The way I’ve used tutors for a long time is by having no combos in the deck. They help find synergy pieces, removal, engines, but don’t lead to same result games. They’re essentially a wild card for your deck “get whatever is relevant to the situation”. Because often times when I hear about people complaining that tutors make games same-y is when they just autocomplete combos really fast. So. If you have no combos, tutors are still powerful cards, but situation dependent (not just “get combo piece or countermagic”).
Exactly, I have a few decks with combos, few decks without, but most of my tutors are in my Greven deck (which is my pet deck, with most of my expensive cards like box topper Cavern of Souls I pulled). Usually in that deck I tutor for ramp/protection/etc. whatever I need at the time so it's not just "Tutor for A+B and attempt to win the game"
Years ago I had the displeasure of sitting at a table with a Nekusar Turbowheel/mill pubstomper with a deck loaded with expensive power like Timetwister. Apparently the deck was valued at like 30+ grand. He had two thirds of his deck in his graveyard with all of his wincons and we had just been drawing and chucking the whole game. He had 11 counterspell and wasn't letting anything land, just being a real shithead. I topdecked Bojuka Bog and windmill slammed it on the table. He turned white as a sheet and silently scooped, packed up and left the table. Apparently he was fairly infamous at the LGS and no one had ever beaten that deck. He later tried to still claim a perfect record cuz he scooped and wasn't "beaten" but everyone else had already heard the story and didn't let him slide. It's still one of my favorite MtG stories. At the time Bog was like maybe a dollar, and it ruined some shitheads day with a 30 grand deck.
Had a dude doing the same with a windgrace deck, glacial chasm the works... I played torbran vs him. Resolved blood moon and he scooped. Everyone laughed their asses off.
Keep in mind, each nonbasic land you put in a mono-black list makes all your "swamp tribal" card a little bit weaker. - Crypt Ghast - Nirkana Revenant - Defile - Mutilate - Cabal Coffers - Cabal Stronghold - Dread Presence - Lashwrithe - Caged Sun
Phyrexian Reclamation is an auto include for any deck I have that runs black. It used to only be in mono black or dual color decks but I've been putting it in 3 and some 4 color decks now.
Liked what you put and very helpful. I'm trying to finetune my Chainer, Dementia Master Mono Black EDH deck, and this helped me pull some cards from my stash to include and write more down for future includes. Thanks!!!!
Underworld Dreams, Bontu's Monument and Invoke Despair. Those with a Braids commander has won me 2 out of 3 games with seasoned players and it's my very first deck.
Gate to Phyrexia is still one of my auto includes in mono black. It’s old and pricey but you can pick it up for reasonable prices if you don’t need mint copies.
Baleful Beholder is another one that is vastly overshadowed, imo. AoE enchantment removal on a creature, in black (OR give all controlled creatures Menace, until EoT). I know it is expensive, 4{B}{B} , but it can fill some gaps for mono-black. It should at least be in every mono-black sideboard, imo. I also like effects like Entomb and Buried Alive; which can be powerful tutors for black, depending on what the deck is doing. Add Living Death classic mono-black shenanigans.
Beseech the Queen is another fair tutor people should play in mono black. Restricted with the amount of lands you control really makes it fair by slowing it down in the early turns and it only gets better as the game goes on!
I like that you put in increasing ambition for the tutor section. I'm a big fan of tutors that can get more than one card, like the new one Illicit Shipment
bolas citadel, necropotence, toxic deluge and k'rrik are auto includes for me too. also as a budget tutor i like playing final parting lately. ( reanimate+ vilis, broker of bloods best choice)
I'm really started to appreciate Kaya's Ghostform. I have a Tevesh / Sengir partner deck and it's saved me so much commander tax over my games. If you steal a creature you can basically reanimate it to your board and anything can be double sac'd. Great common!
Mutilate and defile are my go to wipe and removal in mono black since i'm normally running tons of swamps for coffers, i also run rampish package of lili of the dark realms, sword of the animist, etc with mana doublers.
Some other mentions ! Personal favourites for my “template” Dark ritual / Cabal Ritual / Songs of the Damned Phyrexian Arena Black Market Sudden Spoiling Force of Despair Painful Quandary
Sudden Spoiling and Noxious Gearhulk. And Darkness for the lols. I actually have an Ayara mono-black goodstuff deck where I run a bunch of fun black cards and built more around black-matters rather than fine-tuning the deck; it's fun to play and still packs a pretty good punch. It's probably my favorite mono-color deck. then again, black is my favorite color (though usually paired with white or green).
