Nether Void Primer

Why not more than 9 LD spells? Why play Void when you can just play Suicide?

Mana Drain has forced aggro to come out quick with weenies that sneak under the counter wall to avoid giving the control player Mana Drain fuel. It’s for this reason, land destruction as a strategy isn’t as useful as it once was. A few years ago, it was easier to play LD and keep an Erhnam Djinn off the board and now its plain impossible to stop anti-aggro strategies by relying too much on land kill. Also, with so many mono-colored strategies out there, it has become more difficult to ‘color screw’ a player as well as making your wastelands not as useful.

Misdirection has also made direct land kill potentially punishing to you. While it’s not much of a risk in a deck with so many ways to weed out Misdirection, it’s a small detail that adds to the bad taste in ones mouth for going with a full on land destruction strategy.

Suicide has a tendency to do horrible against other aggro decks. Sligh, for example, is known for having an almost perfect record against suicide game 1. Game 2 the decks often break even depending on what is sided in on either side.
Void has built in kegs to handle the low casting cost dorks. Once a Void has landed, suddenly the sligh player, who is by nature mana light, is suddenly fighting to build up to 4 mana.

My reasoning is as follows: When you've exhausted your card supply, you don't get a burst that will break the topdecking path to losing. Short of Yawgmoth's will (or Necro), you wont see recovery.

Nether Void doesn’t have this problem. With Nether Void, it does one of the following:

1) Seals your lead, like an Armageddon would. With a Negator or a Shade on the board, and nothing to threaten its existence, you will certainly win in a short few turns.

2) Helps recover from a bleak situation. You've seen it, the 1-2 turn Abyss that basically has you in a lock long enough to buy them time. Nether Void hits play after some discard, kills the abyss and once again you’re in the lead.

Additionally, against control your merely trading spell for spell, until you force a Void into play and suddenly a free counterspell isn't so free and 5 mana to cast a mana drain is hardly economical.

3) To the original point, you also get to run Necro, on top of Yawgmoth's Will. (I know some builds of suicide run Necro already) This brings your count up to 5 spells you can play to seal your lead or to recover. 1 Necro, 1 Will, and 3 Voids.

Differences from Null and Void or Rishadan Port

First let me state that this deck does not play like Null and Void. Expecting it to play the same is like picking up an OSE deck and trying to run it like Keeper. Null and Void functions as more of a lock down or mana denial deck, where as Devil’s Bile runs more aggressively.

The problem that Null and Void has, and incidentally why it performs poorly, is that it runs Rishadan port for the reasoning that Nether Void should be a land denial deck. Also, Rishadan Port isn't true landkill. It doesn't stop instant effects and its holding two of your lands down to tag one of thiers. It’s my firm belief that you play land kill/denial cards to disrupt.

In writings I've done before, I have always said building a deck with the intent of keeping your opponent at little to no mana is a bad plan. My reasoning is aggro. What do you do about a little Jackal Pup that slipped through the ass crack of a bad sligh deck? The answer is simple; you draw land kill spells and continue to pummel their lands while his beasts kick your teeth in.

Nether Void shouldn't be so much of a land denial deck, as it is a DISRUPTION deck. I think its important to throw out the notions that Nether Void players of old had and stop trying to prevent Serra Angels, Ernham Djinn, and Juzam Djinns from hitting play. Noone is running those anymore and in place you now have Mongoose, Jackal Pups, and Negators. Simply put, the Rishadan port slot is much better off being Mishra's Factory. You also gain the benefit of shortening the clock against control or having a possible 2/2 or a 3/3 blocker against aggro.

Finally, the exclusion of Rishadan Ports has been good against other decks. You no longer lose to random things. For example, Eric 'Redman' Rouge said on many occasions that there will always be a 'Bad Red deck' in every tournament. I hate losing to random things, and in the real environment you play against random things.

General play tips

The most commonly asked question is how to beat sligh regularly. Despite having a summary in the matchup section, I will go into deeper detail here.Sligh can and will often 'just win' because its a deck full of burn and fast creatures. The best and the worst decks can fall to it, from player error or luck, and Nether Void is no exception. To sum it up, its all about Kegs and Void.

As a general rule, I will not hesitate to throw any and all discard at them in the beginning. Sometimes you can hit lands which leave them crippled enough, and sometimes you can take away enough burn to make the match a cake walk. Unless it can come out turn 1, my next plan of action is to throw a Nether Void into play.

