Mono Black Aggro Reprise

The black aggro deck (see the list below) did reasonably well, snagging second in a field of about 16 players. Since I won my draft pod on Friday this brings the weekend winnings total to $30 in store credit, or two drafts and a standard tournament (I picked up a underground river for getting second in the 8-man afterdraft yesterday, but had to settle for third place and razormane masticore during Friday's afterdraft). Enough bragging, how did the deck play? Things went reasonably according to plan, winning the first two rounds against homebrews. There was a game in the second round where my opponent had an active Loxodon war hammer equipped on his hypnotic specter that really tested how many resources I could afford to give away (being forced to sac permanents to my phyrexian totem while getting cards stripped from hand) to continue to deal damage to my opponent. I think I was swinging with a bad moon in play, so I was (barely) able to take him down. These are the sorts of situations a deck like this excels at- swinging ftw at three life with three lands, an active totem and Bob Maher left on board. Not for the faint of heart! Round three I play the self-styled Asshole Jason, who is using my own angelfire deck that I borrowed him. This seemed like a good match up for me, since I had tested it solo many times while I was still trying to figure out whether my aggro black deck was worth building. Bad Moon is the key card in the match up for me, and my totems are much worse because of lightning helix. The Stromgald Crusaders turned out to be quite good since half of angelfire's creature base and all of it's targeted removal is white. Game one Jason wraths then busts, then booms his land and mine (using a signet). Oh yeah his land happens to be flagstones of trokair. But I draw two more swamps (all this deck needs) and Jason draws more and more signets. My nether traitor does seven points of damage to him and I get him. Between games my opponent asks if I want to draw, but after considering how this would make the last round (we would both need to win to get first and second) I elect to play it out. Game two is all Asshole Jason, probably because of two big play mistakes by me. The first was overextending into his turn three wrath of god, making it a three for one, not a two for one. Turn four I lay my last two creatures in hand, creatures I hope will go the distance- two stromgald crusaders. He untaps, plays a Court Hussar, one of the few non-white dudes in his deck. Stupid pro-white weenies. My turn I give my guys flying and beat for four, really wishing I could draw a bad moon. Here comes the second mistake. Jason finally gets his second red source, and plays molten disaster, un-kickered, for one. I pick up my dudes and bin them. Instead and giving them flying until end of turn in response to the Disaster. That was game. Game three all came down to Korlash. I have a 6/6 korlash in play with regen mana up. About the only thing Jason can do is wrath (or bust, which is the same thing with korlash) at this point. Then he plays Faith's Fetters on the guy. Forgot about that out. A huge Aeon Chronicler finishes the match quickly. Rough beats, getting taken out by your own deck. Luckily Teenage Tony is ousted from his undefeated roost, so Asshole Jason is the sole undefeated going into round four. Luckily for my breaks, he wins. So do I, over a mono-black discard deck piloted by a small child, so I lucksack into second. After the tourney I play a high schooler by the name of Paprocki for the hell of it. He is sporting a mono red aggro deck with Big Gargs, Mogg Fanatics and War Marshals, Keldon Marauders, and lots of burn. I got owned. It was awful. I think I took a game, but it was sheer luck. I don't know if mono red aggro is better overall than mono black, but the Red Deck certainly wins the match up heads up. Black's weenies just aren't as fast, and you have no answer to Gargadon. After boarding you can slow them down with damnation, but that only gives the Red Deck a way to take off time counters from gargadon. And once the big guy hits, you're sure to be under 9 life and very vulnerable. I guess maybe Terror should be in the board over Death Mark. I think angelfire is the better deck over black aggro if your meta has a lot of red.