Dies to Removal

Yes.
I know what you're thinking(, or at least have a good idea).
"That again?"
It's similar reaction to that of my opponents when they say things like "I can't believe devotion is still here".
I don't blame them. I'm still surprised myself that it works well.

I had the idea for the deck back in August, as I was prepping for the new rotation.
Most friends and people at my LGS were saying the same lines that one hears every year, just before rotation.
"I can't wait til Mono Black is gone."
I would retort, though never taken seriously, that black still had plenty of good theros block creatures, that just weren't good enough to make the cut in a world of Desecration Demon and Pack Rat.

Fast forward to this week, and you'll find me unenthused with the new standard metagame filled with green deck decks, and boards loaded with permenants. I had been playing G/B Dredge as a pet deck since August, and love the new Sultai version. However, if everyone else is playing green, or other planeswalker decks, then I definitely don't want to put up with stalemates. It got bad enough to where I was really to try anything to break this up; I even was mainboarding 2 Bow of Nylea.
I then went and got my sligh deck out of my "red box", in which I put all of my red standard playables. (I stole the idea from Patrick Sullivan. It works great. Picked up Rabblemaster back when he was $3 on preorder. This is all besides the point.)
However, my FNM buddy AJ has needed a deck ever since his 2 decks from last standard (U/W/R Control and Blue Devotion) rotated out. So I've been lending him my sligh deck, and he's been doing very well, though he still prefers not playing creatures.

So I threw the deck together. Checking online decklists, I found nearly nothing. Then I found Ryan Forsberg's 1st place deck from the StarCityGames Autumn State Championship in Illinois. His list was almost exactly mine, so I swapped out 4 Pain Seer for 4 Squelching leeches, and decided to try a build that has proved itself in a field of Azban Midrange and Jeskai counterburn decks.

Here's what you've been waiting for:

[deck]Mono Black Devotion[/deck]


Longstory short, I won the FNM, and I thought it'd be perfect to return to this forum after 4 or so months of not posting/reading in order to share this awesome list.


Not sure if my FNM and the Illinois State Championships for SCG is enough make this deck "proven", so I took the safe route and posted this in the Developing forum. Let me know if I did anything wrong. This is my first thread on this website, though I used to write giant tournament reports in the Mono Black Aggro thread.
Hope you guys don't hate this that much.

Goodnight and God bless!

I tried to write a tournament report with sideboarding guides, hit submit, and then it said I wasn't logged in and some SQL server error.
So I lost all of that.

I'm too tired and frustrated at uncontrollable computer problems to even attempt to rewrite it all again.
Maybe some other day.

Hope the decklist was good enough for now.
Here's my results.

Round 1 vs Mardu Warriors Aggro: 2-1

Round 2 vs Jeskai Burn: 2-1

Round 3 vs Rabble Red: 2-1

Round 4 vs Abzan Midrange: 2-0

Round 5 vs Naya Walkers: 2-1

Good night. :\

Really would like to hear about the matchups and how you sideboarded.

Round 1 vs Mardu Warriors Aggro: 2-1

This deck is a variant of Rabble Red that takes advantage of splashing black and white for other warrior creatures. It gets a better sideboard and sometimes Sorin for some reach.

First game, my opponent mulliganed to 5 and still whooped me.
I took a hand with some lands, thoughtseize and a Master of the Feast.
Thoughtseize is even worse against aggro these days, and taking the Crackling Doom (which could kill my only creature) maybe wasn't the best idea.
Akroan Hoplite put me out of my misery.

