definitely MBA's favorite guy though.

Onto the removal. It may seem a little wonky but again think Rock. Most of these death cards trade better than 1:1. The whole idea is to achieve card advantage though death spells. There are some very noticable absences here, echoing decay, terror, a few others. Echoing decay was just recently cut and replaced with hideous laughter, I found that it was trading 1:1 more often than I liked and weenie decks were rushing me faster than I could handle. Terror is good, really good. But it can't kill artifacts. and there are just too many artifact creatures wandering around for my taste. (ever die to solemn or nexus with 3 terror in your hand?)

I love guardian idol. That's really all I have to say about it. It give me the jump to 4 mana, without costing me card advantage (MOX), and provides a body that is immune to death cloud. I have tested talisman in its place and found that 9 out of 10 times you want idol.

Now I know what you're going to say. you don't need 2 bosetju. I wanted to say the same thing. But in this deck there is just too many spells that you can't afford to be countered. (Think deathcloud) Blinkmoth also helps work around death cloud.

I've found that most of the problem artifacts and creatures can be stopped by matrix. (shackles, slogger, crystal shard, kiki-jiki, etc) Also I like it much better than O-Stone. O-Stone costs you too much in the way of time and mana. If you drop it without blowing it, it is often destroyed. Dropping and blowing all at once costs way too much. I know matrix won't stop problem enchantments like COP and Karma. But both are white cards. White isn't the biggest color right now so I'm willing to take the risk. If my opponent is playing COP, I will have to slowly bleed him out with lose life cards. If it's karma I bring 2 extra cranials and we race to see who pulls what first. (I win that race more often than I lose it thanks to accel and and the fact that I have 4 cranials, they often only have 3 or less karma) The rest of the side board consists of more and different types of death and hand disruption.

Now what is missing? With 2 card slots still free I've been wondering what to put in them. So far my best ideas have been: sensei's divining top and sickening shoal. I've been leaning toward shoal but it always seems like I have nothing worth discarding to it so I have to pay into it. It's not a big problem but then why not run devour, which is far cheaper (in terms of mana)?

Any thoughts or input? Feel free to comment on any problems you might see with the deck.

No offense but I really don't like akuba as a kill condonition he'll never take you all the way 2 toughness is to small. Against tooth and nail I can see him being a house after deathcloud but before chumpzilla. I would cut akubas for a set Kokusho and 1 more guardain idol. You need all the accel you can get if your running death cloud. 2 extra spots should definely be sickening I love it just bluffing it make's your oppent think twice about alpha striking. Really think you should reconsider 2 more extraction main. Theres so much control it really comes down to who gets it first.

[Titan33]

Titan33, your build seems solid, although I might have some fears about the 19 lands there. Some things to consider:

Running 4 Arena is risky. You'll have it more often than not, but once it is down you have no way to get rid of it. That's why I would switch your removal package to at least 3 or 4 Consume Spirit.

If you plan on playing Horobi's Whisper, you should at least try to take advantage of its splice by running some Arcanes. Waking Nightmare is the best substitution I can think of, maybe even some Shoals if you can get them. They have worked very well for me up to now.

What do you side Horobi in against? Is he good against anything other than Affinity to warrant sideboard slots in place of Oblivion or Damping Matrix?

well i chose to look at my land count as "mana source" and at 23 i have had no problems. mind you the unfortunate mox clog happens but for teh tempo boost it is often worth it.

Yep i know the 4 Arena Package is risky but you have to draw arena to blow out the card advantage race. also w/ mox i need the fexiblity to imprint w/o or with little regret. However 3-4 consume has done me little good. becasue it is really inefficient early and in the late game it is often a backup finisher next to kokusho or yokura. my removal package tries to be very efficient comsume is not quite efficient. becasue i am running 2 i often do draw one in the late to mid game where i have had enough time to control w/o becoming cloged.

horobi's Whisper has really an expensive splice cost for one. i usually only get to splice once which is ok b/c itis so efficient but the other arcane cards are not really any good teh best of which is (after the ones i do play) are sickening shoal and yes walking nightmare. the alternate cost for sickening shoal can be good when faced w/ tons of counters but really ends up being a 2 for 1 spell for your oponent. and i was giving up like a kokusho or hideous laughter to do something worthwhile. i eventually cut them. Walking nightmare i didnt like solely b/c it costs 3 mana. wrend flesh does the same thing vs most decks and teh artifactsthat most would discard would be the cards i would take anyway (usually). i also needed a good removal package so i didnt find space to get extras in.

Horobi will be cut she has been there from the longest time. she's been ok vs kiki jiki, tooth, WW. but all these decks save tooth have some piddly way to just shoot her down or worst shoot my legends down w/ thier lands. O-stone really rubs me the wrong way it will get removed. but it can also be good if you couple it w/ hand control to keep the echoing truths away. Damping matrix is so-so you get a little trick here and there but not much else. Culling scales has been a really good option for me. however it is one step away from taking out karma. i could mod by board to take ot mourner's shiled and just run 3 o-stone and up my hand control or removal spots on board. ill have to see. ill kepp postingsome results.

[Splatt]

no one plays this guy?

since states monoblack has been really hot in my area and 99.999% of the people who play it run royal assasin.

very nice card and definately deserves a spot in this deck.

[Party_Wagon]

the reason no one plays it is because it doesn't survive laughters.

[DarkDamon]

Saying no one uses assassin because it dies to laughter isnt really logical. mbc uses nezumi shortfang all the time, and its just as fragile. the reason i dont use it is because i dont need it. most players in my area play tooth, muc, and control decks, so i find 12 kill is enough, and i prefer instant/sorcery kill, rather than kill in the form of a creature.

