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Article=15732

Arcane Teachings - Mono-Black Control in Shadowmoor

Standard
by Tom LaPille

Despite having documented my adventures at this season's PTQs and at

Grand Prix: Philadelphia, both of which resulted in separately earned
qualifications, I still hadn't started seriously thinking about Standard with
Shadowmoor for Pro Tour: Hollywood until very recently. I hate trying to
speculate about formats when there are still more sets to come out, but
when I received a friendly reminder e-mail from the DCI that contained
Hollywood hotel information at the same time that the Shadowmoor spoilers
were starting to fill out, I decided to get to work.

The first thing to do with new cards is to learn them all, so I spent some
quality time with the spoiler. The next step was to start bouncing ideas off
colleagues. My first victim was fellow ginger Zack Hall, who placed in the
top four of Grand Prix: Vancouver this past Extended season. The last PTQ
he played in was for the Time Spiral Block Constructed Pro Tour in
Yokohama, and he hasn't had to play in another one since then. Along the
way, he has posted money finishes at multiple Pro Tours and Grand Prixes.
Zack suggested that I write an article about the process that we used to
prototype decks, and this one showed the most promise of any of the ideas
with which we started.

Zack: People keep talking to me about building a mono-Black control deck

now that Corrupt is back, so let's work on that.

Tom: Okay, so we have Corrupt and Beseech the Queen as obvious

motivational cards.

Zack: Damnation is a given in any Black control deck, and we'll want at
least one Tendrils of Corruption.

Tom: Corrupt is better than Consume Spirit here I assume? We probably

want one Consume so we can go nuts in the late game with Beseech,
maybe even two.

Zack: That makes sense. A big question is whether we want Bitterblossom.

I would guess yes, and it will sometimes act like a Forcefield in the deck.

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Tom: Indeed. I'm not concerned about the life loss because we'll fix that
with big black spells.

Zack: Yeah, it'll be a question of tuning to see how many more kill spells
are needed. Nameless Inversion is the go-to answer, but some number of
Slaughter Pacts might want to complement them.

Tom: Keep in mind that we have Korlash, Heir to Blackblade!

Zack: Yeah, 4 Korlash is probably a given.

Tom: Let's talk about mana. We definitely need to mind stone, and we may
even want some Coalition Relics if we are really building up infinite mana.
Alternatively, we could just play a few Prismatic Lenses on top of the
Stones.

Zack: I was about to suggest something like 4 Mind Stone, 2 Coalition

Relic.

Tom: Yeah we can't play too many non-land mana cards. So do we have
any awesome ways to draw cards?

Zack: Nope, I don't think so.

Tom: That is going to be a problem, especially because we can't play too

many non-Swamp lands and so we'll have to be very careful not to flood.

Zack: Now we start looking at splash colors, but the cost of playing Blue or
Red will be that we need to run three or four Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

Tom: I think it needs to be Blue with Tolaria West, sadly. Otherwise we're
not going to be able to get Urborg consistently. Hmm, let's stop before we
do this and turn into a terrible Teachings deck and see if we can stay
mono-Black. I'm going to search for “draw cards” in Black. I got Graveborn
Muse, Phyrexian Etchings, Colfenor's Plans, and Hoarder's Greed. This is
nice.

Zack: Dusk Urchins is the closest thing to a draw spell from Shadowmoor.

Tom: Yeah, Dusk Urchin is actually reasonably priced, and the more I think
about it the more I think that it might be awesome. Early in the game you
get to trade it for anything and draw a card, and against a non-attack deck
you're getting full value. I think we can use that as our card drawing.

Zack: We'll need 4 Thoughtseize, and probably just one Tendrils to

Beseech for.

Tom: We already have four Corrupt, but I guess sometimes we'll have
seven mana and want to gain a lot of life and kill something. Also, we'll want
a Slaughter Pact for Beseech.

Zack: Do you like Ghastlord of Fugue? It's a Blue-Black 4/4 for HHHHH that

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is unblockable and Coercions the opponent whenever it hits.

Tom: We can do Oona, Queen of the Fae! I think Oona is far sicker, we're
going to have a lot of mana to spend.

Zack: Yeah, if you untap with Oona you should win. So we'll play four
Korlash and two Oona.

