"Pauper Kings:Mono Black Devotion Discarder 2014"

"Pauper Kings:Mono Black Devotion Discarder 2014"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. 

Disruption and Discarder type decks would always be a mainstay in any magic rotation. I tried making a Standard Pauper discarder deck a couple of months back with Return to Ravnica and M15 but I found that there were a few pieces that were sorely missing and now that Khans of Tarkir has finally arrived I find a couple of cards that could make a Mono black Discarder/ Devotion deck available in Standard Pauper. Here is the deck list for MBDD,

4 x Evolving Wilds

18 x Swamps

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22 lands

4 x Disowned Ancestor

4 x Mardu Skullhunter

4 x Black cat

4 x Disciple of Phenax

4 x Gray Merchant of Asphodel

2 x Marshmist Titan

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22 creatures

4 x Mindrot

4 x Sign in Blood

4 x Sultai Banner

4 x Scourgemark

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16 spells

Now before we go even deeper into the deck I just wanted to defend my use of the evolving wilds. Yes it does seem to slow down the deck a whole lot and there is not mana fixing to be done in the deck anyway but consider that when you are able to use 4 Evolving Wilds you are able to eliminate 8 cards from your 60 card deck increasing the chances of you drawing cards that are significant for your type of play. In this case it might be the much needed Gray Merchant of Asphodel of Asphodel to finish off an opponent.

The previous Mono black Devotion deck that I did with RTR/M14/Theros Pieces was a bit more Aggressive than this deck , the direction of this is to wait out and win in the Mid-Late parts of the game. 

Now on to the creature choices of the deck:

Disowned Ancestor is a wonderful one drop in the mold of Yoked Ox and Lagonna-band Trailblazer. A tough meat to chew through and could be made even tougher with the Abzan Outlast mechanic. No 2/1 or 3/1 creature could ever hope to deal early damage with this guy around.  

Mardu Skullhunter was my much awaited addition in this discarder mold. Given that you need to attack with a creature before the Mardu Raid mechanic triggers but this is not much of a problem with a Disowned Ancestor attacking and surviving or a Black Cat that does not want to survive.(more on the cat in a bit).Mardu Skullhunter comes into play tapped but it does require an opponent to discard a card plus at 2/1 it could be a much needed aggressor on your next turn.

Black cat has a deathwish and when you attack with it opponents are forced to make a decision if they want to take the measly one damage or discard a card at random from their hand when this creature of yours dies. Whenever an opponent makes a decision it wears them down more so the Black cat is the perfect creature for disruption since it could temporarily distract an opponent from his or her plans and might open more mistakes later on in the turns. Discarding a card at random is also more painful than regular discard since opponents do not have control over what they would fork over. 

Disciple of Phenax relies a lot on devotion to black but before this guy even comes out your opponent might already be bereft of key card pieces and if they aren't then you could take a peek and make sure that they dont have anything that could ruin your plans.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel is a win condition here as well and he is a hero even if the he does not have Heroic. Marshmist Titan just takes advantage of your devotion to black here and jumps in as a 4/5 attacker defender. Really great to cast when you know that it would not be countered or killed. Expect opponents to scoop up decks when they see this guy and they have nothing in their hands to take care of it. It is all downhill from here. 

The spells:

Mindrot for the 2 discard effect. Sign in Blood so that you always have something in your hand. The 2 point life loss is negligible since Gary will save your butt more often than not. Sultai Banner is just a random choice for a rock because you also need to accelerate to 5 mana in this type of deck.I could have chosen Abzan or Mardu banners but Sultai just seems so at home here. Scourgemark is more card draw because you need to constantly need to pressure your opponents hands.

Yup , the discarder is a viable deck in Standard Pauper once more. Time to play test this baby. Time to reach out and hit someone in the head with Mardu Skullhunter.