The Dark Times Primer

[Random Noob]

I feel like it could replace in the classic mono B Dark Times list with Obeyline, Null Rod and at least Pithing Needle. But i don't see it as a four of, but there could be more in the SB.

[Metman]

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!

Doesn't Grafdigger's Cage replace the singletons in the deck designed to beat up on big blue decks? Pithing Needle, Null Rod, Diabolic Edict, Sadistic Sacrament, and Yawgmoth's Will get dropped for Cages and Bitterblossoms; at least that's what my initial testing will be. 

[boggyb]

Now now, don't get carried away You still need to beat Goyf/Delver Gush decks and Tezz, and you need to be able to respond to a resolved Tinker, too.

I might suggest dropping Obeyline altogether though in favor of 3-4 of these in your sideboard combined with 3 surgical extractions main, and maybe dropping Jailer too. Something like:

4 Dark Ritual
4 Dark Confidant
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Null Rod
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
3 Dark Depths
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
11 Swamp
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Mental Misstep
1 Darkblast
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 2 Null Rod
SB: 2 Ghost Quarter
SB: 2 Hex Parasite
SB: 4 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Perish
SB: 1 Snuff Out
SB: 1 Diabolic Edict
SB: 1 Mana Crypt
SB: 1 Trinisphere

This is what I've been testing lately, give or take a few metagame-y cards from the SB. Or rather, what I will be testing -- just added in the cages today in favor of leylines.

Surgical Extractions + Wasteland in the main is a total back-breaker. I don't even run Crucible main any more because of this interaction. I also took out Necropotence in favor of Tendrils, since with all this life loss (between Missteps and Extractions), Necropotence is only ever good off Turn 1 ritual -> necro, which is hard to get and even harder to resolve, through both force and misstep. Running Extractions main also upped my game 1 dredge win percentage enough to allow me to drop jailer from the side in favor of more tech-y cards, like Perish and Trinisphere. If Cage performs really well, I may switch one to the main over null rod -- again, a metagame call, though, in the end.

[boggyb]

Initial impressions: 4 Grafdigger's Cages are not necessary to stop oath, only need 2 or 3. But, should probably keep the fully battery in the SB there to cover Dredge as well. Gives a tremendous boost in performance against Oath, I think, though I've only played against decks that were unprepared for it. Tendrils is neat -- pushes the 2/x beats sub-strategy this deck is usually not so great at accomplishing over the edge into winning territory.

With Cages, Extractions, Missteps, and Duresses, you can play a really effective control game vs. Storm and Oath. I'm very impressed with it.

edit: This Extraction + Misstep build is really impressing me. Extraction ups the skill level of the deck even more -- you now have duress, tutor, AND extraction effects (the top 3 broadest and potentially most powerful effects in the game) to make decisions about. Thrilling and super satisfying when you get it right. Extraction, played correctly, performs double duty as a potent mana denier and a proactive combo protector. Combined with duress effects, it can deny them their hand, too.

p.s. I tried a version without Dark Rituals all today (blasphemy I know -- I was just getting sick of having them misstepped) and found it lacking. Basic list was like -4 Ritual -1 Tendrils -1 Yawg, +1 Misstep +1 Extraction +2 Parasite +1 Needle +1 Edict over the last thing I posted, in case anyone wants to try it out.

[Random Noob]

I seriously headached what to drop for the Cage, but i guess its truly  the best step, to cut the Leylines. Another point i make thoughts about, is to drop Wastelands. Is this a possible step, since the list doesn't run a mana denial plan? Or are the Wasties so much of a need, to protect Dark Depths from opposing Wastelands?

[boggyb]

Yeah I am currently running that same list I just provided, -1 Duress +1 Surgical Extraction (Duress is less good vs. so many creatures ), with the following SB:

SB: 2 Null Rod
SB: 2 Hex Parasite
SB: 3 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Perish
SB: 2 Snuff Out
SB: 1 Diabolic Edict
SB: 1 Mana Crypt
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Ghost Quarter

3 Cages, 4 Extractions, 5 Strips, 1 Needle is more than enough to win games 2 & 3 vs. Dredge, and my game 1 win percentage vs. them is something like 30-40% right now, given extracts and/or a fast combo draw. The sideboard here is obviously highly meta-dependent -- everything but the Rods, Cages, and Edict is up for grabs according to what mixture of GX Beats, MUD, and Gush/Gushy-Dudes decks you anticipate meeting. Trinisphere kinda sucks vs. creatures; Parasite is deceptively powerful vs. both creatures and MUD. Snuff Out actually gets the job done pretty good vs. Goyfs et al, apart from its classic usage as an answer to T1 Lodestone. Combined with Extraction, it's even better.

I'd like a better way to gain some life back midgame than with the singleton Tendrils, which requires that you actually, like, have a hand and can power through countermagic on turn 6-7. I've tried Basilisk Collar a bit, and need to do some more testing with it, but seems quite weak to me (though the prospect of a lifelink'd, deathtouch'd first striker in Hexmage is just too good to pass up ). An ideal card would be something like Lightning Helix or a huge Drain Life rather than a Tendrils. Plunge Into Darkness seems weak. Any suggestions would be very appreciated.

Has anyone ever tried Infest? Castable off a Dark Ritual, and better than Massacre I think since most decks don't run plains. I'd rather have Damnation than Massacre, honestly. Any thoughts here on a midgame reset button? Maybe Nevinyrral's Disk?  

edit: I am also seriously considering running Phyrexian Obliterator over the Tendrils -- just too good vs. these creatures and highly castable with Rituals around. Thoughts?

[Random Noob]

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7671&iddeck=55742

Another Top 8

List:

Number    Card Name
   4           Dark Confidant
   4           Death's Shadow
   4           Hex Parasite
   4           Vampire Hexmage

   1           Demonic Consultation
   1           Vampiric Tutor
   3           Diabolic Edict
   4           Dark Ritual
   4           Mental Misstep
   1           Demonic Tutor
   1           Imperial Seal


Number    Card Name
   1           Yawgmoth's Will
   4           Thoughtseize
   1           Necropotence
   1           Black Lotus
   1           Mox Jet
   1           Strip Mine
   3           Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
   4           Dark Depths
   4           Wasteland
   9           Swamp


Sideboard

Number    Card Name
   4           Leyline of the Void
   2           Dismember
   2           Yixlid Jailer
   3           Extirpate
   1           Surgical Extraction
   3           Null Rod

The List is still manifesting Mental Misstep and Surgical Extraction/Extirpate in the 75, and improves how Death's Shadow and Hex Parasite work together. The List still misses Liliana 2.0, and i am curious how to fit in Grafdigger's Cage, since its quite handy against Oath.

[boggyb]

Hey guys, what's up in this thread? Been a while.

I think Dark Times is very poorly positioned right now, at least around where I live (NYC area):

• Espresso Stax is an absolute nightmare -- Spheres, Smokestacks, Tangle Wires, Metamorphs, Lodestones, and Mazes of Ith are some of the worst cards you can face (especially on the draw) and they've got all of em.
• The presence of Mental Misstep in the format really puts a damper on things. It means you have to include it in your deck to ever reliably explode, and it's just not right here -- just reactive garbage you don't want to be drawing. The fact that you need to have it also means Necropotence is a much less powerful card -- even if you draw it in your opening seven, AND can cast it on turn 1-2, AND have a misstep to back up your ritual, you still need to reserve quite a bit of life to pay for Missteps for their Missteps or Swordses. Not to mention how stinky it is past turn 3 or so. So, I've just dropped it. That's taken a pretty significant chunk out of the deck's explosiveness, since you draw it to start in ~10% of games.
• The current popularity of creature-based, legacy-like decks means critter hate is quite prevalent. Swordsing a Marit Lage is not a particularly fun play for a creature-based deck to make, but it's one that can be hard for you to recover from even if it does buy you another 4-5 attack phases and Bob flips.
• Wasteland is also very popular nowadays.
• Null Rod is not that great nowadays, since Tezz has waned a bit and it's not such a terrific answer to other archetypes that focus on key-vaulting: since you'll need all 4 rods to effectively combat it, you're turning off 2 of their cards for 4 of yours, and they can just Hurkyl's you anyways. (I mean I know you're also turning off their moxen, but that's usually not really worth 4 of your slots.)

