User:Romanoff Blitzer/The Nameless Guide/Darkness Civilization

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Destruction
Okay, Darkness has the best destruction, but sometimes the good old standbys aren't so good anymore. Now that we've got that over with, let's go over some better options. From best to worst, here are some good destruction cards:
 * Terror Pit: Too slow.
 * Hyperspatial Emperor Hole is amazing just as a hyperspatial spell, being able to fetch Dias Zeta, the Temporal Suppressor and Victorious Meteor Kaiser among other things, but I get to remove one of my opponent's weenies with that too?! What an incredible deal! This card is usable as a 3 or 4-of in...just about every single darkness deck, both control and beatdown, that isn't rush.
 * Black Ganveet, Temporal Soldier: Amazing card; see my review for more details. Creates incredible card advantage with Emperor Hole; you spend one card to remove two of your opponent's cards and get a creature. That's a +2, right there.
 * Gaial Kaiser, the Victorious (aka VGK): See Black Ganveet above. Both Black Ganveet and VGK have their niches; Black Ganveet can take down a troublesome large creature, while VGK can get rid of an annoying untapped creature. You can also target a creature with 7000 power or less with Emperor Hole, and then kill it with VGK.
 * Thunder Tiger: With generally unkillable stuff like Perfect Madonna and Perfect Lily nowadays, this could be the best way to get rid of them. Or you could just use Thunder Tiger to get rid of another weenie while keeping your VGK for a possibly bigger target.
 * Demon Wolf, Howling Moonlight Castle: Is the main removal of mono Darkness decks, being able to take down both a weenie and any other creature for just 5 mana. And it has shield trigger.
 * Olzekia, General of Decapitation is a simple two-for-one. You could kill one of your small creatures for Olzekia...or destroy Black Ganveet, VGK or Thunder Tiger to reset them, or even destroy Olzekia itself to get it back later with a Hyperspatial Revive Hole.
 * Hanzou, Menacing Phantom: SURPRISE I GOT YOUR GAIAL KAISER or Cyber N World or whatever. Hanzou kills just about anything in beatdown short of Cosmo Cebu Lambda, the Super Electromagnetic.
 * School Man/Necrodragon Abayo Shabayo/Heavy, Dragon God/Deathraios, Cursed Blade Reaper are cheap removals that can be recovered and respammed.
 * Black Insect Magistrate/Varz Romanoff, Dark Lord of Demons are pseudo-speed attackers that remove any non-evolution creature.
 * DEATH Dragerion, the Supernova: Is an insanely strong removal that sometimes comboes quite well with Necrodragon Guljeneraid.


 * Tsumitobatsu, Misfortune Hero: Is another insanely strong mass removal, reminiscent of other creatures, though somewhat better, even if it is just a niche card for Mono Darkness Control.
 * Death Gate, Gate of Hell: Kills a creature and gets you back a body from the graveyard.
 * Necrodragon Odol Needle: Forces the opponent's creatures to battle it and get destroyed. And it has shield trigger. And it is a Dragon.
 * Infernal Smash: Cost 4 destruction. Simple, and powerful. Pretty good even with the prevalence of multicolored psychic creatures.
 * Thunder Blade, Wolf Tiger is a Terror Pit with a body. With relevant races.
 * Dead Ryusei, Eternal Demon Dragon is yet another Terror Pit with a body and a relevant race. It costs 1 more than Thunder Blade and it can give you some card advantage. The options above are better, but Dead Ryusei is still good.

Continuous Power Reduction
Unlike most forms of destruction, these cards stick around and apply their power-decreasing effects over a continuous period.
 * Funk, Guard of Hope can be anti-rush, but is mostly used to severely weaken psychics. What were once formerly mighty dragons are now reduced to bite-sized creatures with 1000 power at best and dead at worst. Psychics with enters-the-battle-zone abilities, like Prin Prin, the Victorious and Black Ganveet, Temporal Soldier, however, still get their effects off whether they die immediately or not.
 * Rose Castle is first and foremost an anti-rush card. Kills many things, including Zabi Claw, Dark Warrior, BloodRayne, Start Dash, Death March, Reaper of Death, Marrow Ooze, the Twister, Deadly Fighter Braid Claw, and so on.

Discard
See this for information.

Self-mill
See this for information.

