“There should be a special psychographic profile for the player that always believes Mono-Black is going to be playable.”
Okay, let’s keep it real for a minute. Are you saying that Mono-Black hasn’t been playable since the rotation? Come on now. It usually occupies a good 5% of the metagame. It hasn’t been as good as, say, Delver or Wolf Run, but it has certainly not been embarrassing, performing significantly better than, say, Birthing Pod. In fact, in the past month, it has performed better than even G/W Tokens. Mono-Black has been a solid deck and has definitely had a couple of great weeks.
One of the obstacles facing Mono-Black decks has been that so many of its best cards pull in different directions. Phyrexian Obliterator was one of the strongest creatures in Scars block, yet so many of the other black cards encouraged us to play infect in our black decks. Will we ever get enough support for a mainstream black deck built around Obliterator for more than a single week?
With the introduction of Dark Ascension, there is no denying that Mono-Black and heavy black decks have gained quite a number of valuable tools. Without question, there will be plenty of people who will write off Mono-Black in the *ahem* dark. However, these are the same people who wrote it off when infect was good, when Nocturnus Vampires was good, when Captivating Vampire Aggro was good, and that is just in the last three years.
Do you realize that Mono-Black has dominated for more time and more formats than Mono-Blue? Don’t want to give credit to Necropotence because the namesake was so busted? Fine, let’s not even count those sixteen awesome decks. What about Suicide Black? Napster? Hatred? Ashen Ghoul/Buried Alive? Mono-Black Control (a la Torment)? Pox? Smallpox? Benzo (Mono-B Reanimator)? This is just scratching the surface. Why do there seem to be people who are always on the lookout for when Mono-Black will be great again? I realize 2.5 of the last 7 blocks have been gold-centric, but over the course of the game’s history, one of the most common themes to look for that has been successful time and again is Mono-Black.
Since Alpha, black has generally been a color flavored with the theme of corruption and “the more you give into the corruption, the more it rewards you.” Black is a color that so often is given rewards for completely indulging in it, balanced (sometimes more than others) by weaknesses, such as artifacts, enchantments, or protection from black creatures. This theme is such a basic building block of Magic design, we are well served by asking ourselves if the rewards are there to play Mono-Black, every time a new set comes out.
We already have Lashwrithe and Phyrexian Obliterator for incentives, which is nice, but there was a shortage of good things to do for one or three mana in non-infect Mono-Black decks. Fortunately, someone inside Wizards appears to have asked themselves, “What would Mono-Black really want?”
Setting aside the graveyard ability, Gravecrawler is already in a pretty great spot. Sure, no one plays Diregraf Ghoul, but that is a function of not having a home. In countless other eras, black mages would have lined up around the block for such a monster. Carnophage and Sarcomancy have had tons of success, and Vampire Lacerator and Pulse Tracker weren’t too shabby. It takes support, a good home. Gravecrawler as a Jungle Lion is already very interesting. That is definitely aggressive, and frankly, black decks have a gaping hole at the one-spot anyway.
Now, how good is that recursive ability? It can be very challenging to wrap our minds around such an incredible ability that doesn’t seem to cost anything. Let’s start by asking ourselves how often we can really expect to do this? Well, in a dedicated Zombie deck, obviously just about every turn is no trouble. However, let’s set aside a dedicated Zombie deck, which may or may not have enough support. What if we had just four other Zombies? Eight? Twelve?
The beauty of Gravecrawler is that you don’t actually need to have a Zombie before you use it (like Wren’s Run Vanquisher) or while you are using it (like so many classic “Lords” require for you to get “paid”). With Gravecrawler, you get paid at any point in the future, when you produce a Zombie. When you bring back your Gravecrawler, it is like drawing a card for zero mana, and that card is black Jungle Lion. In a deck that would want to use such an aggressive creature, that is a fantastic proposition.
Now to take it a step further, let’s consider the position of the opponent. Do you kill your opponent’s Gravecrawler when they have no other Zombies in play and they are attacking you? Very quickly, we see it is actually the Bloodghast dilemma all over again. With Bloodghast, you generally wouldn’t bother killing it, since they’d get it back as soon as they played a land. With Gravecrawler, they will just get it back as soon as they play a Zombie. Even if they don’t have one in their hand right now, a reasonable number of playable Zombies means it is generally only a matter of time (and not that much of it).
