There are a few things I enjoy more in life than massive, lategame momentum shifts. And my specific favorite flavor are the ones that allow you to respond to an opponent's boastful-yet-premature spamming of "good game" with a huge hit of noncombat damage for the one-punch KO. It's tasty, y'all. Tasty.

And so I created this mono black devotion deck specifically with that goal in mind. It's designed to allow you to slowly build a decent (but not overwhelming) board presence, while staying alive long enough to drop the salesman. What salesman, you ask? Why…he's your friend, he's my friend, he's a lover of commerce and carrier of large sacks.

Gary.

The Finisher

Gary is unabashedly the target finisher of this deck. The whole goal is to wait to drop him until you have a Nightmare Shepherd on the board, along with a sac engine – either Witch's Oven, Fiend Artisan, or Ayara, First of Locthwain. Typically, this is going to mean Gary hits the board with a healthy amount of devotion. As soon as his ability fires when he comes into play, you sac him, triggering the Nightmare Shepherd, and take the exile. That drops a token Gary that re-fires his ability at a devotion reduced by 2.

When I drop Gary, I average somewhere between 7-10 devotion. That means the combo, all told, hits for an average of anywhere from 12-18 (although my personal record was 24, with 13 devo). Considering you'll gain that same amount, it's enough to cause a huge swing at minimum, but will USUALLY be an instant kill. Thanks, Gary.

Fallbacks

The stars don't always align for the Gary-and-a-soda combo, sadly. But unlike many decks that rely on him for the finish, this one can do pretty well even without him. Ayara, First of Locthwain pairs with a Bastion of Remembrance or two nicely, especially if you have the Witch's Oven/Cauldron Familiar combo to go with it. And the Nightmare Shepherd's evasion + the Fiend Artisan upside beefiness can both potentially swing for lethal once you've managed to inflict enough tick damage with the previous combos to set it up.

And even without the Nightmare Shepherd giving you the immediate doubling effect on Gary, you can always drop multiple Gary's late! Ayara, First of Locthwain and Castle Locthwain are valuable draw engines to help you get Gary in hand faster, and Fiend Artisan will let you pull him straight from the deck.

Game Strats

With this deck, I tend to think of the game as having two main phases: prep and go.

In the prep phase, the name of the game is building to your midrange while trying to a) preserve devotion, and b) not get rekt by aggro. For mulligan strategy, I generally only care about trying to be able to curve out rather than hunting for specific pieces. Getting one or two one-drops and a Tymaret, Chosen from Death or a Fiend Artisan out in your first few turns is critical. You are GOING to take damage here, and that's fine – you have enough lifegain in the deck to be able to sustain quite a bit. Resist the urge to block early unless it's a good trade or its with Tymaret, Chosen from Death (since he's usually chonky quickly enough to be able to survive blocking).

If a serious threat hits the board, you can hit it with a Heartless Act or Murderous Rider. And once you have a Lurrus of the Dream-Den or Call of the Death-Dweller, you can start to be a bit more liberal with your chump-blocking – especially with a Bastion of Remembrance or Ayara, First of Locthwain taxing your opponent for it even further.

In the go phase, you've hit your midrange, and it's time to start working towards the Gary-and-a-soda. Draw is super important here, so you're going to want to consider Ayara, First of Locthwain's ability early and often. My favorite usage is to make the chump-block with something cheap, then sac with her.

To be continued…