The Dark Times Primer

[Ten-Ten]

Semi-Finalist  – Brienne Pope
“Dark Times”

4 Wasteland
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Dark Depths
1 Strip Mine
10 Swamp
4 Dark Confidant
4 Vampire Hexmage
1 Necropotence
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Diabolic Edict
4 Dark Ritual
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mox Jet
1 Lotus Petal
1 Pithing Needle
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Null Rod
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Black Lotus
1 Mind Twist
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Thoughtseize
1 Sadistic Sacrament
4 Duress
1 Imperial Seal
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Liliana of the Veil

SB:
3 Mental Misstep
1 Perish
2 Yixlid Jailer
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Emissary of Despair
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Chain of Mephistopheles
2 Dismember

nice to see Dark Rituals still making top8 

[Yukon Cornelius]

I still feel the top deserves some testing over null rod. I'll be doing so tonight so I'll share the info. And thanks ten-ten. Bringin it back lol.

[Yukon Cornelius]

So I tweaked the deck in preparation of an upcoming tournament this weekend and this is my current list. Any opinions and critiques are more than welcome.


Maindeck:


1 Black Lotus
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Jet
1 Pithing Needle
4 Dark Confidant
4 Vampire Hexmage
1 Hex Parasite
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Necropotence
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Consultation
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Dark Depths
1 Strip Mine
10 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
1 Imperial Seal
1 Mind Twist
4 Thoughtseize
1 Yawgmoth's Will


Sideboard:

2 Emissary Despair
2 Hex Parasite
2 Yixlid Jailer
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Diabolic
3 Mental Misstep
2 Snuff Out
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Perish

[AmbivalentDuck]

It's a nitpicky point, but I'd flip a coin before the tourney to decide between Nature's Ruin and Perish and not tell anybody which you'd chosen.  Meddling Mages happen.

[Yukon Cornelius]

Lol are you saying that someone is going to memorize that I'm playing Perish so I should switch it up the day of?

[AmbivalentDuck]

Lol are you saying that someone is going to memorize that I'm playing Perish so I should switch it up the day of?

Yes.  Cabal Therapy and Meddling Mage are in the format.  Making someone guess between Perish and Ruin is better than Perish alone.

This is also why we typically see an even split between Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast.

[Joblin Velder]

So I tweaked the deck in preparation of an upcoming tournament this weekend and this is my current list. Any opinions and critiques are more than welcome.


Maindeck:


1 Black Lotus
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Jet
1 Pithing Needle
4 Dark Confidant
4 Vampire Hexmage
1 Hex Parasite
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Necropotence
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Consultation
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Dark Depths
1 Strip Mine
10 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
1 Imperial Seal
1 Mind Twist
4 Thoughtseize
1 Yawgmoth's Will


Sideboard:

2 Emissary Despair
2 Hex Parasite
2 Yixlid Jailer
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Diabolic
3 Mental Misstep
2 Snuff Out
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Perish

How has Hex Parasite been working for you? Its on my radar, but I've never actually fit it into my 75.

The missteps have been fucking AWESOME for me. They really increased the enjoyment of playing the deck. Same with Liliana.

[nataz]

ditto on loving MM.

but man, once I add that in  I really want to add in FOW. 4 MM, 4 FOW, Time Walk, Recall = 10 cards. Add in some random draw/filter/bounce and you can hit the 16 needed to support FOW pretty quickly.

its soooo tempting.

[Joblin Velder]

ditto on loving MM.

but man, once I add that in  I really want to add in FOW. 4 MM, 4 FOW, Time Walk, Recall = 10 cards. Add in some random draw/filter/bounce and you can hit the 16 needed to support FOW pretty quickly.

its soooo tempting.

I won't lie, the interaction MM gives me on their turn made me start to think about blue. The manabase is rough as is, though. Plus, I'm a dork and miss suicide black and this is as close as you can get now.

[nataz]

So I tested a few games with Dark Depths + blue tonight. I actually like it a lot. Honestly the mana wasn't that bad. I ended up adding 4x MM, 4x FOW, 4x preordain, 1x Brainstorm, 1x Time Walk, 1x Ancestral Recall, and 1x Hurkyl's Recall for a total of 16 blue cards. I need to add Strip Mine back in. I dropped a bunch of the random stuff like the 1x Crucible, 1x Null Rod, took out the Helm Line combo, one ritual, and swapped Duress for FOW to make room.

