Mono Black Foundations Deck Tech | MTG Standard Review

It's TIME for the Way-Too-Early Mono Black Foundations Deck!

Explore the new Mono Black Midrange deck for Standard in our latest deck tech! Dive into card synergies, combos, and strategies for Magic: The Gathering.

Foundations has almost fully been spoiled, and I believe that it is safe to say that we are in for some fun times in Standard. There will be a lot support that is coming for many different archetypes, and they have made some evergreen cards available in the set that should help the format be very and healthy. There are some that I like, and some that I hate, so we can conclude that they likely made well-balanced decisions with their card choices. Wizards has also come out and stated that they have good consumer support for this set so far, and I fully believe that. Sadly, we will not be having early access for this set, so I will be dropping a lot of decks here in order to get my ideas officially published somewhere. For today, I made a new Mono Black Midrange Deck (like I do for each set) and I think this one is pretty sweet. We are going to be able to do our gain and drain combo for a long time in Standard, and it's about time I get started trying to find the best deck.

Total Cards:

You know what we are going for here. There are so many tools to resolve our combo, and we can even make a ton of vampires that have lifelink to get extra triggers off of tenacity. We are creating a good bit of ways to gain life in the deck without even having to splash for another color. We also have a sneaky way to add a bunch of mana with the vampire subtheme that we have in the deck. Even if some of our initial game plans don't pan out the way we want them to, we were fortunately able to include a ton of good midrange cards that grind well, and amass tons of value.

Relevant New Cards

Magic the Gathering Card - Bloodthirsty Conqueror - MTG Circle

I made an article earlier in the week about this card, and how it pairs with Enduring Tenacity. Well, now it's time to show you the deck that I have prepared for it. I think this card is also good on its own, as it has good stats as a 5/5 flyer with deathtouch. Even if we don't have tenacity out, this card doing combat damage and having its ability also effectively gives it lifelink. One of the most important things to note is that dealing damage causes loss of life, but causing loss of life does not deal damage. Understanding that ruling within MTG is vital to making these types of combos work. In this case, that ruling works in our favor, because combat damage effectively means lifelink.

Magic the Gathering Card - Exsanguinate - MTG Circle

This card is great. For the purpose of the deck, it is effectively a giant double Fireball. If this card is out with Enduring Tenacity, it can be an easy game ender. It's also a great mana sink late game. Right now we have three of them in the deck, but we will have to see how smoothly everything runs. It is on my watch list to have maybe one copy cut if the deck is not curving out properly, as you likely won't ever cast this spell for two mana.

Magic the Gathering Card - Midnight Snack - MTG Circle

This was one that immediately caught my eye. It is almost a baby version of the effect that we want, but it works so well as almost a combo within the combo - and it still plays well off of the combo itself. It basically allows us to deal double damage, and it generates food tokens which can help us with residual life gain when needed. Yes, we want to gain life with the deck for the combo, but it is also nice to just have a high life total and not have to worry about losing. This card can help out with that, so it not only allows us to work our combo better, but also buys us time when we are trying to assemble all of our pieces.

Extra Combo Pieces

We have some cards in previous sets that just play really nice together. They can generate us extra mana, extra value, or cause extra life loss. They're worth noting here, as they will help us with the grind.

Magic the Gathering Card - Bloodletter of Aclazotz - MTG Circle

This is a card in Standard that strikes fear into everyone who sits across from it. We know now that there are a few ways to end the game with other cards that are on the board while this is out, and Bloodletter will once again be a pivotal combo piece for the new way that we plan to do that.

Magic the Gathering Card - Preacher of the Schism - MTG Circle

This card still makes an argument for being the best three mana creature in black. It is incredibly strong, blocks well, and nobody wants to block it. It shouldn't matter too much if the card is making us lose life when we draw from it, because we will be gaining back plenty of that life. If we do happen to be behind on life, we will just start generating a ton of vampires, and that is where it can combo with another card to get us a ton of mana.

