Kaervek’s Abyss

It didn’t take long for the previews of Core Set 2021 to get me thinking about all kinds of new decks, and once we got to pull back the curtain on Kaervek, the Spiteful over on YouTube, I knew it was time to put some ideas down on paper.

Kaervek squashes creatures – both yours and your opponent’s, so I wanted to use him as a safeguard against token strategies while deploying my own non-creature permanents backed up with plenty of targeted removal spells.

The goal is to destroy everything your opponent throws at you, while chipping away at their life through Underworld Dreams and Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted. Then, you use Grim Tutor to find your copy of Peer into the Abyss and send them packing.

The tutors can also help you find the right card you need for a given match. If you’ve got Underworld Dreams or Kaervek down, searching up your copy of Gray Merchant of Asphodel could yield a devastating change in life totals.

Opponent has a hexproof creature that’s getting stacked with auras or mutate cards? Use the tutor to call Rankle forward from your own deck. Or, go grab your Massacre Wurm to wipe away a board filled with lots of small fliers.

1 Peer into the Abyss
3 Underworld Dreams
3 Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted
3 Kaervek, the Spiteful
2 Eliminate
2 Grasp of Darkness
4 Grim Tutor
1 Massacre Wurm
2 Pestilent Haze
1 Rankle, Master of Pranks
3 Foreboding Fruit
3 Drag to the Underworld
1 Easy Prey
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
2 Heartless Act
1 Ritual of Soot
2 Eat to Extinction
1 Erebos’s Intervention
4 Castle Locthwain
20 Swamp

Obviously, there’s a lot to still be seen from Core Set 2021, and the answers you pack in a mono-black deck will need to change to match the ever-evolving competitive landscape, but coming out of the gate with a deck that has plenty of removal and a two-card knock-out combo could catch a lot of players off guard, making it a fun place to start the season.