MTG
Necropotence
B

Skyler's Curative Deck List

Necropotence. Hymn. Drain. The old black art.

Mono-Black · Classic Necro / Specter

Vintage-inspired Freeform · XMage

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A love letter to mid-90s Pro Tour mono-black — the deck that taught the format what card advantage and spite look like. Vampire aristocracy for flavor; Necropotence, Hymn to Tourach, and Drain Life for the win. No cats. No modern lifegain package. Just ritual into Specter and watch them discard their future.

Why it works

This is the sophisticated black pile: Dark Ritual accelerates Hypnotic Specter and Necropotence; Hymn and Duress empty their hand; pump knights and Sengir close; Drain Life is removal, lifegain, and the kill — the original 'curative' spell. Lake of the Dead and Coffers turn late drains into game-ending math. It still wins fair games today because the engine never stopped being unfair.

Signature interactions

  • Dark Ritual → turn-1 Hypnotic Specter (the classic opener)
  • Necropotence + Drain Life — pay life to draw, gain it back while killing them
  • Lake of the Dead / Cabal Coffers → oversized Drain Life finishers

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Full card gallery

This is the sophisticated black pile: Dark Ritual accelerates Hypnotic Specter and Necropotence; Hymn and Duress empty their hand; pump knights and Sengir close; Drain Life is removal, lifegain, and the kill — the original 'curative' spell. Lake of the Dead and Coffers turn late drains into game-ending math. It still wins fair games today because the engine never stopped being unfair.

  • Dark Ritual → turn-1 Hypnotic Specter (the classic opener)
  • Necropotence + Drain Life — pay life to draw, gain it back while killing them
  • Lake of the Dead / Cabal Coffers → oversized Drain Life finishers
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Raw list

// Skyler's Curative Deck List
// Necropotence. Hymn. Drain. The old black art.
// Vintage-inspired Freeform · XMage

4 Hypnotic Specter
3 Order of the Ebon Hand
3 Knight of Stromgald
2 Sengir Vampire
1 Ihsan's Shade
1 Baron Sengir
4 Dark Ritual
3 Necropotence
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Duress
4 Drain Life
2 Terror
2 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Contagion
1 Zuran Orb
3 Strip Mine
2 Mishra's Factory
2 Lake of the Dead
2 Cabal Coffers
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
11 Swamp

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  • Blood Artist + Zulaport Cutthroat = double drain on deaths
  • Viscera Seer / Indulgent Aristocrat as sac outlets
  • Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet — their creatures become your tokens
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  • Falkenrath Aristocrat + tokens / fodder = indestructible beats
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  • Bloated Contaminator as the fat toxic beater
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  • Token makers + anthem effects
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  • Cliffhaven Vampire as a soft version of the same idea
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