Need Help with Monoblack Control

[cheonice]

I'm not to sure about War Room. While its a great card and I'm really happy they printed it, I don't think you need it. You already play the cream of the crop of Black's carddraw. As you said, 4 mana is a lot for one card. I play it in Selvala atm, where I was looking for mana sinks and it has been good for this purpose. But with Drana you already have a sink in the command zone.

How was your experience with the Lighthouse? It looks really underwhelming and niche.

[MrBloo]

For MBC generally I think it's less about colorless lands and more about non basics in general. With Ghast and Coffers keying off of Swamps and no guarantee of always finding the Urborg every game, over time I found it was best to keep the basic count high. That said, for Drana specifically because of the double pipped activated ability I should think the colorless would have to be a no brainier to warrant inclusion.

Of those I think the weakest is Field, but I'm lucky enough to own a Yawgmoth's Will so my recursion needs are generally met.

I do try to keep my basics count higher for that very reason. My absolute floor is 20 and even then that is a very uncomfortable 20 and I know your standard 30 feels much much better on average but I don't think I can hit that and have to live with 24-25.

I do also own a copy and just never thought about the fact that it also lets you play lands from graveyard and never played a land off of it when I did cast the spell so this is a good point and a dumbo moment on my part. How have you found yourself use Yawg's Will usually? Since I still haven't cast it that many times, I feel I am being too greedy with it and hold on to it longer than I should have. I wonder if I should just approach the card differently and use it when I need it, instead of sitting on it waiting for a spicier turn.

[MrBloo]

I'm not to sure about War Room. While its a great card and I'm really happy they printed it, I don't think you need it. You already play the cream of the crop of Black's carddraw. As you said, 4 mana is a lot for one card. I play it in Selvala atm, where I was looking for mana sinks and it has been good for this purpose. But with Drana you already have a sink in the command zone.

How was your experience with the Lighthouse? It looks really underwhelming and niche.

Lighthouse is one of those cards that at times, it's just a colorless land, but at other times, it allows me to kill something that I normally have no business killing without Ugin, the Spirit Dragon (back when I ran him over All Is Dust), All Is Dust, an absolutely enormous Mutilate, or an Edict effect. There are a couple voltron decks in my playgroup so they're keeping me honest in that regard and it's partially a meta choice and partially a pet card. I also have used it politically when such creatures are headed somebody else's way and I offered to remove shroud so they can be removed by the defender in exchange for some favors. Also, in a normal MBC shell I would not hesitate dropping this, but since I have a potent removal in the command zone that gets around indestructibility, I feel this card is worth more points than usual in order to make sure she's almost always on. I'll definitely keep my eye on it and continue to monitor how often I end up using it. If it ends up feeling like a sideboard card more often than not and I end up missing the black pip because of it, then yeah it'll be cut.

I think I am going to swap War Room out and see. I did notice during testing that while I keep mana up with War Room just in case, I usually end up spending it EoT on other effects or have other effects to spend it on like Drana and such, and much more efficiently. If I miss it (I don't think I will? but who knows), I could reconsider.

Thanks for the suggestion! This is exactly why I love sharing my list to have outside opinions since sometimes I just don't see some things (as obvious or not as they maybe) just because I've been staring at the list for days.

[MrBloo]

Also, I have previously hovered over Cabal Stronghold but I still to this day am not convinced that it's that good even in a monoblack deck. The fact that it does not work with Urborg and costs 3 to activate just makes the setup cost so high to begin net positive mana just doesn't feel right to me.

[MrBloo]

Latest decklist here for reference. Changelogs are also on this list.

5 games in and we're at 1-4 or 20% which I'm not unhappy with as during these games adjustments were being made and only the latest game was played with its most current version (past few changes have just been land adjustments).

1 loss from a green player accepted a deal from an izzet player to "just" kill me in order to allow his creature deck to not be continually removed (it was Vorinclex so I felt that if he ever gets going it's game over for at least one of us), giving izzet player even more mana to work with when he untapped, and allowing him to just storm off and kill the table outright. I guess he technically did kill me but it definitely was not just me, lol.

1 loss from a mull to 5 and missed a few land drops midgame and that was enough to prevent me from having enough mana to finish off my opponents, who were low by this point, before the Izzet deck went off.

1 loss from what I feel was 100% preventable had I taken one of the other lines I was considering a couple turns prior and prevented the last person from having a threat for the crackback should my win attempt get countered (which it did) so that I can have at least one more turn to dig for more attempts. Definitely my fault on this one.