I dropped swamps to add in polluted delta, underground sea, and island, and mox sapphire. I think I'd like to remove 1 swamp and 1 polluted delta for more fetches to increase shuffle effects.  

I will say I'm not sure how comfortable I am with how vulnerable the list is to waste effects (ghost quarter, wasteland, strip mine) targeting DD.

Something else I noticed was you have to be careful how you SB. Against stax I wanted to SB out MM, but the sideboard at the time couldn't handle the loss of blue. Keep that in mind when you are building it.

Overall, the deck feels a lot less combo-y, and I kinda miss plays like mini-tendrils and t0 leyline, t1 helm.

here is the basic list.

Mana:
2 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Dark Ritual
1 Island
4 Wasteland

Combo:
4 Vampire Hexmage
3 Dark Depths
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Protection:
4 Thoughtseize
4 Mental Misstep
4 Force of Will
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Diabolic Edict

Draw/Filter:
4 Dark Confidant
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Necropotence
1 Ponder
3 Preordain
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Time Walk

[Elric]

4 Ponder

Ponder is restricted.  I assume you meant something else instead...

[nataz]

4 Ponder

Ponder is restricted.  I assume you meant something else instead...

and this is what happens when you post a list at 330 in the morning. updated and fixed.

[Blue Lotus]

With lots of deck manitpulation, I wonder if spoils of the vault is an option. Or lim dul's vault.

[Troy_Costisick]

With lots of deck manitpulation, I wonder if spoils of the vault is an option. Or lim dul's vault.

If you're going to go there, Plunge into Darkness might be a better card:

[shrewarmies]

Of any of the cards mentioned, Lim Dul's Vault is the best card to fit in our deck, it is the best filtering we can get for our deck. Very early in this threat we talked about adding a colour to the deck (the debate was between blue and green primarily). Most people agreed that the mono B shell was the way to go.

 I have been trying mental misstep in the SB with no blue sources (mostly against dredge and random ritual decks) and that seems to be working fine for the moment. However I am not tempted to go further along the line of continuing to add blue. One reason the deck does well is because of its high threat density, EVERY card we have advances our game plan or pre emptively stops theirs with the exception of edict which is now getting mostly replaced with Lilliana (not completely with most lists running a 2-1 split). Adding forces and filtering (Preodain/Ponder) just unwinds our lean mean fighting machine of a deck.

Forces are a painful flip to bob and with the minimum 16 sources for blue we are not too likely of having more than force+1 blue card in our opening hand. Your opening hand/turn 0 is the only time this deck would want force, after our first turn we have the tutors and discard as protection. In fact the only matchup I want force in is Oath on the draw because our outs to a resolved oath are smaller than most other turn 1 plays.. After that first turn it is just a card that says "your Maximum hand size is reduced by 2, Pay 1 life: counter target spell" About the filtering, you pretty much always want to head out with a duress effect or if you have acceleration (e.g. ritual), duress, bob/Hexmage over casting a filtering effect. If you have no acceleration on turn 2, you still would prefer to cast a bob or a Hexmage or even another duress effect over casting a Ponder or Preordain. The blue filtering I think only adds when you are behind/ have nothing to do with your mana. I know in this deck I would probably rather a duress/null rod over the filtering.

I also think running less that 7-8 spot discard cards is wrong, you need that turn 1 discard for their Oath/lodestone/jace/bob etc. T1 Thoughtseize >>>>>>Preordain

[Random Noob]

With lots of deck manitpulation, I wonder if spoils of the vault is an option. Or lim dul's vault.

If you're going to go there, Plunge into Darkness might be a better card:

Plunge for 13 likely diggs you a 6/6 Death's Shadow ^_^

[b47m4n]

I've had varying success with Plunge into Darkness, especially with Death's shadow.  I usually run it as a 1 of replacing Darkblast depending on my meta at the time.   

[Yukon Cornelius]

Losing 13 life for a 6/6? I've heard some poor decisions in my time but that one is pretty high up there.

