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PrimerMulligansSideboardMatchups

Aggro Matchups

  1. Black Sacrifice
  2. Bogles
  3. Elves
  4. Madness Burn
  5. Mono Red Madness
  6. Mono Red Rally
  7. White Aggro

Aggro-Control Matchups

  1. Blue Terror
  2. Dimir Faeries
  3. Dimir Terror
  4. Mono Blue Faeries

Combo Matchups

  1. Altar Tron
  2. Ruby Storm
  3. Spy Combo

Combo-Control Matchups

  1. Familiars

Control Matchups

  1. Dimir Control
  2. Golgari Gardens
  3. Jeskai Ephemerate

Midrange Matchups

  1. Esper Affinity
  2. Grixis Affinity
  3. Jund Wildfire

Ramp Matchups

  1. Flicker Tron
  2. Gruul Ponza
  3. Gruul Ramp
  4. Monster Tron

Black Sacrifice

Carrion Feeder - emblematic card for this matchup
Read the Black Sacrifice full guide →

Matchup

Black Sacrifice is the beatdown here and we are the control deck. They have the much faster clock, but no card in their deck removes a resolved Pestilence, and every creature card they play has one toughness, so they have to win before the sweeper settles in. Their side of the race is to grow Carrion Feeder or Mortician Beetle past a single ping and cash it in with Rite of Consumption before Pestilence and Cast Down take the board apart. Their own interaction does little against us: their Snuff Out can't target our black creatures, and Shambling Ghast's -1/-1, Tragic Slip and Accursed Marauder don't stop Food lifegain and Cauldron Familiar drains from stretching the game. Speed is theirs, and so is the play/draw edge: their one-drops attack while half our lands enter tapped, and our extra card on the draw does little to offset that. Resilience and card quality are ours once the game goes long, because a resolved Pestilence answers their board again every turn and their bodies run out before our answers do.

Build toward a resolved Pestilence and spend its activations on their turn, after they have committed creatures: each ping kills everything of theirs that hasn't grown, and the Squirrel, Insect and Mercenary tokens their death triggers leave die to the next one. Expect them to answer a ping by sacrificing the doomed creatures to Carrion Feeder, Bloodthrone Vampire or Village Rites, growing Mortician Beetle along the way. Hold Cast Down or Tragic Slip for whatever survives and cast it during their combat, because once Rite of Consumption is cast in their second main phase its sacrifice is already paid and removal can no longer stop the drain. Each activation costs us a life too, so before pinging, make sure we stay out of range of their next attack plus Rite of Consumption on their biggest creature, and use Food and Campfire lifegain first when it's close.

Don't feed their growth payoffs. While Mortician Beetle is on the battlefield, sacrifice artifacts rather than Cauldron Familiar or a Plant to Fanatical Offering and Eviscerator's Insight, and once a creature wearing Sadistic Glee has a counter, kill it with Cast Down or destroy the Aura with Heritage Reclamation before pinging. Block with Cauldron Familiar freely and return it with Foods, but keep it, or a Food to bring it back, next to Troll of Khazad-dûm: the Troll is black, so their Snuff Out can't touch it, it kills one of their small attackers each combat and survives up to four pings in a turn, and the removal they have for it is Tragic Slip with morbid and Accursed Marauder. With the Marauder's trigger on the stack, return the Cat in response so it, not the Troll, is the nontoken creature we sacrifice.

Key Threats

Carrion Feeder is the creature they grow to get past Pestilence. Every creature they sacrifice to it in response to a ping becomes a permanent +1/+1 counter, and the grown Feeder is what attacks our life total and what Rite of Consumption turns into a drain. Bloodthrone Vampire is the other free outlet they lean on in the same spot, though its pump is only for the turn. Never ping without Cast Down or Tragic Slip held back: if we do, they turn their whole board into Feeder counters in response, leaving an attacker the next ping can't kill and a big sacrifice for Rite of Consumption.

Mortician Beetle takes a counter whenever any player sacrifices a creature, so it grows off the fodder they sacrifice in response to Pestilence and off any Cauldron Familiar or Plant we feed to Fanatical Offering and Eviscerator's Insight. Feed our draw spells creatures instead of artifacts while it is out and it outgrows a single ping, becoming another large attacker or Rite of Consumption sacrifice.

Rite of Consumption is their finisher against our life buffer. The sacrifice is paid as it is cast, so a grown creature that survives to their second main phase becomes damage to us and life for them, undoing the life our Foods and Cauldron Familiar drains have banked. Do not ping ourselves low with Pestilence while they keep a grown creature, or they sacrifice it to Rite of Consumption to finish us.

