"I think my deck is pretty bad."

That's what I said this past weekend after I Thoughtseized my opponent and saw two Siege Rhinos, Banishing Light and a Courser of Kruphix. Pain Seer wasn't looking too hot anymore.

I don't even want to talk about the game where I played three one drops into my opponent's Drown in Sorrow, Siege Rhino.

There were cards that made me worry about playing Black Beatdown, and Siege Rhino was kind of one of them, but it's really not even the worst offender. I tried this deck out for my first Khans Standard tournament, and I don't recommend it:

Maybe I should have been playing Mardu Skullhunter? Maybe I shouldn't have been playing Thoughtseize? I don't know. I mean, I trimmed most of the Hero's Downfall to the sideboard to lower the mana curve, which didn't hurt me in the rounds I played, but I'm still not 100% on that choice either.

I'm not claiming that this is the best build of this deck. What I am claiming is that these cards are really good against it, and that's bad:

A removal spell or two on turns 1-3 followed by most of the playable four drops can also be extremely difficult to recover from. I would really want another good two drop to even consider the deck playable, and that might just be Mardu Skullhunter, but I'm not particularly convinced.

Meanwhile, Eric Hawkins was jamming four Wingmate Rocs and loving it. I'm not in love with the idea of playing a Wingmate Roc deck, but it sure can clog up the board while being favorable against Elspeth, Sun's Champion. This is really just an aside on how it might be a good time to pick up Wingmate Rocs, even if I'm not personally enthused about playing with them. $9 is definitely low for a four-of mythic. Some would advocate chasing these more aggressively than I would, but I don't think you can go wrong getting your set now.

Before I move on completely, while watching coverage of the SCG New Jersey open I became aware of some Black Beatdown players sideboarding Empty the Pits. Seems like a great way to alpha a control deck out of nowhere. I still don't like the deck at all, but this does add more confidence to my thoughts on Empty the Pits being a solid pickup for $2-3.

While I was underwhelmed with the deck that I played this weekend, there were some standouts in it. Bloodsoaked Champion is very strong and Master of the Feast might be considerably stronger than I gave it credit for. I'm not sure how much I care about looking for a home for Master, but Bloodsoaked Champion is amazing alongside Butcher of the Horde and anything that cares about attacking and/or sacrificing creatures.

I paid $5 each on-site for my set of Champions, which is absolutely overpaying. They might go up before they go down, but rest assured they will see a dip at some point as this set is super-popular and we are entering Sealed PTQ season. This card will be seeing plenty of play though.

That said, if I wanted to try to make Monoblack happen, I would look at Gray Merchant of Asphodel instead.

Black Devotion with Agent of the Fates and Boon of Erebos was a deck at the Block PT, and it could certainly carry into Standard. I don't know how any monoblack shell can get around being somewhat weak to Reclamation Sage, but playing things like Squelching Leeches makes you stronger against the cards that the aggressive version of the deck folds to.

This is Scott Markeson's 75 from PT Journey into Nyx, which I don't think you'd need to change much at all to port into Standard:

Losing the enchantment creatures would be a way to beat Reclamation Sage, as well as a way to weaken Agent of the Fates. It's a tough call, and one that will be better made when we find out how popular Reclamation Sage winds up. Minimally, I'd probably cut the Nighthowlers from the main and find some room for Sign in Bloods. Soul of Innistrad is also right at home here, and I imagine I would want at least two in my 75.

The other way to go is to just find a way to make the aggressive deck's curve suck less. Going into a second color is the only way to go about this, though this will clearly detract from the manabase in significant ways. Splashing red or blue seem to be completely off the table due to the lack of allied painlands coupled with the fact that taplands are terrible in your 12+ one-drop deck.

Soldier of the Pantheon tagging in as the deck's 13th-16th one mana 2/1 is not without its appeal. Notably, such a splash will push the deck away from Mogis's Marauder, but cutting three drops was ultimately one of the goals of adding a second color. Chief of the Edge strikes me as the other draw of splashing white, with Brimaz, King of Oreskos being... just too white. Is that enough of a change and is it worth the splash?

Dropping a Sorin, Solemn Visitor to make up some life loss and survive all the cards that wreck the rest of the deck is probably worthwhile. These changes make you faster and shift you from having awkward spells to awkward mana. Sounds like an improvement to me, though this is colored in no small part by my desire to never to play monoblack aggro until at least one more set drops.

I am somewhat interested in trying this:

Chief of the Edge gives us some random extra power on Tormented Hero and Bloodsoaked Champion, which is nice. This version of the deck is definitely way more of the "either I'm dead or you are and we're going to find out real fast" variety, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Soldier of the Pantheon can bash into Siege Rhino, which starts to matter quite a bit if he picks up a Spiteful Returned.

Ultimately, however, I wonder if this type of strategy is viable. I'm much less excited about it now than I was a week ago, that's for sure. I have some faith that the devotion shell is a reasonable choice to pilot and I'm inclined to believe that the Orzhov Aggro deck is more powerful than its monocolored counterpart.

~

The card I'm most excited to work with in the future isn't black at all, however. Ever since I cast it in the prerelease, I've been pretty high on Jeskai Charm, and this weekend's Open results affirm my confidence in Mantis Rider.

It'll be tough to come up with the best version of a three-color deck in the days leading up to the Standard Pro Tour, but Jeskai Tempo is an archetype that has my attention and one that I fully intend to work on at least for the first leg of this new Standard format.

Have you had different experiences with black aggro than my own? Think there's a good fix to the Reclamation Sage problem? Have a take on Black Devotion that you believe is well positioned? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks for reading.

-Ryan Oveturf
@RyanOverdrive on Twitter