11.01.01 - Silver Bullet

Quick Note: The decks that I am exploring for States are really the alternate decks that very few people are talking about. After all there are a million G/R Rocket Shoes decks right now and everyone knows about the Finkel based decks. I want to present the decks that you may not have seen or may only have seen a few times. These decks may not be “the best” deck but maybe you can find that one card that they are missing. Good luck.

I have always been a big fan of Black and I have found it a shame that fewer people are looking at Mono-Black decks for the new T2. The recursion was the first idea I threw into the feeding frenzy and this is another one called Silver Bullet based upon a deck by Richard Haslam.

This deck deserves a look since it is designed around a few simple realizations that have yet to sweep the Magic community. 1) Black has bombs but none of the bombs really justify running 4 in a deck, 2) Black now has decent search abilities thanks to Skeletal Scrying and Diabolic Tutor 3) These first two items actually have amazing synergy.

What this deck does is run a number of win conditions tucked behind a bunch of the big bombs (the big bombs are the Silver Bullets). Each game will be different as different cards come up, but when a Diabolic Tutor or one of the bombs hits your hand it’s pretty much game over. Here is the deck:

4 Phyrexian Rager

1 Phyrexian Gargantua

4 Duress

3 Addle

1 Skeletal Scrying

1 Haunting Echoes

1 Spreading Plague

1 Tsabo’s Decree

2 Yawgmoth’s Agenda

4 Innocent Blood

4 Befoul

 4 Corrupt

3 Diabolic Tutor

24 Swamp

3 Cabal Pit

Let’s look at the win conditions first since this deck has 3 different paths to victory. The first is the standard creature beat down. The Rager and Gargantua aren’t the best creatures to beat with, but their card drawing ability makes them more than playable in this deck. In fact it makes them perfect for this deck. Either one of these cards can fall in behind a Decree and really ruin your opponent’s day or be dropped into play and then get you the Decree. Second, this deck can win by recycling and recasting Corrupt. As always, the life gain off this spell is always good and it is a victory condition by itself but always remember that it can be creature removal at need. Last but not least, Haunting Echoes can really devastate some opponents and it provides a path to victory (deck depletion) against slower control decks once you are able to deal with their other victory paths.

This deck is very versatile and it also allows you to play with a diversified sideboard to help out against decks your were otherwise unprepared for. It does have problems in the early game but the discard effects help and with 27 lands this deck will normally put you at 5-6 land on turn 6. That means that you should be looking to cast almost anything in your deck by this point in the game and thus you can stabilize your position at least a few turns before most decks can kill you. The other benefit is that this deck is relatively cheap since most of the power cards only require 1 copy.

The other good news about this deck is that, in testing, as long as Rocket Shoes didn’t get an amazing start this deck was able to beat it better than 50/50 (Haunting Echoes can really cripple some of these decks and I don’t fear the Kavu). Control is harsh on this deck so beware and pack a sideboard that will leave you ready (if their control deck only packs a few creatures you should be fine). Anyway, Keep this deck in mind and as you move into the new T2 don’t forget the mono-colored decks!

Jason Chapman

chaps_man@hotmail.com