[Random Noob]

Losing 13 life for a 6/6? I've heard some poor decisions in my time but that one is pretty high up there.

That's why i don't play it (;

[mijah]

I was recently at a small tourney and played against a UBg Hexmage/Depths list. It was really solid, and played 1 Lim-Dul's Vault, which seemed like a good play. I think the combo is obviously easier to get off with blue, and the deck seemed more stable with being to switch it out post board into more of a Gro deck.

[Yukon Cornelius]

This past Saturday I played in a 20 person tournament and took 4th. I did fine against Shops (2-0), ELVES! (2-1) and assorted aggro. I lost in the finals against a TPS list that just moved faster than mine could. Here is the list I played.


2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Dark Depths
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
10 Swamp
4 Dark Confidant
4 Vampire Hexmage
1 Hex Parasite
1 Pithing Needle
1 Mox Jet
1 Lotus Petal
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Black Lotus
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Necropotence
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
4 Thoughtseize
1 Mind Twist
1 Imperial Seal
4 Duress
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Diabolic Edict
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Liliana of the Veil

SB:
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Perish
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
2 Snuff Out
3 Mental Misstep
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Yixlid Jailer
2 Hex Parasite
2 Emissary of Despair



Hex Parasite in the main was an awesome advantage game one against Shops, and it's great as a quick beater in games where there aren't things to remove counters off yet. And mental misstep in the sb against tendrils was awesome, I beat TPS twice before losing in the quarter finals.

[Random Noob]

Some Questions. How do you board against Snapcaster Lists running Mental Missteps? Do you keep the Leyline in? I wonder because i am quite unsure how to battle them. Another Idea would be to run Surgical Extractions in the Sb, so when they target thier desired Spell with the Snapcaster, we could just exile it in response.

What about the numbers of Lilianas? I am running 2 MD and 2 in the SB and feel quite comfortable with her.


The last one in is, should Null Rod be cutten all away, or said otherwise, what is the number between 1 and 4? Since there are not so much Stormcombo Decks out there, 1 should be enough?

Greetings

[hitman]

Null Rod's probably pretty good right now.  It's not because of storm combo.  Null Rod isn't that good against storm combo.  The blue decks lean pretty heavily on their artifacts for auxiliary mana, Sensei's Divining Top in conjunction with Dark Confidant and Time Vault.  Even against the Snapcaster decks, cutting just their artifact mana is pretty good since they need a lot of mana to get going.  Beyond that, even the MUD decks are weaker to Null Rod than before since more decks are playing cards like Kuldotha Forgemaster and Metalworker.  I would still play a couple.

[shrewarmies]

I would definately be playing the 1 null rod MD because of the presence of the aforementioned time vault/SDT in the blue decks and some versions of the workshop deck. What you should be adjusting is the number of rods in the SB. I would feel ok with just 1 extra in the SB  if I expected alot of fish/mud aggro decks to leave more space for those matchups.

i never felt like i wanted more than 2 lilliana. The extra 2 in the SB seem overkill to me but if you are in the meta of alot of oath/fish i can see the reasoning behind having 3 (2-1 split).  You will never want  to draw a second.

I too, have not had alot of experiance with the snapcaster matchup but i feel that we should be attacking their mana base. The snapcaster decks are greedy and maybe more null rods/uping ghost quarters/rinning 1-2 sinkholes may be good. Those are untested but they may help. has anyone been testing that matchup specifically?

[boggyb]

hey, just continuing a conversation from menendian's 01/08/12 Meandeck Open Results thread about an interesting Dredge/Depths transformational build that took 1st place there:

1st Place (by final standings): Gil Rivera

4 Leyline of the Void
2 Chain of Vapor
4 Bridge From Below
2 Flame-Kin Zealot
3 Dread Return
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Golgari Thug
4 Nether Shadow
4 Bloodghast
4 Stinkweed Imp

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 City of Brass
3 Undiscovered Paradise
2 Dakmor Salvage

Sideboard:
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Vampire Hexmage
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
4 Dark Depths
2 Dark Confidant
2 Chain of Vapor

