[Deck] Eva Green - B/g suicide

[nitewolf9]

Let me start this by saying that suicide black has always been my favorite archetype ever since the hay days of magic. There is just something about playing an under-costed threat off of a dark ritual that appeals to me like nothing else. When I first came to the lucky frog I met Anwar, who shared my love of the archetype. Anwar's red death became a natural choice for me to pick up and play and it remains one of my favorite decks to date. And then tarmogoyf came around, and just ruined phyrexian negator's day left and right. Red removal was no longer sufficient and not playing tarmogoyf was just asking to be outclassed in the combat phase. So, work began on a suicide black deck that splashed green. I played a version of Eva Green that abandoned the idea of going for the throat that also ran jitte maindecked, dark confidant, and tombstalker. The deck was good but did not play out the way I wanted it to in many matchups, most notably against control. I did realize one thing though: tombstalker was absolutely nuts. Over a series of PM's Anwar eventually sends me a shell of the deck that goes back to the very aggressive, tempo driven game plan of red death. Snuff out was determined to be tempo on steroids, and the tombstalker count (which started at 1) eventually went up to 3, and then 4 at the suggestion of Alix Hatfield. Eventually we develop this version of Eva Green, with some help from the rest of the NoVA crew:

Eva Green

4 tarmogoyf
4 nantuko shade
4 hypnotic specter
4 tombstalker

4 dark ritual
4 thoughtseize
4 hymn to tourach
4 sinkhole
4 snuff out
3 seal of primordium

4 wasteland
4 polluted delta
4 bloodstained mire
3 bayou
6 swamp

board:
4 choke
4 leyline of the void
4 engineered plague
3 umezawa's jitte

This deck has done phenomenally well in testing and took me to a top 4 finish this last weekend at the Winter Wonderland legacy event. The tournament report can be found here..
Zuhair (Zulander) also piloted the deck to a 9th place finish, and Alix Hatfield (Obfuscate Freely) top 2'd the legacy side event with it. I believe this to be the natural evolution of suicide black.

Card explanations:

Tarmogoyf: Essentially better than phyrexian negator in every way, this guy is the most efficient beater in the game. A good mix of instant/sorcery/creature/land/enchantment assures he will be very big most of the time.

Tombstalker: This guy is a house in Eva Green. All of your fetchlands pretty much count as 2 mana towards his cost, and ritual counts as 4 towards him. He essentially has a mana cost of 1BB in this deck consistently, but I have powered him out on turn 2 a few times. He gets around pernicious deed, black based removal, explosives, and he flies. Completely amazing here. He rarely conflicts with tarmogoyf being able to grow in size and in some
situations lets you have the option of shrinking your opponent's tarmogoyfs in a bind. Remember, you can delve for more than 6 cards.

Nantuko shade: One of the few creatures that can get in a fight with tarmogoyf and win, shade can end games very quickly and becomes very hard to deal with as the game goes on. An excellent threat and can turn late game rituals into giant growths.

hypnotic specter: Smaller than every other creature in your deck but still great. He helps you lock down combo decks, is bad news for control, and is great against aggro as well. With ritual he is very dangerous and I have never been disappointed with him.

The creatures in Eva Green are great both early on and late in the game.

Dark ritual: Still busted as ever, it shines even more with the addition of tombstalker.

thoughtseize: Best black disruption in magic, B to pre-emptively answer anything is pretty sweet. The life loss has not been an issue at all and I cannot stress how powerful this card is. Duress is nowhere near as good.

hymn to tourach: The other hand disruption spell to thoughtsieze, it's just as good as it ever was. You can win games with this card alone and it helps keep your opponent stumbling for answers to your giant threats instead of playing their own game against you.

Sinkhole: Red Death was all about tempo, and Eva Green takes that statement to the next level. This card's role is two fold: create tempo so you are doing more than your opponent can do/answer in the early game, and shut off your opponent's answers/threats by branching off a color of mana. Combined with wasteland and hymn it is a devastating attack on your opponent's manabase and sometimes can simply win games on it's own through complete resource denial.

