Building a good deck is actually fairly easy. The difference, however, between a good deck and a great deck is optimization. This article is about optimizing mono black for standard.

I’ve seen a lot of mono black decks proposed for the current standard environment – the format seems to offer us a lot of strong “swamps matter” cards along with some of the more powerful black finishers I’ve seen in a long time. So why does mono black keep falling short? After grinding with a mono black deck for nearly two months, I believe the reason has to do simply with the dominance of Caw-Blade. Now, don’t get me wrong, this article isn’t about “The Answer to Caw-Blade” and it isn’t going to be one of the thousand other articles you’ve read about how someone has the new sick tech to beat it. I don’t have that tech. That tech probably doesn’t exist. But on a good curve and played properly, this deck can certainly have the upper hand against the birds.

Now, this deck will only beat Caw-Blade if it succeeds in stopping the monster from doing exactly what it is designed to do. That’s going to be difficult because Caw-Blade is an incredibly consistent deck and if you let it do what it wants for even a few turns, it’ll bury you in card advantage. However, mono black is uniquely positioned in the manner in which it disrupts and the variation of its disruption. Disruption, however, isn’t enough. In addition to disruption their game plan, we actually have to win. Well, luckily we have access to some pretty badass finishers if we manage to fight through the onslaught of hawks and swords and Jaces. We have the technology. It’s time to optimize our technology.

This deck targets Caw-Blade’s three main paths to victory: having protection from your dudes, Jace-ing you out in various ways, and battering your skull. So, where do we begin?

First things first, I’ll ship the list we’re going to be talking about today.

[deck title=Mono Black Midrange by Jared Maguire]
[Creatures]
3 Vampire Hexmage
2 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Duress
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Dismember
4 Go for the Throat
3 Lashwrithe
[/Spells]
[Lands]
18 Swamp
2 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Spellskite
2 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Vampire Hexmage
2 Black Suns Zenith
2 Marsh Casualties
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Memoricide
1 Dismember
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

Before we start talking about my specific card choices and my reasoning behind them, let’s talk about some cards that I have deliberately left out of the deck which you might be wondering about. There is a fairly small card pool open to this archetype and because of that, there isn’t much left out there that I haven’t tried.

[card]Mind Sludge[/card] – Seems good, right? I’ve been sludged out of games before, and it ain’t pretty. However, if you sludge someone and that someone has an active Jace on the table which you can’t remove, that someone is still going to kill you. Especially if they have a mitt of countermagic from all that brainstorming. The list has enough targeted discard to pick the important cards from their hand anyway.

[card]Despise[/card] – I tested with this card thoroughly, and I can safely say that it sucks. The Caw will only have 12-16 targets for the spell in their 60, so about 1/6th of the time it’s just going to wiff, and the [card]Batterskull[/card] or Sword in their hand will just laugh in your face. It gets the Jace and the creatures, but the creatures don’t actually matter – just their abilities. It’s best to wait until they resolve the mystic and then grab the item from them when they’re tapped out with an [card]Inquisition of Kozilek[/card] or a [card]Duress[/card].

[card]Hex Parasite[/card] – Too slow, too much of a mana investment and too narrow. [card]Phyrexian Revoker[/card] walks all over this guy. Yeah, you can eat their Jace (at a cost of 1 mana to cast, 2 life and 3 to 5 mana to activate) but then you can’t even attack them that turn because the little bugger doesn’t have haste. And what, are you really going to let them untap with the big daddy? Sure, playing a Jace into one of these guys already on the field is bad, but that’s what [card]Vampire Hexmage[/card] is for. And she has first strike to help with the aggro matchups.

[card]Dark Tutelage[/card] – I like [card]Dark Tutelage[/card]. Drawing extra cards feels powerful, but taking a truckload of damage off of [card]Lashwrithe[/card]s and Obliterators does not. Also, how does it feel tapping out for a Tutelage on turn 3 – the turn before they tap out for their Jace, or the turn before they hook up a blade, crossing your fingers and hoping you don’t brick? Feels bad, man.

[card]Sign in Blood[/card] – I used [card]Sign in Blood[/card] in this deck for a long time. I even had fancy full art [card]Sign in Blood[/card] altered art cards made. I started to notice, however, that the life loss was actually setting me back. It’s a fine card, but the metagame dictates that you have some manner to deal with Jace and equipment and [card]Sign in Blood[/card] just doesn’t do either of those things. We aren’t going to win if we try to beat a blue deck at their own game of card advantage. We must embrace the darkness. That darkness is actually another land and some Metamorphs, which is how SiB got cut. At a recent PTQ I actually played one Sign in Blood over a 24th land, but then I drew a 1 lander and that [card]Sign in Blood[/card] and promptly exploded.