Tom: I actually really like Bitterblossom too, by the way. It just stays around
forever and we're gaining life incidentally so we probably won't die to it too
much.

Zack: That might be too many win conditions.

Tom: Well, we don't have to be a straight control deck. This is almost just a
bunch of crazy Black cards. I think it can work just as that.

Zack: I like drifting toward that because we don't have the best long game
due to the awkward card drawing.

Tom: I wish we had Solemn Simulacrum, or something that accelerated

with actual lands so Corrupt could be more effective.

Zack: I don't think he is replaceable though. We can probably play Desert,

but that means we need more Urborgs again and we don't want to waste a
Beseech the Queen on Urborg. Colorless lands also make Beseech itself
awkward.

Tom: I haven't had great experiences with Desert against faeries, to be

honest. When I played Desert in Reveillark they just would sit on a Scion of
Oona and make me look dumb, or just attack with a team of Bitterblossom
tokens.

Zack: Okay, scratch that then. I just assumed it was good, but that makes
sense. You had four Thoughtseize, right?

Tom: Yeah. At this point I'd like to note that we are starting to seriously
suck against mono-Red.

Zack: Yeah, but what can we do about that?

Tom: Not much in the main. I think we're close to full. Here's where we are:

24 Swamp
4 Mind Stone

4 Beseech the Queen

4 Corrupt
4 Damnation
4 Thoughtseize
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Tendrils of Corruption

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2 Oona, Queen of the Fae

4 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
4 Dusk Urchin
4 Bitterblossom

Tom: This is what I have, although this is probably not enough lands. Also,
our Beseeches really suck. Do you want to just axe that package?

Zack: It can’t get Damnation on turn 3, so yes. I think our deck is too weak
versus attack decks though, and we need more cards like Nameless
Inversion.

Tom: Yeah, we really have to naturally draw Damnation if we're being

attacked.

Zack: We can take out the one Slaughter Pact and the Tendrils of
Corruption, so that's six slots for us to play with.

Tom: Good stuff. I think we want in the neighborhood of 26 lands so we

keep drawing them.

Zack: Are there any spell-lands we can play to keep us from flooding?

Tom: Well, I was thinking we would have something like three Urborg,
Tomb of Yawgmoths and two Urza's Factories. It's too bad the Black
nonbasic Swamp from Shadowmoor isn't spoiled yet, because it could be
useful. We'll keep that in mind as the spoilers finish.

Zack: Is Spawning Pool just too awful?

Tom: I vote yes, although this deck has so many Swamps. It's a little sad
that we have to play all these lands that are not exciting.

Zack: Yeah. Can we do a snow theme with Scrying Sheets and Mouth of
Ronom? What about Howltooth Hollow? By the time we cast Corrupt we'll
usually have an Urborg, right?

Tom: We could do snow if we wanted to, but that makes Corrupt a lot
worse. We won't always have an Urborg. Perhaps the “basic lands matter”
cards will just eventually be terrible because no one can justify playing
enough basics to activate them. I'm beginning to question the worth of using
Corrupt to motivate not playing cool lands. The Teachings decks did a
better job of using Tendrils along with non-Swamp lands than we can here
because they had Tolaria West to search and Careful Consideration to
pitch extra ones.

Zack: That's why I don't want to have to play 3 Urborgs. Also, I think this
entire deck is awful without Corrupt.

Tom: Yeah, that's the real motivation so I think we have to just play normal
Swamps to really maximize Korlash and Corrupt. It sucks that our lands
won't be interesting, but this is the cost we must pay.

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Zack: If there won't be much true control in the format we won't really miss
Scrying Sheets… and besides, I think you're right about needing Swamps.

Tom: Can we just set up for a really long game with Consume Spirit to help
leverage the Swamps? Well, not really long per se, but have the long game
plan be just to burn people a lot.

Zack: We can probably supplement the Corrupts with 2 Consumes. Wait,

Quicksand is in Tenth Edition? This whole Swamp thing is starting to feel
worse and worse.

Tom: Yeah, I know. I don't think Quicksand is what we would want because
we can't sacrifice our lands, but I dig what you're saying.

Zack: I know, I'm just using Gatherer to search for lands at the moment and
feeling depressed.

Tom: Yeah. What little removal spells do we want to play? Do you actively
like Nameless Inversion?

