Grade every opening hand on how quickly it raises the artifact count while making its land drops, because the count sets the price of every affinity spell you want to cast. Work down this list in order; the first item is close to non-negotiable, and each one after it makes the keep easier:

1. Two or three lands producing at least two of our colors, with at least one entering untapped. No spell in the deck needs more than one colored mana, so two colors cover almost any hand. The untapped land is the real requirement: it lets a one-mana artifact start the count on turn 1 instead of turn 2.
2. A cheap artifact to push the count past the lands. Blood Fountain, Nihil Spellbomb, and Ichor Wellspring are what separate a working hand from a trap: each one that lands shaves a mana off every affinity spell behind it.
3. A payoff to spend the count on. Myr Enforcer, Refurbished Familiar, or Utrom Monitor - the discount only matters if something cashes it in.
4. A refill for the middle turns. Thoughtcast or Reckoner's Bargain restocks the hand for a second wave, and a threat-light hand with Thoughtcast can dig its way to the payoff it is missing.
5. Cheap interaction against fast starts. Galvanic Blast or Krark-Clan Shaman buys back the time the tapped lands give away when the opponent comes out attacking.

When a mulligan sends a card to the bottom, protect the cheap artifacts before the payoffs. A six-card hand with Blood Fountain and one threat plays out better than one holding two threats it cannot discount.

Matchup - Favored

We take the control role here despite being the midrange deck. Black Sacrifice is the aggressor: a curve of almost nothing but one-mana creatures comes out ahead of our tapped-land development, so they press the race and we break it. Speed is theirs, and so are the sideboard and the play/draw split, but the cards are ours. Their interaction is a thin package of Snuff Out and Accursed Marauder that trades one-for-one at best, while Galvanic Blast, Krark-Clan Shaman sweeps, and Makeshift Munitions strip a board of 1-toughness creatures faster than the death-trigger tokens rebuild it - and their rebuild is tokens while ours is cards. Their race stays live only while a grown Carrion Feeder dodges our removal long enough for Rite of Consumption to convert it. Keeps follow from the role: weigh interaction over raw engine, because a hand that spends its opening turns only building the artifact count lets Carrion Feeder grow past our answers. The bar rises on the draw, where their swarm gets a full extra attack before our tapped lands come online.

Kill Carrion Feeder, Mortician Beetle, and whatever wears Sadistic Glee as early as the mana allows. The window is real: with spare fodder in play they grow the target in response to Galvanic Blast, and once counters push it past four toughness the spell still resolves but no longer kills. Early is the only clean shot. Krark-Clan Shaman covers the swarm itself, and because its cost has no tap symbol it sweeps at instant speed even the turn it enters - stack several sacrifices in one window to scale the sweep past counters, with Ichor Wellspring and Blood tokens as the fodder. If a creature wearing Sadistic Glee would live through the sweep, hold it until Toxin Analysis makes the damage lethal at any size; a sweep that leaves the carrier alive hands it a counter for every creature dying under it.

The board plan is a ground wall plus fliers. Myr Enforcer holds the ground - breaking through a discounted 4/4 costs them several sacrificed bodies fed to Bloodthrone Vampire - while Refurbished Familiar and Utrom Monitor race overhead past everything except the flying Insect token Infestation Sage leaves behind. Refurbished Familiar is the safest attacker: the black body dodges Snuff Out, and once their hand is empty the enters trigger draws us a card instead. When removal does come, cash the target: Reckoner's Bargain in response to Snuff Out, or to an Accursed Marauder trigger that would take our best creature, blanks the answer and banks two cards plus life equal to the creature's full mana value - seven off Myr Enforcer - and that life comes straight out of the Rite of Consumption drain math. Hold Nihil Spellbomb for the graveyard windows that matter: cracked in response to Unearth targeting Accursed Marauder or to a Supernatural Stamina death trigger, it leaves the return with nothing to find, and with black mana open it replaces itself.

Key Threats

Carrion Feeder is their fastest clock and the one creature that outgrows our removal if ignored. Every expendable body becomes a permanent counter at instant speed for no mana, and because it cannot block, it never slows our fliers - the race it creates is a pure damage exchange. Passing turns with it alive is the losing pattern: spare fodder lets them grow it in response to our burn, and once it sits past Galvanic Blast range and too big for a Myr Enforcer block, only the Toxin Analysis plus Krark-Clan Shaman line pulls the game back. Kill it on sight.

Rite of Consumption is why their race threatens even a stabilized board. The finish is one attack followed by the drain in their second main phase, so their biggest creature's power hits our life total twice in a single turn, and the drain half gains them that damage back as life - a gap that looked safe closes at once. The creature is sacrificed as a cost when the spell is cast, so removal in response no longer shrinks the drain. The defense happens earlier: keep the life race wide and kill the grown attacker before that turn exists.

