Single Scoop: Mono Black Control (Standard, Magic Arena)
There have been a decent amount of mono black control decks running around in the Bo1 standard ladder and that definitely caught my eye. My list is culmination of all the lists sprinkled with singletons and pet cards. Here's the list I piloted through the video.
Gameplan
We're very much on the plan of removing everything that hits the board
If you've played Magic for awhile, you'll remember how old school mono black control played and this definitely channels that energy. Whatever the opponent plays, must be removed. Try to pinch out as much value as you can when it comes to using our sweepers and removal so we can survive long enough to enable our win conditions. What are our win conditions? We don't have cards like Corrupt but we have a card that everyone knows and loves ...
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is going to be one of our closers after we've exhausted our opponents of their threats. The only issue with this game plan is that we're so threat light that if an opponent saves a decent amount of removal, our Ugin may not survive more than a turn or two. The good news is that a ton of removal and things happen at sorcery speed so we turn to one of the cards I was excited for with Zendikar Rising spoilers! That's right, Crawling Barrens. This card has been one of my go-to win conditions in standard as it gets around so many removal spells. For example, you can keep pumping it until you feel safe against Heartless Act. So many Yorion decks struggle with the deck and for the most part, so do the other control decks. The best answer to this card is Eliminate and I haven't seen a ton of that card.
Conclusion
The deck yielded some solid results pushing me into the dreaded gold rank but we got there none the less! Last season was the first season I didn't hit Mythic so It booted me back to Silver. I do think this deck has legs to grind the ladder in standard as it seems solid against a decent amount of creature decks. I don't know if there's much the deck can do against things like Embercleave and The Great Henge outside of Ugin's -X ability. The deck really struggles against pure control and Yorion value but can definitely close out games on the back of Crawling Barrens so try to keep as many of those as you can without disrupting your manabase. Overall, the deck is something I would recommend for best of one as the strategies usually lean to the more aggressive side. Because a deck like this can exist is why I love the format that is Best of One so have fun!
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-Your Friendly Neighborhood PirateAvenger
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