Put another way, the turn-one Gravecrawler is obviously very able to return to play with minimal effort, but even the turn-seven Gravecrawler is not a good shock target. Did they draw a Zombie this turn? Will they next? When they do, all of your work will have been for naught. Will Gravecrawler miss a little more often than Bloodghast? Maybe, but that actually gives him a subtle strength, as it is a more unknown element to the opponent (making decisions harder). Additionally, Gravecrawler has two very, very important distinctions from Bloodghast.
1) It only costs one! Costing one instead of two is the main difference between Kird Ape and Elvish Warrior. Bloodghast was already a top shelf powerhouse, and now we are talking about a comparable version costing just half as much. Bloodghast was a lot better than Watchwolf, so imagine if Watchwolf cost just one?
2) It is legal! Bloodghast would be excellent if it were legal, so getting a legal version of what we already would love, only to discover it now costs just one, is too much to hope for.
It is easy to imagine scenarios to try to limit Gravecrawler’s effectiveness. What about Grafdigger’s Cage? Nihil Spellbomb? Surgical Extraction? Celestial Purge? All these are important and have improved, I agree… However Gravecrawler’s ability is tacked on to a 2/1 body that only costs one!
Basically, Gravecrawler is just bananas. Its power level is so high, it is going to end up in more than a few Jace-like discussions about how it seems to combo with everything. This is a reference to how easy it is to combo every single card with Jace, not Jace’s actually power level of eleventeen on a scale of one to ten.
Anything that makes you discard a card loves this guy, such as Smallpox, Zombie Infestation, Faithless Looting. Anything that makes you sacrifice a creature loves this guy, such as Birthing Pod, Falkenrath Aristocrat, Grimgrin, Corpse-Born. Anything that makes you mill yourself loves this guy, such as Tracker’s Instinct, Forbidden Alchemy, and Screeching Skaab.
Obviously, how good Gravecrawler can be is at least somewhat limited by the quality of other Zombies in the format. As fate would have it, one of the other top cards in the set is also a Zombie!
Geralf’s Messenger has already been compared to Kitchen Finks by an awful lot of people, and with good reason. After all, he does have a lot of similar numbers in certain places. Three mana for a 3/2 that comes back and causes a two-point life swing each time?
There are two main factors to take into consideration:
1) Since when did people start thinking that Kitchen Finks was a reasonable bar? That was the best card in its set and is one of the ten best green creatures of all time, seeing success in many formats and even defining some eras of Standard.
2) Geralf’s Messenger in a deck that can use it is better than Kitchen Finks in a deck that can use it!
Let’s line those abilities up for a moment.
First, the drawbacks. Triple black? That definitely limits the places it can go, but in a deck with all Swamps, three is three. Enters the battlefield tapped? Again, that limits us a little, making this worse in controlling decks. However, the support exists for black aggro, making this drawback minimal.
As for the pluses, what is better? Making your opponent lose two life or gaining two life? This one isn’t close. Think of any lifegain spell and any damage to the opponent spell, and compare them. One mana to deal four damage to an opponent would be over-powered. One mana to gain four life would be unplayable by far. In general, making opponents lose life is worth significantly more than gaining the same amount of life. How much more depends on the context, of course, but it is by a pretty big margin.
Next, let’s consider the difference between persist and undying. With Kitchen Finks, you get a 3/2 followed by a 2/1. With Geralf’s Messenger, you get a 3/2 followed by a 4/3. An extra +2/+2? That is absolutely monstrous! Another way to think of it is that it is like a 4/3 creature with persist, which would also give you the same split in bodies. Just think about that for a moment. Three mana for a 4/3 persist that makes your opponent lose four life. Making your opponent lose four life for three mana isn’t even the worst deal, and you get a 4/3 persist creature with positive tribal interactions? Really? Really?
The Messenger has arrived, and the message is that Zombies are for real.
Don’t shoot the messenger, though.
It’ll just make it worse.
