Mtg arena open beta

[Primarch]

I saw a notice about the big tourney, but I haven't bothered watching any of it. If I am in front of my PC, I'll either be grinding through games myself or watching one of the many, many shows I am behind on.
Otherwise my free time goes into painting, which I am also behind on.

Currently I've been having some fun with Mono-Black.

25 Swamp
4 Banehound
1 Blessing of Belzenlok
2 Dead Weight
2 Fungal Infection
1 Thirsting Shade
4 Vicious Rumors
2 Kitesail Freebooter
2 Liliana's Triumph
2 Sorin's Thirst
1 Bleeding Edge
2 Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage
2 Murder
3 Skymarch Bloodletter
1 Toll of the Invasion
1 Davriel's Shadowfugue
4 Fell Specter
1 Twilight Prophet

It ramps pretty well, has a few lifelink cards (I love those Banehounds) to give an early advantage/block a few hits, some removal for big nasties, but the aim of the deck is to drop one or more Fell Specters.

With a couple of those on the table, Vicious Rumors and Davriel become very nasty indeed.
There are a couple of common/uncommon cards in M19 and Ixalan that might fit, but I'm not sure if it's worth crafting them due to rotation and what they could replace in the deck as it stands.

[me_in_japan]

hand destruction is an Evil and Bad thing and you should be ashamed of yourself, Prim


Nah, I jest It's totally valid. And rewarding, in its own way

Have you considered Duress as a handy turn 1 drop, and also maybe splashing blue for Thought Erasure, which is the mac daddy of hand destruction? Also, Disinformation Campaign can get really nasty in a deck with plenty of surveil. Other than that, it seems fine. Maybe a bit of board sweep for when you come up against a bunch of white weenies or mono red? Something like Cry of the Carnarium is good for that, or Ritual of Soot if you're feeling fancy. You could also probably do better than Skymarch Bloodletter. If you went into blue a bit, Nightveil Predator is a nasty piece of work, and Thief of Sanity is downright horrific. Or, if you want to stay in mono black, possibly sadistic skymarcher.

Oh, and Raider's Wake will fit right in there, and it's only an uncommon.

[me_in_japan]

I felt rather inspired by your list there, so I went off and made my own version. Definitely fun, and the percentage of opponents who just flip the table and bail once they're down to zero or even 1 card after a few turns is most gratifying

4 Watery Grave (GRN) 259
4 Drowned Catacomb (XLN) 253
5 Island (RIX) 193
11 Swamp (RIX) 194
2 Raiders' Wake (XLN) 116
4 Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage (WAR) 83
3 Duress (M19) 94
4 Thought Erasure (GRN) 206
3 Cry of the Carnarium (RNA) 70
4 Fell Specter (M19) 96
3 The Eldest Reborn (DAR) 90
3 Disinformation Campaign (GRN) 167
3 Ritual of Soot (GRN) 84
4 Thief of Sanity (GRN) 205
2 Ravenous Chupacabra (RIX) 82
1 Vraska's Contempt (XLN) 129
2 The Elderspell (WAR) 89

[Primarch]

hand destruction is an Evil and Bad thing and you should be ashamed of yourself, Prim

Nah, I jest It's totally valid. And rewarding, in its own way

I find it's generally more difficult for your opponent to cast his game-winning spell if it's currently in his graveyard.

I had some fun games last night. There were the usual mix of common decks, but some more creative stuff as well. One Dino deck I saw had a bunch of small creatures lowering the cost of the big dinos, followed by a 5/5 that granted life gain equal to a creature's toughness when it entered the board, followed by a dupe of that and then the big 12/12 dino. They went from 6 life (and I could do 6 damage easily) to 40 in a single turn. Needless to say I got trampled. Another game ended on Turn 1 after I played a swamp and Vicious Rumors. I'm not certain that that was why they conceded, but it got me my fifth win of the week and therefore a pack of cards, so I didn't mind.
I also wound up playing the same guy twice (An Ajani's Welcme deck). The first game saw me getting hosed by a horde of 1/1 lifelinked cats, but I took my revenge in the second by Murder-ing his Leonin Warleader and Ajani's Pridemate before they could do anything and then emptying his hand and letting Davriel punish him for having no cards.

As for your suggestions, I considered Duress, but went for Vicious Rumors instead. Duress let's you choose what gets discarded, but it can't always find a target in your opponent's hand mid-game. Vicious Rumors forces a discard of any card, mills for 1, causes 1 damage and heals 1 life for the same cost. Well worth one black mana IMHO. I'll have to see if I have a copy of Raider's Wake, that looks useful, as does the Elderspell.
Looking at the deck you posted, I notice first off that you have 8 rare lands. I guess if I burn through a whole stack of Wildcards..

[me_in_japan]

The rare lands are, in a rather boring way, the best way to spend wildcards. Sure, they don’t let you try out fancy new deck builds, but because they’re pretty much the only cards you can 100% guarantee will be usefully in any deck of those colours, they’re a good investment. So yeah, in all seriousness, if you have rare wildcards it’s absolutely a good idea to turn them into the ravnican shocklands (the check lands less so, as they will all cycle out in Autumn, whereas we have a whole ‘nother year of the shocklands.)

[me_in_japan]

ouch. Just played a Very Bad Game with that deck up there.

It went thusly:

my hand: swamp, island, island, duress, Ritual of Soot, Ritual of Soot, Raiders Wake

Opp. T1: forest, arboreal grazer (puts down a second forest)
Me T1: swamp, duress (dumping vivien reid from his hand). Remaining cards are forest, forest, arboreal grazer, gigantosaurus
Opp T2: forest, another arboreal grazer (puts down a 4th forest). He now has just a gigantosaurus in hand.
Me T2: island, pass
Opp T3: draws and plays Goreclaw
Me T3: Scoop......

Some games, ya just gotta let things be...

[Primarch]

Yeah, that sounds like an easy one to call. While Ritual of Soot seems like a good way to clear the board of small critters, it won't do much against big stompy things.

Your deck list doesn't have much in the way of cheap blockers I notice.

[me_in_japan]

Yeah. I tend to prefer letting my opponent build up a board then wipe it with a sweeper. Better card advantage (albeit risky. If I don’t draw a sweeper I can take too much damage to come back from later in the game.)

[me_in_japan]

bwahahahaha!


Oooooh, the belly laughs from that last game. Pure Jabba the Hutt.

Just for shits and giggles, I tried that deck up there in ranked (platinum) level. I figured I'd get whaled on, and in general I wasn't disappointed. But that last game was pure gold. My opponent was playing Grixis. Tons of rare and mythic cards* all over the place. At one point I Thought Erasure'd his hand and he had 3 Nicol Bolas, The Ravager in there. Anyway, by end of game I had stolen his God Eternal Kefnet, killed or discarded all 3 of his Niccy Bs, and the final nail in the coffin was when I stole his Nicol Bolas Dragon God when he had no cards in hand and I had a Thief of Sanity, Kefnet, and now NBDG on board. He proceeded to rope me for 4 time outs until he self destructed. Ah....good times

*specifically, 8 rare UB lands, 4 Nicol Bolas The Ravager, 3 Enter the God Eternals and at least 1 Kefnet and NBDG. A lot more shizzle than my little deck, anyway.

[Primarch]

Sounds like a fun game. I'm not sure why people rope when they are losing*, it's not like the game is going to suddenly turn around. They'd be better off conceding and trying again.

*Well, I do really, they are *%$"holes who are hoping you'll quit, obviously.