1 loss and this was with the most current version. I think the game was reasonably good back and forth. We eventually died to Gisela deck burning us all to death and Descent into Avernus was at 8 with me positioned right before the controller so I couldn't even use the treasures and the X-spell in my hand happened to be Torment of Hailfire which was absolutely useless in this situation due to the number of nonland permanents everyone had from the enchantment instead of Exsanguinate which would have killed at least 2 other players and gave me enough life to allow me to finish what I believe would have been an easy 1v1 since I would have been able to keep Gisela off the board. Good loss overall.

Overall good losses since I learned more about the deck each time. Still feeling great with where it's at.

Potential cuts so far:

Mana Web - This card while great on paper, suffered from a bad combination of traits: Easy enough to play around most of the time but annoying enough to give you a legitimate reason to attack the controller if there are no other obvious targets. While this card got played a few times and definitely gave people headaches, it was easy enough to play around and all but the most instant-heavy or reactive decks can just tap out and do their thing on their own turn or save the rocks/treasures for instant-speed interactions. It felt like a harder to remove Grand Abolisher but does a terrible job at it. Maybe @TheGildedGoose has more experience with it and be able to explain the choice better since the inspiration for this pick was from him.

Arcane Lighthouse - Although I haven't run into a color pip issue after drawing or playing this card, it's only a matter of time. As @cheonice mentioned, it is pretty niche as a choice so it's definitely worth considering a cut. I did get to use it once out of the 5 games I have played with the deck and it did let me get around a Lightning Greaves, letting Drana eat the target and preventing damage from an Ancient Copper Dragon controlled by a player who thought the connection was but guaranteed. I'm going to keep it in for now but still keep an eye on it to monitor how often it becomes relevant. I am aware that I do run a good amount of removals and sweepers that would already get around the keywords.

Nirkana Revenant - This card was drawn a couple times and it felt weird. On one hand, it's a redundancy for mana doublers as well as a mana sink (a crappy one so I wouldn't even count it as one). On the other hand, it costs 6 mana so often we'll have to tap out (for 6 mana, remember) and hope to get to untap with it and if it gets removed that's basically a Time Walk for the opponents. It's basically a Caged Sun that's usually much easier to remove. We'd need to already have some type of acceleration effects in place or have tons of swamps out so that we'd immediately net positive mana when we play this and I feel much much safer doing the same with Caged Sun since we're much more likely to be able to untap with it than Revenant. Probably would rather have another threat or cheaper acceleration. I think we can't leverage this card as well as a reanimator deck can.

Other cards to keep eye on:

Sadistic Sacrament - This card came up once and was cast once with kicker, and it did exactly what I slotted it into the deck to do: either cripple a deck's ability to win/finish the game or take enough tools out of the deck to prevent them from interacting with our stuff/win attempts. It was cast on a Korvold, Fae-Cursed King deck who had just gone off with Field of the Dead stuff so he didn't last long after that. I still would like to see a bigger sample size on when this card is drawn to see how happy or unhappy I am when I see the card, on average.

Temporal Extortion - Have not drawn it yet. I fully expect this to almost always be BBBB deal 12+ to an opponent and not an extra turn spell. If someone is low enough to make paying life to counter this a no-brainer, I probably can just kill them before I cast the spell. One of the pet cards in this deck for sure, just wanted some politicking tool to play with. Would be one of the first to go if it ends up underperforming.

Sudden Spoiling - I have cast this card many times in the past since it's been in every iteration of Drana since the deck's inception back when I started playing EDH. It's definitely got its pros and cons. When cast with sweeper or removal follow up, it usually guarantees the removal or sweeper and prevents any shenanigans in response. When cast on its own, it usually bought me a turn in a pinch since those times are usually when I need to survive a swing-out or prevent a combo.

Abyssal Persecutor - This card slaps, literally. While it's best played earlier in the game when there are no risks of it stopping our attempts, I have cast it later in the past just to get more damage in either to set them at 0 or less or to continue attacking life points while I look for a finisher or a removal for the percy if Drana somehow isn't able to eat him. 4 mana 6/6 flample is nothing to scoff at and it also provides some fun situations.

So far so good with this deck. I know it's not quite there yet but I feel it's close to where I want it to be. Thanks for reading!