I find myself running Feed the Serpent as removal quite a bit. Sure it’s 4 mana, but it exiles both creatures and planeswalkers at instant speed. Plus it’s a cheap common.
Along with Curtain's Call, I've been really loving Reckless Spite. When I found out there was a second one, Wicked Pact I was quite happy. But searching those up, I actually found a third one, Ashes to Ashes. Which is probably even better, even if it's technically a little more limited, exiling is just so good.
One of my favorite pet cards is Lucille. Gives menace and they have to sacrifice a creature before blocks so makes it hard to block. While making walkers. Plus it's just funny to imagine something like the Scorpion God swinging a baseball bat around xD
I think some of these "auto includes" depends on the play group, cause for my play group the graveyard hate cards are just dead draws or a tapped land that doesn't hurt anyone
I Totally missed Crypt ghast, that's an auto include for me for mana ramp. For removal (among many others) i put in Ashes to ashes, Black sun zenith and tragic slip. They get around indestructable really well. Edit: There are so many others.
The staples I use that weren't listed are Phyrexian Arena as the life loss is negligible for that extra draw every draw phase you get, Invoke Despair since like you said, enchantment removal is rare in black and it also removes a creature and a planeswalker or they lose life if they don't have one. Finally The Meathook Massacre cuz it's a great way to board wipe that can either take out an entire army of 1/1s for 3 mana as well as heal you for a ton or it can kinda act like a second toxic deluge in the deck
I don't usually run tutors. If I really want to see a certain effect on a consistent basis, I try to find multiple cards with a similar effect. I don't mind sacrificing efficiency for variance.
I’m surprised no mention of dark ritual. Some of my personal favourite staples for mono black are: Lake of the Dead Liliana of the Dark Realms Malicious Affliction Bitterblossom (continuous sacrifice fodder) Contamination (make your friends hate you. Works great with bitterblossom) Bloodchief Ascension (put a target on your back for 1 black mana)
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is an auto-include for me. I also run Necropotence and Gray Merchant of Asphodel. Devotion is very strong. I don’t have too many, but I like to add Erebos, God of the Dead, too. And to recur stuff there are few options better than Phyrexian Reclamation. Those guys really had it figured out, so much so that on the lore side of MtG I’d like to think Jace somehow retained his Phyrexian identity and fled to an undiscovered plan to begin its compleation. They probably aren’t going to do that, but it would be a crazy twist.
Everybody knows about the urborg+cabal coffers combo but people don't think about adding blanket of night for redundancy on urborg. I find having both makes it far smoother, plus it helps turn on swampwalk if you run filth.
The main thing not here is sacrifice options. It is far and away where black out values other colors. Get your ETB, then sac for value/LTBs. If you really want you can do it slowly and attack but that is far from necessary. Then you go on to recursion. You mentioned a couple of the OGs so I won't, except to point out there are numerous cards in black that let you repeatedly bring things from the graveyard to the battlefield. Even though these are more mana intensive than some options, they are better because they let you build value engines. Finally, I think one big one you overlooked is Meteor Golem. It is the best removal spell in mono black (I'm including it because you included other artifact creatures here). Mill and discard are easy in black so getting it into the graveyard is never difficult. As noted before, graveyard recursion in black is simple and cheap, which makes Meteor Golem a removal spell you can use over and over - taking out EVERY threat as it hits the battlefield before sacrificing it for value. It is just so good. OP really.
How about Szat’s Will? It’s somewhat costly at 5 mana, but you can either make all opponents sacrifice their strongest creature, or exile all opponents’ graveyards and get a bunch of tokens based on the creature with the strongest power, or if you have your commander, you can choose both. Although I didn’t win the game, I had managed to use this to make an opponent sacrifice his Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, and then his entire graveyard was exiled before his Kozilek could shuffle itself back into his library.