[Wild Card]

O. k. ... then lets put it differently... The Assassin is just bad because there are too many decks that can easily kill him before he does anything good.

[packrat2488]

No offense but I really don't like akuba as a kill condonition he'll never take you all the way 2 toughness is to small. Against tooth and nail I can see him being a house after deathcloud but before chumpzilla. I would cut akubas for a set Kokusho and 1 more guardain idol. You need all the accel you can get if your running death cloud. 2 extra spots should definely be sickening I love it just bluffing it make's your oppent think twice about alpha striking. Really think you should reconsider 2 more extraction main. Theres so much control it really comes down to who gets it first.

I know what you mean about akuba dying alot. He does. But he almost always trades 1:1 which means your opponent just used 1 removal spell on what probably was just a chump blocker. Also late game he can hold the field and buy time. I've been trying to find a good replacement for him, without much luck though. I can't risk blocking with idol unless I'm desperate so some times he's my only early blocker. Still he's a 2/2 for 2 so cost wise he's not that bad, my other thoughts have gone to ravenous rats, chittering rats or either of the nezumi's. But they all are missing the toughness except for the chittering and that costs me 1 more. I'm still undecided about this spot but you definitely need a cheap creature here. It's often important to have that early man for more reasons than I can list.

I would love to play 4 cranial main but everytime I do I keep getting too many. They jam my hand more often than they're helpful. Against tooth and U/? They're great but other than that not very. I wouldn't play them in main at all if tooth wasn't such a house.

Yeah I definitely have to say sickening shoal got my call. After I tested with it for awhile I can't see why I haven't played it before. I put 2 in main and replaced the devours in the side with 2 more. What I love most about it is that it adds another arcane spell to the deck, meaning whisper gets spliced more often. More card advantage for me!

[knax_15]

need help: i play 2 extractions main deck. against mono blue or U/x control, what cards will i name? i dont want to name creatures as i can kill them easily with lotsa removal or eradicate.. i also found out that akuba is good against monoblue, especially against TaN early game.. but considering the long run, kokusho or yukora are better creatures for MBC.. :)

[Wild Card]

It is easier against U/X... Rude Awakening, Plow under, Bribery, Shackles, Counters or untargetable creatures like Troll or Kodama of the North Tree... Not necessarily in that order...

Did anyone us the black Genju? Mid- to lategame he seems worth testing, or not? For example in a creature/ finisher base like this: 3 Kokusho, 2 Yokura, 2 Genju...

[fromthelab]

i play 2 extractions main deck. against mono blue or U/x control, what cards will i name?

Mono U: 1) Shackles. 2) Meloku. without those 2, they're pretty much dead. i mean, what are they gonna do? beat you down with a Magpie? please... post-board, don't forget about Bribery...

U.X: Wild pretty much covered it...

[Galvatron]

hey guys Im back. Anyway oh man SNM was rough every other match up i played against was contol ROund 1 MBC miror round 2 MUC round 3 MUC round 4 agro

[black_maniac]

I don't think I would wan to run 4 harvester coz its just too painful and you would definitely need echoing decay fro weenie. Right now white weenie can kill pretty quick and I don't think hiddeous laughter is a very effective if a glorious anthem is played. But above all else its good and i suggest you use an extraplanar lens to maximize your consume spirit. And maybe a deathcloud or two. Because you may want to force your opponents to discard or maybe destroy all of your opponents land. providing that you have enough mana, so Deathcloud is kinda like a finisher.

[Galvatron]

id rather yun youkor a over harvester BTW if you mian night of souls combined with laughte WW sould not pose a threat to you

[fooligan]

galvy, were you banned? i herd some rumors and tried to investigate but hit many a dead end.
do you have any thoughts on cloudless monoblack?

[Galvatron]

yeah fooliban i got banned faor a few days for tying to keep misers gold from stepping on everybodys toes. ANy way if you don't lik running cloud run ostones a n persicute as well as barter in
soming like this
3 barter in bl00d
3 persicute
4 koko
4 yukora
4 wrench mind
3 rend flesh
3 o-stone
3 cunsume sirits
4 distress
24 swamps

you can fill ing any gaps if you want fooligan
thats jus soming i did of the top of my head
DC dose help you though .

[arky305]

Here's my current take on MBC.

14 Swamp
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
1 Stalking Stones
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse

3 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
3 Greater Harvester
3 Nezumi Shortfang

4 Distress
2 Cranial Extraction
2 Beacon of Unrest
2 Hideous Laughter
3 Phyrexian Arena
3 Rend Flesh
2 Death Cloud
4 Night's Whisper (?)
4 Consume Spirit

2 Talisman of Dominance
2 Talisman of Indulgence

Sideboard so far:
4 Eradicate
3 Horobi, Death's Wail
1 Cranial Extraction
1 Night of Soul's Betrayal

Anyway, what do you guys think?

[kixamaz]

I'm thinking of Phyrexian Arena, Night of Souls' Betrayal and Consume Spirit, any ideas on whether I should play them and what to take out for them?

And what do you prefer, Waking Nightmare or Wrench Mind?