Magic the Gathering Card - Three Tree City - MTG Circle

Although I only have one of this card in the deck, I thought that it was worth mentioning as a combo piece with Preacher in the deck. We can use it to tap for extra mana if we have a bunch of vampires on the board, and almost use it as a Nykthos style effect to dump a ton of mana into Exsanguinate. This will allow us to maximize the value of that card, and ensure that we have extra mana left over if needed.

Magic the Gathering Card - Vein Ripper - MTG Circle

You know that I couldn't do the vampire package and leave out our favorite vampiric bomb. Vein Ripper captures the essence of the deck with his triggered ability, so I figured that it works pretty well if the effect is basically doubled, or if a creature simply dying could trigger the infinite combo in our deck. Since he does cost six mana, and the format is very fast at this time, I decided to only include two of him. This can also help be a finisher in the late game, and it can block a lot of powerful creatures. If the demon decks continue to be a thing, this guy can be our answer.

I hope this deck treats you well, and make sure to stay tuned for my next list! There are still tons of cards I plan to build around, and we still have some new cards that are yet to be seen! Cheers!

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I am a Magic The Gathering competitive player, and streamer. I specialize in homebrew decks. My favorite formats are: Standard, Pioneer (Explorer on Arena), and EDH. I first started playing MTG in 2001, and have played on and off since then.

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Explore the new Aetherdrift mechanics in Magic: The Gathering, rated for Limited and Constructed play. Discover which mechanics excel in Standard format.

Examining the Aetherdrift Mechanics, and Rating them for Limited or Constructed

Every time a new set comes out, there always seems to be a mechanic we are excited for, but maybe it doesn't pan out to be as powerful as we thought. Sometimes we think it will be good in constructed, and it ends up only being good in draft. There are other times when it is a sleeper, and we may have overlooked it when we were predicting what might be good. When we examine set design, sometimes we can also see the clear intent for the mechanics to be good in both the limited and constructed environments, and there are cards with power levels for each different environment. One might be watered down a bit to be more limited-friendly, and another might be that overpowered card that you need to be a bomb in constructed. There are a few ways to go about it, and we do what we can to identify which mechanics we should be mindful of in constructed, particularly in Standard, where the new cards affect the format more than other constructed formats. What we will do today is look at the mechanics that are prevalent with the new cards. There are some that are familiar mechanics, and I will still go over those. There are a couple of new ones that I think are quite interesting, and I have opinions on. Let's check out these mechanics, and give them some ratings! Exhaust You guys can tell that I am pretty excited about this one. The deck that I made for exhaust seems like it will run pretty smoothly. I believe that Exhaust is a mechanic that has cards that are intended for limited, and cards that are intended for constructed, and that the mechanic will be useful in both environments. One of the reasons that I believe it can be so good in draft is that you can almost consider the ability to act as another card later on in the game. You could have no cards in hand, but if you have two exhaust creatures, it is almost like you have two cards in hand that can make something happen. I'm excited for the mechanic, and I'm excited to draft the set and see if I can get a good bit of Exhaust cards going. I think it will be relevant in constructed because of the crazy value that you can get from some of the rares, and because there is one that allows for graveyard recursion.

