[Deck] Suicide Black

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Originally Posted by eternaldarkness

Like I said, I don't like Cabal Therapy here. It IS hard to cut cards for therapy as Stark's disruption suite is already pretty optimal.

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In this format? No. Pinpoint hand destruction is leaps and bounds stronger than Hymn against Flash, particularly when it costs 1 less and can net you the same kind of card advantage. It also has excellent synergy with a first turn Unmask. That it can be flashed back is just icing on the cake.

In a format where Flash isn't legal, Duress is subpar against Goblins, and Unmask is a questionable inclusion at all, so an argument could be made for Therapy in these slots for a Flashless metagame. We can wait until the first to discuss that.

I find that the real strength of cabal therapy is being able to turn extra creatures into disruption spells. If you already have a clock on the table and you need to keep disrupting something like flash you have that option with therapy in the yard. It's too powerful to not run.

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Originally Posted by GodzillA

In this format? No. Pinpoint hand destruction is leaps and bounds stronger than Hymn against Flash, particularly when it costs 1 less and can net you the same kind of card advantage.

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You wouldn't believe the number of people I had to explain this to when they asked why I wasn't running Hymn, or why I was running Mesmeric Fiend.

Hymn is still gas against the fish decks though. All in all I should've just brought normal Sui, seeing as how 2 of my three losses were to the fish decks. Then when I was in the loss bracket I got paired against the rock, and that was that. Oh well, not the first time I've brought the wrong deck to a tournament. Such is life.



Getting back on topic: I feel the real strength of Cabal Therapy is to cast it after seeing their hand for card advantage off of their 2-ofs (notice 4x peek, 4x cabal therapy in Gadiels Hulk list. Freaking amazing list.)

There's also the ability to correctly guess their hand from information you've picked up while playing, you wouldn't beleive how many games I've won from reading my opponents correctly. "Let's see, he didn't flinch when nantuko shade hit play, so he isn't threatened by it despite its killing him in two turns. If he had spot removal he would've used it on my wretch 6 life points ago, and if he'd had countermagic he would've countered the shade. Cabal therapy naming wrath of god?" -opponent curses and discards double wrath.

Hey guys and gals-

This is Bill Stark, from the top 8 at ole' GP Columbus. I'm actually the editor for the Magic Webzine Londes.com and my tournament report from the event is published there. I thought I would link to it from here in case anyone is interested in reading how the tournament went from a first hand retelling.

Part 1: http://londes.com/index.php?id=1325
Part 2: http://londes.com/index.php?id=1327

There will be a how-to guide on the deck published next week; I would encourage anyone interested in why I played the deck and picked the cards that were in it to check that out.

Also, if you would like to get a hold of me for some reason, try using my email instead of PMing me here.

Thanks,
Bill Stark
editor, Londes.com
billtriesagain@hotmail.com

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Originally Posted by Bill Stark

Hey guys and gals-

This is Bill Stark, from the top 8 at ole' GP Columbus. I'm actually the editor for the Magic Webzine Londes.com and my tournament report from the event is published there. I thought I would link to it from here in case anyone is interested in reading how the tournament went from a first hand retelling.

Part 1: http://londes.com/index.php?id=1325
Part 2: http://londes.com/index.php?id=1327

There will be a how-to guide on the deck published next week; I would encourage anyone interested in why I played the deck and picked the cards that were in it to check that out.

Also, if you would like to get a hold of me for some reason, try using my email instead of PMing me here.

Thanks,
Bill Stark
editor, Londes.com
billtriesagain@hotmail.com

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I almost played suicide black if I could get a set of Unmasks, but man oh man I was so psyched to see two black based aggro decks in the top 8. Props to you.

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Originally Posted by GodzillA

In this format? No. Pinpoint hand destruction is leaps and bounds stronger than Hymn against Flash, particularly when it costs 1 less and can net you the same kind of card advantage. It also has excellent synergy with a first turn Unmask. That it can be flashed back is just icing on the cake.

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Note though that Hymn can just wreck players who mulligan aggressively. Hymn is also fantastic against the rest of the field randomly mana screwing Fish decks or taking out their business cards.

I played a few games with MBA and found that Shades are still invaluable. 8 pro-white knights are overkill if your already using Negators and Shades. Pump knights are however subpar without Flash in the meta so I'll probably cut them for the traditional 3 Rotting Giant + Wretched Anurid creature base (plus the added zombies are synergistic with sarcomancies:smile: )

Thus my only change in Bill Stark's list is to cut four pump knights for Negators and so far I've loved it. Oh and I cut the serum powders in the side for dystopias (threshold is really rampant in my area) and pithing needles.

