Mono Black Mages is a variant of Pauper's Burn decks that swaps the traditional red for black. Although spells deal less damage and/or have less explosive potential, they compensate with complementary effects like life gain or discards.
This archetype has received some tools lately, the most recent being the addition of the cards Black Mage's Rod and Cornered by Black Mages as pseudo-Kessig Flamebreather and Thermo-Alchemist, coupled with extra effects like sacrificing creatures.
The Decklist
Maindeck
The Black Mages package. Both cards' main function is to put a creature into play, expanding the scope of our damage-dealing spells. Cornered by Black Mages also has the bonus of resolving a creature on the board, ideal against Hexproof and archetypes that pose one big threat at a time, such as Mono Blue Terror.
The one-mana Burns.
Bump in the Night functions like a Lava Spike in black and offers the best damage-for-mana tradeoff on the list. The Flashback cost is the main reason we use some red duals on lands.
Okiba Reckoner Raid offers a tradeoff of two damage and a 2/2 body with Menace in the long run for one mana. Personally, I consider it slow for the current Metagame, but its permanent power and long-term damage potential make it a staple.
Hopeless Nightmare guarantees two damage for one mana, plus it discards an opponent's resource. In longer games, we can sacrifice it to filter the top deck, preferably to find the spell that will end the game.
Sovereign's Bite deals three damage for two mana with essential life gain to slow the clock of other Aggro decks. This is a common element it shares with Vampire's Kiss, whose damage is lower but puts two tokens into play that enable Alms of the Vein's Madness and fuel Fanatical Offering.
Tyrant's Choice has the highest damage potential for two mana, with four life. We rarely manage to use the sacrifice effect, and we shouldn't bother trying at all.
The draw sources.
Fanatical Offering feeds off the tokens from Black Mage's Rod, Vampire's Kiss, and Cornered by Black Mages to provide card advantage while also granting one more artifact in play.
Sign in Blood has two roles in a single card. In some games, it will be a Draw 2 for two mana that we'll use to gain more resources, while in others it will represent the missing two or three damage to finish the game.
In addition to generating red mana for Bump in the Night, Jagged Barrens has an ETB that guarantees more reach in the game. We can reuse it with Rakdos Carnarium, which also allows us to reduce the number of lands to 18.
Vault of Whispers works as another artifact to sacrifice with Fanatical Offering.
Sideboard
Faerie Macabre is our free, standard answer against graveyard-reliant archetypes like Spy Combo, High Tide, Dredge, and Mono Blue Terror.
Duress enters against dozens of matchups with the purpose of stalling the opponent for enough turns until we can finish the match. It's common against High Tide, Mono Blue Terror, Burn, Bogles, and others.
Despite being slow, Soul Reap is an unconditional removal that works against most creatures and also deals damage to the opponent if we've played another spell in the same turn, working on both interaction and clock.
Geth's Verdict has less damage potential but works against Bogles and Mono Blue Terror as removal, while Drown in Sorrow is a decent answer against go wide archetypes like Faeries and Mono Red Rally.
Sideboard Guide
Mono Blue Terror
IN
OUT
Jund Wildfire // Grixis Affinity
IN
OUT
Mono Red Rally
IN
OUT
Mono Blue Faeries
IN
OUT
High Tide
IN
OUT
Spy Walls
IN
OUT
Elves
IN
OUT
Bogles
IN
OUT
Wrapping Up
That's all for today!
If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!
Thanks for reading!
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