If you love the long game and watching your opponent slowly run out of options, this one's for you. MonoBlack Control is back in Standard, and it's packing everything you'd expect—clean removal, brutal hand disruption, and a few game-ending bombs. Let's take a closer look at what makes it tick.
Mono-Black Control Standard Deck Overview
Best Card Choices for Mono Black Control in Standard
As you'd expect from a mono-black control deck, this build focuses on dismantling your opponent's hand and board while steadily grinding out value until your win conditions take over. Let's break down the key cards that make this strategy one of the best Standard meta decks right now.
The Creatures
Our early game kicks off with Deep-Cavern Bat, and it pulls double duty right away. It's cheap, it flies, it has lifelink—and when it enters the battlefield, you even get to peek at your opponent's hand and temporarily exile one of their nonland cards. That's a ton of value packed into a small body and perfect for throwing off their early plans.
As the game moves forward, Preacher of the Schism steps in as a real problem for your opponent. It's got deathtouch, which makes it tough to block, and depending on life totals, it either draws you a card or gives you a lifelinking Vampire token. Either way, you're coming out ahead every time it attacks. Then we get to Archfiend of the Dross, which is just a monster—literally. It's a 6/6 flyer that drains your opponent every time one of their creatures dies. There's a bit of risk involved with its oil counters (if they run out, you lose the game), but its power and pressure make it worth the gamble.
Now, if you like drawing cards, you're going to love The Speed Demon. It's another big flyer, this one with trample and a unique "speed" mechanic that builds up as your opponent takes damage. At the end of each of your turns, you draw cards and lose life equal to your speed. It's risky, but when it's working, it's drawing you into your win.
Qarsi Revenant is sneaky good too. It's a 3/3 with flying, deathtouch, and lifelink, which already makes it solid in combat. But later in the game, you can exile it from your graveyard to pass those keywords onto another creature. That kind of utility is amazing in grindy matches.
And finally, there's Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. You probably already know how scary she is—any time you draw, you gain life. Every time your opponent draws, they lose life. She doesn't just dominate the board—she warps the whole game around her.
Removal and Disruption
One of the biggest reasons to play mono-black is how well it handles threats, and this list doesn't disappoint. Go for the Throat is still a clean answer to almost anything that's not an artifact. Cut Down is perfect for cleaning up small creatures early without spending a bunch of mana.
Anoint with Affliction is great too—it exiles creatures with mana value 3 or less, and once your opponent has three poison counters, it becomes a lot more flexible. Whether you're just clearing blockers or shutting down recursive threats, it does the job.
Sheoldred's Edict really shines in this deck. It gets around hexproof and indestructible by making your opponent sacrifice, and you even get to choose whether you're targeting tokens, nontokens, or planeswalkers. That kind of flexibility is gold in today's Standard.
Then there's Duress, which is still one of the best turn-one plays against control or combo. It gives you a peek at their hand and strips out whatever card you're most afraid of before it becomes a problem.
And when you're ready to close things out or reset the board, Gix's Command gives you options. You can pump a creature, wipe small threats, reanimate a couple creatures, or force some big sacrifices. Being able to choose two modes makes it a total game-changer when timed right.
Utility and Support
Even outside of your creatures and removal, this deck has some great support pieces that help it grind or finish the game in style.
Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber also brings a lot to the table. On its front side, you're drawing a card every end step, which is already solid, but if you've got a Demon, you'll also gain and drain for two life. Later, when you unlock the Ritual Chamber, you get a 6/6 flying Demon that can take over the board fast.
The Lands
Now let's talk about the mana base, because this deck runs a few lands that bring way more to the table than just tapping for mana. Soulstone Sanctuary pulls double duty—early on, it's a reliable colorless source, but later it transforms into a vigilant 3/3 with all creature types. That makes it a great mana sink in grindy games and a surprise threat your opponent might overlook.
Amonkhet Raceway slots in perfectly if you're leaning into the “speed” mechanic. Not only does it provide mana, but once your speed is maxed out, you can tap it to give one of your creatures haste. That's a sneaky way to enable big swing turns, especially when you're dropping heavy hitters like The Speed Demon.
Finally, Fountainport acts as your late-game value engine. It starts off as a normal land, but with some investment, it lets you draw cards, create Fish tokens, or make Treasures. It's not ideal for early curve-outs, but if the game drags on, Fountainport gives you a ton of options and incremental advantages.
Standard Mono Black Control Strategy
This Mono Black Standard deck plays the long game by combining early disruption, efficient removal, and powerful threats that snowball advantage. The core idea is to control the board in the early turns with cards like Cut Down and Duress, then gradually apply pressure with evasive or hard-to-answer threats like Deep-Cavern Bat and Preacher of the Schism. Once you reach the mid-to-late game, you're looking to land a finisher like Archfiend of the Dross or Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, which can close out the game in just a few turns if left unanswered. You also have access to flexible sweepers and value engines like Gix's Command to help you recover or push ahead. It's a grindy, attrition-based game plan that thrives on out-valuing opponents and shutting down their key plays before they become a problem.
Standard Mono Black Control Sideboard
Mono-Black Control's sideboard is packed with flexible tools that let you tune your game plan against nearly every deck in the Standard metagame.
When it comes to removal, you've got Anoint with Affliction, Blot Out, Sheoldred's Edict, and Gix's Command. These cards give you ways to answer everything from cheap aggro creatures to hard-to-interact-with threats. Anoint is cheap and exiles, Blot Out gets around hexproof and indestructible, Sheoldred's Edict clears walkers or lone bombs without targeting, and Gix's Command acts as a mini-sweeper with some bonus modes for recursion or reach.
For hand disruption and surgical hate, Dreams of Steel and Oil and The Stone Brain are your go-to picks. Dreams gives you early insight into your opponent's hand and lets you remove a key creature or artifact before it can impact the game, which is especially helpful against combo or Enchantress builds. The Stone Brain goes even deeper, exiling win conditions or combo pieces entirely. It's a must-have against narrow strategies like Atraxa Reanimator or Omniscience Combo, where taking out a single piece can collapse the whole plan.
Graveyard-focused decks are on the rise, and Ghost Vacuum gives you a nice bit of targeted hate without being too narrow. It disrupts recursion engines, slows down reanimator strategies, and can even be relevant against value-driven graveyard decks. It's cheap, flexible, and doesn't hurt your own graveyard play.
When you're expecting grindy matchups or slower decks, Preacher of the Schism, Liliana of the Veil, and The Speed Demon give you alternative lines of play. Preacher can snowball value with card draw or extra blockers, especially in matchups light on removal. Liliana shines in midrange mirrors and against decks relying on a single creature or stockpiled cards. And Speed Demon adds pressure while synergizing well with lifegain effects from cards like Sheoldred, letting you keep up in drawn-out games.
Lastly, The Filigree Sylex fills a critical role as a board wipe that deals with swarms of small threats and low-cost permanents. It's an ideal tool against token decks, aggressive swarms, or even enchantment-heavy lists. Its ability to hit multiple types of permanents makes it one of the more versatile cards in the board.
Thanks for reading!
