Are you familiar with that merchant guy back in Theros? That Black creature that siphons life out of people for devotion on the Black mana? Yes, that is him. Guess what? He is back in Standard. The Gray Merchant of Asphodel is being reprinted in Theros Beyond Death. He may literally surpass ‘death’ as he is back to bring menace in the format metagame again, though we shall see if its power is the same such as before in Theros Standard.

Check out his new look and rarity below.

The upgrade to Uncommon is justifiable as the card wreaked havoc during the Theros block draft as it was just easy to pick multiple copies and dominate the board in the late game and even deal enough damage with just the siphon effect. Also, adding a Whip of Erebos is just the nail to the coffin.

We expect the card to be at par on the Top tier decks in the current Standard metagame again but let us see what other cards that it can utilize. A Mono-Black deck is what we would expect as the most efficient build but we don’t have cards like Thoughtseize and Underworld Connections that were relevant components of the deck.

At the moment, we have Murderous Riders that is equivalent to the Heroes Downfall and our route can on aggro creatures with Drill Bit as the lone discard spell main deck. Other possible creatures are:

Ayara, First of Locthwain which also powers Devotion and a card draw source.

Yarok’s Fenlurker as another discard source enhances Devotion and a late-game mana dump.

Cavalier of Night is another potential five-drop in the build that kills of relevant creatures of the opponent and brings back your smaller dudes.

Massacre Girl as a board sweep, but looks better in the sideboard against tokens or Rakdos aggro or any other weenie aggro decks.

Deathless Knight is noticed less at the moment, but its mana cost Devotion of four is very relevant. The 4/2 power/toughness with Haste also makes it a good four-drop attacker.

Summing up our card choices, here below is the first version of the Mono-Black Devotion deck:

3 Ayara, First of Locthwain
2 Cavalier of Night
3 Deathless Knight
4 Gutterbones
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
3 Knight of the Ebon Legion
4 Murderous Rider
1 Midnight Reaper
4 Yarok’s Fenlurker

4 Drill Bit
2 Forever Young
1 Legion’s End
1 Murder

21 Swamp
3 Castle Locthwain

Is the deck looks viable or is there any changes you would like to add? Just comment on your suggestions in the box below.

That is a wrap for this card preview and a welcome blog post for the infamous Gary of Asphodel. Until the next post.