(Nine-Lives FamiliarNine-Lives Familiar | Art by Bram Sels)

Back In Black

Mono-black players seek one thing, and one thing only: power. At any cost. And what better way to power up your deck than with these juicy mono-black staples that will fit into any mono-black deck no matter what theme you're running!

If you're willing to sacrifice and bleed for what you want, if the distance between you and victory is just a series of ruthless decisions, then mono-black has all the answers you seek, including a bevy of powerful and thematic commanders to helm your deck.

This is The Monolith: the series in which I get you playing more mono-colored decks in EDH, and these are seven powerful staples that can fit into basically any mono-black deck.

1. Cabal Coffers

Kicking off with a card that's such a mono-black auto-include that I was debating even listing it, the only barrier to entry for this incredibly powerful land is its slightly hefty price tag. Oh, and you'll also want to make sure you aren't using too many nonbasics to really pop this thing off.

Cabal CoffersCabal Coffers is a nonbasic land that rewards you for running a SwampSwamp-filled mana base. For two generic mana and tapping the land, you'll add an amount of to your pool equal to the amount of Swamps you control.

In the early game, this won't be doing a whole lot. In fact, you won't even make enough mana to break even if you don't have at least three Swamps along side it, but from each turn after the fourth that you make your land drop, this land will get better and better, likely doubling the amount of mana you have access to on later turns of the game.

To truly level up your mana production and to allow for a few more utility lands in your mana base, introduce Urborg, Tomb of YawgmothUrborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to the equation. With this on board, all your nonbasic lands (including the Cabal CoffersCabal Coffers itself) will count as Swamps for the activated ability, which will further increase the massive gains you'll get from Coffers. Use an Expedition MapExpedition Map to find either part of the equation, and you're away.

2. Gray Merchant of Asphodel

What does it mean to be a staple? Staples should fit in pretty much any deck they're able to go in. They're effectively a must-include provided you're playing in the color identity or archetype they match up with, and the Gray Merchant of AsphodelGray Merchant of Asphodel (or Gary as he's more colloquially known) fits the bill perfectly.

This nasty little creature can change the lay of the land drastically in Commander games with its incredibly impactful enters trigger. For , this 2/4 Zombie will cause each opponent to lose X, life where is X is your devotion to black.

Devotion is a mechanic from the plane of Theros; your devotion to a given color is equal to the number of colored pips of that color in mana costs on permanents you control. In this case, if we had ten black mana pips on our board (including the two we get from Gary himself), each of our opponents will lose ten life. And the kicker? We'll gain the COMBINED life that all our opponents lost; in this case, up to 30 life!

That can end games if you have a big enough board state, and even if it doesn't you'll have gained so much life from the effect that your position in the game will change dramatically. This is the equivalent of casting a heavily pumped ExsanguinateExsanguinate, except it only costs you five mana AND it's stapled onto a creature that can be reanimated, flickered, or made tokens of to duplicate his effect. Nasty!

3. Toxic Deluge

Whilst white is largely seen as the color that has the best access to board wipes in the game, black has access to what I would argue is the best creature board wipe there is. For just , which is an insanely low amount of mana for what is largely an unconditional board wipe, Toxic DelugeToxic Deluge will give all creatures on the board -X/-X until end of turn.

The downside, however, is that the X they'll be losing is equal to the amount of life you choose to pay into the spell as you cast it. In a 60-card game with your standard life total, that makes this card a risky play that can give you an upper hand at the price of what can be a huge hit to your life total. In a game of Commander where you start with a whopping 40 life? That drawback isn't really that scary.

Because of the choice attached to this spell, it effectively allows you to customize your board wipe. If you're focusing on a wide player's mass of tokens, you can put just a little bit of life into the spell to make it one-sided. Or if you've got a giant Orc ArmyOrc Army token, for example, you can set the X value to whatever the second biggest creature is on the board to wipe out everything but your scary force.

Not to mention the fact that this board wipe gives -X/-X instead of just "destroying" all creatures which allows you to get around any creatures that have indestructible or any players that try to cast a Heroic InterventionHeroic Intervention to get around your sweeper. Just an incredible piece of tech that can deal with almost any board state and put you back on top.