Anyone else feel this way? Been tooling around with it, have dropped MD extractions and gone back to Obeyline to recoup some explosiveness while hedging against Snaps and Crucibles and such. But yeah, it seems best positioned in a place with a good amount of Dredge, Gush, Oath, and Aggro MUD. It does decently vs. critter decks but not so well as to make it a compelling choice vs. them. My current pile:

4 Vampire Hexmage
3 Dark Depths
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Helm of Obedience

4 Dark Confidant
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Yawgmoth's Will

2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Null Rod
3 Mental Misstep
4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
1 Crucible of Worlds

4 Dark Ritual
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
10 Swamp

SB: 3 Null Rod
SB: 2 Snuff Out
SB: 1 Mana Crypt
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 3 Hex Parasite
SB: 1 Darkblast
SB: 1 Liliana of the Veil
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction

Please note that Liliana + Bob combined is an amazingly effective answer to critters. If I can find an opening hand with a turn 1 Liliana, I almost always keep it vs them, esp. on the play. She usually eventually gets you to a kind of stalemate topdeck position vs. them, which Dark Times is quite good at winning through, since very few of these decks have an effective (non-creature-based) draw engine. She's kind of like a reverse Necropotence-- virtually nets you a ton of cards to set up a single turn where you Duress -> combo for the win.

[boggyb]

Latest pile.

4 Dark Ritual
4 Dark Confidant
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Null Rod
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
3 Dark Depths
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
11 Swamp
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Necropotence
3 Night's Whisper
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Null Rod
SB: 2 Snuff Out
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 Yixlid Jailer
SB: 1 Mana Crypt
SB: 1 Helm of Obedience
SB: 3 Hex Parasite

Developing thoughts:

• Have gotten a bit sick of the high high variance involved with obeyline in the main -- it's subpar versus shops, and pretty low-impact in almost every one of the 60% of games that you don't draw it in your opener. Still strong to bring it in versus decks that lean too hard on Snapcaster, Welder, Crucible, and Yawg though.
• Necropotence -- who was I kidding. This card is too fucking powerful to ever, ever consider cutting from the main. Please watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBKLqgJUe9M if you need a reminder of its absurd power. (This is a spectacular match, btw -- Maher somehow wins despite having a full 10-12 dead cards for the match. Davis just lost to his terrible misplays.)
• Instead of obeyline, a turn 5-8 yawg-> tendrils after attacking for 4-6 seems more consistent and approximately as resilient. If you have a tutor and 1-2 rituals in the yard, tutoring for yawg, then recasting your tutor for tendrils is quite strong with all the duress effects you have. Night's Whisper has been working out very well for me; I suggest y'all try it out.
• The sideboard is geared for shops, and espresso in particular. I've found the three sideboard cards that correlate with victory most against them are, in order, Mana Crypt, Snuff Out, and Hex Parasite. You could ditch the Parasites for Missteps and/or Surgical Extractions if you want to improve your game versus Blue and Dredge -- though note that Extraction is still a terrific card versus many blue decks, Oath and Landstill in particular.
• Liliana continues to impress me, versus nearly everyone.

The deck continues to intrigue and elude me. Nearly every loss that isn't a broken blowout is due to my own mistakes or some absurd topdeck(s) on my opponent's part.

p.s. Here's hoping for a miracle-tutor out of AVR!

edit: Turns out Gitaxian Probe is Just Better than Night's Whisper. Whisper's main uses were to build storm and turn on topdeck tutors during a Yawg turn, which Probe is just better at. They're approximately as good as one another outside of a storm turn, too, since half the time with Whisper you'll have to tap out and spend your whole turn on it, which sucks. The info that Probe gives you and its zero casting cost compensate for the card that Whisper gets you, I think, in this deck.

[shrewarmies]

I NEVER thought I would agree with you about Obeyline being bad for the deck but I have been testing other versions of the deck and now am thinking of dropping it altogether. I took the following list to the Melbourne GP side events

Lands
10 Swamp
3 Dark Depths
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Artifacts
1 Pithing Needle
1 Null Rod
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Jet
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Mana Crypt

Creatures
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Dark Confidant

Planeswalker
1 Lilliana of the Veil

Sorceries
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
4 Thoughtseize
4 Duress
1 Demonic Tutor

Instants
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
3 Mental Misstep
2 Diabolic Edict
4 Dark Ritual

Sideboard
1 Pithing Needle
1 Trinisphere
2 Emissary of Despair
1 Grafdiggers Cage
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Snuff Out
1 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Darkblast


A few notes
61 Cards, this was a mistake I made when merging the Obeyline and the Surgical versions of the deck.
No Lotus/Imp Seal, I dont own these cards and the event was sanctioned
Ghost quarter in the main- I went to the tournament expecting  LOTS of dredge and Shops  in which it is another effective wasteland, I have also had good experience against some U decks (Mostly Gro) because if I waste a Trop I can extract them and leave them with only the Emerald as a green source


There were actually two Vintage side events due to Luis Scott Vargas wanting to play Vintage as well but having commitments to the main event. I unfortunately lent out the deck to a friend (who had never played vintage in his life) and played dredge. My friend made top 8 with no experience with the deck going 3-2 losing to White Trash (eventual winner, due to getting out wastelanded) and Dredge ((me) due to a mis registered deck, game loss, and unfamiliarity of the format). I took the same 61 cards for a spin on the Saturday also making top 8 (due to not drawing final round of swiss)

This list was exceedingly strong, even without the Obeyline, the GY matchups are unlosable in the hands of a competent pilot. Dredge especially, I have like 9 cards in the main which deal with them and 9 more in the board When I was playing the deck, I faced Dredge twice and Dragon once and was never even close to losing a game. The closest I came was going down to 8 against Dredge Game 1 Because I had dealt 8 Damage to myself with thoughtseize and Extractions, that Game I removed all Bazaars, all Grave Trolls, all Bridges and Stinkweed Imps by turn 2. Fun times.

I lost against the Wheel (in the creative forums) and Espresso. I was out played by the Wheel and I suffered from on the draw syndrome against the stax player, always 1 mana behind the spheres game 1 and game 2 he landed a trinisphere followed by waste effects. Both games I had a turn 2 Combo for a 20/20 but it just never happened.

Lilliana was amazing and I can see why you would go up from my 1/2 split, but the instant effect of edict was good to have and I tutored for it twice over the tournament. 

[Random Noob]

Gitaxian Probe was also in my mind while building on my Dark Times, as i also tested Night's Whisper. NW felt a bit clunky, maybe i'll check out Probe.

Liliana is a real beast, she can win games thats clear. Now where Phyrexian Revoker is going back in Mud, i think about building a Version with her as a 4 off. This thought is inspired of the List some may have seen, watch here http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8115&iddeck=59153. It also runs Hymn to Tourach, which i am not sold at, but the result is speaking.

I am unsure what's up with cage. Your lists don't play that many, what do you think, about cutting Leyline and play Cage instead, since its stronger against Oath? Demon Oath wins likeley with one Oath activation, there will be no time to edict with Liliana's -2 on them. I know that Leyline can remove their Time Walk, when they reveal it while oathing, but you likeley have to got i on your starter hand.

I agree with the Snuff Out > Dismember point. To kill a Lodestone Golem on the draw is a major use. I thought about testing Darkblast, since there are Delver, Bob, and Snapcaster Liste around.

This is how my current Parasite Shadow list looks like:

1 Strip Mine
4 Dark Depths
3 Wasteland
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
9 Swamp
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Dark Confidant
4 Death's Shadow
4 Hex Parasite
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Necropotence
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
4 Dark Ritual
4 Thoughtseize
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Lotus Petal
1 Imperial Seal
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Duress
SB: 2 Yixlid Jailer
SB: 3 Null Rod
SB: 4 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 Snuff Out
SB: 3 Mental Misstep
SB: 1 Pithing Needle

This list works out well for me, but i am unsure if dropping Leyline is the way to go.

Did someone test a Dark Time Version like the one Smmenen posted in his article with Phyrexian Revoker? Those Revokers play nice with Duress effects.

[boggyb]

Well, seems like there's no reason to play Dark Times any more. See http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=44291.60 . Griselbrand trumps Marit Lage and can be played alongside blue cards. Thoughts?

[bluemage55]

Well, seems like there's no reason to play Dark Times any more. See http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=44291.60 . Griselbrand trumps Marit Lage and can be played alongside blue cards. Thoughts?

They're completely unrelated archetypes.  Dark Times is primarily a resilient mana denial and hand disruption deck that happens to have a fast combo finish.  Ritual Oath, on the other hand, is a combo deck with some countermagic.  I don't know where you got the idea that the decks are comparable or that one is strictly better in any way.