I'd be playing my MBC version this coming April 2 and i have a build much like yours... i'm actually thinking for phyrexian arena too... i think it would be better than the whisper...
and about the waking or wrench... i'm playing wrench mind in my deck... it's better (my opinion) i really hear my opponent's head snapping... :D (check the flavor txt) turn 2 discard 2 cards is too much 4 anyone... (just practice some timing skills with it) :b:

[kixamaz]

help me people for my sideboards!
i'm competing this saturday, April 2, i believe the current metagame here is tooth & nail, mbc or rock decks... some ww and landies...

my current sideboard is:
2 hideous laughter (for WW or sligh) :w: :r:
2 scrabbling claws (for eternal) :g:
1 cranial extraction (it's hard to find here and evrybody's using it)
2 eradicate (proxys for the xtraction)
4 psychic spear ( for mirrors, kukusho's & cranial ) my secret weapon :cool:
2 oblivion stone (for enchantments ex.karma) :w:
1 boseiju (for counterspells) :u:
1 nezumi shortfang ( for blue deks) :u:

your suggestions would be greatly appreciated... thanx...

[tu_mater]

help me people for my sideboards!
i'm competing this saturday, April 2, i believe the current metagame here is tooth & nail, mbc or rock decks... some ww and landies...

my current sideboard is:
2 hideous laughter (for WW or sligh) :w: :r:
2 scrabbling claws (for eternal) :g:
1 cranial extraction (it's hard to find here and evrybody's using it)
2 eradicate (proxys for the xtraction)
4 psychic spear ( for mirrors, kukusho's & cranial ) my secret weapon :cool:
2 oblivion stone (for enchantments ex.karma) :w:
1 boseiju (for counterspells) :u:
1 nezumi shortfang ( for blue deks) :u:

your suggestions would be greatly appreciated... thanx...

Ok so you say your meta is mainly tooth, rock, and mbc. Then what I would do for this meta is:
Tooth:extraction, eraticate
Get as many extractions in after board as possible, after A LOT of testing (packrat2488 can attest to the amount of testing this match-up) I have decided that the MBC Tooth matchup comes down to who see their card first. If you can extract tooth it hurts. Secondly bring eraticate, because if all goes well and you extract tooth BEFORE he casts it (turn 3 if you run the artifact that turns in to a creature and gives 1 mana) then when he plays his titan he can only get 1 land then just eraticate that and the game is pretty much yours. also if he brings down collosis then just eraticate it to.

B/G rock & MBC: Personaly I think the best card to specificly hate these 2 is Grim Reminder. If you run it I would think that 3 is enough since you can get it back. your creatures are hard for black to deal with and if they lose 6 for every black card and solem (asuming ur like me and run it) that they play, well there is just no way for them to deal.

That is just how I see but if anyone else has any other sugestions I would be glad to hear 'em.

Also I was running spear in my board too and it really is fun to take a kokusho on turn 1.

[Strider204]

I know what you mean about akuba dying alot. He does. But he almost always trades 1:1 which means your opponent just used 1 removal spell on what probably was just a chump blocker. Also late game he can hold the field and buy time. I've been trying to find a good replacement for him, without much luck though. I can't risk blocking with idol unless I'm desperate so some times he's my only early blocker. Still he's a 2/2 for 2 so cost wise he's not that bad, my other thoughts have gone to ravenous rats, chittering rats or either of the nezumi's. But they all are missing the toughness except for the chittering and that costs me 1 more. I'm still undecided about this spot but you definitely need a cheap creature here. It's often important to have that early man for more reasons than I can list.

I would love to play 4 cranial main but everytime I do I keep getting too many. They jam my hand more often than they're helpful. Against tooth and U/? They're great but other than that not very. I wouldn't play them in main at all if tooth wasn't such a house.

Yeah I definitely have to say sickening shoal got my call. After I tested with it for awhile I can't see why I haven't played it before. I put 2 in main and replaced the devours in the side with 2 more. What I love most about it is that it adds another arcane spell to the deck, meaning whisper gets spliced more often. More card advantage for me!

Yeah I know what you mean about cranial if you have two in your opening hand one's getting mox. But most of the time it's been my mvp against the B/G, U/G, Ponza, MUC, and Tooth and Nail. But hey everybodys got there own taste. I've been looking for a way to fit ravenous and chittering but the other discard we have is superior. This is just my 2 cents but nezumi shortfang is not worth it in MBC oh how I tried to get this card to work. It just ended eating mana and one card then getting kill or snacthed. Nezumi graverobber maybe for witness hate but we have extraction for that.

[packrat2488]

Yeah I know what you mean about cranial if you have two in your opening hand one's getting mox. But most of the time it's been my mvp against the B/G, U/G, Ponza, MUC, and Tooth and Nail. But hey everybodys got there own taste. I've been looking for a way to fit ravenous and chittering but the other discard we have is superior. This is just my 2 cents but nezumi shortfang is not worth it in MBC oh how I tried to get this card to work. It just ended eating mana and one card then getting kill or snacthed. Nezumi graverobber maybe for witness hate but we have extraction for that.

Well what really does it for me is that I don't play mox in my build. So cranial just sits there and stares at me. Against ponza I haven't really seen the use for it. Mostly I just name plow and hope to just wait them out and eventually gain enough card advantage to pull the win. Against B/G it's mostly cranial for cranial. Then cranial for kokusho.

I am right beside you on the shortfang. No matter how many times I keep trying to use him like I used to use the interrogator, It's just not the same. The flipping ability that should make him better is actually a drawback. Also graverobber is in no way close to what wretch was.

Your right about witness hate. We really don't need it. Eradicate normally takes care of her. Cranial if necessary.

Right now I'm trying to decide if pyshic spear is really worth sideboarding. Anybody got any input? I know what it hits in mirror, but are there any other decks that it does well against?

[Galvatron]

after thath igh percentage of control matchups SAt im running wrench mind.
i PROBABLY PUT distress in the side spear would be good in block i wouldn't run it rit now because nobodydy going nuts for arcane with it

[Strider204]

Psyhic spear nope unless your really worry about cranial in the mirror. Just a question but what has everyone been testing against and how have things been going. My guantlet has been whitewinnie, tooth and nail, G/U, G/B, and sligh I've been getting postive results with everything but tooth and nail. Also does anyone have any MUC underneath there belts and how do games go for you.

