Mono Black revisited

[silvernail]

first the list::

// Lands
    4 Wasteland
    1 Strip Mine
    18 Swamp

// Creatures
    4 Dark Confidant
    4 Skittering Skirge

// Spells
    4 Duress
    4 Dark Ritual
    4 Sinkhole
    4 Smallpox
    4 Chalice of the Void
    4 Sphere of Resistance
    1 Necropotence
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Vampiric Tutor
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Black Lotus

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Darkblast
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 3 Chains of Mephistopheles
SB: 4 Null Rod

The general concept of most type 1 mono black decks has been using disruption long enough for beat down to win. Currently Fish plays this role better, but with Bob and small pox I figured it might be possible for black ot have a chance again in type 1.

The deck runs 13 land destruction effects,with  8 discard alongside chalice of the void (usually at 0 or 1),and sphere of resistance.

You've got bob for some beat down, but mostly for extra card drawing.The other creature is Skitter skirge, but that may need to be something bigger like Negator or the skitter horror.

The deck packs a load of disruption, but Im worried that it lacks the ability to win in type 1 due to being slower than most decks.

The sideboard is just a random sideboard that has cards that address various kinds of decks - and as always, it  should be tuned for your meta game.

So any ideas on how to turn this into a competitive mono black deck? Or do competitive and mono black not even belong in the same sentence as each other?

[President Skroob]

My first question is does Dark Ritual ever come in handy after the first turn? If no, does the value of the better first turn make up for the fairly dead draw later on?

If you added in Yawgmoth's Will, it wouldn't be a game ending play, but it would certainly make your Rituals a lot more valuable and you could replay past discard, creatures, and basically whatever you could pack into the deal.

Once again, if you want to keep the Rituals, Mind Twist, though prone to Misdirection, can be a real keeper if you accelerate into a savage one first turn.

If you could fit in Null Rod maindeck I'm pretty sure you won't regret it. Chalice will stop future Mox mana, but Null Rod will just shut it all down, and unless you shut down that artifact mana your land destruction is only going to be doing half of what your deck needs to do.

My last idea would be try try out Chrome Mox. You're monocolor and have a lot of black to toss to it to get a dependable mana source in return. Null Rod might make this less of a good idea.

[lordmayhem]

Have you considered the following changes?

-4 Smallpox
-4 Skittering Skirge

+4 Pox
+4 Phyrexian Totem

[Metman]

Where are all the creatures in this list?  One of the strengths of old suiblack decks were the threats that came down early and easily.  Negator is a must in a meta full of Drains.  Shade is also a strong finisher.  Hypnotic Specter is a strong inclusion against many decks as well.  I'm not seeing the reason behind the inclusion of Pox.  Another cute trick I've seen some suideck builders do is inlcude a Tendrils or two to the maindeck to use as a finisher and a way to gain some life in a pinch.  I would suggest going more combo and aggro with the deck.  The control elements in Sphere and Pox don't make much sense in a deck like this.

[OfficeShredder]

necropotence + ivory tower + spellbook for the win!

You have 29 cards that give you mana, 24 only give you mana.  It seems like for all the cards in your deck, there aren't that many "stop me or die" threats; you're basically running a bad stax it seems