Can someone explain this transformational dredge deck to me, exactly...? How did he afford all those sideboard cards, with only 13 mana-producing cards in the whole deck post-board? I assume he's trying to avoid using bazaar as much as possible post-board, so I don't get how he can reliably get bob or hex into play off so little mana. He also doesn't have any tutors, so his consistency would appear to go down even further. I also wonder if it's worth it to run nonbasics in order to get chain of vapor in there -- seems like it'd be more prudent to run swamps and 2x Urborg in the main deck instead. Very interesting

Hello,
I will give credit to Mark "Snoop" Trogdon for the cards, and starting list. Thanks Mark!!
We talked about dredge for a while, we decided just attacking for 3 to 4 per turn would lead to wins just as easy as resolving Dread Return for the combo.
So we increased the dude package and cut bunkie cards that didn't effect the board or my foe.

quick hits:

-Leylines in the main was for snap caster blue decks and other dredge decks.
-Game 2 I always cut the leylines and 1 flamkin for mana and Dark Confidant.
-the plan was they bring hate you just attack, every game 2 I kept playing like it was game one but I would mull to get lands in hand or mox whatever.
 make them use hate while I ate brains. I never activated Bazaar till I had dead cards, I always kept bloodghast and nether shadow
- Nether Shadow was M.V.P all day ( I don't think the plan would work with out him and Bloodghast )
-the leyline hate is what I was hoping to see since I was casting all my dudes anyway. 
-be Aggressive! hard cast everything in your hand blue players hated countering my dudes, against Steve he had to force a Flame-kin. Awesome!
- I never sided in the Dark Depths package till top 8 with Brian, I never really needed it bringing in mana and creatures was awesome ( I feel the power of the dark side )
 I think I should commit to Dark Depths in the side with more lands and a Demonic? only time and testing will tell.
- And I did get lucky here and there I had to Tim Tebow a few times to myself. Big ups to the big guy up there!!

Thanks

Props: all the pros that showed up and the field of decks
slops: B/R staxx

Yeah I've been playing around with making the depths angle stronger and more consistent-- so far have

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
2 Dakmor Salvage
5 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Golgari Thug
4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Bloodghast
4 Nether Shadow
3 Dread Return
2 Flame-Kin Zealot

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Darkblast
1 Diabolic Edict
SB: 4 Vampire Hexmage
SB: 1 Black Lotus
SB: 1 Mox Jet
SB: 3 Dark Depths
SB: 4 Dark Confidant
SB: 1 Demonic Tutor
SB: 1 Demonic Consultation

don't wanna clog the thread or anything, but thought it might be interesting. I think Sun Titan might be a better Dread Return target since he can nab anything in the deck, Dark Depths and Hexmage in particular. (p.s. I love the Hexmage + Bridge from Below interaction -- she's definitely my favorite fringe creature in vintage ) Might be a good idea to get Thoughtseize in there somehow, and Dark Ritual if you can make room. Liliana would be awesome too but she's just so danged expensive.

I'd also love to touch on the same subject as above. I get the cuteness of boarding out half your strategy to throw off the other player, but take it from someone who actually runs Dark Times, not having any tutors seems exceptionally poor. Then again trying to shove in a combo that generally needs it's own deck to run does also.

A lame dark times implementation is presumably better than having to blast through layers of graveyard hate and counterspells.

Also, it punishes the opponent for digging deep and hard for the leyline.

I understand the concept fine, I just don't think it's all that useful. It seems like he's spreading himself too thin. Also, how exactly does implementing the Dark Times combo protect someone from counterspells? I feel like this deck in general has no answer to the broken blue, the Oath, or the Shops decks. In all actuality it only seems to strengthen a Dredge on Dredge match and nothing else. I do agree that it hits your opponent hard when they've dug for their graveyard hate, but in the end a strong deck vs this one wouldn't have that hard a problem in the end. It isn't like any deck playing any counterspells ditches all of them in favor of 4 Leylines.

