Black has some of the best midrange enablers in Modern. Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek give you great early game disruption and Liliana of the Veil is a tried and true attrition engine that ensures that your opponents can't piece together all the cards they need to fight back. Black is typically paired with another color to give you access to more efficient removal, big creatures, or more card advantage. This week, DreadedDead shows that Black doesn't necessarily need help to get the job done:

Mono-Black Midrange - Modern | DreadedDead, 5-0 Modern League

• Creatures (4)
• 2 Tombstalker
• 2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Liliana of the Veil

• Instants (8)
• 1 Cast Down
• 1 Go for the Throat
• 1 Slaughter Pact
• 1 Suffer the Past
• 4 Fatal Push

• Sorceries (14)
• 1 Collective Brutality
• 2 Damnation
• 3 Thoughtseize
• 4 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 4 Lingering Souls

• Enchantments (2)
• 2 Phyrexian Arena

• Artifacts (4)
• 1 Nihil Spellbomb
• 3 Mishra's Bauble

• Lands (24)
• 1 Plains
• 4 Swamp
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 2 Ifnir Deadlands
• 2 Marsh Flats
• 4 Field of Ruin
• 4 Shambling Vent
• 4 Verdant Catacombs

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Anguished Unmaking
• 2 Damping Sphere
• 2 Disenchant
• 1 Dismember
• 1 Duress
• 1 Extirpate
• 2 Flaying Tendrils
• 2 Fulminator Mage
• 1 Never // Return
• 2 Stony Silence

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The two splash cards here are Shambling Vent and Lingering Souls, both of which give you great ways of controlling the board and keeping your life total high against aggro decks and other strategies that go wide. You also have access to the likes of Damnation and possibly Night of Souls' Betrayal or Curse of Death's Hold to lock down creature decks. You even have Phyrexian Arena over Dark Confidant as a way to keep pace with opposing card advantage spells.

As far as ending the game goes, you have Tombstalker and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet as the threats of choice. Tombstalker over the likes of Gurmag Angler makes it easier to attack past opposing creatures without having to kill all of them. Kalitas is a great way to let your removal generate cascading advantages, particularly against opposing midrange decks. If you're looking to play Mono-Black in Modern, this seems like a great place to start. The combination of discard spells and removal seems like a great place to start, and you can back it up with whatever combination of threats and card advantage you think is appropriate.