Zombies are Coming back from the Dead with Aetherdrift

Whenever I see the word "Zombie" in a new set, I always like to revisit the archetype a bit in order to see if anything could be good. I decided to raise these zombies from the dead due to some cards that I saw from Aetherdrift, and I thought that we could at least make a deck that is fun, and who knows, it may be competitive too. We have received decent support lately with cards like Gisa, The Hellraiser. Although she isn't a zombie herself, she creates them every turn, and acts as a lord for them. Not to mention, the ward cost on her makes it so that she adequately fills out the top end of our list. She will help us immensely with swarming the board with skeletons, and efficiently rebuilding after board wipes. There are also going to be some ways to play our zombies from the graveyard, whether it be re-casting or embalming. Since we have the opportunity to raise our dead, we have to give it a shot. There is too much flavor that entices me. This will be my mono black list for the new set, as I think this is the best mono black deck to showcase as many new cards as possible. Any other mono black deck would likely just be adding one or two cards into an already good mono black deck, so I wanted to give you as much as I can with the new cards showcase. Without further ado, let's check out the deck! As you can see, we have plenty of lords in the deck. We are going to make these vanilla zombies huge, both to use as infinite blockers, and to have a threatening attack. We also brought back Unstoppable Slasher for some extra fun, and to guarantee that we have alternate win conditions when needed. In typical zombie fashion, we also don't mind getting rid of some of our creatures if it produces extra value for us. We can get rid of one of our zombies to deal with any problematic creature with Final Vengeance. I chose this over Eaten Alive because it allows us to sacrifice enchantments too, and there are some useful enchantments that support our zombies, so that could prove useful too. There are new cards in the deck, so let's take a look at those. Aetherdrift Zombie Support Cards

This Deck is Sure to be EXHAUSTING to Play Against

Gruul is an archetype that is usually reserved for the aggro decks in Standard. I'm sure that you guys have had enough of that, so I will spare you another Gruul Aggro list that you only play because the deck is good. We are trying something new with this one, and we are taking advantage of the Exhaust mechanic from the new set. It is something that remains to be seen if it is a constructed-playable mechanic, or something that is better suited for limited. I believe that I am pushing the limits of its capabilities here, and that we can do some pretty cool stuff with the deck. One thing that I am excited about is that the deck features a TON of new cards. It will be really difficult for anyone in Early Access to say that this deck didn't showcase any new cards - the creatures and vehicles are almost all exclusively new! We are looking to reduce the activated costs of abilities within the deck, and then get crazy value from it that overwhelms the board. If we play our cards right, we can do some activated abilities for next to nothing, and gain a strong advantage from it. We can possibly also have a Fireball finish if we play our cards right. This deck does a little bit of everything, and I am excited to try it out. Allow me to present to you: Gruul Exhaust! There are some staple cards that we include when we have activated abilities of creatures. One card that forces its way into the deck is Agatha's Soul Cauldron. It is too powerful not to include. We have a couple of ways to mill our cards, and the meta is pretty removal-heavy. We should have enough ways to get things into our graveyard, and if we don't we simply add one or two more Hedge Shredders to mill more cards. With the Exhaust ability, you sadly can only activate it once, BUT we are going to put multiple instances of said abilities on one creature, thus making it much more palatable. We also will reduce the cost of all exhaust abilities with one of the new cards to be shown later, and with Agatha of the Vile Cauldron. I was surprised to see this card - I did not know that it came out with the Soul Cauldron itself. We have seen the Cauldron so much, but we haven't seen a ton of the actual Agatha Creature. The deck has a few removal spells, but some of our vehicles also have a way to do direct damage, so we don't need to include as many as we normally would. We kept it pretty simple on the lands due to the demanding mana values in some of our cards, and because the deck is a little faster. There are multiple cards that have two pips of each of the colors represented, so we do not want to stall when it comes to having the right mana. Although I have a bunch of new cards from the set in this deck, I will showcase to you five of the ones I think are the most impactful. Relevant New Cards

These Aetherdrift Aristocrats are Racing to Victory!