[TheGildedGoose]

I agree with your assessment of Cabal Stronghold. The overwhelming majority of the time it was just a Wastes.

Cut Mana Web, especially without other mana denial effects. By itself it's just annoying and makes the game more difficult without much effect.

I agree with you on most of your analysis, actually. I think you're on the right track, and I'm glad you've found your way back home to your original love.

[Ruiner]

I've run a Drana deck for a long time (list is not online) and one thing I have found useful on occasion was including Bloodghast and Reassembling Skeleton. This gives you a repeatable disposable target for Drana in case opponents are going creature light or untargetable creature issues are popping up. Worst case the Skeleton is at least a repeatable chump blocker. It's not vital at all, but has come in handy from time to time.

[MrBloo]

I agree with your assessment of Cabal Stronghold. The overwhelming majority of the time it was just a Wastes.

Cut Mana Web, especially without other mana denial effects. By itself it's just annoying and makes the game more difficult without much effect.

I agree with you on most of your analysis, actually. I think you're on the right track, and I'm glad you've found your way back home to your original love.

Thank you! It's so nice to hear that I'm at least on the right track. I'll probably be cutting Mana Web but I'm not sure what to replace it with yet. Right now the first card that came to mind is just another Swamp since going up to 40 lands never hurts and it'll add a couple percentage points to my mulligans. I do wholeheartedly think most commander decks don't run nearly enough lands and the solution to a lot of the issues people have with their decks is simply to just run more lands. Besides, I'll have another nonland slot to play around with if I choose to cut Nirkana Revenant, which is on the chopping block currently.

I've run a Drana deck for a long time (list is not online) and one thing I have found useful on occasion was including Bloodghast and Reassembling Skeleton. This gives you a repeatable disposable target for Drana in case opponents are going creature light or untargetable creature issues are popping up. Worst case the Skeleton is at least a repeatable chump blocker. It's not vital at all, but has come in handy from time to time.

Another Drana enjoyer!! I thought I was the only one! Your solution is definitely a good one if you wanted to more or less guarantee a pump to get more Drana damage in. However, I haven't really run into that issue since I usually simply choose to spend the mana on something else or usually have some targets. I feel running those recurring creatures without more or better ways to make use of their abilities (like a good sac outlet to throw them into if I don't end up needing to eat them) would feel more inefficient and out of place most of the time. We also don't really have a good way to fetch them without spending one of our very powerful tutors. The best tutor for these guys would be something like Entomb or Buried Alive and the rest of the deck doesn't really benefit from the tutors otherwise. I just don't think it's enough to warrant the slots. Thank you for the suggestion!

[MrBloo]

-1 Mana Web
+1 Maze of Ith

As mentioned above, Mana Web felt meh and without other mana denial effects it's just more annoying than effective and doesn't result in good play experience overall. Gonna try out Maze of Ith in its spot. While we can't abuse it the same way a Lands deck could (by being able to play multiple lands a turn), it can be tutored with Expedition Map in a pinch and eventually can become a mana source with an Urborg (ours or others') or Yavimaya out. It can help us deter attacks from bigger creatures that Drana might not be able to kill right away. I obviously do not count this as a land towards my land count.

I thought about Leyline of the Void in this slot but it shuts off our Rise of the Dark Realms and Virtue of Persistence // Locthwain Scorn as well as a couple minor death triggers and we really don't have a practical way to remove it ourselves so this feels like too big of a risk to run, as powerful of an effect it may be. If I was in the market for a graveyard hate, I'd probably look to more precise ones first like Cling to Dust and Erebos's Intervention.

-1 Fellwar Stone
+1 Wayfarer's Bauble

This is another experiment but feels almost like a no-brainer. While it takes a total of 3 mana and a turn to begin producing mana (which Manascape Refractor also does), I feel having it become a black source that also happens to be an extra swamp that does not get caught in a sweeper looks very promising. Worth a shot.

Thanks for reading!

[MrBloo]

Also, I feel that we're getting close. I feel at this point I have made so much notes outside of this post that, once I see a more statistically significant number of games and records, I can start Drana's very own primer. It'll help me continue to keep records of the changes I make over time anyway and outside opinions and suggestions can be very helpful to help me get out of the occasional tunnel vision and biases that I fall into. Besides, there isn't one on here yet!

[MrBloo]

Played a couple more games today ending at 1-1 which is where we're at with the latest version updated 1/1/24.

1 Loss in a very close game. The Karlov of the Ghost Council got a nutty Soul Warden start so Karlov got huge quickly and started going around the table. Once he got to at least 9 power and was attacking someone else and they declared no blocks, I was able to cast Tainted Strike on Karlov to take the izzet player out early. He wasn't very happy to be elimiated so soon but I wasn't about to let an izzet player whose Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph commander already has Curiosity attached to him untap and start churning through the deck with ping effects and it was very much an opportunistic kill. I later used Yawgmoth's Will to replay the Cabal Coffers that previously got destroyed by Generous Gift and also pumped Drana high enough to kill the Bladewing the Risen player with a flashed back Tainted Strike. I was ahead but was not out of the water yet since the Karlov player has a lot of life and it'd take me a couple turns to kill him with commander damage. He already had Aetherflux Reservoir and Sensei's Divining Top out the turn prior without having tutored for them and he also naturally drew the Bolas's Citadel the turn prior but couldn't cast it so the game was sealed after I couldn't close the game fast enough.

In hindsight, I probably should have spent the infect damage on the Karlov player since I otherwise would have to rely on commander damage or a huge X-spell, neither of which I had available. At the time I was more afraid that the Bladewing player, whose turn was after me, would swing in with his dragons and try to kill me since he wouldn't have been able to kill Karlov player that turn and I was low enough to die to a couple Sneak Attack activations so I felt the threat was very real. Couldn't know for sure though. Lesson learned nonetheless.

1 Win in a game that felt like I shouldn't have won considering the abundance of counter effects having been thrown around. During a point in the game, we had our board wiped by Ezuri's Predation and when I untapped with access to a ton of mana, I forgot to sweep the board before playing out my creatures and left the green player with a pile of 4/4 beasts. However, when he untapped (he's right before me in turn order), he decided to spend his creatures trying to pull off the Sylvan Awakening combo with his Yedora, Grave Gardener commander but messed up the mana math and was not paying attention to the previously revealed top card of a Counterbalance player, getting some of his spells countered for no reason. He ended up sacrificing the bulk of his board to dig with Evolutionary Leap but not accomplishing much else. Once I untapped I was able to Exsanguinate him and another player and finish the third player off with a Shard of the Nightbringer + Shadowspear +Tainted Strike. Do note that in this game I did stick a Necropotence and my life total was not threatened due to lifegains from The Meathook Massacre and Shard of the Nightbringer. One guy eventually was able to copy the shard to effectively deal 28 to me but I still was the highest life total apart from the other two players and there was nothing threatening on board after the green player mucked up his turn. I was able to draw probably 17+ cards with Necro so it was a matter of time at that point, barring anyone else combo-ing off.

Good quality test games overall. I'm just excited that my somewhat pet card Tainted Strike killed three players today and I got to cast Temporal Extortion once. Of course, it was BBBB deal 18 damage to the last person in priority order. Never expect it to ever get me a turn.

Wayfarer's Bauble was drawn and played and I definitely appreciate the, though slower, ramp in the form of a swamp over the Fellwar Stone. Will keep this change. Did not see Maze of Ith so the jury is still out on that one.

Thanks for reading!

[MrBloo]

Logged a handful more games in since last update. Some good and some just out of my control. Some of those losses went something along the line of a guy and his infinite wisdom decided it was "fun" to play a Kormus Bell (as a black deck, mind you) knowing an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is out so it became a mexican standoff with me being held hostage most of the game. Another game was a Kess player resolving a Jeska's Will on turn 5 with Kess and Baral out, flipping Reiterate as one of the cards so it was basically a non-game.

One of the losses was definitely on me. I was the Icarus that flew way too close to the sun. Resolved a nutty Rise of the Dark Realms (for the first time ever, was excited) but decided to be little too greedy and didn't leave enough mana up for removal on an Ukkima, Stalking Shadow not expecting a Hatred (I used to run the card in this deck long time ago so I know nobody expects it).

While losses do suck, for most of those games I did manage to still be able to do the MBC things I wanted to do so they didn't feel that bad. Also learned a bit more about how I should play the deck. Once again, I have realized that this deck performs best when I don't explode off the line too quickly and paint a target on my back, since the deck really shines in later stages of the game. Just need to do more by doing less.