Personally, my approach would be Anwar's creature base to the deck. I'd probably do the following changes

-8 Pump knights
-8 Black one-drops
-7 Swamp
-1 Umezawa's Jitte
(-4 Hymn to Tourach)

for

+8 Black Fetches
+3 Rotting Giant
+1 Wretchede Anurid
+4 Phyrexian Negator
+4 Hypnotic Specter <= Better than I thought against Flash
+4 Extirpate/Cabal Therapy
(+4 Cabal Therapy/Extirpate)

it seems like the black deck by Belfatto (sp) was really really subpar. Cards like blind creeper, plague sliver, contagion and WTF is with the underground sea? I agree with the suggestions by Anti-American above, I rather play a 4th giant or make room for confidant though.

But, another thing to point out is that the suicide black by Stark had no removal or reach. And this is where I can see why he plays the jump/first strike knights. The pro white is quite important IMO if you are not running removal like swords, edict, bolt etc. Otherwise, I think he would die to fish.

I don't think that Plague Sliver was a horrible call at all, though I'm somewhat suspect of the rest of Mike's creature base. However, despite my doubts, it worked for him and got him into the top 8, right?

On Plague Sliver, I believe this was a prime metagame call in the fact that with Flash present, Meathooks (I actually like that name more than countersliver, despite it being silly) was a metagame possibility as it ran disruption and a potentially quick clock. Plague Sliver is obviously a great answer to that. Narrow you say? Well even without your opponent playing slivers, it's still a Juzam.

Goblins have trouble coping, MeatHooks takes a lot of pain from it, it's bigger than Thresh's creatures, it's a large threat that's rough for control decks, and even at 4 mana, with disruption it comes down relatively early enough to put a serious threat on the table against flash. I really don't think it was a bad call at all.

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Originally Posted by blackguard90

it seems like the black deck by Belfatto (sp) was really really subpar. Cards like blind creeper, plague sliver, contagion and WTF is with the underground sea? I agree with the suggestions by Anti-American above, I rather play a 4th giant or make room for confidant though.

But, another thing to point out is that the suicide black by Stark had no removal or reach. And this is where I can see why he plays the jump/first strike knights. The pro white is quite important IMO if you are not running removal like swords, edict, bolt etc. Otherwise, I think he would die to fish.

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He did make it into a Top 8 with a 883 person field. I think that should say something about the deck he played and his skill level. It was obviously a good deck for the Columbus metagame. Trashing the deck just because you don't like a few of his cards is not fair to him and the Legacy community in general.

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Originally Posted by eternaldarkness

Note though that Hymn can just wreck players who mulligan aggressively. Hymn is also fantastic against the rest of the field randomly mana screwing Fish decks or taking out their business cards.

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You'll get no argument from me that Hymn is fantastic. It's a great card. It's just worse than Therapy in a metagame where Flash is legal. Having tested and developed Flash a great deal before the GP, I can tell you from personal experience that I feared Therapy far more than Hymn. Therapy can hit me first turn, it can completely destroy my hand on the first turn in conjunction with Unmask, and it can come back and steal any remaining relevant cards by flashing back a creature. It is much, much harder to play through than Hymn for these reasons.

You stated earlier you didn't want to discuss what might or might not happen on the first if Flash gets banned, but since you seem to have changed your mind, I'll make it simple: if Flash isn't legal, the deck doesn't need Unmask. Check Stark's tournament report, and you'll see that he sided out Unmask in more than half his matchups. This is because the card disadvantage simply doesn't outweigh the speed when you're not trying to beat Flash. So if Flash is banned, simply replace Unmask with Therapy.

Why not replace unmask with Bob? Seems to fit into this deck quite well, especially since the mana curve is low. Is that 3rd discard spell better than simply drawing more? BTW, I apologize if this is a stupid question/suggestion, I am not very familiar with sui black at all.

Kronicler

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Originally Posted by Kronicler

Why not replace unmask with Bob? Seems to fit into this deck quite well, especially since the mana curve is low. Is that 3rd discard spell better than simply drawing more? BTW, I apologize if this is a stupid question/suggestion, I am not very familiar with sui black at all.

Kronicler

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Against Flash, you want all the hand destruction you can get, especially because black's only other weapon against that deck is a bouncable enchantment. If anything, I'd drop one or another of the pump knights for Bob, probably Order of the Ebon Hand.

