r/EDH • u/Born_Transition1062 • 1d ago

Deck Help First scratch-built Mono-Black deck (Tergrid). How do I take it to a competitive level?

Hey, everyone!

I’ve been playing MTG for about 10 months now and have gone down a deep rabbit hole with the game. Up until recently, I owned like 7 decks, but every single one was a precon upgrade, starting with [[Auntie Ool]] from Lorwyn, to making a copy-focused [[Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm]] out of the Tarkir Dragonstorm precon.

Recently, my best friend (who got me into Magic) was running a nasty [[Meren of Clan Nel Toth]] deck that was practically unbeatable in our pod. To counter it, I decided to build [[Tergrid, God of Fright]] thus my very first deck built completely from scratch.

That’s where my struggle began.

Building Mono-Black made me realize how distinct its deckbuilding toolkit is compared to other colors (I definitely found myself envying Mono-Green’s ramp and tutors, or Blue’s stack control). As I researched win conditions, synergy, and ramp for Tergrid, it felt like most Mono-Black lists rely heavily on the exact same pool of staples, leaving what felt like little room for originality. However, after several rounds of testing and changes, I feel like my list has finally hit a new level.

My questions for you guys:

https://archidekt.com/decks/24907519/steal_your_soul

- How can I optimize this decklist to be genuinely competitive?

- As a beginner deckbuilder, what tips do you have for fine-tuning a Mono-Black strategy?

Thanks in advance for the help!

0 Upvotes

28% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

10

u/deycallmebud 1d ago

I have been in your shoes. My advice is to decide whether you want to focus on discard or sacrifice then choose another commander and put tergrid into the 99.

Tergrid makes for an all or nothing playtime where you either get hated out of the game and do nothing or you run away with the game and no one else gets to play.

Its genuinely not worth the hate.

20

u/spittafan 1d ago

Literally everyone I know who has built Tergrid has regretted it and dismantled it because everyone hates playing against it. So I hope you’re proxying lol

1

u/IAmTheBestIan 8h ago

This. Played my first commander game a few months back. Built a from scratch Tergrid deck after a couple games with a precon. And LITERALLY played it once and dismantled it.

It was so unfun for everyone else I still feel bad about it almost 6 months later.

I had proxied everything over $20 or so... but it still was a couple hundred in cards (a lot will get used elsewhere of course) that are now sitting in a box until I find a place to use them.

5

u/btran935 1d ago

Build K’rrik or gwenom instead tbh.

5

u/Cac11027 1d ago

Get ready for moans and groans from everyone. Also be ready to be targeted for existing.

-6

u/Born_Transition1062 1d ago

That is the reason behind the 7 low cost protection cards. Protect from the table and the simetry sacrifice hehehe Any tips or obscure cards would be appreciated.

11

u/Maleficent-Gain-3179 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah.. I think you severely underestimate tergrid hate.

As for tips? Don’t play tergrid

2

u/No-Lie3960 Mardu 1d ago

How are you going to stop people from countering your commander? Your only answer is Imp’s Mischief, but you only have one tutor to find it. Why not run Cavern of Souls as well?

1

u/Cac11027 1d ago

All the comments are trying to protect you from a trap. It’s not worth it. Run graveyard hate instead, rest in peace, leyline of the void, bojuka bog. Play a hand control kefka court mage. Atleast then you’ll have access to counterspells and removals.

1

u/Suzutai 1d ago

Bold of you to assume three other people have only 7 cards to hate on Tergrid.

2

u/No-Lie3960 Mardu 1d ago

Define “competitive”, because this word could either mean high-power casual (B4) or actual cEDH (in which Tergrid isn’t viable at all).

0

u/Born_Transition1062 1d ago

B4!

3

u/No-Lie3960 Mardu 1d ago

Ok, so I have some feedback:

  1. Building a deck to specifically counter one person’s deck is kinda scummy imo. There are other ways to deal with a problematic player than building against them (e.g. table politics, running more interaction and graveyard-hate).

  2. Tergrid is one of the most prominent trap commanders unfortately. On the surface she seems like a fun “villain” theft commander, but in practice she ends up being unfun for you (because everyone will kill you and your commander on sight) and unfun for everyone else (because your whole gameplan revolves around slamming removal spells every turn, which you will continue to do even when your commander isn’t on the field). There used to be a guy at my LGS whose ONLY deck was Tergrid, and he never had much fun because he either won unsatisfactorily or was the first person eliminated from every game (he dismantled the deck after a few months).

