Block Constructed Magic: Ice Age Block, Necropotence Revisited

I've been messing around with my Ice Age block decks with my patient circle of Magic: The Gathering playing co-workers and doing round robin's for our block decks. You can view the decks here and here. I'm pretty happy with all of my deck's play but I find the mono-black Necropotence deck slightly wanting in some of the match-ups.


I circled back to the deck and after playing a number of match-ups discovered some of the weaknesses inherent in the deck. Against Counterpost I had issues muscling some of my key cards into play. The Mind Ravel and Mind Warp were decent at helping against that deck, but I felt I needed more disruption against the counter-magic. Against the creature decks my removal was a bit clunky and slow, and I had almost no answers against shroud creatures like Deadly Insect.

I aimed to change this and scoured the block for answers. Black didn't offer much help here. Mind Ravel was already exhausted as an answer to permission magic. Stench of Decay was considered to take out the formidable Deadly Insect, but I finally decided to branch out further and just add a second color.

Black/Red Necropotence

Spells

4 Skred
4 Demonic Consultation
4 Dark Ritual
4 Coldsteel Heart
4 Soul Burn
4 Necropotence
3 Soul Spike
2 Mind Warp
2 Contagion

Creatures

2 Void Maw
4 Phyrexian Ironfoot

Land

2 Sulfurous Springs
4 Tresserhorn Sinks
4 Scrying Sheets
2 Lake of the Dead
11 Snow-Covered Swamp

Sideboard

4 Pyroblast
4 Dystopia
4 Icequake
3 Pyroclasm

This variant of the deck doesn't change all that much in terms of actual card volume but it plugs a number of holes in the original. Now we have additional early game removal. Skred is added in addition to Contagion to remove just about any threat early or late game. What changes more notably is in the sideboard. Gone are the Mind Ravels. They are replaced with Pyroblast which better allows the Necro player to force though important spells. Pyroclasm is a very efficient answer to swarm decks and deals with troublesome shroud creatures the old deck couldn't otherwise deal with.

I think this variant is of Necropotence is an improvement over the original. It still offers all of the card drawing life draining power of the original, but is more consistent in how it handles threats on the board, and can better stifle permission players as well.