I really like using things like scheming symmetry or even like wishclaw talisman for my tutors, benefits more than just me so everyone else is usually okay with them ^_^
I made a tron deck built around skytherix and named it skittles taste the painbow, all tutors all swords of and all mana ramps it was a very expensive but I never lost cause I alway had so much mana I could just cast and recast and equip all if they managed to wipe me and I never lost with it, but my daughter was born and I had to sell
Ill be the first to nominate Oriq Loremage, exhume,woe strider, gisa glorious resurrector and incarnation technique 😁 i love playing all of these cards Honorable mention: Soldevi adnate
i got a Hostile Hostel when it first came out, and i always wanted to put it in my decks. but it just seems so damn slow and inconvenient. i have to spend essentially 6 mana and sacrifice 3 creatures and then i have to cripple myself by exiling creatures from my own grave. it just don't seem worth it for how slow that is. but i'll try and put it in my next black deck, and see how it goes
I find myself playing not so much staples at all. It might be cause i sit mostly on 3 color commanders. As soon it goes up to 5 colors i need alot of colorfix via green staple ramp and if i go down i mostly dont have better options.
Massacre Wurm is my pet card and whenever I feel like it doesn't really fit the deck it's currently in, I get convinced to leave it in the next time I play it because so far whenever I cast it I was that closer to winning the game. Like there's cards in my decks that are just "filler", I don't plan on spending too much money on Magic so I sometimes simply use what I have. Or like cards that are in the decks simply because they're cool. Massacre Wurm though, 9 put of 10 times I played it, I've pined everyone for lots of damage or even straight up killed someone, just sith its ETB.
Massacre wurm is one of my favorites too. I loved it's effect enough that I made my first commander deck a flicker theme after I had the idea of flickering it to be able to hit bigger creatures too.
@@dylanfarley8136 One of my favorite decks (that my friends disliked a whole lot) I made on cockatrice was a Balthor the Defiled deck where I'd constantly reanimate Massacre Wurm and a lot of other ETB creatures, it was amazing. And one of my favorite decks on Arena, although it's very slow, is using Maskwood Nexus to turn all the creatures in my deck into Gods (all creature types, actually) and then drop 4 Massacre Wurms and 4 Clackbridge Trolls onto the field using the World Tree's tutor ability thing. It's so stupid but so fun.
Since you mention massacre wurm I have a funny story for it. I’m playing my araumi deck in a pod of 6, I go to my turn, I mill two (either bc of thought scour before the turn or perpetual timepiece, can’t remember which), and I mill massacre wurm with the mana and the cards in grave to encore it, and my one buddy asked to see my graveyard and just laughed when he saw it bc he had 4 creatures out. Off of that single encore, I killed two people with the triggers alone, used the other wurms to kill two other players, and I had teferi’s veil to phase them out after attacking so that they missed the sacrifice trigger, ready to swing again the next turn. I love that deck so much man 😂
i have an entire series on colorless options for commander decks so i think that would probably cover it: th-cam.com/video/f0k7VOsddnY/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=EDHDeckbuilding
On the tutors side, I really dislike the samey feel it gives each games. I now limit myself to 1 tutor per deck, and it has to be on theme (mechanic or flavor)
I keep Dark Ritual and Culling the Weak in mine. Was considering removing one or both until the other night. My turn one: Swamp, Dark Rit, Viscera Seer, Culling the Weak sac'ing the Seer, Syr Konrad! I think I'll keep them in.
Phyrexian Arena, Bitterblossom, and Syphon Mind are all up there on my auto includes. Black loves to draw cards at the cost of life and not having to dedicated resources to it later is a real strength of the arena. Bitterblossom is a great source of blockers and sacrifice fodder for many black strategies. Syphon Mind is a pretty great value in my opinion to (usually) force three players to discard and you draw 3 cards for 4 mana.
Cabal stronghold+ urborg, tomb of yawgmoth does work actually since the lands still basic and just gain additional type nothing more. This is pretty common knowledge.
Sure, stronghold counts other lands with the supertype basic (mountains, forests etc.) when Urborg is out but when the card is barely playable in mono black, I wouldn't imagine anyone putting it in a multicolor deck making that rule discussion pointless.
@@condemned70 but it’s not barely playable in mono black.. sure early game but the same could be said for coffers early game. I was talking about mono anyways I run both in K’Rrik and consistently cast big without having to use his phyrexian mana
Actually Cabal Stronghold does sort of work with Urborg. In a two-color (or more) deck, if you turn basic lands of the other types into Swamps, they have the Basic super-type and are Swamps. 😂
I realy like the Intention of your videos but for me as a Mono Black Edh player, I am very disapointet. First GhostQuarter, Blast Zone!? Everytime I them on the table, I want to hit that player with my chair because they are so degenerated. Never use that shit. Than, where is the diabolic intent? quiet as good or een better than grim. Carddraw: Necropotence, Yaswgmoth, Bolas Citadel, Midnight Reaper usw. There are many Unique Cards in Black that are Call for the Table. For Example Opposition Agent and Contamination. For dont be misunderstandet, these the objectively better example. subjectively I try to play as often I can Obliterator, Word of Command, Necromancy and Koun.
