MAIN STRATEGY:

Use your spells to destroy any lands your opponent can play. Make the game come to a complete standstill, until Black Vise, Liliana's Caress and Underworld Dreams eventually kill whoever has the misfortune of playing you. Howling Mine speeds up the draw process, and Black Vise and Underworld Dreams then slowly deal at least 3 damage to your opponents per tern because they are unable to play anything! This will likely kill your opponents before they run out of cards to draw. Don't worry about not having Black Vise or Howling Mine in your early game. All the games that I've played with this deck take a very long time, ensuring that you have plenty of time to draw the cards that you need. Meanwhile, since you have no creatures of your own, Innocent Blood and Geth's Verdict forces your opponent to sacrifice their creatures (If they can play them). If you want to be that one person who everyone refuses to play because they know that they will only frustrate themselves, definitely build this deck.


CARD USES AND THOUGHTS BEHIND THEM:

Innocent Blood, Geth's Verdict- Because you control no creatures, these cards are the golden removal. With their lands destroyed, your opponent still might end up playing a Memnite or Ornithopter. These force you opponent to get rid of them, and can also get around indestructable creatures.

Liliana's Caress- With your opponents not being able to play much, their hand will build up, forcing them to discard and lose life.

Smallpox- Sure it hurts you too, but you have no creatures to sacrifice, and you'll still have land advantage. It's basically Sinkhole and Innocent Blood mushed into one card.

Sinkhole, Rancid Earth, Strip Mine, Blight - All of these cards will take out your opponent's lands, ensuring that they cannot play anything for the duration of the game. (Careful around Mtg players under the age of 12; this sh*t has tantrum potential)

Black Vise, Underworld Dreams- The game winners. Because your opponent must draw a card every turn but cannot play anything because you've destroyed all of their land, They are guaranteed to have more than 4 cards in their hand, reducing their life total every turn while you laugh.

Dark Ritual- For the moments when I don't have a Strip Mine in hand and I need to play land removal such as Rain of Tears on turn 1.

Howling Mine- Speeds up your drawing in order to get the cards you need, while gives your opponent more cards that they cant play, also supporting Black Vise and Underworld Dreams. Teehee.

Sign in Blood- Your opponent can't play any cards with no lands, making them loose 2 life and have 2 more useless cards.

Crucible of Worlds- Play this and a Strip Mine. Watch as your opponents realize that you can destroy a land EVERY TURN


WEAKNESSES:

Pretty hard to come up with things to go in this section. There are really only five things that can be problematic.

Mana Dorks are a pain, but my sideboard takes care of them by removing them from my opponent's hand or wiping them from the board. Not a huge deal.

Terra Eternal can certainly ruin the mood, which is why I search for them with Memoricide and Thoughtseize. Luckily, people at my LGS have yet to use it. It's not too good unless you are playing against land destruction, so fortunatly I don't see this card a lot.

Crucible of Worlds is a thorn in my side. Answer to the problem? Throw in 4 of them so I can replay Strip Mines and keep my opponents in check. Most times however, my opponent is lucky if they can get to three mana to play one.

Decks such as No land, no mana and This deck has no land are also hard to beat, as the lack of lands requires me to completely sideboard out my removal and bring in control, waiting for Underworld Dreams and Howling Mine to work their magic, while using Damnation to hold back the occational Memnite, Ornithopter or Phyrexian Walker.

The last thing I have found hard to deal with are Necropotence decks. However, getting the three mana to play the spell is still a large problem without Dark Ritual, hence the need for Strip Mines and instant land removal.


KEY COMBOS:

Crucible of Worlds+Strip Mine

Play a Strip Mine, sacrifice it, destroy a land, bring it back with Crucible of Worlds, sacrifice it, repeat each turn. Have fun watching opponents flip the table.

Underworld Dreams+Howling Mine

Opponent loses 2 life per turn, while gaining you card advantage.

Howling Mine+Black Vise

Fills up the opponents hand and then makes them lose a ton of life. I like it.

Howling Mine+Liliana's Caress

Having a full hand and then drawing 2 cards, and having to discard 2, losing 4 life. Daaayyyyuumm.

Underworld Dreams+Sign in Blood

Opponent loses 4 life and gets two more cards that trigger either Black Vise or Liliana's Caress. Cruel.


WHY NO CREATURES?

I know, I know, Phyrexian Obliterator or something with annihilator would kick ass. However, the cheapest creature removal occurs when the card hurts you too. Innocent Blood is fantastic here and one mana creature removal is just too good to pass up, and also gets around indestructable and hexproof. If you really wanted, you could add an obliterator or two and just run other removal.


SIDEBOARD ANALYSIS:

The sideboard and maybeboard here are to deal with everything mentioned in the Weakness Section.

Elixir of Immortality keeps me safe against super aggro mill and some of burn long enough to get my show on the road.

Memoricide is to be added in for decks that run Crucible of Worlds, Necropotence and Darksteel Citadel. These three cards are listed in order from most to least of a threat. Search wisely.

Damnation deals with pesky 0cmc creatures and mana dorks. Can easily be swapped with Languish and/or Mutilate for a lower cost.

Thoughtseize is a weaker version of Memoricide that can get rid of cards mentioned in the "Weaknesses" section.

Illness in the Ranks takes care of cheap token producers such as Raise the Alarm or Gather the Townsfolk.


ON A BUDGET?

I'll be frank. If you take out cards and replace them, the deck isn't up to its full potential. However, if you don't have $600 to spend or the cards hanging around, here's what you do.

If you replace Damnation with Mutilate or its cousin Languish, you aren't garunteed a solid kill but you should be able to get rid of any major threats your opponents can produce.

Crucible of Worlds is a very important part of the deck, however it can be replaced with Temporal Extortion, which is still mean, but cheaper. You will be sacrificing major preformance for price.

These changes will drop the price from around $600 down to around $200.