Uberpox, aka BG Death Cloud

This is what I'm planning on playing Saturday. The 3rd SB Damnation might become Extirpate or something else. MD Wall of Roots seems good right now. Those and/or a Liliana might go back to Duress or Top number 4. I'll write an article on it before you guys PTQ.

// Lands
4 Polluted Delta
1 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Tainted Wood
2 Forest
3 Overgrown Tomb
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Golgari Rot Farm
4 Swamp

// Creatures
3 Ravenous Baloth
3 Liliana Vess
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Wall of Roots

// Spells
3 Smother
3 Death Cloud
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Thoughtseize
4 Pernicious Deed

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Ravenous Baloth
SB: 3 Damnation
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 Indrik Stomphowler
SB: 3 Cranial Extraction
SB: 2 Extirpate

Questions/comments welcome.

I think this is what I'm playing tomorrow.

// Lands
4 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Tainted Wood
2 Forest
1 Breeding Pool
3 Overgrown Tomb
4 Golgari Rot Farm
3 Swamp
1 Island


// Creatures
3 Ravenous Baloth
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Trinket Mage

// Spells
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Liliana Vess
3 Smother
3 Death Cloud
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Thoughtseize
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Ravenous Baloth
SB: 3 Damnation
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 Cranial Extraction
SB: 1 Pernicious Deed
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt

I like your Trinket Mage tech! Good luck tomorrow!

y not just play gifts instead of tricketmage??? isnt gifts just way better and u can just play 1 genusis

it's not that kind of deck. don't think of it like gifts rock, think of it like Rock and Nail, or if you haven't played that then Tooth and Nail. In control or combo matchups, you want to disrupt them with discard, then play a Cloud with Top and/or Planeswalker(s) in play and kill them while they have no hand or board. In Aggro matchups you want to use Deeds, Smothers, Baloths, Garruks, and Goyfs to overpower them and gain life. Something like Doran is probably the best matchup, basically every card in your deck is good against them.

There is NO card advantage in the deck, except kinda virtual card advantage from planeswalkers or Deeding into a 3:1 or whatever. The Gifts engine is NOT what the deck wants to do. Everyone can beat that anyway. Counterbalance owns recurring Witnesses, etc.

I like this:
4 Polluted Delta
1 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Tainted Wood
2 Forest
3 Overgrown Tomb
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Golgari Rot Farm
4 Swamp
3 Ravenous Baloth
3 Liliana Vess
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Smother
3 Death Cloud
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Thoughtseize
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Duress
SB: 1 Ravenous Baloth
SB: 3 Damnation
SB: 3 Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 Indrik Stomphowler
SB: 4 Extirpate
SB: 2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All

PS: don't EVER play the Trinket Mage engine or I'll have to kill you.

i no its not gifts rock. but u play blue anyways. so y not gifts. it gets u out of places. like going to gifts for enchantment removal. or 4 big guys.

just don't play blue, problem solved.

I would really like to build a new version of this, maybe with Solemn Simulacrum.

Mono Black Death Cloud
4 Guardian Idol
4 Solemn Simulacrum

3 Barter in Blood
2 Consume Spirit
4 Damnation
3 Death Cloud
4 Duress
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Smallpox
4 Wayfarer's Bauble

2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
23 Swamps

I'm sure this is complete junk but you get the idea. I can dream can't I.

I don't think Consume Spirit and Smallpox justify keeping it monoblack. Also, Duress rotates (7th). Guardian Idols and Tops are one way to break the symmetry of Death Cloud, but I think you can do better with planeswalkers, especially Garruks. The only problem that remains to be seen is whether Damnation can be a suitable replacement for Deed. My money's on no, but people love the Rock, so someone will give it a go. In my opinion, the loss of Deed makes aggro Rock (Doran) better than control Rock.

Edit: While we're reliving old type 2, I would play Phyrexian Arena in a Monoblack Cloud deck. Alternatively, you could just try to rock some Night's Whispers.

I forgot Arena! Anyway, you're right: Doran would be much better though it did lose Vindicate, Cabal Therapy and Deed.

Mono Black Death Cloud
4 Guardian Idol
4 Kokusho, the Evening Star
4 Solemn Simulacrum

4 Damnation
3 Death Cloud
4 Phyrexian Arena
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Thoughtseize
4 Wayfarer's Bauble

2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Miren the Moaning Well
1 Shizo, Deaths Storehouse
20 Swamps
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Here's what I'm hot on at the moment:

4 Barren Moor
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Overgrown Tomb
2 Twilight Mire
4 Tranquil Thicket
4 Swamp
3 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter

4 Kitchen Finks
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder

3 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Worm Harvest
3 Death Cloud
3 Smother
3 Putrefy
3 Raven's Crime
4 Life from the Loam
3 Damnation
1 Darkblast
1 Slaughter Pact

Sideboard:
3 Darkblast
3 Persecute
3 Extirpate
3 Ravenous Baloth
3 Seal of Primordium