I disagree on the auto inclusion of Feed the Swarm in mono-black decks. I think the card is just too weak and slow to justify. I'd rather just accept that black doesn't have good enchantment removal and put a better card in that slot instead. In mono-colored decks it's important to play to your color's strengths, otherwise you should just play golgari colors. You don't see mono-white decks playing Kor Cartographer.
that's an interesting take. i get where you're coming from, but there are way too many busted enchantments in commander to just forego dealing with them. and especially with black having tutors, just having one way on your deck to deal with enchantments can completely change the game.
@@edhdeckbuilding Thanks for the reply, I’m a huge fan. As both a mono-black player and a zombie player, your Gorex brew video was inspiring. Perhaps it’s my meta, but I think enchantment removal is relatively unimportant. White and green have artifact AND enchantment removal together, but it’s the artifact half that’s most relevant (artifact creatures, combo artifacts, and Lightning Greaves). The fact is, most of the time Feed the Swarm is killing a creature, and the added flexibility of enchantment removal is outweighed by the card slot we’re taking up on a sorcery speed removal spell. Plus the chances that the green or white players at the table don’t destroy the Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe or Doubling Season are slim. Green and white have their roles, and black has its role.
![USAB Showcase: Australia vs USA [OFFICIAL STREAM]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/keiEr_MOaSQ/mqdefault.jpg)
The way I’ve used tutors for a long time is by having no combos in the deck. They help find synergy pieces, removal, engines, but don’t lead to same result games. They’re essentially a wild card for your deck “get whatever is relevant to the situation”. Because often times when I hear about people complaining that tutors make games same-y is when they just autocomplete combos really fast. So. If you have no combos, tutors are still powerful cards, but situation dependent (not just “get combo piece or countermagic”).
Exactly, I have a few decks with combos, few decks without, but most of my tutors are in my Greven deck (which is my pet deck, with most of my expensive cards like box topper Cavern of Souls I pulled). Usually in that deck I tutor for ramp/protection/etc. whatever I need at the time so it's not just "Tutor for A+B and attempt to win the game"
Years ago I had the displeasure of sitting at a table with a Nekusar Turbowheel/mill pubstomper with a deck loaded with expensive power like Timetwister. Apparently the deck was valued at like 30+ grand. He had two thirds of his deck in his graveyard with all of his wincons and we had just been drawing and chucking the whole game. He had 11 counterspell and wasn't letting anything land, just being a real shithead. I topdecked Bojuka Bog and windmill slammed it on the table. He turned white as a sheet and silently scooped, packed up and left the table.
Apparently he was fairly infamous at the LGS and no one had ever beaten that deck. He later tried to still claim a perfect record cuz he scooped and wasn't "beaten" but everyone else had already heard the story and didn't let him slide. It's still one of my favorite MtG stories. At the time Bog was like maybe a dollar, and it ruined some shitheads day with a 30 grand deck.
Damn, that guy sounds like a dick :/
Happy to hear you kicked his ass tho. Makes me glad that my friend who plays Nekusar is a non salty player
Had a dude doing the same with a windgrace deck, glacial chasm the works... I played torbran vs him. Resolved blood moon and he scooped. Everyone laughed their asses off.
Who would win?
An undefeated mtg deck worth more than a new car full of obnoxious counterspells piloted by Seto Kaiba's cousin
or
One boggy boi
And then everyone clapped
A scoop is a loss 😊 he lost by his own admission, if you would win you wouldn't scoop.
No mention of Deadly Rollick, Soul Shatter, Lethal Scheme, or Snuff Out? Those are like the 4 best instant-speed removal spells in Black imo
Snuff out is the most underrated
A lot of the best commanders in the top 10 or so all have black in them.
Keep in mind, each nonbasic land you put in a mono-black list makes all your "swamp tribal" card a little bit weaker.
- Crypt Ghast
- Nirkana Revenant
- Defile
- Mutilate
- Cabal Coffers
- Cabal Stronghold
- Dread Presence
- Lashwrithe
- Caged Sun
Black Market is one of my favorite auto includes when I build mono black.
