I am just going to review the cards as they come out and add them to the top of the post until the set is fully out so watch this space!
15/4/14
Bearer of the Heavens - B cube
A very cool card that has a lot of power and a lot of potential for abuse. Panic button for Sneak Attack style decks are a use I can think of for this bad boy but as you should probably just try and win in such a situation I am at a bit of a loss thinking of homes for this giant. No evasion also limits the uses of Mr Atlas.
Aegis of the Gods - B cube
An easier to cast True Believer with one less toughness. Very annoying for some decks and nothing more than a bad Grizzly Bear to others. The redundancy this offers is nice but it has very few natural homes when it is not being played directly to counter a specific deck (not something that leads to great games) and as such will not be getting a top flight spot.
Eidolon of Rhetoric - C Cube
The decks that want these effects on dorks want more aggressively cost dorks and so this shouldn't see much, if any play.
Battlefield Thuamaturge - C Cube
Less exciting than Goblin Electromancer. Not really useful or abuseable enough to merit a slot in any deck I can think of.
Daring Thief - C Cube
Not quite sure if this is even worth it as redundancy for Donate, it is a bad combo and this is about as bad away of completing it as there is. Still quite an unusual effect and not too costly, in mana terms at least...
Prophetic Flamespeaker 3.0 (A Cube)
A card with multiple strong applications that is most comparable to Ohran Viper. The Viper is perhaps more consistent however Flamespeaker dumps on it for power level. A 1/3 doublestrike trample dork for three mana is quite robust, offers a reasonable board presence and scales unreasonably well with and power boosting effects. The body is good enough that it can be a useful damage dealer in things like red deck wins and other agro decks. On top of this abusable body throw in the ability to get +2 card advantage each time it swings and you have a winning card. Red is a difficult colour in which to draw extra cards, it is also a streamlined colour that can rarely afford "exotic" cards in its archetypes. While Flamespeaker is certainly exotic it is pegged at an unusual middle ground in red that I think will see it played in a far wider spread of decks than almost all other red creatures. Despite no proper evasion and needing to connect to gain card advantage the allure of a whopping two cards per swing, in a colour hard pressed to get cards, all while not having to stop aggression will get this little guy a lot of play. Not drawing the cards and having to play them immediately is significantly worse than just drawing cards, in some decks it will be a little tedious and in others such as red deck wins it will only really matter for haste dorks and when you hit two lands.
14/4/14
Eidolon of the Great
Revel – B cube
While this is a potent
looking card that would have gone straight into the cube a few years
back it is looking a bit like it needs more abilities to make the cut
now. Pyrostatic Pillar is a more secure way to achieve this affect
and it is not played as it is variable in its quality due to the
diversity of the format. Adding a 2/2 body means you can get some
extra damage in but does make your card vulnerable. Ash Zealot is a
far less potent damage effect than Eidolon but the body it is on
makes it a better all round investment of mana. There are also a vast
number of very good RR costing dorks competing for cube slots so
despite Eidolon being comparable in power to some like Ember Hauler
it is too dull and offers too few choices to take their slots.
Kruphix, God of
Horizons – C cube
A bit different and fun
but hard to abuse, costly and clunky with somewhat disparate effects.
I see no decks where this would be really strong and only a few where
this would even be playable.
Spite of Mogis – C
cube
While this is cheap
removal it is not easy to use early - when cheap removal is at its
best. It is hard to rule out a one mana scrying, scaling removal
spell, even if it is sorcery speed and so this does merit some
inclusion although I doubt anyone will bother digging this up to play
it over one of the many reasonable alternatives.
Silence the Believers –
B cube
While this costs an
awful lot it does offer a lot as far as black removal goes. Exile is
as good as it gets, as is instant speed and no target restrictions.
On top of this you have the option to take out several dorks
generating tasty card advantage. The aura exile aspect is not doing a
great deal with only a couple of bestow cards and I guess Rancor in
the cube to be that bothered about it. If slower black control decks
come back into strength in the cube meta then this might be A cube
material but for now I remain sceptical of four mana spot removal.
Interpret the Signs –
no slot
Very powerful card draw
that is easily abusable. As a six mana sorcery however this has no
place in the cube.
Kruphix's Insight –
no slot
Any deck where this
will be good will be using Enchantress effects to draw cards and will
not want to dilute the deck with sorceries doing the same thing.
