Standard: Mono Black Midrange (2025) - Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

With the changes brought about by Tarkir: Dragonstorm in Standard, Mono Black Midrange has emerged as a potential contender in the new Metagame, showing great results in Challenges over the past few weeks.

Standard's three-year-old extended pool gives every archetype the ability to include multiple answers to the various situations players may encounter in tournaments and ranked play, and this new version of Mono Black specifically takes advantage of this flexibility to mix in various answers alongside a more solid mana base that allows for interactions with Soulstone Sanctuary and Unholy Annex without any compromises in consistency or speed.

In this article, we'll provide a guide to the latest deck to stand out in Standard, with a Sideboard guide for the top matchups in the current Metagame!

This list is close to the standard adopted by players in the weeks after Tarkir: Dragonstorm for Mono Black Midrange, but it is worth noting that the archetype runs a lot of one-ofs and these can vary considerably between the maindeck and the sideboard — recent choices include Strategic Betrayal for Abhorrent Oculus and Omniscience decks and Scavenger Regent against go-wide decks like Prowess.

Other potential additions include the second copy of Liliana of the Veil, Outrageous Robbery for longer games or even Intimidation Tactics, whose Cycling ability can make a big difference when compared to Dreams of Steel and Oil.

Playing the Deck

Mono Black Midrange doesn't differ much from what you'd expect from traditional Midrange today, and while the lack of a second color makes it less flexible than the Golgari or Dimir variants, it does give us room to take better advantage of Soulstone Sanctuary and the interaction with Unholy Annex, as well as a wider range of targeted answers with one-ofs.

We have a good mix of proactive and reactive plays: Cut Down deals with smaller creatures while Duress and Dreams of Steel and Oil takes care of troublesome cards in the opponent's hand — playing them on the first turn can save us from a Cori-Steel Cutter and the like, making the lack of tapped lands more important.

After holding the first two turns, we can start to apply some pressure on the board with Preacher of the Schism or with the constant source of card advantage from Unholy Annex, which will often be accompanied by Archfiend of the Dross or Sheoldred, the Apocalypse on the following turn — from this point on, our plan involves keeping our board moving forward while responding to what the opponent is planning.

Despite these general guidelines, Mono Black Midrange is very flexible and can extend games for a long time. If necessary, we can adopt a more “Control” stance and focus on removal and sweepers until we exhaust the opponent's resources, but we are a worse Control than the archetypes more dedicated to this. Likewise, we can't set a clock as fast as we need against Domain or any archetype that aims to play over us, so we need to focus our discards and removals on assertive targets to "take" as many turns as possible to win the game before the opponent stabilizes.

Being proactive on the play is essential. We can keep a hand with Cut Down on the first turn, but we need to sequence spells to dictate the course of the game — if we only focus on responding, the other decks in the Metagame can play around it — so it should be accompanied by Deep-Cavern Bat and Unholy Annex or Preacher of the Schism on the following turns. The same goes for Duress or Dreams of Steel and Oil, which can be accompanied by Nowhere to Run or other removals without any problems, as long as our third and/or fourth turns have something on the board.

The draw depends a lot on the deck you're facing. It's natural to be more responsive against Mono Red or some Prowess variants, but keeping those same hands against Omniscience or Jeskai Oculus is a guaranteed defeat if we don't have some sideboard piece to protect ourselves from combos. Jeskai/Azorius Control are also not games where we want to spend too much time responding, but we'll also have a hard time establishing a clock without protecting ourselves with Duress or other disruptive effects.

Maindeck

The win condition of this list has several angles, but the main one is the demon package with Unholy Annex. In addition to serving as a source of card advantage every turn, the enchantment creates tokens on its own to trigger its ability and serve as one of the means to win the game.

We complement this package with Archfiend of the Dross, whose low cost and high power tend to end games along with the ability to drain life from the opponent whenever a creature dies, and also with The Speed ​​Demon — a creature from Aetherdrift that hasn't had its moment in the format yet, but also operates as a source of card advantage and a win condition in the same slot.

Soulstone Sanctuary complements the package and can be turned into a creature at any time, in addition to a 3/3 body with Vigilance having some important interactions, such as the possibility of attacking with it and tapping it before blockers for a Go for the Throat or another instant speed card.

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is the other main win condition. Decent body, life gain every turn, and an inevitability clock against the opponent still make it one of the best creatures in Standard today.

Qarsi Revenant is a Vampire Nighthawk on steroids. In addition to blocking well, it provides a decent evasive clock, and its Renew ability turns any creature into a threat against the format's Aggro.

Preacher of the Schism blocks almost any relevant creature in the format today and works to both expand board position and generate card advantage, making it the complete package for a low cost.

