Where's the Potence???

[GandoTheBard]

Monoblack Pain Drain Deck List
Tendrils of Corruption x4
Soul Feast x4
Morsel Theft x2
Korlash, Heir to Blackblade x4
Nightmare x2
Kokusho, the Evening Star x4
Bitterblossom x4
Beacon of Unrest x4
Demonic Tutor x1
Expunge x2
Damnation x3
Hymn to Tourach x2
Mox Jet x1
Terramorphic Expanse x4
Swamp x17
(total =61 because I wanted the extra swamp in there )

(Note the lack of disks in this deck) The point of this deck is to rival the mono red damage deck by creating a huge gap in life totals via life drain effects.Korlash feeds the Tendrils so there are 4. Kokusho lends himself to player destruction, Bitterblossom is paid for by the drains and gives you soldiers. Nightmare enjoys the swamps of Korlash's Grandeur. The rest should be self explainitory. Must test this against all the vise varients to see how it stands up.

[Mr.Chaos]

Gando, you spoil us with all these decks.
I will try this one later, it looks like a mean deck.
However, I am a bit busy here, so my playreports may have to wait until the weekend.
No drain? No pain!

[Mr.Chaos]

Played a few games with and against it.
Against creature decks, it is a mean deck.
But against the new powercard (Black vise of course!) it is a total wash out.
I fear that black vise has single handedly changed the way we (have to) play MGT Forge.
All decks that worked well so far have a real problem against mono blue Vice.
And since the ai seems to get Black Vise a lot in random deck plays, you have to prepare your decks for that card.
The only thing slowing ai + Black Vise down is the limited iteligence and its inability to play Counterspell and the like.

In my match with this deck against a black/blue random deck, the ai gave me a scare when it cast Control Magic on my Korlash, Heir to Blackblade after I discarded another for 2 swamps.
The only thing saving me was the fact that the ai had just 2 swamps out, against my 6. Next turn I used Tendrils of Corruption and the turn after that Beacon of Unrest to set things straight and hammer home for the win in 4 more turns. (got blocked twice, had to resort to a Soul Feast to keep the pressure on)

Oh, just realised I have yet to import my elf decks into the new beta. Will do tomorrow and try them against this pain/drain deck.
Man, that almost feels like working in the weekend!

[GandoTheBard]

Hmmm I never lost a game playing this deck against any of the vise decks. Though I will say if you dont get to 5 mana with this deck against the vise decks you might end up clogged in hand and unable to break the vise grip. Bitterblossom is a double edged tool. You need to play it early and often and use those tokens to maximum advantage. The Soul Feasts and Tendrils etc are your guarantee you wont die too quickly. Unless your opponent gets their god draw and you get a little screwed.

[GandoTheBard]

So I said that and then this morning I played it against the Red Vise deck I made and ouch
me: land
ai: mox land vise vise
me: land Bitterblossom (14-20)
ai: land ball lightning (8-20)
me: (3-20) no land.
ai: bolt.

Next game I won but the third game the AI and I got the same draws as our first hands. so 1-2...I see what you mean...
It hurts when the Red Vise deck gets a god draw. Particularly when your own draw is subpar. So I played again and again..2 matches more and it got great hands to my lousy hands...I started to wonder if the shuffler is designed to punish the player...this deck absolutely must get to 5 lands (for feasts) though Tendrils help stall quite well if your opponent plays creatures. So probably the mana needs fixing or the curve does at anyrate.

So...I altered the deck slightly taking out the pain draw and added Zuberas which suck but at 2 mana vs 3 come in as blockers with a drawback to opponent and theoretically late game they can add to the punishment of a damnation with Kokusho. I expect they will be good against a variety of creature decks too slowing the aggro beats.