[Deck] G/B Disruption (I'll think of a better name for the deck later :-p)

[netherspirit]

I've been trying to come up with a new deck lately, I'm in love with Sinkhole lately, so I decided to go for something using a lot of black, but I couldn't think of anything particularly new. I then remembered an old UBG control deck of mine, that weirdly enough ran 3 Exploration, 1 Fastbond and 4 Howling Mine, then loads of permission cards. So after a bit of brainstorming I decided to make a B/G version. Here it is so far:

Mana Base:
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
3 Bayou
6 Swamp
1 Forest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills

Creatures:
4 Dark Confidant

Mana Denial:
4 Sinkhole
3 Rancid Earth

Discard:
4 Duress
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 Mind Twist

Tutors/Card Draw:
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
3 Night's Whisper

Accelerants:
1 Fastbond
3 Exploration
4 Dark Ritual

Protection:
1 Zuran Orb

Coolness:
1 Yawgmoth's Will
3 Crucible of Worlds

Sideboard:
2 Massacre
3 Pithing Needle
2 Darkblast
3 Null Rod
2 Xantid Swarm
3 Oxidize

Now you will have noticed I didn't include Howling Mine; there are two reasons for this:
1) Dark Confidant wasn't released then, and he's just much better.
2) I was a noob then, Howling Mine sucks.

EDIT: Mods, I accidentally hit save before I was anywhere near finishing, so if you see this thread before I add to it don't close it, I'm now adding everything else.

The deck's main goal is to draw a ton of cards, disrupt your opponent's hand and mana so they can't actually do anything, then get a huge mana advantage with Fastbond and Exploration. The deck can reliably start disruption on turn 1, there are enough accelerants and free mana cards to make it easy, and if you can't get the mana for Sinkhole, Mind Twist and Hymn to Tourach, you still have Strip Mine, 3 Wastelands and a full set of Duress. With those you should easily begin the disruption. From there you slowly beat away with Confidants, the life loss does become severe at times, so I've found that Zuran Orb is great, especially with Exploration/Fastbond and/or Crucible.

So, card explanations:

Dark Confidant - Fits the deck perfectly. He serves as a beater, and is an amazing card engine.
Sinkhole - Best land destruction spell ever.
Rancid Earth - Decent land destruction spell, but its threshold ability has two uses. The first is to stop any pesky opposing creatures, and there's not really that many with toughness of more than 1. The second is as a safety trigger on your Dark Confidants; threshold is very easy to achieve in here, so if the life loss from Confidant is too much you can just kill them all until you get Zuran Orb into play.
Mind Twist - I know it's not amazing, but it's great for killing the last few cards in your opponent's hand, and early game it can be devastating when accelerated enough.
Night's Whisper - Cheap efficient card draw.
Fastbond/Exploration - These allow you to get any early mana advantage, and once you drop a Confidant these become insane, giving you the ability to drop in enough lands to keep playing a barrage of horrid disruptive spells.
Zuran Orb - Originally this was just a way to stop creature aggro, but it's great at negating Confidant's drawback.
Crucible of Worlds - Provides a lock with Strip Mine and Wasteland, and becomes great with any form of sac land once you drop Fastbond or Exploration.

I think the SB speaks for itself, so I won't explain it unless anyone requests.

So, there it is, hopefully you can see what the deck does. It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you've got the hang of it it's very powerful and easy to use.

Any comments and criticism would be very much appreciated! Thanks guys!

  netherspirit

[Seraphim3577]

While I like the idea behind the deck, not having nullrod in it makes all of your ld just an annoyance to a deck that is running a fullset of power.  If they drop mana-artifacts, your ld is rendered nearly harmless and leaving you with 4 copies of a 2/1 to win the game with.

While I absolutely love crucible, I would probably cut it in favor of life from the loam and add in some other beaters like wild mongrel and / or terravore.  1 copy of genesis coudln't hurt, but if you don't want to add him, i would at least include a volrath's stronghold for creature recursion.

[Dnine]

fastbond/exploration seem silly with only 20 land.  they are not going to give you the mana accelaration you want.  I'd cut the explorations for 1 crop rotation, the last wasteland, and maybe another land or lotus pedal.  I'd leave fastbond in for the possible strip lock.  So they get better with Dark Confident in play, what doesn't??  

If you insist on leaving them in then I'd still recommend finding room for crop rotation.  

[meadbert]

I would say that Rancid Earth is not so good.

Sylvan Scrying might be pretty good.  It allows for a more consistent Strip Lock.

Crop Rotation is good, but I hate when it is countered.

Null Rod should probably be in the main deck.

[netherspirit]

@Dnine: I'm keeping the Explorations, they're phenomenal, late game they're not great unless you've got Confident or Crucible, early game they're broken, and mudgame they're ok.

@Everyone: Thanks for the input! I'd considered Crop Rotation, but never actually tried it, I will definitely try to include it though. What should I cut for Null Rod?

[MarkPharaoh]

I suggest you take a look at some of the old BG Void decks for possible ideas.

[Seraphim3577]

I would make the following changes:

+3 terravore
+3 null rod
+2 mishra's factory
+1 genesis or volrath's stronhold

-3 night's whisper
-3 rancid earth
-1 zuran orb
-2 moxes


The terravore's can end the game very fast once you've set up your crucible wasteland / stripmine lock.
Your fetchlands feed the vore, too.
The reason for nixing the zuran orb is that its useless with your rods out.
Let me know what you think about the changes.
SB, I would highly consider making room for 4x leyline.
They are bad for your vore, but some matchups will just need them.