Yeah, tooling around with this deck, I've found it to be a really potent three-faced strategy. People usually just side in a bunch of graveyard hate in games 2 and 3 vs. dredge, which if you're prepared for can give tremendous card advantage. You can just side in bobs and mana to rock a steady monocolored beatdown, or you can put in the Depths package if you feel the need to explode (vs. Oath or another Dredge deck, for example). Been tinkering with the monocolored version and have found it really killer, and fun to play too (love wittling with nether shadow and ichorid )

I even think the dread return package isn't necessary at all -- the synergy of Bloodghast, Bridge, Ichorid, Nether Shadow, Cabal Therapy, Narcomeba, and dredgers is almost always enough to win game 1 even without FKZ. Today I'm tinkering with the same list I posted but:

- 3 Dread Return
- 2 Flame-Kin Zealot
- 1 Diabolic Edict

+ 2 Thoughtseize
+ 1 Black Lotus
+ 1 Mox Jet
+ 1 Dakmor Salvage
+ 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

SB + 2 Liliana (replacing Jet and Lotus)

Leaves you with 13 mana-producing cards and 7 lands that can be turned on with the 3 urborg, post-board, for 20 sources of black. Would like to ramp that up to 22 for more consistency, but yeah, sweet. Liliana is a monster. Post-board you're only maybe 6 key cards off a standard Dark Times build, Rituals and 2 more Thoughtseizes being the notable missing ingredients; but since they've sided in probably 6-7 useless cards against you, and the cards you're missing from Dark Times are actually useful, you win.

It's very promising, in my opinion. To respond to Yukon:

On the contrary, the transformation spreads your opponent too thin. Game 2 vs dredge, players have to play a tricky balance between attacking your opponent's graveyard (and you really do have to attack it: have to mulligan into a leyline or hate card and focus on casting it, or waste a tutor for one if you don't), controlling the dredge player's progress, and finding a window to win. It's just that proactive and explosive a deck. The transformation here disrupts that gameplan even further: you can pretty much ignore your graveyard and just attack their head with cheap, efficient dudes; and if you happen to have a graveyard, all the better. (Have you tried playing with a deck with both hexmages and bridges from below in it? ) You don't even have to go dark times -- can just side in dudes and overpower them with consistency and potency.

[Yukon Cornelius]

It's very promising, in my opinion. To respond to Yukon:

On the contrary, the transformation spreads your opponent too thin. Game 2 vs dredge, players have to play a tricky balance between attacking your opponent's graveyard (and you really do have to attack it: have to mulligan into a leyline or hate card and focus on casting it, or waste a tutor for one if you don't), controlling the dredge player's progress, and finding a window to win. It's just that proactive and explosive a deck. The transformation here disrupts that gameplan even further: you can pretty much ignore your graveyard and just attack their head with cheap, efficient dudes; and if you happen to have a graveyard, all the better. (Have you tried playing with a deck with both hexmages and bridges from below in it?  ) You don't even have to go dark times -- can just side in dudes and overpower them with consistency and potency.

If I wanted to run Dredge I would be. This new Dredge tech doesn't scare me as a Dark Times pilot in the least. I can see why other players would be fearful of it seeing as it changed how they board, but to me it's just a cute little gimmick that will go away just as soon as people realize it's a poor effort to shove in another win condition to a deck that doesn't know how to do anything but flip cards into their graveyard.

[Random Noob]

Best unpowered
Mischa Dettwiler
"Mental Depths" - Dark Times

1 Lotus Petal
4 Hex Parasite
4 Dark Confidant
4 Dark Ritual
4 Death's Shadow
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Diabolic Edict
1 Imperial Seal
1 Necropotence
4 Thoughtseize
1 Plunge into Darkness
4 Vampire Hexmage
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Mental Misstep
4 Dark Depths
1 Strip Mine
9 Swamp
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
60

Sideboard
2 Dismember
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Null Rod
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Extirpate
2 Yixlid Jailer
15


This list made the best unpowered and won a Time Vault in Hanau germany. I dont know which place it made, but grats for the success.

[Yukon Cornelius]

Congrats on the win Mischa Dettwiler However I still stand by the fact that I think the Death Shadow combo is weak in comparison to other combo options. I'll be debuting a new Dark Times list with a special splash this Saturday, should be good for the current meta. We shall see.

[Yukon Cornelius]

Oh my goodness, this card is a house. Snap call, running 4 in the main. Oath, Tinker, Dredge, Yawg Will, Combo, Kuldotha Shops, SHUT DOWN!

[Delha]

Jeebus, that's rough. I'm very interested in seeing how this plays out.