Love this card, board wipe token decks or even vona's hunter on end step, my next main phase i have 50+ mana forvX spells
Phyrexian Reclamation is an auto include for any deck I have that runs black. It used to only be in mono black or dual color decks but I've been putting it in 3 and some 4 color decks now.
Welcome back, we missed you.
Liked what you put and very helpful. I'm trying to finetune my Chainer, Dementia Master Mono Black EDH deck, and this helped me pull some cards from my stash to include and write more down for future includes. Thanks!!!!
I really appreciate these template videos.
Underworld Dreams, Bontu's Monument and Invoke Despair. Those with a Braids commander has won me 2 out of 3 games with seasoned players and it's my very first deck.
Gate to Phyrexia is still one of my auto includes in mono black. It’s old and pricey but you can pick it up for reasonable prices if you don’t need mint copies.
45 for damaged that's not shabby only way to deal with artifacts short of artifact board wipes
Baleful Beholder is another one that is vastly overshadowed, imo. AoE enchantment removal on a creature, in black (OR give all controlled creatures Menace, until EoT).
I know it is expensive, 4{B}{B} , but it can fill some gaps for mono-black. It should at least be in every mono-black sideboard, imo.
I also like effects like Entomb and Buried Alive; which can be powerful tutors for black, depending on what the deck is doing. Add Living Death classic mono-black shenanigans.
Beseech the Queen is another fair tutor people should play in mono black. Restricted with the amount of lands you control really makes it fair by slowing it down in the early turns and it only gets better as the game goes on!
I like that you put in increasing ambition for the tutor section. I'm a big fan of tutors that can get more than one card, like the new one Illicit Shipment
It's nuts in Kess
Nice I was waiting to here malakir rebirth love that card and some of the other variations of it
Razakeths rite is a tutor i really like using in mono black, having the option to cycle it in an opening hand is pretty nice
Thanks for the video
I just started the video and gotta say that the intro music was a banger.
bolas citadel, necropotence, toxic deluge and k'rrik are auto includes for me too. also as a budget tutor i like playing final parting lately. ( reanimate+ vilis, broker of bloods best choice)
I love back I makes me feel safe, I got card draw, dangerous creatures, board wipes, sacrifice, tutors, and has the most diverse commanders.
I'm really started to appreciate Kaya's Ghostform. I have a Tevesh / Sengir partner deck and it's saved me so much commander tax over my games. If you steal a creature you can basically reanimate it to your board and anything can be double sac'd. Great common!
Mutilate and defile are my go to wipe and removal in mono black since i'm normally running tons of swamps for coffers, i also run rampish package of lili of the dark realms, sword of the animist, etc with mana doublers.
Some other mentions ! Personal favourites for my “template”
Dark ritual / Cabal Ritual / Songs of the Damned
Phyrexian Arena
Black Market
Sudden Spoiling
Force of Despair
Painful Quandary
Sudden Spoiling and Noxious Gearhulk. And Darkness for the lols. I actually have an Ayara mono-black goodstuff deck where I run a bunch of fun black cards and built more around black-matters rather than fine-tuning the deck; it's fun to play and still packs a pretty good punch. It's probably my favorite mono-color deck. then again, black is my favorite color (though usually paired with white or green).
I find myself running Feed the Serpent as removal quite a bit. Sure it’s 4 mana, but it exiles both creatures and planeswalkers at instant speed. Plus it’s a cheap common.
Along with Curtain's Call, I've been really loving Reckless Spite. When I found out there was a second one, Wicked Pact I was quite happy. But searching those up, I actually found a third one, Ashes to Ashes. Which is probably even better, even if it's technically a little more limited, exiling is just so good.
Hex never gets mentioned.
I still like dark ritual in mine. I'm a little old school.
I love ashes to ashes for removal and castle lochtwain for land
Just in time for my Seizan good stuff deck Demo hell yeah
Non-budget favorite black card is Necropotence. Snuff Out and Deadly Rollick are great also.
One of my favorite pet cards is Lucille. Gives menace and they have to sacrifice a creature before blocks so makes it hard to block. While making walkers. Plus it's just funny to imagine something like the Scorpion God swinging a baseball bat around xD
Mono black basically always gets these:
mutilate
infernal grasp
pharika's libation
feed the swarm
hero's downfall
I’ve been trying to mentally brew a hostile hostle edh deck since the card dropped. Such a fun card!