Snuff Out: Simply the best removal spell you could ask for in a tempo-driven deck, in a format full of big green creatures. This spell allows you to play a removal spell AND a threat/disruption spell in the same turn very early in the game. Doing more than your opponent can do in the early game becomes a lot easier when your removal is "free". The life loss is rarely an issue in such an aggressive deck and this spell can be hard cast later in the game without the drawback.

Seal of Primordium: A debatable slot in the deck, seal has proven itself in testing especially against control decks like landstill, decks with counterbalance, and cards like aether vial in goblins or artifact mana that mitigate your land destruction strategy. This card serves as a swiss army knife answer to whatever card (humility, solitary confinement,
vedalken shackles, etc.) your opponent may have that breaks you, and especially shines against standstill by pre-emptively answering it. When your opponent has no targets for it it still at the very least fuels stalker and goyf. Very rarely a dead draw.

Board choices:

Choke: With so much blue in legacy, and the addition of green, choke becomes a backbreaking card for decks like threshold (especially when they run top) and landstill. It helps keep mystic enforcer off the table against Uwg threshold and makes the U/w landstill matchup much better. Supplemented by land destruction this card causes many headaches for blue magi.

Leyline of the Void: My personal yard hate of choice, this card could very well be yixlid jailer, tormod's crypt, or perhaps even extirpate. I will leave the debate to the specific card choice out of this but I do feel this slot should be dedicated to hating the graveyard.

Engineered plague: Not just brought in against goblins, but clearly very strong in that matchup. This card also helps against combo tremendously while also being very good against a surprising number of decks.

Umezawa's Jitte: Absolutely one of the most underrated and underplayed cards in legacy. That being said, in addition to being poor against control, in the main deck it is simply too slow and opens you up to your opponent's removal robbing you of your hard-earned tempo. However, against many decks this card will simply win games. You also have 8 evasive creatures to wear it, increasing its effectiveness. A very powerful tool out of the sideboard and helps you against decks that will try to race/burn you out of the game. I have been very happy with jitte in the board of suicide black style decks and it is just as good here.

Now on to a few matchups. I don't have percentages for you but I will try to narrate based on my experience playing against the decks.

CONTROL/AGGRO CONTROL

Landstill:

Depending on the build, this matchup can either be heavily in your favor or quite close. Four color landstill tends to be alot easier as tombstalker cannot be killed by pernicious deed, and their manabase is so disruptable. Blue/white landstill however runs wrath of god in addition to swords to plowshares, and has a much more stable manabase. Any way you slice it your goal here is to disrupt them and drop a huge threat, repeating as necessary. With builds running pernicious deed do not be afraid to drop a tombstalker in addition to another threat as they cannot 2 for 1 you. Be more careful when facing wrath effects, obviously. Dropping seal as early as possible is a very strong play as it stops standstill from activating and burying you in removal and countermagic. Post board gets more ugly for them as choke is a huge kick in the balls, especially alongside sinkhole and wasteland. I consider this a favorable matchup in general for Eva Green.

Threshold:

The results against threshold will vary greatly based on the build, but in general you want to see the black version sitting across the table from you as their removal is usually dead against you. Confidant can still be a pain but they have no way of dealing with a resolved tombstalker. The red version is pretty good as snuff out hits everything they play aside from mongoose, but be careful not to let your life total dip too low as they can burn you out. White seems to be the version I fear the most simply because of swords to plowshares and mystic enforcer being pretty much gg if he hits and they are in any position to stay alive. Any version running counterbalance will be annoying, although your removal and half of your threats evade it. Seal is huge here as if they get counter top online early things will be grim. Post board you get to bring in choke, which is very strong at both neutering counterbalance/top and at preventing finishers like mystic enforcer from ever coming down. Jitte can also be brought in and is a strong option, but the boarding plan will vary depending on the build you are facing. This matchup will usually be close as threshold seems to find whatever they need at the worst possible times, but you have a lot of very powerful tools against them. Black threshold seems to be favored, red is favored to even, and white may be slightly unfavored, but like I said it will usually be very close.