Sideboarding:
+4 Pharika's Cure
+3 Drown In Sorrow
+2 Despise
-4 Thoughtseize
-3 Sign In Blood
-1 Hythonia, The Cruel
-1 Silence the Believers

Game 2 was removalfest, and I celebrated the newly made up festival by tempo playing the hell out of my opponent with Pharika's Cure.
The board was empty most of the game, as my opponent had some nice removal too.
It was very important that I used my removal before my opponent declared attackers to both prevent Rabblemaster making a 1/1 and his Raid trigger bringing the various Bloodsoaked Champion copies back into play.
I eventually won with a whip and demons.
Game 3 went the same.
After the match my opponent exclaimed "HOW MUCH REMOVAL DO YOU HAVE?! " and I gladly listed off my plethora


Round 2 vs Jeskai Burn: 2-1

This matchup threw me a bit off, as I've only seen this deck on livestreams, but never in person.
I mulligan to 6 and then kept a hand with 4 lands and 2 hero's downfalls. I regret that decision.
I was able to kill my opponent's few creatures, but I got burned too much without any lifegain and quickly went to game 2.

Sideboarding:
+2 Empty the Pits
+1 Liliana Vess
+2 Pharika's Cure
-2 Thoughtseize
-3 Sign In Blood

I wasn't sure what the best plan against this deck was, and I believe that I was underprepared for the matchup. I figured that I should minimize my life loss in the postboard games, and that luck would bestow me a better hand than that which I drew in game 1.
Game 2 went very similar, except for when my life got low, I was able to cast a Liliana Vess and tutor for Gray Merchant and gain some life. Eventually an unanswered Squelching Leeches won the game.

Further Sideboarding:
+2 Pharika's Cure
-2 Thoughtseize

Game 3, my opponent mulliganed to 6 and I got a nut draw. I destroyed them.
Turn 1 they play a land, I thoughtseize away a stoke the flames.
Turn 2 they play a temple, and I play a swamp and pass.
Turn 3 they play Mantis Rider and I Bile Blight it. I then play a Master of the Feast on my turn.
Turn 4 they play a land and pass, I attack for 5 and cast a second Master of the Feast. My opponent seems helpless and just throws a stoke the flames at my life total.
Turn 5 they play a land and a Seeker of the Way and pass. I attack for 10 and cast a Gray Merchant with a devotion of 6.



Round 3 vs Rabble Red: 2-1

This was a much tougher version of round one and went almost exactly the same. I expected to lose the first game, and did. Even on the play, this is a hard deck to beat post board, and it's exactly why one would play it.
The key to this matchup, once again, is to kill Rabblemasters pre-combat, and playing around Swiftspear's Prowess trigger when trying to cast a Bile Blight. Try to get some card advantage via removal if you can ( killing pumped creatures, or ones that are being targeted). You should definitely kill Akroan Crusader pre-emptively.

Sideboarding:
+4 Pharika's Cure
+3 Drown In Sorrow
+2 Despise
+1 Liliana Vess (worked out better than one might expect)
-4 Thoughtseize
-3 Sign In Blood
-1 Hythonia, The Cruel
-1 Silence the Believers
-1 Murderous Cut

This matchup is almost solely winnable when we're on the play, and is probably only winnable if you draw your sideboard cards.
Game 2 was almost lost as a Herald of Torment took my life down by 1 each turn.
It also hurt that I took a 2 swamp hand and couldn't draw a 3rd land until turn 4. Drown In Sorrow on turn 4 rather than turn 3 makes a huge difference in this matchup, surprisingly.
I got down to 5 life, knowing that my opponent had a stoke the flames in his hand from a previous Despise.
Luckily he only had 3 lands.
He casts a titan strike on my on herald, post-combat, solely for the scry. He bottoms the card, confirming that it wasn't the ever-so-lethal mountain.
He draws a card and scoops.

Further sideboarding:
+1 Murderous Cut
+1 Silence the Believers
-2 Herald of Torment