[boggyb]

? I disagree. It's the other way around: Dark Times is a combo deck, with hand and mana denial elements in it to trip your opponent up and create a situation where you can combo off and win, albeit perhaps virtually. By that I mean, you want to assemble one of your combos, and some of them aren't actual win conditions but are so overwhelmingly powerful as to essentially win you the game. The 'hard' win cons are Hexmage + Depths, and then either Yawg + Tendrils or Leyline + Helm. The 'soft' ones are Crucible + Strip + Rod and Bob + Lilliana.

In this way, Oath is nearly identical: its primary strategy is to assemble a two-card combo that only requires resolving one 2-mana spell and untapping to win (which are, note, the same requirements that Hexmage + Depths have). It has other ways of winning but they're secondary.  The main reason for running Dark Times over Oath in the past was that Marit used to trump all the Oath creatures -- it even has game vs. Emrakul and Blightsteel. Dark Times's other benefits -- that it's monocolored and therefore more resilient, that it can run 4 Bobs, and that it has access to the most powerful tutor ever in Demonic Consultation -- seem now to be eclipsed by Oath's benefits of (a) blue cards, (b) full suite of mana accelerants, (c) quicker speed (turn 1 or 2 Oath is easier than turn 1 or 2 marit) and (d) favorable game versus shops (whereas Dark Times's is godawful).

In any case they play very similarly and are very similarly disruptable, except that Grisel > Marit now.

I mean think about it, if you really wanted to, you could remove the counterspells from Shay's Ritual Oath list, replace them with Duresses, and you'd essentially have a Dark Times list, except with Oath/Orchard instead of Hexmage/Depths, blue cards/nature's claim instead of bobs and mana denial, moxen instead of a few lands, and Jace instead of Liliana. All of those seem like improvements, except maybe the removal of bob.

[ramrodjon]

When I first got into Vintage, my team recommended I try Dark Times.  It can be explosive when it combos and can hold its own against many of the decks out there, just by disrupting their strategy.  I went through 3-4 events with less than 50% wins, but some of that record is poor card choices, metagame timing, and my own inexperience.  I am a firm believer in the "any given Sunday" football analogy, so DT's shines now and again, just like any fringe deck.  My current list, mostly for playtesting only, removes the maindeck ObeyLine combo to make room for Mental Misstep and Vampire Nighthawk.  He's actually a little scary for Fish and Shop decks, because they don't want to swing.  Anyways, please feel free to critique and offer suggestions.  I have tried a few different versions, including a red splash for more artifact hate, but this ended badly.  Monoblacks best hope against Shops is a prayer. 

3 Dark Depths
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
9 Swamp
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Thoughtseize
4 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Confidant
4 Vampire Hexmage
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Yawgmoth's Will
2 Extirpate
4 Mental Misstep
3 Null Rod
1 Vampire Nighthawk
SB: 2 Ghost Quarter
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 3 Yixlid Jailer
SB: 1 Massacre
SB: 1 Perish
SB: 2 Chains of Mephistopheles
SB: 2 Dismember

[xouman]

Sorry, but it seems to me that your deck lacks consistency. What does it well? Probably get a Marit Lage token into battlefield, but it can be sworded, bounced or copied. Also you have to get Hexmage into play, and this can be hard. Otherwise than having a decent win condition, I see two viable paths:

a) Hate deck. Without obeyline, I'd play null rod, crucible, maybe sinkhole... You can attack hard the manabase, and liliana/confidant would get slow and solid advantage. Against fast decks you have discard and missteps, it sounds a decent plan.

b) Combo deck. Any deck with rituals, discard, yawgmoth's will could easily feat a tendrils. In fact, I'm quite surprissed you don't play one, because your list seems comboish oriented. Tendrils is not only good as finisher, lots of times it would be a boost to your live (severly damaged with confidants and missteps) while putting opponent closer to death

c) Control deck. I said I only see two viable paths, because I don't find monoblack is well suited to play control role (I could be wrong, of course). Pure aggro also does not feel proper to monoblack. But it is up to you.


Between A and B, I'd choose A because I feel more confident with hate role, but B feels sexier. Discard cards get more versatile (thay can disrupt opponent's plan of allow you to get your bomb into play) and the troubled player is the opponent, not you.

[HollyWood]

Considering a return to type one and this deck might be what I play. It seems to be lacking something but I feel it can still win. My list is already meta-gamed for what I would expect to see at the Type One Champs at Gencon.

The 60 Card List:

6 Turn 0
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Mental Misstep

8 Control
4x Thoughtseize
2x Duress
2x Diabolic Edict

4 Tutor’s
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Imperial Seal
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Consultation

8 Creature’s
4x Dark Confidant
4x Vampire Hexmage

2 Broken
1x Necropotence
1x Yawgmoth’s Will

5 Tool Box
1x Pithing Needle
1x Grafdigger’s Cage
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Sadistic Sacrament
1x Helm of Obedience

7 Mana Sources
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Jet
1x Lotus Petal
4x Dark Ritual

20 Land
4x Dark Depths
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Strip Mine
4x Wasteland
5x Swamp
1x Polluted Delta
1x Marsh Flats
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Bloodstained Mire

Alright to get to my choices for the main deck and why’s. I’m not going to waste time discussing the core more so the slots that can be altered.
I’m sure you noticed Leyline/Helm still in the maindeck. I predict to run into plenty of Dredge and Leyline can win you game one it’s just that simple.
Grafdigger’s Cage as a singleton in the main as an Oath and Dredge hate card might be a tad slow, not completely sold on it as a tutor target game one.
Sadistic Sacrament can just win you games on its own. Almost want more of them in the main just don’t know where to find room.
Mental Misstep is a great card just hard to find room for such a situational card. Hence why I run two.

The fetch lands now this is just a preference I have. I don’t advocate this as a must for everyone. I like the thinning of my deck and will gladly trade the life loss. Reason for the singleton of each is kinda a long story but a relevant one. One tournament many of years ago in Rochester, NY at a Starcity Type One event. I played turn one Bloodstained Mire. My opponent proceeded to tell me what I was playing just off the land drop. Needless to say I got my ass handed to me. The shear fact that he knew all the mana bases to every net deck out there and odds said I was playing one particular deck changed my view on mana-bases from then on.
I’ll admit I’m not convinced if three or four Dark Depths is the correct amount. Two I feel is too few and don’t like having to waste a tutor just to find one. I understand tutoring for a win condition isn’t wasteful but if I can draw it or have extras why not?
I will not even consider running Lilliana of the Veil. Why you might ask, I’ll tell you why with as much hate in main decks like Lightning Bolt that is running around for that certain someone named Jace. I feel it is stupid to open yourself up to it. Just seems like a win more card, with little upside and to easily dealt with.

The Sideboard

1x Phyrexian Tower
3x Grafdigger’s Cage
1x Pithing Needle
1x Trinisphere
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Yixlid Jailer
2x Emissary of Despair
1x Sadistic Sacrament
1x Engineered Plauge

Considerations for the side board
Hex Parasite (Chalice of the Void killer)
Null Rod (Don’t see the need for them anymore)
Engineered Explosives (Also a Chalice killer/Tokens)

Don’t want to go into the sideboard to much feel mine is a basic one and isn’t really set in stone yet. Want all the criticism in the world. Feel it is the only way to get better, so let me hear what is wrong or what makes it better?

[shrewarmies]

I personally would feel unprotected if I went with less that 8 Duress effects chosen from Duress, Thoughtseize, Cabal Therapy or IoK (The last 2 being meta choices) I would always want one in my opener against almost any deck. The Addition of Obeyline is a meta call and your choice but I would urge you to try the Misstep/Extraction/Tendrils
 builds posted by boggyb and myself earlier in the ear. They are stronger against the blue decks but are obviously weaker against Espresso shops

I think the Grafdiggers cage should stay in the board if you are running Sad Sac. Sad Sac covers your bases as anti Oath/Will/(Dredge at times) and does not affect your ability to play optimally. Cage shuts off your Y.Will which can be a deciding factor in refilling your grip mid game which I felt Dark times has a problem with. Not that having cage means negating will every game, but it will come up when you have to choose between the two.

4 Depths I believe is too much. They are legendary and do not tap for mana and you would never want 2 in your hand, ever.

The final thing I would do is possibly add a ghost quarter. The card for many decks functions as strip mine #2 and only gets better with Cr boggyucible. The card is obviously much much much better when you add surgical extraction into the mix but as you are set on Obeyline, that is a bit of a nonbo. I would still consider it even without but the argument for its inclusion is weaker.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I don't want to necro this thread, but at the same time - it's a list on exactly the same topic, so a duplicate topic would be redundant.