Dictate of Karametra –
B cube (A if supporting UG storm archetypes)
As the rating would
suggest this is only not in my A cube due to the present lack of
support cards for it. Heartbeat of Spring is still the better card in
that kind of deck however the redundancy and utility from this
version will be very welcome. The card I suspect it will compete with
is Mirari's Wake rather than Heartbeat. The Wake requires white and
is sorcery speed for the same mana cost but makes up for this a great
deal by not being symmetrical. I think overall the extra playability
of Dictate as a result of being just one colour will mean it gets a
slot over Wake despite it being very close indeed for the main
archetype that plays them.
Launch the Fleet – B
cube
An interesting little
token generator that is quite cheap and has good tempo. Needing other
dorks in play makes this risky compared to Raise the Alarm style
cards but the potential power it offers is easily enough to offset
this in some decks. The question is really whether enough decks will
find that this is good enough and I feel it will just fall short of
being broad enough to get the slot. I will most certainly be building
a token and Crusade heavy deck to push this card to the max. Token
decks are the most able to get much benefit from the scaling portion
of Launch the Fleet and the presence of a Crusade doubles the potency
of that good scaling. You likely kill someone by going one drop dork,
two drop crusade, three drop Spectral Procession and then turn four
Launch the Fleet for four more guys.
Hypnotic Siren – C
cube
Being a one drop that
can scale in usefulness into the late game carries a lot of weight in
the cube. Sadly just being a Flying Man really restricts which decks
might have use for the one drop portion of the card. Essentially only
those decks with significant amounts of creature pump will be able to
support this and very very few of those will be able to realistically
support a 7 mana control magic. The extreme polar nature of this card
makes it incredibly niche and unlikely so see play more than a couple
of times.
Mana Confluence – 2.6
(A cube)
This is a tiny bit
better than City of Brass. While both have pros and cons I think the
cons of not being able to pay life to activate this in weird combo
decks are negligible compared to the forced damage people can apply
to you with a City of Brass in play. This card will see play in
almost every fast three or more colour deck and perhaps even a few
slower ones. With combo less in the picture and a wealth of good dual
lands to chose from the City of Brass style lands are seeing less
cube play than ever so despite the quality of this card it will have
very little impact on things.
Worst Fears – B cube
A somewhat unique
effect (excuse the horrible use of words but they somehow capture the
nature of the card). 8 mana is a lot and would see infrequent play
with Mind Slaver being easier to cast for most of the decks that
might consider it. The interest in this card lies in it being a
sorcery not an artifact and as such having a different selection of
synergies. Nothing immediately springs to mind where this would be
broken however it is not a card to entirely disregard for cube. Just
casting it a second time with a Snap Caster seems quite obnoxious.
Kiora's Dismissal –
no slot
This isn't doing
anything powerful or useful in cube.
Ritual of the Returned
– C cube
A little bit combo like
Sutured Ghoul but not very exciting. Would mostly just rather have a
Zombify over this and would in turn rather most other reanimate
effects over Zombify. Moving on.
Pheres-Band Warchief –
C cube
Centaurs are a long way
down the list of viable tribal cube decks and this clunker doesn't do
a great deal to move them up that list.
Athreos, God of Passage
– B cube
I am drawn to this card
but I am pretty sure it is awful. Any time you give your opponent a
choice you slash at least half the power of that effect. I like how
the effect helps you keep up your devotion but then I dislike paying
three mana for what will almost certainly be no effect on the board
for the whole early portion of the game. Ultimately it is being gold
and thus reduced playability that will keep this out of the A cube.
King Macar, the Gold
Cursed – C cube
I will likely play this
one time only in a silly inspired theme deck that is terrible. Macar
wouldn't even be that great in such a deck but you kind of have to go
for it when you do a mechanic theme. In normal cube circumstances
this is unplayable bad, small for the cost, far too pricey and slow
with little going for him beyond flavour. I kind of just wish they
had kept the antiquity names for their Trojan horses and King Midas,
hardly like Homer etc will be litigious.
Hydra Broodmaster – C
cube
A good mana dump come
fatty but not doing anything better or more interesting that a vast
swathe of other green fatties. Hydra are not exactly a tribal
archetype...
Polymorphous Rush – C
cube
Situational and fiddly,
only reason this gets a C cube slot is that I can't be bothered to
rule it out as a possible combo despite looking very unlikely for
one.
