Mono Black Mask - Is it tier one?

[Suicide Black]

This is the build that I currently use. It works quite well and gets out a Dreadnought turn two a majority of the time (faster than Venguer Masque).

4 Illusionary Mask
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Will

4 Plunge into Darkness
4 Night's Whisper or Tainted Pact
4 Spoils of the Vault or Tainted Pact or Phyrexian Negator (Playing Spoils increases the percent of times you can play a dreadnought turn one or two significantly, but it kills you 15-16% of the time when you use it.)

4 Duress
4 Unmask

4 Dark Ritual
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mana Vault

12 Swamp
3 Ancient Tomb
1 Strip Mine

Duress and Unmask help the deck can get rid of any counterspells (usually FoW is the main one you have to worry about that early since most players opt to play cards their first turn), Null Rods, combo pieces or creature destruction cards that might ruin the game plan. The mana base and tutors ensure that a dreadnought can hit play by turn two or at the latest by turn three on a consistent basis and that the deck can recover from the loss of a critical card rather quickly. And the surprise factor often gets this deck game one.

I think this deck is very competitive against the entire field with blue based decks packing a ton of counterspells being it's greatest threat. But I'm not experienced enough with type one to make this assertion. Can anyone back me up on this, and if not suggest ways in which to make this deck more competitive.

I tested a version playing all five moxen and it really wasn't any faster but tended to give me mana of colors I don't need too often.

I was also wondering if getting out a dreadnought second or third turn almost every game is fast enough for the format in your opinion. Or is the deck simply too slow to be considered competitive.

How would you modify this deck to make it more competitive? Is a stronger focus on mana denial ala Sui Black recommended? Should I sacrifice the speed that Ancient Tombs offer for what Wasteland brings to the table (Bazaar and Workshop hate). Ancient Tombs and the mana deck in general has proven invaluable in playing around cards such as trinisphere and sphere of resistence.

I've never had a problem with a mana base and would prefer to leave it intact. I would prefer it if most of the suggestions dealt with the core cards themselves.

Suggestions for a sideboard would also be appreciated. The sideboard currently revolves around Powder Keg, Chalice of the Void, Planar Void, Wasteland, Tormod's Crypt, Contagion, Smother, and Vendetta.

[JDawg13]

You might want to take a look at another Fifth Dawn card on top of Night's Whisper, and that is Plunge into Darkness.  I'd run it in place of the Spoils.  It will likely get you the same card you wanted, without the possibility of killing you.

I would also consider running Wastelands in the maindeck.  Even the slightest amount of mana denial can help you stall an opponent long enough to beat them to death.

Other sideboard considerations: Coffin Purge, for removing pesky stuff from the graveyard, and Echoing Decay, which is great at killing Goblin Welders and Soldier tokens from a cycled Decree.

[Suicide Black]

Thanks for the suggestion, Plunge into Darkness works beautifully.

I'll test out your other suggestions.

----------------------------------Unrelated Rant----------------------------------

The more I play around with this deck, the more I'm convinced that other combo decks relying heavily on black are possible using a similar core of library manipulation and mana acceleration. (I'm currently considering Academy Rector variants and Bazaarless Dragon combo decks)

4 Plunge into Darkness
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Necropotence
4 Night's Whisper
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Entomb

4 Dark Ritual
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Chrome Mox

[Toad]

Swampless Suicide Black ?

[Suicide Black]

could you please post something with substance toad?

[wuaffiliate]

The main question is why is this superior to FCG.

Is it more resistant to hate?
Is it faster?

[Kowal]

I think this deck is very competitive against the entire field with blue based decks packing a ton of counterspells being it's greatest threat. But I'm not experienced enough with type one to make this assertion. Can anyone back me up on this, and if not suggest ways in which to make this deck more competitive.

Your assertion is way off.

You're aiming to put a creature in to play the turn FCG is aiming to deal you lethal damage.
Tog has the options of either not caring and just killing you, or just removing the dreadnought with wish-> oxidize or Pernicious Deed.
Germbus has a million different ways to stop you between the various removal spells and counters it gets to run.
You'll be lucky if you can disrupt non-dragon combo enough that they don't just go off in your face, but Dragon can largely ignore your disruption and just win.
Likewise, you roll over and die to workshops, ESPECIALLY ones next to Mindslavers.  Funny how many ways to kill yourself you run.

