Mono Black in the New Pauper

Hello everyone,
I've been extremely busy with school (funny how that works) and have had limited opportunity for playing MTGO, leaving me with a sparse 14 QPs as of this moment for Season 3. Needless to say I'll be trying hard to get the last one so I can at least play the prelims and snag a Lotus Cobra for this season.  In addition, I've been trying a bunch of things in all the formats and haven't found anything I'm super certain of or confident in (focussing on Standard, Pauper & Modern), at least until the last few days.

The Problem With Pauper

As of the last ban list update, Pauper has been shaken up.  The number of banned cards in Pauper has been momre than doubled with Invigorate, Grapeshot, and Empty the Warrens being added to the list to accompany Cranial Plating & Frantic Search.  The general idea is that these cards were some of the biggest offenders for turn 2 wins and generally non-interactive games of magic.

This logic may seem well and good, but most pauper veterans have been disappointed with the resulting format.  I know the moment I read the update I said out loud "Did they forget to ban Cloudpost?".  The main reason Cloudpost wasn't a dominating strategy before was that both infect and storm decks were fast enough to keep it in check, and the post player would have to dilute their plan with cards that let them survive in the early game.  Furthermore, the cards used to fight infect and storm were completely different, meaning that decks could generally count on some number of blanks in the post deck during game 1.  Without these decks keeping the post decks in check, Cloudpost can sit back and develop it's mana/card advantage with fewer repercussions.

What also made me sad about the bans was that I predicted a severe hit in power level to my then deck-of-choice: Monoblue Delver/Faeries.  As an aggro-control deck, the Delver deck was able to present early pressure and then counter enough spells to leverage wins.  Decks like storm and infect were both favourable in my experience, but by no more than 60% or so, and there was still a fair bit of play to the matchup and anyone could win.  With those decks gone (or at least neutered), the strength of Delver to combat the unfair decks waned.  This meant I had to figure out something new.

Now this was my initial prediction for what would happen to the format, and it wasn't too far off.  Cloudpost received a large boost in popularity but is far from the only deck that's doing well.  The new Boogeyman of the format is everyone's favourite Modern Deck: Bogles.  Using Ancestral Mask, Rancor, Wild Growth, Armadillo Cloak, and hexproof creatures, this deck can quickly pump out damage in a way that is both fast and difficult to disrupt.  Armadillo Cloak on a large hexproof guy is about the biggest trump to any other aggro deck you can think of, and decks like Cloudpost better counter your key auras or be on the receiving end of a very angry Slippery Bogle.

Several classic decks have also picked up in popularity, notably Affinity and Stompy.  People are still playing Infect, although much less than before, and Delver decks have picked up Cloudfin Raptor (which I think is terrible due to the few ways you can evolve it).  Goblins, Elves and Esper Storm are both seeing play, along with a smattering of other decks.

What Didn't Work

I tried a few things in this format.  I first picked up Stompy on the advice of _Batutinha_, but quickly discarded it for the same reason I had discarded stompy in the past: It's too inconsistent, and is a worse version of Bogles.

Shortly after I tried out both Delver and Affinity.  Delver (as per my assumptions) seemed to be just poorly positioned against the field (being not great vs the control decks (Cloudpost), the aggro decks (Bogles), or the slower but more resilient combo decks (Esper Storm)).  Affinity went better, but remained weak to Bogles when you didn't draw Serene Heart or Krark-Clan Shaman.  It was a fun experience, and I might revisit it in the future, but it was also slightly more variance-prone than I'd prefer.

This last weekend, I attempted an idea I'd been thinking about for some time.  With the addition of Izzet Guildgate, I had wanted to try a blue-red burn deck, using all the great burn spells of red combined with Phantasmal Bear, Delver of Secrets, Frostburn Weird and Daze.  The card I really wanted to play was Razorfin Hunter (which I ended up putting in the sideboard) as a way to clear out small blockers and reduce the efficacy of Spellstutter Sprite.  Sadly, while the deck was extremely fun, the Bogles matchup was almost unwinnable without an early Martyr of Ashes, and the 17 land, 4 guildgate manabase was what one might call "too ambitious".

What's Left?

I sat down and thought about what I wanted to do in the format.  I wanted a deck that could beat Bogles consistently, have an OK-Good Cloudpost matchup, and be resilient against everything else.  My initial answer was an old friend that hasn't been getting much love: Mono Black Control.

I initially (subconsciously even) discounted mono black because of the same reasons I disliked delver.  Both infect and storm were your top 2 matchups, and were effectively eliminated from the format.  But all this meant is I had more liberty with how I built the deck to give myself some extra percentage points in matchups where I used to have slots devoted to infect/storm.