I've recently sold off (and rebought) my collection - but focused only on R/B.  While my R/B beats deck was great against the slower, battlefield game and held even vs control - it was weak vs stack-based combo.  Staying only in the single color, I wanted a "comboish" stack fighting deck - and Dark Times fit the bill while utilizing the same black cards that I have in R/B beats (just a little background so I don't get responses of "go blue", "play oath", "shops are better" or the like.)  The deck HAS to stay mono black, or if a second color is needed, it has to be red - for my purposes at least.  In any way, I think mono black is the most consistent way to go.

My list so far is as such:

// Lands
    4  Bloodstained Mire
    4  Dark Depths
    8  Swamp
    1  Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

// Creatures
    4  Dark Confidant
    4  Vampire Hexmage
    3  Phyrexian Obliterator
    1  Gatekeeper of Malakir
    1  Hex Parasite

// Spells
    4  Duress
    1  Demonic Consultation
    1  Demonic Tutor
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    4  Dark Ritual
    1  Lotus Petal
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Mox Jet
    2  Chrome Mox
    2  Unmask
    4  Thoughtseize
    2  Hymn to Tourach
    3  Pithing Needle
    1  Extirpate
    1  Yawgmoth's Will
    1  Tendrils of Agony

// Sideboard
SB: 1  Phyrexian Obliterator
SB: 2  Gatekeeper of Malakir
SB: 2  Extirpate
SB: 2  Darkblast
SB: 3  Sadistic Sacrament
SB: 4  Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1  Snuff Out

So, a few things to note about my build.

1) No Helmline.  I had leylines by themselves for a while, but found that they A) hurt when flipped with Bob, B) suck in multiples, whether in opener or drawn as dead cards, C) are dead in several matches.  The helm was just too random, and sometimes I'd open with leyline and helm, but then only swamps and would have to take 3-4 turns to assemble the combo (and they'd just claim/bounce a piece anyway and then it became worthless).  I found supporting the beats plan via obliterator a much better strategy for the same cost in one card.

2) Obliterators - as stated, they are a more compact threat than helmline.  They aren't disruptive like leyline can be, but they are always a 4 turn clock and essentially act as a black version of moat against any aggro strategy.  I'll easily race 2/1s, and if they pile up an army, I'll just stop swinging and then they won't dare attack.  Killing obliterator with damage, essentially gives me the effect of an emakrul swing.  He's also out of bolt range, which isn't unimportant.  He's still vulnerable to plow/path, but so is Merit Lage - and hopefully my disruption can pull it.  Besides, if they plow PO, I get 5 life and they have one less out to Merit.

3) yawg/tendrils - I have found that at times, I'm forced to swing with 2/1s and between that and their own damage, a later game  ritual + duress + tendrils can sometimes seal the deal.  Yawg Will enables me to get a bigger tendrils obviously, or replay a killed Merit Lage by replaying depths/hexmage for 2 mana.  At times, I find a lethal tendrils on its own very hard to assemble however.  Even running lotus, petal, and 3 mox + rituals and free duresses (unmask), it's tough to storm 10 without yawg will. - I'm on the fence about this inclusion.

4) 1 hex parasite - It's cute.  It can slow roll a depths, but more importantly eats planeswalkers, tangle, smokestack, chalice.  It, along with obliterators, are really my only play vs chalice @2.  I don't like it enough to have multiples, but one isn't bad and I can tutor for it if needed.  The pump it gets is often irrelevant, as by the time it deals 10 damage, I have a 20/20 flyer anyway which does the deed the next swing.

5) Hymn to Tourach - I think people have forgotten about how broken this card can be.  Especially with mental misstep everywhere, it's a nice disruption.  I can't choose what card to pull, but at the same time, a turn 1 ritual, duress, hymn can sometimes pull out all my opponent's mana and really hose them.  It quickly makes a keepable hand for my opponent into a pile of expensive crap.  At the least, it usually draws FoW+blue card, which is a win anyway.

6) Gatekeeper/no Liliana - I don't care for him in multiples (2 may be okay), since he's a vanilla 2/2.  However, he's a maindeck answer for tinkerbot that I can turn 1 off a ritual (same cost as liliana).  Unlike Liliana, I can cause the opponent to sac, then have a body to block other X/2s swinging in.  I have never gotten used to Liliana and can't see the fuss about her.  She CAN be a reusable edict, but often I found the things I discard to be just as valuable as my opponent (like a thoughtseize except my opponent chooses what to discard). I can kill 1 thing immediately with her just as I can with Malakir, but then she's at 1 counter and any attacker drops her (whereas gatekeeper can block and kill a lesser attacker in the same turn).  Many decks like shop/fish get into topdeck mode anyway, so sometimes I'm the only one discarding to grow her.  And letting my opponent pitch his BSC or crap drawn off draw spells, while I have to pitch obliterator or unmask that I can't quite cast yet is bad.  I hear some say she's good when you have a bob and the opponent doesn't, but If that is the board state, I should be out disrupting/threatening my opponent anyway.  Revokers are often commonly played, and if I open with swamp, there's a good chance revoker will name hexmage, followed by liliana on the 2nd revoker.

7) 3 main pithing needles/no wastelands - I find waste fighting waste is just bad.  It's a 1-1 trade, and I have very little that costs any colorless anyway (thus no sol ring).  Topdecking wastes are often like blanks.  They also do very little to answer later problems.  Needle, on the other hand, stops 4 wastelands with 1 card.  It can ignore losing parity with crucible in play on my opponent's side.  It shuts off bazaar, library, karakas, maze of ith - just like wasteland could do, but with the added bonus of shutting multiples of said cards and also stopping jace, waterfront bouncer, liliana, welder -> duplicant, and all kinds of other junk.  Also, since I can easily unmask and find my opponent to be holding delta, delta, lotus, 4 goodies (or some similar fetch-based hand) - I can yank the lotus, then needle on delta and watch my opponent cry.  Revoker is no good as it can't hit waste (main purpose to protect depths) or bazaar (a deck just as fast or faster than me).

8) 1 extirpate - useful enough to be played, especially against oath/blue when I can turn 1 duress effect. 2 in SB for the games where it is really good, since I do run 12 duress effects.

9) No necropotence - can be broken if landed in the first turn, but not a guarantee I'll draw the win in my top 10 cards.  Also playing turn 1 ritual, Necro into FoW can really be bad.  It MIGHT just be broken enough to try and include though.  Since I don't have counters (missteps seemed really underwhelming in many games), loading my hand and not being able to cast the discard opens me up to dropping 10 life and my opponent being able to drop spheres or a lowly tendrils for 10 and kill me quickly.  It's a gamble that hasn't paid off enough for me.

The SB is totally up in the air.  Extra gatekeepers are more for tinker.dec or fish with plows/repeals.  Sacrement is great vs narrow combo decks, but not good enough to be main.  Grafdiggers are self-explanatory.  Not sure about the rest though.  Some Null Rods might be nice.

So, with all that said, any suggestions?  Any new tech that I have missed with this type of deck?  Any suggestions to better the main or sb?

[madmanmike25]

I wonder if Surgical Extraction would be better than Extirpate, since many times you will have only 1 mana available to you. 

With a decent amount of artifacts, why not run Phylactery Lich in the Obliterator slot?  It is definitely worth a test.

Deathrite Shaman might be worth a shot too.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I wonder if Surgical Extraction would be better than Extirpate, since many times you will have only 1 mana available to you. 

With a decent amount of artifacts, why not run Phylactery Lich in the Obliterator slot?  It is definitely worth a test.

Deathrite Shaman might be worth a shot too.

I like surgical extraction, but really the extirpates have just been better.  The cards you really want the effect against are counters (yanking all their FoWs/drains), or linear attacks (oath/tendrils), or answers to Merit (StoPs, repeals, etc.).  These decks typically run ways to counter the extraction, and ALL decks have access to misstep (even dredge).  While there are times a turn 1 duress/surgical will be good, almost always avoiding counterability is just better.

Phylactery Lich seems nice, but it's really vulnerable.  For starters, it doesn't have trample.  It can get chumped all day.  Also, nobody fears attacking into it with several critters, cause it will kill one critter at most (obliterator makes them sac permanents = to the power of whatever I block).  Lastly, I need an artifact in play to cast it, otherwise it dies ( I only run 9 and 2 of them sac for mana).  This is also bad in that my opponent's worthless maindeck hurkylls, now wraths all my Liches.  Any maindeck artifact answer basically reads "2-for-1 target artifact and lich".  Plow/path hit's both lich and obliterator.  And while they can't "kill" a Lich with damage, if they try to kill obliterator, they're losing their entire battlefield worth of permanents to do so.

