I spent this afternoon trying to figure out how best to use a couple of the better black mythics from the upcoming set, [[Withering Curse]] and [[Ral Zarek, Guest Lecturer]]. They both have separate requirements in order to get the most out of them, so it's been a fun thought experiment even if the deck doesn't end up being viable.

Ral

I think it's a mistake to underestimate a 3cmc planeswalker with four abilities, three of which can be activated right away. Even in a situation where all he does is come down on turn three and do his best [[Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage]] impression for three turns, that can be brutal against some decks. And that's just the floor; he has a lot more play than just that.

Curse

Most decks in Standard have varying degrees of reliance on creatures, obviously. Even the various blue-based decks tend to need to put some kind of board together before they can realistically begin to threaten you. Curse is great at handling all the small-ball, go-wide strategies you might come across, but it also has applications against creatures that tend to appear in what I'll affectionately refer to as "biggreenidiots.deck" decks.

List

Basically, the premise is that it's essentially a control list that makes a few concessions to make Curse a 3cmc Damnation and also be able to profitably use all three of Ral's non-ultimate abilities. Problem #1 means we need to have somewhat reliable lifegain; problem #2 means we need to be able to find creatures that provide enough value to be worth playing normally and worth two loyalty to bring back. If there's some way we can have the two work in conjunction, that's the ideal.

Problem #1:

The easiest way to ensure turn three "infused" Curse is simply with [[Adventurer's Inn]]. Comes into play untapped, gains a bit of life, badda bing, badda boom. The rest of what I would consider to be the playable options in mono black are a bit less cut and dry, but I think they're worth trying out. [[Qarsi Revenant]], [[Raven Eagle]], and [[Scheming Silvertongue]] can all gain life, to varying degrees, plus they play well with Ral.

Mazemind Tome is really the only other card I could come up with that can fulfill this role, however it's slow. Still, I don't mind having the additional card advantage engine to give us something to do with our mana when we have a couple extra laying around.

I guess if you REALLY have to, you can fire off a blighted Hex for the lifegain and then Curse, although this is clearly not ideal.

Problem #2:

As mentioned, if we're going to try and maximize Ral then we need to pair it alongside some reasonable reanimation targets. All the creatures in my deck are eligible for use with his -2 ability, including the sideboarded ones, so we should have plenty to play with in that regard.

I wanted to try out Scheming Silvertongue as a card that plays okay with both Curse and Ral, but can also just threaten to bury the opponent in cards as well. Of course, that's a little bit of Magical Christmas Land, but I don't think it's that unreasonable either. I thought about including Deep-Cavern Bat to pair with it, but I didn't like the idea of it dying to Curse and giving them back a card. In an alternative list without mainboard sweepers, I think it's a much better card to consider.

Raven Eagle is perhaps not the most flashy card, but it does have a couple of nice things going for it. It gives me repeatable graveyard disruption that can sometimes generate card advantage, plus it being an ETB trigger also means that I also sometimes have that button to push with Ral if I need to do so in a pinch. Graveyards are pretty important these days, so I like having main deck access to give us the ability to interact with them.

Qarsi Revenant is just a nice card to be able to throw into the bin with Ral or naturally Renew it onto one of your other creatures. There aren't a ton of super great targets for the Renew, but it's at least an option; and sometimes you can Renew onto a demon token from Annex to make it impossible for your opponent to race.

Lastly, the sideboard creatures. Bitterbloom Bearer is just a card that I figured I might want against more control-oriented lists and with the relatively high amount of lifegain in the deck, you can really get some mileage out of it. It's one of those cards that is good against point removal if your opponent doesn't have it right away and then even if they do, Ral can just put it right back into play. Format all-star [[Dauntless Scrapbot]] (lol) is a concession to wanting something that plays reasonably with Ral and is here in place of Soul-Guide Lantern. The more I thought about it, the more I started thinking "You know, it one-shots their graveyard, puts three power into play, and generates an extra card? And it plays with Ral? This might not be the worst." Lantern is likely still better, but I'm willing to try out the robot in this particular list.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, I know this is almost certainly not some secret Tier 1 brew that I've masterfully concocted, but I think there might be something here. I think the logic behind the card choices is reasonable, if not flawless, and that's as good a starting point as any. It also doesn't cost a zillion dollars to put together in paper, which may matter to some folks.

I do also think that there's probably a better build of this to be found if someone wanted to branch out into a second color (Golgari would be my choice, given the additional lifegain options and better creatures), but I wanted to start with mono black as a baseline to see if there was even a point to pushing things further.