Can someone help me improve my Blue-Black MTG Deck?

Question

My cards are:


Land/mana source:
6x Swamps
6x Water
4x Dark Ritual
4x Drowned Catacomb
4x Darkslick Shores
4x Creeping Tar Pit

Creatures
2x Ravenous Rats
2x Ogre Marauder
2x Nyxathid
2x Avatar of Woe
3x Guilt Feeder
2x Royal Assassin
2x Sangromancer
4x Mortivore
1x Arcanis the Omnipotent
1x Wonder
1x Cephalid Retainer

Artifacts
2x Bad Moon
4x Terror
1x Necrogen Mists
2x Ancestral Recall
4x Counter Spell
1x Time Walk
2x Mana Drain
1x Retraced Image
1x Second Sight
1x Specter’s Shroud
1x Gilded Lotus

I have a lot of 1x cards only cuz I just had them sitting around in my collection and i really like them. Can anyone suggest cards that could make this deck better or which cards to take out. I originally had an all black discard deck but I kept getting owned by spells so i decided to combine it with a blue deck to counter. Thanks for the help in advanced!

Answer 1

This deck pretty much has one theme, discard with a graveyard sub-theme. Blue is a great add, there is plenty of blue-black discard oriented cards available and as you pointed out has counterspells. Unfortunately you have a lot of things in the deck that conflict with this construction.



Cephalid Retainer - Obviously your trying to combo it with Royal Assasin, and get through for flying damage... clunky, and unnecessary with a working Nyxathid or Avatar of Woe.

Ogre Marauder - I like this card, but it's definitely geared towards aggro, while the rest of the deck is not.

Bad Moon - The only other purely aggro card in the deck, best in a Weenie deck with plenty of small black attacking creatures. Not a card I expect to see with Guilt Feeder, Sangromancer, Avatar of Woe, Mortivore, etc.

Arcanis the Omnipotent - Card draw is great... this guy not so much. Really you could do much better with spells like Flux, or Memory Jar that powers up your own Mortivores.

Second Sight - Is a TERRIBLE card. It's only ok in mill, and even then it's so costly that it still sucks

Retraced image - you said it yourself, you only have mostly 1 of cards, this is would be a good add if you had 4 of everything. It's not good in this deck.

Ancestral Recall - You have 2? Awesome! But even though I play casual, I still obey vintage rules. Somebody out there has a deck with 4 black lotuses, 4 ancestral recalls and 4 time walks... I don't want to see that deck, where would the fun/challenge in it be, for the both of us? I'd suggest limiting myself to 1.

Nyxathid - I'd keep this card but I'd consider adding cards like Persecute or Hand of Tourach to support it. Maybe a spector or two.



I'd suggest looking at cards like

Persecute

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=83199

Hymn to Tourach

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=159180

Spectors

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&type=+[%22Creature%22]&name=+[Specter]

Breathstealer's Crypt

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3734

Consult the Necrosages

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=87923

Flux

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=4485

Magus of the Jar

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=126287

Recoil

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=23154

Wistful Thinking

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=124055

Memory Jar

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=8841



Anyway welcome back to magic, hope this gives you some ideas.

Answer 2

Ancestral Recall is banned in Legacy and Restricted to 1 per deck in Vintage. Running Arcanis is a bad idea overall, the 3 blue mana can be bad.



Islands are never called Water, this is NOT Pokemon.

Answer 3

i've got on no account run a blue deck, yet i've got performed with black on countless occassions, and after dealing with extremely some blue decks, i will in basic terms think of the devastation you ought to wreak if this grew to become into outfitted properly. After surfing the contraptions, this is what i've got arise with: Corrahelm Commander x4 Distortion Strike x4 Drake Umbra x2 Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief x2 Dread Drone x4 Hand of Emrakul x2 Artisan of Kozilek x2 shield Gomazoa x4 Warmonger's Chariot x2 Bloodghast x4 Cancel x4 Quest For the Gravelord x4 Hideous end x4 Lorthos, the Tidemaker x2 Island x18 Swamp x12 seventy 4 enjoying cards , 40.5% land that's slightly a great deck, and that i'm unsure if it sucks, yet there is my enter.

Answer 4

You expect us to believe that you have Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, and Mana Drain?