None More Black: Inside Kamigawa's Heart of Darkness

Baron seems to have gotten the recipe correct. Let's have a look!

HOROBI'S SHADES
Baron_Sengir6989, BPDC 1.02, 1st place

4 Cursed Ronin
4 Nezumi Cutthroat
4 Okiba-Gang Shinobi
4 Skullsnatcher
4 Takenuma Bleeder
4 Wicked Akuba
4 Horobi's Whisper
4 Psychic Spear
3 Rend Flesh
2 Distress
23 Swamp

Sideboard
4 Raving Oni-Slave
4 Rend Spirit
4 Waking Nightmare
2 Distress
1 Rend Flesh

Pairing it down to only the removal spells, we see:

4 Horobi's Whisper
3 Rend Flesh
4 Psychic Spear
2 Distress

Sideboard:
4 Rend Spirit
2 Distress
1 Rend Flesh

You may be curious why I'm including the discard spells. Note, however, that they are targetted discard spells, which this block has in abundance. Castigate was one of the few targetted discard spells in all of last year's Standard; Kami Block alone has two high-quality ones!

Psychic Spear maindeck serves as a pre-emptive Rend Spirit, though Baron packs a full playset of that ghostbusting instant in his board for spirit-heavy matchups. This leaves room for 3 Rend Flesh as well as a full compliment of Horobi's Whisper. This card, which I suspect most players in black kept in the sideboard, served Baron extremely well in a black-light metagame. Let's have a look at exactly which decks Baron had to cut through to find himself at the top:

MATCHUPS
R1: Bye
R2: W Eco Ire
R3: L Waxy Doom
R4: W Zubera Rock
T8: W Whisper
T4: W Christmas Spirits
T2: W Hulk Splice

Wow! To my surprise, he faced quite a bit of black, and only one of his opponents was able to best him! Was this a lucky night, or is Horobi's Whisper a good card even against decks with black in them? Let's see if Baron's deck commentary offers any clues:

"My MVP was easily Cursed Ronin, as he can just beat in for upwards of 5 points a turn. Also, the Bleeder was very good. The one point of life loss was well worth him attacking for 3. The only card I would take out would take out would be Raving Oni-Slave, as he really didn't do anything for me. I (meaning RobE, who told me to use the deck) put him in there against control, but, as I never really faced a control deck that I felt comfortable playing the Oni against, I never sided him in. Overall, it was a good night, and I had a great time playing the deck."

Not a word spoken about removal of any stripe! Thanks for nothing, Baron!

So now we're left to wonder... or to do a bit of further research, and see if any of his opponents had anything to say that will help our cause.

Redleg, piloting Waxy Doom, had this to say:

"I sided in the Horobi's Whispers a lot, whenever I was playing decks that weren't all black. "

Apparently, the spell is good enough to run main, even in the face of a multi-colored deck with black in it!

However, in the course of my research, I have unearthed another startling and noteworthy fact: despite my initial suspicions... of all the black decks that Baron faced, the two of them he lost to both ran full compliments of maindeck Horobi's Whisper -- which was, indeed, entirely worthless against Baron's mono-black deck! The one black deck Baron lost to, , kept the Whispers in the sideboard. It would seem that Horobi's Whisper is a proverbial double-edged sword: awesome or terrible, depending on your matchup.

Perhaps this is the kind of removal spell that qualifies as a 2-of with another 2 in the board, depending on your matchup. I also like Baron's 3 Rend Flesh / 4 Psychic Spear split, though discard isn't always fast enough against fast aggressive spirit decks (but then, Horobi's Whisper mops them up, as black's spirits are decidedly not fast).

To be sure, the removal you select will depend hugely on your anticipated metagame. However, it's safe to assume that you will be encountering Spirits, since most of the card advantage tricks in this block require Spirits or Arcanes to fly. Also, with its possibility of Splice, it's a pretty good bet that Horobi's Whisper is going to be useful in a great many of your matchups (though not all, especially if Baron's deck becomes more popular next week).

Before we close here today, let's have a look at some of black's 'undesireables.' Prepare to laugh.

Many of the watchers at BPDC 1.02's finals were rooting for mono-black, the underdog, to pull through and cleanse the metagame of the perceived dominance of red/green aggro. Baron_Sengir6989 accomplished such a feat, in a match that made it look easy. Even Humble Budoka couldn't stop mono-black from dominating the matchup.

If you think you know where the Kamigawa Block metagame is going, think again. It's a jungle out there, and we've just barely begun to unsheath the machete.

Join me again next Monday evening at 8:30pm EST in /join BPDC for more Kami Block action (and some more horrible metaphors, I'm sure).