[Deck] Suicide Black

[Ralf]

This past friday i ran the deck again,

The overgrown tombs are an awesome addition. I did poorly mostly do to mulliganing way too much.

The biggest thing I need to work on is the infect matchup. Them giving me life is a pseudo removal for the death's shadow. The major issue is dealing with the Inkmoth nexus. Its next to impossible to remove. Any suggestions for the infect matchup.

Also, what matches does empty the pits need to stay in and which does it need to come out. I find myself always cutting it going into game 2.

Have you thought of using toxic deluge in this deck?

You have all the sideboard strategies here including Infect + an analysis on "Empty the Pits".

The Infect MU is slightly positive from our testing.

Toxic Deluge has been properly tested. Unfortunately, Engineered plague is better than Toxic in more MU.
The only MU where Toxic is better than Plague is against deck playing Sigarda.

For now, we are testing "Reanimate" instead of the 2nd Spinning Darkness in the sideboard.

[Xod]

Reanimate combining with Street Wraith like the UB build?

[Ralf]

Reanimate combining with Street Wraith like the UB build?

No !
We don't play Street Wraith.

Spinning Darkness is meant to improve aggro & tempo MU. Reanimate should mostly provide the same improvment (a bit less against delver deck) with an added bonus against midrange and some combo decks.

[James718]

So reanimate one of their creatures?

Just curious, have you ever tested Ob Nixilis reignited, or Erebos, god of the dead?

[Ralf]

So reanimate one of their creatures?

Just curious, have you ever tested Ob Nixilis reignited, or Erebos, god of the dead?

@Reanimate: It can be seen as threat n°13 (11 creatures + Empty + Reanimate). It will help closing games a bit faster against midrange/attrition war. Reanimating any creatures (Goyf, Death's shadow) is pretty cool. It has some broken synergy in a deck playing discard spells.

However, Tempo MU will be a bit harder as Spinning Darkness is "King" when it comes to dealing with Delver deck. Reanimate is not bad against Tempo deck, either but usually you are in the control seat not the contrary. I'm still assessing, right now, if we can really cut the 2nd Spinning Darkness or not.


@ Fancy things:

No.

To be honest, with 19 lands (4 DRS & 3 Dark Ritual) the deck cannot reliably sustain more than 1 big spell (spell> 3 CMC).

Empty the Pits fits perfectly the bill, because it usually ends the game "on the spot" and I have not found anything as powerful as this spell.
The only spell as much broken as this one is not playable in this deck: Hatred.

Anyway, I can see the appeal for sexy things but as a 1-of, you will hardly see it.


Now if you really want to try something as a 2-of, I would cut "1 Empty the Pits + 1 Dismember":


1) Erebos doesn't impact the board "at all" and its ability is "weak".

2) Ob Nixilis is almost legacy playable. And I like him a lot in my Walker Fit deck. But unfortunately, he is really slow and 5 CMC is pushing really hard.
At least his -3 impacts the board.
You might also want to look at/test Vraska. Her +1 is far worse but she can kill any non land permanent (Jace) and she can use her ultimate a turn sooner. But to my taste her ulty is worse than Ob Nixilis.

3) If you really want to go "crazy", the PW I would also try is Sorin Markov.


Keep us posted as far as your tests go !

[MGB]

Is there still a place in Legacy for 4 x Nantuko Shades? :)

[James718]

1) Erebos doesn't impact the board "at all" and its ability is "weak".

2) Ob Nixilis is almost legacy playable. And I like him a lot in my Walker Fit deck. But unfortunately, he is really slow and 5 CMC is pushing really hard.
At least his -3 impacts the board.
You might also want to look at/test Vraska. Her +1 is far worse but she can kill any non land permanent (Jace) and she can use her ultimate a turn sooner. But to my taste her ulty is worse than Ob Nixilis.

3) If you really want to go "crazy", the PW I would also try is Sorin Markov.

I can see that on erebos

I tried Ob Nix, and kinda liked him, I like that he lets us sink life for cards and can immediately kill something. Although it doesnt solve the problem of killing an Inkmoth nexus :( However if you ult him and contract thats 8 damage to them!

