The Obliterator

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Hello again MTG peeps,

As you can read in our last post (which just went up) where we covered off another slew of new Avacyn Restored spoilers, we did feel a bit bad not having a daily post for you on Friday.  We want to make it up to you with an additional post - FNM gamers and fans of Magic the Gathering standard constructed, this ones for you.  Our buddy at OMG Games, Jon T., provided this write up for a mono-black deck he has been playing for a while now.  

Here is Jon's notes and list . . .

The deck plays really well and the cards interact with each other in a way that feels really natural. Black hasn't been this strong in a while and I'm pleased at the power level of the deck.

The Deck with No Name (Mono-Black)

(We'll give it a name for you Jon - we'll call it Jo-Bliterator)

Creatures:
4 x Gravecrawler
4 x Geralf's Messenger
4 x Phyrexian Obliterator
3 x Grave Titan
3 x Phyrexian Metamorph

3 x Liliana of the Veil

4 x Despise
4 x Go for the Throat
3 x Tragic Slip
3 x Altar's Reap
2 x Lashwrithe

3 x Drowned Catacomb
20 x Swamp

I've been playing Mono-Black in Standard since Zendikar block. It lost a bit of steam when strong cards like Vampire Nighthawk and Abyssal Persecutor rotated out, but with the addition of Dark Ascension it found some new toys and it's now firing on all cylinders again. Basically, the main deck is a strict bread-and-butter assembly of black's all-star cards. There are a few black builds floating around the internet right now but I feel like mine has a different plan in mind than some of the others -- most of which are dedicated zombie builds.
The deck hits its stride around turns three and four, when I gain access to cards like Messenger, Liliana, Obliterator and Metamorph. The first couple of turns allow me to set things in my favor quickly with cards like Despise and Gravecrawler, either of which is a fine first turn play for the deck. Altar's Reap interacts wonderfully with the Crawler and Messenger, allowing me to refresh quickly without any drawback. At the high end of the curve is the Grave Titan, who comes in on clean-up duty to keep up the pressure into the late game.
Sideboard:

3 x Phyrexian Crusader
2 x Spellskite
2 x Hex Parasite

3 x Surgical Extraction
3 x Doom Blade
2 x Black Sun's Zenith

The sideboard is designed specifically to tighten up the deck versus the individual decks in the local playgroup. While it's true that I'm mixing my damage types when I side in Crusader, against a red or white deck he becomes essentially an Obliterator one turn earlier. Red decks stop in their tracks when a Crusader hits the table, and if I follow it up with the Obliterator, they'll usually scoop. Surgical is a useful tool against a lot of the current decks, including the mirror match. We don't see a lot of Tempered Steel around here any more so I've opted for Go for the Throat in the main, but Doom Blade is an easy swap if I run into a heavy artifact build. Hex Parasite helps out against infect and Super Friends builds, and Spellskite allows me to push some of my harder threats versus decks that could otherwise deal with them, like Black-Blue and Black-Red.

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Also of note - Did you know that MTG Mint Card has a very lovely page you could input your Magic the Gathering deck list for show and tell ? Check out 'Deck Central' and this aptly named 'Zombieland' deck idea.
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