[Grimwall]

my testing gauntlet includes muc (around 50/50, despite the extreme hate, if they draw nuts they will win, it all depends on how you'll take care of Shackles), TnN (not that bad, extraction/discard and Harvester usually get the job done), ug, ww and aggro green. I haven't yet had the time to test against Ponza, but I have a feeling it won't be easy...

Shortfang has worked for me, you sit on him until they find some way to deal with him and when they do you wreck them with some other threat or Persecute. Witness is not that much of aproblem to warrant hate against it, although Graverobber could find a place in a more aggro-oriented build with more rats.

[Sirsoosage 234]

wrench mind is pretty good, and you will be able to handle ponza if you use terrors. You can stop muc if you extract meloku, that is the only threat.

[kixamaz]

Right now I'm trying to decide if pyshic spear is really worth sideboarding. Anybody got any input? I know what it hits in mirror, but are there any other decks that it does well against?

i'm here to defend the psychic spear because i originally posted it as my secret weapon :cool: ... and secret weapons win wars right?right... so here's why i chose the spear...
i don't only hate mirror matches...
PSYCHIC SPEAR "it" will take out in your first turn after sideboarding:
1. cranial extraction
2. kukusho, the sick dragon and every sick dragon in the block
3. kodama's (north,south,center, all of them including reach)
4. glacial ray/lava spikes
5. kamis (every tiny kami we meet we put in the graveyard, lantern,hearth etc.)
6. valuable arcane spells (hideous,waking nytmare,otherworldly,dampen)
7. good creatures like hokori & kira.
that's just 7 reasons...
not satisfied yet... how about the "added bonus" you get to see your opponent's hand for one mana and would possibly ruin he's element of surprise...
not convinced yet how about the art?the flavor txt? :D

i, kixamaz(with a booming low voice), bless you, PSYCHIC SPEAR, to be in every sideboard of every MBC deck that hates spirits and arcanes too... do you accept this obligation?
do you promise to be drawn in the opening hand and not in the late game?
do you swear that you as a card, be of use to your sworn master?
PS answered... "hmm,ok." :D

[Grimwall]

hey all!

Some playtest results from today's session:

1. For those of you who haven't yet got the picture, play Horobi's Whisper. It doesn't have any range differences compared to Rend Flesh and the card advantage from splicing it is tremendous.

2. Arcane spells which must be in the maindeck are Sickening Shoal (2-3) and Waking Nightmare. Although it has a mana cost of 3, it fits the mana curve perfectly and it is Arcane. Nothing like first turn Distress, second turn Waking Nightmare, 3rd turn Yukora.

3. Night of Soul's Betrayal definitely deserves some slots between maindeck and sideboard. I prefer to have 2 in the maindeck and 1 more waiting in the side, the amount of decks it wrecks is tremendous (UG, TnN, WW, BG Cloud).

4. Play Oblivion Stone. Play 3 of them. In the maindeck. You can have 1 more in the sideboard, but that is not imperative, test for yourself.

5. The list I have come to after many changes:

1 Night's Whisper
2 Sickening Shoal
3 Consume Spirit
4 Distress
4 Waking Nightmare
3 Phyreixan Arena
4 Horobi's Whisper
3 Oblivion Stone
2 Death Cloud
2 Night of Soul's Betrayal

3 Yukora the Prisoner
3 Kokusho, the Evening Star
2 Greater Harvester

4 Chrome Mox

17 Swamp
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
2 Stalking Stones

----sideboard:-----

4 Cranial Extraction
3 Persecute
3 Nezumi Shortfang
2 Hideous Laughter
1 Night of Soul's Betrayal
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Death Cloud

I don't have a complete sideboard strategy yet, that's why I haven't yet finalized my sideboard, I'll post when I'm more sure about the sideboard.

Next possible changes that i'm going to playtest are switching the Night's Whisper to 1 more Stalking Stones and replacing the Death Clouds with Barter In Blood. Will come back soon with updates.

Take care all, happy playtesting!

[Galvatron]

it dosn't hurt to run beacon of unrest you can grab your stones and creatures too its also good so you dont run out of cards deck shuffling

[chopstyxnryce]

Forgive me for this noobie question but how does vedalken shackles work against guardian idol? Idol is only a creature until end of turn so would the MUC player still have control of the guardian idol if they were to shackle it in response to you turning it into a creature and attacking?

Also i think rend flesh is still superior to horobi's whisper because it can target black creatures and artifact creatures. Mephidross vamp and trike skeleton are potent against MBC. We don't play that many creatures to begin with and having Tooth be able to "wrath of god" everything away isn't pretty.

My new list: (i've abandoned the rats for now)
22 Swamp
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
3 Yukora, the Prisoner
4 Kokusho, the Evening Star
3 Greater Harvester
4 Nezumi Shortfang
4 Guardian Idol
3 Barter in Blood
2 Hideous Laughter
3 Rend Flesh
3 Terror
4 Distress
3 Phyrexian Arena
1 Sensei's Divining Top
SB: 2 Eradicate
SB: 4 Persecute
SB: 2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
SB: 2 Night of Souls' Betrayal
SB: 1 Barter in Blood
SB: 4 Cranial Extraction

I like being able to see the opponents hand so thats why i favor distress over wrench mind. Nezumi Shortfang wrecks Tooth. It forces them to play off the top of their deck. Rend flesh hits what terror can't and terror hits what rend flesh can't. Barter and Laughter take out the whatever's left. This ensures that your Yukora and Harvesters can attack unmolested. Kokusho never needed help. :D

The side board is completely theoretical. I haven't tested it against anything. Eradicate beats Darksteel Colossus ,Trike Skel and Eternal Witness. Persecute and Boseiju are for MUC. NOSB and barter is for WW. Cranial Extracton is for everyone. :cool:

Lemme know what you guys think.

