Knight Rider

Nice version of a black deck that menaces your opponents with hard to block reatures and slowly chips away at their life total one loss of life at a time. Stopping your foe from gaining life and dropping enchantments that can expediate the loss of life even more. there is a little splash of green, but the nice thing is the deck works perfectly fine with out it.

The Creatures:

Knight of Dusk's Shadow is a solid attacker, with menace and a pump ability to get his hits in when you can, but also just a great creature to have out as its static ability stops life gain which can be very important against the right type of decks.

Mosswood Dreadknight late addition to the deck, but for some life we get an somewhat repeatable card draw, as well as another body on the field, eventually.

Graveyard Trespasser // Graveyard Glutton one of the best cards in standard and is a recurring source for loss of life as long as creatures are in the graveyard. His ward ability and strong numbers means he will always be troublesome creature for your opponent to deal with.

Tatsunari, Toad Rider has great synergy with all of our enchantments in this deck, create a frog that adds to the loss of life mechanic and has an ability to become situationally unblockable, one of the two reason I’ve splash green mana source into the deck.

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse because why not? solid creature, that always has to be dealt with or you win the game, this creatures loss of life ability only hastens your foe’s demise. And a 4/5 deathtouch is never a bad thing to have out.

The Spells:

Clawing Torment one of the most under rated cards in my opinion and the main reason I built this deck, curse your opponents creatures (or artifacts) with this enchantment that make them weaker and unable to block, and as early as turn one start off your foe’s life loss.

Okiba Reckoner Raid // Nezumi Road Captain is another turn one life loss effect the keeps giving. Eventually giving you a 2/2 to add to your “tough to block” creatures.

Infernal Grasp instant removal is always a good thing, with all the menace you have available, its worth removing that second blocker just to get those hit in when you can. The downside to this card is negated with the minor life gain you get with multiple cards in this deck.

Stronghold Arena card draw and a possible life gain if needed, and with this card you will need it, as some of the bigger draws can really hurt you (but is optional to activate), though in dire times it might just pull off a win.

Curse of Leeches // Leeching Lurker is a curse that keeps on giving, every turn gaining life for you and losing life for your opponent. And if it transforms, you get a 4/4 with lifegain which is not bad either.

Invoke Despair is one of the bast cards black has to give, your opponent always loses something with this card and maybe you might get some card draw out of it.

Corrupt is a solid finisher when successfully casted, with your opponents dwindeling health it can really drain the the rest of there life and gain you a bit back, also a decent creature removal in a tight pinch. with loosing Invoke Despair in standard this is the best replacement I can find even with the added expense.

Vitue of Persistence is a great card for removal early on, and late game lets us bring back in our creatures or our opponent creatues to net the win, plus its an enchantment which fit in well with Tatsunari, Toad Rider

The Gameplan:

Can start off very aggro like, getting hits in where you can, but once enough blockers are out, just hold back and let the deck do its thing, added the x4 Deathcap Glade for the off chance of activating Tatsunari, Toad Rider or paying the kicker for Stronghold Arena. Be smart about playing the Clawing Torment as you want a target that’s not easy for your foe to get rid of, artifacts can work great for this, but the right creature is just infuriating while also effecting your opponent’s morale. Takenuma, Abandoned Mire also is great to bring back a win con creature so that’s why I added a second to the deck. Patience is a virtue with this deck, don’t get too aggressive, especially late game and you should pull out a win.

Feel free to comment if you would like to see more my decks and please link here and give me a shout out if you used this deck and had fun.

Update 5-31-23: Invoke Despair has been banned, that hurts. testing out Painful Quandary might fallback to The Cruelty of Gix but Quandary has a little more of an edge to me right now. might also consider Archfiend of the Dross but I like the enchantments feeding Tatsunari, Toad Rider 

Update 7-19-23: Switching to Corrupt for a while, it should be a solid wincon.

Update 11-7-23: Refreshed the deck a bit adding in Mosswood Dreadknight and Virtue of Persistence as both really help out, espacailly the knight as card draw was lacking after the loss of the Invoke.

Update 11-8-24: Move over to explorer from standard, added Invoke Despair back to sideboard, also added Nowhere to Run there as well. I really enjoyed this deck so I hope it can live on.