[Deck] Suicide Black

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Originally Posted by Galroth

When reading through the adept question and answer forum, I noticed many state that chrome mox was under-rated and could probably see play in a great many decks it hasn't. I've been testing it out in my sui-black build and I'm quite satisfied.

Chrome mox fits well into mono-colored builds, and suicide black in particular is usualy willing to sacrifice a bit of card-advantage for a boost in tempo. Between 4x Dark Ritual and 3x Chrome Mox I've been really satisfied with that boost in tempo. There are alot of turn 1 plays with Chrome Mox that splendid. Turn 1 Sinkhole or Hymn to Tourach are powerful. I also appreciate a Turn 1 Dark Confidant (yes I run confidant).

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I ran these on my MWS file for a little while and was underwhelmed. I believe that dark ritual is about as much card disadvantage that this deck can safely use. If you run confidant, which you do, then I can see that it might balance out.

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If the removal seems subpar, the addition or substitution of Smother into the suite might alleviate some of the problems. 2 mana to eradicate almost any Goblin (save obviously Ringleader and SGC), Phyrexian Dreadnought, Tarmogoyf, Werebear, Quirion Dryad, almost any Zoo or Fish threat... I'm not sure how well this deck is going compete in a non-flash metagame as I haven't even played the deck since Flash was banned, but Smother or Snuff out seem easily capable of removing most of the problematic threats in the format, in this deck or in any control decks removal suited.

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Who sais the removal suite is subpar... you have a few great options for creature removal that best suits your deck. Snuff out is probably the best here because of the tempo swing it provides but I only run three because its bad with confidants. Diabolic edict is another great card because it can hit protection creatures, and untargetable creatures which is great against threshold. Smother is a decent option but the real reason I think people dont run it is because it is 2cc. Sui black runs so many important 2 cast spells that smother will slow you down. Id much rather pay 4 life while playing cards like sinkhole and hymn to tourach then just play play smother. It might not be a bad idea to remove edicts for it though.

Also whats this, Sui black has been topping 4 and 8 alot recently, even if its normally in smaller tournaments (it does well at the lucky frog and in Mass). Sui black has great matchups against goblins, threshold, and most forms of combo. It also goes 50-50 or better against most aggro control decks, and with my new list i have yet to lose to burn (im about 5-0). The only decks ive ever had trouble with are landstill and stax decks but those matchups are still winnable. I think the reason that Sui black hasnt top 4 or better at some of the 50+ people tournaments is that it is relatively unplayed and some of the pilots are inexperienced.

Edit: I tested a 21 land mana base by taking out a carnophage for a swamp. 8 out of nine games I got 8+ lands and one game I hit 13. I think it was just bad luck or I didnt shuffle good, but carnophage would have won me one or two of the games in these cases. The card im looking at now is Ummewaza's jitte. My main argument for not running it was that it costs to much mana to get active, but looking back I see that my list focuses to much on the early and mid game trying to cripple the opponent and in turn gives up its late game. Jitte is pretty devastating against aggro so i will begin testing it out.

Is it time to bring Withered Wretch back?

No, seriously. I got thinking about this when A. analyzing what I liked about Bill Stark's list (Having insane numbers of things to do with extra mana), and B. deciding the best way to deal with Tarmogoyf without maindecking removal spells other than Jitte.

Wretch does this. Wretch lets you invest mana to keep certain types of permanents out of graveyards to at least keep Tarmogoyf manageable.

Wretch is also nice against control, as with multiple mana on the board (Or a Ritual) you can eat Loams, Chainer's Edicts, or anything graveyard based before they have a chance to kill your Wretch off. Oh, and it has weird synergy with Sarcomancy if you run it.

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Originally Posted by Tacosnape

Is it time to bring Withered Wretch back?

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What do you cut, though, assuming you are stick to 20 creatures? Wretch is a fine metagame choice(I played him a lot before) but has a drawback of doing nothing but dying in the combat. Do you take one of the knights? I'd probably take out jumping ones if you do, since I do not want to have 16 zombies in my deck. 12 is bad enough, when your opponent wins the game by dropping double plague naming zombie and shade.

At the moment there seem to be two primary variants of suicide black that are running around; each sharing a small degree of success. The latest variant is Bill Stark's list which incorporates the 2/2 1cc zombies, pumpable critters, maindeck jitte and a fairly standard disruption package. The other sui-black variant was the list Anwar had been running 'til he eventually splashed red and created Red Death. Anwar's list runs a larger set of creatures including negator and specter, and (at one point) creature removal.