[Wild Card]

Forgive me for this noobie question but how does vedalken shackles work against guardian idol? Idol is only a creature until end of turn so would the MUC player still have control of the guardian idol if they were to shackle it in response to you turning it into a creature and attacking?

It works the same like against a Nexus or Genju... When it is turned into a creature it can be captured with Shackles and stay under your opponents control as long Shackles stay tapped, no matter if it stops being a creature...

[thejackal917]

well here's my latest list

3- chrome mox
4- guardian idol
3- phyrexian arena
3- damping matrix
4- distress
3- persecute
4- terror / rend flesh
4- dark banishing / eradicate
3- night of soul's betrayal


3- Yukora, the Prisoner
4- greater harvester


17 swamps
2 stalking stones
1 shizo

sideboard
_________________
3- cranial extraction
4- defense grid
3- mourners shield (for karma)
3- hideous laughter
2- barter in blood

im still up in the air about what creature kill to use MD, anyone got any suggestions for those 8 md slots? Also i use damping matrix to get around shackles and defense grid out of the sb against MUC. i think it would work better than trying to get oblivion stone to go off blowing up your stuff to.

[Strider204]

Played about 7 games with sligh won 1 lol I wasn't running enough targeted removal. But once I fixed that he didn't want to play any more lol. Then I played about 5 games against Mono-Green and I found a very nice strategy if your running Mox choose to go 2nd. That extra card means all the difference for your accel. For those running Yukora how do like him I don't have any was really think about an extra beater and I even tested Razormane Masticore and the sad thing he really wasn't that bad. Let me post my updated list.

//NAME: MBC
// Land
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
2 Stalking Stones
18 Swamp
// Artifact
4 Talisman of Dominance
4 Chrome Mox
// Spells
2 Horobi's Whisper
4 Consume Spirit
4 Distress
4 Hideous Laughter
3 Phyrexian Arena
2 Sickening Shoal
4 Cranial Extraction
1 Beacon of Unrest
// Creatures
3 Greater Harvester
4 Kokusho, the Evening Star

Like most people my sideboard not set in stone but I'm definitly thinking 3 Persucute, 4 Damping Matrix, and maybe 3 NOSB to help against sligh and weenie. All thoughts are welcome.

[Avatar of Style]

Played about 7 games with sligh won 1 lol I wasn't running enough targeted removal. But once I fixed that he didn't want to play any more lol. Then I played about 5 games against Mono-Green and I found a very nice strategy if your running Mox choose to go 2nd. That extra card means all the difference for your accel. For those running Yukora how do like him I don't have any was really think about an extra beater and I even tested Razormane Masticore and the sad thing he really wasn't that bad. Let me post my updated list.

//NAME: MBC
// Land
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
2 Stalking Stones
18 Swamp
// Artifact
4 Talisman of Dominance
4 Chrome Mox
// Spells
2 Horobi's Whisper
4 Consume Spirit
4 Distress
4 Hideous Laughter
3 Phyrexian Arena
2 Sickening Shoal
4 Cranial Extraction
1 Beacon of Unrest
// Creatures
3 Greater Harvester
4 Kokusho, the Evening Star

Like most people my sideboard not set in stone but I'm definitly thinking 3 Persucute, 4 Damping Matrix, and maybe 3 NOSB to help against sligh and weenie. All thoughts are welcome.
That sounds pretty solid. What about sb against muc? The best I can think of is shortfang. That little guy pwns, but watch out for shackles. Side in shortfang + damping matrix vs. muc.

[Galvatron]

i would use defense grid if i had it irember i played 3 of them on a UW player and after seiing me drop back to back grids he scooped

[Avatar of Style]

Wow, grids are pretty disgusting. I totally forgot about defense grid. If you resolve one of those bad boys, then the game is pretty much yours assuming muc isn't running 4x truth. Galvatron you have just completed my sb tech vs. muc.

[Galvatron]

hey i could use them myself LOL and best of all it dosnt have to tap to use its abliity BTW avatar im glad sombody apreaciates my inteligence

[thejackal917]

well here's my latest list

3- chrome mox
4- guardian idol
3- phyrexian arena
3- damping matrix
4- distress
3- persecute
4- terror / rend flesh
4- dark banishing / eradicate
3- night of soul's betrayal


3- Yukora, the Prisoner
4- greater harvester


17 swamps
2 stalking stones
1 shizo

sideboard
_________________
3- cranial extraction
4- defense grid
3- mourners shield (for karma)
3- hideous laughter
2- barter in blood

im still up in the air about what creature kill to use MD, anyone got any suggestions for those 8 md slots? Also i use damping matrix to get around shackles and defense grid out of the sb against MUC. i think it would work better than trying to get oblivion stone to go off blowing up your stuff to.

so besides noticing that defense grid is good, anyone got any comments about my deck?