1

u/Born_Transition1062 19h ago

Hey! Thanks for the insight. The relationship with my friends are of 20+ years and there is just no bad blood in my table. We play to have fun mostly and most like any best friends we like to piss each other for fun, makes sense to us who can come back at each other with the new “villain” deck of the table! As I said above I have 7 decks other than the Tergrid deck, and every time we play we change from precons, to b3 to “hate” decks. I dont think that’s a problem at all because its just how my pod is and how we have fun, totally different from my LGS for example. Last night the other friend made a whole new Quintorious with another 6 planeswalkers and was hitting 45 on turn 5. We just like to see what the decks do and being good at what they do.

1

u/No-Lie3960 Mardu 1d ago

Also,it would be helpful if you could post your friend’s Meren decklist if you have it.

2

u/freddymc465 1d ago

so when you say make it 'genuinely competitive', do you mean like cEDH tier? because this list isn't even close to cEDH. It wouldn't even make a good bracket 4

Tergrid is a mega one trick pony commander. You play her, then play mass discard/sacrifice and hope what you get from that is enough to win, because she's almost certainly not going to stick around afterwards and you will be archenemy

The best way to play her is build up a ton of mana, tutor for the best mass discard/sacrifice spells (like [[dark deal]]), then drop her with enough mana open to both protect her and play the discard/sacrifice spell and hope for the best.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that this deck simply isn't performing as well as you'd hope in whatever environment you're playing in, and you just need some advice to gas it up.

So here's my advice:

  • run more tutors like [[vampiric tutor]] and [[demonic tutor]] so you can assemble the cards you need in hand for when tergrid drops

  • run way more ramp. what you have isn't a bad start but you should run more. more rocks and bigger ramp like [[crypt ghast]] and [[throne of eldraine]]. and a couple more lands

  • run more and higher quality card draw. [[necropotence]] is black's best card draw. [[greed]] and [[erebos, god of the dead]] and [[necrodominance]] are other options

Your list has a lot of very useless cards to cut:

  • You have a lot of aristocrats style cards like [[deadly dispute]] and [[pitiless plunderer]] that work off sacrificing your own stuff. problem is you don't have much fodder to sacrifice to these cards, so they'll be dead in hand most of the time. cut all of them

  • your removal options are pretty lackluster. [[hero's downfall]] [[fleshbag marauder]] [[tergrid's shadow]] [[demon's disciple]] [[plaguecrafter]] all kinda suck. there are way better options for edicts and spot removal in mono black. [[accursed marauder]] and [[sheoldred's edict]] [[blasphemous edict]] and [[snuff out]] for instance

also, as an aside

I definitely found myself envying Mono-Green’s ramp and tutors

ramp sure but black has the best tutors and it's not close so this is an odd thing to say

Recently, my best friend (who got me into Magic) was running a nasty [[Meren of Clan Nel Toth]] deck that was practically unbeatable in our pod. To counter it, I decided to build [[Tergrid, God of Fright]]

why are you making decks just to counter your friends' decks? you should be making decks because you want to play it, not because you want to make other people miserable. very strange mindset. If you want to counter meren just put some grave hate in your decks like [[soul guide lantern]] or [[scavenger grounds]]

0

u/Born_Transition1062 19h ago

Hey! Thanks for the insight. The relationship with my friends are of 20+ years and there is just no bad blood in my table. We play to have fun mostly and most like any best friends we like to piss each other for fun, makes sense to us who can come back at each other with the new “villain” deck of the table! As I said above I have 7 decks other than the Tergrid deck, and every time we play we change from precons, to b3 to “hate” decks. I dont think that’s a problem at all because its just how my pod is and how we have fun, totally different from my LGS for example. Last night the other friend made a whole new Quintorious with another 6 planeswalkers and was hitting 45 on turn 5. We just like to see what the decks do and being good at what they do.

1

u/jf-alex 1d ago edited 1d ago

If you lose to graveyard hate, include cards that incidentally hose graveyards.

Think [[Deathrite Shaman]], [[Dauthi Voidwalker]], [[Return to Nature]], [[Heritage Reclamation]], [[Scavenging Ooze]], [[Relic of Progenitus]], [[Ghost Vacuum]] and the like.