Undying creates this tough spot for our opponents where they want to kill our guys, but sometimes they have to do it twice and it will actually get worse before it gets better. Geralf’s Messenger’s durability is also particularly valuable with Gravecrawler, since a Day of Judgment will actually put them under more pressure than they were under. The Zombie creature type isn’t the Messenger’s only synergy, however…
This mechanic allows you to turn -1/-1 counters into regeneration shields! Kitchen Finks is well known for its positive interactions with +1/+1 counters. Whenever Kitchen Finks appears next to a good +1/+1 counter engine, the results are amplified. Ajani Goldmane and Oran-Rief, the Vastwood, for example, were both very effective. Undying mirrors this, letting us trade in -1/-1 counters for an added layer of defense. Would we actually want -1/-1 counters? Fortune smiles on us once again, as we find ourselves in a Standard format where even a card like Virulent Wound in a non-infect deck is a good card. There are just so many one-toughness creatures that this is a very desirable effect, these days.
As good as Virulent Wound is, we can do even better in a Mono-Black Aggro deck. Fume Spitter isn’t new, but he has long been underrated and just looking for a good home. Now that we have an aggressive black creature suite, the 1/1 body is a lot more meaningful as a tool for beatdown. It is easy to use Fume Spitter as a cheap answer to Delver, Birds, Noble, Elves, Snapcaster, or any number of other cheap creatures. The threat of his ability is often more valuable than actually using it. Against players without such creatures, he still beats down and has the added functionality of being able to reset a Messenger in response to a removal spell!
Now it is possible that we’d also want to use Virulent Wound as well. The effect is good, and being able to surprise people with your Messenger coming back (and forcing an extra two life loss!) is appealing. However, Dark Ascension has upped the ante and gives us an incredibly powerful new creature removal spell in the form of Tragic Slip!
Tragic Slip is sure to replace Virulent Wound and Wring Flesh in U/B decks, but it deserves a lot more praise than that. Tragic Slip is everything we could want in cheap removal, as it lets us effectively deal with the plethora of cheap creatures in the format, but it is also removal for Hero of Bladehold, Primeval Titan, Consecrated Sphinx, and more! The key is that Tragic Slip does what we want without even needing the morbid (giving -1 for one mana), but the morbid isn’t just a nice little bonus. Turning -1 into “kill almost anything” is just huge. To fully appreciate the synergies, here’s the Mono-Black Aggro deck I’m using as a starting point:
Creatures (26)
- 4 Cemetery Reaper
- 4 Fume Spitter
- 4 Phyrexian Obliterator
- 4 Diregraf Ghoul
- 4 Gravecrawler
- 4 Geralf's Messenger
- 2 Highborn Ghoul
Lands (24)
- 24 Swamp
Spells (10)
We don’t just need to Tragic Slip after a chump block (or one of our attackers dies); we can also combine it with another removal spell like Geth’s Verdict. Fume Spitter has further added utility, ensuring we can arrange for a creature’s death, if we need. Another maneuver that will surely surprise people is moving Lashwrithe off of the Germ it starts on. Even a dead Germ is tragic enough.
Highborn Ghoul is definitely nowhere near as exciting as most of the other cards in here. It is not clear that it is better than Porcelain Legionnaire. Hell, it is not even clear it is better than Walking Corpse, as lots of people are attacking one-toughness creatures. This is definitely a question for testing. I don’t love Cemetery Reaper in here, but he does generally seem much better than Highborn Ghoul, outside of curve considerations. I do love how effective Cemetery Reaper is against Moorland Haunt, and sometimes we are going to get some very aggressive starts.
Only playing two Lashwrithes is a little odd, since Lashwrithe is better than most of the cards in the deck. However, even playing six four-drops seems ambitious, and I give an edge to Obliterator for the rough draft. If we played creatures like Vault Skirge, Lashwrithe would gain even more stock, however. Part of the appeal of the Obliterator, however, is how hard it is to really hose him. Ancient Grudge is going to be very popular, so while Lashwrithe is very vulnerable to red, Obliterator nearly singlehandedly beats it.
Geth’s Verdict is a top choice removal spell here for a few reasons. First of all, it helps shore up a weakness to protection from black and hexproof creatures, like Mirran Crusader, Geist of Saint Traft, and Thrun, the Last Troll. Between four Fume Spitters and four Tragic Slips, we have a ton of ways to combat cheap creatures, helping ensure that it generally hits something big. Go for the Throat, Doom Blade, and Victim of Night all have creatures they can’t kill. Normally, I would want to play at least some of these, but Tragic Slip does some pretty awesome things. It is nice to go one-mana removal spell your cheap guy, then Verdict you; however, Tragic Slip opens up the line of Verdict you first, then Tragic Slip. This lets you kill multiple medium or large creatures for just three mana. You could even kill two copies of Blightsteel Colossus!