I think some of these "auto includes" depends on the play group, cause for my play group the graveyard hate cards are just dead draws or a tapped land that doesn't hurt anyone
No Oubliette?
I Totally missed Crypt ghast, that's an auto include for me for mana ramp. For removal (among many others) i put in Ashes to ashes, Black sun zenith and tragic slip. They get around indestructable really well.
Edit: There are so many others.
I think magus of the coffers is better than crypt ghast because you go infinite with umbral mantle
The staples I use that weren't listed are Phyrexian Arena as the life loss is negligible for that extra draw every draw phase you get, Invoke Despair since like you said, enchantment removal is rare in black and it also removes a creature and a planeswalker or they lose life if they don't have one. Finally The Meathook Massacre cuz it's a great way to board wipe that can either take out an entire army of 1/1s for 3 mana as well as heal you for a ton or it can kinda act like a second toxic deluge in the deck
I don't usually run tutors. If I really want to see a certain effect on a consistent basis, I try to find multiple cards with a similar effect. I don't mind sacrificing efficiency for variance.
I’m surprised no mention of dark ritual. Some of my personal favourite staples for mono black are:
Lake of the Dead
Liliana of the Dark Realms
Malicious Affliction
Bitterblossom (continuous sacrifice fodder)
Contamination (make your friends hate you. Works great with bitterblossom)
Bloodchief Ascension (put a target on your back for 1 black mana)
I'd put dismember on par with internal grasp except it can be cheaper and gets around indestructible and regeneration.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is an auto-include for me. I also run Necropotence and Gray Merchant of Asphodel. Devotion is very strong. I don’t have too many, but I like to add Erebos, God of the Dead, too. And to recur stuff there are few options better than Phyrexian Reclamation. Those guys really had it figured out, so much so that on the lore side of MtG I’d like to think Jace somehow retained his Phyrexian identity and fled to an undiscovered plan to begin its compleation. They probably aren’t going to do that, but it would be a crazy twist.
I put Bloodtracker into my Burakos party deck and it has been fantastic
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx for mono black is another essential choice.
I always use Overwhleming Forces. Often times only 1 player is a real creature problem. A one sided wipe that refills your hand always feels so good.
Priest of forgotten gods and massacre girl are my pet cards in mono-black
Everybody knows about the urborg+cabal coffers combo but people don't think about adding blanket of night for redundancy on urborg. I find having both makes it far smoother, plus it helps turn on swampwalk if you run filth.
The main thing not here is sacrifice options. It is far and away where black out values other colors. Get your ETB, then sac for value/LTBs. If you really want you can do it slowly and attack but that is far from necessary. Then you go on to recursion. You mentioned a couple of the OGs so I won't, except to point out there are numerous cards in black that let you repeatedly bring things from the graveyard to the battlefield. Even though these are more mana intensive than some options, they are better because they let you build value engines.
Finally, I think one big one you overlooked is Meteor Golem. It is the best removal spell in mono black (I'm including it because you included other artifact creatures here). Mill and discard are easy in black so getting it into the graveyard is never difficult. As noted before, graveyard recursion in black is simple and cheap, which makes Meteor Golem a removal spell you can use over and over - taking out EVERY threat as it hits the battlefield before sacrificing it for value. It is just so good. OP really.
Skeletal scrying is GOATED
How about Szat’s Will? It’s somewhat costly at 5 mana, but you can either make all opponents sacrifice their strongest creature, or exile all opponents’ graveyards and get a bunch of tokens based on the creature with the strongest power, or if you have your commander, you can choose both. Although I didn’t win the game, I had managed to use this to make an opponent sacrifice his Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, and then his entire graveyard was exiled before his Kozilek could shuffle itself back into his library.
I dont play bojuka bog, just because it enters tapped. If a land enters tapped it has to have a huge upside, like field of the dead eg.
I really like using things like scheming symmetry or even like wishclaw talisman for my tutors, benefits more than just me so everyone else is usually okay with them ^_^
These are the only tutors I run because of the same reason. Feels good to let that mana screwed player tutor themselves back into the game.