Forgeborn Oreads – C
cube
It seems unfair to lump
this in the same pile as Polymorphous Rush as this is vastly more
interesting and playable. This isn't awful with few or no other
enchantments and could be very potent in a themed deck. RR in the
cost is a bit of a boon as most enchantment based decks are GW base
but this block is adding a lot to the potential pool of enchantments.
Perhaps this will become a B cuber when the new enchantment heavy
meta is established in cube.
Twinflame – no slot
This is remarkably
similar to Polymorphous Rush although agro rather than combo and as
such gets no chance of a slot despite seeming to be the more powerful
card all round.
Master of the Feast –
2.2 (A cube)
I love a 3 mana 5/5
flier and a lot of decks will just fold to it, especially when
supported by other game enders like Phyrexian Obliterator. It is down
to your opponents not getting to draw until your upkeep and thus
having no downside if killed with sorcery speed effects that makes
this just about viable for the A cube. Black has a selection of ways
to negate the influx of extra cards the surviving Master of Feasts
will deliver from its own extreme card advantage to land destruction
strategies. You can even keep their hands low with a lot of discard
and then remove many of the extra cards with things like Liliana. Or
you could just ignor the few extra cards they probably wont get to
play before they are very dead to your huge fat flier. I suspect many
a game will just be over to this and a Dark Ritaul on turn one, let
alone followed up with Duress or Sinkhole....
Parika, God of
Affliction – B cube
This has most use as an
indestructible dork. A lot of black green decks do not want to remove
their own dorks from the bin very much. The odd free 1/1 deathtoucher
for 2 is a decent blocker against non evasive, non trampling things
but otherwise is doing very little for you. There are far better ways
to make tokens on offer in the cube. As a potential 3 mana 5/5
indestructible Pharika is powerful but not exciting nor particularly
easy to build around. If you work hard on having devotion she will be
strong but not broken nor very exciting. Even with this work you will
never be able to have a reliable early dork which makes her a lot
less interesting. Overall this card is too much work for too little
return despite the high power level.
Riddle of Lightning –
C cube
Erratic Explosion is
fairly good in the cube but not one of the top flight combo decks.
This will improve it a fair degree but not enough to grant it an A
cube slot, for that we need an easily tutorable 20 mana plus card!
Being instant is a real perk for control matches where all the other
effects that are like Erratic Explosion are I think sorcery speed.
The scry is also going to help a great deal when you are going for
the last ditch effort or just using the card as a more normal burn
spell. Certainly a card worth picking up for cube play.
Riptide Chimera – C
cube
Sarcomancy is what this
card screams to me and I am sure there are plenty of other fairly
nice enchantments to pair this up with. A Serendib Efreet body does
not excite all that much, good but not doing something you need or
are unable to get elsewhere. There will be the odd deck where this
guy really gets it done and is the perfect filler but no where near
enough decks for this to get near the A cube.
Nyx-Fleece Lamb –
B cube
This feels like a bit
of a hoser card against agro strategies, especially red ones. It is
not quite enough life gain to be used solely in that fashion and so
also needs to be pulling weight as a blocker. Combining these two
facts makes it only really worth it when you know what you are facing
which are not the sort of cards that should have slots in cube. As an
enchantment support card it might see some play but would be little
more than appropriate filler in such builds.
9/4/14
Spirespine – C cube
This is not good enough
for cube as a card in its own right however it has some potential at
getting play for having a lot of possible synergy and just filling a
slot or role reasonably well in some enchantment based deck. It has
quirkiness in effectively being able to provoke a blocker of theirs
and force a trade leaving you with a 4/1. Great design and
exploration of a mechanic just lacking in power and purpose.
Sightless Brawler – C
cube
Similar good design on
this card as with Spirespine resulting in a card that has three
potential uses. Again it is rather underpowered and will therefore
only make the cut in a deck with very heavy enchantment synergy.
While the stats for the cost are very decent for a utility card the
inability to attack without company makes it overly risky as an agro
card with it too often doing nothing for you.
Mogis Warhound – C
cube
I don't think this will
ever see play as it is worse than Spiresine and Sightless Brawler
while also being in a less enchantment themed colour. It is a very
substandard body, the bestow is unlikely to be useful on their dorks
very often and so you are left with a very average creature
enchantment. That said, it is a unique card and so one day may be
called upon and so I cannot just disregard it.