For reference: original decklists, theory, and card choice
Bill Stark's - http://londes.com/?id=1349
Anwar's - http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ead.php?t=3451
(Anwar has mentioned many of his choices were from this suicide black primer - http://www.themanadrain.com/primers/legendblack.htm

A question to everyone: Which list is better?
What are the pros and cons of each list?
Is one more suited for the modern meta than the other?
Have signficant developments been made to either list that players should be aware of?

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@ Tacosnape - In short no. Withered Wretch may warrant a spot in the sideboard, but I run Leyline of the Void in my sb already. If anything, I think it could alter what creature removal people choose to use if they are running creature removal. Instead of Diabolic Edict I expect to see a little more Smother, Terror, or even Spinning Darkness. Withered Wretch is just too slow in tempo to warrant including him over other creatures maindeck when his ability is not pertinent in enough of your match-ups.

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Originally Posted by C.P.

What do you cut, though, assuming you are stick to 20 creatures? Wretch is a fine metagame choice(I played him a lot before) but has a drawback of doing nothing but dying in the combat. Do you take one of the knights? I'd probably take out jumping ones if you do, since I do not want to have 16 zombies in my deck. 12 is bad enough, when your opponent wins the game by dropping double plague naming zombie and shade.

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At the moment, my cut is Sarcomancy. The reason for this is fairly complicated.

One, I switched to Cabal Therapy instead of Unmask. Cabal Therapy doesn't go incredibly well with Sarcomancy's drawback. So I switched out Sarcomancy for Withered Wretch. This meant I didn't go down in threat size, but this left me with the situation of having a slightly higher mana curve. So, since I no longer had the "Pitch a black card to Unmask" thing going on, I snuck in a pair of Chrome Moxes to help alleviate the curve problem. Also, since I always felt 20 Swamps was far too much in this deck, I cut down to 16 Swamps and 2 Moxes instead of 20 Swamps, so I stuck the other two slots as creatures, and I'm messing around to figure out what I like best in the slot. This gives me 22 creatures to use with Therapy.

So in summary, I cut 4 Sarcomancy, 4 Unmask, and 4 Swamp for 4 Wretch, 4 Therapy, 2 Chrome Mox, and 2 undetermined creatures.

Running Leyline nowadays is bad, by the way. Anything you board it in against you'd be better off with either Planar Void or Withered Wretch.

And as for creature removal in Sui Black? Snuff Out >> Terror >> Smother >> Diabolic Edict >> Spinning Darkness.

The 2 moxes seem a good improvement to me. I just recently added 3 to my own list. I'm unfamiliar with what your current list looks like so I can't make much of a judgment call on repalcing Sarcomancy with Withered Wretch (not that you need my approval... you know you want it though ;) Your changes sound well justified, it could still be so dependent on what else you're running.

Do you have Umezawa's Jitte maindecked? A first turn Zombie, followed be second turn Jitte, equip was one of those game winning combinations that made the inclusion of Sarcomancy and Carnophage worth it. The cut of Sarcomancy would really reduce possibilities like this... if you're running Jitte.

You cut 2 mana sources: -4 swamp, + 2 mox... are you running wasteland; or just 18 sources in total (plus ritual bring it to 22)? At the same time you increased your mana-curve with the inclusion of wretch and therapy. That gives me misgivings. I think 18 sources is more than enough if you're running a list on the lower end of the mana curve for sui-black builds. Mine personally is on the higher end and I'm running 18 sources plus 4 wasteland and 4 ritual which might even be on the heavy side, but it ensures my first 3 land drops and I usually have acceleration to boot. I'd just double check your mana-base after a bit of testing. The changes seem contradictory at first.

The 2 undetermined creatures almost definitely need to be good beaters (unless you want to try for Confidant... which is a different bag altogether). You cut some of your early game tempo for wretch, which means you'll need to make it up. Shade and Negator if you're not already running them. If you are running Jitte, I'd probably leave a couple of Sarcomancy's in. It's really hard to make guesses at this without a list :P

Finally, Leyline can be bad nowadays, but isn't definitively. I find it does quite well against Mana-less Ichorid and a few other quick combo decks. Wretch isn't going to help 'til he both hits play and you have mana to devote to removing a graveyard. Planar Void also has to hit play before it becomes effective. By this time a few graveyard based combo decks will already have killed you.

I wouldn't personally add withered wretch because I believe most of the match-ups where his ability would become useful are already in my favor. In particular, those decks trying to abuse Tarmogoyf (though I'm certain there are exceptions).

