MH3 Fully Released: Discover the Best Mono Black Deck!

MH3 Is Fully Released - So Let's Check Out the Best Mono Black Deck!

Explore the top Mono Black deck in the new Modern Horizons 3 (MH3) set. Uncover strategies, card choices, and gameplay tips to dominate your matches.

MH3 is fresh and new, and really seems to be shaking up the meta in the Modern Format. We are seeing different decks win challenges each day, and we haven't come to a consensus on the "best" deck yet. I was personally very excited to see that a mono black deck had already won one of the challenges. It is already well-known that scamming Grief is one of the most powerful things to do in modern, and this deck is able to do that, plus a lot more. It went 9-1 in the Modern Challenge on June 16th, taking 1st place. Today we will take a look at the deck itself, and see if we think it will hold up after the meta is settled. Also, you might be wondering, "when will the meta actually settle?" Well, we have a Pro Tour that both drafts MH3, and plays modern in the constructed portion of the event coming up next weekend. This should allow us to get a pretty good idea of what the best decks are, and what cards we need to use to deal with the meta.

Total Cards:

This deck is riding the wave of opting to use a ton of the MDFC lands so that it has extra cards to evoke with Grief. It is really useful, and makes sure that we can get value at all times, even if we are flooding. It also helps that a lot of the spells that have a land on the other side fit pretty well into the deck. This deck also has ways of generating extra mana, in addition to drawing tons of cards with the new Necrodominance Enchantment. This is supposed to be the fixed version of necropotence, so let's wait and see if this card gets banned too. I know that I'm waiting patiently for a ban before I spend any money on them. Anyhow, let's take a look at some of the key cards.

New MH3 Cards

Magic the Gathering Card - Sorin of House Markov - MTG Circle

The new Sorin is surprisngly good in a few different ways. He rewards us for gaining life, and turns into a pretty efficient planeswalker that can either help us gain more life, remove creatures, or he can even steal a creature. It helps the deck to ensure that it almost always gets off to a pretty quick start, even if we aren't able to scam Grief on turn one. It also helps that he triggers fatal push, and that he is a pretty good blocker since he has 4 toughness. At two mana, it's hard to think of a ton of creatures we would rather play in his spot.

Magic the Gathering Card - Flare of Malice - MTG Circle

All of the new Flare cards are pretty sweet, and they allow for some unique interaction since they can be cast at instant speed for no mana. It is especially useful in paper, considering that people always have to worry about a response, even if the opponent is tapped out. It makes it that much easier to bluff something. We have a decent amount of cheap creatures in this deck, so it is easy for us to sacrifice something small in order to force our opponent to sacrifice their biggest threat.

Magic the Gathering Card - Necrodominance - MTG Circle

Ok, I can't make you wait any more. Let's talk about the new most broken enchantment in this set. The best way to take advantage of this card and not actually feel anything from the draw back is to play so many spells in the first two turns that we aren't ever worried about having more than five cards in hand, and in turn we arent affected by the drawback. We can draw tons of cards with it while Sheoldred is on the board, and consstantly turn it into a net positive. The deck doesn't interact much with our graveyard, so we aren't worried about stuff being put there as we go. This sets it up where our ideal start is to scam Grief on turn one, play Sorin on turn 2, play Necrodominance on turn 3, and then turn 4 we get out Sheoldred and basically win the game after that if they don't have answers.

Other Staples in the Format that Make the Deck Work

Magic the Gathering Card - Dauthi Voidwalker - MTG Circle

I think it is still up in the air how many of Dauthi each deck wants to run. I have seen some lists run four, and of course this list only uses one. I think we are still waiting for the meta to sort itself out a bit to determine exactly how many we need. It could also be the case that we want extra in our sideboard. It's also important to note that until everything settles down with the Eldrazi Creatures, this card can generate us some incredible value, as it allows us to cast them for free.

Magic the Gathering Card - Grief - MTG Circle

We have learned that pretty much all of the elementals will deliver great value to the game just from hitting the board. Grief is no exception to that, and might be the best example. It allows us to get a pretty powerful creature onto the board on turn one, and not even lose life for effectively using a creature ETB effect as a Thoughtseize. We then use cards like Not Dead After All and Malakir Rebirth to blink it, and then we get the ETB effect twice. We may go down a few cards to do this, but we are taking away up to two key combo pieces in our opponent's hand on turn one, and disrupting anything that they could have going on. Like I said earlier, we aren't too worried about going down on cards, because we are simply going to draw a ton more with Necrodominance.