Crystalline Nautilus –
C cube
Expensive as well as a
risky clunky body but does offer blue an easy option for killing
troublesome enemy creatures. The power level of this cycle of utility
bestow creatures is sufficiently low that all three options need to
be reasonably useful and likely to come up for them to stand a chance
of being good enough. The Nautilus is struggling to be useful on any
of its options so while it is fairly unplayable it is interesting,
well designed and perhaps better than Mogis Warhound!
Gnarled Scarhide – A
cube (3.1)
The clear best of the
lot being a perfectly acceptable agro one drop in its own right while
also having some of the most likely useful bestow gimmicks. For
relatively cheap you can remove one of their blockers permanently,
sure it will be attacking you back and a bit harder than before but
assuming you are an agro deck you are probably OK with that.
Alternatively you can just slightly boost one of your dorks so that
you can carry on swinging. No part of the card is bad or that far
under par making it one of the most versatile agro one drops on
offer. I cannot really stress enough the value of redundancy in your
one drops and for the simple reason that this is a fine agro one drop
the small perks offered by the rest of the card are vastly scaled up
in their worth.
Temples of The
Remaining Three Colours – A cube (3.6)
The other scry lands
have all been among the most popular duals, especially the off colour
ones who are not as tied up with coming into play tap lands without
any man land duals to play. The dual lands come in, roughly speaking,
three classes in cube, the all ofs, the most ofs and the one ofs. It
turns out that the scry lands find themselves at the top of the most
ofs category over a lot of quality duals. This would make them about
the 5th best cycle of dual lands which is pretty
impressive. Kind of free card quality and information is really good
it turns out, certainly well worth the cost.
Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
– A cube (2.9)
A very powerful
planeswalker with a healthy chunk of starting loyalty and two strong
+1 effects. Elspeth, Knight-Errant is one of the very best
planeswalkers in the cube primarily for these sorts of reasons. As
Ajani is five mana across two colours he is not going to have
anything like the wide playability as Elspeth but he should give her
a decent run for her money in power level once both in play.
Certainly he will be one of the top gold planeswalkers in cube and an
unreasonably good midrange sort of card. Power level aside he
shouldn't make that much of a wave in the cube as he will be
relatively unplayed. He is not always going to neatly fit into a
green white deck as he will typically need a high creature count to
be good. There are lots of alternate top quality five mana green and
white cards making him a fairly low pick priority. As this kind of
card are very dangerous a lot of decks will be able to win before it
is relevant, deal with it immediately or utterly ignore it for a
little while. So not only will he not see as much play as a card like
Gideon Jura or Thragtusk but when he is in decks he will typically
spend less time being relevant and will be cast less often. He should
end games fairly fast in the more midrange attrition style games,
either growing in size while generating powerful card advantage or
still growing in size while making your board position terrifying
very quickly. Not a must have card but one that will never look out
of place when in a cube.
Sage of Hours – C
cube
A huge amount of effort
is needed for this to get much done in a normal deck and without
synergy for the heroic ability it is unplayable. It gets a C cube
slot only because it has some combo potential, I suspect a few modern
decks will be packing one of these for the infinite turns it can
offer.
Godsend – no slot
Being restricted to
white and having an ability that has a significantly reduced effect
in singleton formats makes this substantially worse than most
comparably cost equipment in the cube. Not a terrible card and would
certainly still win a lot of games but just not the kind of card you
want to take up cube slots with.
Keranos, God of Storms
– C cube
Much as I like this
card I don't quite see it being enough. To make full use of the card
you would need a fairly midrange deck as control decks would rarely
be able to get the devotion up and agro decks are not going to want
five mana clunk. A control deck could still play this but I don't
then see how it is better than a Future Sight or a Seismic Assault
even if you have good control over which kind of card you draw on
each of your turns. If you could trigger it in their turn as well it
would be far more abusable and interesting. As a five mana gold card
I am not sold, perhaps powerful enough but sadly no where near close
to playable enough for a cube slot.