@@babies_eve or tutor an opposition agent lol
I made a tron deck built around skytherix and named it skittles taste the painbow, all tutors all swords of and all mana ramps it was a very expensive but I never lost cause I alway had so much mana I could just cast and recast and equip all if they managed to wipe me and I never lost with it, but my daughter was born and I had to sell
Ill be the first to nominate Oriq Loremage, exhume,woe strider, gisa glorious resurrector and incarnation technique 😁 i love playing all of these cards
Honorable mention: Soldevi adnate
Dark ritual and demonic tutor is the staple of staple black cards.
my go tos (minus your usual tutors) currently unless there's an incredibly specific reason not to run them: reanimate, feed the Swarm, Snuff Out
All of them, obviously
Everyone's got their favorites mine are: Living Death, Sudden Spoiling, Doom Whisperer, Massacre Wurm, Noxious Gearhulk, Demonic Tutor, Dauthi Voidwalker, Bitterblossom, Bolas Citadel, Gary (LOL) ;p
We all love to abuse poor old Gary.
Caged Sun, Bontu's Monument, and Gary are great in every mono black deck
What about necropotence in the draw section? It's the best card draw in the format imo. Or do you avoud because it paints a target on your back?
Has to be mentioned, target or no
@@pauljimerson8218 yeah, for sure just doesn't seem line the kind of card demo would play, but thats why I gave it a mention
i got a Hostile Hostel when it first came out, and i always wanted to put it in my decks. but it just seems so damn slow and inconvenient. i have to spend essentially 6 mana and sacrifice 3 creatures and then i have to cripple myself by exiling creatures from my own grave. it just don't seem worth it for how slow that is. but i'll try and put it in my next black deck, and see how it goes
Cabal stronghold works with urborg if your mountain becomes a swamp in addition it's still a basic land
lol. this is true.
If your a meenie like me Contamination and or Infernal Darkness are must haves
-Crypt Ghast
-Dread Presence
-Tragic Slip
- Malicious Affliction
-Phyrexian Arena
I find myself playing not so much staples at all. It might be cause i sit mostly on 3 color commanders. As soon it goes up to 5 colors i need alot of colorfix via green staple ramp and if i go down i mostly dont have better options.
Massacre Wurm is my pet card and whenever I feel like it doesn't really fit the deck it's currently in, I get convinced to leave it in the next time I play it because so far whenever I cast it I was that closer to winning the game. Like there's cards in my decks that are just "filler", I don't plan on spending too much money on Magic so I sometimes simply use what I have. Or like cards that are in the decks simply because they're cool. Massacre Wurm though, 9 put of 10 times I played it, I've pined everyone for lots of damage or even straight up killed someone, just sith its ETB.
Massacre wurm is one of my favorites too. I loved it's effect enough that I made my first commander deck a flicker theme after I had the idea of flickering it to be able to hit bigger creatures too.
@@dylanfarley8136 One of my favorite decks (that my friends disliked a whole lot) I made on cockatrice was a Balthor the Defiled deck where I'd constantly reanimate Massacre Wurm and a lot of other ETB creatures, it was amazing. And one of my favorite decks on Arena, although it's very slow, is using Maskwood Nexus to turn all the creatures in my deck into Gods (all creature types, actually) and then drop 4 Massacre Wurms and 4 Clackbridge Trolls onto the field using the World Tree's tutor ability thing. It's so stupid but so fun.
This video made me say "holy shit" 5+ times out loud
Someone needs to look into the card plague winds
Since you mention massacre wurm I have a funny story for it. I’m playing my araumi deck in a pod of 6, I go to my turn, I mill two (either bc of thought scour before the turn or perpetual timepiece, can’t remember which), and I mill massacre wurm with the mana and the cards in grave to encore it, and my one buddy asked to see my graveyard and just laughed when he saw it bc he had 4 creatures out. Off of that single encore, I killed two people with the triggers alone, used the other wurms to kill two other players, and I had teferi’s veil to phase them out after attacking so that they missed the sacrifice trigger, ready to swing again the next turn. I love that deck so much man 😂
I put in Vampire Nighthawk, read the bone ,stripmine, go for the throat.
Blackforge blade, Massacre Girl
Huh, I could slingshot Izoni for tokens. What a thought.
First! Best mtg collor btw
Damnation
Phyrexian Arena
Bloodghast
Crucible
nice. #automaticFAN
Rain of filth and culling the weak obv!
Pariakas libation❤
You should do monocolorless, artifact, wastes, etc.
i have an entire series on colorless options for commander decks so i think that would probably cover it: th-cam.com/video/f0k7VOsddnY/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=EDHDeckbuilding
@@edhdeckbuilding dope I'll check it out!