Shaman seems interesting, but what to cut?  It ramps mana over time, but not as quickly as chrome mox or ritual.  It plays control vs snapcasters and such, but is that worth cutting something?  I think the discard and the needles provide a better protection/disruption...and the fast mana sources are stronger than this guy's mana.  As people have said on threads discussing this shaman, he does a lot of things half as good as something else, but is multiple effects in one.  The question is really, what cards could I cut from my list to make any of his effects worth it?  Is there anything in the 75 that would be upgraded by replacing with deathrites?

[shrewarmies]

In response to your first post Dragon:

While your list looks interesting I would like to point out where I think things could be done differently.

1) Too many Dark Depths, I have generally run 3 Dark depths because you really NEVER want to open a hand with 2 Depths. I found 3 Depths to be fine as you will have generally found it in the early game and your amass of tutor effects means you generally are never struggling to find one.

2) I might add a second Urborg as your nuts without a ritual is Urborg, Thoughtseize, Depths, Hexmage.

3) Gatekeeper seems the worst of both words in the lilliana vs edict debate. If you have a higher percentage of beats decks in your meta I can see the use of gatekeeper but it is neither instant speed like edict nor reusable like lilliana. Lilliana was great because you can just not use her, +1 when you have an excess land or -2 when you need. Its also a proactive card vs shops which you really have to watch out for as it is by far your worst matchup.

4)I don't like the inclusion of Hymn for every time it hits their lands and leads them with nothing there will be a time where it stops nothing.

5) A full 12 discard spells seems like a huge number, I was always a firm believer in running at least 8. Have you found your hands are too full of hand disruption?

6) Surgical helps with the tendrils plan if you find you cannot tendrils for any real numbers. I would certainly keep in Will and Tendrils as they are your best Midgame plan. I found myself tutoring for will in the mid game allot as it brings you so much card advantage with replaying your disruption a ritual and set up the win. It is important to remember however you are not a tendrils deck, the tendrils is not your win con (though it can be) it just offsets your bobs/Thoughtseizes and puts them into the danger zone.

7) I would certainly be running a Null Rod in the main. While the Turbo Tezz decks are not really in the meta anymore, as players are playing the Burning Wish decks, Vault decks and Shutting off moxen is especially powerful. You have only 3 cards shut off by the Rod. This however is coming from a dark times pilot which loved the mana denial of 1 Strip+ 4 Waste+ 1 Ghost +1 Crucible. Without the mana denial which made that particular version strong Null Rod Might be skipped.

8) 4 Grafdigger's is not enough vs Dredge

9) Obliterators are good and much better than the lich. However you should find some room for Emissary of Despair as thats the card you want over shops as it is playable off a single ritual because even when you are on the play can be iffy to get a 4c on turn 1.

10) Necropotence, this deck does not act like Long and necro of 15, you can play it like that and at times it is correct to do so but you can use it like the old necro decks did and just keep a full hand at all times which ensures you hit the cards you need to stay alaive.

11) SB Trinisphere. Trinisphere just shuts down some decks and you can play a pretty strong game yourself under a trinisphere.

I would really recommend putting in the mana denial. You cannot defeat your opponent with discard spells alone, no matter how many discard effects you send at your opponent they can just draw the tinker on the top of their library, the mana denial of Rods, Wastes etc give you further insurance against this.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Hey Shrewarmies:

I'll try to answer your posts by number.

1) 3 may be good, but seems so risky.  I want to start with ritual, duress, hexmage, depths in the first turn or 2 as many times as possible.  Running less than 4 means I will less often start with one and then play a slow game.  Yes, they aren't ideal in multiples, but they are ideal in the opener.  My mass of tutor effects is only 3 - DT, vamp, consult.  That's not a ton.

2) Just like your argument for 3 depths stands, a hand of 2 urborgs means I am holding a blank - except that urborg can't become a 20/20.  Urborg is great with depths, but at times it gives my opponent access to black off a basic land.  And if I don't have depths, it's only benefiting my opponent. I've tried 2 urborgs, and the times my opponent benefits or I'm stuck with 2 urborgs - it's just not worth it.

3) I'm not understanding the argument here.  If my opponent tinkers, Gatekeeper or Edict or Liliana does the same thing - and then I probably won't need the edict effect again in that game.  If my opponent plays several small beaters, Liliana is NOT reuseable - It will kill one critter, then die on the next swing.  Gatekeeper on the other hand becomes added damage if my opponent tinkers and can take down 2 small beaters vs fish. Think if my opponent plays snapcaster and bob - gatekeeper/liliana kills one, but then gatekeeper can block the other whereas Liliana just dies.  I'm not going to chump with bob and lose my CA, and if I have hexmage, I'm going combo.  If I have obliterator, I'm in a winning spot vs fish anyway. I've tested liliana, and I don't see the greatness about her.  I suppose if I open with her and just start ramping her I can take down a couple critters at the expense of ditching my hand.  I'd either be discarding mana - which I run little of and need up to 4, pitching discard - which actually lets me choose what they loose as opposed to my opponent, or pitching threats - which is bad.  I just don't get why she's so good.  It's not like I run chaff I could just be pitching.

4) Which leads into why hymn is good - I don't run chaff, and neither does my opponent.  For 2 mana and 1 spell, they randomly lose 2 cards.  If they lose mana early on, it can be crippling.  If they pitch 2 spells instead of mana, it's not like my opponent is thinking "I just lost 2 worthless cards that I kept in hand".  Players don't run "worthless" cards.  Almost every spell is valuable until much later game when boardstate dictates what you need to draw.  Even then, it's still 2 for 1 and can get around misstep.  That's not irrelevant.  At one point, I had 4 hymn and 4 unmask - but 16 discard was too much, so I cut 2 of each.  On turn 1, I usually like unmask better, but everything after turn 1, I usually prefer hymn.  If I can open with a duress/seize and then hymn off a ritual, I'm doing fairly well.  Usually I'll just start with duress, then hymn on turn 2. Then seize and drop bob or hexmage.

5) I don't run counters - so I think maxing out on duress effects is pretty much necessary.  There are times where I feel 12 is too little, not too much.  If I just ran 8, a solid counter deck with snapcasters and bolts and stuff would just eat me alive.  They'd misstep my duress and then just crush my plays with drains or FoW.  If a counterspell deck runs 12+ counters, why would a black combo deck run only 8 spell disruption?  Hand disruption basically means my stuff resolves and their answers (like plow, repeal, e-truth, etc.) are all yanked.

6) Surgical is good.  It's free.  I see the benefit.  At the same time, extirpate is uncounterable, and both cost 1 (read misstep food).  Consider this - do I really want an extirpate effect vs any deck that doesn't run counters/misstep?  I have warmed up to will/tendrils a bit - moreso yawg will.  A small yawgwill can recover a ritual, seize, hexmage, depths should my opponent plow/repeal the Merit Lage.  Tendrils has been very "meh".  I've pulled a couple games off one, but usually it's competeing for mana that casts bob/hymn/obliterator, or I duress, chrome mox, tendrils for 6 - which is really crappy.  An obliterator is more imposing in that sense and requires no other spells.  I always burn my fast mana to crank stuff out quickly, so by the time I draw tendrils, I have nothing to storm with outside of yawg will.  I just wonder if the 4th obliterator wouldn't be better.

7) Null rod has looked good at times.  I have 5 spells that get cut off by null rod, but that's not so bad - especially since lotus/petal sac to most likely cast null rod.  I don't know if just 1 main is satisfactory since I'd never draw it when I want it, and if I tutor for it, then I'm not tutoring for a real threat/combo piece - just a speed bump that they can remove (hurkylls, spree, grudge, claim) anyways.  If I did run these, I'd run 3 or 4 and sb them out when not needed.  I found the mana denial plan to be inneffective as shops are big and many people just run fetches/basics to overcome that now and the colorless off waste/strip just clogged my hand and prevented me from casting spells.  Almost all of my spells cost multiples of B and not colorless, and using them as strip effects mean they take the place of spells, not lands - and the deck is tight at that.  Playing waste as a stop for opposing waste is just really bad IMHO.

8) 4 graffdiggers is NOT enough - agreed.  That's why i also run 3 extirpate and 3 pithing needles with those 4 cages.  3 needle and 1 extirpate maindeck give me tons of time (when drawn) g1, and then I'm running 10 hate effects g2/3.  Needle on bazaar is just as good as cage vs dredge many times.  Especially if they mull g1 and reveal they're on dredge (like with serum powder), and I open with 1 of my 3 needles, I'm almost always winning that game.

9) Emissary is good vs shops, and I would like to find slots in the sb for them - good call there.