[card]Bloodghast[/card] – Seems like what we actually want to be doing, which is killing Jace over and over again, is [card]Bloodghast[/card]’s speciality. But what I ended up realizing was that [card]Bloodghast[/card] is god awful against most other decks, especially when you don’t have [card]Viscera Seer[/card]s and [card]Kalastria Highborn[/card]. I had him in the board for a while, but the main deck is actually fairly tight against Caw, so [card]Bloodghast[/card] ended up back where he belongs, in the R/B Vamps deck.

[card]Tectonic Edge[/card] – [card]Phyrexian Obliterator[/card] costs four black mana. Kicked Gatekeepers cost 3 black mana. Do you want to be able to kill that damn [card]Inkmoth Nexus[/card], or do you want to be able to cast the two most important spells in your deck? Just dismember it. I could see mising one Tec Edge, but I wouldn’t want to see the hand with that edge, two swamps, and some of the aforementioned important cards. The only other land we really want to kill is Valakut, but who plays that crap anymore? Also, for the record, this deck is really awesome against Valakut anyway.

Now that we have that chaff out of the way let’s talk about how we actually play this thing.

How to play [card]Duress[/card] and [card]Inquisition of Kozilek[/card]
Never cast [card]Duress[/card] on Turn 1 unless you know for a fact you’re against Darkblade, another Mono Black deck, or Valakut. Feel free to always cast the Inquisition, though, because it can grab the Mystic or the Hawk or the Cobra or whatever. The reason for holding the [card]Duress[/card] is twofold – firstly, most blue decks are either going to play a tapland on turn 1 or a [card]Preordain[/card], so if you really want to get the best card you’ll [card]Duress[/card] them after said [card]Preordain[/card]. Secondly, what you actually want to be doing is [card]Duress[/card]’n them after they go find that meddlesome sword or skull. If you run out a [card]Duress[/card] on turn 1, take their [card]Into the Roil[/card] and then they go find a sword with a mystic, you are doing it wrong. The reason why you want to cast it early against Mono Black or Darkblade is so that you can take their Duress or IoK – but of course that depends on your hand. If you have nothing to protect, you can use your Duress offensively and snag something important. Against Valakut, casting [card]Duress[/card] early is good, because the less cards they have the better (no matter what they are) and you want to get in their face before Prime Time gets in yours.

How to play [card]Phyrexian Revoker[/card]
A turn one Inquisition or [card]Duress[/card] followed up by a Revoker is a very strong play in standard right now. Write down their hand and then Revoke the best target. I don’t need to list strong examples of things to Revoke because everyone knows Planeswalkers are great targets and so is equipment. If the situation arises where you have no information about your opponents hand and you need to blind revoke something, just check out your opponents mana base.

Mountains: [card]Koth of the Hammer[/card], [card]Spikeshot Elder[/card], [card]Shrine of Burning Rage[/card]
Mountains/Plains: Swords, [card]Mortarpod[/card], [card]Cunning Sparkmage[/card]
Mountains/Swamps: [card]Viscera Seer[/card]
Plains/Islands: Jace, Swords, [card]Batterskull[/card]
Forests/Mountains: [card]Khalni Heart Expedition[/card]
Islands/Swamps: [card]Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas[/card], Jace, [card]Tumble Magnet[/card]
Islands/Mountains: [card]Deceiver Exarch[/card], [card]Spellskite[/card], Jace

Revoking blind isn’t the best way to revoke, but if you feel like you need to get in there with some early damage make sure you give your opponent a good read.

How to play [card]Phyrexian Metamorph[/card]
I had a breakthrough with the deck when I realized that it wants to play the Metamorph. Here’s a number of things it can do

– Copy your own Revoker for an added stop-gap against Caw-Blade. Revokers on [card]Sword of Feast and Famine[/card] and Jace really help that matchup.
– Copies your own Hexmage for added Planeswalker removal, something black has a tough time with.
-Copies opposing [card]Batterskull[/card]s so that you don’t lose that race. This deck effectively plays 22 creatures, so you aren’t afraid to just trade your germ token for theirs. After that, hooking it up to just about any creature in your deck is great, especially Obliterators. Once a better target for Metamorphin’ enters the fray, you can bounce the [card]Batterskull[/card]’d metamorph back to your hand with batterskull’s second ability and copy whatever you want again! Awesome!
-Copies opposing [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card]s so you can search up the almighty [card]Lashwrithe[/card]. Yeah. You can do that.
-Copies opposing [card]Mirran Crusader[/card]s for tradesies.
-THREE MORE OBLITERATORS

The usefulness of the Metamorph can’t be understated in this deck. Clone is an effect that is always found outside of black, so having the metamorph adds another dimension. When a mono black deck can not only clone your best guy, but also your equipment, you’re playing against a different kind of mono black deck.

