[Deck] Suicide Black

Hypnotic Specter costs 3 mana for a 2/2 evasion creature. When he connects with the opponent, he loses a card at random. Dark Confidant costs 2 mana for a 2/1 creature with no special abilities. At the beginning of your upkeep, you get to draw a card and lose life equal to it's converted mana cost.

Dark Confidant's ability is actually better most of the time than Hypnotic Specter, simply because you don't have to rely on successfully dealing combat damage to draw your cards. Sure, it's nice to deal damage a little more often, but I'd rather be up the extra cards than I would batting them for two - damage sources are relatively easy to come by. Being able to draw extra cards, and thereby win attrition wars against another aggressive deck, is going to be key a whole lot. If they kill that guy, that's one less thing that can kill your Negators and Shades. If they don't kill that guy, you're going to grind him under.

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Originally Posted by kirdape3

Dark Confidant's ability is actually better most of the time than Hypnotic Specter, simply because you don't have to rely on successfully dealing combat damage to draw your cards. Sure, it's nice to deal damage a little more often, but I'd rather be up the extra cards than I would batting them for two - damage sources are relatively easy to come by. Being able to draw extra cards, and thereby win attrition wars against another aggressive deck, is going to be key a whole lot. If they kill that guy, that's one less thing that can kill your Negators and Shades. If they don't kill that guy, you're going to grind him under.

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I don't exactly agree with you here. Remember in Sui, you are not trying to fight a war of attrition. The game plan is thus; Disrupt; beat; Disrupt; beat; Win. While I agree that in a long game confidant ability is better, Hyppie allows the deck, to get damage in fast. Remember in the long game, your own flaws start catching up, i.e. card advantage loss from rituals, permanants from negators, life from anurids. Confidant only stgrenthens your loss of life. While he may be helpful in the long game; Sui is not in the position to play for the long game. Remember this is deck that needs to never stop attacking. I cannot stress this enough. Sui Black is the most agressive in the format. Confidant, lets your turn 2 drop become a creature that does not usually swing in. Remeber any blocking creature will kill confidant. It is this reason that he cannot be played.

Powergamer puts it perfectly. Sui is about the winning ASAP. It's not a deck that can sit around. You have to hit them hard and fast. Confidant does absolutely nothing to further this. Sure, card advantage is good, but the chances are, even without Confidant, that you will be ahead of your opponent in terms of card advantage. Duress, Hymn to Tourach, and Hypnotic Spectre are played for a reason, you know.

So what does deck do when it gets to mid-game? Roll over and die? Then why play it?

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I don't exactly agree with you here. Remember in Sui, you are not trying to fight a war of attrition. The game plan is thus; Disrupt; beat; Disrupt; beat; Win. While I agree that in a long game confidant ability is better, Hyppie allows the deck, to get damage in fast. Remember in the long game, your own flaws start catching up, i.e. card advantage loss from rituals, permanants from negators, life from anurids. Confidant only stgrenthens your loss of life. While he may be helpful in the long game; Sui is not in the position to play for the long game. Remember this is deck that needs to never stop attacking. I cannot stress this enough. Sui Black is the most agressive in the format. Confidant, lets your turn 2 drop become a creature that does not usually swing in. Remeber any blocking creature will kill confidant. It is this reason that he cannot be played.

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Originally Posted by TheDarkshineKnight

Powergamer puts it perfectly. Sui is about the winning ASAP. It's not a deck that can sit around. You have to hit them hard and fast. Confidant does absolutely nothing to further this. Sure, card advantage is good, but the chances are, even without Confidant, that you will be ahead of your opponent in terms of card advantage. Duress, Hymn to Tourach, and Hypnotic Spectre are played for a reason, you know.

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OMG I CAN'T SIT AROUND, I WANT TO MAKE THE OPPONENT HAVE NO HAND AND 1 LAND IN PLAY!@>#$@#R(. That's great. I applaud you for wanting that.

The issue is when this doesn't happen and you DO get dragged into an attrition war (Which will happen, since the format is still very creature based), you don't want to be sitting so far behind the opponent. Confidant helps with this.

Another thing is that Hyppie isn't even that good. It takes roughly as long as Confidant to make any sort of card advantage and in general making the opponent discard is just worse than drawing your own cards. Oh and Confidant is cheaper than Hyppie to throw down? Good times.

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Originally Posted by SillyMetalGAT

So what does deck do when it gets to mid-game? Roll over and die? Then why play it?

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If you play an aggressive build, a.k.a. the way it's supposed to be played, the answer is an emphatic "YES". Why play it? Because the early game is that damn good.

That's like asking why people play any Legacy deck that's not Goblins or Threshold in Legacy.