I remember this game clearly. Opening hand was Swamp, Swamp, Swamp, Bile Blight, Hero's Downfall, Whip of Erebos, Liliana Vess.
I kept the hand, because such a defensive start isn't something to gamble away with a mulligan.
Opponent mulligans to 6 and keeps it.
I bile blight, and downfall away the first 2 creatures. Turn 4 I Drown In Sorrow away a Rabbletmaster and its token.
Turn 5 Liliana Changes the Game. I cast her with 2 Whip of Erebos, and an unwanted Swamp in my hand.
The board is empty, so I take a risk and -2 her to tutor a Squelching Leeches to the top of my library. Squelching Leeches is definitely the new Pack Rat, in the sense that it can bring a ton of power to the board out of nowhere. I figured, no matter what my opponent's turn 6 is, it wont be able to beat my 5/5 who's guarenteed to turn into a 6/6 via my formally unwanted Swamp.
They cast an Akroan Crusader and pass.
I draw my Leeches, play a Swamp, cast my 6/6 for 4, and tutor for a Gray Merchant, as I don't see my devotion going down anytime soon.
I pass to them, they play Rabblemaster, and throw the crusader and the 1/1 goblin token at Liliana to finish her. I block the crusader and let Lili die.
Next turn, I draw Gray Merchant and play my whip. I switch to offense and attack to net 6 life.
Opponent plays a land, and attacks for 6 with a Rabble master and 2 tokens.
I play a Swamp, and then Gary, drain 6 life points, and attack with my 7/7 and gain 7 life. My opponent is now suddenly going from threatening my life total, to fearing for his own, as he's now only at 1 life.
Next turn, he only attacks with his 3 tokens( because he has to) and I block one with Gray merchant, which nets me another 2 life.
Next turn I attack for lethal.



Round 4 vs Abzan Midrange: 2-0

The Ari Lax list.
Beginning of game one, we thoughtseize and despise each other hands to pieces the first 2 turns.
Master of the Feast makes it out but the cards he gives my opponent eventually fuel removal to kill him.
I kill a Siege Rhino pre combat on turn 5 to prevent an expected Wingmate Rocc.
Eventually, it's Herald of Torment vs the 3/4 Bird.
I attack into it, he blocks, and I bile blight it. My opponent asks if this was after blocks, and I say yes. He's clearly worried about his life total, which is indicative of his hand, while I'm just trying to clear the skies.
He play's a Sorrin, and I keep pressuring it's loyalty, as he blocks with it's token.
A new Master of the Feast comes down and puts me over the top.
I win.

Sideboarding:
+1 Extinguish All Hope
+2 Despise
+1 Liliana Vess
+2 Empty the Pits
+1 Erebos, God of the Dead
-4 Bile Blight
-3 Sign In Blood

Bile Blight couldn't really kill any of his creatures, and the damage race was too close in the first game for me to want to use Sign In Bloods the second game. We're both going to play aggressively, with him on land, and me in the air. However, I want to respond to his heavy removal with empty the pits, or potentially board wipe him with Extinguish All Hope which doesn't kill my important creatures. If Gray Merchant goes to the graveyard, I'll happily whip him back.
By the way, the first game ol' Gary and the Whip never even showed up. I kept wishing that I'd draw a whip. Would have made it much easier.
Anyway, this game for me goes Despise, Despise, Master of the Feast, Whip, another Master after the first got killed, and then I bestowed a Herald onto the living Master.
I dominated the game via life totals, though my opponent still had Siege Rhino, a Courser, and some mana dorks."
He casts a Reclamation Sage, but has to kill my whip rather than the Master, because my life gain is really taking over the race. My opponent also still defiantly believed that the card disadvantage of Master made it a bad card. His mistake.
Turn 9 I cast a Gray Merchant for a 4 point life swing. He casts a sorin, and +1 it for lifelink. His Rhino comes in and I gladly block with Gary. I have a second whip in hand, and play it the very next turn to whip back Gary for 6, and then attack for 7 with Gary and Master.



Round 5 vs Naya Walkers: 2-1

This was late into the night, and the deck was so crazy that I barely remember what happened.
Instead of a spare recollection, I'll just tell you about my opponent's brilliant control deck, and how I boarded against it.
Now I think he is on to something( he was 4-0) and has found a fantastic control deck.

