Maybe Fateful Cruise? I don’t know. Its black, with a splash of blue.
I think I’m trying to go for something reminiscent of the Black Devotion decks running rampant during the last Standard format, but since that deck lost most of its tools ([scryfall]Pack Rat[/scryfall], [scryfall]Underworld Connections[/scryfall], [scryfall]Mutavault[/scryfall], [scryfall]Desecration Demon[/scryfall], and of course, all the cheap removal), we are going to have to find different ways to find edges with this deck.
[DECK]
[creatures]
4 Agent of the Fates
1 Doomwake Giant
3 Indulgent Tormentor
4 Herald of Torment
2 Nighthowler
4 Pain Seer
[/creatures]
[spells]
2 Boon of Erebos
4 Hero’s Downfall
1 Liliana Vess
2 Silence the Believers
4 Thoughtseize
4 Treasure Cruise
[/spells]
[lands]
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
11 Swamp
4 Temple of Deceit
[/lands]
[/DECK]
Sure, it doesn’t have those tools, but we have bunch of other things to leverage advantage from. Its mostly one for one, but there’s enough ways to get ahead in cards and board presence.
[scryfall]Pain Seer[/scryfall] is probably a poor choice, because there are so many good blockers it can’t get through. [scryfall]Courser of Kruphix[/scryfall] is probably the main problem, but [scryfall]Fleecemane Lion[/scryfall] can be a problem as well. On the other hand, when it works, it works. Its not quite [scryfall]Dark Confidant[/scryfall] (actually not even close), but its still good. Probably not as good as I’d hope, but I don’t know what to replace them with.
[scryfall]Agent of the Fates[/scryfall] could probably be quite strong in the right environment. However, when there’s plenty of [scryfall]Elvish Mystic[/scryfall]s around, it won’t be quite as good as it could be. Still, we have them. At least they can attack through just about anything. For a time at least.
We have eight ways to trigger it right now. Not sure about those either. [scryfall]Herald of Torment[/scryfall] is excellent, but [scryfall]End Hostilities[/scryfall] makes it worse than it was before. It can both trigger the Agent and facilitates triggering [scryfall]Pain Seer[/scryfall], so it definitely has a place in the deck as a full set. [scryfall]Nighthowler[/scryfall]s aren’t a full set. This is mostly because I don’t pack that many creatures myself, so its usually going to be pretty small. [scryfall]Boon of Erebos[/scryfall] on the other hand is very different. Its pretty easy two for one in many cases. I just have to keep in mind that getting that two for one is going to be pretty hard, because I can’t attack or block a creature and then use the Boon, because the oppponent will simply sacrifice the blocking or blocked creature.
[scryfall]Indulgent Tormentor[/scryfall] is very speculative. Its problematic due to how much [scryfall]Lightning Strike[/scryfall] is played, but “dies to removal” is pretty common drawback for creatures. However, for a five-drop, he’s pretty fragile. The upside is pretty good and can really help.
The one-of [scryfall]Doomwake Giant[/scryfall] is highly speculative as well. There’s six other enchantments, so it has potential. You know, synergy.
In the spell front, we have some obvious ones in [scryfall]Thoughtseize[/scryfall]s and [scryfall]Hero’s Downfall[/scryfall]s, but since this is my deck we have to go deeper. We also have more removal in the form of [scryfall]Silence the Believers[/scryfall], some utility in the form of [scryfall]Liliana Vess[/scryfall] and the splash, [scryfall]Treasure Cruise[/scryfall].
To help go Cruising, we have a set of the appropriate Temples, as well as Fetches. For the fetches, we have two islands. Hopefully 10 sources is enough. If not, perhaps a couple of [scryfall]Evolving Wilds[/scryfall] in place of a couple of Swamps? Don’t know. Those would help with the delve as well.
The deck is all in all quite experimental and probably won’t work, but I’ll test it when I have the chance.
The problem is just that this is probably a very bad deck for the current metagame. There’s so much lifeloss between [scryfall]Thoughtseize[/scryfall], fetches, [scryfall]Herald of Torment[/scryfall], [scryfall]Boon of Erebos[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Pain Seer[/scryfall] that this deck can’t be very good against Jeskai decks, especially those laden with burn spells. Its so slow that any aggro deck will just run over it (not necessarily so called Abzan Aggros, which are just faster than most Abzan decks, but not true aggro).
However, that’s when the sideboard comes in.
What can we do to mitigate these problems? Well, [scryfall]Drown in Sorrow[/scryfall]s should take care of the legions of one-drops, and a [scryfall]Gray Merchant of Asphodel[/scryfall] or four should help with the Jeskai.