Tweaking this Black deck?

tdellaringa

Been using this in both Event and QB. Works well, but it's not quite humming like it could .

Creatures (3)

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Guul Draz Overseer
Erebo's Titan
Brood Butcher

Spells (6)

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Dark Petition (load in heavies after discarding them)
Unholy Hunger - removal
Read the Bones - cards
Mire's Malice - card discard
Grip of Desolation - removal
Grave Birthing - gets eldrazi defender

Support (1)

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Blighted Fen - get mana and destroy creature


The strategy is discard opponent and my creatures using ability. Petition creatures, while controlling opponent via card and creature removal. It's the only deck I have that can beat Kiora and the other dual PWs.

I feel like creatures could maybe be better, not sure I have anything better though. I'm often short cards, Read the Bones not super effective. Just put in Blighted Fen, seems too high costed.

Grave Birthing sometimes seems to be useful, sometimes not.

PapiLouis4

if you add a list of what uncommons, rares and mythics you have available to you it will be much easier to help you out

madwren

Do you have Transgress the Mind? It's an uncommon that I've found very effective in discard strategies. I agree Blighted Fen is too expensive for its effect.

The challenge with Lilliana is that everything is too slow and roundabout.

tdellaringa

I swapped in Transgress the Mind and that really helped - lowers the mana curve for sure. That makes the deck:

Creatures (3)

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Guul Draz Overseer
Erebo's Titan
Brood Butcher

Spells (7)

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Dark Petition (load in heavies after discarding them)
Unholy Hunger - removal
Read the Bones - cards
Mire's Malice - card discard
Grip of Desolation - removal
Grave Birthing - gets eldrazi defender
Transgress the Mind - card removal

Using this version, I finally beat Inverter of Truth, and I've gotten close to beating World Breaker twice.

I think one of the main issues is that I don't have strong enough creatures. It takes too long to beat them down - would you agree? I'm not sure what to swap in or if I have anything better than what I have, but I have seen some pretty wild black/colorless stuff used against me. I think with some tougher creatures, I could beat the opponent down quicker and not give them time to break out of the lock.

Here are the current cards I have available in uncommon - mythic.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/48702/black.png (can't include here image too big)

KroNoS

Try this. (made this using your card list.)

Creatures (3)

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Guul Draz Overseer (or kothophed)
Erebo's Titan
Despoiler of souls

Spells (6)

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Dark Petition (load in heavies after discarding them)
Unholy Hunger - removal
Grip of Desolation - removal
transgress the mind - first card discard


Support (1)

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smoldering marsh
sword of the animist

your choice final spot.. 4th creature probably best bet since you dont have token creating creatures.

tdellaringa

Okay guys, I got a big pack yesterday since I hit 600 crystals, and ended up getting some good cards. Modified the deck, and it seems to be working much better. Would like to know what you think.

I removed the whole idea of discard from the deck entirely (other than her special ability). That wasn't winning me games, only stalling. Doing that allowed me to add in some better cards that support beating down the opponent. So the strategy is still to dump creatures and pull them back via Petition and Raise Dead, but the creatures are better, for one.

I added in Mirrorpool (which seems to make any deck better) and put back in Brawler's Plate (which was in the original deck listing). The plate helps my fatties hit, as well as making the Eldrazi pull in more mana when he goes. With these changes, the deck is moving fast, and I am not getting stuck like before.

So far I'm about 40-1 with this, only one loss to Kiora when she pulled an amazing cascade and pulled like 100 mana, no kidding.

Here's the list

Creatures (3)

• Brood Butcher - Good for multiple things, getting an Eldrazi to feed mana, a good beater creature, and when dies, gives a -2/-2 to their first creature.
• Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim - Can help recover life, but the real benefit is the activate to destroy. I can trade creatures with an opponent, and then easily petition/raise them back.
• Oblivion Sower - The heavy hitter - for only 14 mana. Ruins the board for non-black opponents, helps me get mana.

Spells (5)

• Dark Petition - Main way to get creatures on the board. Double up with Mirrorpool makes things faster.
• Unholy Hunger - removal
• Grip of Desolation - removal (both can also benefit from Mirrorpool)
• Grave Birthing - 2 things, gets a drone out, draws a card.
• Read the Bones - card draw

Supports (2)

• Brawler's Plate - Pump it up. Berserker helps with creature removal. Die? Bring em back.
• Mirrorpool - This card basically helps you do everything. It's crazy.

I'm looking forward to see how this does against the big hitters in the Event this weekend. I was not able to beat the final guy in round 2.

span_argoman

Do you have Sword of the Animist? I think it would work better than Berserker's Plate seeing as how you basically don't have any other support that stays on the board. It's one mana cheaper and can help to destroy enemy supports. But I see your rationale on trading creatures and resurrecting them. You probably know better on which card being more suitable.

Also Grave Birthing basically says "pay 4 mana to block your opponent's next non-flying creature's attack and replace this card". With Berserker Plate / Sword of the Animist in play, it says the same except gain 2 delayed mana. The slot could be better utilised by inserting another creature to ensure you have sufficient creatures to discard to be reanimated, even better if the creature also spawns Eldrazi Scion tokens. Very good cards for a fourth creature slot are Graveblade Marauder and Blight Herder, although I'm guessing you don't have them based on the posts thus far.

tdellaringa

I do have sword. I will try it both ways. I will check for those two other cards too - you make an interesting point. Thanks!

PapiLouis4

tdellaringa wrote:

Okay guys, I got a big pack yesterday since I hit 600 crystals, and ended up getting some good cards. Modified the deck, and it seems to be working much better. Would like to know what you think.