I guess that his deck consisted of approximately:
2-4 Chandra, Pyromaster
2-3 Elspeth Sun's Champion
1-2 Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
1 Ajani Steadfast
4 Sarkhan, Dragonspeaker
3 Courser of Kruphix (amazing synergy with Chandra and G/W Ajani)
3-4 Fleecemain
2 Hornet's Nest
4 Chained to the Rocks
1 Banishing Light
4 Stoke the Flames
3-4 Anger the gods (great synergy with Hornet's nest which are in his board as well)
2-4 End Hostilities


Hornet's Nest makes it impossible to attack against and his boardwipes are fantastic.
Also, most creature removal is rendered useless against him, as he has no real creatures
I would have won the first game with whipped-back Squelching Leeches if I had one more land, as Sarkhan cant block, and my opponent had 8 life when I had 7 swamps.


I sideboarded:
+2 Empty the Pits
+1 Liliana Vess
+2 Despise
+1 Erebos
-4 Bile Blight
-1 Murderous Cut
-1 Silence the Believers





So yeah, sorry this came so late. My computer is broken and I'm trying to replace it.
I had fun with this deck, recommend it to all midrange and control players, and I would only change a few cards.

Deck Changes
Mainboard
-1 Hythonia the Cruel
+1 Muderous Cut
Sideboard
-1 Empty the Pits
+1 Despise

Thanks for the report. Good job. I've looked to see if I thought MonoBlack could work. Good to see some people are having success with it. Do you think Nykthos would have helped?

Congrats on the FNM win!

Iv been looking at something similar but with 1 Liliana MB and 1 SB, and going topping off my curve with 2 Abhorrent Overlords and 1 Empty the Pits MB and another in the SB. I also play 8 fetches and 2 Urborg with a total of 25 land. I need to take it to an FNM and try it out for myself I think, it looks like it worked really well for you.

The list can probably benefit from 4 Radiant Fountain.

I'm not sure I'd want to jam 4 colorless sources in a deck with a lot of double black cards.

The most dominant deck in the previous format ran 18 or so XBB spells and 4 BBB spells with 4 colorless sources. Works just fine and will help against Jeskai and the aggro decks of the world.

Thanks for the report. Good job. I've looked to see if I thought MonoBlack could work. Good to see some people are having success with it. Do you think Nykthos would have helped?

That honestly is the question that I have received most, and my answer is no. I mean, feel free to test it, though.

However, I've never had devotion above 6 at maximum. I'd have to guess that my average devotion at any given board state is between 0 and 2.
That being said, as a former Red Devotion enthusiast( sept 2013-dec 2013), I've learned that Nykthos is useless without at least 4 devotion guaranteed.
If you have 3 devotion: Congrats, you converted 3 potentially varied mana into 3 mana of 1 color.
If you have 2 devotion, you're losing mana.
If I have 4 or more devotion, then I most likely have all the mana I'll need for the game( I curve out at 5 usually).

So the shakiness of its usefulness combined with the fact that it's not a Swamp, thus making Squelching Leeches a sad panda , I decided early on not to use it.

I really miss scry lands from last rotation's devotion build, but the Swamp-only mana base pays off when Squelching Leeches is a 7/7 for 4, with the potential to grow without using the stack.

If I'd change the manabase, it'd be to add another Swamp( or a polluted delta ).

Congrats on the FNM win!

Iv been looking at something similar but with 1 Liliana MB and 1 SB, and going topping off my curve with 2 Abhorrent Overlords and 1 Empty the Pits MB and another in the SB. I also play 8 fetches and 2 Urborg with a total of 25 land. I need to take it to an FNM and try it out for myself I think, it looks like it worked really well for you.

Thanks a lot!

Liliana Vess was an awesome card, that I'm considering upping to 2 as well, simply because she can tutor for my sideboard cards, or the best card at any given gamestate. Sadly, she can NOT rescue you from being too far behind, as she only rigs one card per turn.
I definitely approve of her.

Your mana base seems cool, though I don't believe that 8 fetches warrant the 2nd Urborg. I'm considering adding 1 fetch land myself to go up to 25 lands, but I'm not sure if it's worth risking having redundant legendary lands, and giving my opponent swamps, if almost all of my lands are just swamps anyway( or can be substituted for swamps).
I personally wouldn't do Urborg, and would definitely not do 2. I'm considering running a fetch or 2, just to make hitting land drops easier, as my only trouble was feeling short of lands occasionally. But even so, a 25th swamp just might be better. I'll test it though.