How about free exile if you control a commander and pay 4 life if you control a swamp removals?
Card Draw there is only One Ring, Necropotence
On the tutors side, I really dislike the samey feel it gives each games. I now limit myself to 1 tutor per deck, and it has to be on theme (mechanic or flavor)
Phyrexian reclamation, victimize, sign in blood, night's whisper
Victimize is my shizz
Bolas's Citadel, Necropotence. Each very good on their own, but combined they're pretty insane.
Necropotence
I keep Dark Ritual and Culling the Weak in mine. Was considering removing one or both until the other night. My turn one: Swamp, Dark Rit, Viscera Seer, Culling the Weak sac'ing the Seer, Syr Konrad! I think I'll keep them in.
Phyrexian Arena, Bitterblossom, and Syphon Mind are all up there on my auto includes. Black loves to draw cards at the cost of life and not having to dedicated resources to it later is a real strength of the arena. Bitterblossom is a great source of blockers and sacrifice fodder for many black strategies. Syphon Mind is a pretty great value in my opinion to (usually) force three players to discard and you draw 3 cards for 4 mana.
Murder match is fun.
Ey demoe, why not heroe's downfall? I mean it can remove both a Planeswalker and a creature, it's good to have flexibility
Why no Heartless Summoning? Gives a 2 mana discount to all your creatures, makes all those colorless and midrange creatures actually playable.
some Classics ... pox and smallpox
You could potentially get the game to end in a draw with toxic deluge.
No mention of mutilate?
No love for Mutilate?
Cabal stronghold+ urborg, tomb of yawgmoth does work actually since the lands still basic and just gain additional type nothing more. This is pretty common knowledge.
Sure, stronghold counts other lands with the supertype basic (mountains, forests etc.) when Urborg is out but when the card is barely playable in mono black, I wouldn't imagine anyone putting it in a multicolor deck making that rule discussion pointless.
@@condemned70 but it’s not barely playable in mono black.. sure early game but the same could be said for coffers early game. I was talking about mono anyways I run both in K’Rrik and consistently cast big without having to use his phyrexian mana
Actually Cabal Stronghold does sort of work with Urborg. In a two-color (or more) deck, if you turn basic lands of the other types into Swamps, they have the Basic super-type and are Swamps. 😂
Where the heck is damnation
not in any of my decks
K’rrik
I realy like the Intention of your videos but for me as a Mono Black Edh player, I am very disapointet.
First GhostQuarter, Blast Zone!? Everytime I them on the table, I want to hit that player with my chair because they are so degenerated. Never use that shit.
Than, where is the diabolic intent? quiet as good or een better than grim.
Carddraw: Necropotence, Yaswgmoth, Bolas Citadel, Midnight Reaper usw.
There are many Unique Cards in Black that are Call for the Table. For Example Opposition Agent and Contamination.
For dont be misunderstandet, these the objectively better example.
subjectively I try to play as often I can Obliterator, Word of Command, Necromancy and Koun.
I disagree on the auto inclusion of Feed the Swarm in mono-black decks. I think the card is just too weak and slow to justify. I'd rather just accept that black doesn't have good enchantment removal and put a better card in that slot instead. In mono-colored decks it's important to play to your color's strengths, otherwise you should just play golgari colors. You don't see mono-white decks playing Kor Cartographer.
that's an interesting take. i get where you're coming from, but there are way too many busted enchantments in commander to just forego dealing with them. and especially with black having tutors, just having one way on your deck to deal with enchantments can completely change the game.
@@edhdeckbuilding Thanks for the reply, I’m a huge fan. As both a mono-black player and a zombie player, your Gorex brew video was inspiring.
Perhaps it’s my meta, but I think enchantment removal is relatively unimportant. White and green have artifact AND enchantment removal together, but it’s the artifact half that’s most relevant (artifact creatures, combo artifacts, and Lightning Greaves). The fact is, most of the time Feed the Swarm is killing a creature, and the added flexibility of enchantment removal is outweighed by the card slot we’re taking up on a sorcery speed removal spell. Plus the chances that the green or white players at the table don’t destroy the Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe or Doubling Season are slim. Green and white have their roles, and black has its role.
@@edhdeckbuilding Good point about the tutors tho, this is true. Personally my meta has phased out tutors.
necropotence is in basically every black deck i build. it’s too good not to include. it also helps prevent losing to mill