As I mentioned before the low curve of such fast mono-colored decks can almost never recover from this. Incidentally that is why unpowered Nether Void decks tend to do worse against certain matchups. The extra acceleration from Mox Jet and Black Lotus are often the deciding factors in the fast aggro matches.

As for creatures, I wont keg anything less than 2 at a time until the situation is desparate. You only run 3-4 Kegs for the 12-16 little pukes they run, not including Cursed Scroll, and you need to maximize the usefulness of the removal pre-sideboard.

As for your creatures, Hypnotic Specters are generally either boltbait, a chump blocker, a mere 2/2 attacker, or a duress for Fireblast before Void hits. After the Void is in play, this turns into a monster than rips burn spell after burn spell from the Sligh players hand. Nantuko shades against a burn deck are stellar post-Void, but really shine pre-Void when you have a Ritual in hand or enough Swamps available to negate burn.

Post-sideboard you have the option of bringing in Masticore, another Keg, and Spinning Darkness. All of which are gold against Sligh. As I mentioned before, Sligh generally doesnt have a damn thing to bring in against you so your 2nd and 3rd games are generally heavier in your favor.

As for TnT, the best answer I can you is to ride Masticore like the pony that it is. I would side out the kegs for these since without anything to Weld the Masticores for, they become golden. I have found that Contagion also works well against TnT, but prefer to stay with Masticore.

Graveyard hate such as Planar Void, Tormods Crypt, Ebony Charm, and Phyrexian Furnace all tend to be something you can give a few slots to. I personally run a lone Crypt to tutor for as I can't see devoting too many slots to a bad matchup you cant improve too much upon while weakening your already favorable matchups.

Finally, against control one of your biggest enemies is a suicide Morphling. You have no maindeck edicts and Nantuko Shade needs some time to get big enough to run over a Morphling and out race him. Postboard, I bring in all 3 edicts to avoid this. Between the Hymns (potential of throwing one in the graveyard) and Edicts, this is generally not too big of a problem postboard.

Other builds of Nether Void decks

I have heard many times that people want to see all versions of Nether Void in my primer. First off, Matt D’Avanzo has written a fantastic primer and you can check that out for the deck basics. As far as I know, his list is the same with Negators swapped for Shades and Rancid Earths over Icequakes in the sideboard.

Another option is the JP Meyer route. His is also aggressive and tends to run more like Suicide and older style land kill. His version runs with Rain of Tears to help disrupt against mono-colored decks.

Mana (26)
17 Swamp
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Dark Ritual

Creatures (8)
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Phyrexian Negator

Disruption (18)
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Rain of Tears
2 Nether Void

Removal (4)
4 Powder Keg

Broken (4)
1 Necropotence
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Demonic Consultation

Lastly, there is multi-colored Void. To be competitive I will say that mono-black is the way to go right now. Green is the only color that I would consider splashing right now, though I would have to be tempted by more than just Pernicious Deed right now. Uncounterable spells are just eye candy for the uneducated Void player.

They look great on paper since they are cheap to cast under a Void, but when running Void you shouldn’t have a Void out without being able to play under it anyway. Even so, Deed does not discriminate; it will kill your little bugger as well. You also lose fluidity from the in ability to abuse Lotus and Dark Ritual to their fullest.

On that note, I would not play with green unless I planned on facing more that 1 Workshop deck in a tournament. Even then, I would consider something else than a black based deck or even run Nevinyrral’s Disk.

Arthur Tindemans *1st* (Castricum Champion. Yes, it is 62 cards.)

Mana (26)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
4 Dark Ritual
4 Bayou
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Strip Mine
7 Swamp
3 Wasteland

Disruption/Removal (21)
4 Sinkhole
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Nether Void
2 Powder Keg

Broken (4)
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Necropotence

Creatures (11)
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Phyrexian Negator
3 Blurred Mongoose

In closing, I will state once more that Nether Void is a fine deck to play in almost any environment. The playstyle will take some getting used to as it doesn't quite run like controllish Nether Void or Suicide Black, and there are alot of judgement calls to make with the deck. Experience playing it will always be your biggest advantage.

As a metagame choice its a fine deck with its only bad matchup involving Mishra's Workshops decks. It inherently does well against control by virtue of disruption. With the low mana curve of most aggro, it can often win with its board sweepers, heavy discard, and Nether Void.