COMBO DECKS

Cephalid Breakfast:

This is the main combo deck you will be favored against in legacy. Snuff out is very good at stopping both the cephalid/nomad combo and at the goyf/nought backup plans. Thoughtseize is great, and if they don't get vial into play or you have seal for it your LD will be painful for them as their manabase is not very robust. Rip combo pieces or search out of their hand early and go for the throat. Post board you have 15 relevant cards to bring in, but I find that bringing in 4 plagues for 4 sinkholes and 4 leyline/jailer for 3 seal and 1 tombstalker to be my plan of choice. Plague can name wizard to cut off confidant and illusionist, and leyline forces them to find bounce before going off, which is usually enough time for your other disruption to grind them down. This deck can still just win out of nowhere though, so play tight even though you may feel very favored.

Storm combo (Belcher and TES namely):

Belcher is not the best matchup for eva green because the deck can go off before you have any say in the matter, and it loves to see a lack of blue on the other side of the table. However, if you win the die roll a single hand disruption spell may be enough to slow them down long enough for hymn and huge creatures to finish them. Post board you get plague to answer etw and the matchup becomes a bit better, especially as you know what they are playing and can mulligan accordingly to a hand that breaks them. TES tends to be a bit better as the deck does not tend to go off before you get a turn, and your hand AND land disruption hurts them. Hypnotic specter is very good here as he will probably get a chance to actually swing in when backed up by early disruption and keeps them from recovering. The deck can still top deck artifact mana and then infernal tutor or IGG, but seal helps to stop them from winning that way. A difficult matchup to play against but your disruption is still strong here. You might want to consider boarding in leyline or crypt if you run it to stop the gains loop, but always bring in plague to stop warrens tokens.

Dredge:

I'm not going to lie, this is probably not a deck you want to be facing in a tournament with Eva Green. Game 1 you pretty much have to race them and hope they don't dredge well. Snuff out on one of your own tarmogoyfs can sometimes help against bridge from below but that play is less than ideal. I'm sure it's no more than 20/80 pre-board. That being said you do have some powerful hate post-board in the form of leyline of the void/yixlid jailer, engineered plague, and umezawa's jitte. On the play I leave in thoughtseize, to be able to sometimes nab chain of vapor with a leyline in play, and take out hymn, sinkhole, and snuff out (leaving in seal to deal with needle on jitte). On the draw you may want to consider taking out thoughtseize over snuff out due to the bridge-removing potential and ability to kill a large troll, but that's your call. If you expect a decent showing of friggorid at a tournament yixlid jailer may be a better option than leyline of the void in the board, although it does have a weakness to cabal therapy that leyline tends to avoid.

Survival:

Depending on the build you will probably have a very rough time against survival decks. Welder survival is probably the best matchup as it plays more like a disruptable combo deck than an aggro/control deck against you, but builds like RGBSA are a pain to play against. Your best bet is attacking their manabase and winning on the back of an early game tempo boost or riding a tombstalker to victory. If they have answers to stalker you might be up shit creak if you let them get going. Sinkhole and wasteland are great here, and don't be afraid to use snuff out on first turn birds of paradise. Post board you actually take out seal of primordium as it is the most likely card to be dead against them, and you bring in umezawa's jitte that allows you to achieve an overwhelming board position before they get the engine online.
I am about 50/50 against survival in tournament play, but the build will dictate whether or not you are favored or the lowly underdog here. This is a matchup that is worth playing a few times in order to solidify what choices you should be making in the early and mid game and what hands you should be keeping or mulling.

Goblins:

Ah yes, the matchup I loved to see when I played Red Death. With Eva Green it's not much different. This deck is amazing against goblins. While they can sometimes hit with a lackey on the play, and while snuff out isn't the greatest of removal options against them, every single creature in your deck is supurb against them and your disruption is very effective. Being able to nail vial with seal is an added boon with this build and makes
your sinkhole/wasteland plan that much more devastating against the mana hungry goblins deck. Tarmogoyf will get out of control very quickly and can more often than not wind up as a 6/7 in this matchup (although still great as a 3/4) and hypnotic specter is very underrated here. Post board it's unfair. Four engineered plagues and 3 umezawa's jittes go in for the seal of primordiums and sinkholes, as going after their manabase is the
weaker option when you can just make sure none of their creatures can stay in play. A favorable matchup to say the least.

That's all I have for now, trust me when I say that this deck is a hell of a lot of fun to play and a very strong choice to take to a high level legacy tournament.