Dictate of Kruphix –
A cube (3.5)
This is a card I am
very drawn to. It seems outstanding in a wide selection of decks and
is a very elegant card to boot. Having flash is huge for pure card
draw spells. You typically want to hold mana up to be reactive so
that you don't fall too far behind in tempo and only casting your
card advantage effects when you don't need to be reactive. On this
particular symmetrical card having flash is even better as it allows
you to always get the first trigger and thus get a head start on
things. There are many combo decks that delight in taking extra turns
where symmetrical card draw spells are fairly strong anyway, this one
will still be fairly strong when the deck is miss-firing a bit. I
kind of see this as the blue Phyrexian Arena and imagine the card it
will compete with most for getting slots in decks is Jace Beleren.
Although combo abuse will be where this card is more powerful I can
totally see it being played in simple control decks that are fairly
happy to give their opponents some extra cards along the way. There
is precious little in the way of instant speed middle ground card
draw in blue and also not that much in the way of reliable card
influx. As this is an enchantment it is about as safe as you can get,
it should almost always cycle and should most of the time still be in
play at the end of the game. A card like this will allow you to
remain safe while getting it down and will stay down more reliably
than most alternatives ensuring you continue to hit your land drops
and have the necessary answers for the rest of the game. Control
decks rely on things like Wrath of God to deal with loads of things
at once and big efficient finishers which ultimately means that even
if you are both drawing the same number of extra cards, in most match
ups the control player is getting more value from those draws. In
terms of widely playable new effects go I think this will be one of
the more interesting and impactive cards from the set. It is also one
of the better blue devotion enablers on offer giving us a better
chance of an agro blue devotion themed deck.
Dictate of the Twin
Gods – C cube
Sadly this is not
cutting it in cube play. Five mana is an awful lot to pay simply to
boost subsequent spells. Flash certainly helps this be playable but
with it doing nothing on its own I think another burn spell is just
going to be the better call over this optimistic pissing about card.
Underworld Coinsmith –
C cube
If it were not for the
joy that is Edgewalker I would not be at all excited by this bear.
Neither ability is that exciting, while neither are useless or bad
they are both just rather marginal and unlikely to be worth abusing
or even providing synergy for.
Doomwake Giant – A
cube (2.7)
This gets a tentative
slot for now. It is hard to kill, of decent size and very spalshable
which is a rare trait for a black card. It also offers a nice bit of
one sided mass removal that you can fairly easily power up with the
addition of extra enchantments to the deck. The ability to play out
your own dorks while also not worrying about them just responding by
overextending themselves and swarming you to death is of great value.
While this won't ever be killing fatties, you have good spot removal
for that, it is far more the swell of tokens and cheap dorks that
causes trouble for black, especially black decks wanting to play
creatures. Bane of the Living spent a lot of time in the early days
of my cube and was a valuable powerful card but sadly the power creep
has made him far too expensive and slow. While Doomwake might look
the more expensive card it is in fact cheaper while being fatter and
not having any negative effect on your team. Black has missed having
decent mass removal creatures that are convenient and I feel this
Giant is sufficiently powerful and convenient to see a slot worthy
amount of play.
Spawn of Thraxes – C
cube
Sadly I think Boggarden
Hellkite has more playability and utility than this. Essentially this
is a trumped up Flametongue Kavu that might hit players but does need
you to have mountains in play. As such a control deck is rarely going
to get more than a shot for four off while in big red deck, the only
other likely home for this, I suspect the average shot would be
lower.
Scourge of Fleets – B
cube
This is nearly good
enough but I think not quite. Something as simple as being a 7/7
might even have been enough. The effect is very powerful but won't
always do what you need which for a seven mana card isn't really
acceptable. The way it scales with islands as well makes it far less
effective in a cheating creatures into play strategy like reanimate
further reducing its playability. I think the best place for this
card is a mono blue control deck not just for the island count but
also because blue lacks much in the way of mass removal.
Dawnbringer Charioteers
– no slot
Moving on.
Squelching Leaches –
no slot
Clunky, unexciting and
unabuseable.
Heroes Bane – B cube
Another in a long line
of fat growing hydra. Both Kalonian and Primordial have this well
beat in convenience and power and so while this is a fine threat I
doubt I'll ever bother putting one in the A cube.
Iroas God of Victory –
B cube
Very powerful in any
agro Boros deck but pretty poor outside of that single archetype. The
terrible trouble with gold cards and cube slots! Being able to
fearlessly always turn your dorks sideways and require them to
outnumber you two to one just to be able to block everything is going
to make winning with weenies fairly easy. This also doesn't do much
to protect your army from mass removal, the thing the agro creature
deck is most afraid of. On balance I don't like the idea of this
having a cube slot but it might just be powerful enough anyway.