We are coming to the end of spoiler season, and we are ramping up for early access for Aetherdrift. Almost all of the cards have been revealed, so Magic players are dashing to find the new deck that will work for them. This is an exciting time for creators as well, because it is our chance to make predictions on what the most impactful cards will be. We can straight up make a prediction, we can come out with a top 5 or 10, or we can theory craft new decks. I'm going to be dropping a few decks over the next couple of days that I think will be really fun to play in Standard, and that I will be playing in early access for Aetherdrift! Here is a look at the first deck I made that is an Orzhov Sacrifice Combo Deck! This new Orzhov Creation looks to take advantage of a lot of low-mana high-value creatures. We have multiple different sacrifice outlets, and a couple of different ways to interact with our graveyard. Most of the creatures are two mana value or lower, so we can even use a card from Foundations to bring them all back at once! We will draw a ton of cards, drain our opponent's life total, and have tons of blockers for the various aggro decks that we may come across. We can even punish the opponent for killing our creatures. The deck also features 23 lands due to the fact that our curve is pretty low, and we can operate pretty well with two or three mana. You might be wondering: "OK, so what is actually new about the deck?" We are looking to take advantage of the Start Your Engines mechanic that has been brought to us in this set. If you are unfamiliar with how that works, you can read my most recent article for a deep dive! For now, let's take a look at some relevant new cards from the set! Relevant New Cards

This New Mechanic in Aetherdrift WILL Have BIG Implications!

Aetherdrift is upon us, and everyone is ready for a refresh to the current Standard format. It's not particularly bad, but it could use a bit of a shake up. Foundations beefed up some of the archetypes that were already good, and it did so to the point that it is impossible to play a few matches in the format without seeing some type of Dimir. There are so many good different artchetypes of it currently that it is difficult to decide against playing it. Aetherdrift is bringing us a ton of vehicles, and it appears that this card type will force it's way into relevancy in the format. These new vehicles are announcing themselves with a little bit of flavor, however. There is a new mechanic that is coming to MTG that is called Start Your Engines. Initially, this mechanic didn't stand out to me too much. I had to take a bit of a deep dive into how it worked, and how to get to what is called "Max Speed" before I realized that we can do some broken stuff with this. Before I did my research, I went from thinking that it would be a draft-only mechanic, to thinking this might be the most powerful mechanic in the entire set. Let's take a look at how exactly Start Your Engines works, and then we will look over some examples of cards in Standard that should allow it to be ridiculous in all of the best ways. How Does Start Your Engines Work? This is an interesting one, and it fits in perfectly with the flavor of the set. We will have the Start Your Engines mechanic on a few of the cards, and it's ability instantly starts when the permanent enters the battlefield. If it is the FIRST Start Your Engines card played, it will instantly give you a Speed of 1. This is something that automatically happens as the permanent enters, and it is not a trigger that can be stifled, or fizzled by removing the permanent giving the Speed. Now, what I initially thought for this mechanic was that you got more speed by playing cards that had the Start Your Engines ability, but that isn't how it works, and I'm glad it's not that way. So how do we gain speed? In order to increase our speed past 1, we will have a trigger of an increase in speed once per our turn when an opponent loses life. What is pretty fun about this is that we do not need the permanent to stay on the board in order for the speed to increase. This means that the mechanic is comparable to The Ring Temps You from LOTR.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Recapping MTG in 2024

2024 was a huge year for MTG. It was a lot of things. Controversial, exciting, frustrating, promising, and refreshed. We saw some formats get ruined, then fixed, then ruined again. We saw some great changes to Standard that not everyone was fans of at first, but they seemed to quickly warm up to them. We saw Wizards effectively abandon a format in favor of propelling Standard into a more prominent position. We saw some great cards printed for Standard, and some promising things to come in the next year that were announced. Along with that, a fair amount of people were still bothered by the new trajectory of the format. Some are calling into question the longevity of MTG now with the heavy lean into Universes Beyond. A little bit of everything happened this year in the MTG world, and it was interesting if nothing else. On a personal level, it was also a hell of a year for me, as I took down two different events and grew a lot as a player. We are going to look at The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from this year! The Good I have to admit, I'm pretty excited that we have an infinite gain and drain combo in Standard right now. With Enduring Tenacity and Bloodthirsty Conqueror having made a lot of my dreams come true in my favorite format. Although the deck isn't the most viable in the format, it is incredibly fun to play, and I'm just happy that we had such exciting cards printed in the format. It leads to good card design going forward, and gives us promise for what's to come in the next year.

Examining the Aetherdrift Mechanics, and Rating them for Limited or Constructed