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Originally Posted by URABAHN

If you play an aggressive build, a.k.a. the way it's supposed to be played, the answer is an emphatic "YES". Why play it? Because the early game is that damn good.

That's like asking why people play any Legacy deck that's not Goblins or Threshold in Legacy.

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So? Just because a deck was originally SUPPOSED to be played a certain way, doesn't mean it is wrong to make it better by slightly changing the way it is SUPPOSED to be played.

I acknowledge this is a thread discussing Sui Black, as in pure aggro (black). I still feel that if we can make the deck more resiliant to decks just as fast as it, like Goblins, by giving it a better mid-game, we should.

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Originally Posted by URABAHN

Examples? What's improved? How?

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I haven't done the testing yet, but I think that the Thresh matchup would be improved, as well as most control, or aggro/control decks through the extra card advantage sui would gain. I also think it would help the combo matchup by drawing sui into more disruption, and bigger beaters, fixing mana, etc.

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Originally Posted by URABAHN

So Vindicate isn't even used as creature removal in your build, it's an LD spell? Why not run Rain of Tears? In the above example, if your opponent wipes out your Negator, you've played zero threats by Turn 4, Dark Confidant included.

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It's used as whatever the hell I want or need. I'm not sure you can understand the beauty of this card until you run it. Still, it has nothing to do with this right here...

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Originally Posted by URABAHN

Based on what? If Tomb is plan ZZZ, why even run it? Why run a single Tomb of Urami as a win condition? You need 4 mana and the Tomb, it has to sit there for a turn before it can attack, and you have no more lands in play. Tell me what's so awesome about 1 Tomb of Urami?

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The real question is, why wouldn't you run a Tomb? It doesn't eat a creature spot, produces black mana, and beats for the win. There have been games that I would have lost, that I one because of this card. Isn't that enough to try it at least? If your build has never run out of creatures, feel free to run 0.

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Originally Posted by URABAHN

What White cards do you plan on siding in that won't ruin the integrity of the deck? Warmth?

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Exactly. Pulse of the Fields isn't even out of the question since burn runs 0 wastes.

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Originally Posted by Drathro

1. Can a deck that wants to play its large threats ASAP run 8 fragile "Lightning Rods" and still beat down? (And, by extension, would more than 4, but less than 8 "L-Rods" be feasible?)
2. If a turn one or two Confidant sticks, will the cards drawn off of it help you win the game more rapidly than if you had just drawn an undercosted beater?

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Originally Posted by URABAHN

Phantom, you say the above quote "...is the fairest, most concise, and all around smartest post about Confidant in this deck I've seen so far." Then how do you answer those questions?

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I answer them yes, and yes. I may be wrong. The fact is we're bickering back and forth without any hard numbers to back it up. I haven't had the opportunity to yet, but at my first chance, I will take my own advice and test the build on page one with and without Confidant.

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Originally Posted by Artowis

OMG I CAN'T SIT AROUND, I WANT TO MAKE THE OPPONENT HAVE NO HAND AND 1 LAND IN PLAY!@>#$@#R(. That's great. I applaud you for wanting that.

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SuiBlack strips your opponent's hand and blows up all their land? That sounds more like Deadguy Ale.

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Originally Posted by Artowis

The issue is when this doesn't happen and you DO get dragged into an attrition war (Which will happen, since the format is still very creature based), you don't want to be sitting so far behind the opponent. Confidant helps with this.

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I think the key difference between Confidant in Deadguy and SuiBlack is that Bob is much better in Deadguy because you'll get to your disruption faster. In an aggro deck, like SuiBlack, you'll draw more threats, but at what price? You have to leave Bob sitting around for a few turns and you may not want to attack with him, because if your opponent has a creature, then your way to get around "sitting so far behind the opponent" will be dead. If you really want to draw cards in SuiBlack, play Night's Whisper, it costs the same, costs you less life and gets you two cards NOW. The notion you'll be dragged into a war of attrition is a myth because your creatures are BIGGER and will squish the opposition. How many aggro decks out there have creatures as big as yours that come out as fast?

Anurid is a 3/3, Hippie flies, Shade is at least a 4/3, Negator is a house that runs over just about everything in the format. Silver Knight? Squish. Mongoose? I'll trade with that. Goblin [INSERT NAME HERE]? Squish. Werebear? Hope you have answers for that. Eternal Dragon? If your opponent gets to 7 mana and plays Dragon, you're in trouble because you took too damn long.

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Originally Posted by Artowis

Another thing is that Hyppie isn't even that good. It takes roughly as long as Confidant to make any sort of card advantage and in general making the opponent discard is just worse than drawing your own cards. Oh and Confidant is cheaper than Hyppie to throw down? Good times.

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Hippie isn't that good in general, or in SuiBlack?

