Introduction:

Welcome to the next iteration of my continuing deck building efforts. We started out with a lovely Waste Not deck, but found that splashing for a tiny bit of Green to get access to Mosswood Dreadknight and Glissa Sunslayer did wonders for many of Mono Black's trickier match-ups. Whelp~ We're back at it again, but this time trying a much more card advantage focused build while keeping much of the discard elements that made the initial iteration so fun. Because nothing is more fun than ripping your opponent's hand apart and then killing them as they fail to find the right sequence of cards stacked atop their deck...

[1] Historic Waste Not: https://aetherhub.com/Deck/Edit/977325

[2] Bg Not Waste Not: https://aetherhub.com/Deck/Edit/979695

Main Deck:

Again, this particular build is much more focused on generating card advantage for ourselves than raw hand disruption. You may notice that quite a number of cards have started to crop up as "the core" but let's go over what's different first.

Differences:

• +1 Phyrexian Arena: After playing the deck a bunch more, I've decided the Arena is simply better than the Ring IN THIS DECK. The Ring is undoubtedly a more powerful card overall, but the fact that Arena starts your draw engine 2 whole turns sooner is exactly what we're looking for. This deck needs a constant stream of resources and that lull where you've run out of action but aren't quite yet able to refill with the Ring was just something I wasn't happy with.
  • Also, post-nerf, Arena doesn't tax you that one mana each turn which is surprisingly relevant for a deck that's wants all the mana it can get.
• +2 Preacher of the Schism: Creature version of Arena. Works best when you're ahead on life, but that can sometimes be tricky to pull off between Thoughtsieze and Gix.
• +3x The One Ring: I hate this card but I won't recount every single way it's a mistake, there's plenty of content out there on the topic. For our purposes however, I'll just narrow it down to the fact it slots into just about every deck except the most aggressively linear ones and if they have access to it while you don't, it's just over. This card is busted in so many different ways it's laughable and I wish they'd just ban it. BUT, while it's legal, the tax of playing it must be paid so we're playing 3x in place of real 4-drops.
  • My next iteration is to cut all of these in favor of +1 land/+2 Invoke Despair, but I'm not optimistic that'll do as well as Just Playing The Mistake (tm).
• +4x Deep-Cavern Bat: Lost Caverns of Ixalan's uncommons are weirdly where you'll find much of the set's power. This innocuous little guy isn't the most thrilling thing at first glance, but it plays SO GOOD. It serves as Thoughtsiezes 5-8 and the flying & lifelink are not to be under-estimated, especially combined with our next card...
• +4x Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor: Combos perfectly with the bat to form a ridiculous draw engine that lets us keep pace and get ahead of our opponents. The 3/3-for-3 body is on rate but not amazing so we do need to clear a path for this bozo. Once you connect once or twice with anything though, it feels so hopeless for our opponents.
  
  • The ideal curve is Turn 1: Seize/Push, Turn 2: Bat away their interaction, Turn 3: Gix > Swing into a refilled hand.
  • 4x is a lot for such a cheap Legendary creature, but we can always pitch to Liliana and they kill the Top-G often enough that you'll want a lot of copies.
• +4x Sheoldred's Assimilator: Another innocuous dork that pulls a surprising amount of weight. It interacts with opposing graveyards, hits like a truck for cheap, has evasion and more? Sign me up. 
  
  • It's especially fun to pick toys out of our own graveyard when we have one of our card advantage engines going. It's like having 5+ copies of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse!
  • The most disgusting post-board sequence I've managed to pull off is looping Invoke Dispairs while Ring and Gix are out... Yeah, I won that game.

"The Core":

• 4x Liliana of the Veil: She's just. so. gooood. We want her on curve dang near every game. Special attention was paid to keeping the average CMC low so we can play as many copies as we can fit and that's why we stop at 4-mana (main deck). I will forever quote Aaron Forsythe who once said she was made to be a weapon, and that's exactly what she is.
  • Engrain the following facts of the universe into your minds:
    • The lower our mana curve, the better Lily gets.
    • The higher their mana curve goes, the better Lily gets.
• 4x Sheoldred, the Apocalypse: I still see people registering less than full play sets and I just plain don't get it. Card's not even close to balanced. You know it. I know it. The opponent knows it, which is why they kill it so fast and why we play all those extra copies.
• 4x Fatal Push: Duh
• 4x Thoughtseize: Duh.
• 1x Duress: Swapped out since every deck besides RW Convoke or Discover Combo has a spell we'd like to snag and there don't seem to be many graveyard dependent decks running around on the ladder atm, but the second that changes the Cling(s) come back in.
• 1x Cling to Dust: As much as I hate The Ring, I love this card. 99% of the time serves as a 1-mana draw spell, but it also serves as an outlet for all the clutter that builds up in our graveyard. All that plus instant speed graveyard interaction comes up often enough that 1x in the main is well worth it.
• 4x "Two mana Instant-speed kill spells": Take your pick from any of the following:
  • 2x Sheoldred's Edict: Paying respect to planeswalkers mostly.
  • 2x Power Word Kill: Might as well be Terminate for everything except the Angel lifegain deck.
  • Go for the Throat | Bitter Triumph | Infernal Grasp | Heartless Act

