Breaking Down and Spending Money: 

I’ve been running a jazzed up version of my original Black/Green control deck. I broke down and bought four copies of [mtg_card]Thragtusk[/mtg_card] and four copies of [mtg_card]Geralf’s Messenger[/mtg_card], which was hard to do simply because I want to make long-term investments rotation wise, and Geralf’s Messenger and most likely Thragtusk will rotate out this year. Still, the changes have greatly impacted my overall win percentages.  I am having fairly solid, consistent results in the head to head tournaments on MTGO and will move to a Standard Daily once one fits my schedule.

Here is the build as it stands today:

 Main Deck: 

4 [mtg_card]Tragic Slip[/mtg_card]
2 [mtg_card]Sign in Blood[/mtg_card]
4 [mtg_card]Thragtusk[/mtg_card]
3 [mtg_card]Devour Flesh[/mtg_card]
1 [mtg_card]Vraska the Unseen[/mtg_card]
1 [mtg_card]Deadbridge Chant[/mtg_card]
4 [mtg_card]Woodland Cemetery[/mtg_card]
3 [mtg_card]Watery Grave[/mtg_card]
1 [mtg_card]Nephalia Drownyard[/mtg_card]
1 [mtg_card]Liliana of the Dark Realms[/mtg_card]
3 [mtg_card]Disciple of Bolas[/mtg_card]
4 [mtg_card]Overgrown Tomb[/mtg_card]
1 [mtg_card]Demonic Rising[/mtg_card]
4 [mtg_card]Desecration Demon[/mtg_card]
4 [mtg_card]Geralf’s Messenger[/mtg_card]
1 [mtg_card]Pithing Needle[/mtg_card]
4 [mtg_card]Mutilate[/mtg_card]
2 [mtg_card]Abrupt Decay[/mtg_card]
1 [mtg_card]Putrefy[/mtg_card]
2 [mtg_card]Golgari Guildgate[/mtg_card]
10 [mtg_card]Swamp[/mtg_card]

Sideboard:
1 [mtg_card]Putrefy[/mtg_card]
1 [mtg_card]Curse of Death’s Hold[/mtg_card]
4 [mtg_card]Duress[/mtg_card]
1 [mtg_card]Notion Thief[/mtg_card]
1 [mtg_card]Pithing Needle[/mtg_card]
1 [mtg_card]Abrupt Decay[/mtg_card]
4 [mtg_card]Deathrite Shaman[/mtg_card]
2 [mtg_card]Syncopate[/mtg_card]

Discussing the Deck: 

Overall, this decks seems to win if it can successfully pull off a large draw with [mtg_card]Disciple of Bolas[/mtg_card] , or it gets  [mtg_card]Deadbridge Chant[/mtg_card] or [mtg_card]Demonic Rising[/mtg_card] into play and wins by having a post-wipe board presence.  It struggles sometimes against hyper aggro, but has solid results against the mid-speed Black/Green/Red decks that are floating around. Counterspells are problematic, and ideally I would try two [mtg_card]Cavern of Souls[/mtg_card] in the sideboard, and I might add another [mtg_card]Nephalia Drownyard[/mtg_card] to the sideboard for the long matches against RWB [mtg_card]Snapcaster Mage[/mtg_card] decks. Even with just the single Drownyard, I took out a Sanpcaster control with mill, so I’m pretty sure it’s a solid alternate win condition in the long games.

Both the [mtg_card]Notion Thief[/mtg_card] and the [mtg_card]Syncopate[/mtg_card]s are simply anti[mtg_card]Sphynx’s Revelation[/mtg_card] tech, but so far, I haven’t had a chance to see them shine, as I haven’t drawn them when I sided them in against UW control variants.

[mtg_card]Pithing Needle[/mtg_card] is a surprsingly handy tech card that shuts off AEtherling, and Planeswalkers that cost over three mana. The trouble Planeswalkers that cost three simply become the target of [mtg_card]Abrupt Decay[/mtg_card]. Overall, this deck is pretty fine tuned, with only room for a few minor tweaks. I’m happy with it as it is, and will keep playing it for the next few months.

My next project, though, is a Black/White/Maybe-Green control deck that has a similar game-plan, but makes use of [mtg_card]Terminus[/mtg_card] for more wipe, and what I think will be an extremely valuable late game card, [mtg_card]Treasury Thrull[/mtg_card].

I’ll let you know when I put something together.