Accursed Marauder is their cleanest answer to Myr Enforcer. The forced sacrifice ignores targeting and the 4/4 body, and our creature count is lean enough that the choice is often no choice. Deploying threats one at a time feeds it: each copy trades an expendable 2/1 for our best creature, while their own half of the trigger eats a body whose death pays them in tokens and triggers. Hold Reckoner's Bargain for the trigger when the doomed creature matters, and remember Unearth rebuys it for a second trigger unless Nihil Spellbomb strips the graveyard first.

Mortician Beetle turns our own lines against us. It grows whenever either player sacrifices a creature, so Reckoner's Bargain or Makeshift Munitions cashing a creature hands it a counter - even the response that blanks Snuff Out grows it a step closer to outsizing our blockers. It dies on sight, and while it lives, Ichor Wellspring and other noncreature artifacts become the preferred fodder.

Sideboard Plan

In:

• 2 Extract a Confession
• 1 Krark-Clan Shaman

Out:

• 1 Cryogen Relic
• 2 Nihil Spellbomb

Extract a Confession comes in for the creature that grows past Galvanic Blast range. With evidence 6 collected - easy off a spent Thoughtcast plus any one-mana card - each opponent sacrifices their greatest-power creature, taking the grown Carrion Feeder or Sadistic Glee carrier. Never cast it without evidence here: the base mode lets them hand over a death-trigger body and grow Mortician Beetle. Instant-speed dodges are plentiful, though - they can cash the big creature to a draw spell like Village Rites or eat it for free with Carrion Feeder or Bloodthrone Vampire - so assume the grown threat gets sacrificed in response whenever an outlet is up; only Rite of Consumption is stuck at sorcery speed and cannot.

The fourth Krark-Clan Shaman comes in because drawing a sweep on time is the highest-leverage variable in the pairing. Every mainboard creature they play has 1 toughness, so one activation clears everything but a grown payoff and the flying Insect token Infestation Sage leaves behind, and the extra copy matters because each one dies to its own activation and to the -1/-1 death trigger from Shambling Ghast.

Cryogen Relic goes out as the slowest card in the list in the matchup where their speed is the whole threat. Two mana of setup against a swarm of one-mana creatures never keeps pace: by the time it deploys and activates the board is already wide, and stunning one tapped attacker does little when Nested Shambler and Infestation Sage deaths rebuild the swarm for free.

Two copies of Nihil Spellbomb go out because their graveyard only matters in narrow windows - an Unearth rebuy of Accursed Marauder or a Supernatural Stamina return - and one held copy covers those at instant speed while still counting as a cheap artifact. Extra copies are redundant exile against a deck that wins from the battlefield, and the slots become removal for grown creatures.

Sideboarding shifts the pairing moderately toward them. Twelve of our fifteen sideboard slots are anti-red and anti-blue blasts with no target in a mono-black deck, so we upgrade three cards while they bring in cheap removal and hand attack aimed straight at our plan. We stay favored across the match, but post-board games run closer than game one.

Post-board Strategy

The engine stays intact after boarding, but the removal upgrades on both sides: Extract a Confession answers the grown Carrion Feeder that Galvanic Blast cannot, while their cheaper, denser removal makes every creature we tap out for less safe. Run the same game plan as game one with better top-end answers. Pay the evidence with spells and spent trinkets - Thoughtcast plus any one-mana card covers the six - so creature cards stay in the graveyard for Blood Fountain rebuys, and the clean timing for Extract a Confession is our main phase, after the threat has outgrown Galvanic Blast but before they can line up the attack into Rite of Consumption. The remaining Nihil Spellbomb becomes a bullet: hold it for the Unearth or Supernatural Stamina window rather than cracking it early for the draw.

Tragic Slip is the removal to respect most. It kills any of our creatures for one mana - a creature dying is trivial for them, so the -13/-13 mode is effectively always on - and it reaches the black Refurbished Familiar that Snuff Out cannot touch, taking away our safest game-one attacker. Some lists add extra copies of Snuff Out, still effectively free, and some bring Spinning Darkness, often-free 3 damage that kills Utrom Monitor and Krark-Clan Shaman; Myr Enforcer survives it, and it cannot target the black Refurbished Familiar. No creature we tap out for is unconditionally safe anymore.

Expect Mesmeric Fiend to take Thoughtcast, Reckoner's Bargain, or a held answer, and with a sacrifice outlet on the battlefield they can sacrifice it while its enters trigger is still on the stack, exiling the taken card for good - do not count on getting the card back. Against removal-dense draws, lean harder on the lines that beat one-for-one answers: Reckoner's Bargain responses, Ichor Wellspring as fodder, and Blood Fountain returning Myr Enforcer and Refurbished Familiar. That conversion turns their best removal draws into a long game their deck cannot win.