The North American Premodern Championships are fast approaching. The first couple of years, the most popular deck in the event was Mono-Red Burn; the first year I participated I even got to play Premodern's Burn master Aaron Dicks in the Top 8!

After Brian Selden's incredible back-to-back victories, Mono-Blue Dreadnought eventually took over as the most popular deck... Just in time, in fact, for Rich Shay to cement Enchantress as arguably the best deck in the format; he was joined by Mike Packer in a stacked Top Eight.

So, what's up for this year? Artifact Shrimp on parade? Enchantress anchors pairing stability with the format's most powerful card drawing engine? Heck, there are all kinds of Terravores enabled by all five colors that can be even bigger than 12/12! And the Replenish deck that has been performing just fine, even in the absence of Parallax Tide.

But none of that is the real difference.

The difference this year is the emergence of Moneyball Black as not only one of the best performing but most popular decks.

The Emergence of Moneyball Black

Moneyball Black| Premodern | Suances , 1st Place Spanish Nationals

• Creatures (15)
• 1 Graveborn Muse
• 2 Masticore
• 4 Hypnotic Specter
• 4 Ravenous Rats
• 4 Withered Wretch

• Instants (11)
• 1 Contagion
• 1 Diabolic Edict
• 2 Snuff Out
• 3 Smother
• 4 Dark Ritual

• Sorceries (8)
• 4 Cabal Therapy
• 4 Duress

• Enchantments (2)
• 2 Phyrexian Arena

• Lands (24)
• 16 Swamp
• 4 Mishra's Factory
• 4 Wasteland

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Engineered Plague
• 3 Gloom
• 3 Dystopia
• 2 Powder Keg
• 2 Phyrexian Furnace
• 1 Diabolic Edict

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Mono-Black decks are not exactly "new" in Premodern, but Moneyball is philosophically different from most of what has come before.

If you examine the deck that won Spanish Nationals closely, you will see a lot of discard spells: Duress and Cabal Therapy are Staples played across many archetypes. Here they are joined by Ravenous Rats providing not only a card advantageous body, but one that is great to help with Cabal Therapy's Flashback.

In previous years you might have seen a deck lean dramatically into the discard theme. Such decks might want to end games with The Rack, or keep the opponent locked down with Bottomless Pit.

But that's where Moneyball Black differs.

It isn't about focusing on one thing... Unless that thing is winning games of Magic: The Gathering.

Splitting Focus

You see, the deck's choices are all over the place, almost by design. Yes, it typically has a lot of discard spells. But part of that is because discard spells are some of the most mana-efficient ways that the color Black has to interact in the Premodern format. But - and this is for a deck that can produce a first-turn Hypnotic Specter - it isn't really a "discard" deck. It isn't an any kind of deck. Rather, Moneyball is a deck that matches up well.

Let's talk about Hypnotic Specter. Let's talk about Hypnotic Specter on the first turn. You get there via Dark Ritual; and Dark Ritual is a card that has in large part been optimized out of Premodern. It's "card disadvantage" most of the time. And when you make a Hypnotic Specter on the first turn, you expose yourself to Lightning Bolt and Swords to Plowshares both.

But what about all the games the opponent doesn't have Lightning Bolt or Swords to Plowshares? Do they just lose now? Certainly they always start off behind, and will often end up pinned. Sometimes they will have the answer but not the untapped mana on time, and you'll take that answer. Sometimes their deck will cease to function entirely. So yes, you might start off down a card, but if the opponent doesn't immediately answer your Specter, you will make up the card advantage (and often more).

Needless to say, once you're ahead, Duress and Cabal Therapy can keep them behind. And while a 2/2 might not seem like the fastest clock in the format, it's plenty fast enough when the opponent is otherwise helpless.

Another Unassuming 2/2

Let's talk about another unassuming 2/2...

Withered Wretch has been a popular Staple in Premodern for as long as I've been playing. However, it's mostly been used in Black/Green decks, sometimes as a bullet for Survival of the Fittest, and often as a sideboard card or Living Wish target. Prior to Moneyball Black, I hadn't seen Withered Wretch as a card people ran as a four-of, that they just drew and then played.

That's its unique angle here. Don't get me wrong: Withered Wretch is a 2/2 for two mana, and that simply isn't exciting if the opponent isn't trying to win using their Graveyard in some way. And even when they are, it's hard to argue that a 2/2 for two mana isn't always out-muscled by a 3/3 for three mana (and certainly two of them).

In another way, Withered Wretch can pull the rug out from under Call of the Herd, rendering it a mere Trained Armodon. Withered Wretch doesn't look like a dominating card on its face, but don't blink. At the same time, it often just kind of makes the opponent's deck suck.

Moneyball isn't an anti-Terravore deck by design, but don't tell that to Withered Wretch. In addition to containing Call of the Herd's natural card advantage, you'd be hard pressed to find a Creature so naturally efficacious against the Lhurgoyf Terravore itself. It's just not that hard to keep the number of lands in graveyards low when you can just tap a single mana.

