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Why is Black the Red-Headed Stepchild of Magic?

OK, for everyone sleeping under a rock, breaking news: the Finkeltron wins US Nationals with Black Deck. This is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, why wasn't Jon Finkel qualified for Worlds in some other way? Secondly, it is about the first time ever that a deck other than mono-white weenie has won the US Nationals.

But black does this. You get some random [ethnicity of your choice] such as Flores or Price wandering around playing black at all these tournaments all through a season and almost but not quite making top 8 or losing in the first round of the top 8. This lulls everyone into a false sense of security, until ... WHAM!

All of a sudden, right at the end of the season, swamps become the land to love! People start winning with decks whose disruption consists of 4 Duresses and 2 Terrors! What is that? I mean, come on people, lets be realistic here, if I put 4 of something in a deck, I'm lucky to see it twice during a tournament. With 8 I might see one per match. And yet at the end of every season the little black deck that could suddenly gets steroids?

I've been following this phenomenon for a while now, and I can't for the life of me figure out why, at the end of the season, control black players start drawing the answers.

Partly I think that mana draws play a much bigger part in this than they should. After all, the difference between beautifully consistent mana draws and ugly words being exchanged with your deck is the difference between 4-0-1 and 2-0-2 with some decks. Then again, these black decks seem to somehow break the mold of the assumption "if its good I must have 4", and make it pay off big for them. Maybe its just that right at the end of the season the deckbuilders slap their foreheads and say 'Vampiric Tutor! Of course! Why didn't I think of that sooner! D'oh!'? And they're not even playing much land or mana, which is usually a key to consistency. 27 mana sources seemed a good minimum for most MBC decks.

Okay, so randomness plays a big part in Magic, and the black decks with Dark Rituals and Duress and Vampiric Tutors go a long way towards evening out that luck, by evening your luck with mana, by eliminating your opponent's lucky draw, and by giving you that lucky top deck. Maybe by the end of the season the metagame has settled into decks that if you're lucky you win, and black takes that luck away?

So this raises the question, why not ban those three cards, and let people take a mulligan at any time during the match? Drawing not enough land? Take a mulligan. Drawing too much land? Take a mulligan (of course, you have to have held onto the land to get a decent hand size). You're on 5 life and the opponent plays that fourth Blastoderm? Take a mulligan to try to find yours. By giving the players another strategic option you introduce another level of skill into the game. Paris Mulligans could go a long way towards putting Magic on the map as an intellectual sport.

Of course then you might not need to ban the cards that attack luck quite so much. Of course, Necropotence would have to go. And cards would have to be a bit more reasonably powered (Balance would be sick) 'well, oops we let that one get by, at least they can only put 4 in a deck' would no longer be an acceptable excuse for R&D. On the plus side, it should make multi-coloured decks more playable.

Cheers,

Rick
(AWOL from Paradise)
rickcarson@hotmail.com

(And I ask you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, why ban Necro in type 1.5, but not in Extended?)