The reason for taking out the moxes is that you plan to drop an exploration or fastbond first turn, and you need more lands to get the utility out of it.
The moxen also get hosed by your null rods, but the factories keep won swinging for 2 (unless i am mistaken, in which case i would add in 2 treetop village).

[AmbivalentDuck]

So, lets pretend that your opponent can resolve a threat, like...say...Oath of Druids or Tinker.  You don't seem to have any answers to anything in play at all: any resolved threat will prevent you from winning.  Then your opponent can play the draw-go game as you deck yourself.

Land/hand destruction stalls the game, but you still have no way of winning it.  If your opponent turns the pointy end of the tempo stick around by Misdirecting Hymn or Sinkhole...you're in a really bad spot and that spell is pretty common right now.  You can just scoup if they're playing Ichorid or Vial Fish.

I strongly recommend trying to win, or at least playing better Disruption.  Since unlike 80% of the field you don't run Island, I recommend Choke as better land destruction. 

Also, Sylvan Library is extremely potent card drawing that essentially nets you 4 cards for 1G, and gives you card selection even after that, so running one might be a good idea.

[TopSecret]

     If you're playing so many permanents, and relying on LD involving double black,
why not look into including Smallpox? It's a very good answer to Darksteel Colossus to boot.
Maybe some Factories too, or Vinelasher Kudzus?
     A clock would be nice, and Factories aren't too bad at that.
     Maybe 1x Call of the Herd?

TopSecret

[wethepeople]

     If you're playing so many permanents, and relying on LD involving double black,
why not look into including Smallpox? It's a very good answer to Darksteel Colossus to boot.
Maybe some Factories too, or Vinelasher Kudzus?
     A clock would be nice, and Factories aren't too bad at that.
     Maybe 1x Call of the Herd?

TopSecret

Kudzus were one of the first things that came to my mind for some reason, as soon as I saw Crucible, Green, and all that land disruption, they seemed pretty good. One thing I can't seem to understand is running only three Wastes, and the same number of Crucibles. What else can be used with Crucible besides fetchlands? It really seems like a dead card to me when drawn without a Strip, so I recommend using a full set if possible in replace to of a Rancid Earth or something. Another card that came to mind if you were to run several strips is Life From the Loam, it also garuntees +1+1 to Kudzu each turn, maybe more with the help of Explorations.

[Methuselahn]

The first thing that comes to my mind is that you should be playing/testing Life from the Loam.

[netherspirit]

Well here's the current list:

Mana Base:
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
3 Bayou
5 Swamp
1 Forest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills

Creatures:
4 Dark Confidant
3 Vinelasher Kudzu

Mana Denial:
4 Sinkhole
3 Smallpox
3 Null Rod

Discard:
4 Duress
3 Hymn to Tourach

Tutors/Card Draw:
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

Accelerants:
1 Fastbond
3 Exploration
4 Dark Ritual

Coolness:
1 Yawgmoth's Will
3 Crucible of Worlds

Sideboard:
1 Mind Twist
2 Massacre
3 Pithing Needle
2 Darkblast
1 Null Rod
3 Xantid Swarm
3 Oxidize

Vinelasher Kudzu has been absolutely absurd! It becomes ridiculously big at an insane rate. Smallpox is OK, definitely better than Rancid Earth, but getting rid of my own resources is rather annoying at times. Null Rod is obviously sick, it's been brilliant!

I know I need to test things such as Life From the Loam, but have no idea what to cut. Any suggestions?

[Methuselahn]

I know I need to test things such as Life From the Loam, but have no idea what to cut. Any suggestions?

With Vinelashers in the deck, Sinkhole is cuttable.  I've seen Loam and Vinelashers work well together before, maybe you should consider it.

Sinkhole is a weak land disruption strategy compared to things like Crucible or Loam, in my opinion.

[wethepeople]

I believe I read in another thread that Wastelands arent very good in your meta because several decks are rather janky and use like one color, but this statement may be out-dated. If that is so, I understand why you only run 3, but I really think you should run more if you play to use Life From the Loam/Crucible of Worlds. Sinkhole is good, I like that you are using it. Pox on the other hand doesnt seem like the best idea, I suggest using some other form of removal. Smother is good for creature removal IMO, as is Diabolic Edict.

I finally noticed you are using Dark Ritual, at first I thought you were insane for using Mind Twist. 

[netherspirit]

I believe I read in another thread that Wastelands arent very good in your meta because several decks are rather janky and use like one color, but this statement may be out-dated.

You are indeed right there. Although it is slightly outdated, the decks are still very janky, I've changed play group now though, so the decks are different, but mainly janky.

Sinkhole is good, I like that you are using it. Pox on the other hand doesnt seem like the best idea, I suggest using some other form of removal. Smother is good for creature removal IMO, as is Diabolic Edict.

Smallpox has been insane. Early game they help me to break my opponent's tempo, and later into the game they neutralize any threats that get through. The discard is a nice fit with the rest of the deck, and the life loss is a handy bonus. 

I finally noticed you are using Dark Ritual, at first I thought you were insane for using Mind Twist. 

I'll admit I do kinda miss Mind Twist, do you think I should add it in again?

I know I need to test things such as Life From the Loam, but have no idea what to cut. Any suggestions?

With Vinelashers in the deck, Sinkhole is cuttable. I've seen Loam and Vinelashers work well together before, maybe you should consider it.

Sinkhole is a weak land disruption strategy compared to things like Crucible or Loam, in my opinion.

The advantage of Sinkhole though is that it's faster than a Crucible/Loam lock.