Battle for Zendikar Brews, pt. 6 – Monoblack Aggro

Long time readers (if we have such) have probably noticed my tendency to go this way. I just like the disruptive aggro archetype. The problem, of course, is the loss of [scryfall]Thoughtseize[/scryfall], as well as several good aggressive creatures which made this archetype playable, but I think this little beaut holds some possibilities:

dranaliberatorofmalakir

(What happened to her? Why did a 4/4 become a 2/3?)

Otherwise are options aren’t very good. We do still have [scryfall]Bloodsoaked Champion[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Mardu Shadowspear[/scryfall] as one-drops, but that’s probably not enough. We do still have [scryfall]Duress[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Despise[/scryfall], but they can’t really hold up against [scryfall]Thoughtseize[/scryfall].

Another major problem is the lack of removal. Last time I played this archetype seriously I used [scryfall]Crippling Blight[/scryfall], but that’s rotating out and it isn’t very good against lifelinking creatures anyhow.

[deck]
[creatures]
4 Drana, Liberator of Malakir
4 Bloodsoaked Champion
4 Mardu Shadowspear
4 Blood-Chin Rager
4 Despoiler of Souls
4 Mardu Skullhunter
3 Mardu Strike Leader
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
[/creatures]
[spells]
4 Duress
2 Despise
3 Murderous Cut
2 Rakshasa’s Secret
[/spells]
[lands]
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
13 Swamp
[/lands]
[/deck]

I hope there’s some good aggressive Vampires in the set in the vein of [scryfall]Vampire Lacerator[/scryfall], but I feel going BR is going to be better.

10 thoughts on “Battle for Zendikar Brews, pt. 6 – Monoblack Aggro

  1. [card]Ruinous Path[/card] seems like a necessary evil rather than a good card for this kind of deck. I guess the state of design is such at the moment that black has to pay three for a really usable effect, but I’d rather try to work something else out.

  2. I’m curious as to what you come up with as I’m hoping to get into modern black aggro post Zendikar. I’ll be watching carefully

    • Seems to me, sadly, that this isn’t going to be a very playable archetype, but I’ll have to see where the meta goes before saying anything. The set seems very hard to ascertain, so you never know. Doesn’t seem like there’s enough really efficient disruption available. [card]Transgress the Mind[/card] might work out, but it might also be too slow at 1B.

      • That’s sad to hear, I’m very new to Magic and this deck was very cheap to build. If you moved to UR, would it keep any semblance of its current shape or would everything change?

        • I wrote about my views on that here: https://blog.guildredemund.net/2015/09/18/battle-for-zendikar-brews-pt-8-rakdos-aggro/ (Rakdos being the BR guild from Ravnica, if you are indeed new to the game). I think its going to be a lot more playable, but also a lot more expensive to build. (On the other hand, I doubt the price of fetches will ever come down, so you can think of those as investments.)

          You should also note that I’m more of a brewer than actual deck designer, who put a lot of hours into fine tuning decks to find those perfect 75 card lists. I just jot down ideas, albeit with a lot of experience with a lot of decks.

          • Thanks for all of these replies, I’ll take a look after work.

            I see, still seems very interesting and a nice guide to at least go off.

            Thank you

  3. Pingback: My Battle for Zendikar Brews in Popularity Order | Guild Blog

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