Black/White Discard Deck (Top 8 at a $5,000 Tournament)

August 7, 2012 | Posted by Dee

Two weekends ago, Joseph Snyder got top eight with a unique Black/White (BW) discard deck at the TCGplayer 5K ($5,000) Standard Open Tournament in Providence.

He used Ravenous Rats, Duress, Liliana of the Veil, and Smallpox to strip his opponents’ hands and take control of the game. Then, he finished them off with cards such as the Zombie creatures, Gravecrawler and Geralf’s Messenger.

His main deck was mostly black because of the steep color requirements of Geralf’s Messenger. But he was able to fit in a splash of white to play Lingering Souls and Sorin, Lord of Innistrad.

Check out the full decklist below.

BW Discard

Creatures (12)

Spells (25)

Lands (23)

Sideboard (15)

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I like that most of his discard spells do more than just force his opponents to discard a card. Consider Smallpox. This card also forces your opponents to sacrifice a land and a creature and lose one life. This effect can be devastating early in the game if your opponent is slightly mana screwed.

Smallpox also affects you but the deck has cards that lessen this drawback. For example, Sign in Blood is a powerful card draw spell that helps you find lands to replace the one you lose from Smallpox.

Lingering Souls gives you four token creatures to sac to Smallpox. Sorin, Lord of Innistrad is a token generator. If it stays alive for multiple turns, it can give you multiple creatures to sac.

Gravecrawler can be played from the graveyard if you control a Zombie so you don’t mind sacrificing it in many situations. Geralf’s Messenger has undying so it comes back to the battlefield if you sac it.

Also, you can often cast Smallpox when you don’t have any creatures on the board. For example, you can skip playing a turn one creature if you’re going to cast Smallpox on turn two.

Ravenous Rats is a 1/1 creature as well as causing your opponent to discard. The 1/1 is good sacrifice fodder for Smallpox and it can gain more toughness with Sorin’s -1 ability.

Liliana of the Veil gives you creature removal and a powerful ultimate ability along with her discard effect. Her ultimate can win you the game by itself.

Liliana’s discard ability affects you too but the deck has cards that you don’t mind discarding, Lingering Souls and Gravecrawler. Both of these cards can be cast from the graveyard. Also, you can draw extra lands with Sign in Blood and discard them to Liliana.

Tragic Slip is a good removal spell for this deck because you can achieve morbid with Liliana and Smallpox.

Filed Under Standard