Zack: Yes I do, but we might need to sideboard something like Cruel Edict
for Chameleon Colossus.

Tom: I think our removal spell needs to cost two mana and the only other
option I can think of is Terror.

Zack: Perhaps it should be Shriekmaw. I forgot about that bad boy earlier.

Tom: I actually like Shriekmaw, I think that fits in with our plan much better
and is a sort of makeshift card advantage against attack decks.

Zack: So are we full on slots now?

Tom: We are full. I think we want to cut to only one Consume Spirit, the
idea of drawing two of it nauseates me.

Zack: Okay, I think that will be fine. Where are we now?

Tom:

25 Swamp
4 Mind Stone

4 Corrupt
1 Consume Spirit
4 Damnation
4 Thoughtseize

2 Oona, Queen of the Fae

4 Shriekmaw
4 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
4 Dusk Urchin
4 Bitterblossom

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Zack:Let's talk about the sideboard. I think we need four Extirpates for
Reveillark and the possible mirror, and four Dragon's Claw for Red decks.
Extirpate is actually a problem for us too if someone gets our Corrupts, but
we can deal with that later.

Tom: Extirpate is a really nice way to get a surprising strategic advantage,

so I'm in on that. Claw will go a long way to help against mono-Red, but
keep in mind that we need to be able to cut both Bitterblossom and
Thoughtseize against them. We should try to play another four cards that
work well enough against red so we can make that happen.

Zack: Good idea.

Tom: I'm not sure how effective Cruel Edict is against Colossus. Green
decks always seem to bring expendable friends for Gumby, so I don't think
it will connect very often.

Zack: That's true. Do you think Ironfoot would be better than Dusk Urchins?

Tom: Ironfoot is so good here, but I was hoping for ways to draw cards.
What if we just sideboarded Ironfoot when we really needed a creature to
put in front of other creatures? I'm not convinced that we have tons of time
and mana to untap him.

Zack: What about Razormane Masticore?

Tom: That's a good sideboard card to be sure. I like it against the Green
decks. Let's finish with 4 Ironfoot and 3 Razormane. We can board the
Ironfoots in against Red, so that'll work just fine.

Zack: Sounds good. This is awkward, someone named AspiringSemiPro

just sent me a message over instant messenger and I don't know who he is.

Tom: That's a depressing screen name. People should try to align their
identities with their desired outcomes and let things work itself out, as
opposed to constantly reminding themselves about their lack of having
those things.

Zack: You and Rich Hagon and your psychobabble are adorable.

Tom: Heh. On that note, thanks for working with me and have a great night.

Zack: No problem, you too.

Here's the final list that Zack and I ended at:

25 Swamp
4 Mind Stone

4 Corrupt
1 Consume Spirit
4 Damnation

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4 Thoughtseize

2 Oona, Queen of the Fae

4 Shriekmaw
4 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
4 Dusk Urchin

4 Bitterblossom

Sideboard:
4 Extirpate
4 Dragon's Claw
3 Razormane Masticore
4 Phyrexian Ironfoot

This is where we stopped. I'm not sure how great I feel about this deck, but
the process of building it showed me how annoying the mana requirements
will be for the upcoming format. Corrupt requires that you play almost
exclusively Swamps, but cards like Beseech the Queen and Wilt-Leaf
Cavaliers have so many hybrid mana symbols in the cost that they come
close to disallowing you from playing any colorless nonbasics if you want to
play them in time. Even something like Wilt-Leaf Liege, which costs 1HHH,
can keep you from playing all the Mutavaults you would have played
otherwise. Drawing a second Mutavault There are some seriously powerful
cards that provide plenty of motivation for accepting these requirements, but
we are soon going to have some annoying decisions to make when it
comes to building mana bases.

I look forward to discovering how well this deck plays, and also to learn
more about the new cards in it. Dusk Urchin is very interesting although it
does not have an obvious home, and Oona with a lot of mana is a lethal
combination. It will also be interesting to see how well Corrupt performs on
its second trip through Standard.

Keep an open mind when evaluating new cards and decks. You might be
surprised what you'll find, and if you aren't willing to seriously entertain all
the ideas you have you may ignore the one that actually turns out to be
awesome.

Have a great week,

Tom LaPille

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