By Phil, AKA BeltFedWeapon
Political power grows out the barrel of a gun.
– Mao Tse Tung
When I play Mono-Black in EDH, it is almost invariably a control strategy – MBC (mono-black control). As such, I take the political leanings of Chairman Mao to heart when helming the deck. I’ve said it in this series before – Mono-Black decks should take what I have coined the ‘boots on neck’ style of politics; once you make your move you use absolute brute force to subdue your opponents. The politics is less about dividing and conquering or hanging back until you can take the lead, but rather fueling out threat after threat until your opponents cannot answer them anymore and the game spirals out of control for them. This typically means ramping and taking your lumps early, but then stabilizing with a board wipe or some other control piece and growing a position of dominance from there based upon what your deck and commander does. One of Black’s main strengths is ramp, so it almost always entails getting ahead on mana to power out your board presence. You never take your boot off of your opponent’s neck once you put it there.
The Power of the Dark Side: Paying Life
July 9, 2020
By Phil, AKA BeltFedWeapon
True power is achieved through blood and sweat. But mostly blood. -Vampiric Tutor
Part X: Paying Life
One of the best indicators to separate out novice magic players from those that have more experience is to gauge a player’s reaction when a Black card requires its caster to pay life. Newer players tend to value their life as sacrosanct – something that should not be lost and is a measure of if you are winning or not. More experienced players have realized that your life total is a resource to be used, just like the cards in your hand, graveyard, and in play. True connoisseurs of Black think: “I’m at 3 life? No problem, I can still cast my Sign in Blood to draw two cards.”
While Black’s strength in having the best tutors is obvious, its strength in being the best color at exploiting your life as a resource is far less so. With the recent printing of so many very good Black cards that revolve around paying life, it behooves me to give the topic the full treatment.
The Power of the Dark Side: Library Hate
March 7, 2019
By Phil, AKA BeltFedWeapon
Part IX: Deck Hate
What’s that you say? You are unfamiliar with this concept? Well, for but a sliver of your soul, I will share the eldritch corners of my favorite color with you. This is not the first time I have said this, but for the right cost, Black can do just about anything in Magic – to include this one thing that no other color really does. (Well, Blue has one really good card in Supreme Inquisitor, but I digress.)
Deck hate cards are just that: they hate on the cards in your opponents’ decks and remove them preemptively from the game before they even have a chance to draw/tutor for them. It’s a prophylactic approach that’s not as popular as it should be since such spells don’t have an immediate effect on the board.
As such, the effect is hard to quantify because the stock and trade of these types of cards are plays that are NOT made by your opponents because you exiled that card before they got to them. Just because they are hard to analyze though does not mean you should eschew them. They’re great in certain configurations depending upon how you play Black. Further, all of the below cards are affordable, with Bitter Ordeal being the most expensive at about $8 as of this writing.
By Phil, AKA BeltFed Weapon
Mono-Black is known for a lot of things: the best tutors, board wipes, trading life for other resources, sacrifice effects, graveyard hate, reanimation, and a weakness to enchantments and artifacts. It should be known for mass discard as well.
It has other tricks, but mass discard is a core function of every good Mono-Black deck that is very much underplayed out of either ignorance or for social reasons. I’m here to educate & banish the ignorance, while also making a strong case for how such a strategy still functions within the social contract.
Notions of Horde: Squirrels!
June 27, 2018
by Billy
So, how about that Arena update? It’s really a whole new game, and I think this is the perfect time to talk about everyone’s favorite elven guerrillas! I’ve been having some success by mixing gold weathers and movement abilities like Dwarven Mercenary and Vrihedd Brigade to keep my opponents’ units spread out and taking maximum damage each turn. I run Francesca as my leader as well as a little bit of a swap engine for extra consistency.
Oh, wait. Wrong game. Where am I again? Where is all this chittering coming from? Oh no. . . OH NO!
Hello, and welcome back to an all new Notions of Horde. I fell off the Magic train for a while, but am now back with a vengeance. Or at least some squirrels. Now, this Squirrel Horde has been on my list for quite some time, but I kept running into two issues. First, there aren’t nearly as many squirrels in the card pool as I would normally like when building a horde. Secondly, I kept telling myself that I was going to commission custom art proxies from an artist buddy of mine for a few of the key non-squirrel cards, in order to make them more squirrely. Well, custom art is time and money intensive, and Unstable took me by surprise, so I wasn’t ready. That said, lack of preparedness has never stopped me before, so let’s dive into the list!
By Phil, AKA BeltFed Weapon
Empires rise and fall, but evil is eternal.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. At least Sengir Vampire has great flavor text now, because I’m about to impart some sage wisdom that applies to every mono-Black deck that I discovered after years of experimenting: