Quick Links
While the Standard format metagame inMagic: The Gatheringfeatures a bevy of multicolored midrange brews, as well as a smorgasbord of creature-based aggro decks (looking at you Monored), Monoblack Midrange is still a viable option thanks to a combination of board control, quick creature beats and one of the most omnipresent creatures in the entire format: Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.
There are myriad options for running the Monoblack Midrange deck in standard, though it must be noted that it isn’t as consistent as it used to be thanks to the banning of Invoke Despair and The Meathook Massacre. It’s still quite fun to play and can be torture to play against, which is exactly what black is all about in MTG. Let’s dive in.
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Sorin, the Mirthless
4 Preacher of the Schism
4 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
2 Anoint with Affliction
Key Cards
Virtue of Persistence // Lochthwain Scorn
This adventure card will likely be your win condition in this deck. Since most of the deck revolves around sending creatures to your opponent’s graveyard, Virtue allows you to bring the biggest threats back under your control. Conversely,if playing against a less creature-heavy deck, simply return your Preacher of the Schism followed by Sheoldred, the Apocalypse to play and reap the immediate benefits.
If that wasn’t enough, theadventure part of the card is yet another removal spellthat also gains you a sliver of life – both of which are perfect for this deck.
Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
This omnipresent legendary creature can serve as an alternate win condition, and its generally oppressive nature means that your opponent will have to prioritize removing it all costs – even if that means trading multiple creature for it, using two burn spells on it or generally making bad plays in order to get it out of the way.By the time they do that, your board state will likely have pulled ahead.
The two-life loss your opponents will take when they draw a card, in particular, will add up quicklydepending on what deck you’re playing against.
Preacher of the Schism
The Lost Caverns of Ixalan’sPreacher of the Schism brings a beefy body (2/4) paired with a useful keyword ability in deathtouch. While that wouldn’t be overly exciting by itself,the Preacher’s abilities make it one of the most useful cards in the deck against almost any archetype.
If you’re behind on the board (via a lower life total), it gives you an incredibly useful lifelinking 1/1. If you’re ahead (via a higher life total), you get to draw a card and lose a life.An incredibly backbreaking move is to attack when your life total is the same as your opponent, giving you both boons at the same time!
Playing this on turn three and following up with Sheoldred on turn four can be potentially catastrophic for your opponent – though be careful of running into sweepers like Depopulate, Sunfall, Burn Down the House or our next card…
Deadly Cover-Up
This card serves as a critical sweeper against go-wide deckslike Boros Convoke, Azorius Soldiers, or, perhaps more importantly, Monored Aggro (though its five-mana costing cost might sometimes be too slow against this archetype).
In addition to destroying all creatures, this card allows you tocollect evidence 6(quite easy to do in this deck) in order to exile a card from your opponent’s graveyard and then search their graveyard, hand and library and exile those cards.This trigger should usually be aimed at your foe’s most important card or its win condition.
This spell’s bonus effect is not limited to nonland cards, so if you’re trying to knock out an annoying Mishra’s Factory or even want to completely annihilate a foe’s basic land base, Deadly Cover-Up allows you to do that.
Blast Zone
Speaking of useful lands, thiscard can serve as a totally backbreaking stealth board wipe if played correctly.One weakness of this deck is that cannot hit enchantments or artifacts very well, but Blast Zone makes that possible.
Sure, it can be a bit mana-intensive, but since you’re mostly going to be playing removal spells on your opponent’s turn,investing a few mana here and there into this card is always a good idea if your foe is done making moves on their turn.
Removal
The main crux of this deck is removing any and all creatures your opponent throws down.Starting with the ever-useful Cut Down and moving on exile spells like Anoint with Affliction, this deck gives you myriad options for keeping your opponent’s board free of any threats.
Once your foe’s graveyard is full of goodies,pop down a Virtue of Persistence and profit from their downfall.It’s just that easy sometimes.
If your opponent plays an exile spell on a creature you’d rather have in your graveyard for recursion (like from Virtue of Persistence or one of the modes of Gix’s Command), simply use one of your own removal spells on that card so you can get it right back from your ‘yard later on.
How To Play Monoblack Midrange
When looking at this decklist, it might immediately register as more of a control deck rather than a midrange one.That’s certainly valid, as a whopping 22 cards (not counting Blast Zone) in this deck are straight-up removal cards – many of which are only single-target options. However, while this deck is usually content to wait for your opponent to act and then respond to their plays (the mark of what makes a control deck),this deck can be more proactive in the right matchups.
If your opponent hasn’t played anything by turn three and you’re pretty sure you’re not up against a true control deck,you can feel confident tossing down a Preacher of the Schism.If you follow that up with a Sheoldred and your foe doesn’t have an immediate answer, they could already be well behind on the board only a few turns in.
Beyond that, though,always be content to be patient with this deck.Since you only have eight creatures in the deck (not including the vampire tokens created by Sorin, the Mirthless and Preacher), itshould be rare that you have to worry about playing a creature just to have a board presence.There are exceptions, of course, but isn’t that how Magic works?
It isn’t unusual for this deck tosimply toss off some single-target removal spells at will in the early game, then wait until your foe has committed to a big board full of threats.That’s when the new addition of Deadly Cover-Up becomes a game-changer.
Not only will you have plenty of targets in your graveyard for collecting evidence, butCover-Up should find plenty of exiling fodderin your foe’s graveyard to help thin out the best threats from their library, hand and graveyard.
Whilethis deck might lack the top end board wipes of past recent iterations (wherefore art thou Invoke Despair and Meathook), the new addition of Deadly Cover-Up and the spicy inclusion of Malicious Eclipse provide extremely useful mid-game and early game board-clearing options, respectively. Combine that with the plethora of single-target removal spells in this deck along with Sheoldred and Preacher, and you have the makings of a top-flight deck on your hands. Just watch out for counterspells.
