As we work our way around the color wheel, we next come to black. Black will always hold a special place in my heart because 1) I’m still a moody teenager at heart (you wouldn’t understand), and 2) it’s the iconic MTG color for my good friend Breymeyer and my brother James.
My brother taught me a lot about game theory and deck design back in the late ’90s. He understood the game far better than I did at the time, and helped me tune my decks to optimum efficiency. One of his favorite decks was a black disruption deck fueled by the busted beauty that is Necropotence.
He taught me that the best way to win a game is to not let your opponent play, and his deck did just that. On turn one, it comes out swinging with a Dark Ritual feeding into early hand destruction such as Hypnotic Specter or the one-two punch of Duress and Hymn to Tourach. Don’t have a Dark Ritual in your opening hand? Mulligan. Mulligan down to four cards if you have to. The important thing is that you hit your opponent like a freight train on turn one and they never recover.
But what if you run out of steam? Well, that’s where Necropotence comes in. Since your opponent won’t be doing anything to you, your life total is a meaningless number. But we can give it meaning by using it to draw more cards. My deck added Night’s Whisper as my near-basic card to increase the frequency of paying life for cards.
As a black disruption deck, this deck excels against combo decks, but can struggle against control. Stopping the initial assault on turn one with a Force of Will can absolutely devastate this deck. With that in mind, I built the sideboard to pivot into the raw aggro of suicide black. This version trades life for damage on the opponent, and can even pull off a turn-two kill with a one-drop, two Dark Rituals, and a Hatred.
Hombebrew Cycle – Gold Boons, Part 1
For this articles homebrew cycle, I’m reimagining one of the original cycles: the boons from Alpha. The original boons varied radically in power level from the abysmal Healing Salve to the perennial Giant Growth to the arguably overpowered Dark Ritual and Lightning Bolt and culminating in one of the most egregious affronts to game balance: Ancestral Recall. These boons seek to keep the spirit of the boons, but balance them as a common cycle.
I always like it when old card names become mechanics. The first one I can remember is Fear, and my favorite is probably Provoke. Here, we imagine that Scry was an old card whose ability got turned into a mechanic later on.
Thematically, this card replaces Ancestral Recall. Mechanically, it shares space with Ponder, Preordain, and Visions, but at instant speed and without the card draw.
Obviously, a one-mana black instant that discarded three cards would be too good. Here, we have a similar vein, but with better balance.
But is this card any good? Compared to Memory Sluice, it’s a little weak, but faster. Compared to Vision Charm, it lacks versatility but can still disrupt numerous tutoring effects. Seeing as its two-colored and instant, I think this card could see play in a dedicated mill deck or a spell deck.
I’ve said for years that Lightning Bolt is just too good. It’s not quite broken, but it is overpowered, leaving minimal design space for one-mana burn.
Accost here limits the burn to players and planeswalkers. The ability to hit dominating one-card combo engines I think is worth the price. It lacks the versatility of Shock, but with extra oomf and serves as a solid disruption spell for black against those darn walkers.
The closest thing on this list to an original boon. Giant Growth was an excellent card: affective, well-balanced, and versatile. And turns out, it fit perfectly in red when they gave us Brute Force.
I think this card is fitting and fair in either of its colors, and I don’t think having it be both breaks it. It’s good, but it’s not as powerful as Assault Strobe or Berserk.
Ah, Healing Salve. What a terrible card. There was a time in my career when Healing Salve was a solid combat trick, facilitating a disadvantageous trade and leading to dominant board position. The problem is, it wastes a card to keep a card with no other utility.
I was excited when they printed Healing Grace, and this is simply a variation on that theme. Effectively undoing 6 damage to yourself or a teammate ain’t nothing.