How to play [card]Lashwrithe[/card]
[card]Lashwrithe[/card] is the other best way to kill Jace in this deck, besides the obvious Hexmage sacrifice. Because you can play Lashwrithe for four and then equip it to a guy right away, it basically adds another 4-7 power to the board on average – with haste – which is more than any other equipment can do. The real play comes down to whether you decide to equip it the turn you play it and have it act as a [card]Nightmare Lash[/card], or whether you decide to germ it up and have it be a living weapon. Often, leaving the Lash on a germ is the best course of action, as your opponent will inevitably have to deal with the germ at some point lest they be pummelled repeatedly. Once they do that, you can just hook it up to the next best guy at no cost. The best creatures to have it on are Obliterators, obviously, or Nighthawks out of the board so that you can gain a ton of a life and show that [card]Batterskull[/card] who’s boss. It’s also very good on a Revoker, as having 5-7 toughness protects him from most damage based removal. I had four in the deck for a long time, but having too many four drops can be problematic against some tempo matchups where your hand gets clogged up at the top end.

How to play [card]Phyrexian Obliterator[/card]
Many people have said Obliterator is just a 5/5 unblockable for 4. Those people are wrong. Obliterator is one of the best blockers in the game, and he stops aggro decks cold from attacking unless they either have a ton of weenies or a serious flood. It is true that he is rarely blocked, but with a [card]Lashwrithe[/card] on him, he becomes too large of a beating to just keep taking to the face. He’s also very good at dealing with Titans (besides Frosty, of course) as sacrificing six permanents is not usually something your opponent wants to trade their second Titan trigger for.

The rest of the spells in the deck should basically play themselves. Kill their dudes, lock out their Jaces and Swords with Revokers or make them discard them and then smash face with an Obliterator. Easy, right?

Now let’s talk about the sideboard. Besides topping up on the 2 and 3 ofs in the deck, there are some cards in the board that require some explanation.

[card]Spellskite[/card] – I’m not crazy about this guy, but he has some uses in our deck. He’s an autoboard against the Twin decks for obvious reasons, but he also comes in against Caw-Blade. Often, Caw-Blade will beat us by [card]Into the Roil[/card]ing a Revoker on Jace, or [card]Divine Offering[/card] on our [card]Lashwrithe[/card] or Metamorph, and Spellskite stops them from doing this. Skites are also decent against Mono Red, which can be an uphill battle as well.

[card]Black Sun’s Zenith[/card] – I would prefer to just play [card]Infest[/card], but alas, [card]Infest[/card] we cannot play. Zenith kills [card]Mirran Crusader[/card]s and wipes out boards that have over-committed on hawks, and for this reason it comes in against Caw as well. It’s also great against random aggro decks like Boros and Vampires, which is also the reason for the [card]Marsh Casualties[/card].

[card]Surgical Extraction[/card]/[card]Memoricide[/card] – Now, I’m not one of those kids that’s going to try to sell you a [card]Surgical Extraction[/card] on the basis that it just totally hoses Jace or Mystics or Hawks or some bullshit. It doesn’t. It does do rather well against Twin decks however, and isn’t bad against Valakut. As cool as it is to take all their Jaces from their deck on turn 1, Caw will just kill you with everything else in their deck. However, when Twin doesn’t have Twins or [card]Deceiver Exarch[/card], it makes them have to do quite a bit more work to get you dead.

So, that being said, here’s our sideboard guide. If you decide to sleeve this one up you won’t be disappointed.

CAW

IN: +2 [card]Spellskite[/card], +2 [card]Black Sun’s Zenith[/card]
OUT: -1 [card]Phyrexian Obliterator[/card] -3 [card]Dismember[/card] (getting those dismembers countered sure hurts)

TWIN

IN: +1 [card]Inquisition of Kozilek[/card], +3 [card]Surgical Extraction[/card], +1 [card]Memoricide[/card], +1 [card]Dismember[/card], +2 [card]Spellskite[/card]
OUT: -3 [card]Lashwrithe[/card], -2 [card]Vampire Nighthawk[/card], -3 [card]Vampire Hexmage[/card]

RED

IN: +2 [card]Vampire Nighthawk[/card], +2 [card]Spellskite[/card], +1 [card]Dismember[/card]
OUT: -2 [card]Duress[/card], -3 [card]Phyrexian Revoker[/card]

BOROS/VAMPS

IN: +2 [card]Marsh Casualties[/card], +2 [card]Black Sun’s Zenith[/card], +1 [card]Dismember[/card], +2 [card]Vampire Nighthawk[/card]
OUT: -4 [card]Duress[/card], -3 [card]Phyrexian Revoker[/card]

VALAKUT/RAMP DECKS

IN: +1 [card]Inquisition of Kozilek[/card], +1 [card]Memoricide[/card], +3 [card]Surgical Extraction[/card], +1 [card]Vampire Nighthawk[/card]
OUT: -3 [card]Dismember[/card], -3 [card]Vampire Hexmage[/card]