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Originally Posted by MonkeY

So? Just because a deck was originally SUPPOSED to be played a certain way, doesn't mean it is wrong to make it better by slightly changing the way it is SUPPOSED to be played.

I acknowledge this is a thread discussing Sui Black, as in pure aggro (black). I still feel that if we can make the deck more resiliant to decks just as fast as it, like Goblins, by giving it a better mid-game, we should.

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Phantom thinks Confidant will make matchups vs. Gro, Combo, and Control better. He'll let us know when he actually tries it.

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Originally Posted by URABAHN

Phantom thinks Confidant will make matchups vs. Gro, Combo, and Control better. He'll let us know when he actually tries it.

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I like how you use the word think like it's a dirty word LOL.

I have done testing with Dark Confidant. I ran the following list against both Goblins and Gro -

4 Duress
4 Hymn
4 Sinkhole

4 Nantuko Shade
4 Dark Confidant
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Phyrexian Negator

3 Vendetta
4 Diabolic Edict

4 Dark Ritual
4 Wasteland
17 Swamps

My testing against Goblins was terrible. I think I went something like 3-7 which is lower than my usual 4-6 testing against goblins when running Anurid. When my Confidant was not countered by Mogg Fanatic or Gempalm Incinerator often he couldn't really block and survive, but I often did throw him in front of a huge Piledriver.

I tested awhile back against UGR Gro with the same list. I believe that I was slightly up in this matchup maybe 6-4, but Confidant did help in some games where he stuck around. The matchup with Gro can get into a long game sometimes, but those games are often lost by Sui mainly because Gro's creatures in the mid game become very difficult to kill. Confidant did help me draw threats that I would not have normally drawn, but he rarely was able to attack - in these cases he functioned as a slow but steady draw spell.

I did some more recent testing against UGW Threshold, but I did very poorly like 2-8, but this was with Dark Confidant and Anurid but no Diabolic Edict and I often just lost to resolved Mystic Enforcer.

This post isn't to ignite the Dark Confidant debate further, but to point my experience with the card and how I've come to not be impressed with his results in this deck.

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Goblins 40/60 Preboard - ...........
Threshold (Gro) 50/50 Preboard -

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So with these numbers, don't you think the deck needs something more to be viable? These number seem to be a good reason not to play the deck. I'm not saying that the archetype of Sui isn't good, just that it needs something to push these numbers a little more in your favor.

I think the real discussion should be, what is that something?

Splash?
More aggro route?
More disruptive route?
New cards?
Dark Confidant? (Although this has been reiterated many times, and no one seems to want to concede the point)

What is it that is going to push Sui from being lower tier, to highly viable?

Consistancy is definatly something that should be worked on, from my experience, and maybe that's all the deck really needs is a little more consistancy. The problem is, you want enough disruption and enough threats to make the deck do what it wants to do, but without a drawengine of some sort, you can easily get stuck with a lot of disruption but no threat to back it up or vice versa.

How can we make the deck more consistant?

URABAHN, have you ever actually played with Tomb of Urami in Standard? The "Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiise!" factor comes into play a lot more than you'd think it would.

The problem with Tomb, is that it is in a deck that only runs 17 lands and 4 wastelands. If one plays tomb, in may allow for the mize factor to kick in to place, but you will get screwed more often by other deck's wastelands. I really don't think 1 tomb is justifiable for running it. In addition, have you noted the terrible synergy this card has with negator.

I'll give you the vunerability to wasteland (if you draw it in the early game. Late game you can wait to lay it until you need the token), but you would never, ever, blow the tomb with a negator in play. The only time I blow it when I have another creature in play at all is if it's going to win me the game.

I's a dangerous card to activate, so I usually only do it if I know they have no removal (empty hand or peek using duress). Also, becuase I run Confidant, there have been a few times when I can blow the tomb and recover quickly.

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Originally Posted by frogboy

URABAHN, have you ever actually played with Tomb of Urami in Standard? The "Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiise!" factor comes into play a lot more than you'd think it would.

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Standard? I must be in the wrong forum, I thought this was The Source, Your Source for Legacy.

I'm testing this deck, but my there are alot of Bw Confidant decks around. What would be the best replacement for Vendetta?

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Originally Posted by Benie Bederios

I'm testing this deck, but my there are alot of Bw Confidant decks around. What would be the best replacement for Vendetta?

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I think probably Smother. Kills about everything in Bw and Goblins.

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Originally Posted by Phantom

I think probably Smother. Kills about everything in Bw and Goblins.

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So does Last Gasp. Either one will work, but if you see more Gro than Goblins, go with Smother. If Goblins is bigger, go with LG, as it kills Ringleaders and SGC/KiKi