The Why of Mono-Black
Whenever I'm in a Magic community or social gathering place and I start explaining Mono-Black card choices or deckbuilding strategies or its place in the meta, I always get asked the same question: "Why do you willingly choose to play Mono-Black when it seems like there's so many better options?" It's a valid question, and one I often forget I need to answer. I forget that people usually look at a deck with a strict lens of power-level: if it's not top tier, that must mean it's bad for some reason. Competitive players should only play the strongest deck, right? But things are rarely that black and white (pun intended). There's a reason we have tiers beyond S (or 1, depending on your ranking structures). There's a reason--many reasons, actually--that despite the fact that some deck may be the strongest in any given meta, not everyone's playing it. In fact, most format-health metrics tend to suggest that, if any given deck is being played too muc