The big things I knew I wanted were 4 Geth's Verdict and 4 Crypt Rats.  Verdict (and Edicts in general) are almost certainly the best way to go about attacking the aura deck, punishing the all-in plays that give the deck its free wins.  Furthermore, should your opponent spread several auras among many creatures, a smaller Crypt Rats activation can stabilize the board.  I also decided that 4 edicts was not enough for how favoured I wanted to be vs Bogles, so I went to 7.  Since I only have 1 Diabolic Edict at the moment and am too cheap to buy more at 3 tix each, I'm running Devour Flesh to shore up the numbers.  To augment the Crypt Rats plan, I wanted the full 4 Unearths, giving me the opportunity to sweep the board (& finish games) consistently.  Previous versions has been shaving on the numbers of Unearths but because the format has slowed down by a few turns, I feel that you can get away with running 4.

Since Storm is no longer a thing, Echoing Decay can safely be cut, and spells like Dead Weight, Disfigure, Spinning Darkness and Doom Blade are blanks vs Bogles and so can be relegated to the sideboard.  At the core of the mono black deck, we have a bunch of small creatures that disrupt out opponent's hand when they enter the battlefield.  Chittering Rats, Liliana's Specter, Ravenous Rats, and Augur of Skulls fill these slots.

To ensure a steady supply of cards, Sign in Blood and Phyrexian Rager have been monoblack mainstays and get to keep their slots.

I rounded out the deck with some Cuombajj Witches (which over performed during the last time I played mono black), and a random Undying Evil to get people (If it's good enough for standard it's good enough for me :)).

Note that since this is still a 1st draft, there are a lot of numbers that might be (and probably are) wrong.  I want to test a lot of these cards to see exactly how good they are in the current format (Specters, Augurs, Ravenous Rats, Witches namely), so there are more 2-ofs than in a polished list.

For the sideboard, I'm on the age-old plan of playign 8 Stone Rains against Cloudpost.  Your whole game plan in that matchup is to make the game as unfair as possible.  You want to get them topdecking as fast as possible and have very few lands, all while applying pressure.  Cloudpost players will (obviously) lead with their Cloudposts as soon as they draw them.  You'll generally want to hold your land destruction spells for the first Cloudpost, but if you have an opening on turn 4 or 5 you can generally start stoning random lands so long as you have punished their hand.  Especially when they don't have a Prophetic Prism, taking them off coloured sources can be just as crippling as killing their namesake land.  If at any point they have a good chunk of mana and cards you've likely lost and will need to steal the game with a large Crypt Rats activation from nowhere.  Also, while it may be tempting to baord out all your removal, I suggest keeping in ~3 Geth's verdicts to deal with Sea Gate Oracles and/or Mulldrifters that get n your way.  The last thing you want to give the post deck is time, and if you aren't hitting them every turn (even if only for a few damage) then the game is slowly getting away from you.

Tendrils of Corruption is a card I've never liked in mono black, and people might be wondering why I'm including it.  First, notice that I'm running no targeted removal in my maindeck.  7 edicts and 4 Crypt Rats are the only real ways to kill things (Unearth if you count it).  Again, the whole reason I made that choice was because of Bogles, and so I want some targeted removal postboard to remove important threats from other creature based decks.  In addition to killing Myr Enforcers, Sparksmiths, and Quirion Rangers, Tendrils gains me a reasonable amount of life which can translate into extra turns, or more/bigger Crypt Rats Activations.  Whereas in previous versions I already had lots of very efficient removal, and having Tendrils in the board would be a redundant waste of a slot, it plays a larger, more important role in this build.

Filling out the sideboard we have one additional edict (Have you realized I hate losing to bogles yet?) and a couple duress for various combo/control matchups.


Here's the Final List (MTGO text file).

4 Barren Moor
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Polluted Mire
14 Swamp
2 Augur of Skulls
4 Chittering Rats
4 Crypt Rats
2 Cuombajj Witches
2 Liliana's Specter
1 Okiba-Gang Shinobi
4 Phyrexian Rager
3 Ravenous Rats
2 Devour Flesh
1 Diabolic Edict
4 Geth's Verdict
4 Sign in Blood
1 Undying Evil
4 Unearth

Sideboard
4 Choking Sands
1 Devour Flesh
2 Duress
4 Icequake
2 Spinning Darkness
2 Tendrils of Corruption



I cashed a daily last night with this list, losing only to Goblins in the finals after I made a misplay and got deservedly punished.  I think the deck is exactly what I want to be doing in the format.

As I said before this is not a polished list, but there's a lot I like about it.  The Undying Evil was amazing, and Crypt Rats proved to be the MVP of the deck.  I beat stompy and 2 post decks, and they played out about the way I wanted/expected.  A useful trick I did vs stompy when they have a Young Wolf/Safehold Elite is to double activate Crypt Rats in response to itself to ensure you kill both halves of their creature.  If you want to kill an Elite activate rats for 1, hold CTRL, and then activate for 2.  If you want to kill a Wolf do the same in the opposite order.

Anyway, I think that's it.  I'm sure I'll discover more nuances of mono black in this specific format in the coming weeks, but I suggest you play this deck on MTGO if you're into pauper.  It's fun, interactive, and can win, which is pretty much what I look for in a deck.

Until next time, Cheers,

Zak