With that, we can move onto this batch of change(s):

-1 Nirkana Revenant
+1 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth

As previously mentioned, Nirkana Revenant often felt like a squishier Caged Sun in this deck and we are not a reanimator so this card is just too risky of a play to be worth the redundancy it provides. While I mentioned that I will not consider K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth as a commander, I did also say that I am not against running him in the 99 since that is a very different situation when you don't have an extremely strong mana cheat in the command zone. This guy would function similarly to the vampire he's replacing since he would still be providing some type of acceleration, but he comes down sooner and I can use the effect right away. Also, if he somehow makes it back around, I should be able to regain some life by attacking with him. I usually do not expect to be able to, but it is available.

If that doesn't work, I also am considering spending the slot on an additional removal or interaction pieces, but I figured replacing a creature with a creature would be a good start.

The cards I am considering in that slot if not K'rrik would be:

Sheoldred's Edict - Soul Shatter is a hell of a card. While this isn't close to one, it does its best at imitating by being a flexible instant speed edict effect.
Erebos's Intervention - Provides graveyard hate or removal plus some lifegain. Usually I use it as a graveyard hate but I have used the removal mode every once in a while. Modal cards are great.
Darkness - I think this is more cute than good but I could be wrong. Fog probably doesn't feel as great in this deck because of how many removals and sweepers we run, but it could technically save us from dying every now and then. My main concern is just that it can sit dead in your hand more often than not.

Latest decklist here for reference. Changelogs are also on this list.

Thanks for reading!

[MrBloo]

Been on vacation on this long weekend but I'm back!

So I never thought about running Forbidden Orchard in this deck (because it's monocolored and even in multicolored it never even was on my radar most of the time). It's pretty much a free include and it can give us a target for Drana to pump herself when there are none others. I have definitely run into that situation a couple times in the past where I would have won the game much sooner since I was way ahead and was able to keep board cleared but when I did have the mana to blow, everything else was already dead so I could only have Drana target herself to make her a 7/1 and the game would have finished sooner had she been able to activate for more. I actually have lost one game that way since those couple extra turns my last opponent had was exactly what he needed to draw into the combo to kill me. Definitely a serious consideration.

Thoughts? I'm thinking of subbing out either a swamp or one of the more niche nonbasics I have.

Thanks for reading!

[TheGildedGoose]

Orchard is good tech, nice thinking.

[MrBloo]

Since the new change, we're at 1-1 but neither were really that quality:

1 loss due to two of the decks at the table being known to be uninteractive value decks (Go-Shintai of Life's Origin and Edgin, Larcenous Lutenist and we have played against both before) so my friend who was on Ezuri, Claw of Progress knew to just send the house at me since I was the only one who could deal with his board. I didn't draw into any sweepers even after a wheel so I couldn't wipe the board while his fly was open from having to spend the counterspell on Solemnity (and correctly so since it just shuts his entire deck down). It was the correct move for sure. I just wish I could have done something but ended up not being able to do much.

1 win in a game that I don't think I should have won. I assembled Cabal Coffers and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth package pretty early on but otherwise wasn't really doing much early game (only saw Sign in Blood during that phase so it was mostly Drana and interaction). One of the guys had a Ghost Quarter out but held off on activating it since he apparently didn't want to be behind on mana? He also was playing Codie, Vociferous Codex so creature controls don't really affect him anyway. A Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury player I think got salty from my activating Shizo, Death's Storehouse to give Drana fear after he flashed in Scryb Ranger to try to block. Drana wasn't even big enough to kill the planeswalker, I just wanted to keep him from doing the -6 and drawing a ton of cards. A couple turns later he slammed down Acidic Slime but targeted the Shizo instead of the Coffers, to my and the third player's surprise. Mind you, Ghost Quarter still has not been activated at this time. I eventually found a Thespian's Stage and played it as Ghost Quarter insurance, even refused to activate Erebos, God of the Dead's ability at end step before it came back to my turn just so I always have enough up to copy Coffers in response. A guy eventually cast Farewell choosing all modes, clearing all of the nonland permanents that was prevent my Torment of Hailfire from becoming lethal to all three opponents, and the rest was history. I at one point did have a tutor to find Yawgmoth's Will if it did end up getting destroyed but that never happened. I think the game would have been much less in my favor had the coffers been dealt with earlier.

ALWAYS blow up the coffers. I'd be sad, but I am not allowed to be mad.

In other news, Forbidden Orchard did see play but not for the main purpose I slotted it in for. It was able to get me a few extra The Meathook Massacre triggers but the effects were not relevant this game. I think I will keep it in for now.