10) Currently I've tried necropotence in the spot of one obliterator.  I can't say I'm happy with it.  On a turn 1, it can win the game - assuming I draw great off 15 cards and can annihilate my opponent with the 7 I keep and passing the turn.  Normally, I draw it later and then I'm dropping a land, a hexmage, a couple duresses...and that's it. I suppose if I just spend my hand in the first couple turns, then drop it after both our hands are spent, then just refill my hand...it's okay.  But if it were another threat instead, it might be just as good.  I'll try using it as just a later game refiller instead of a turn 1 bomb.  I think it'll be better then.

11) SB trini might be a good call.  I'll try it.

I have found the wasteland strategy really weak for the reasons stated earlier.  Decks just run fetches/basics now a lot.  Usually a 2 color deck has the 4 duals and that's it.  Even if they run more, they're going to fecth for their basics first and then I'm not really slowing them down any.  The exception being workshops - who would love for me to lose a land to kill one of theirs with their sphere effects.  And if I draw swamp, waste, waste, 4 spells - now I can't cast anything.  Playing waste to kill a land also means I'm not dropping swamp to duress.  Obliterator, hymn, gatekeeper/liliana, hexmage, necropotence...they all hate colorless mana.  I suppose if I'm running waste/strip, crucible, null rod instead of spells, it won't cut out my black mana - but what 6-10 cards would you cut for this?  I suppose I'd have to cut the 2 hymns and 3 needles to start - but then I'm just trading versatile disruption for situational disruption.  A needle can almost always have a use, and so can a hymn...a wasteland can often be a colorless...waste.

Not to discount your post - cause there were a couple good ideas there.  But, I just don't see the reason for wastes vs needles or liliana vs gatekeeper.  What would you cut for land kill, and what chaff are you running that you can keep pitching to liliana to get a multiple use out of her?

[shrewarmies]

Its good to get some discussion on here on this deck again. I still say that when a U filled meta, this deck can be a powerhouse.

Likewise I will go by numbers again.

Hey Shrewarmies:

I'll try to answer your posts by number.

1) 3 may be good, but seems so risky.  I want to start with ritual, duress, hexmage, depths in the first turn or 2 as many times as possible.  Running less than 4 means I will less often start with one and then play a slow game.  Yes, they aren't ideal in multiples, but they are ideal in the opener.  My mass of tutor effects is only 3 - DT, vamp, consult.  That's not a ton.
2) Just like your argument for 3 depths stands, a hand of 2 urborgs means I am holding a blank - except that urborg can't become a 20/20.  Urborg is great with depths, but at times it gives my opponent access to black off a basic land.  And if I don't have depths, it's only benefiting my opponent. I've tried 2 urborgs, and the times my opponent benefits or I'm stuck with 2 urborgs - it's just not worth it.

If you are heading for a more combo route then running the 4 may be correct. It has just been a personal feel I have had with the deck which leads me to -1 Depths +1 Urborg, you musts remember that I am coming from a version of this deck with more mana denial than yours. Having more urborgs means that I can play wastes as swamps more often. Also, compare having 2 Depths in your hand vs 2 Urborgs. 2 Depths means that you set back your mana for a turn and a waste = a second turn of no mana. 2 Urborgs in your hand means that the waste only sets you back 1 turn instead of two. I have always found the tutor density (esp w Seal) to be strong enough to not need the 4th Depths.

3) I'm not understanding the argument here.  If my opponent tinkers, Gatekeeper or Edict or Liliana does the same thing - and then I probably won't need the edict effect again in that game.  If my opponent plays several small beaters, Liliana is NOT reuseable - It will kill one critter, then die on the next swing.  Gatekeeper on the other hand becomes added damage if my opponent tinkers and can take down 2 small beaters vs fish. Think if my opponent plays snapcaster and bob - gatekeeper/liliana kills one, but then gatekeeper can block the other whereas Liliana just dies.  I'm not going to chump with bob and lose my CA, and if I have hexmage, I'm going combo.  If I have obliterator, I'm in a winning spot vs fish anyway. I've tested liliana, and I don't see the greatness about her.  I suppose if I open with her and just start ramping her I can take down a couple critters at the expense of ditching my hand.  I'd either be discarding mana - which I run little of and need up to 4, pitching discard - which actually lets me choose what they loose as opposed to my opponent, or pitching threats - which is bad.  I just don't get why she's so good.  It's not like I run chaff I could just be pitching.

I get the feeling that you play against more fish decks, is that correct? When playing this deck I have found there are 2 main creatures you need to worry about Bob and Emrakul (GG Oath) and Lilliana works wonders against those decks. If you are playing against decks which have 8+ smaller creatures then I concede that gatekeeper may be a better choice. Remember it is not imperative for lilliana to be used at all during a game, she a proactive threat which makes her a better play (in my mind) than gatekeeper. Symetrical discard is good because invariably the spells they are pitching are worth more than the cards you are pitching, esp with a bob on the board.

4) Which leads into why hymn is good - I don't run chaff, and neither does my opponent.  For 2 mana and 1 spell, they randomly lose 2 cards.  If they lose mana early on, it can be crippling.  If they pitch 2 spells instead of mana, it's not like my opponent is thinking "I just lost 2 worthless cards that I kept in hand".  Players don't run "worthless" cards.  Almost every spell is valuable until much later game when boardstate dictates what you need to draw.  Even then, it's still 2 for 1 and can get around misstep.  That's not irrelevant.  At one point, I had 4 hymn and 4 unmask - but 16 discard was too much, so I cut 2 of each.  On turn 1, I usually like unmask better, but everything after turn 1, I usually prefer hymn.  If I can open with a duress/seize and then hymn off a ritual, I'm doing fairly well.  Usually I'll just start with duress, then hymn on turn 2. Then seize and drop bob or hexmage.

Here we differ, I have never found hymn to be what I want to be doing. As I have said, I preder to play this deck when I expect allot of U decks and vs U decks I want to look at their hand T1 and decide their plays for them. Taking a specific card is worth much more than two random cards because with the duress effect you can channel your opponent down the decision trees you want them to make e.g. take ancestral and let them tinker when you have an edict effect/ taking a counter and let them keep x when you have combo in hand. If you wanted to stay at 12 discard spells I would think about running 4 Unmask rather than 2/2 with Hymn

5) I don't run counters - so I think maxing out on duress effects is pretty much necessary.  There are times where I feel 12 is too little, not too much.  If I just ran 8, a solid counter deck with snapcasters and bolts and stuff would just eat me alive.  They'd misstep my duress and then just crush my plays with drains or FoW.  If a counterspell deck runs 12+ counters, why would a black combo deck run only 8 spell disruption?  Hand disruption basically means my stuff resolves and their answers (like plow, repeal, e-truth, etc.) are all yanked.

I just hate losing to a top deck. Have you tried your own Missteps? I was using them for a while and felt very good about it. Having more proactive answers in Needle, Rod, Liliana helps this problem also

6) Surgical is good.  It's free.  I see the benefit.  At the same time, extirpate is uncounterable, and both cost 1 (read misstep food).  Consider this - do I really want an extirpate effect vs any deck that doesn't run counters/misstep?  I have warmed up to will/tendrils a bit - moreso yawg will.  A small yawgwill can recover a ritual, seize, hexmage, depths should my opponent plow/repeal the Merit Lage.  Tendrils has been very "meh".  I've pulled a couple games off one, but usually it's competeing for mana that casts bob/hymn/obliterator, or I duress, chrome mox, tendrils for 6 - which is really crappy.  An obliterator is more imposing in that sense and requires no other spells.  I always burn my fast mana to crank stuff out quickly, so by the time I draw tendrils, I have nothing to storm with outside of yawg will.  I just wonder if the 4th obliterator wouldn't be better.

Yes you do, every deck has a card you don't want to see. If you can TS a golem or smokestack and extract it, your game just got sooo much easier. Vs Dredge you can take a dredger or Bridge and extract them, There is no dead matchups for extraction effects. I will say that running wastes makes extraction effects better as people are often splasing a colour of two duals and waste extraction can hold them off 5-10 cards unless they draw the mox they need. I prefer Surgical because of the synergy with the storm kill and the land duress extract plan.
 

7) Null rod has looked good at times.  I have 5 spells that get cut off by null rod, but that's not so bad - especially since lotus/petal sac to most likely cast null rod.  I don't know if just 1 main is satisfactory since I'd never draw it when I want it, and if I tutor for it, then I'm not tutoring for a real threat/combo piece - just a speed bump that they can remove (hurkylls, spree, grudge, claim) anyways.  If I did run these, I'd run 3 or 4 and sb them out when not needed.  I found the mana denial plan to be inneffective as shops are big and many people just run fetches/basics to overcome that now and the colorless off waste/strip just clogged my hand and prevented me from casting spells.  Almost all of my spells cost multiples of B and not colorless, and using them as strip effects mean they take the place of spells, not lands - and the deck is tight at that.  Playing waste as a stop for opposing waste is just really bad IMHO.