To be perfectly frank, I don't see this deck going anywhere.  Sorry dude.

[Suicide Black]

I think many of you are underestimating this deck. It almost always gets a dreadnought out by turn two at the latest, a full turn ahead of FCG, and early enough that the only counterspell you need to worry about is FoW. It's speed allows it to avoid much of the hate that could prevent dreadnought from hitting play.

Duress and Unearth can be very helpful in slowing down fellow combo decks, or ducking the hate that might hit the dreadnought once it does hit play.

It's a very different deck and one that's definately faster than Venguer Masque.

It can often get out a Dreadnought faster that FCG can combo out but usually takes a turn longer than FCG to win unless it luckily draws 2 dreadnoughts.

Yes it is more resistent to certain types of hate and less so to others.

It atleast has unmask and duress to get rid of problem cards, counters, and to stop a combo deck from going off.

It's also less vulnerable to wastelands and mana screw.

Plus it has the option to play a mana denial game by playing wastelands instead and this should help it's matchup against dragon and stax.

But more importantly, what the point if everyone just plays the same decks over and over again just because someone arbitrarily decided that it's the best of the genre. Otherwise, there would only be one combo deck, one control deck and one combo deck.

Each deck is different enough that it has it's specific niche. This deck is no different.

[Kowal]

The niche argument has been brought up before, but sometimes you just need to acknowledge that despite what niche a given deck could have, there is often a deck that can fulfill that role better.  In this case, there are many.

[AggressiveDude]

The main question is why is this superior to FCG.

Is it more resistant to hate?
Is it faster?

it is not sperior to FCG,so it is not tier 1.
But it is a good deck!
It runs disruption and it is more consistant than FCG.

[Suicide Black]

The deck can play a dreadnought out on your first turn almost half the time if you mulligan aggressively, on second turn roughly 70% of the time provided that you mulligan intelligently. And when it can't, it can get two dreadnoughts out by turn three almost 70% of the time (by tutoring up and playing a necropotence turn two). It can get atleast one dreadnought into play by turn three almost 100% of the time.

This is almost on par with dragon.

These aren't bloated up numbers, they are based on actual testing.

[Kowal]

it is more consistant than FCG.

Nothing is more consistant than 24 mana sources, 36 dudes.  Especially when like 12 of those dudes accidentally win you the game.

Even if you happen to assemble the combo and poop out a dude on turn two or three, said dude is removed by pretty much everything in the format, from Smother to Oxidize to Deed to Plow to even Powder Keg.  Meanwhile, by the turns you mentioned, FCG either has 3-5 dorks beating down, or has already won.

[AggressiveDude]

it is more consistant than FCG.

Nothing is more consistant than 24 mana sources, 36 dudes.  Especially when like 12 of those dudes accidentally win you the game.

Even if you happen to assemble the combo and poop out a dude on turn two or three, said dude is removed by pretty much everything in the format, from Smother to Oxidize to Deed to Plow to even Powder Keg.  Meanwhile, by the turns you mentioned, FCG either has 3-5 dorks beating down, or has already won.

Like I sad FCG is better.
But I truly believe that Mono Black Mask is more consistant.
I dont know what FCG your talking bout but I am also a FCG player.I often have to mulligan multiple times.This is what you call consistant?Or are you just a lucky dude(many of my friends playing fcg also say that it is not very consistant).
When I tested Mono Black Mask I had turn 2/3 Dreadnought 90% of the time.
Do you combo out with FCG 90% of the time on turn 2 or 3?Well I dont.

BTW most mono black mask decks also have a secondary Win Condition.With all the disruption a Negator can also win the game.

[Suicide Black]

Say all you want about FCG but unless you resolve that Food Chains (and I have eight pinpoint discard spells that come out turn one that say you won't), there isn't much chance that a goblin weenie or two per turn can compete with 12/12 tramplers on the second turn.


http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=6144

The metagame hasn't really changed that much since then.

The major differences are that long (its worst matchup) is gone and that the deck has even more tutors to work with and accelerate itself to a turn two or turn one dreadnaught.

Try goldfishing around wiht the decklist I posted. It's a blazingly fast deck by any account.