The Mana Base:

• 1x Blast Zone: "The Placeholder Slot". Literally put whatever land you want in here. See the "Other Options" part for some suggestions.
  • The Geier Reachs were a neat idea, but were never quite as one sided they are in the Pure Discard decks you normally tend to see it in. 
• 2x Geier Reach Sanitarium: Probably the strangest inclusion, but I still like it, even if it is mostly a hold-over from the Waste Not builds. Feel free to slot whatever you'd personally like here, anything from Crawling Barrens to Blast Zone to more Field of Ruin effects.
  
  • While your opponent is empty handed, this serves as strong card filtering.
  • Synergizes with Shelly to give her psuedo-double-strike while giving ourselves extra HP by way of doubling the amount of cards drawn on both sides.
• 23x Field of Ruin: Keeps opposing man-lands in check and keeps the greedier mana bases in line. Also one of the only ways we can enable revolt for Push, but that rarely comes up.
  • You can arguably load as many as 6x of this effect into the deck, but I don't know if you actually need access to more than 2x.
• 3x Castle Locthwain: It's here because it's brilliant in those matches where life total doesn't matter and/or where card advantage decides things.
  • I personally don't like 4x because it does come into play tapped a non-trivial amount of games and it's not like we need to draw more than one in most games. It's easy enough to trade a Swamp or Sanitarium for the 4th copy though, just remember I told you so.
• 3x Hive of the Eye Tyrant Turns out, this is a pretty good card. Who knew?
  
  • At some point, I'm going to try re-arranging the mana base to try making Crawling Barrens my creature land, but I'm doubtful the improved raw size will do better than the Menace and ability to tap for black.
  • Coming into play tapped after 2 lands is a real draw-back since we really-really want to be hitting drops on curve all the way up to 4.
• Other options include:
  • Takenuma, Abandoned Mire: I don't mind if you were to included it, but it may as well be a swamp for how rarely I find the space to discard a land, and I already have effects like Sheoldred's Assimilator that act as a pretty good facsimile of the Buy Back.
  • Blast Zone: Again, I don't tend to find much breathing space to wind this up and/or pop it but it is a way to deal with some oddball enchantments or artifacts.
  • Bojuka Bog: Graveyard hate in the form of a tapped land. Yay.
  • Crawling Barrens: Just another creature land.
  • Sunken Citadel: With how many other utility lands we play, this really does just taps for 2 mana a lot of the time.

Sideboard:

• 1x Sorin the Mirthless: He's here for the card advantage matchups, but we're so good in those anyway he's the easiest to replace.
  
  • 1x Murderous Rider would be my first attempt at a replacement. The Rider is both another kill spell and a threat... but it's slug slow. I bring it in whenever opposing planewalkers need unaliving or instant speed interaction is an absolute must.
• 1x Cling to Dust: When you absolutely need instant speed graveyard interaction. Mizzix Mastery, Greasefang, Okiba Boss.
• 1x Unlicensed Hearse: In over Agatha's Soul Cauldron because you really do want to exile 2 things per tap vs the decks you bring it in for.
• 2x Invoke Despair: Comes in against anything fair, relies on enchantments/planeswalkers and/or the mirror.
  
  • Avoid this and Lily in the same opening hand.
  • We have a surprisingly hard time getting to 5 mana sometimes so play for drawing it off the top instead of holding it.
  • Looping this by exiling it with Sheoldred's Assimilator is a grand ol' time.
• 2x Go Blank: Pulls double duty. Comes in vs "zero creatures" Control and linear graveyard decks.
• 2x Bitter Triumph: Kills everything the Grasps killed without the color restriction so, yeah, bit of an upgrade.
• 2x Noxious Grasp: Another piece of spot removal that kills a surprising number of troublesome targets (MonoGreen, cough) we wouldn't otherwise be able to tag.
• 2x Pithing Needle: Nothing too exciting. Catch-all vs planeswalkers, misc combos or Maze's End.
• 2x Ritual of Soot: Kills dang near everything Collected Company decks play. Comes in versus any Go Wide/Swarm style deck where 1-for-1 removal just isn't enough to keep up.
• 2x Extinction Event: There to sweep against those decks that actually bother going over 3 mana. MonoGreen mostly.
• 2x Citystalker Connoisseur: In for everything from the MonoGreen to grindy midrange to control matchups. Don't see a ton of creatureless combo on the ladder, but she'd come in there too. She's not bad, but not mindblowing and kinda slow so don't be surprised if she gets the strikethru at some point.
• 1x The End: Decks just sometimes have 4x of this one card that make things run so much better than they otherwise might. Oh, they might have a ton of other things going on, but not having to worry about those follow-up Sheoldreds, Vein Rippers, Cavalier of Thorns, etc. is worth at least one slot in the 75. I think. Maybe.