Full Circle: Deck Equivalency

Mono-Black Control (MBC) is my "safety" deck. It's the deck I have the most practice with in Commander, where I'm most comfortable, and where some of the coolest cards in the game kick it with some of the best artwork in the game. That's a fact, Jack.

I keep most of my deck lists online so that I can review them easily. After looking through my lists, there's a definite pattern to what I like to play. It's to be expected. We all have a "comfort zone." But, there's also a limit to what the game itself will allow a deck to be and to still be viable in the format.

For example, if you want to play a deck with only lands in it, you can. Although this is technically legal, most of the time the deck will lose. This is a function of the game and the deck building rules. Even if running all lands is your "thing," there are limits to what the game will accommodate. The only exception I can think of is Ashling the Pilgrim and 99 Mountains. Isn't it cool that there are always exceptions to the rule?



MBC is great. Black has lots of relevant creatures with cool abilities, card drawing, mass creature destruction, spot creature destruction, and good ramp. With the right artifacts and planeswalkers, you can almost cover for Black's weaknesses of limited artifact removal and almost no enchantment removal. But even with all that, here's what happens.

You've got the game in hand, a big threat on the table, two players on the ropes, a grip of cards, and you're on the back of a sweeper that just put you way out in front. You attack, ice a guy, and pass turn. The guy playing combo untaps, draws his card, and wins.



In other words, short of a proactive Jester's Cap or Sadistic Sacrament activation, there isn't much you can do in MBC to interact with the combo player. I can't tell you how many games I've lost to a guy who casts an entwined Tooth and Nail into Mikaeus and Triskelion. Yes, it's a 9 mana "combo," but it typically wins on the spot.  Plus, it's in Green, so ramping to 9 mana is not difficult. All of the attacks and decisions you've made all game are made irrelevant with one decisive spell.




This is where "playing the same deck" comes into the discussion. What got me thinking about this was when I played against a Mono-Green Yeva deck the other day and he cast Soul's Majesty. After the game, I was looking at his deck and automatically starting grouping the cards by function: card drawing, tutoring, ramp, beaters, etc. In other words, the mix and function of cards in his Green deck wasn't all that different from my Black deck. Although the colors in Magic are each better and worse at doing certain things, a "good" Commander deck will do what it can to fit cards into the right mix and functions.



For example, let's look closer at Soul's Majesty. The game designers asked themselves, "Green needs to a way to draw cards. That's a given. But, how does Green want to draw cards? Green cares about creatures, so let's tie the card drawing to that." Boom. Soul's Majesty. This card allows the Green player to draw cards, but in a way that is in flavor for the color. The function (card drawing) is the same.

Back to MBC. Let's suppose that I am losing every week to combo. And let's further suppose that I don't want to play combo myself. What can I do? I can splash Blue for counterspells. This gives me a way to interact with the combo player by shutting down his combo as it is being cast.

As an exercise, we can take my current MBC Commander deck and start swapping in Blue cards where they are functionally equivalent. The result is "the same deck" in mix and function with different strengths and weaknesses.

Sorcery (11)

• Ambition's Cost  --> Fact or Fiction (Instant)
• Ancient Craving --> Concentrate
• Black Sun's Zenith
• Consuming Vapors
• Damnation
• Decree of Pain
• Demonic Tutor
• Diabolic Tutor
• Exsanguinate
• Mutilate --> Cyclonic Rift (Instant)
• Profane Command

There are just a few changes in this group of cards. Two cards move to Instant speed. We won't have as many Swamps once we're done, so Mutilate will be less effective. Cyclonic Rift with overload is a game changing play.

Instant (5)

• Dismember --> Counterspell
• Grasp of Darkness --> Spell Crumple
• Murder 
• Rend Flesh  --> Hinder
  
• Vampiric Tutor

We are giving up Black's spot creature removal for Blue's counter magic. This isn't about countering everything in the world. It's about having a counterspell in hand when the combo player is about to go off. It won't work every time, but it gives us a play when we would otherwise simply lose.

Creature (23)

• Abhorrent Overlord --> Sphinx of Uthuun
• Bloodgift Demon
• Bone Shredder
• Crypt Ghast
• Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
• Erebos, God of the Dead
• Grave Titan
• Gray Merchant of Asphodel 
• Harvester of Souls
• Massacre Wurm
• Necropolis Regent --> Consecrated Sphinx
• Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis
• Nirkana Revenant --> Wrexial, the Risen Deep
• Pestilence Demon
• Pilgrim's Eye
• Reaper from the Abyss
• Reiver Demon
• Rune-Scarred Demon
• Sangromancer
• Sheoldred, Whispering One
• Solemn Simulacrum
• Steel Hellkite
• Wurmcoil Engine

Now that we have access to Blue, you can really go nuts here and switch out creatures. But, that's not the point. Wrexial takes the place of Sheoldred as the Commander since we need a Legendary creature with Blue and Black to make this work. Otherwise, we swap in a few powerhouse Blue creatures like the Sphinxes. Many of the best Black creatures require a heavy commitment to Black in the mana cost, so we are only looking to "splash" Blue.

Planeswalker (2)

• Karn Liberated 
• Liliana of the Dark Realms --> Dissipate

Karn stays. Liliana becomes another counter. You could cram one of the Jace's in this spot if you wanted to keep the mix the same.

Land (38)

• Ancient Tomb
• Cabal Coffers
• Maze of Ith
• Rogue's Passage
• Strip Mine
• 30x Swamp
• Temple of the False God
• Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• Volrath's Stronghold

The lands stay the same with the addition of some Blue sources. If you want to get fancy, you can put in your Underground Sea, Watery Grave, and Blue and/or Black fetch lands. If not, Drowned Catacomb, Underground River, and Dimir Guildgate, along with a host of other less expensive alternatives are options. You can argue that Coffers shouldn't be here, that it should be Chromatic Lantern in this slot. The tradeoff for splashing Blue is that the deck loses consistency, speed, and explosiveness in the mana department. Is accepting that drawback worth having counter magic to combat combo? That depends on the decks you are trying to beat.

Enchantment (7)

• Dark Prophecy --> Rhystic Study
• Exquisite Blood
• Grave Betrayal
• Necropotence
• No Mercy
• Phyrexian Arena
• Sanguine Bond

Not many card changes here, either. Again, by adding Blue, you can go nuts and swap a bunch of stuff, but having access to Rhystic Study is probably enough.

Artifact (14)

• Armillary Sphere
• Basilisk Collar
• Batterskull
• Expedition Map
• Forcefield
• Lashwrithe --> Arcane Denial / Negate / Swan Song
• Lightning Greaves
• Loxodon Warhammer
• Mimic Vat
• Sensei's Divining Top
• Sol Ring
• Swiftfoot Boots
• Thran Dynamo (Chromatic Lantern / Gilded Lotus)
• Wayfarer's Bauble

If you didn't put in Chromatic Lantern before, swap it in for Thran Dynamo or Lashwrithe. Otherwise, jamming another counter spell into the deck brings the total up to 5 and gives us a good chance of having one when we need it. Armillary Sphere and Wayfarer's Bauble take on additional dimension as they help with color fixing now in addition to ramp and consistent land drops.

What we end up with is, in many ways, the same deck. We get access to Blue's counter magic, which is something that Black doesn't have by itself, but we lose some of the consistency of running a deck with only one color. For fun, try matching your Commander deck list up against my list. How many cards are functionally equivalent? How close is the "mix" of cards by function in each list. You might be surprised how similar all of these decks are to one another.