Otherwise, did not have an "I wish this card I drew was something else" moment so we're gonna keep going with this version. There are a few cards I am considering but they're only on the bench for when I find a card I don't enjoy having when drawn.

Thanks for reading!

[cheonice]

Yeah, allways kill the Coffers/Cradle or the Coffers'/Cradle's player...

It's nice that Forbidden Orchard did something for you. I put one into Selvala to trigger my Soul Sisters, we'll see how that works.

Glad to hear that the deck works as intended.

[MrBloo]

Yeah, allways kill the Coffers/Cradle or the Coffers'/Cradle's player...

It's nice that Forbidden Orchard did something for you. I put one into Selvala to trigger my Soul Sisters, we'll see how that works.

Glad to hear that the deck works as intended.

Thanks! Yeah, I also found that it added a slight "puzzle" to the game when I use it just because with certain decks, an additional creature is disproportionately beneficial to them so I have to be mindful about who to give the creature to. Usually it's not much of a brain bender but it was something to think about. Definitely glad to have found it as a neat tech in a monocolored deck out of all places.

[MrBloo]

Hey y'all,

Been a while since last update. We're still currently at 3-8 which is just over 27% so the deck itself is sitting pretty, winrate-wise. I know a couple of those losses were still attributed to pilot issues, usually either due to mulligan decisions or in-game decisions. Still learning how to pilot the deck better and having fun doing it. Haven't had too many non-games.

With that said, here's the next batch of swaps:

-1 Rings of Brighthearth
+1 Peer into the Abyss

Rings of Brighthearth has always been on the chopping block for me. There are currently a couple different infinite mana combos we have with the rings (one of them produces only colorless). We do have a few ways to spend that mana to draw through our deck (if we end up producing infinite black mana) but we will need Sheoldred, the Apocalypse in order to net neutral or positive on life as we draw, after which we can try to go for the win with the X-spells we draw and hopefully with recursion backup. It's definitely a legitimate way to go for the win, but it requires so many different and easily interactable with pieces that the surface area of the combos is simply too high for me for a 3-mana do-nothing card. I feel that we don't really need to produce infinite mana to be able to win the game since our plan A is already to try to produce tons of mana in the first place and we are perfectly capable of doing so without the help of a card that is absolutely dead on its own. I thought it'd be cute to copy Drana's activation but the situation in which I would benefit greatly from doing so never came up. Spending 9 mana to kill 2 5-toughness creatures doesn't feel great in the grand scheme of things. I'd much rather spend that slot on something that will be more useful at either most or all stages of the game. So Peer into the Abyss is taking its spot for now. This at later stage of the game (which is where we want to be anyway) should allow us to spend the tons of mana we have to do of the following:

1. Set up for win the following turn
2. Go for it that same turn (probably highly unlikely)
3. Dig for enough answers to make sure you're alive enough for #1

It also has a bonus of potentially killing one person if we have Sheoldred, the Apocalypse out or possibly kill one or more players/creatures if we have Orcish Bowmasters out. It's not going to be our plan A but the combination are there and the individual pieces are useful on their own.

This means we'll also have to adjust the ramp package accordingly:

-1 Basalt Monolith
+1 Decanter of Endless Water

Basalt Monolith was included because we could use a 3 mana "rock" (in this case it's not really a rock since it doesn't continue producing mana unless you net positive by untapping it) and it combos with Rings of Brighthearth. Now that Rings are gone, we have no reason to run it and instead we can run Decanter of Endless Water since it's also a 3 mana rock, produces colored mana, and is a second Thought Vessel we can dig into or play with PitA. I still choose to not run Reliquary Tower because I know that card is going to make me sad more than it save me some cards from being discarded. I wholeheartedly believe that Reliquary Tower is way overplayed and belongs only in either decks that can afford running it without color issues AND that reliably and consistently exceed 7 cards in hand.

-1 Snuff Out
+1 Go for the Throat

I believe GftT will be a dud less often enough that I would prefer to pay mana instead of life for it.

