Mono-Black Mayhem

Hello, internet, my name is Blue, and today, we’re taking a look into an aggro deck I’ve been having a lot of success with lately. I took the inspiration from Pioneer with its mono-black aggro deck rampaging the format, and I wanted something similar in Standard. As many of you know, I don’t play aggro much but this one has something about it that I’m all for. As usual, before we begin, a friendly reminder to follow me on Twitter @TwoBlueUntapped and the site @MTGOracle to keep up with everything Magic. Let’s get started!

So the easiest way to look at this is to go up the curve. For starters, we have two different one-drops in Knight of the Ebon Legion and Gutterbones. The knight is too good not to play in an aggressive deck like this and Gutterbones helps the deck go long by being a repeatably recursive threat. In the two-drop spot, there’s a lot of options, but I like Yarok’s Fenlurker and Order of Midnight for different reasons. Order can get back our bigger threats to keep the pressure on our opponent while also serving as a threat itself and Fenlurker puts pressure on our opponent’s hand in conjunction with one of our three-drops that we’ll talk about in a minute.

Moving on to the three’s, we have several. As I mentioned earlier, Yarok’s Fenlurker has a friend with Drill Bit. It can be crippling curving Fenlurker into Drill Bit and a two-drop. A lot of decks in this meta have a hard time fighting it and it’s one of the only ways we can beat decks like Fires of Invention when backed up with a clock. Alongside Drill Bit, there’s Murderous Rider for removal, Midnight Reaper for card draw, and Ayara, First of Lochwain for a little bit extra reach and additional card draw. A neat interaction I discovered playing when you get into a bind is looping either two Midnight of Order’s with each other and an Ayara or Gutterbones and Ayara. Either one will allow you to continually draw cards and deal damage when you can’t get through a big board or something similar.

For the last of the main deck, we have two different four-drops and a five-drop. In the fours, Spawn of Mayhem is an incredibly powerful creature that, against many decks, needs to be answered immediately or it will run away with the game. Alongside it is Rankle, Master of Pranks. Similarly to Spawn, it is a must-kill flying threat that, if not answered, will lead to large damage output and massive value to surmount any advantage the opponent had. The landbase is fairly simple. A playset of Castle Lochwain and a bunch of swamps is all we need to keep up in today’s standard.

As for the sideboard, it’s pretty straightforward. Duress and the last Drill Bit for control, Leyline of the Void for the dreaded cat decks, some removal for aggro, and one copy of The Elderspell for superfriends. Here’s the full decklist to gawk at for anyone interested in playing it themselves. Clicking the image will take you to the full deck on MTGGoldfish.

So what do you guys think? Is there anything I missed that should be considered for the deck or is this good? I’ve been doing very well with it so far and I couldn’t be happier but I’ll definitely listen to suggestions. My biggest concern for the deck may very well be against Cat-Oven combo since we can’t interact with the oven, so there’s only one angle of attack; fight the graveyard and keep the pressure on their life total. Well anyway, that’s gonna be it from me for today. Before I head out, one more reminder to follow us on Twitter @MTGOracle and myself @TwoBlueUtaapped for everything Magic. This is Blue, signing out!