Null Rod works as a proactive answer because it shuts off at least 10 cards in your standard U deck (Lotus/Moxen/TV/Key/Sol/Crypt). It just cuts off so many strategic options (a common theme of my suggestions seems to be that work well with wastes) Yes its symmetrical but you are hurting them more. Also, they are not likely to keep in artifact dectruction g2/3 if they dont seem them main/ in G1.

8) 4 graffdiggers is NOT enough - agreed.  That's why i also run 3 extirpate and 3 pithing needles with those 4 cages.  3 needle and 1 extirpate maindeck give me tons of time (when drawn) g1, and then I'm running 10 hate effects g2/3.  Needle on bazaar is just as good as cage vs dredge many times.  Especially if they mull g1 and reveal they're on dredge (like with serum powder), and I open with 1 of my 3 needles, I'm almost always winning that game.

Silly me, I completely skipped needles in my head

9) Emissary is good vs shops, and I would like to find slots in the sb for them - good call there.
11) SB trini might be a good call.  I'll try it.

Also Mana crypt might make it into your board for the Shops Matchup

10) Currently I've tried necropotence in the spot of one obliterator.  I can't say I'm happy with it.  On a turn 1, it can win the game - assuming I draw great off 15 cards and can annihilate my opponent with the 7 I keep and passing the turn.  Normally, I draw it later and then I'm dropping a land, a hexmage, a couple duresses...and that's it. I suppose if I just spend my hand in the first couple turns, then drop it after both our hands are spent, then just refill my hand...it's okay.  But if it were another threat instead, it might be just as good.  I'll try using it as just a later game refiller instead of a turn 1 bomb.  I think it'll be better then.

Let us know how it works out

I have found the wasteland strategy really weak for the reasons stated earlier.  Decks just run fetches/basics now a lot.  Usually a 2 color deck has the 4 duals and that's it.  Even if they run more, they're going to fecth for their basics first and then I'm not really slowing them down any.  The exception being workshops - who would love for me to lose a land to kill one of theirs with their sphere effects.  And if I draw swamp, waste, waste, 4 spells - now I can't cast anything.  Playing waste to kill a land also means I'm not dropping swamp to duress.  Obliterator, hymn, gatekeeper/liliana, hexmage, necropotence...they all hate colorless mana.  I suppose if I'm running waste/strip, crucible, null rod instead of spells, it won't cut out my black mana - but what 6-10 cards would you cut for this?  I suppose I'd have to cut the 2 hymns and 3 needles to start - but then I'm just trading versatile disruption for situational disruption.  A needle can almost always have a use, and so can a hymn...a wasteland can often be a colorless...waste.
[/quote]
Ill come back to this later. I have to run

[TheWhiteDragon]

Yes, good to have some active discussion on this deck.  It's always been a silent favorite of mine.

I think going by numbers has worked well (and 8, 9, 10 (still testing necro), 11 seem to be worked out):

1 & 2) If you are heading for a more combo route then running the 4 may be correct. It has just been a personal feel I have had with the deck which leads me to -1 Depths +1 Urborg, you musts remember that I am coming from a version of this deck with more mana denial than yours. Having more urborgs means that I can play wastes as swamps more often. Also, compare having 2 Depths in your hand vs 2 Urborgs. 2 Depths means that you set back your mana for a turn and a waste = a second turn of no mana. 2 Urborgs in your hand means that the waste only sets you back 1 turn instead of two. I have always found the tutor density (esp w Seal) to be strong enough to not need the 4th Depths.

I think going the more combo route is the right play. The deck is less beater dense than fish, has smaller dudes than shops, and otherwise is slower than oath or blue combo.  The strength of this deck really comes in yanking your opponents counter/answer and then "whoops, 20/20 flyer". You want to make that play as consistently as possible.  Imp Seal would help - but I'm not a huge fan of that card overall, and it's $400+.  I tried spoils of the vault for a bit, but it was too painful to be reliable.  I considered things like rhystic tutor, which tend to suck, but are a 2B DT if your opponent isn't constantly keeping 2 mana open.  There's gotta be a better option out there for under $100.
In today's game, I really have tended to get away from wastes.  It seems fetches and basics are just so common.  If I have waste and extraction, I could yank their duals...but often those duals are underground seas which my urborg gives them off an island.  Black is a very common secondary color.  With the needles, I get to name polluted delta or the like and really hit their mana that way - especially after leading with duress and seeing their fetches in hand.  

3)I get the feeling that you play against more fish decks, is that correct? When playing this deck I have found there are 2 main creatures you need to worry about Bob and Emrakul (GG Oath) and Lilliana works wonders against those decks. If you are playing against decks which have 8+ smaller creatures then I concede that gatekeeper may be a better choice. Remember it is not imperative for lilliana to be used at all during a game, she a proactive threat which makes her a better play (in my mind) than gatekeeper. Symetrical discard is good because invariably the spells they are pitching are worth more than the cards you are pitching, esp with a bob on the board.

I face a lot of everything really - fish, oath, tendrils, shops, dredge...you name it.  Against an open meta, I have found gatekeeper to be better at making 2-1 scenarios or adding to my clock.  Liliana lets them choose what to discard.  They can pitch their BSC stuck in hand, they can pitch something they want to weld in, they can pitch their golgari grave-troll instead of their missteps, they can pitch extra lands just like me.  For everything "worthless" in my hand, they run the same things.  If I include null rod, they have 10 cards they'd gladly pitch, whereas I don't have that much.  It's not like I'll be pitching extra swamps and they'll be chucking jace or FoW.  They have the same duds as me, and when they ARE pitching good things, I probably am too.  Pitching duress to get a raven's crime effect is not good.  I need to play my mana, not discard it.  When we both get into topdeck mode, they'll cast what they draw most times.
Also, most non-fish decks I face are running bobs, snapcasters, and draw spells.  So when my bob is giving me CA, their bob is doing the same, or their standstills, AKs, ancestrals, jaces are fueling their draws. If I'm commonly in a place where I have bob and liliana, and they don't have any way to draw cards, then I could be winning with a drudge skeleton.  I get that liliana will kill the opposing bob, but they still have draw spells, snapcasters, bolts, etc.  It's not so easy to just be the ONLY deck getting CA.

**edit - also liliana does nothing vs oath, esp GG.  They will win the turn they oath 9/10.  Dragon breath gives Emakrul the win before you activate, and griselbrand draws 14 before you get to do anything.

4) Here we differ, I have never found hymn to be what I want to be doing. As I have said, I prefer to play this deck when I expect allot of U decks and vs U decks I want to look at their hand T1 and decide their plays for them. Taking a specific card is worth much more than two random cards because with the duress effect you can channel your opponent down the decision trees you want them to make e.g. take ancestral and let them tinker when you have an edict effect/ taking a counter and let them keep x when you have combo in hand. If you wanted to stay at 12 discard spells I would think about running 4 Unmask rather than 2/2 with Hymn

Turn 1, you want to see their hand...but after that, hymn is not bad.  It's a nice play for BB when you have BB and no other plays.  Unmask is 2 cards to cast - hymn is just 2 mana.  I don't run so many worthless cards that I can be pitching to unmask all the time.  If they have a hand of 7 that they thought was worth keeping, and you duress their best 1 card - do you think they'll be happy with any 2 of their remaining 6 that they lose?  If they lose mana, they can be hosed for a long time.  If they keep mana, but lose their spells, they have a very weak hand now.  It seems the thought is they're pitching two cards of chaff randomly off hymn, yet losing one golden card when they get to choose off liliana?  I have found their 2 randomly discarded cards to at least pull one thing good and one thing meh.  When they get lower in cards in hand - like turn 2 when they've played out their land and moxen and now have 4 cards left...2 random can REALLY smash their hand.  Hymn also never whiffs.  Duress can find hands that only have critters/lands.  When we get into topdeck mode, hymn makes them lose whatever they have, whereas I could cast a duress/seize to find nothing.  Even worse is when I unmask and pull a 2 for 0 for fear of them topdecking the counter only to find they drew land.  Are their times when hymn wiffs? Sure - but their are times when unmask whiffs, and that's much worse.  Unmask is really only good on turn 1, and it is dead a lot when I'm holding swamp, chrome mox, and draw unmask while I'm at 2-3 mana in play.  It's also a 4cc flip to bob.

