In-Depth Analysis - Modern Necro
by Alex Murison, MadEntity on IRC
Since it's creation to beat the U/W control decks, Necrodecks have been the
deck archetype for Proactive control. The combination of disruption, damage
and sheer card advantage gave Necrodecks complete control over the environment.
Few can forget the "Black Summer", where Necrodecks ran rampant across the
tournament scene. However, after Hymn, Zuran Orb and Ivory Tower got banned
traditional Necrodecks were banished to classic and classic restricted. For
a time Necropotence dissapeared from the type II scene, but made it's triumphant
return in 5th edition. Although initially many people tried to recreate
Necrodecks (I can remember a conversation on IRC where people were saying,
use Mindstab Thrulls for Hippies, pump Knights are back, Necro will be broken),
the strengthening of Sligh and the immediate popularity of Deadguy contributed
to make Necrodecks a minor force in the environment. Then in came tempest,
although people had been testing Necrodecks before Tempest (Erik lauer is
a notable example) they had never really achieved widespread success. With
Tempest however, I feel that Necrodecks could make a comeback in a big way.
Modern Necrodecks resemble very little the Necrodecks of yore, with a mix
of Land and Hand destruction and a horde of smaller knights, rather they
have had to change into new forms. Due to the extraordinary popularity of
Sligh and also the presence of green Speed decks it is critical that creature
control is established from the word go. This is fortunately not too difficult,
with diabolic Edict hurting creatures and your Knights getting in the way
and absorbing fire. There is also no form of Discard or Land Destruction
of comparable efficiency to Hymn to Tourach/Hypnotic Specter or Strip Mine
respectively.
There are many choice picks of creatures for Necrodecks. Here are some of
the more popular, as well as a few eclectic choices.
Black Knight
One of the few original creatures Necro still has, 2/2 First Strike for 2
mana is powerful and vs. White can prove devastating. They are the original
and due to the sheer quantity of anti-"1 toughness" cards floating around
in the environment are often better than pump Knights...
Knight of Stromgald
Gee, what a link.. These are still strong, however with "Suck it down"
Firewalkers and Mogg Maniacs flying around everywhere these days it can be
a tough choice between these and Black Knights.
Nekrataal
How do Nekrataals kill things, it's a question which had been bothering me
of late, you just can't work it out from the artwork... but despite this
taxing conundrum Nekrataals are a very strong creature for Necrodecks to
use, creature kill and a 2/1 First Striker... Enough said, to leave these
out of a black deck without good reason is almost criminal nowadays. They
are particularly juicy against modern Mono Blue, "HaHa I killed your waterspout..
Oh is that a Man-o'- war?"
Bottle Gnomes
Try them vs. Sligh and you'll begin to love them. Not only are they a portable
Healing Salve, but with a Necro on the board they're an Ancestral Recall
and if the red deck tries to incinerate them, you've just wasted 2 burn spells
effectively... Plus they are a colourless blocker, take that Whirling Dervish!!!
Necrosavant
Sure he's no Ihsan's Shade, but he's big and a decent replacement for him....
I'd certainly use him over Greven-"Oh your playing Blue" Il-vec.
Gravedigger
This little monster is an effective if slow black creature. Most Black decks
rely too much on speed to use him, but a Necrodeck is all about control rather
than speed and with a gravedigger excellent creature offence (one of Necro's
best forms of control) can be established.
Steel Golem
This Nicotine Addicted (just look at the artwork) Golem showed up in Erik
Lauer's discard Necro in the Decks to beat Dec '97 section of the Dojo. It
has 4 toughness and is cheap. If you use no other creatures it is a pretty
powerful card. Best used in a Paul McCabe Necro style of deck in my opinion.
Snake Basket
More card advantage for a Necrodeck, really nice with dark Ritual.. it is
a nice card for use in a deck with Steel Golem (See Erik Lauer's aforementioned
discard Necro).
Erg Raiders/Fallen Askari
These two are best used in Highly offensive Hackerpotence-esque decks, although
in my opinion erg Raiders are better for several reasons, 3 toughness (no
quicksand, harder to block and kill, with a bad Moon out they are
unincineratable) and also because they are not a Knight and hence annoy Knights
of the Mists...