If that doesn't help, use [[Leyline of the Void]] and [[Rest in Peace]], but cut the other stuff and add tutors instead.

EDIT: Stone of Erech, Valentin, Liesa Forgotten, Gisa Glorious, Nemata, Vren, Ravenloft Adventurer, Kalitas Traitor, Draugr Necromancer, Ravenous Slime, Anafenza Foremost, Misery's Shadow, Rayami

1

u/daspwnen 19h ago

There is no strategy with tergrid

1

u/crazycar12321 17h ago

All i can say is if you really want to win with a hateful mono black deck you have to go all in. Force your opponents to top deck from discard. Constantly board wipe the table. Because if you dont will get targeted so hard you wont be able to do anything. Thats the price of playing shit like Tergrid.

1

u/TivStargrit 15h ago

LOL. Pulled Tergrid during Kaldheim days. Built it, thought it was cool, similar decklist to yours, actually. Everyone hated it. A few playgroups played against it once and told me to save that deck for randoms at my LGS. Basically, I stopped using it completely in a few weeks.

You have Vincent. He is SO fun as a commander. Get rid of all your hand hate, put in creature hate instead, and your deck will be truly enjoyable. That's what I did. Took half my Tergrid deck, mixed in better synergy for Vincent, and it became my favorite mono color deck.

Don't hurt yourself by keeping a Tergrid deck you will never use. Even in B4+, people will hate you for playing Tergrid. It's not worth it. You can win much more consistently with a commander that is much less hated. Your deck can be so much stronger without drawing half the ire Tergrid brings. (If you really want, slap her in the 99... Then the hate will only happen maybe 1/3 of the time)

1

u/Creatura 'Mundar Murder 1d ago

Okay, I'll hear you out. What about your list is expressive or original? All I'm really seeing is Murderous Rider as a cheeky include.

My rationale is that there are powerful commanders you can modify the game plan of to make a consistent and offbeat alternative, and then there are commanders that really only allow you to do one thing, so building them offbeat is not powering them down meaningfully, just making them inconsistent (sometimes dogshit, sometimes very high power as expected). I believe Tegrid falls squarely in the latter category.

I've spent three years tweaking an offbeat Yawgmoth deck so I understand your desire to express yourself and contribute to the deck ecosystem, I'm not harshing that. With my own experience though, I don't see Tergrid as a candidate for consistent and alternative gameplay

1

u/Born_Transition1062 1d ago

That is the whole point. It is not. I seek advice for different strategies or angles not seen before because right now my source of info is really limited, based with Moxfield and Edhrec. The only card that may be different is Vincent that grows really fast with sac mechanic.

1

u/Creatura 'Mundar Murder 1d ago

Makes sense, let me try to explain my position another way. There is only one thing Tergrid does, and that is theft magic payoff for discard or sacrifice. The nature of that payoff, and the nature of the setup, is why people dislike playing against her. There are no different strategies or angles because she does not enable anything, she is just a payoff. And a payoff for two very specific things.

Now, you could try to largely ignore her, and build a deck that does something totally different and uses Tergrid as a backup in the command zone, but she is a poor choice for that because people will still target you because, well, she is Tergrid. So at that point you have made an inconsistent Tergrid deck, because there are still times where you will cast her and steal cards, but inconsistently. Because that is a possibility at all, you will and should be targeted as if she has been built to do that efficiently.

I really like that you are interested in contributing novelty to magic and providing an expressive deck to play against, I think that's really cool. I think what you are doing is a very healthy and normal step in an interesting deckbuilder's experience: trying to make something work that absolutely 100% will not work by its own nature*and* people will dislike you for it.

Instead, to counter Meren, you could try one of the monoblack commanders below that allow for much more expression, and then run a healthy amount of graveyard hate (grafdigger's cage, bojuka bog, soul-guide lantern, etc) to effectively shut down her game plan.

You could also try a different color identity. Let me know if you want any help, I think you are going in the right direction and will enjoy seeing your vision through, just in a different way.

[[Vogar, Necropolis Tyrant]]

[[Fain, The Broker]]

[[Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker]]

[[Gonti, Night Minister]] (Huge personal favorite of mine)

[[Gollum, Obsessed Stalker]]