-1 Revel in Riches
+1 Darkness

Revel in Riches was another test slot to see how often I benefit from the trigger and as a potential alternate wincon. Turned out, the alternate wincon is irrelevant in this deck since we don't reliably generate treasures otherwise (Black Market Connections is the only other source) and it's usually a 5-mana do-nothing with a huge payoff the turn it comes in. The fact that it checks on next upkeep and that we don't have a real way to protect it also makes it very unreliable as a real wincon. Not worth the slot or the mana. If I ran more treasure-generating effects like Blood Money, I may reconsider. But currently, it's out. Darkness was previously mentioned as a card under consideration so I am going to slot it in here to try it out. It can sit dead in your hand in some cases but in those cases it means we already are probably going to live to next turn anyway. People usually do not play around this effect against monoblack and sometimes an extra turn is all I need to either win or stabilize.

-1 Temporal Extortion
+1 Bloodletter of Aclazotz

Ah yes Temporal Extortion, one of the pet cards I just wanted to run just to see how it feels. The one time it got cast, it did great. to make the last person in priority order before me lose 18 life felt nice. Bloodletter of Aclazotz is interesting. There are so many ways to look at it and it seems to do a lot. At absolute baseline, it's a 4-mana flying attacker that hits for at least 4 which is not bad. Then it only gets better from there. Any life loss effects during your turn gets doubled, meaning our X for X-spells effectively gets doubled, and any drain effect that gains you life equals to life loss from said effects also doubles the life gain. Every wincon we run relies on life loss or damage so this seems like a card I really need to find room for. Funnily, if I had both of these, I believe whoever pays the half would just die doing it so it just becomes a Time Walk, lol.

Cards I am considering:

Sensei's Divining Top and Bolas's Citadel - Yes, the good ol' top citadel engine. I will choose not to also run Aetherflux Reservoir for the potential combo because I want every piece of any particular combo I run to be useful on their own and the fishbowl does not satisfy that criteria since we are neither a lifegain deck nor a storm-type deck that can gain meaningful amount of life from just the fishbowl being around. With that said, both the top and citadel are indeed generically good. We won't be able to as reliably activate the Citadel's ability since we really don't run that many nonland permanents and we only have pretty much top to manipulate the top of the deck, which makes Citadel a lot less good. The two-card engine will always be considered though if other slots open up.

Reassembling Skeleton/Ophiomancer/Sedgemoor Witch - All of these cards belong in the same category so I will have them both for this line item. Repeatable chump blocker that can discourage some attacks that also can act as a target for Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief when opponents are creature-light. It's the reason we run Forbidden Orchard in the first place and this time we don't give someone a creature. Worth considering but the fact that it's a 1 or more slot(s) and we likely will never spend a tutor for it, it's less appealing when put that way. Also not terrible with Skullclamp, however. Just that I probably won't put it in just for these guys since we don't really make weenies to clamp otherwise.

Sheoldred's Edict/Withering Boon - This is a potential swap-in either in place of an existing spot removal or another card from another category. Another edict effect is nice especially when it's modal. Boon is yet another cutesy black "removal" that people usually don't ever play around. Sometimes it's the ETB that's the part we don't want happening and this is pretty much our only way to deal with that. The fact that most of the time we just don't care since we'll kill it anyway makes it that appealing as an option, though.

Grim Tutor/Dark Petition (and really other black tutors, really) - It's boring, but it makes our deck more consistent if we are willing to cut a card for it. We currently run only 6 tutor effects, 2 of which either only gets a basic swamp or a land, so we "only" have 4 true black tutors currently. I'd like to have access to at least 1 or 2 more tutors in order to be able to access the answers/cards I need more often. Again, it could make the deck more consistent (whether that's a good or bad thing depends on who you ask). Maybe it's what a monoblack deck like this needs to succeed but maybe we don't need it.

Updated decklist for those interested.

For the deck, I try to strike a balance between being consistent and good vs. running a few spicy/fun/pet cards just to make things more interesting. I also try to make the deck feel how it should, meaning when you play this monoblack control deck, you should feel like you're playing monoblack control. You should feel powerful when doing things that are within the color identity. You should feel at least somewhat punished or less powerful when trying to do things your color isn't good at, but that should feel more like a puzzle to solve or a challenge to overcome instead of feeling like you just can't play the game. I try to meaningfully hedge against certain strategies and weaknesses while at same time work towards having as few of "feel bad" draws as possible. I feel that this deck is getting closer and closer to that goal, slowly or otherwise.

I understand that X-Spells as a primary wincon can sometimes be essentially guaranteed in tables that give me enough time to get to late game or ones that don't have blue or ways to interact with the stack, but every other time the games have been a blast of a puzzle to solve.

