Necro Deck.

[Das Boot]

A couple of friends of mine have lured me back into playing magic recently. The format they play in is fairly relaxed, basically stuff lin vien of strip mines and lotus petals are allowed. At a loss on what to play, I decided on a classic deck that warms my heart-Mono Black Necropotence. Any suggestions on it are much appreciated. My budget is somewhat constrained though, any expensive cards in the list I already own from awhile ago so nothing over like 20 bucks.. Oh and Im not partial to the changed look of the newer magic sets so I'd like to keep all the cards from sets before then.

Mono Black Necropotence

4x Necropotence
4x Demonic Consultation
4x Dark Ritual
4x Duress
4x Hymn ro Tourach
4x Unmask
4x Sinkhole
2x Yawgmoths will

4x Phyrexian Negator
4x Hypnotic Spector

14x Swamp
4x Strip Mine
4x Lotus Petal

I'll pretty much be playing against some mono blue control, goblins, and some random creature based decks. My concern is whether or not I should toss the unmasks for eiither powder kegs or Diabolic Edicts. Or maybe toss the nNgators for Drain Life. What do you guys think?

Oh if you guys any ideas for other decks I can play please do suggest them. Survival based decks were always fun.....maybe tinker too.

[Illissius]

Are you shooting for an oldschool Necro feeling, or an optimal (read: broken) deck? If the latter, add more fast mana, Wills, and Tendrils. Otherwise, I think it looks fine enough as is, except maybe that you have no way to gain life. There's multiple options you could try, should you want to: Tendrils of Agony, Ivory Tower/Crane Netsuke, Soul Spike, Drain Life/Consume Spirit, Corrupt, Umezawa's Jitte.

We had an interesting thread about casual Necro a bit ago here.

[silvernail]

4x Necropotence
4x Demonic Consultation 4x Demonic Tutor - not too expensive and gets you a card without removing anything
4x Dark Ritual
4x Duress
4x Hymn ro Tourach
4x Unmask an extra 4 discard spells is unneeded and Mind Twist would be better because it can randomly hit lands
2X Mind Twist
2X Drain Life
4x Sinkhole
2x Yawgmoths will

4x Phyrexian Negator
4x Hypnotic Spector

14x Swamp
4x Strip Mine
4x Lotus Petal

You could also go with the creatureless route and add more drain life effects and creature removal.Infact you say you plan to face multiple creature decks so losing your 8 creatures for 2 more drain lifes and 6 creature removal spells is a good idea.
The creatures are really good vs mono blue, but not so good vs other creatures, so you'd have to test and see what works best for you.

perhaps
-4 Negator
-4 specter

+2 Drain Life
+3 Power Keg / Nevinyrrals Disk / Mutilate ( some kind of mass removal)
+3 Chainers Edict ( it flashes back so its a 2 for one sometimes )

Also you could consider adding Mishras Factories for more offense , but I dont know how to fit them in.

[silvernail]

As for a tinker deck : heres one possiblity, but Im not sure how legal it would be for you, nor if its too expensive for you.

4x Mystical Tutor
2x Stroke of Genius
4x Thirst for Knowledge
4x Tinker
4x Sol Ring
4x Winter Orb
4x Metalworker
2x DarkSteel Collosus
3x Scroll Rack
3x Propaganda
3x Spell Burst
3x Capsize
1x Mishras Helix
3x Lotus Petal
4x Tolarian Academy
4x Seat of the Synod
4x Island
4x City of Traitors



Generally the deck has 1 game plan - tinker a collosus into play and keep it around for enough turns to win with.
You also have buyback bounce, and buyback counter spell to counter/bounce nearly everything your opponent might try to do. Then you have Propaganda / Mishras Helix / Winter Orb lock to keep you safe from creatures.

All in all the deck should be decent , but might have trouble with counterspell decks ( you could add Defense Grids to help).

[Das Boot]

Hmmm im thinking maybe drop negator for nantuke shade "like a pump knight but superior". Maybe drop unmask for drain life and spector for powder kegs?

I like the idea of tendrils of agony but it seems kinda slow.....I wanna a Necro deck that hits hard and blisterinngly fast

Demonic Tutors are out of the question hence the consults.....mind twist I might be able to add "hmm so evil". What would it look like with full mind twists I wonder?

[silvernail]

Well too bad on the tutors

The best part of mind twist is the random discard, means you can get lands to help with the mana denial aspect of the deck.

Also you sould really do some testing and see if you can win vs creature decks.