Derelor
These guys are nice mid-range beatdown, if your deck has many creatures use
him over Steel Golems (as for his disadvantages, when you have a 4/4 monster
on the board... How much mana do you need?)
The need for life.
Life is the Necrodecks critical resource. In it's earliest days it used Ivory
Tower and Zuran Orb to gain maximum benefits from it's Necropotence, un
combination with drain Life and occasionally Soul Burn. The loss of the Tower
and Orb is in part what brought down the popularity of Necrodecks, now a
red burn deck is often able to fry a Necrodeck to a crisp, or at least deny
it use of it's most important resource, life. necrodecks have been struggling
to find a replacement for the Orb and Tower ever since, El-Hajaj is far too
expensive for what he does. You can only use Crovax from Vanguard Series
two in Arena (grin), and fountain of youth is just so efficient it's scarey
:P.
Now it is once again possible to gain ridiculous amounts of life in a Necrodeck,
the key card? Bottle Gnomes. If you haven't playtested this card playtest
it. Maybe they should just rename it Ancestral recall in a Bottle. Although
according to the card text it only gives you three life, in reality it does
much more to gain you life. what you have to remember that with 1 power it
often does little in combat so it will usually be kept back as a blocker.
What this equates to is a steadfast defence, as it can hold off creatures,
say for example an Ironclaw Orc, very efficiently it conserves you life every
turn, which means more life for your necro. The other reason it gives you
more life than you can handle is only applicable against red. take for example
I incinerate your Gnome, I sac it, effectively neutralising the next Incinerate
as well, 6 extra life is not an inconsiderable amount... If you combine The
Gnomes with the ever strong drain Life you can have quite a powerful life
gaining contingent.
Land Kill
Of the Land Destruction spells available to the modern Necrodeck easily the
most powerful is Wasteland, although it can only kill Non-Basic Land most
decks will use some, and then the non-basic lands are the ones you probably
most want to kill. Choking Sands gets a strong vote, as it can take down
any non-swamp land, with the added bonus of dealing damage vs. a non-basic
land. Since Necrodecks are not incredibly popular, most Black decks are Black
5 colour or Rogue decks, against even these decks choking Sands are useful,
i'd rate this as the second best LD spell black has to offer, and thirdly
is rain of tears, a bog standard LD card, very useful in a Necroheavy area.
Hand Kill
Hand Kill is far more varied than Land kill in the T2. Obviously stupor (the
closest thing to Hymn) is a powerful option, but Coercion gets a look in.
Abandon Hope + Necropotence is just like a channeled mind Twist... If you
have the mana. Agonizing Memories is strong offering Time advantage as well
as card advantage. Also any good player should fear Mindstab Thrull, dauthi
Mindripper and Abyssal Specter. Though none are as powerful as the good old
Hippy, they are all good choices.
I'm not as fast as you.
When Necrodecks were running rampant there really weren't many decks that
were faster than them. They often started their offence on turn 1 with a
dark ritualed Hippy and continued to act every turn. Now Necrodecks cannot
really achieve the same speed that a green or Red deck can, without going
over to a more Hackerpotence style of deck. This is something a Necrodeck
player must bear in mind in the new environment. Against these sort of decks
you will initially be on the defensive. with modern Mono Blue deck even rivalling
Necro's speed it is essential to analyse how your Necrodeck functions as
a reactive deck. If it cannot defend as well as it can dish it out, then
it will suffer up against the speed demons.
Splash colours
After Bentley's R/B Necrodeck won a major tournament (I can't remember which
one. Was it the US Nationals?) a lot of interest has been generated in Necrodecks
with an extra colour. Extra colours were quite difficult to run in a Necrodeck
as Necro costs BBB and requires a significant commitment to black, and without
using lots of depletion lands the only way to achieve the splash colour was
via Pain Lands and City of Brass, These were quite undesirable as they cost
you life, your most valuable resource.
If you look at what is available nowadays for splash colours though... You
have access to Tempest's new sleep lands. If you are prepared to sacrifice
a bit of speed for more life then these could prove well worth it. Undiscovered
Paradise also costs you some speed, however, unlike the sleep lands can provide
coloured mana every turn. Gemstone Mine and Barbed Sextant provide limited
amounts of mana, but with Necro drawing you lands does their limited Nature
cost you too much? finally there's always the Pain Lands and the City of
Brass.