Thanks for reading!

EDIT: Minor formatting corrections

[MrBloo]

I just realized that Bloodletter of Aclazotz also allows Peer into the Abyss and Shard of the Nightbringer to absolutely bean a player off the table so that's just gonna be hilarious if or when that happens. I don't think you're allowed to be mad at an 11-12 mana combo that takes out only one player and the enabler is a creature with no protection.

[cheonice]

Bloodletter looks like a great addition. Hope, they work as intended.

I really like Black's suite of sneaky off-colour cards like Withering Boon and Darkness. Torpor Orb is another potent hate piece for combatting etbs. I like it in Akiri, Line-Slinger, but it's more niche here.

[MrBloo]

Bloodletter looks like a great addition. Hope, they work as intended.

I really like Black's suite of sneaky off-colour cards like Withering Boon and Darkness. Torpor Orb is another potent hate piece for combatting etbs. I like it in Akiri, Line-Slinger, but it's more niche here.

Off-color effects usually get a "that's neat" reaction rather than a negative one for sure. I had Withering Boon in a previous version of Drana a long long long time ago because my then-Timmy self got so excited to have found a card that lets me possibly give blue players a taste of their own medicine. I think ever since I started playing MtG, I've cast the spell maybe 3 times at most. You never want to tutor for it, so you need to not only have it already in your hand, have the mana open, AND have a target worth countering knowing anything else will die to one of your kill effects. It was deceptively so narrow as a tech card that I ended up cutting it then. Also, every other time you have it in your hand and someone plays something that this doesn't hit, you are just sad and wish it was a different card. At least in Darkness's case, it'll be dead a lot less often. Someone is always attacking. It also can be a powerful political tool in certain situations, especially when the choices are take the deal or die.

Yeah, those static hate pieces like Torpor Orb and Cursed Totem and such are always going to be available as an option and they're effective to a degree. I don't want to be so overly proactive in dealing with threats that we're slowly creeping back towards the "opponents don't get to do their thing" strategy. More niche for sure. Like, if my deck contained absolute zero etb effects, I would have thought about running it (the same way one may run Cursed Totem and Torpor Orb in a Shorikai, Genesis Engine deck since in most cases it's a one-sided stax piece in that deck)

[MrBloo]

Minor update:

-1 Reiver Demon
+1 Decree of Pain

Reiver Demon was an experimental tech include in attempt to allow me to play around the noncreature-based counterspells like Fierce Guardianship and such that people have been favoring over regular old Counterspell. This spell also behaves like Plague Wind in our deck since it won't hit any of our creatures while leaving a sizable body behind. However, is a steep steep cost for a sweeper than very much can miss due to the nonblack nonartifact clause. I have the Mirrodin set foil version so I very much really wanted this card to work. I've drawn it a few times already and have not been impressed with it because it wasn't going to kill everything I needed it to. With that, Decree of Pain is back in! At the same mana value, this card does a lot more. We won't need to cast or resolve it that often but when we do, we have a good chance of running away with the game after. The spell also works with Boseiju, Who Shelters All if we really need to make sure it goes off. The card also comes with a cycle ability that I always have been aware of but much less often thought about actually using. It also replaces itself if we cycle it so we can use that part in a pinch to wipe the board full of weenies and at instant speed, no less. Seems like an easy swap-back.

Thanks for reading!

[duducrash]

I'm testing Braids, Arisen Nightmare and I'll +1, Cabal Stronghold is a wastes. wish I heard @TheGildedGoose

[TheGildedGoose]

I'm testing Braids, Arisen Nightmare and I'll +1, Cabal Stronghold is a wastes. wish I heard @TheGildedGoose

I'm tinkering with a Korlash, Heir to Blackblade list for %$#% and giggles. I grew weary of Torment of Hailfire. I can post it later, as I'm actually kind of proud of it. I don't know if is classify it as control though.

[MrBloo]

I'm testing Braids, Arisen Nightmare and I'll +1, Cabal Stronghold is a wastes. wish I heard @TheGildedGoose

I'm tinkering with a Korlash, Heir to Blackblade list for %$#% and giggles. I grew weary of Torment of Hailfire. I can post it later, as I'm actually kind of proud of it. I don't know if is classify it as control though.

Ok, do you just ignore his Grandeur ability usually or do you have clone effects and somehow end up with original copy in hand to discard? Or are you just running him as a giant beatstick with regenerate?