Reanimation
Although reanimation isn't quite used these days, here are some good cards. From best to worst:
 * Inferno Sign: Both reanimates one of your non-evolution creatures with cost 7 or less and has shield trigger.
 * Yata Izuna, Eight-Headed Parasite: Spams evolution creatures from your graveyard. Due to its strong role in King-Queen lockdown decks, King Alcadeias, Holy Gaia got banned.
 * Babelginus, Demonic Dragon/Urami Hades, Curse Hero: Revive any non-evolution creature.
 * Dragon Bone, Secret Wicked Dragon: Has synergy with Babelginus and allows you to reuse its effect.
 * Miracle Re Born: The same as Inferno Sign, only lacking shield trigger and being restricted to Hunters. Though it works on evolution Hunters too.
 * Triple Revival Resurrection: Brings back three weenies at once. Usually good for Shachihoko Spring decks. 

Finishers

 * Beginning Romanoff, Lord of the Demonic Eye is a favorite finisher of graving decks, one that used to be comboed with Sir Virginia, Mystic Light Insect until it got restricted.
 * Diabolos Double Zeta, Temporal Demon Dragon is almost the same as its predecessor, a strong and hard-to-kill finisher once it awakens. The hyperspatial spells that can bring it out have good removal effects too.
 * Dorballom, Lord of Demons/Dorballom D, Demon Dragon King are insanely strong removals against decks that don't run Darkness.
 * "Mastermind" is obviously amazing in God Nova OMG decks, especially when comboed with Upheaval.
 * Ryusei In The Dark Its predecessor was used in many decks as a finisher that turns the tides in the battle zone to its owner's favor. Ryusei In The Dark is the same thing in a civilization where its only battle zone control is most of the time just creature removal.
 * Volg Thunder when spammed multiple times to mill the opponent.

Card Advantage
Well, Darkness doesn't have much ways to gain card advantage, but let's see what it does have.
 * Bubble Trap is both cheap removal and gets you a card in hand, despite wasting an important resource.
 * Dark Soul Creation gets you three cards for the price of one creature.
 * Dead Ryusei, Eternal Demon Dragon 
 * Heavy, Dragon God is highly versatile, as it is both cheap removal and draw that can be recovered and reused.
 * Kodamanma, All-Devouring Puppet gains you a card and a body. Who cares if it's from your shields? It's still card advantage, and it doesn't matter if you lose a shield as long as your opponent is dead. Kodamanma only goes in quick beatdown decks, though.
 * Pork Beef has for some reason seen use in Mono Darkness Control, mostly based on Funky Knightmares though.
 * Super Trash Train, Fuuma Devil
 * Wicked Soul Reincarnation is almost the same as Dark Soul Creation, with the exception that it sacrifices any number of your creatures, gets you two cards for each and has shield trigger.

Other interesting Cards

 * Batou Shoulder, Shadow of Fiction is an important card in a meta where every single deck is running spells, mainly hyperspatial ones. It's at its worst against N EX and rush, which focus on creatures, but great against other decks.
 * Benzo, the Hidden Fury is the cheapest way to cast any shield trigger. Good with Memories of the Planetary Dragon. Good with Shield Plus, especially Milzam, Spirit of Miracles. Crazy with both. Of course, you could just use Benzo to summon two creatures for the price of one.
 * Dark Lupia creates some interesting combos with creatures like Heavy, Dragon God or Necrodragon Guljeneraid, it is the engine of Heavy Loop decks.
 * Duema Ogre! Kikuchi, Assistant Instructor/Kareiko, Karma's Banned Technique stop tons of things, from Hogan Blaster and Mystery Cube to mana boosting cards.
 * Ghastly Drain offered great card advantage, despite wasting an important resource, and it helped fulfill the Gravity Zero requiremenets of many cards. This lead to a powerful combo deck and its restriction.
 * Magnum, Allshot Puppet is an anti-psychic and anti-shield trigger card, among other things. Interesting hoser, although it doesn't fit in decks these days because most decks want to take advantage of those decks (or in the case of rush, too fast to use Magnum).
 * Necrodragon Guljeneraid is an annoying thing that just won't fucking die, no matter what. It works well with the graving and self removal that Darkness Dragons have going at.
 * Time Tripper, Shadow of Stagnation slows the opponent down. Contrary to Kaijudo Portal, Time Tripper is used in beatdown decks, where it gives an advantage in tempo*. It holds a Master Weapon - All Yes well, too.
 * Upheaval is plain insane, screwing many decks, especially mana ramps, working great in discard controls.
 * Wedding Gate is a Darkness version of Heaven's Gate for non-Light Angel Commands that can get out a few nasty things.
 * Zabi Mira, the Reviving Shaman is used to spam a huge variety of psychic creatures, mostly Volg Thunder though, with the intention of decking out the opponent.