[Galvatron]

whuy do you main 3 damping matrix besids hatting on kiki jiki and meloku and shackles? its decent wuy do you side barters its decent though

[Avatar of Style]

I like the greater harvester + NoSB. It makes chump blocking that much harder. Wow, eradicate vs. banishing is a really difficult choice. The eradicate eliminates the threat of a keiga taking your dudes, as well as stuff like colossus and konda (don't laugh, he is used in U/W control). But if you are running 4x terror, than maybe 2 or 3 eradicate isn't so bad. The other thing you might want to consider is echoing decay instead of terror. Echoing decay kills rude awakening, but it also kills most creatures that your eradicates are too big for. As a bonus, NoSB with adds an extra -1/-1 to your echoing decay for some serious -3/-3 action. Other then that the deck looks great!

Oh as a side note, what does MBC do against plow under? It is the only weakness aside from the just recently answered muc matchup that concerns me.

[Galvatron]

I like the greater harvester + NoSB. It makes chump blocking that much harder. Wow, eradicate vs. banishing is a really difficult choice. The eradicate eliminates the threat of a keiga taking your dudes, as well as stuff like colossus and konda (don't laugh, he is used in U/W control). But if you are running 4x , than maybe 2 or 3 eradicate isn't so bad. The other thing you might want to consider is echoing decay instead of . Echoing decay kills rude awakening, but it also kills most creatures that your eradicates are too big for. As a bonus, NoSB with adds an extra -1/-1 to your echoing decay for some serious -3/-3 action. Other then that the deck looks great!

Oh as a side note, what does MBC do against plow under? It is the only weakness aside from the just recently answered muc matchup that concerns me. wow Konda actualy sees play im trying not to laugh. eradicate powns VS tooth bbye DC, titan,angel

[Avatar of Style]

Yeah, sadly konda sees a little bit of play. He is only 1 mana more than pristine angel, but has the advantage of surviving wrath. Unbelievable isn't it? I thought he would never see the light of day but U/W control makes good use of him. As a side note, this really shouldn't concern mbc too much. Even without eradicate, NoSB + echoing decay = -3/-3 which means goodnight even for beef such as konda.

[Strider204]

Oh as a side note, what does MBC do against plow under? It is the only weakness aside from the just recently answered muc matchup that concerns me.

Thanks for comments on the deck. This is what I 've done against it I drop a arena and hope they don't have a second plow. And it shouldn't hurt that bad unless they have some threats out.

so besides noticing that defense grid is good, anyone got any comments about my deck?
I like the deck and you should definalty run terror over rend flesh it's just from personally experince that you would want terror more in some situations but I would run 3. Eradicate vs. DarkBanishing I think you shouldn't run either and run either echoing decay or hideous laugheter. Which ever one you seem to like more.

Aside: I'm glad defense grid is catching on I thought I was the only one lol. With more Mono-U running boomerang than echoing truth because of boseiju it could be what we were looking for to even out the match.

Edit:I'm not to big of a fan of mourners shield because it seems like a smart White weenie player would side in damping matrix to try shut down obvilion stone and just try to ride the karma to victory.

[thejackal917]

hmmm, i was thinking of a terror / rend flesh combo, but i'll try hideous laughter md i guess. well if they board in damping matrix then we are just screwed if we haven't extracted karma, as oblivion stone and mourner's shield are the only things we can do about it once its in play, and the matrix shuts both down.

[Galvatron]

yeah karma is not cool however i might not worry about that ther was no white deck at all last week

[Grimwall]

I'm not an advocate of Defence Grid I must say, you will eventually need sometning else against muc because they will bring Shackles and destroy your creature base for ever if you can't destroy them. The only solution is if you can get a turn 1 Grid and turn 3 Extraction naming Shackles, but that doesn't happen too often, does it? You'll just give them one more must-counter card and that's all.

Most of the times you'll easily strip their hand of cards and still find that you are owned by a Shackles on the table to which you must find an Oblivion Stone...

Not impressed, although I have played too much with Grid, it doesn't seem the correct choice here...

Did I mention that muc runs 4 Boomerangs and can bounce your Damping Matrix just in time to steal a creature and wreck you? Oblivion Stone on the other hand is permanent removal, and in combnation with Cranial Ectraction gives you a permanent way of dealing with Shackles and Bribery on the second resolution.

[Galvatron]

yeah if you can get a ston or a DC trough it wercks them

[thejackal917]

I'm not an advocate of Defence Grid I must say, you will eventually need sometning else against muc because they will bring Shackles and destroy your creature base for ever if you can't destroy them. The only solution is if you can get a turn 1 Grid and turn 3 Extraction naming Shackles, but that doesn't happen too often, does it? You'll just give them one more must-counter card and that's all.

Most of the times you'll easily strip their hand of cards and still find that you are owned by a Shackles on the table to which you must find an Oblivion Stone...

Not impressed, although I have played too much with Grid, it doesn't seem the correct choice here...

Did I mention that muc runs 4 Boomerangs and can bounce your Damping Matrix just in time to steal a creature and wreck you? Oblivion Stone on the other hand is permanent removal, and in combnation with Cranial Ectraction gives you a permanent way of dealing with Shackles and Bribery on the second resolution.


i play the grid turn 2 or with mox turn 1, mulliganing till i have one. if you play the grid turn 2 they have to have the bounce in there hand to bounce it on their turn 2, and even if they do they tapped out to cast the bounce. So on your turn 3 you can just replay it or something else without having to worry about being countered. The stone is to slow and i don't want to blow up my own mox, idol, or arena with it just to get rid of shackles. Try out the grid, if you get it down turn 1 or 2 you can really throw them off. One of the best plays i have against them is the turn 2 grid, if they bounce it recast it turn 3, turn 4 persecute. toss down the matrix sometime in the next couple of turns and a beatstick and go to town. its how i beat MUC last week anyway....