I was actually thinkin about this deck post-flash when I mentioned Bob. But will this deck even be viable post flash? Whatever, I'm still making it because owning people with what appears to be "black weenie" just seems so bad ass.

Kronicler

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Originally Posted by nickrit2000

He did make it into a Top 8 with a 883 person field. I think that should say something about the deck he played and his skill level. It was obviously a good deck for the Columbus metagame. Trashing the deck just because you don't like a few of his cards is not fair to him and the Legacy community in general.

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wow, you are one of the most narrow-minded and stupid people I have ever talked to.
Warned for flaming. - Zilla

His deck is very much subpar and you know it. FUCKING 4 dark confidants with contagions and plague slivers? Underground sea for no reason, and most of all BLIND CREEPER? I seriously don't see how he did so well with a deck like that, so I must concede to both facts that:

a) He was lucky
b) He had good playskill

Now another thing: This guy ran 4x turn 1 plays not counting contagion. He must have been very lucky because turn 1 duress usually only stop flash for 1-2 turns. His sideboard is a lot more geared to beat combo and goblins, but he must have lost a lot of game 1s against combo cause honestly, I think his deck totally sucked.

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Originally Posted by GodzillA

You'll get no argument from me that Hymn is fantastic. It's a great card. It's just worse than Therapy in a metagame where Flash is legal. Having tested and developed Flash a great deal before the GP, I can tell you from personal experience that I feared Therapy far more than Hymn. Therapy can hit me first turn, it can completely destroy my hand on the first turn in conjunction with Unmask, and it can come back and steal any remaining relevant cards by flashing back a creature. It is much, much harder to play through than Hymn for these reasons.

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The fact that a great card like Hymn to Tourach is simply unplayable because of Flash makes a good case for Flash's superiority over all other combo decks. Hymn to Tourach is a great card against most Legacy combo and the fact that its virtually unplayable should tell you something about Flash. By way of comparison, Vintage combo decks are some of the strongest combo decks in existence and virtually no one plays Hymn to Tourach in that format.

I played Suicide Black at the GP and received 35th place. I am new to this forum and this is my first post, so I hope I follow all the rules.
Here is the deck list:

17x Swamp
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Wasteland
4x Dark Ritual

4x Dark Confidant
4x Nantuko Shade
4x Black Knight
4x Hypnotic Specter
1x Rotting Giant

4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Sinkhole
3x Smother
2x Engineered Plague

SB:
2x Engineered Plague
3x Jitte
1x Contagion
3x Leyline of the Void
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Phyrexian Negator

I chose suicide black because I have been playing the deck for many years and I figured the disruption suite would help against flash. This GP was actually my first large tournament, the next largest being a 22 man coldsnap release sealed event.

On card choices:
The deck may seem like it runs too many lands, and it may. But I prefer to be mana flooded instead of mana screwed.
The Urborg was here so wastelands can tap for B, this helped many times in casting all the BB spells and in pumping shades
The land disruption suite was great against all the flash decks and fish decks, often my opponents would just get mana screwed and this is the nail in the coffin.
The black knights were a house against all the white fish decks i ran into and it singlehandedly won me several games.
I chose Smothers over edicts because smother is preferable in the goblins matchup.
The plagues were useful against many decks; naming clerics against mother of runes, wizard against grim lavamancers, zombie against flash, and goblins.
Cabal Therapy didn't do so well for me, possibly due to my limited play time with it and inexperience.
I only had 3 Leylines, which explains that number.