Sadistic Glee, which many builds include, grows the enchanted creature whenever any creature dies, and our deck kills a lot of creatures: Pestilence sweeps, Cauldron Familiar blocks, Plants dying. Once the Glee creature has a counter, our own sweep makes it bigger instead of killing it. Do not ping while the enchanted creature already has a counter: it survives, then takes a counter for every creature the ping killed, ours included.

Sideboard Plan

In:

  • 3 Drown in Sorrow
  • 1 Tragic Slip
  • 2 Weather the Storm

Out:

  • 1 Snuff Out
  • 2 Tithing Blade
  • 1 Grapple with Death
  • 1 Bonder's Ornament
  • 1 Nihil Spellbomb

Drown in Sorrow comes in because every creature card Black Sacrifice plays has one toughness, so -2/-2 kills everything they have short of a creature with two or more counters, Rotten Reunion's 2/2 Zombie included, and Nested Shambler dies with no power, leaving no Squirrels. It doubles our sweepers alongside Pestilence.

The second Tragic Slip kills any of their one-toughness creatures for one mana at instant speed, and their constant sacrifices switch on morbid during their turn, so it also answers the Carrion Feeder or Mortician Beetle that grows past a Pestilence ping.

Weather the Storm comes in as a pair. Storm counts every spell either player cast that turn, so cast late in their turn or in response to Rite of Consumption it gains 3 life plus 3 more for each spell cast before it, offsetting the drain and paying for more Pestilence activations. Two copies rather than four because it removes no attackers, and those still need Drown in Sorrow and Tragic Slip.

Snuff Out goes out: it destroys only nonblack creatures, and every creature card Black Sacrifice plays is black, leaving its Squirrel and Mercenary tokens as the only legal targets.

Tithing Blade goes out because against their wide board the forced sacrifice takes a token or a death-trigger creature such as Nested Shambler, and the sacrifice itself gives Mortician Beetle a counter. Unlike Cast Down it can't pick out the grown creature, and its five-mana craft competes with Pestilence activations for mana.

Grapple with Death goes out: a three-mana sorcery can't remove a creature that grows during their combat before Rite of Consumption cashes it in, which instant-speed Cast Down and Tragic Slip can, and those two do the same job for less mana.

Bonder's Ornament goes out: three mana for a mana rock that does nothing to their attacking one-drops, and its draw ability costs four more mana we would rather spend on Pestilence. The cheaper Food artifacts are better sacrifice fodder here because they also gain life.

One Nihil Spellbomb goes out. Their graveyard use is Unearth and Supernatural Stamina's return, which one Spellbomb plus Bojuka Bog and Heritage Reclamation still cover; the second copy is mostly one-mana fodder, so it makes room for Weather the Storm.

Sideboarding moves this pairing moderately in our favor: three more sweepers against a deck of one-toughness creatures and storm lifegain against their drain outweigh the graveyard hate and hand disruption they bring in, most of which we can answer by returning the Cat with a Food in response.

Post-board Strategy

Three Drown in Sorrow double our sweepers against their one-toughness creatures, while they bring Rotten Reunion and Nihil Spellbomb to exile Cauldron Familiar from our graveyard. Cast Drown in Sorrow in our main phase once they have committed creatures: -2/-2 kills every creature of theirs short of one with two or more counters, including Rotten Reunion's 2/2 Zombie, and Nested Shambler dies with no power, so it makes no Squirrels. It kills our own Cauldron Familiar and Plants as well; if that leaves no creatures at all while Pestilence is out, return the Cat with a Food afterward, since it enters after the -2/-2 and is unaffected, so Pestilence survives the end step. The second Tragic Slip usually has morbid on their turn because they sacrifice so often, and Weather the Storm is strongest late in their turn or in response to Rite of Consumption, when storm counts every spell either player has cast that turn.

Keep a Food on the battlefield whenever the Cat is in our graveyard, because their graveyard hate is aimed at it and a Food in play lets us return the Cat in response to each piece:

  • Rotten Reunion: if it targets the Cat, sacrifice the Food in response to return it. Rotten Reunion is then removed from the stack without exiling anything or making its Zombie, though its flashback gives them another try later.
  • Nihil Spellbomb still exiles the rest of our graveyard, including an Eviscerator's Insight waiting to flash back, but returning the Cat in response to the activation saves it.
  • Mesmeric Fiend is likely to take Pestilence if we are holding it. Kill the Fiend only after its enters trigger has resolved: with a free sacrifice outlet they can sacrifice it while the trigger is on the stack and exile the card for good, and our own removal in response does the same.
  • Their extra Tragic Slips and Accursed Marauders point at Troll of Khazad-dûm, so keep the Cat beside it as the Marauder sacrifice.
  • Some lists run Mutagenic Growth, a +2/+2 paid with 2 life in response to a Pestilence activation or Drown in Sorrow that keeps one key creature alive through the sweep; the surviving creature is what Cast Down is held for.

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