[Galvatron]

nice i rember i got 3 grids down i beilve the responeses wer " i guse im not countering stuff anytime soon" or "in response i give you the finger"

[Sirsoosage 234]

grid does little vs muc, i would rather play 4 persecute and other good discard spells.

[Avatar of Style]

i play the grid turn 2 or with mox turn 1, mulliganing till i have one. if you play the grid turn 2 they have to have the bounce in there hand to bounce it on their turn 2, and even if they do they tapped out to cast the bounce. So on your turn 3 you can just replay it or something else without having to worry about being countered. The stone is to slow and i don't want to blow up my own mox, idol, or arena with it just to get rid of shackles. Try out the grid, if you get it down turn 1 or 2 you can really throw them off. One of the best plays i have against them is the turn 2 grid, if they bounce it recast it turn 3, turn 4 persecute. toss down the matrix sometime in the next couple of turns and a beatstick and go to town. its how i beat MUC last week anyway....
Grid is good only for the first few turns. You can distress them and use stuff like persecute and extraction unimpeded until turn 5. After that the grid is still useful. You can use grid as 2cc must counter so you can follow up with something heinous. Honden of nights reach is pretty deadly as is damping matrix as it shuts down the only threat to mbc. Idealy I would want turn 1 defense grid, turn 2 distres, turn 3 extraction, turn 4 honden to seal the deal.

[thejackal917]

grid does little vs muc, i would rather play 4 persecute and other good discard spells.

umm, without the grid out how do you expect to get persecute through the counters? think about it...thats what the grid is for.

[GoblinChampion]

MUC can smell grid from a mile away, and brings in annuls from the SB, and sometimes even has the moxen so that it can mana leak it.

[thejackal917]

MUC can smell grid from a mile away, and brings in annuls from the SB, and sometimes even has the moxen so that it can mana leak it.

thats a chance im willing to take, if they can beat me to countering a 2 mana artifact then i can't expect much else to get through either. I doubt they side in annuls because i *might* play defense grid, and they beat me to casting it turn 1 or 2...

[DarkDamon]

Id rather use bosieju than grid, its uncounterable.

[chopstyxnryce]

yeah bosieju + persecute would own MUC. Perfect hand would be something like

Turn 1 : Swamp
Turn 2: Swamp + Distress
Turn3: Boseiju + Distress
Turn4: Swamp + uncounterable persecute

MUC would have a hard time coming back from that.

[Yayo-dude]

why does no MBC build use devour in shadow ? i see it as blacks top removal spell. Maybe you dont use it besides in MBA , but it works nice try it.

In testing , RG ponza´s king , of about 10 games , 7 have been GG , i dont wanna think about mono red versions . . .

Also MUC seems funny , havent playtested yet , but so much counter scares . . .

pulse of the dross , nezumi graverobber , ink eyes , what about those efficient and innovative cards ? may seem fickle in comparison to distress , shortfang , inkeyes and the like , but , in a synergistic deck, they can prove to be nice

My build :

2 senseis divining top
4 guardian idol
3 solemn
2 lightning greaves
2 persecute
4 devour
4 decay
4 harvester
2 ink eyes
4 distress
2 kikus night flower
4 nezumi shortfang

2 shizo
21 swamp


SB :

4 sun Droplet
3 defense grid
2 boseiju
2 mox
2 pulse of the dross
2 persecute

------------------------------------------------------------------

... and when you tap it , everything makes sense :

Black is king.:b:

[Avatar of Style]

If you go first and cast it using mox, muc can't counter because they haven't even dropped a land unless they are running shoals and a spare blue one drop (unlikely). Although some muc has annul main to take out some of useful artifacts like sensei's divining top, defense grid and damping matrix. yeah bosieju + persecute would own MUC. Perfect hand would be something like

Turn 1 : Swamp
Turn 2: Swamp + Distress
Turn3: Boseiju + Distress
Turn4: Swamp + uncounterable persecute

MUC would have a hard time coming back from that.Boseiju doesn't own muc. If you run three of them thinking this is going to help you win then you are dead wrong. When you drop your boseiju, muc simply drops theirs to destroy yours. The proper defense against muc is defense grid. It essentially becomes a 2cc must counter. Just wait until they tap 4 for a magpie and then drop the defense grid. They must counter this. Then persecute for good times vs. muc.

[chopstyxnryce]

If you go first and cast it using mox, muc can't counter because they haven't even dropped a land unless they are running shoals and a spare blue one drop (unlikely). Although some muc has annul main to take out some of useful artifacts like sensei's divining top, defense grid and damping matrix.Boseiju doesn't own muc. If you run three of them thinking this is going to help you win then you are dead wrong. When you drop your boseiju, muc simply drops theirs to destroy yours. The proper defense against muc is defense grid. It essentially becomes a 2cc must counter. Just wait until they tap 4 for a magpie and then drop the defense grid. They must counter this. Then persecute for good times vs. muc.

Well thats assuming MUC will run copies of boseiju just to counter other people playing boseiju. this strategy would work against the dude who won the paris regionals. he didnt play any boseiju.

How about we play both? Aim for uncounterable extractions and persecutes and drop defense grid to make 5cc mana leaks??

[Dementia_Rex]

Ok, I threw together an MBC deck at the last minute last week and took first at FNM. It actually played fairly well, considering I just threw it together before the tournament. I conquered B/G cloud, WW, MUC and Beacon Green with it. Obviously it needs fine tuning but there are some discrepencies between DC and no DC. The solution I came up with is two different decks, one of which is based around Cloud and one of which is more of a traditional MBC deck. Sadly, Distress will never be duress, and Extraplanar lense shall never be cabal coffers. How I miss the days of Edicts and Haunting Echoes.