The tournament:
First round I went 2-1 against some control deck that runs Isochron Scepters with raise the alarm and goblin bombardment. Engineered plague on soldiers worked well. (1-0)
Secound round I went 2-1 against a reanimator deck that used buried alives to throw 2x Krosan Cloudscaper and 1x Sutured ghoul into the yard then shallow graved it back. The leylines wrecked it post board. (2-0)
Third round was against a goblin deck. I don't remember this match much but went 2-1. (3-0)
Fourth round was agaisnt Ervin Tormos and a deck that looked like Hannifish. Black Knight worked wonders in dodging swords and blockers and got really scary once it had a Jitte. At one point, he had a cursed scroll and veldaken shackles on the board with 4 island. I just had to wait him out until I drew enough swamps for nantuko shade to go the distance. The match was a nailbiter and several topdecked hypnotic specters helped the win for another 2-1 match. (4-0)
Round 5 was played against a flash deck, I don't rememeber much but went 2-0. (5-0)
In round 6, i got paired against another neophyte playing burn. After stomping him game 1, games 2 and 3 went sour for a 1-2 match. (5-1)
For the 7th round, I got the mirror matchup against Belfatto. He didn't see any of his swords and a lot of good luck on my part (pulled two jittes game 3 off of bob) and bad luck on his part (taking 5 from contagion off dark confidant) sealed it with 2-1. (6-1)
Eighth round was against a goblin deck piloted by Kenta Hikori. I kept a mediocre hand with dark confidant as my only creature. Mogg fanatic kept bob off the table and he stomped me for an 0-2. (6-2)
The last round of day 1 was against a gro deck piloted by Julian Levin. He kept a one land hand game 1 and sinkhole sealed the deal. Game 2 he managed to get out two dryads but my hippies flew over them and black knight with jitte is a force to be reckoned with. (7-2)
Day 2:
My first matchup was against Erich Kunz who was playing an angel stompy variant that splashed blue for meddling mage and had enlightened tutors as a toolbox. Black Knight singlehandedly won me this matchup in 2-1. (8-2)
The second match of the day waas against Noah Long playing flash. All the flash matches blended together but I lost 1-2. (8-3)
Round 12 was against Nick Eisel playing vault flash. His deck was not cooperating with his wishes (he drew 2 walls and a disciple game 1) and I won 2-0. (9-3)
The next matchup was against W/u fish and again the black knight's pro-white and hypnotic specter's wings earned me a 2-1 victory. (10-3)
Round 14 was against a red fish deck played by Tim Galbiati. Now in Mr. Stark's article posted before, he said red fish vs. sui black is no good. I agree with that. He was on the play and went turn 1 mogg fanatic (my only creature was confidant) and turn 2 cloud of faeries and grim lavamancer, he dominated me 0-2. (10-4)
The last round was against Ewokslayer playing flash. He was on the play and mulliganed down to 4! However my near god hand containing 2x dark ritual, hypnotic specter, dark confidant, duress, and hymn only had wasteland for mana. I ended up mulliganing to 5 and he managed to play tight and topdeck to victory. The following two games were rife with my leylines and land destruction and i won 2-1. (11-4)

I would say that suicide black was a great choice in the flash-fish metagame I saw. It has the tools to beat randomness and the disruption to screw anyone over. In hindsight, I should have found room for cursed scroll and unmask but I forgot about those two.

Belfatto seemed to like playing the sea to trick his opponents into thinking he was playing flash; it worked against me game 1.
Hymn to Tourach was great at slowing down flash and generally ruining many decks. Often it would get a land and sinkhole and wasteland did the rest.

Yay sui black... Boo less then 4 leylines in the sideboard. I also dont see why you would run maindeck plauges in a flash metagame. But congrats nonetheless.

With some recent testing, I found out that burn is not unwinnable (MWS is crawling with the deck). I went 4-2 in 2 games and all my wins were with negator. I only sided out 1 for a duress and it worked perfectly. Negator is good against burn late game... because they will be low on life and negator ties things up quickly. During the late game, they will be low on spells and you will have more permanents (Sarcomancy is golden here). Negator costed me a average of 3 perms per game but that didnt matter because i had a great amount of lands and drew into a steady stream of creatures.

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Originally Posted by technogeek5000

With some recent testing, I found out that burn is not unwinnable (MWS is crawling with the deck). I went 4-2 in 2 games and all my wins were with negator. I only sided out 1 for a duress and it worked perfectly. Negator is good against burn late game... because they will be low on life and negator ties things up quickly. During the late game, they will be low on spells and you will have more permanents (Sarcomancy is golden here). Negator costed me a average of 3 perms per game but that didnt matter because i had a great amount of lands and drew into a steady stream of creatures.

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yep, I always slow roll my gators against burn. I play tons of disruption first, then rotting giants, hippies, shades first. I found that all my creatures were threats to burn and they had to eliminate them.

Also, lets talk about the metagame for legacy post FS. It seems that removal have been completely taken out for more disruption or leylines. Since removal is gone, Negator becomes somewhat "less effective" in early game. Builds that did well at the GP were running 1 cc zombies and Pro-white pump knights. While I hate those guys because of their hunger for mana and 1 toughness, I must say that they deal with big white creatures and swords very well in a fish/sliver environment.

It seems that the degeneracy of flash has really made the format like the standard of mirrodin where everyone was playing ravager affinity or something to beat it. I have been working on a post FS version of B/R suicide that uses drekavac, gathan raiders etc to replace negator (I love this card to death, but he isn't as good as he is in the original B/R) jump knights etc. The deck is only red for the sake of Gathan, so it should have a very similar shell as suicide.

BTW, does anyone have a suggested list for post-FS legacy?