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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
