Quote Concerning the mirror you could be right. Factories seem to be better most of the times. Incidentally, I finally decided to give up playing NetherVoid in our T1 environment, after having played against 3 mono-B decks in a single tourney. But in my 1.5 version I play 4 Ports and only 2 Factories while facing a lot of aggro.
Mishra's increase your matchup against suicide and Void incredibly.
Quote Against Keeper - having tried both versions - I noticed Ports as being crucial and Factories, while dealing some damage, were most of the time essentially useless against Keeper.
Probably you play this deck quite differently from the way I do - after the inital disruption I try to play Nether Void ASAP, typically before playing a creature. It is a mono-B control deck with the potential of aggressive turn 1-plays the way I play it and not a controlish Suicide deck with excellent Abyss-defense as it seems to be in your case.
Yeah, I play it more aggressively. As you'll see in part 3, it can play a lot like suicide/knives but where as those decks run only Yawgmoths Will and possibly Necro to seal/uphold the lead, Void had Both Necro and Will. It also has 3 Nether Voids to recover from the initial turns where youve unloaded you hand.
Quote Regarding the random-decks: I assume you mean random-aggro decks, since random control and random combo decks should be easy for you. Well, as I said, the SB should take care of them (Dystoptia, creature removal, more LD). A 2-1 win is still enough, and often you can steal the first game if your opposing deck is truly random. I do not see the point in making your deck stronger against weak decks while making it weaker against strong decks, but probably you disagree on the second part of this statement. Moreover, I am not even sure that Ports are really worse than Factories against aggro. I can give an example from my last 1.5 tourney: in the final round I had to play against a 1.5-Patriot version and it was crucial that I could deny him 2 mana with Ports, because otherwise he could have played his Serendibs (he would have had a Bolt against my first Factory and there was no way that I outraced him in damage). I sealed the game with a NetherVoid and a Spinning Darkness on his Lion (which had been attacking since the beginning). With Factories, I would have lost the first one in an attempt to block and 1 turn later I would have had to face a Serendib. I know that this is just an example and that you will find other examples, where Factories saved the day and Ports would have been bad. I just want to make clear that it is not granted that Factories are always better versus aggro and almost certainly not against Control/Combo.
Well, basically Port based Void, especially one with Negators, is like charging into a room full of angry man-hating women with nerf crotch bats...and you have no cup. Nantuko Shade and Mishra's give you that cup.
Quote Let me finally point out that even in Suicide-mode (i.e. after a rather disruptive start with a first turn creature which resolves) Ports are very helpful, since you deny them 1 main-phase mana without having to fear a Mana Drain, which for most practical purposes is like a timewalk (e.g. Keg is not coming on round 2 but mono-U will have to wait till round 3, which is usually too late).
I usually have been disruptive enough that, with the exception of topdecking, mana drains arent an issue.
Quote On a sidenote: the worst card (for me) that I have encountered in an opposing random deck was Stormbind - you simply lose with NetherVoid when this resolves, having absolutely no Enchantment defense (apart from Enchant Worlds).
I could most likey race a deck that got this out. Shade wont be killed, their hand size will be most likey crushed beforehand, and post void-distopia.