Vraska seems harder to hit mana wise and still doesnt help with inkmoths, however being able to kill a planes walker or a counterbalance is sweet.

Sorin seems cool, he can change the clock real quick, but his plus hurts us and his ult cant win us the game.

[Ralf]

As someone asked, here is my latest list:

Black Suicide / Infernal Shadow by Ralf.

Mana

7 Swamp
3 Bloodstained mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Marsh Flat
2 Bayou
1 Overgrown Tomb
3 Dark ritual

Kill conditions

4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Deathrite shaman
3 Death's shadow
1 Empty the Pits

Removal

4 Abrupt decay
4 Soul Spike
3 Dismember
1 Maelstrom Pulse

Disruption

4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach

Draw spells

4 Infernal Contract
2 Cruel Bargain

Sideboard

3 Surgical extraction
1 Golgari charm
2 Pithing needle
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Spinning darkness
1 Reanimate
1 Sylvan Library
2 Engineered plague
1 Null Rod
1 Grafdigger's cage


Updated sideboard tables + bonuses can be found here including Infect + an analysis on "Empty the Pits".

If you have any questions, feel free to shoot.

Cheers,

Ralf.

[Xod]

I see you reverted back to 2 bayou and 1 Overgrown Tomb instead of the other way around. 2 Tombs is nice, but with variable costs on dismember and such, you mostly can play with your life total without risking to much against an aggro/Tempo deck.

(your bayou gets wasted and you need to fetch another B/G land for instant use and you only have Tombs left against a fast damaging deck is not very handy)

Other than that I don't see much I would change myself. I'm planning to take it for another spin since I'm back in to the 'controlling' decks. And this one still acts a controlling when you need to, or aggro when against control or combo. Currently playing Quinn and still deciding what I'm going to take to the GP in Prague. Might also be Oozing :-)

Yes I know, I play weird decks ;-)

[Ralf]

I see you reverted back to 2 bayou and 1 Overgrown Tomb instead of the other way around. 2 Tombs is nice, but with variable costs on dismember and such, you mostly can play with your life total without risking to much against an aggro/Tempo deck.

(your bayou gets wasted and you need to fetch another B/G land for instant use and you only have Tombs left against a fast damaging deck is not very handy)

Yes, after many tests (and due to a decrease of combo decks in the overall meta) I reverted back to just 1 overgrown tomb.

Other than that I don't see much I would change myself. I'm planning to take it for another spin since I'm back in to the 'controlling' decks. And this one still acts a controlling when you need to, or aggro when against control or combo. Currently playing Quinn and still deciding what I'm going to take to the GP in Prague. Might also be Oozing :-)

Yes I know, I play weird decks ;-)

Welcome to the "Club" !

[mistercakes]

surprised to see this list. looks very fun. any other good ways to mitigate the life loss?

[Ralf]

surprised to see this list. looks very fun. any other good ways to mitigate the life loss?

Yes, it is really fun and surprisingly competitive enough (in the current meta).

What do you mean by "other good ways to mitigate the life loss" ?

[mistercakes]

i guess it was a bit rushed of a question.

what would you say are the favorable and unfavorable matchups (preboard)?

also, your thoughts on a singleton lake of the dead?

[Xod]

I never found lake of the dead a good card, and especially not in this deck.

First of all, or mana base is not so big, so it needs to be steady. Saccing one of our lands and then getting lake wasted is according to me a serious setback.

Second, sure, it provides a big boost, at the cost of at least a second swamp, so actually what it gives you is at turn 3, 4 extra mana, assuming you tapped the swamps before saccing them, you then have 6 mana. If you look at the cards we play, you'll notice we don't need THAT much mana. The only mana we need is in the beginning of our first/second turn to get a nice boost. Let's analyse the cards where we need the mana for:

HTT: Lake of the Dead won't help
Gatekeeper: it can help, but so can dropping a land each turn or DRS
Empty the Pits: now this is the only card where Lake can help, but we also side this card out in certain matchup's, so I don't think it will help that much.
Soul Spike: to hardcast it, sure.
D4 spells: DRS and DR will help casting these sooner then Lake, the only advance I see here is casting the cards you drew from the spells with lake. But at that moment you just lost 2 swamps.

