Necrodominance Deck and SB Guide 9/8/2024

Welcome to September, the first full month we will have untarnished by Nadu! Note that since I’ve put in considerable time on them, I’ll have both an update for Hammer as well as Necrodominance this month! I’ve split them into separate pieces to keep the resources easier to access. So if you’re here for the Necro list and SB guide, you’re in the right spot! If you’re looking for Hammer, check out the other update I added :) 

“But Grief was banned! Isn’t this deck dead???” I hear people note. The reality is that Grief is a very powerful card, but Necro was quite bad at using Grief as anything more than an Unmask. Most of the time this effect isn’t necessary, especially since the Bird got banned. I would still like to have access to the effect against Jeskai, but that matchup is winnable by playing well. Since we’ve maxed our discard we are quite good at still poking holes in their protection and sticking a Necro/Ring. 

The more significant pieces to how this deck fits into the metagame, is evaluating what the most played decks are, and adjusting accordingly. Now that Nadu is banned, the top decks in the format seem to be Boros/Mardu, Dimir Frogtide, Jeskai, Through the Breach, Storm, Tron variants, Amulet, Zoo, and Goryo’s. This is a mixed back, and I’m generally only unhappy facing Frogtide, Amulet, and Zoo. Every other matchup I’ve listed here feels close or favorable for Necro. That said, the other 3 feel pretty rough (Domain especially feels rough). As such, the configuration and sideboard do their best to account for the meta shift. 

The deck is incredibly fun and powerful, but a lot of it (especially picking how many cards to draw with Necro) is very unintuitive, and quite challenging to play optimally. For a great breakdown, I’d recommend checking out Reid Duke’s primer that he wrote after the PT, as he covers some of the finer points of the deck’s fundamentals better than I can. The biggest thing to note is that without Grief, Phyrexian Tower lost a lot of its value and that’s why I’ve cut it from the deck entirely. One copy is still fine if you play the Urborg, but it’s unlikely to be optimal now.

Decklist

Sideboard Guide

Notes on current configuration:

-3/1 Fatal Push split - Right now you can choose to split one of the discard spells instead of the pushes, but I am fine giving up a smidge of equity in the Energy matchups since I’ve been running into a lot of Jeskai, especially at the RCQ meta (which I’m expecting many of you reading this are interested in. If you want to hedge more in the other direction, I would shift a thoughtseize instead and keep all 4 Push in the main.

-4 Seize/Inquisition main - With the loss of Grief and the general uptick in counterspell decks, I’m happy to have access to 8 discard spells in the main deck. The ability to either clear the way for your Ring/Necro and then bury your opponents in cards or shape how you want the first few turns of the game proceed cannot be overstated.  

-Lands vs Repast - I have tried regular Swamps, Trolls of Khazad-dum, and Revitalizing Repasts. My honest opinion? It doesn’t make much of a difference. That said, if you are going to go below 26 lands I’m a fan of having more untapped lands in the swamps and extra copies of Agadeem’s Awakening since casting your spells on time is really good (shocking, I know).

-4 March - I have been a big fan of maxing on marches since it is one of the best ways to leverage the excess cards you draw with Necro/Ring, it cushions your life total early, and can tag large creatures later in the game. An often overlooked piece of this card is the ability to kill planeswalkers as well, which sometimes the deck can struggle to do on demand. Having this as a 4-of also makes it less punishing to trim/cut your soul spikes post-board, which I am a firm believer in doing in some matchups.

Sideboard

-3 Damping Sphere - With the surge of Titan, Storm, and Eldrazi tron, I’m a fan of going higher on the sad ball. Break the Ice and Soulless Jailer are both strong cards, but they tend to be fairly narrow. Sphere is one of the only cards that hits this many decks that require specific hate to hit effectively. Note that I do not bring in Sphere against Through the Breach variants since it simply doesn’t do enough. Also note that Sphere can be a bit awkward on your turn 3 Necros since you can’t cast another spell afterwards. This nonbo isn’t ideal, but it also isn’t that big of a deal.

-3 Force of Despair - This is a powerful effect that you want to bring in sparingly. This card is one of the reasons I have felt heavily favored against the Through the Breach shells. Since they can’t pressure your life total reasonably, you are often able to draw 10-15 cards off your first Necro to find a Force and just hold it up the rest of the game This is also a nice tool to have when you expect threats that are nigh unbeatable for us otherwise (Leyline into Scion of Draco) since you likely have to cheese those anyway.

-2 The Meathook Massacre - I thought this card was a bit of a meme until I resolved one against Goblin Bombardment and realized that it completely countered the effect. Every time they sacrifice a creature to hit you, you get to gain a life from the Meathook trigger. That alone is good enough to play it against boros/mardu, but the fact that it doubles as a 3-4 mana flexible sweeper really does push it over the edge. If you want to absolutely dunk on energy, this is the best tool we’ve got at the moment.

-2 Path of Peril - A very nice additional 3-mana sweeper that tags every creature in boros sans Phlage, and does good work against Domain Zoo and Frogtide. The card is replaceable but uniquely positioned at the moment. The fact that neither of my sweepers cost life like Toxic Deluge is exceptionally important against the aggressive decks like Energy and Domain where every point of life matters. 

-2 Dauthi Voidwalker - Dauthi’s primary role is graveyard hate against decks like Goryo’s, Storm, Living End, and Yawgmoth. Keeping the yard clear while being a 3/2 mostly unblockable threat for 2 mana is a nice tool. Against Jeskai it acts as a reasonable threat that they have to answer if they ever want to get to the end game or get a Phlage back. The other use Dauthi has is the ability to cheese out decks like Eldrazi Tron/Through the Breach. If you play Dauthi and then Thoughtseize an Eldrazi like Emrakul/Ulamog, Dauthi can then cast that card for free and you are almost certainly winning the game from there. It won’t often come up, but it’s great when it does.

-2 Surgical - This card exists almost solely to serve 2 roles: rip out combo pieces, and rip out Phlage. Note that I am still not sure we want any copies against Boros/Mardu, but I think 1 copy is defensible to bring in. The card is obviously powerful against any graveyard strategy, and can really put a hamper on decks like Yawg (if they have Malevolent Rumble).

Necro is a fundamentally broken deck, and so there is always space for it in the meta (until at least MH4 or Marvel or whatever). That said, the deck does require a lot of reps and practice to get the numbers down. Plus, you need to make sure your answers line up for your expected meta, so don’t feel tied to  this guide. The meta is in flux right now, so it’s a great time to experiment!