The Curse of the Ebony Blade
Black Knight - Card Preview
Do you enjoy the discard archetype, but feel traditional the M.O.D.O.K. discard deck is too linear? Does the RNG dependent Hela frustrate you too often? Well, targeted discard is getting a new tool this week in the Black Knight!
This Series 5 card is featured in the Spotlight Cache alongside M.O.D.O.K. and Stature this week.
The Card
Black Knight is a 1-cost, 2-power card. After he is played, he will create a 4-cost Ebony Blade with the power of the next card you discard–only once per game. The Ebony Blade has no ability.
Interactions to Note
- The Ebony Blade is a wholly separate card than the discarded one; Ghost Rider and Hela can still bring the card back into play.
- The Ebony Blade has a base power of 0; thus, the blade is vulnerable to Shadow King, who will reduce it to 0 power without a Luke Cage to protect it.
- 4-Cost means it will be discounted by Zabu.
- Black Knight works similar to Dracula, in that if you discard Apocalypse, the Ebony Blade will have its power post-discard. For example, if you discard Apocalypse at 8-power, the Apocalypse will buff and the Ebony Blade will have 12 power.
- The Ebony Blade can be buffed by Patriot. This is nearly useless information, I reckon.
My Initial Thoughts
Overall, I think Black Knight is going to be okay. Not great, not bad, but okay. He may help with some decks that needed just one more piece to be viable (such as Honest Hela, an example of which is below), and may be a decent addition to established decks (Traditional Discard included). However, I do not think he is going to shake the meta up, nor be a staple in top tier decks.
He gets points for potentially fun plays, but unless you have swore your allegiance to the Discard archetype, I do not think he is worth unlocking in this cache. This is especially considering he is paired with Stature–an essentially dead card in this Mobius M. Mobius meta. He will be in a much better spotlight cache come the last week of the year, so I would suggest waiting. He is certainly not worth 6000 Tokens as a Series 5.
Jimmy’s Day 1 Black Knight Decks
Despite my opening line, I do think Black Knight can fit into M.O.D.O.K discard just fine. Unlike basically every other deck on this list, it is likely best to hold onto the Black Knight until your Apocalypse is beefed up a bit by Blade and/or Lady Sif. Then you can get a 4 Cost 16 Power or 20 power card to play on five to finish with M.O.D.O.K. Perhaps Swarm gets cut from this list, as Mobius M. Mobius is still aprevelant card. Regardless, the Black Knight may switch up a tried and true deck enough that there will be multiple variations.
Back before the days of Sauron-Shuri, Zero decks were pretty powerful. Black Knight may be able to breathe some fresh air into this archetype now that there is another way to get rid of harmful effects and retain the high power. Even without drawing the Shuri, you can discard the Destroyer on turn 3 for a 4 cost, 15 power card that you can play on turn 4 and immediately into Taskmaster on Turn 5.
How does 43 power on turn 6 sound? How about 31? This deck attempts to utilize both a discounted Ebony Blade and Ghost Rider on Turn 6 for a huge swing. Dracula and Jubilee help with consistency in case you can’t draw the Black Knight or one of your discard cards. Rogue is here solely because Mobius M. Mobius exists to ruin Zabu decks.
A take on what an “honest” Hela deck would look like. You have 2 big power cards for Lady SIf (who will guarantee the Death discard if in hand), 2 low power cards for Silver Samurai, and even if Black Cat discards while your Black Knight is out, you can still play a 4 cost, 9 power card. Even if Hela revives only two cards, that is respectable power-if subject to RNG.
Don’t forget, Black Knight is a 1-cost card who stays on the board. Don’t let him waste away; buff him with Kazar and Blue Marvel! Essentially a Zoo deck with a couple high power cards to be discarded by either Dracula or Blade/Lady Sif with Black Knight on the Board. It can catch your opponent by surprise sometimes. Just remember; Killmonger doesn’t exist if you don’t think about him.
I hope you try these decks, or they inspire some deckbuilding ideas of your own!