First time cube, so open to any thoughts and ideas. Work in Progress.

The goal of this cube is to highlight some truly unique and iconic Black cards from throughout Magics History. My personal introduction to TGC's was Hearthstone, and bLack's color identity most closely resembles that of Warlock Class (hence the name). Its strength lies in having very few things it CAN't do, but the draw back is often at the cost of another resource. Wanna Draw Cards? You can but it will cost you life.

Major Archetypes:

Zombies - Lots of cheap, recurable sac fodder and quick zombie synergies. A pure Aggro strategy may be difficult to force, but Zombies can likely splash well with other archetypes. Graveyard recursion, aristocrats, dredge.

• Key Cards - Gravecrawler, Champion of the Perished, Crypt Breaker mutavault

Vampires - Flying evasion beaters and life gain/drain + Tribal synergy. Many Great aristocrats cards are vampires as well. Kalitas is likely the top pick as a mid range option it shuts off opponents GY and is just difficult to deal with outside of removal. Lifelink helps win aggro matches.

• Key Cards: Drana Liberator of malikir, Kalitas Traitor of Ghet, Vampire Nocturnus, Blood Artist. Knight of the Ebon Legion. + Low CMC/flying Vampires. Mutavault

Aristocrats - Sac and drain effects galore. Lots of the Zombie and Vampire cards are perfect sac fodder. Combo's outlined below. Likely Blood artist is one of the best cards as many decks will want it. Phyrexian Altar and other Sac outlets are prob key pickups.

• Key Cards: Blood Artist, Gravecrawler, Tortured Existence, Phyrexian Reclamation, Meathook Massacre, bastion of Remembrance, Dictate of Erebos
• Interesting Picks: Kormus Bell Artifact Creature Mana Rocks,

Big Mana/Ramp - Coffers + iconic huge mana creatures. Ramping out with the help of Dark Rit type effects.

• Cabal Coffers, Expedition Map, Urborg, Dark Rit, Cabal Rit, Mana Rocks, Crypt Ghast. Any Mana Sync/Big Threat.

Life Drain/Switch/Burn - Lots of card in the cube require paying life. Thematically it should feel difficult to cast spells and would love a burn style archetype. Few switch life swapping cards in the list. It's a risky move but another option for a control style deck.

• Key Cards- Exsanguinate, Gray merchant of asphodel, drain life, syphon life, Onyx Combo/Exquisite blood combo, triskadekaphobia

Reanimator - Specifically don't want this to be as strong as the reanimator deck in the vintage cube. Entomb is not on the list to avoid explosive starts. Ideally the reanimator is more like a necromancer. Killing an opponent's creatures just to rip them out of the yard and work agains their owners. Take note of legendary and non legendary reanimation targets. Unmarked grave and persist are great cards but limited to non legendary. Non Legendary should be taken at a premium.

• Key Cards -unmarked grave, persist, buried alive, exhume, animate dead, dance of the dead, shallow grave,

-Reanimate Targets - From Level of easiest to reanimate down. Not a power assessment, but generally the best targets are likely the ones you can get out consistently and easily.

archon of cruelty - Non Legendary and likely the best turbo out target.
Grave titan - Likely second easiest target to reanimate. Can also likely hard cast it as well.
rune-scared demon. Demonic tutor + a 6/6 Flier. Another reanimation spell for if this thing get's answered seems pretty good as well. Non legendary.
void beckoner not the biggest I win card but it can bin itself without needing another entomb style card or discard outlet.
grisselbrand harder to cast than the above, but likely the most powerful if you can get it out. Careful with the amount of removal.
Torgar, famine incarnate. splashy card but likely more for a top end aristocrats strat than reanimate. But can do the job in a pinch.
spirit of night cool card but also is legendary and the pro black doesn't let animate dead style effects to stick. Hardest to reanimate but the reward for getting it out is much harder to remove outside of an edict or mass wipe.

Storm - Dark Rit effects and cheap removal spells + Tendrils = Huge Life drain. The Storm payoffs can be great, but combined with Mana Rocks and other Ramp a big Exsanguinate/drain life. Can pair with Control, or lean into a ramp category. I don't think this is really a hard storm, but the ability to generate big mana

• Key Cards - Dark Ritual, Rain of Filth, LED, Yawgmoths Will, Tendrills, Memory Jar. bubbling muck, Tendrils tourment of hailfire, exsanguinate, life drain

Control - Removal and Board Wipes. While there are a few hand disruption cards in here, a Rack style Discard Win-con isn't. A few Lili Planeswalkers and Chalice of the Void. Ob Nix planeswalker can be a strong wincon. Boardwipes are limited to situation ones or ones that require a sacrifice to use IE mutilate, bontu's, Toxic Deluge etc.

• Key Cards: Board Wipes, Lili Walkers, card Draw, Coercive Portal, Kormus Bell (ponza!)

Combo's - That I am Aware of. Likely Many more just the few that I realized.

Dark Depths + Thespian Stage or Vampire Hexmage = 20/20

Exquisite Blood - Sanguine Bond (or Vito) = Infinite Drain

Professor Onyx + Chain Of Smog = Infinite Drain

Phyrexian Altar + Gravecrawler + Any Zombie = Inf ETB/LTB

Lurrus + Kaya's Ghostform + + Phyrexian Altar = Inf ETB/LTB

Mortuary + Any X Mana Creature + Grim Haruspex = Inf ETB/LTB

Mortuary + Priest of Gix + Grim Haruspex + Sac outlet = Inf ETB/LTB

What's Not In the Cube?

• Power/Sol Ring. Would be the best cards in the cube by far.

The Rack style discard win cons. Avoiding Discard style win cons as top deck battles can take awhile.

• Damnation. Color pie break and far to effect of a removal spell. No downside here like Deluge or Bontu's last Reckoning. Mutilate scales as well

• Entomb. Far too busted of a card. Instant speed tutor for any creature is a little flexible and quick. There are ton's of reanimation spells but unmarked grave is the next best tutor for non-legendary creatures.