The most dominant deck in the previous format ran 18 or so XBB spells and 4 BBB spells with 4 colorless sources. Works just fine and will help against Jeskai and the aggro decks of the world.

This is a very important aspect of the deck and I'll detail my take on it here.

Old MBD had Mutavault to help power Pack Rat and because....well...Mutavault is just a damn good card.
New MBD does not have Pack Rat to power, and does not have any land anywhere near as good as Mutavault was (, which was IMO the most powerful card in standard last year).

New MBD however, has Squelching Leeches which brings expanding power( similar to, but not as power as Pack Rat), and this threat demands swamps.
If you take out non-Swamp sources, you have to force our friendly leech-ridden giant out of the deck. That then opens up the gates for a new creature to take its place.

The deck list that I posted and won my FNM with, and that won the Illinois State Championships for SCG, needs Leeches though.
The guy is a great bomb, and gives you ridiculous amounts of life when paired with Whip of Erebos, or presents lethal when flying with Herald of Torment.

So, for the record, the list that we've been discussing needs swamps, not because of mana reasons, but for consistency and synergy.
Don't let that stop you from experimenting with better builds that utilize the fountain, though.

This is a control deck. It rarely matters if your bomb is a 5/5 or a 6/6, which is what the fountains would do on average. I think you just need to survive against boss Sligh, and land drops that gain you life might facilitate this.

This is a control deck. It rarely matters if your bomb is a 5/5 or a 6/6, which is what the fountains would do on average. I think you just need to survive against boss Sligh, and land drops that gain you life might facilitate this.

This deck is really good against Boss Sligh. If this became popular ever, which it may never, Boss Sligh would probably be played far less.
We have enough mainboard removal and lifegain to slow down their tempo, and our sideboard makes their deck do nothing. Post sideboard, it's hard for them to do anything against constant barrages of Pharika's Cure, Bile Blight, and Drown In Sorrow. My 2 red opponents were the only ones angry after I beat them.

Did really well with U/B Control last week( got 3rd), so I'm going to switch back to Mono Black to throw off all of those who are tired of me beating them.
Here's the revised list.

[deck]Creatures
4x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
4x Herald of Torment
4x Squelching Leeches
4x Master of the Feast
1x Mogis's Marauder

Planeswalkers
1x Liliana Vess

Instants
4x Hero's Downfall
2x Murderous Cut
4x Bile Blight

Sorceries
2x Sign In Blood
3x Thoughtseize

Enchantments
2x Whip of Erebos

Lands
25x Swamp


Sideboard
3x Drown In Sorrow
2x Empty the Pits
1x Erebos, God of the Dead
1x Extinguish All Hope
2x Mogis's Marauder
4x Pharika's Cure
2x Stain the Mind
[/deck]

Did really well with U/B Control last week( got 3rd), so I'm going to switch back to Mono Black to throw off all of those who are tired of me beating them.
Here's the revised list.

[deck]Creatures
4x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
4x Herald of Torment
4x Squelching Leeches
4x Master of the Feast
1x Mogis's Marauder

Planeswalkers
1x Liliana Vess

Instants
4x Hero's Downfall
2x Murderous Cut
4x Bile Blight

Sorceries
2x Sign In Blood
3x Thoughtseize

Enchantments
2x Whip of Erebos

Lands
25x Swamp


Sideboard
3x Drown In Sorrow
2x Empty the Pits
1x Erebos, God of the Dead
1x Extinguish All Hope
2x Mogis's Marauder
4x Pharika's Cure
2x Stain the Mind
[/deck]

ADarkConfidant, I really like your new list and will certainly try it tonight at my local store (first Standard tourney in a looong time) : ).

Are you using the Stain the Mind for the same matchups you used to side in Despises? And what about the Marauders?

Any new developments with this deck archetype post Origins?

Doubt we'll see much from it, especially with a lot of the juicy bits like merchant and thoughtseize rotating in a month.