Magic the Gathering Card - Sheoldred, the Apocalypse - MTG Circle

Our queen is a staple in yet another format, and we will use her to make sure that we never lose life with Necrodominance. She is the final piece to our value engine that can effectively lock out our opponent. The main things we have to watch out for is the opponent having a Sheoldred, or if they have Orcish Bowmasters. Thankfully, we also run four of those, so we do have efficient removal for theirs if it happens.

It will be interesting to see if a deck like this can hold up after the pro tour, because it seems like a ton of fun to play.

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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 top-tier Demon deck in MTG's Standard format with new cards from Foundations. Optimize your strategy for competitive play in Best of 3 matches.

This Deck is on DEMON TIME

We went into Foundations knowing that the demon deck was a top archetype in Standard, and even in Pioneer, but the question still remained: with new cards coming, would it still be good? And if it's still good, what could we do to make it better? Foundations gives us some key cards that almost appear to be made for the deck, and we won't scoff at that. The set is made to be a basis for many different archetypes, so it was nice that we got some decent demons with our core set. Something we'll have to worry about going forward is all of the other decks that will be popping up. We will be vigilant about our sideboard choices and stay prepared to make the changes that are needed. We do have some cards in the sideboard from the new set, so let's take a look at the deck itself that will show us main deck and sideboard additions from Foundations. We are following the previous demon archetype, but now we are able to be a little bit more well-rounded, and we have cut down on some of the cost by building the deck in paper. One could also argue that the deck has a better mana curve, as the previous version ran 10 four drops. Since we took out two copies of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, that lowers the cost of the deck by about $150 USD. While some argue that we have taken out one of the best cards in the format, we are also helping the deck stay more true to its goal, while making it more accessible to newer players.

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

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

This New Rakdos Reanimator Deck Will Give You FOMO!

Dusmourn gave us some new bombs to reanimate in one of our favorite archetypes. There are good options that are both legendary and non-legendary. One thing that people don't always think about is: How can we creatures into the graveyard? How can we get them out of our hand when we accidentally draw them? There are a few cards that came out that can solve both problems for us. We also get to use a familiar friend from Bloomburrow as another discard outlet, and, in doing so, we are able to cast spells for free! You can probably guess who the new reanimation target is, as we are using Rakdos Joins Up to bring back our favorite legendary creatures. If that wasn't enough action, we also got another easter egg from the set in the form of a one mana creature that allows us to reanimate anything for four mana. This deck is sure to have some very high power level turns and will be incredibly explosive if left unchecked. Let's get into the cards! As you can see, the deck is actually capable of playing a bit of a midrange game and has other combos available outside of simple reanimation. There will be times where we have two combat steps and cast two cards for free, or maybe we simply attack with an Atraxa twice for 14 damage. Some of the new cards from Duskmourn allow this to be more than a reanimator deck, and demand respect from the opponent as such. Relevant New Cards

Recapping The World Championship in Vegas!

Magic Con Vegas is over, and we are all awaiting the exciting things to come for the MTG world in the rest of the year. We have exciting news, new cards coming out, and some fundamental changes to how formats will look going forward. Setting all that aside, we had some of the most exciting magic that has been played in a long time. Javier Dominguez was able to take down the competition and win his second world championship. There were a lot of interesting decks, and there were a few cards that seriously stuck out as all-stars. What was most interesting to see was that a lot of the different archetypes within color combinations stood out. There were multiple different Dimir decks, and there were also multiple different Golgari decks. What I will examine today is the deck that won it all. I usually pick my favorite deck from the top 8, and this ended up being my favorite because I believe that it brings the most spice. The innovation that it has ended up actually bringing an extra win condition that helped Javier get to the finals, and we will go over that shortly. There were a few different lists that were labeled as Dimir Demons, and I believe that all of them were good. There were other lists that may have been arguably more consistent, but Javier's strong play and a little bit of luck set him apart from everyone else. There is a mill combo built into the deck that I think is not only some serious spice, but also allows him to be able to play the midrange game and buy time in order to find answers, all while drawing extra cards and making strong demons that demand answers. The win conditions are pretty straightforward in the deck. We are either flying over the top of our opponents with demons that demand to be answered, or we are using the demons to mill out our opponent. In the process, we are also drawing a ton of cards with the annex and cards like Faerie Mastermind. Relevant Cards in the Deck

This Beloved Combo is BACK with Foundations!