[Das Boot]

Yeah testing is probably the best method to tweak it to perfection. I'll probably make a mono blue deck, something sem janky with Arcane denials and diminishing returns to make up for this necro deck.

[OfficeShredder]

ivory tower is pretty good.  You'll probably want Nevinyrall's disk in there; it kills your necropotence when you're ready to draw spells normally again (read: pay 7 life, draw 7 swamps.  Time to panic) and kills off the array of creatures you'll be staring down (maybe).  Worst case scenario, it still bops off morphling, so it's pretty sweet.

For your mono blue deck, you totally need to make something with 4x academy, 4x time spiral, 4x cloud of faeries, etc.

[Das Boot]

Lol Tolarian Academy would get me shot. This Necropotence deck is kinda pushing it. I figure I'll make some really good control blue deck but saddle it with some jank here and there for funs sake.

[OfficeShredder]

If you're looking for jank, 4x necropotence, 4x ivory tower, 4x spellbook = fun

[silvernail]

what about that tinker deck i posted?

[Hi-Val]

Zuran Orb is really nice in a Necro deck for keeping your life and cards coming.

And people who play Tinker decks like that earn every cockpunch they get.

[Das Boot]

The Tinker is pretty nice, Tolarians would get me shot shot though. Other than that I like it alot.

[Das Boot]

Ok here is my updated list for Necropotence

4x Nantuko Shade
4x Hypnotic Specter
4x Necropotence
4x Demonic Consultation
4x Dark Ritual
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Drain Life
4x Sinkhole
2x Yawgmoths will

4x Lotus Petal
3x Lake of the Dead
15x Swamp

The deck is now a bit more flexible in my opinion. It can win either by bashing your opponent with Shades/Specters or Drain Life-ing them into oblivion. The Drain Life can also be used for creature removal and can further feed the skulls hunger. Although it no longer has strip mine for disruption, the deck can use lake of the dead to fuel large Drain Lifes or steroid pump Nantuko Shade. So what do you guys think? Oh and is 15 swamps enough to make Lake of the dead effective?

[Illissius]

If you want to hit hard and fast, reduce your mana costs. Necro gives you cards essentially for free, so you have to focus on mana efficiency. (I'd rather play Consult even if Tutor were available). That was the basis of Brian Davis's Free Spell Necro back in Old Extended (which ran only a pair of Skittering Skirges for creatures), and was widely recognized as the best build. Since then, many more cards have been printed, among them multiple Free ones, so a coming up with a modern build is interesting. (I took a slightly extreme approach to it in the other thread).

As for Tendrils, it's almost hands down the most efficient lifegain (Free Spell) Necro has available, next to perhaps Ivory Tower and Soul Spike. (Soul Spike is a contender because it's an instant, so you can play it before you discard down to seven). Tendrils is broken -- it's like Trix in one card. The reason I'd be wary of running it is it might be too good, not the other way around.

Huge Drains are also fun, though, so how about:

4 Demonic Consultation
4 Necropotence
4 Exploration
4 Mutilate
4 Corrupt
4 Drain Life
4 Consume Spirit
4 Duress / Sinkhole
4 Unmask / Strip Mine
4 Dark Ritual
14 Swamp
4 Bayou
3 Polluted Delta
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Cabal Coffers
+ cut something for a pair of Shades and maybe Wills

I'm a huge sucker for classic decks, so if there's anything else you want, I'd be happy to throw together a list.

[Das Boot]

I like how free spell necro works, but would mine work?

[Illissius]

It looks mostly fine, with two caveats: I'd personally either run both Sinkhole and Strip Mine, or neither (put Unmask back instead, perhaps); and I'm not sure how good Lotus Petal is with expensive mana sinks like Shades and Drains now in the deck.

[Das Boot]

yeah i was thinking unmasks for the sinkholes too. Im gonna test free spell and this one to see which one is more effective.

[Das Boot]

Alright so after some testing I realized that diabolic edicts are needed for quick creature kill so I added them. The only thing im not sure about is whether to cut hypnotic specters for unmasks or cut nantuko shades for tendrils of agony. I like tendrils alot but nantuko feels more permanent and has the bonus of being pumped up by lake of the dead.

[silvernail]

You either run a creature based kill or a tendrils based kill and focus on synergizing with that strategy, I wouldnt run both because you'll often want to try comboing with tendrils if you run it at all.