5) I just hate losing to a top deck. Have you tried your own Missteps? I was using them for a while and felt very good about it. Having more proactive answers in Needle, Rod, Liliana helps this problem also

I have tried misstep, and have found they are very poor at what you are trying to stop.  Have you ever died to a 1cc spell?  If I am losing to a topdeck, it's that they drew oath, jace, tinker, yawg will, golem, or something like that.  The only spells misstep is good at stopping is swords/repeal.  For that reason, they may be good in the sb when I know the opponent runs them.  For all the other times, when I am holding a pair of missteps instead of duresses and my opponent gets to their turn and drops oath that I could have pulled, it seems bad in the main.  It's okay for stopping lots of spells. But the chance that a 1cc spell is the one you need to stop is not worth losing the ability to pull any card via duress.  If I added 4 missteps, what would I be cutting?  2 unmask, 2 hymn?  Cause when I can unmask and ritual into hexmage/depths, I can pull their Fow...holding a misstep in that same scenario means they just FoWed my hexmage.  Discard > than narrow counters in most cases.  Again, maybe it's worth it in the sb though, when I know their answer cards are 1cc.

6) Yes you do, every deck has a card you don't want to see. If you can TS a golem or smokestack and extract it, your game just got sooo much easier. Vs Dredge you can take a dredger or Bridge and extract them, There is no dead matchups for extraction effects. I will say that running wastes makes extraction effects better as people are often splasing a colour of two duals and waste extraction can hold them off 5-10 cards unless they draw the mox they need. I prefer Surgical because of the synergy with the storm kill and the land duress extract plan.

The extra 1 mana of extirpate really seems worth it to be uncounterable vs blue decks.  Yes, I want to rip lodestones and such, but extirpate can do that too - even with an active welder on the table.  The speed flexibility of surgical is nice, but I REALLY want to pull snapcasters, plows, repeals, oaths, tendrils, etc - all from blue decks.  Hitting needles, revokers, golems, etc is nice, but extirpate still hits those too.  I think misstep was the tie breaker for me.  As soon as that got printed, it was everywhere.  I hate drawing extraction to hit that FoW they used on me, only to get misstepped.  I think they're both even in utility, but one is better than the other in a more U meta.

7) Null Rod works as a proactive answer because it shuts off at least 10 cards in your standard U deck (Lotus/Moxen/TV/Key/Sol/Crypt). It just cuts off so many strategic options (a common theme of my suggestions seems to be that work well with wastes) Yes its symmetrical but you are hurting them more. Also, they are not likely to keep in artifact dectruction g2/3 if they dont seem them main/ in G1.

Null rod does seem worth inclusion - maybe 2 main and 2 sb?  I don't really think the waste plan is worth it, because then I'm really playing a mana denial deck (which shops is just better at) rather than a disruptive combo deck that wins fast.  The null rod can do enough damage on its own though to be worth consideration.

So - sb seems to have some changes needed (and maybe some main slots)

Emissary, trinisphere, missteps, extractions, null rods - what to cut for these.
I REALLY miss the 3rd obliterator at times.  He's a huge threat.  mabe something else is better for necro?

**edit - what about bitterblossoms in the sb vs shops?

It seems I want about 30 sb cards now

[shrewarmies]

If you look back through this thread you can see that we used to runBB in the board but I personally dont think the meta is right fir it. BB was a house when the shop decks were trying to wire and stack youout of the game. it does have its uses but im not sure if its the best use of a SB slot or 3

[TheWhiteDragon]

So I made a couple changes - again.  The deck has a big variance from the older list, so I figured I'd just post the new list as opposed to editing the old list we discussed.

// Lands
    4  Bloodstained Mire
    4  Dark Depths
    2  Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
    8  Swamp

// Creatures
    4  Dark Confidant
    4  Vampire Hexmage
    2  Phyrexian Obliterator
    2  Hypnotic Specter

// Spells
    4  Duress
    1  Demonic Consultation
    1  Demonic Tutor
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    4  Dark Ritual
    1  Lotus Petal
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Mox Jet
    4  Thoughtseize
    3  Pithing Needle
    1  Yawgmoth's Will
    1  Liliana of the Veil
    2  Hymn to Tourach (1)
    2  Null Rod
    2  Bitterblossom
    1  Tendrils of Agony

// Sideboard
SB: 1  Phyrexian Obliterator
SB: 2  Null Rod
SB: 1  Bitterblossom
SB: 1  Gatekeeper of Malakir
SB: 1  Extirpate
SB: 1  Darkblast
SB: 3  Sadistic Sacrament
SB: 4  Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 [MPR] Damnation


So to note some major changes, the biggest driver of change was +2 null rod in the main and sb.  Too many decks run null rod and activated artifacts not to run these.  2 was enough to draw/tutor for when needed, but not so many that they were dead.  The other 2 found their way into the sb.  This made chrome mox even worse and not worth the speed boost for the times it was useless.  To compensate, I added another swamp and another urborg.  Cutting a depths for an urborg felt wrong, but keeping 4 depths and cutting chrome mox for the urborg #2 was fine. 

I trimmed 1 obliterator.  They are awesome, and I still don't know if 3 is bad.  But I added 2 bitterblossoms in place of the obliterator and hex parasite (very underwhelming on its own, and even worse with null rods).  They give me a big critter defense, a way around tangle wires, time against golems, and just have a big upside overall.  I cut the 2 unmasks, cause pitching niceties for the effect was never great.  Usually I could pay 1 off a ritual for duress/seize, then drop the bob/hexmage, or would D/S turn 1, then bob/hex turn 2.  The turn 1 of unmask was often not needed and hurt me just as badly with what I pitched.  After turn 1 it became a really expensive, bad thoughtseize that really hurt on bob flips.  Hymn was just nicer.  The random discard really can hurt opponents.  That said, I added 2 hypnotic specters in place of the 2 unmasks.  They are cheaper, evasive damage, and random discard every turn.  Landing 1 off a turn 1 ritual can really be trouble in the long run.  In tandem with all the discard effects, opponents lose their hand fast and random becomes even more harmful.  With that, I also added Liliana over gatekeeper.  Against fish, she's not as good, but with the reusable discard, she gets brutal joining forces with specters and discard spells.  Also, bitterblossoms and the increased critter density protects her vs fish, which was the main reason gatekeeper was used in the first place.  Now that I'm running null rods, and not pitching stuff to chrome mox/unmask, I have more things to pitch to her, so the +1 is actually useful.

Tendrils retained a spot because with bobs, fetches, seizes, vamp, and bitters, the life loss accumulates fast.  Even a tendrils for 6 can take needed life away from the opponent and make me live long enough to get lethal.  Yawg will actually was like a no-life necro.  With life getting eaten so much as is, necro just couldn't cut it for me.  It pinned me to the mat more than winning me games (not counting games I would have won otherwise).  Yawg will fueled tendrils and just got great CA in the midgame without paying life.  I guess it gets played for a reason .

The only other changes were the sb - and really I just added 2 null rod and 1 damnation in place of a gatekeeper.  I figure for 3cc, I could kill a critter and chump another weenie, or I could sweep the board when I'm overwhelmed for 4cc.  To remove hard to kill critters like BSC, I still have 1 gatekeeper to go with the 1 Liliana.  Not sure what to pull for missteps or if I even should given my heavy aggro plan B now.  With hippies and bitterblossoms, I care less about plows and repeals.  The 4 bob, 4 hexmage, 2 hippie, 3 blossom, 3 obliterator, 1 gatekeeper feel more than enough after SB to tackle fishy decks or play around their removal.  Against snap/jace decks running those same removals, again the aggro plan seems to give them fits more so than the 20/20 - and I still have the 20/20 as a plan B in that case.

Comments, suggestions, concerns?  I'd still like to jam the 30 sb cards into that 15 somehow, and may still be overlooking a key match somewhere.  Needle, btw, is just awesome in so many ways.

[shrewarmies]

This deck is looking more and more like a deck a friend used to play, ill see if I can find the list. If you keep going along the mono B fish route with a combo finish have you thought about withered wretch? Its another 2 cost 2/2 hate creature that can really mess with your opponents plays.

[xouman]

Why play 2 hippies instead 3-4? He's even better than confidant in lots of situations.

And playing so many creatures, I'd make space for thorns. Your non-creature spells are mostly cheap discard. And thorns give you time to gain CA with confidants and hippies, or just to assemble combo.

[shrewarmies]

Confidant is a killer in this deck. Give me a confidant over a hippy any day of the week.