I removed the whole idea of discard from the deck entirely (other than her special ability). That wasn't winning me games, only stalling. Doing that allowed me to add in some better cards that support beating down the opponent. So the strategy is still to dump creatures and pull them back via Petition and Raise Dead, but the creatures are better, for one.

I added in Mirrorpool (which seems to make any deck better) and put back in Brawler's Plate (which was in the original deck listing). The plate helps my fatties hit, as well as making the Eldrazi pull in more mana when he goes. With these changes, the deck is moving fast, and I am not getting stuck like before.

So far I'm about 40-1 with this, only one loss to Kiora when she pulled an amazing cascade and pulled like 100 mana, no kidding.

Here's the list

Creatures (3)

• Brood Butcher - Good for multiple things, getting an Eldrazi to feed mana, a good beater creature, and when dies, gives a -2/-2 to their first creature.
• Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim - Can help recover life, but the real benefit is the activate to destroy. I can trade creatures with an opponent, and then easily petition/raise them back.
• Oblivion Sower - The heavy hitter - for only 14 mana. Ruins the board for non-black opponents, helps me get mana.

Spells (5)

• Dark Petition - Main way to get creatures on the board. Double up with Mirrorpool makes things faster.
• Unholy Hunger - removal
• Grip of Desolation - removal (both can also benefit from Mirrorpool)
• Grave Birthing - 2 things, gets a drone out, draws a card.
• Read the Bones - card draw

Supports (2)

• Brawler's Plate - Pump it up. Berserker helps with creature removal. Die? Bring em back.
• Mirrorpool - This card basically helps you do everything. It's crazy.

I'm looking forward to see how this does against the big hitters in the Event this weekend. I was not able to beat the final guy in round 2.

pretty much how i run my lily deck, except i run transgress the mind and infinite obliteration instead of grave birthing and your supports. and i also have 3 huge eldrazi i run to ressurect them

tdellaringa

I kept finding the discard was short term gain, long term loss. This seems to be working way better. Not only am I winning nearly all the time, but the games are twice as fast. Early yet, but we'll see how it goes.

tdellaringa

span_argoman wrote:

Do you have Sword of the Animist? I think it would work better than Berserker's Plate seeing as how you basically don't have any other support that stays on the board. It's one mana cheaper and can help to destroy enemy supports. But I see your rationale on trading creatures and resurrecting them. You probably know better on which card being more suitable.

Also Grave Birthing basically says "pay 4 mana to block your opponent's next non-flying creature's attack and replace this card". With Berserker Plate / Sword of the Animist in play, it says the same except gain 2 delayed mana. The slot could be better utilised by inserting another creature to ensure you have sufficient creatures to discard to be reanimated, even better if the creature also spawns Eldrazi Scion tokens. Very good cards for a fourth creature slot are Graveblade Marauder and Blight Herder, although I'm guessing you don't have them based on the posts thus far.

No, I don't have either of those cards. At the moment I am not finding myself short of creatures at all. I actually just had my second loss vs. Chandra, where I was a bit mana-screwed and for some reason drew zero removal for most of the game. I couldn't get enough loyalty to trigger the flow.

madwren

While I understand disliking the discard component, Transgress the Mind is almost always a better mana investment than Grave Birthing. You're paying 7 mana for the purpose of drawing a card and getting a 3-mana return on a second card, at a time not often of your choosing.

You could, for that 7 mana, cast Transgress and Read the Bones, and come out significantly ahead.

Also, be careful with Ayli, as you can inadvertantly cause her to sacrifice herself, as well. For some reason, I thought she could only kill other creatures. Imagine my chagrin when she was the sole creature on the board, and an inadvertent cascade caused her to off herself.

tdellaringa

I see your point about the mana. But I am getting a creature on board with birthing that will also result in mana returned to me. If he is buffed with Brawler, he can give me 9 mana back when he dies (I can take him out myself too). My issue with Transgress is you don't really know the effect. I might dump his card, and he might have a big cascade next turn making it a moot point.

It would almost be best to have some sort of tutor card to get the exact card I need. That is the only problem I have faced so far. Having enough cards, but now and then not having the creature or kill I need.

And yes, a couple times Ayli has waxed herself. But again, I can usually get her back.

tdellaringa

Aaaand here's why Animist doesn't work with this deck. It activates Ayli when you don't want to. Just lost 2 creatures to Koth at a critical time. It needs to be the plate.

PapiLouis4

tdellaringa wrote:

I kept finding the discard was short term gain, long term loss. This seems to be working way better. Not only am I winning nearly all the time, but the games are twice as fast. Early yet, but we'll see how it goes.

i dont play her that much, but i find with discard it gives me complete control of the game, and also gives me a higher win%. it may be slower than what youre currently running, but im not sure since ive barely used her for quick battle. however like i said, it pretty much guarantees me winning and i dont seem to have trouble getting my huge creatures out.

maybe we play it differently, but a useful hint, i tend to look for cascades of other lower mana colors to give me more loyalty, or match loyalty gems as a higher priority in order to use her abilities more frequently. this allows my 3-4 huge mana cost creatures to be discarded/ressurected more frequently, but still allows me to play my other low cost spells whenever needed, since theyre almost all about 6ish mana cost average

tdellaringa

Yes I've been following that very match strategy, and I agree it works. I also agree about control of the board with discard. I'm just choosing to try something different. I could not beat the top guy that way last week. I'm going to try this this week.

rulerhumankind

I think your available cards work better for beatdown instead of discard. If you want to make an absolutly brutal discard deck, you need one of two mythics, Infinite Obliteration or Demonic Pact.

tdellaringa

rulerhumankind wrote:

I think your available cards work better for beatdown instead of discard. If you want to make an absolutly brutal discard deck, you need one of two mythics, Infinite Obliteration or Demonic Pact.

Got it. Good to know.