4 Barren Moor
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Mutavault
4 Overgrown Tomb
3 Swamp
4 Tranquil Thicket
2 Twilight Mire
2 Wooded Foothills

4 Kitchen Finks
3 Ravenous Baloth
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder

3 Damnation
3 Death Cloud
4 Life from the Loam
3 Putrefy
3 Raven's Crime
2 Slaughter Pact
4 Thoughtseize
1 Worm Harvest

SB: 2 Ghost Quarter
SB: 1 Ravenous Baloth
SB: 1 Putrefy
SB: 1 Slaughter Pact
SB: 3 Choke
SB: 4 Darkblast
SB: 3 Extirpate

Reasonable, but Choke is pretty terrible against UB Faeries, so Persecute is much better overall. Also, 4 Overgrown Tombs is too many. You want 2 to search for, but after that you'd rather have a filterland or just fetch out a basic land. I worry that a lot of matchups get way worse without Smothers. I'm starting to lean more towards Baloths over Garruks because Burn is probably a bigger deck than Tron or the mirror. You need something in the board to destroy Sulfuric Vortex vs Burn.

Did you make that list or find it somewhere? This is my leading candidate for LA.

My board was just thrown together, but i have been playing it a bit, the land mix is probably a bit off. I am not sold on smothers although I haven't had a chance to play a terrible amount of games. I would definitely want seal in the board. I felt that playing the deck you really need a lot to actaully win without the baloths and mutavaults, if you don't hit your worm harvest you can get them locked down gut actually have difficulty winning before zoo for instance pulls out of it.

Syphon Life for more lifegain? I mean you already have Baloths and Finks...

4 Barren Moor
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Twilight Mire
3 Swamp
3 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Mutavault
4 Tranquil Thicket

4 Kitchen Finks
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Ravenous Baloth

4 Thoughtseize
1 Worm Harvest
2 Death Cloud
3 Smother
3 Putrefy
3 Raven's Crime
4 Life from the Loam
3 Damnation

Sideboard
1 Ravenous Baloth
1 Worm Harvest
4 Darkblast
3 Persecute
3 Extirpate
3 Seal of Primordium

I like slaughterpact better than smother in quite a few matchups.

Land:
4 Golgari Rotfarm
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Unholy Grotto
1 Pendlehaven
3 Twilight Mire
2 Forest
3 swamp
1 plains

Creatures:
4 Birds of Paradise
4 augur of skulls
4 sakura tribe elder
2 Kami of False Hope
3 Ravenous Baloth
2 Chameleon Colossus
3 Bane of the Living

Non-creature Permanents:
4 Chrome Mox
3 Oversold Cemetery
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Oblivion Ring

Non-permanent Spells:
3 Thoughtseize
3 Nameless Inversion
3 Deathcloud

_____________________________

Mike designed this. I'm looking for feedback.

take this with a grain of salt because its me and im a noob but comparing it with the other lists it looks really really clunky

Nameless Inversion is worse than Smother, Putrefy, Slaughter Pact, and Terror. The fact that you have Unholy Grotto doesn't make it "get there." The Abyss would be too slow against current Zoo decks, so is this combo.

Consider landcyclers. The white splash doesn't seem big enough to justify. I really hated Rot Farm and Garruk, but your mileage may vary. I'd design your manabase like this with white:
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
2 (black fetch)
1 Pendelhaven
2 Twilight Mire
1 Murmuring Bosk (probably cut if you remove Nameless)
2 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Plains

See if this sparks anything.
B/G Cemetery by Josh Rider
1st place Canada Nationals ~2003
3 City of Brass
10 Forest
9 Swamp

4 Birds of Paradise
2 Braids, Cabal Minion
1 Caller of the Claw
2 Faceless Butcher
3 Llanowar Elves
3 Phantom Centaur
2 Ravenous Baloth
3 Stronghold Assassin
3 Wirewood Herald

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Living Wish
3 Oversold Cemetery
4 Smother

Sideboard:
2 Braids, Cabal Minion
1 City of Brass
2 Engineered Plague
1 Faceless Butcher
1 Genesis
1 Mindslicer
1 Nantuko Vigilante
1 Phantom Centaur
1 Ravenous Baloth
2 Ray of Revelation
1 Stronghold Assassin
1 Withered Wretch

This is the list I was thinking about playing at witchia unless something amazing comes out of conflux. Let me know what you think


4 Barren Moor
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Windheath heath
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Twilight Mire
3 Swamp
2 Forest
3 Temple garden
1 Plains
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Tranquil Thicket

4 Kitchen Finks
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 loxodian hierarch

3 Thoughtseize
1 Worm Harvest
2 Death Cloud
4 Condemn
1 darkblast
3 Putrefy
3 Raven's Crime
3 Life from the Loam
3 Explosives

Sideboard
2 damniation
2 Darkblast
2 pull from eturnity
3 Persecute
3 Extirpate
3 Seal of Primordium