Today Feb. 15, 2013 at "Magic: The Gathering" Pro Tour "Gatecrash" Wizards of the Coast's R&D member Zach Hill spoke with Conley Woods about his unique black control deck during the live coverage of the event.
Deck Tech: Black control with Conley Woods
Creatures (16)
4 Crypt Ghast
4 Griselbrand
4 Gloom Surgeon
4 Vampire Nighthawk
Other Spells (19)
4 Mutilate
4 Victim of Night
2 Dreadbore
3 LIliana of the Veil
4 Sign in Blood
1 Staff of Nin
1 Rakdos's Return
Land (25)
4 Blood Crypt
4 Dragonskull Summit
17 Swamp
Sideboard (15)
3 Duress
3 Slaughter Games
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Underworld Connections
1 Rakdos's Return
1 Pithing Needle
2 Devour Flesh
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Olivia Voldaren
"Turn five Griselbrands are the best thing...and the life gain is very relevant," remarked Woods about Crypt Ghast. The deck punishes opponents with a unique mix of disruption, board wipes, and card advantage. "Griselbrand is the Sphinx's Revelation of mono-black."
Gloom Surgeon is a speed bump for aggressive decks. Your opponent will have to either use their removal spells like Searing Spear or overextend. The deck performs particularly well because "Mutilate gets around Boros Charm" in a metagame filled with Boros Reckoner. There's a splash of red just for a pair of Dreadbore, which can take out pesky planeswalkers. Despite being a one-off in the main deck Rakdos's Return is a great card against control matchups and can randomly win games when combined with the massive amount of mana generated by Crypt Ghast.
The sideboard is very fine tuned for a variety of matches. Pithing Needle deals with one of the deck's few weaknesses, lands like Kessig Wolf Run and Nephalia Drownyard. Slaughter Games can be used to remove key spells from an opponent's deck such as Sphinx's Revelation or Thragtusk. Underworld Connections provides a steady stream of cards against control decks. There's an additional removal against aggro in the form of Devour Flesh, which "you can use against yourself." Rakdos Charm can be pivotal against reanimation decks.
Related:
Deck tech: 'Wolf Run Bant' with Melissa DeTora
Deck tech: 'Lucky Charms' with David Sharfman
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Catch up on "Gatecrash"
Event decks: "Rally and Rout" and "Thrash and Thrive."
Intro Packs: "Orzhov Oppression," "Boros Battalion," "Gruul Goliaths," "Dimir Dementia," and "Simic Synthesis."
Card lists White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Orzhov, Dimir, Gruul, Boros, Simic, Hybrid, Artifact, and Land.
For more information about "Magic: The Gathering" visit www.MagicTheGathering.com.
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