Anyways, Deck #1: BIG Cloud

4 Chrome Mox
1 Shizo
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
16 Swamp

4 Guardian Idol
4 Tal of Dominance
2 Tal of Indulgance

3 Yurkora the Prisoner
2 Kokusho the Evening Star

2 Cranial Extraction
3 Death Cloud
4 Rend Flesh
3 Hideous Laughter
2 NOSB
3 P Arena
2 SD Top
3 Consume Spirit

SB:

2 Cranial Extraction
1 NOSB
1 Hideous Laughter
3 Persecute
3 N Shortfang
4 Wicked Akuba
1 O-Stone

The purpose is simple: kill things and ramp up to a big cloud, preferebly with multiple tals and idols in play and an arena. The C Spirits are there to combat life loss from the arenas, and if you play a tight game they don't interfere with the cloud. Top is also there because of the synergy with DC. This is close to the version I took first with last week, but they were very close games. Cloud is good, but with all of the mega-mana green decks running around and MUC, which will just counter it, it may not be the right choice for the meta.

With that, I bring you deck #2: No hand for you!

20 Swamp
1 Shizo
2 Blinkmoth Nexus

4 Yukora the Prisoner
2 Kokusho the Evening Star

4 Distress
4 Wrench Mind
4 Guardian Idol
2 Cranial Extraction
2 Persecute
3 Nezumi Shortfang
4 Rend Flesh
4 Echoying Decay
3 P Arena
3 Barter in Blood

SB:

2 NOSB
1 Persecute
2 Hideous Laughter
2 O-Stone
2 Death Cloud
2 Cranial Extraction
4 Wicked Akuba

This deck is more based around discard, which is normally Blacks way of controlling the game. The main deck sports the full discard package, Distress, WM, Shortfang and Persecute. Without the explosive blossom of death that is DC, the deck has to be able to stop things that are nasty from showing up in the first place. Testing has shown that w/o the tals this deck is more prone to Plow Under hose, but that happens, and if you play right they should never have a plow to hose you with. Extraction works nicely with the discard, letting you peek before a persecute so you know what to call. Same goes for distress. DC is still in the board, because sometime you will need cloud to kill lots of big things(TAN) and it gives you another win condition against opposing extractions.

Just some ideas I've been kicking around. A friend and I are taking both decks to FNM tommorow, I'll post the results afterwards.

Keep the Black mana flowing!

[knax_15]

U/x control decks are not a problem w/ MBC. thats what our hand disruptions are for.. we can even put in honden of the nights reach on the SB. doesnt seem to bug me when playing against U/x decks. wretch mind, distress, mind sludge, persecute, ravenous rats, shortfang.. thats why theyre their for.. it all depends on how you play it.. a good MBC player knows when and when not to cast their kill cards, knows how to bluff and most importantly, WINS!!! :)

[Grimwall]

I'm starting to wonder what you people are running in your sideboards in order to have space for the Grid. All my sideboard cards serve double duty in 2+ decks of the field, whereas you'll only side in the Grid against muc (not ug, you own that anyway and besides, it only runs around 10 counters...)

My deck is stil in the testing stages and my sideboard is already tight, i'd like to see some sidaboard choices and decklists.

For reference, my list (complete with sideboard) is on the second half page 9.

[Yayo-dude]

screw the color pie why does no MBC build use devour in shadow ? i see it as blacks top removal spell. Maybe you dont use it besides in MBA , but it works nice try it.

In testing , RG ponza´s king , of about 10 games , 7 have been GG , i dont wanna think about mono red versions . . .

Also MUC seems funny , havent playtested yet , but so much counter scares . . .

pulse of the dross , nezumi graverobber , ink eyes , what about those efficient and innovative cards ? may seem fickle in comparison to distress , shortfang , inkeyes and the like , but , in a synergistic deck, they can prove to be nice

My build :

2 senseis divining top
4 guardian idol
3 solemn
2 lightning greaves
2 persecute
4 devour
4 decay
4 harvester
2 ink eyes
4 distress
2 kikus night flower
4 nezumi shortfang

2 shizo
21 swamp
(http://</p><p%20style=)

SB :

4 sun Droplet
3 defense grid
2 boseiju
2 mox
2 pulse of the dross
2 persecute

------------------------------------------------------------------

... and when you tap it , everything makes sense :

Black is king.:b:

[Galvatron]

nobody runs devourer in shado because oa fhte hit toy ucan tak your losind lif from the areana and the DC(if you run them) thats why

[thejackal917]

U/x control decks are not a problem w/ MBC. thats what our hand disruptions are for.. we can even put in honden of the nights reach on the SB. doesnt seem to bug me when playing against U/x decks. wretch mind, distress, mind sludge, persecute, ravenous rats, shortfang.. thats why theyre their for.. it all depends on how you play it.. a good MBC player knows when and when not to cast their kill cards, knows how to bluff and most importantly, WINS!!! :)

hmm, i have been think about adding more discard. I've been thinking about Honden of Night's Reach, as i love persistant effects like this and NoSB. and the idea of putting your opponent into top-deck mode and keeping them there for a one time mana investment isn't bad. Here's my current deck, let me know if you think i have enough discard already or if i should try to fit the honden or some other discard in the sb or md.

3- chrome mox
4- guardian idol
3- phyrexian arena
3- damping matrix
4- distress
3- persecute
4- terror
4- rend flesh
3- night of soul's betrayal

3- Yukora, the Prisoner
4- greater harvester


17 swamps
2 stalking stones
1 shizo

sideboard
_________________
3- cranial extraction
4- defense grid
3- mourners shield
3- hideous laughter
2- eradicate