Finally, Geth’s Verdict causing a point of life loss is actually quite valuable. Mono-Black aggro has access to eight good one-drops with a two-power, not to mention the life loss from the Messenger. When we are trying to race, every point matters and can often be worth between half and a third of a card. This gives the Mono-Black deck a little extra reach, which can go a long way (as anyone that has ever been Vapor Snagged out can attest).
Many readers may be surprised at the low number of Lilianas. No question she is the most powerful black card we could be taking greater advantage of. It is definitely not clear it is right for me to snub her, if only for power level. That said, we don’t make very good use of her (even with our ability to discard Gravecrawler). I expect the format to be flooded with Doomed Travelers, Gravecrawlers, Moorland Haunts, and the like, so edict-like effects aren’t always going to be what we need. Why do I like Verdict then? Costing a mana less is all the difference in the world, not to mention being an instant and making them lose a life. Here, she is mostly a three-mana edict, though she is a more reasonable sideboard option, since she gives us more answers to hexproof/pro-black, while still serving as a passable threat against control. Depending on how the format swings, however, she could turn out fine. I just don’t want to be the guy who lets their opponent discard Lingering Souls because I wanted to +1 my Liliana.
Curse of Death’s Hold is likely to be one of the premier sideboard cards in the format to come (and in some maindecks). I definitely like having it as an option, though Celestial Purge is surely going to rise tremendously. Casting a five-drop is a bit ambitious with a mana base that is already only hitting four on turn four 2/3rds of the time. Havengul Fengraf could be a possible way to increase our mana base a little that can also be cashed in for another threat to help alleviate flooding; however the current build has so little use for colorless mana, it just isn’t worth it.
Ratchet Bomb has become a superstar with the addition of Dark Ascension. It sweeps tokens quickly and easily but also provides outs to multiple Intangible Virtues and Honor of the Pure. It deals with difficult threats and helps shore up a number of weaknesses.
It is possible that we might want more Tumble Magnets in the sideboard. They help fight Mirran Crusader (and Hero of Bladehold) but more importantly stop Sword of Feast and Famine (and Sword of War and Peace). They are also a nice way to combat Wurmcoil Engine (and are fine against most big creatures really). Finally, they provide a layer of defense against some artifacts, such as Birthing Pod, since in a pinch, you can tap the Pod during their upkeep.
Distress is a card that many will want to have start in the maindeck, but why? In the old format, we’d want Distress maindeck because we had nothing better to be doing early and would mainly win with big plays like Obliterator and Lashwrithe. In the new world, we have tons of great, cheap plays and want to play a very tempo-oriented game. Distress is very tempo-negative and is probably best saved for true control decks (and possibly Wolf Run).
Obliterator, Messenger, and Lashwrithe all give us a lot of incentive to stay Mono-Black, especially in a deck that has almost no use for colorless mana. Still, it is possible we’d want to build things a little differently. What would other manabases look like?
An obvious possibility is to splash red. Four Blackcleave Cliffs, four Dragonskull Summits, maybe a couple Evolving Wilds, and a Mountain make a fairly sizable red commitment possible, as long as we don’t count on one-drops like Stromkirk Noble. We could pick up Arc Trail, Galvanic Blast, Incinerate, Brimstone Volley, Falkenrath Aristocrat, maybe even Olivia. A blue mana base would be similar, offering Vapor Snag, Mana Leak, maybe Snapcaster Mage, Diregraf Captain, or even Screeching Skaab. It’s possible that the addition of blue would involve a greater emphasis on “dredging.”
White or green splashes would be a bit trickier but are still possible. You could play four Isolated Chapel, four Evolving Wilds, and a Plains, if you really wanted, but that many tapped lands really gets in the way of a tempo-based strategy.
Look, you can underestimate Mono-Black if you want to, but you might find yourself in for quite a surprise in the next couple of weeks. Gravecrawler is more than just a Bloodghast; he is a one-drop that will change the texture of the format. Geralf’s Messenger is at a power level best described by those prone to hyperbole. The format has room to adjust, so it’s not like Gravecrawler and Geralf’s Messenger are unbeatable or anything, but if you don’t respect them, you will pay the price. You are going to be seeing a lot more of these two.
Consider yourself warned.
See you Monday, when we finally jump into the Standard Dark Ascension set review!
“The Innovator”