4. Ayara, First of Locthwain

Much like the aforementioned Gray Merchant of AsphodelGray Merchant of Asphodel, our next entry Ayara, First of LocthwainAyara, First of Locthwain will comfortably find its home in almost any mono-black deck. The only prerequisite is that you'll actually be playing creatures (or at the very least, making black creature tokens). For , Ayara adds an additional point of life drain to every black creature that enters under our control.

Chip damage is an incredibly good way of pushing a game of Commander to its inevitable end. As much as your opponents might moan as they see their life totals slowly dwindle over the course of each of your turns, every game has to end at some point! A majority of the pingers in black decks are tied to death triggers, much like the absolute classic that is Blood ArtistBlood Artist.

But whilst it's an incredibly powerful and prominent strategy in black decks, not every black deck wants to kill off its own creatures. Ayara reverses the trigger and ties it to your creatures entering the battlefield instead, which, for most mono-black decks, is effectively just a reward for playing the game!

You can probably leave this one out if you're planning to run very few creatures in your build, but if you're running even an regular amount, Ayara can do a lot of work for you over the course of a game as well as providing you with a card draw option if you don't mind sacrificing one of your creatures on board.

5. Black Market

Whilst not every mono-black deck is focused around killing its own creatures, one thing is true of all games of Commander: a lot of creatures are going to die. The beauty of Black MarketBlack Market is that it doesn't care whose creatures die for it to give you some big old rewards.

Five mana might seem pretty steep for a glorified mana rock, but Black Market will add an amount of to your mana pool for each charge counter on it at the beginning of your first main phase. That does mean it's technically one of those "pay a lot of mana for something that does nothing when it enters" cards.

But I just want you to think back to the last game of Commander you played and remember how many creatures died over the course of the game. How many board wipes were there? How much single target removal? Now imagine you had access to that much mana every single turn and you can see how ridiculous this card has the potential to be. ExsanguinateExsanguinate never felt so good.

As a quick special mention to a very fun card with a similar name, if you haven't played with Black Market ConnectionsBlack Market Connections yet, this thing can do some incredible work if you don't mind being tempted to half kill yourself every single turn.

6. Deadly Rollick

I'm going to let you in on a well kept secret here. It turns out, now bear with me, casting spells for free in Magic: The Gathering is pretty good. It's the reason that Force of WillForce of Will is so ridiculously expensive and sees huge amounts of play in almost every format it's legal in.

Printed in the Commander 2020 series of precons, Deadly RollickDeadly Rollick is part of a cycle of spells that allow players to cast them for free. That is, if their commander is on the board. Regardless, most of these spells provide a pretty decent costing for their effect. In this case, we get to exile a creature at instant speed. In black, paying for that is not too extreme of a cost.

The point, though, is that we can do it with spending a single mana just for the price of having a commander on board. Even if the commander gets killed after we've cast the spell, the cost is already dealt with, so we won't get charged in retrospect. Here's something fun: I believe you can even cast these if you just have your Background enchantment out but your commander is still in the command zone!

7. Reanimate

Black as a color is very versatile. It can kind of do a little bit of everything if it set its mind to it. Make a crap tonne of mana. Cast big terrifying creatures. Control. Aggro. You name it!

But if there's on thing that black specializes in, it has to be messing with the graveyard, and boy, are there some powerful graveyard exploitation spells available to you in Commander. There's nothing more nasty than the OG though in my humble opinion. The card they refuse to ban in legacy formats, no matter how much it breaks them. The thing we name "reanimation" spells after. ReanimateReanimate.

One black mana. Reanimate any creature card from any graveyard. Even your opponents'. Ridiculously powerful. The added cost of this one is that you'll be paying life equal to that creature card's mana value, but let's be real: even in 60-card formats with 20 life totals, that's not really that much of a cost. Would you take a one-mana Emrakul for 13 life? I know I would.

And don't be fooled by this card. You don't need to be playing a reanimator deck or have to mill to make this thing work. Just steal your opponent's nastiest creature right after your opponents have worked so hard to kill it. Beautiful stuff.

The Corruption Spreads

Mono-black decks are some of my absolute favorite ways to play the game of Magic, especially in Commander. If you're still uncorrupted by its dark and foreboding influence then you're one hundred percent missing out. Mono-black has access to a huge arsenal of powerful and fun tools, and these seven cards are but a small window into its power!

Let me know in the comments below what cards you include in every mono-black deck you run. And have a great time building! Until I see you on the next edition of The Monolith, happy reanimating and mono-black forever. Peace out!