The discard package

Duress has become more effective with each new release since Duskmourn, and now that Izzet Prowess is the current best deck and there are a dozen targets in the other strategies, keeping two maindeck slots for it and two more in the Sideboard seems ideal.

Dreams of Steel and Oil has the advantage of exiling cards from both the opponent's hand and the graveyard, making it an effective answer against Jeskai Oculus and other archetypes that have some recursion tool.

Deep-Cavern Bat is a conditional way to extract information from the opponent's hand and remove a key card from it. Depending on when we play it, it can be as effective as an extra turn, or “lock” the opponent for a few turns when we are in a topdeck war.

Liliana of the Veil provides a constant source of disruption in Control games and is a middling removal against Aggro. It can be bad against go-wide and/or graveyard-heavy archetypes, but it is a valuable asset against Jeskai and Azorius Control or Midrange mirrors.

Cut Down is the most traditional removal in Standard today and the main tool for holding Mono Red Aggro and other archetypes with smaller creatures. It is not as efficient in the mirror or against Prowess, but it is the best option we have.

Go for the Throat complements Cut Down in traditional interactions and deals with most creatures in the current Metagame, having problems only against some artifact-based archetypes that, in general, are declining today.

The other removals from the list are one-ofs for different circumstances in the current Metagame.

Nowhere to Run deals with Heartfire Hero or even Cacophony Scamp without risking taking damage from their trigger as well as most of the smaller creatures in the format today, such as Screaming Nemesis and Tersa Lightshatter, in addition to blocking abilities such as Hexproof or Ward.

Anoint with Affliction also deals with smaller creatures by exiling them, and its scope can be expanded to Preacher of the Schism and Abhorrent Oculus.

Strategic Betrayal isn't as efficient as removal, but it offers a maindeck graveyard hate that doesn't require a creature to work, allowing it to disrupt Omniscience's combo when needed, while also being another answer to Abhorrent Oculus.

Sheoldred's Edict offers a multimodal resource to deal primarily with Planeswalkers, especially Kaito, Bane of Nightmares, but it also works against Jace, the Perfected Mind, Elspeth, Storm Slayer and resolves a Beza, the Bounding Spring even after it puts tokens into play.

Gix’s Command is our choice of sweeper against Prowess, it clears the Jeskai Oculus board if Abhorrent Oculus stays in play for too many turns, and it also offers a way to gain more breathing room in attrition mirrors by returning creatures from the graveyard to the hand, or against Aggro by giving Lifelink to a large creature on the board.

If played on the second turn, Amonkhet Raceway can cast Deep-Cavern Bat, which will increase speed starting from the next combat. Once we have max speed, any creature we play becomes an immediate threat, being especially useful with Archfiend of the Dross or the Unholy Annex's token.

Sideboard

Extra discards come into play in games where we need them more than board interaction. Duress is essential against Prowess, Bounce, Jeskai Control and can work against Domain Overlords and even in the mirror, where we usually need to remove Deep-Cavern Bat.

Dreams of Steel and Oil works mainly against Jeskai Oculus, but it is a good side-in against Domain Overlords and Mono Red Aggro as well, since it deals with the opponent's creatures while being our only means of interacting with Urabrask's Forge.

Withering Torment is our answer to enchantments and can also work in games where we need more unconditional removal. Effective against Bounce, on Mono Black or Golgari mirrors, and also resolves Enduring Curiosity if it turns into an enchantment.

Sheoldred’s Edict and Blot Out basically have the same function of being answers against Planeswalkers. Blot Out also works against Domain Overlords and can work on Midrange mirrors.

The Stone Brain is our tool to permanently deal with cards that win the game and/or turn it the match too much in the opponent’s favor. It is a specific hate against Omniscience, but we can use it against Domain Overlords to remove key pieces of the opponent that tend to create snowballs against us, such as Overlord of the Mistmoors and Zur, Eternal Schemer.

Ghost Vacuum provides a cheap and efficient graveyard hate that can be reused every turn, essential against Jeskai Oculus and Omniscience Combo. It can also come in against Jeskai Control to lock down Shiko, Paragon of the Way, since one of the main ways for opponents to bury us with card advantage is to sequence Stock Up with Shiko to filter four cards into their hand.

Copies of Preacher of the Schism and Gix’s Command are versatile enough for many games in the current Metagame, but they don’t cover the format enough to be worth more maindeck slots than other cards we’re using — perhaps Liliana of the Veil could be replaced by the fourth Preacher in future versions.

Izzet Prowess

IN

OUT

Mono Red Aggro

IN

OUT

Esper Bounce

IN

OUT

Jeskai Oculus

IN

OUT

Jeskai Control

IN

OUT

Azorius Omniscience

IN

OUT

Dimir Midrange

IN

OUT

Domain Overlords

IN

OUT

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!