So I guess it's not really a good card (in this deck).

[Ralf]

i guess it was a bit rushed of a question.

what would you say are the favorable and unfavorable matchups (preboard)?

also, your thoughts on a singleton lake of the dead?

1) Matchups

It is difficult to give some raw numbers (preboard). But if you take into account any game with sideboard:

- Tempo (without reach) = favorable
- Tempo with reach = 50/50
- Aggro & Tribal deck = lightly favorable (50/50 vs infect)
- Miracle = lightly unfavorable
- Monastery Miracle = lightly favorable
- Eldrazi = lightly favorable
- Shardless = 50/50
- Jund = 50/50
- Lands = Unfavorable
- D&T = lightly favorable
- Storm = lightly unfavorable
- S&T = lightly favorable
- Burn = lightly unfavorable

That should give you a good idea where the deck lies against the current format.

The hardest part with the deck (something that few people are used to) is to play with your life as another "ressource".
Once you get a good grip on it, you'll start to put up some results.


2) Lake of the Dead

I have played with 1 in the past. It is sometimes great and sometimes poor.
But when you are not playing BS, you seek consistency.
You cannot really afford to mulligan an otherwise good starting hand because of "lake" and that was the major point.

Anyway, if you are interested in giving the deck a few tries, be my guest.
10 to 20 games should be a minimum, though.

And if you do, please come back and share your feelings & ideas with us.

Cheers,

Ralf

[mistercakes]

before testing (will be a few days before i can sit with modo or wait for paper cards to come in mail (ordered some bargains, i have a few from doomsday but not a playset).

what are your thoughts on the kamigawa land that can turn into a 5/5 (taps for black but also pings you)

volrath's stronghold (maybe regulated to sb for grindy matchups)?

kaervek's spite because it's awesome?

[Ralf]

before testing (will be a few days before i can sit with modo or wait for paper cards to come in mail (ordered some bargains, i have a few from doomsday but not a playset).

what are your thoughts on the kamigawa land that can turn into a 5/5 (taps for black but also pings you)

volrath's stronghold (maybe regulated to sb for grindy matchups)?

kaervek's spite because it's awesome?

By essence, the deck I proposed is a control deck.
Even if, you'll have some very fast aggro start sometimes, it will rather be the exception than the rule.

Once that is said:
- I would not play the kamigawa land. Losing all your lands for a 5/5 is not where you wanna be.
- Volrath's stronghold is to be classified as Lake of the Dead
- Kaervek's spite = you made my day !!! But well...no :)

Anyway, you can tweak the list as you like but I would stick with the one proposed (at least for the first games) since we have put a lot of tests behind it.

[mistercakes]

By essence, the deck I proposed is a control deck.
Even if, you'll have some very fast aggro start sometimes, it will rather be the exception than the rule.

Once that is said:
- I would not play the kamigawa land. Losing all your lands for a 5/5 is not where you wanna be.
- Volrath's stronghold is to be classified as Lake of the Dead
- Kaervek's spite = you made my day !!! But well...no :)

Anyway, you can tweak the list as you like but I would stick with the one proposed (at least for the first games) since we have put a lot of tests behind it.

okay! thanks for input

traveling and not playing...

thoughts on cursed scroll, winter orb, storage matrix?


also - built the deck on modo. i dont have an empty the pits (have everything else) given the really high amount of storm on modo i'm just going to run a lich instead. i've always wanted to use that card and it seems like it could be great here in some small situations.

[Xod]

I saw Kaervek's Spite and I was thinking immediately about Withering Boon.

The lifeloss we don't care about that much, only problem it that it only counters creature spells. And we already handle creatures quite good.

[Xod]

Ralf,

Your sideboard plan against Eldrazi looks very solid. Can't wait to test it. Probably next Friday and maybe to the GP in Prague.