4x Tendrils of Agony
4x Necropotence
4x Demonic Consultation
4x Dark Ritual
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Unmask
4x Soul Spike
2x Yawgmoths will
4x Chrome Mox
4x Lotus Petal
18x Swamp

With this list you have 16 free / "free" spells to fuel Tendrils with after drawing a large amount of cards, so you should be able to either win with one Tendrils or a second one the following turn.

[dandan]

Consume Spirit is usually better than Drain Life. (you can get X> toughness/life total of target)

[Das Boot]

Its been awhile since ive posted about this but here is the latest version:

4x Necropotence
4x Demonic Consultation
4x Dark Ritual
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Sinkhole

4x Hypnotic Specter
4x Nantuko Shade
4x Drain Life

16x Swamp
4x Strip Mine
4x Lotus Petal

I never did end up liking free spell Necro. Their is a certain amount of sadistic pleasure in seeing your opponent get so disrupted they have no clue how they will be able to compete. So far its fairly effective unless so how they can manage to get a creature rush going early on. If you have any suggestions on how to tweak it im happy to hear them. Too bad Ishan Shades doesnt look like it would be effective.

[Anusien]

I'm not sure you have enough ways to win.  My experiences with Necro taught me that Drains, not creatures, are the principals of the deck.  I really grew to like Soul Spike since it helped me finish off my opponent.  Even when I didn't have Drains, I was living and dying on the X-spells.

That said, you don't have enough sources of damage.  You have lots of ways to disrupt the opponent, but almost no way to capitalize once he's down.  Hypnotic Specter is a pretty mediocre threat, and I'd love Shade a little more with evasion.  (Jump Knight >>> First Strike Knight).  I'd like to see Consume Spirit get some love, and I would have killed during the IABlock tournament for Spinning Darkness.

During the IA block tournament I ran 26 lands; I could see dropping to 25 or 24 in Monoblack with Drains, but no further.  Strip Mines are pretty bad, since you never want to trade land drops.  Each of your land drops lets you do something broken, probably more broken than your opponent's (or you wouldn't play Necro).  And if you want Lotus Petal, just play Cabal Ritual (and that card is bad)

Something like:

3 Lake of the Dead
21 Swamp

4 Necropotence
4 Demonic Consultation
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress

4 Drain Life
4 Consume Spirit
4 Spinning Darkness
4 Soul Spike

4 Nantuko Shade

It's possible you want another man in place of some of the Spinning Darkness/Soul Spike (Skittering Skirge is probably the best one), but you have 12 win conditions, so that seems fine (Consult, Necro, Shade).

[Das Boot]

Perhaps you are right about just going for free spell Necro. I dont really wanna use tendrils though as it takes the brokeness to a hideous level. How about this?

4x Necropotence
4x Demonic Consultation
4x Dark Ritual

4x Duress
4x Hymn To Torach
4x Unmask

4x Drain Life
4x Consume Spirit
4x Soul Spike
4x Contaigon

17x Swamp
3x Cabal Coffers

Do you think this work well enough, or do I need four more free spells?

[Anusien]

Why are you playing 12 discard spells?

Why Contagion over something like Spinning Darkness?

Also, more Swamps.  You never want to miss a land drop.  More swamp.  24 lands is the minimum.

[Das Boot]

Agreed on the spinning darkness, I got its effects and contaigons mixed up haha.

I wanted to include Hymn to Tourach but if you know from experience that its uneeded and more land is required then im happy to go that route.

So something like this then perhaps:

4x Necropotence
4x Deomonic Consultation
4x Dark Ritual
4x Duress
4x Unmask
4x Spinning Darkness
4x Soul Spike
4x Drain Life
4x Consume Spirit

20x Swamp
4x Cabal Coffers

[Hi-Val]

It would be so leet to see a Necro deck with Quickens and Seas. You can draw up like 12 cards, Quicken a Yawgmoth's Will, recast all your rits, recast Quicken and Tendrils for a win. Neet.

[Harlequin]

Unfortunatly you don't get priority between picking up the cards, and discarding them.

[Hi-Val]

I believe that you do. I'm sure a judge will be along shortly to inform us. I remember at an event, someone asking a judge whether they could cast spells before having to discard, and then being able to.

[LordHomerCat]

Indeed you can, as the Necro delayed triggers go on the stack at the beginning of your End Step.  Then, once they all resolve, you get priority again in your End Step.  Then, if you pass (and your opponent does too), you go to cleanup and have to discard.  However, as Doug described, you could play Quicken into Will with like 15 cards in your hand if you wanted to.  Seems like the biggest difficulty would be getting Will into your hand, but I guess if you can run 4 then thats not such a big deal anymore.