Withered Wretch also matches up brilliantly against most Zombie Infestation decks. Those opponents are generally long on ways to find Squee, Goblin Nabob, Wonder, and Krovikan Horror... But short on removal. So if you stick a Withered Wretch they often can't kill it; whereas it can make the card Zombie Infestation look kind of embarrassing.

Nothing about the Moneyball Black deck is fundamentally optimized to do anything (except add together to win games in some kind of generic/hodgepodge way)... But the deck definitely matches up exceptionally well against the card Phyrexian Dreadnought.

You see, Cabal Therapy itself is great at naming "Phyrexian Dreadnought" on turn one or two. And later in the game, Duress is great at clearing Counterspells. That means that Moneyball has a high likelihood of resolving Smother, Diabolic Edict, or Snuff Out, even if the opponent assembles their Shrimp combo.

If nothing else, its fundamental efficacy against last year's most popular deck gives this one a lot of legitimacy.

And we haven't even looked at the sideboard yet!

The Sideboard

You'll notice a theme here. Lots of three-mana Enchantments, all of which are extremely hateful to someone.

Engineered Plague is great against go-wide anything-decks, from Goblin Lackeys to Fyndhorn Elves... And Argothian Enchantresses. Dystopia is a powerful catch-all, but the really interesting three-mana Enchantment is Gloom.

Gloom doesn't just make Opalescence cost seven mana.

For that matter, it doesn't just make Replenish so slow that Withered Wretch can pick apart the opponent's graveyard to the point that it isn't worth casting.

If the opponent actually gets Parallax Wave out, the card will be miserable to use. Every activation costs three mana on top of removing a counter. Annoying, right?

Moneyball Black | Premodern | Ankylosaur, 2nd Place Premodern Challenge

• Creatures (18)
• 1 Plaguebearer
• 3 Graveborn Muse
• 3 Knight of Stromgald
• 3 Nantuko Shade
• 4 Hypnotic Specter
• 4 Withered Wretch

• Instants (8)
• 2 Diabolic Edict
• 2 Smother
• 4 Dark Ritual

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 Chainer's Edict
• 4 Cabal Therapy
• 4 Duress

• Artifacts (2)
• 2 Cursed Scroll

• Lands (23)
• 17 Swamp
• 2 Wasteland
• 4 Mishra's Factory

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Tormod's Crypt
• 1 Diabolic Edict
• 3 Dystopia
• 4 Engineered Plague
• 3 Gloom
• 2 Spinning Darkness

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Though a relatively "young" deck for this non-rotating format, Moneyball Black has gone through its own evolutions and optimizations over the last couple of years.

One of the deck's escape valves has always been to play card drawing, in part as a way to recover the lost card economy that comes with having Dark Ritual. Phyrexian Arena (as a three-mana spell) was a natural pair to Dark Ritual itself, but players have moved more toward Graveborn Muse in recent months.

First of all, this just compacts the deck. Instead of having a brick that does nothing but draw an extra card, newer Moneyball decks get a similar effect on a 3/3 Zombie. The 3/3 body obviously helps to end games, but its Zombie nature actually compacts a ton of utility. "Redundant" Graveborn Muses actually team up to draw more cards, and while we have dozens of reasons to play Withered Wretch already, the additional card drawing interaction with Graveborn Muse will add yet another arrow to the quiver.

The most important change to the deck might be the shift from Ravenous Rats to Knight of Stromgald.

Knight of Stromgald is the most "Moneyball Black" card you can kind of play in a Moneyball Black deck. Remember when I said this isn't really a "discard" deck (despite playing a lot of discard)? Now it's even less of one.

Instead, we have Knight of Stromgald quietly compacting several different jobs into one card. You can't Plow it You can't Wave it. If the opponent isn't playing Red removal, it probably isn't going anywhere. Worse, this card, for a very small amount of mana, will devour any and all Elephant tokens with a combination of First Strike and +1/+0.

This is a card that makes almost no sense on its face, on rate, but contextually just does the thing we've been saying about this deck over and over: It's just there to win games.

By contrast, Plague Bearer is just there to eat Dreadnoughts for free. Which also wins games.

Wrapping Up

If there is a weakness in this strategy, it has to be in the Red Decks (which we've said up top have lagged in popularity in recent years). Burn is disadvantaged against both the most popular Dreadnought deck and the last year's winning Enchantress deck. It is great against Moneyball insofar that Moneyball has no good answer to a Jackal Pup (or its Goblins cousin, Goblin Lackey) on turn one. Sure you can eventually catch up by putting 2/2s in front of the Red Deck 1-drops, but that's basically playing into their game plan.

So, inclusive of being "bad" against a less popular family of strategies, but pretty well positioned across the board, I think it will be quite interesting to see how this strategy shakes out in a couple of weeks.

Swamp, Dark Ritual, first-turn Gloom you.

LOVE

MIKE