The Art of Mono Black Control

By Mikee Dalton

Hey hey magic ninjaz; this is my first article ever so pardon my lack of articlism (if that’s even a word he he). What I’m breaking it down today is the infamous Mono-Black Control dun dun dun! It's really fun if you haven’t played it before, last Friday was my first time playing so don’t feel dumb for not playing it. Any who, the Fresh One and I grabbed our decks, hopped in the Mazda, and drove to our local Wizards of the Coast. We got there early as usual so we can do some trading and whatnot. I felt really good about the deck i was playing with; here is the deck list for

Mono-Black-Ownage

Creatures-
4x 'Tuko Shade
4x Mesmeric Fiend
3x Shambling Swarm

Non-Creature Spells-
4x Corrupt
4x Addle
4x Duress
4x Chainer's Edict
3x Mutilate
3x Phyrexian Arena
2x Mind sludge
1x Planar Portal

Lands-
22x Swamp
2x Cabal Coffers

Sideboard-
4x Grave Consequences
4x Coffin Purge
4x Bereavement
3x Megrim

So there's the deck list for my deck, the Fresh One, the owner of this site, took the illest Psychatog deck ever. Its that damn good, couldn't beat me though.;) Now it's time for how the night went down.

Round 1: Precon - Some Jewish Guy

Ok now this was easy and all because the dude had a pre-constructed deck, saw him buy it and add giant growth to it. I was a little worried about the Phantom Centaurs in it, should have been rare huh Doug? I whooped him, no need to go into details because what did u expect, good player though, I’ll give him that.

Record 1-0

Round 2: White/Green Counter Creatures - Some Guy in a White Coat

Let me tell you how this one started out, He mulligan’d down to 3 :(. I said i was sorry but he said it didn’t matter; same thing went for game 2. Record 2-0

Round 3: R/G Beats - Alex

I'll break down this match up for you because it was a good round. Alex and I are cool with each other; however, he is hell bent on beating me because he hasn’t yet, lol. One of the good players at FNM, my hat off to you Alex. First game was just murder, he'd play a creature I'd edict and so on and what not, he started to get a good creature offensive down then i mutilated with 8 swamps and a coffer down and dropped a shade right after, and that’s game 1. Game 2, I side in megrim and he sides in the whole 'Board, I got kind of nervous but he was getting agitated about his hand and when he showed it to fellow magic buff Nelson then I knew it was crap because I saw the expression Nelson's face, plus I had 3 mutilate in my hand :) Alex felt it was an injustice and commented how his deck is going to the chopping block when he got home. Record 3-0

Round 4: U/G Wonder Dog - Trent

Ok, I am letting you know now, I HATE WONDER DOG! Playing it is a personal insult against me and u should be bum rushed by a pack of rabid mad dogs. Any who, I lost 0-2 because he had a response for everything i played. Record 3-1

Well, that was FNM that week. I took 4th and Doug took 3rd. Overall I think Mono-black Control is solid, fun, and a winner, and that’s my 2 cents about it.

-Maddog- 1