We went into the weekend still feeling a bit ambivalent regarding what Foundations would bring to the standard format, and I think now it is safe to say that even if you might not be excited about what you see, you at least are leaning one way regarding good or bad for the new cards coming in the set. From the excitement I conveyed in the title, it is pretty easy to conclude that I am officially excited for this new set. We are going to get back an infinite combo that will be Standard Legal that reminds me of my initial learning days in MTG, and the mechanic that made me fall in love with the game. We are going to be getting a life drain combo, and it is more efficient, and more valuable than before. We used to have to rely on two five mana enchantments to do this, but now we can curve into it, and the abilities for both pieces of the combo are also on creatures, thus giving us additional value for our mana spent to assemble the puzzle. The combo has not been legal in standard for some time, and one of the cards was historically pretty expensive. It was something that people were pretty excited to cast in other formats, and always creates a fun time. OK, let me stop gushing over it - The combo that we used to do about ten years ago was Exquisite Blood, and Sanguine Bond. It creates an infinite loop where if an opponent either loses life, or if we gain life, we win the game. There obviously are tons of ways to do this, and it even can be done in combat. Even playing a land can set this off. It used to be somewhat of a clunky combo, and now it is much more efficient, and is assembled on curve. Let's take a look at the combo itself, and some other cards from Foundations that I think can help support it, and overall that I'm excited for whether they fit into the deck or not. New Cards that Assemble the Infinite Combo We have played with this card at least a little bit, and we know that it is one of the new fun enchantment creatures from Duskmourn. It gives us the effect that cards like Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, and Sanguine Bond used to give us. Although it does cost one more mana than Vito, it is much more difficult to remove, and I believe the stickiness of the card makes it that much more playable. There are ways to win with just this card alone, as there are still a decent number of life gain options in Standard, and other formats. Now we are going to do the infinite loop for it, and it will be legal in Standard until at least 2027!

Going Over the New Products From Foundations

We still have a lot of ambiguity on what all next month's Foundation Set release will entail. Will we have a bunch of staple cards? Will we have the staple cards and some new prints that breathe life into the format? It kind of remains to be seen, and as we approach the spoiler portion of the release, we are simply left to speculate. Some things we are starting to see, however, are the multiple different product offerings from Wizards for this release. The overall intention of the set is to allow for new players to buy as little as one product, and be able to start playing Magic. We have seen starter and challenger decks before, but Foundations appears to be not only doubling down on that option, but taking it a step further. We will look at the different products that will be coming out, for whom they are designed, and I will give my own opinion if they are worth buying, or maybe what type of Magic player might enjoy said product. I have to start by saying that I appreciate the way this is being done. They are making it incredibly easy for a new player to get into the game. Other TCGs are doing this as well, as they are all trying to get new players these days. I like that there is a clear and simplified way for a new player to learn, and that they are able to start with some basic principles before diving into the complex game that we know. New Products Hitting the Shelves The first Foundations product that is worth noting is something that will truly be for beginners. It is the Beginner Box. It appears to be going for around $30-$35 USD and is designed for someone who has never played MTG before. It is intended that you can pick up that box, learn from the beginner guide, rulebook, and the two 20 -card starter decks, and play with a friend right out of the box. It comes with playmats, life counters, and everything else needed to play Magic. Once you feel that you have an idea of how to play, they also have some Jumpstart decks - Eight of them to be exact. They are similar to the theme packs that you could purchase previously, and if you put two of them together, it could make a deck. Since they are preconstructed, I believe that the cards likely won't differ, but it should still give some exciting gameplay. While clearly intended for beginners, it could also be nice for the more seasoned player who is trying to teach someone else how to play, but may not have incredibly simplified decks like some of these are. The mechanics these days can be overwhelming, so starting with a more vanilla deck can be helpful when learning. I'm already thinking of getting this for friends of mine who want to learn how to play.

This Deck is on DEMON TIME