Last Friday was the first day that Magic 2015 became legal to play in Standard and the first event in our local community to have that format update was the FNM. In that event, I have decided to pilot Mono Black Aggro and slightly updated it with M15 cards that were available.

I added Sign in Blood which I thought the deck needed gas for late game and also a pseudo finisher for opponents sitting on two life. It turned that it was not that relevant and I changed to another possible M15 card. I initially compiled some reprint cards in the set and saw in the pile that I had some Phyrexian Revokers available.

Here is my list edited after FNM(with deck reference from Gabe Carleton-Barnes StarCityGames.com Standard – Portland list):

18 Swamp
4 Mutavault

4 Gnarled Scarhide
4 Herald of Torment
4 Pain Seer
4 Spiteful Returned
4 Tormented Hero
2 Lifebane Zombie
2 Mogis’s Marauder
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Rakdos Cackler

2 Bile Blight
4 Hero’s Downfall
4 Thoughtseize

I have decided on adding the Phyrexian Revokers as this two drop beater can mess up important cards like Planeswalkers, Pack Rat and even Sylvan Caryatid. Thoughtseizes and Lifebane Zombie also help in setting up what to name on the Revoker.

Here is my current sideboard:

1 Devour Flesh
3 Doom Blade
4 Duress
2 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Lifebane Zombie
1 Mogis’s Marauder
2 Ultimate Price
1 Whip of Erebos

The few of the card choices was again adjusted for the local metagame, expecting Boros Burn as the worst matchup.

My record for the two events this weekend was:

-FNM 2-0-1, 2nd place
-Saturday Standard 3-1, 4th place

The only loss was due to mana flood and a color screw on the second game (got stuck on one Swamp and two Mutavaults). Overall, the deck performed very well whereas the revokers did not quite did its job well with a few mistakes in my part. The deck can place well in the current Standard meta, if it will be the same deck Mono Black Devotion and a few control decks on the top of the food chain. We shall see in the coming weeks if there are changes which I am sure there will.

Until the next post.