Hello Bmoor,

As an introduction I'll state that I'm a casual player and I'm looking for help
with a casual deck, I got into Magic around the time that Fallen Empires came
out and I remember I got into it mainly because the art and the flavor text drew
me in. The one card in particular that got me into magic was the Christopher
Rush illustrated Necrite, I was thumbing through a friends cards as he was
trying to sell me on trying the game when I ran into it and it really managed to
pull me into the setting and get me interested. The subsequent Fallen Empires
Cards did nothing but reinforce that interest. I built a Thrull deck and rather
reliably played some variation of it for years.

I became quickly aware of Thrulls reputation as the worst tribe in the game but I kept playing Thrull decks anyway partially out of spite towards the more competitive ubergamers I knew, and the way they broke down the game to an entirely unappealing pure numbers analysis.

The deck went through many many permutations, all of which were probably pretty poor. I played with a pretty diverse circle over the years including several players who considered themselves tournament caliber players with obscene Infinite combo decks and the like. Needless to say I endured a lot of crap for keeping my Thrull deck as my primary (and for a long time my only) deck. Fun stuff like playing multiplayer games that ended with the term "And then I kill Thrullboy" without any further resolution while everyone else reshuffled for the next game, or playing against (and sadly losing to) the "handful of random green commons" deck a friend grabbed from his stack of green cards (he spent a minute to make it a legal deck by trimming down to 4 of each card and throwing in 20 forests) to prove a point.

Even after repeatedly losing to essentially a stack of random green junk cards I
didn't really want to stop playing Thrulls. Because nothing really grabbed me
the same way and I knew I wouldn't enjoy winning with a sliver deck or an
affinity deck or whatever my friends were playing as much as I enjoyed the
Thrull Deck (even if most of the time I played it I lost). Magic turned into an
odd game populated with stronger and stranger cards and sadly none of them were
Thrulls so I stayed a casual player, occasionally getting new cards whenever a
new set with Thrulls was released and still pretty much losing all the time.

With Ravnica and Time Spiral bringing both my Circle of friends back into Magic
and reintroducing thrulls I've had reason to get back into the game more heavily
and decided to create an Iteration of the Thrull deck that would actually be
competitive, or at least not so much of an embarrassment to play. So I hunkered
down leafed through card reviews and articles on Pojo and other sites, spent
hours staring at the Gatherer database and trying to digest as much magic theory
as I can.

I basically set out to make the absolute best thrull deck possible whilst still
actually playing a Thrull deck. There are many strong monoblack strategies that
could work with Thrulls tacked in, but I wanted something to actually build off
of the Thrulls. Something that was actually better because of them.

I always like Hatred, as it was basically the only thing that ever allowed me to
win a game for a long time. With the introduction of Mourning Thrull, the
synergy was too good to pass up especially with the mana producing thrulls
accelerating it out. So I decided lifegain/hatred would be the base, with all
that mana and lifegain in mind Drain life was a natural complement. All that
sac'ing made Grave Pact an alternative if the early Hatreds couldn't ensure a
win. Grave pact necessitated more thrulls and sac outlets so Breeding pit, soul
exchange and all the sac effect lands I could find came in.

After a bit of toying the deck came together as follows.

DecK: Thrull Hatred

Lands:
15x Swamps
1x Miren, the Moaning Well
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x High Market
1x Ebon Stronghold

Spells:
3x Hatred
3x Grave Pact
3x Soul Exchange
4x Dark Ritual
4x Ebony Charm
1x Demonic Tutor

Creatures:
4x Blood Pet
4x Mourning Thrull
4x Basal Thrull
4x Blood Vassel
2x Thrull Champion
2x Breeding Pit

sideboard:

1x Soul Exchange
1x Hatred
1x Ebony Charm
1x Grave Pact
1x Drain Life
3x Necrite
3x Whispersilk Cloak
4x Bad Moon

I must admit it plays much better then before but I'm still concerned about
bringing it to bear against the more hardcore in my circle and using it in our
frequent multiplayer games (Emperor mostly), and would like to get some advice
on tuning and polishing it.

As far as actual composition, I have been toying with replacing the breeding
pits with Endrehk Sahr or Sarpadian Empires Vol. VII, and both have their
merits. The Sideboard is also little more then just a repository for extras,
with Whispersilk cloak in case there are artifact or Black creatures which would
render ebony charm useless in powering through a hatred, bad moons because well
they're a go-to card. The Necrites are there solely because I could no longer
find room for them in the main deck but didn't really want to pack them away
never to see play again.

-Jon

Let's start, as usual, by looking at your creature selection.  I'm not exactly sure why you listed breeding Pit as a creature, but that is all it does, so I guess it works.  Now, if we count Breeding Pit, you have 20 creatures.  Twelve of them have no ability but to be sacrificed for mana.  I think that's probably the key to your problems, Jon-- your creatures are too eager to die.  And for what?  Some extra mana?  You've got 12 sack thrulls, Dark Ritual, and Phyrexian Tower all ready to give you a quick burst of mana now in exchange for a loss of card advantage.  What are you spending all this mana on?  It's time to find some Thrulls that can stick around to do more than just die on command, Jon.  Your opponent will want to kill your creatures.  Don't help them do it.
 

That cleans up your creature base, now about your other spells.  Three Hatred is a solid inclusion, as is three Grave Pact (don't worry about having fewer sack creatures; this will still be useful-- especially in multiplayer).  Soul Exchange is probably the smartest card in here, as you can Excange a Blood Pet or a token for a 5/5 Thrull Champion.  And Demonic Tutor is an incredibly powerful card, even if you only have one.  That leaves Dark Ritual and Ebony Charm.  The charm is fairly useful for bestowing Fear, but not much else.  And Dark Ritual just costs you an extra card to do nothing but get more mana for a turn-- not really the best deal.  I think your overarching problem is that you're so concerned on your Thrulls and how to make them better, that you've neglected to include pure utility cards-- ways to disrupt your opponent.  Well, here's a card you'll like-- Cry of Contrition.  Forcing discard is one of Black's strongest weapons, as I'm sure Mindstab Thrull has taught you.  Picture it-- Turn One, Blood Pet.  Turn Two, play Cry of Contrition and Haunt your Blood Pet, then sack the Blood Pet for a two-mana spell and make them discard again.  It's a Mind Rot for one mana, at the cost of your fist turn play (which was never intended to live anyway).  Another card worth looking at is Feast of Flesh.  This thing is useful in gaining you extra life while taking out chump blockers so that that Hatred-enhanced Thrull can make it through.  Isn't that what Ebony Charm was meant to do anyway?  Except a kill spell like Feast of Flesh will take out the creature for good.  Also consider Douse in Gloom, or Assassinate, or good old fashioned Dark Banishing.  That's the key to your history of failure, I'd bet-- failure to answer anything your opponent throws at you.  I'd say drop a Grave Pact, the Dark Ritual, and probably the Ebony Charm for 4 Feast of Flesh (or Dark Banishing), 3 Cry of Contrition, and 2 Sudden Spoiling.  Sudden Spoiling, if used correctly, can be practically a one-sided Wrath of God in that it makes what looked like a good attack agaist you into a suicidal one.  Granted, your Thrulls still need to do 2 damage apiece to block and kill a Spoiled creature, but you should be able to manage something good with Thrull Champion out.