Draka Mystic – B cube
Much as I want this in
the A cube I think the number of decks that would actually play it
are too few in number. A very cool card on the cheap with a powerful
effect that also has a high skill requirement. This should always see
play in a merfolk themed deck as they are so light on decent one
drops however this offers very little board presence or tempo making
it a vulnerable and risky investment in most other creature or
control based decks.
Eidolon of Blossoms –
B cube
This will be a
significant part in a wide selection of Enchantress decks. It is the
holy trinity of things in that it is an Enchantress effect and an
enchantment and a dork. You can put auras on it and you get to draw
lots with it. Four is not cheap but as it is so perfect for so many
enchantment based decks I think this will be overlooked. Enchantress
is unfortunately not something you can support in the cube at present
although this block has offered a lot to potentially change that
soon. It is a broad, different and fun archetype but it is vulnerable
and inconsistent and while it is not viable in the A cube none of its
component cards will get in on that alone. There is potential for
this to be OK in a more normal sort of deck that has a few incidental
synergies but I suspect there will be more appealing alternatives
most of the time.
Extinguish all Hope –
C cube
At five I would be
interested simply as black is light on reliable Wrath effects rather
than because this is that exciting. Six however is too much, the
enchantment aspect is likely to be annoying rather than helpful as
well.
Hall of Triumph – C
cube
I cannot see this
having enough synergy to be wanted. Only in blue can I see this being
interesting but there is probably just never going to be the creature
density in such decks to merit this over another dork. Many years ago
this might have been interesting to green decks but that era is long
gone.
Ravenous Leucrocota –
no slot
Below the curve
uninteresting dork.
Sigiled Starfish – A
cube (3.0)
My kind of card! A
decent tempo staller and complete with a great card quality
mechanism. Although Merfolk Looter is usually more powerful scry does
give it a good run for its money in cube with it being less prone to
decking and allowing the preservation of late game cards for the late
game. The thing with Looter is that it is a vulnerable 1/1 while this
bad boy is a tough old 0/3 that can get involved in blocking and save
you a lot of early nibbling. Starfish also helps to protect any
planeswalkers you might want to lay. It is somewhat the blue
equivalent of Wall of Omens/Blossoms in the role it will end up
playing rather than the role of the Looter. As a result I think it
will see a lot more play.
Satyr Hoplite – no
slot
Not worth the effort
nor are there many good cards that would help in making this work.
Cyclops of Eternal Fury
– C cube
Perhaps the best card
in some mass reanimate combo deck but otherwise unplayable in cube
simply for his immense cost.
Ajani's Presence – A
cube
Will likely need to try
this out as it is a pretty powerful combat trick as well as good
insurance against mass removal. Compared to the various cards like
this that give protection rather than indestructible this is worse in
creature vs creature games as you cannot use it to force through
damage. I think however that this is more than made up for by the
fact it is so much more useful against mass removal. Not only is mass
removal the worst enemy of the type of deck that would want this but
it is played by a different archetype to the creature decks. As this
card is still fine against the creature decks yet so much better
against the control decks I think it is a winner, all be it a rather
unexciting one.
Whitewater Niads – no
slot
Pricey, slow and not
for cube.
Setassan Tactics – C
cube
I don't see me ever
wanting this although it is pretty good. It is just a bit too
convoluted to be reliably good in cube and reliability is key in the
decks this card would shine.
17 Lands
The deck itself is fairly straight forwards and rarely presents those complicated turns chock full of complicated choices. The trick to being good with this kind of deck is being able to recognize the direction the game is taking as early on as possible. This will allow you to set up so that you always have something you want to be doing on the few following turns despite not having the breadth of options. The splash of green is painless and greatly increases the overall integrity of the deck, particularly with the Vampiric Tutor.
I have since done several other incarnations of this kind of deck that range from the very agro to the much slower control. The only main theme is that they all use Gray Merchant, Lake of the Dead and Nykthos combined with a selection of other heavy black costing dorks. Light splashes offer a lot and work fine but you cannot afford to have lands that don't tap for black and you want lots of swamps for your Lake of the Dead so the splashes have to stay light. Mono black also works perfectly well and can cover the full range of agro to control well. It even works pretty well just playing the most powerful spells you can without paying mind to what direction you are going in.