My current maindeck list:

16 Swamp
2 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual

4 Carnophage
4 Order of the Ebon Hand
4 Nantuko Shade
4 Stromgald Crusader
4 Withered Wretch
2 (Creature I'm not sure of yet.)

4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Umezawa's Jitte

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Originally Posted by Tacosnape

2 (Creature I'm not sure of yet.)

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Dark Confidant?

I was thinking the same thing. I would probably cut something to bump him to 4 as well. Also whats with no wasteland. I know you seemed to have dropped the mana denial route but god why did you take these out. They are so back breaking so much of the time. Often it will hamper the opponent just by sitting there forcing them to fetch basics, and it is free landkill so you can cast a creature or another piece of control along side it.

I personally dont like the Bill stark sui builds. Negator and hippie are so incredible i cant see why people dont run them even in stark sui. Honestly, has stark sui actually ever topped 8 outside of a flash metagame.

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Originally Posted by technogeek5000

Honestly, has stark sui actually ever topped 8 outside of a flash metagame.

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It still made Top 8 at a Grand Prix. Has any regular on The Source done this with anything?

Thats completely irrelevant. 15% of the field was a combo deck that the deck completely wrecked. Also it had great matchups against the rest of the field that was tailored to beat flash. The current metagame has reverted back to its original state and now why is stark sui being glorified by so many people. The deck was designed to mess with combo and the decks that beat it which was the entire field. The metagame has reverted back to the large presence and domintation of goblins and stark sui was not made to deal with a real metagame.

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Originally Posted by technogeek5000

The metagame has reverted back to the large presence and domintation of goblins

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There is absolutely no evidence of this. There is in fact no evidence that Goblins will ever be a dominant force in Legacy again. It might, but I doubt it highly. Goblins doesn't beat combo, no longer beats most control, and most aggro or aggro-control decks pack significant hate for it still. Also, if in fact there were such evidence, then it would constitute an even greater argument against running Phyrexian Negator.

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and stark sui was not made to deal with a real metagame.

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What you mean is that "It was not designed with the specific intent of dealing with a Flashless metagame." Which would be correct. This by no means, however, indicates that it cannot do so with some alterations.

I have to agree with Technogeek5000 here. I had exact same list an year ago, and it was underwhelming. The deck is really well designed to do what it does, being kicking Flash and Fish's ass. But not too much in dealing with goblins and slower midrange control.

The difference between 20 creature build and 16 creature build, is basically threat quality vs. threat quantity. Anwar's build features slower, but durable threats. most of them are reasonable game winners by themselves. However, stark's build concentrates on threat quantity. Considering how GP had bazillion pinpoint answers but nut much of sweepers, made 20 creature Sui batter. But now, goblins are back and everyone runs cheap sweepers. I can still see it working, but running negator might be a decent consideration.

Here is my old build, with negator. It is bit outdated, but should hurt to look at it.

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Originally Posted by Tacosnape

What you mean is that "It was not designed with the specific intent of dealing with a Flashless metagame." Which would be correct. This by no means, however, indicates that it cannot do so with some alterations.

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That still does not answer the fact that stark sui has not topped 8 outside of a flash metagame. Most people in this thread have simply stated that they will be netdecking starks list (including yourself i believe) so alterations have not been made. Outside of a flash metagame stark sui has not made top 8 while classic sui has.

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Originally Posted by Tacosnape

There is absolutely no evidence of this. There is in fact no evidence that Goblins will ever be a dominant force in Legacy again. It might, but I doubt it highly. Goblins doesn't beat combo, no longer beats most control, and most aggro or aggro-control decks pack significant hate for it still. Also, if in fact there were such evidence, then it would constitute an even greater argument against running Phyrexian Negator.

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Ok i admit that domination was the wrong word to use but goblins is still one of the most played decks so my point still remains valid.

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Originally Posted by technogeek5000

That still does not answer the fact that stark sui has not topped 8 outside of a flash metagame. Most people in this thread have simply stated that they will be netdecking starks list (including yourself i believe) so alterations have not been made. Outside of a flash metagame stark sui has not made top 8 while classic sui has.

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Stark Sui also didn't really exist until the Flash metagame. There haven't been all that many major tournaments since.

While my inclination leans more towards Anwar's build that Starks, I think that if you're going to run Starks build, then you can't half-ass it. His relies on the quick tempo and consistent beats of early black creatures, with the late game coming through in the ability to pump some of those creatures. Given your list Tacosnape, I think the remaining 2 creature slots should really be 2 sarcomancy. Actually I would rather see 3 sarcomancy 3 withered wretch.