It can combo out on turn one almost half the time. That alone deserves a second look. And the vast majority of the time, it combos out turn two. Unmask doesn't really eat up any mana but lets you disrupt your opponent nonetheless.

This is one of the if not the fastest combo deck in magic. It unfortunately needs a turn or two after it combos out to win. Thats why I often find myself tutoring for discard spells after I comboed out and already used up the ones I have.

[Kowal]

I forgot to add you're also slower than belcher and you run fewer must counters.  You also don't have the utility of living wish.

[dicemanx]

It can combo out on turn one almost half the time. That alone deserves a second look. And the vast majority of the time, it combos out turn two. Unmask doesn't really eat up any mana but lets you disrupt your opponent nonetheless.

It doesn't really combo out 50% of the time on turn 1. Even if it did, that's only a turn 3 kill; if your claim that the deck "combos out" on turn 2 consistently is true, that's only a turn 4 kill. This is hardly one of the fastest decks in the format, and furthermore its easily disruptable. Granted, it's still a stong deck, but as others have been saying, there are better options these days. The reason why is similar to the reason why Suicide is not a viable option - without a strong engine or powerful card-advantage-generating cards, you're forced to live off the top-deck which leads to inconsistent performances. Tainted Whisper isn't quite going to cut it.

By comparison, look at how Mask stacks up to B/g Spoils-Dragon. They are similar, except Dragon is about twice as fast and has a strong draw engine to give it a chance in the mid game.

[Bulls on Parade]

My primary concerns about your deck are as follows:

Why isn't it Black/Green? Green, at the addition of merely 4 Bayous to complement the 4 Fetchlands you should be running anyway, adds Xantids, Deeds, and Oxidizes, which all improve important matchups drastically.

Second, what does this deck have on B/G Dragon? Dragon is faster and can circumvent hate cards more easily, not to mention Null Rod.

Believe me when I say I've tested B/G Spoils Mask, B/G Dragon, and a half-joke RectorDragon deck more than essentially anybody, and Mask is the weakest.

[Suicide Black]

Once again, comparing apples and oranges.

I have 8 discard spells that help quite a bit against a multitude of matchups.

And the critical combo turn is the same as belcher

40-50% turn one

70-75% turn two

90% + turn three

after that, you can use all your tutors to get discard spells to help protect that 12/12 trampler for 2 turns.

[eddavatar]

Honestly, trying to say this deck is tier 1 is a stretch when people are considering FCG, GAT and Fish as tier 2.

But anyways, if you consider the fact that:

1) Dreadnaught takes 2 combat phase to win when tog takes only 1

2) The only thing i need to counter is the mask.

3) Your life loss off spoils/plunge is giving aggro/tog an easier time as they can now just smash you for a LOT less to win, even if you do have the dreadnaught on board.

Comparing to dragon where they can overwhelm you with an uncounterable threat (Bazaar) and more than 12 must counters (Intuition, reanimation spells) WITH forces back up but yet no one consider D@rg0n as tier 1, and that FCG and charbelcher can KILL YOU, guranteed by turn 2 undisrupted as compared to mask takes at the least turn 3 to kill, you know you are in trouble.

More, the splash damage from artifact hate against slaver is just too huge. One random damping matrix can spell game. Cunning wish -> Rack and ruin/oxidize is flying everywhere, and germbus got swords MAIN.

To be honest, discard suck these days. I personally pulled off a match with GAT last night against Void with their god hands: 1st game 1st turn necro (countered) 2nd turn hyppie, 2nd game ritual/duress/hymn. They are traditionally impossible to get out of but w/ the raw power of GAT I still win. The lesson is, discard is just not that potent anymore.

What I would really consider if i were to play this deck is to run blue for forces, brainstorm and draw and cunning wish, splash green for berserk (3 main 1 board, hell yea) and artifact hate for the midgame. It's pretty much hulk taking out the togs and put in the dreadnaught/mask. Sounds like a bad idea but if your objective is to play mask and test out a build that might work, try it.

[Kowal]

You know there's no deck in the format other than White Weenie that goes aggro with little white dorks backed up with tax-rack.

Your percentages are off, your information is a bit... wrong, and rather than refute points you're restating your percentages.  I'm going to go ahead and move this to Newbie.[/color]

[Zherbus]

Haha. This is a banned member Rancor/Centroles. Closed.[/color]