Many people would choose to stick with Mono Black Necrodecks as they can
handle most things via. Disks and the incredible creature control Black has
to offer, but each colour gives benefits when splashed...
Red
Incinerate and Kindle are good at removing Pro Black Knights, while with
the amount of mana you draw, 4 Drain Life and 1 fireball can provide an excellent
stalemate offence.
Blue
Intuition is a great card for Hunting Necropotence...
White
Mangara's Blessing is 5 cards and nice anti-burn and anti-discard. CoP's
make nice sideboard options. Disenchant is versatile and makes up in part
for standard Necro's weakness up against artifacts and enchantments. Serenity
is also nice as it destroys your own Necropotence as well as annoying Propaganda
Orb players...
Green
OK, so not every colour offers that much. You don't need Green's creatures.
scragnoth might be decent as an anti Blue card, and it may be a funny idea
to run a McCabe Necro with Gaea's Blessings, but apart from a splash of
enchantment destruction in the sideboard Green isn't worth much in a Necrodeck.
Hell why use Green, White has better enchantment destruction.
Support Cards
Now i've looked at the creatures, the different styles of Modern Necrodeck,
now I am going to analyse the support cards that work best. I am leaving
out Land and Hand Kill cards as I have already discussed them, and i'm leaving
out creatures also. I'm also going to leave out Nev's Disk and Drain Life...
If you don't use them you need a pretty damn good reason.
Spinning Darkness
This card kills a creature, gives you 3 life = 3 cards and is a complete
surprise...
Diabolic edict
Far stronger than terror, between this, Bottle Gnomes and Disks you can
practically ignore Protection from Black.
Vampiric Tutor
It's nowhere near as good as a Demonic Consultation, but it's a versatile
Library searcher nonetheless. I would often question it's use as it hurts
you, but if you really want to go grab that Necro then do it.
Terror
If you want more edicts then use Terror. It is nowhere near as strong as
an edict, but still efficient.
Bad Moon
This strengthens your deck up against Red in Particular, but is only really
worth it in a Hackerpotence deck.
Dark Ritual
Without Hypnotic Specter people began to dislike this card. It still has
power though. It can be used to pull out a first turn Necro after you see
their one Island, give you a turn taal/disk...It can be used to generate
2 extra snakes from a Basket and it can make that drain Life the right size....
Corpse dance
Generally, it is for use with your bottle Gnomes (But I thought they took
Ivory Tower out of print!!!). it is a weak card alone, but if you have a
lot of Gnome-esque creatures it can work to your advantage.
Vulnerabilities
Necrodecks are no where near as good as they used to be, and even in their
old incarnations they were far from invulnerable. here are the modern Necrodeck's
main weaknesses.
Even with the large amount of life gaining available to the modern Necrodeck
it is still very possible to burn it back where it came from. red speed can
often match up to Black ingenuity and boltboltbolt-fireblast happens with
alarming regularity.
A speed rush is another great way to hurt Necrodecks, like burn it limits
the usefulness of Necropotence and leads to the opponent's eventual
demise.
Blue decks have primarily got to destroy the Necropotence and the disruption
spells, using creature control to take the board. if the game goes on long
enough, the Blue player has a much better chance as it's card advantage engines
can begin to recoup losses suffered.
Very fast lock/combo decks such as Stasis or Prosperity-bloom can often evade
the discard/land kill elements and pull out their lock/combo. then take advantage
of the lack of board control available in a Necrodeck...However necrodecks
have an answer to this deck style in the form of discard. 8 Discard cards
can often very well hose these strategies quite nicely...
Here's a list (once again, far from exhaustive) of some excellent cards vs.
Modern Necrodecks :-
Forsaken Wastes - If you can control the board, then this will stop the Necrodeck
from gaining life.
CoP : Black - work it out
Light of Day/Karma - Well duh!
Sudden Impact - Storm seeker was always a nice card for anti-Necro
Artifact Destruction - Stop that Disk!!!
Knight of the Mists - Necro does use a lot of Knights doesn't it...
Once again i've left out my favourite Necrohosers (I don't want to give TOO
much away).
Thanks for reading this article...
Alex Murison, MadEntity on IRC, Member of team Quad damage
thanks go once again to roy, for pointing out that I had indeed forgotten
about Derelors.
E-Mail me on alexmurison@hotmail.com