Cutting wasteland is the right choice as if your list isn't running sinkhole. It's in conjunction that these cards are effective (especially with the inclusion of smallpox). You can't go halfway in sui-black.

EDIT: As an after-thought, if you are really opposed to running Sarcomancy, then consider a shadow creature. Starks list does have trouble with Tarmogoyf 'til it's able to expend the mana necesarry to pump a creature to size large enough to deal with Tarmogoyf, or to just bypass Tarmogoyf with flying or some other evasion while attempting to fend of Tarmogoyf on the ground.

Probably not the best option in a cursory evaluation, but worth brief consideration.

Dauthi Mindripper is an interestiong option. Probably a win more card, but certainly a killing blow. 2x might not be horrible as he does have evasion, and sacking him at the right time practially ensures you the game. Probably 1 mana too much to be good though.

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Originally Posted by Tacosnape

Stark Sui also didn't really exist until the Flash metagame. There haven't been all that many major tournaments since.

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True... lets see. Kaddi's and 2 events in ontario are this weekend and the Northern legacy draft is a week after that. That should seem like enough opportunity for the deck to perform. If anyone is going to pilot Sui black at any of these tournaments it would be beneficial to see what version of Sui is best so please say so.

@Galroth: I would rather see 4 sarcomancy and 2 withered wretch because withered wretch is a vanilla 2/2 in several MU's. If you are going to run Shadow creatures I think that Dauthi slayer is better then midripper because it ability is mostly irrelevant by the time you cast it aside from dark ritual.

After some testing i have found that I like jitte. So here is the changes I have made from my list.
-1 Diabolic edict
-1 zombie
+2 jitte

@ Technogeek - A quick clarification. I could not agree with you more regarding 4 sacromancy and 2 withered wretch. As I said before, I wouldn't even run withered wretch, however as Tacosnape has chosen to try wretch out, I was attempting to offer advice with regard to that choice. He listed that he wanted to run 4, and I thought advising 3 instead of 4 would be better than a full play-set. But again... I think Sarcomancy in pretty fundamental in a build like Stark's.

As for Dauthi Slayer over Mindripper... even though I brought the idea up, I'm pretty sure neither is worth it. Still something to consider nonetheless. I believe Mindripper would be the better choice as a 2-of. This is because Slayer is only a beater with shadow for 2 mana. In my opinon, if one chooses to run a beater for 2 mana there are better options out there. I tossed out Mindripper because he offers options beyond this (though probably not worth the high cc again).

If you list is similar to Starks, i.e. you're running the 1cc 2/2 zombies, I think Jitte is a must. Glad to see you're going that route. In addition, I think some of the beauty of Stark's list is that he will have mana open late game due to the low cc of his threats. His choice of pump creatures which come out early but can grow is a very effective way to give sui-black a late game to compliment it's strong early game. All props to Stark for a kick ass list.

Okay, so I'm going to the monthly Legacy tournament tomorrow, and I'm bringing this pile of cards:

4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Rotting Giant
4 Carnophage
4 Nantuko shade

4 Sarcomancy

4 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Snuff Out
4 Dark Ritual

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Hymn

4 Wasteland
8 Swamp
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta

Sideboard:
4 Engineered Plague
4 Pithing Needle
4 Withered Wretch
3 Massacre

Explanations:

Rotting Giant over Dark Confidant: Dark Confidant doesn't provide tempo, but card advantage, and I wanna be hella fast with this pile in my hands. I also run 4 Snuff Out which brings terrible synergy with Bob.

8 fetches: Food for the Giant, and also thins out the deck, so I don't topdeck swamps.

Massacre: I wanted to bring Dystopia, but I don't have any. My biggest fear is Angel Stompy with the moms and all that, so Massacre seems natural.

Snuff Out: Great tempo card. Solid answer to turn 1 lackey, Loam's Terravore and other random threads.

I think everything else is self-explanatory. If you have any feedback, I would love to hear it.

umm the list is good but if i was going to bring the deck i would make a few changes.

First off if your playing rotting giant then phyrexian negator might be a good option for you. It helps fill up your graveyard and is great with sarcomancy.

Why no duress, Cabal therapy without duress is going to miss alot... Duress is so backbreaking against combo and control i dont see why anyone wouldnt run it.

The last thing I would do is as fast as humanly possible rip out those massacres from your list before your deck bursts into flames. Yes its a free spell, but it completely wipes your board clean aside from giant and the occasional twice pumped shade (not the best way to spend two mana). I would realy invest the cash into dystopias is because (probably the best reason over massacre) is that it doesnt touch your board. Dystopia is better against thresh because their creatures are two big for massacre.

Good luck