I'm posting this on behalf of my friend David.

may i suggest testing [card]contagion[/card] as a sideboard card?  It can help the aggro matchup significantly.

A single diabolic edict main as a tutor target may prove valuable as well.

In my experience [card]Bribery[/card] works very very well against tooth and nail decks.  If you are running a blue deck, which it seems like you are, it may be a great sideboard card.

Hello, i have been playtesting a similar deck since top came out.  Here is the list.


// NAME: Academy

// Lands
    2  Flooded Strand
    3  Polluted Delta
    1  Strip Mine
    4  Tropical Island
    4  Underground Sea
    1  Tolarian Academy

// Spells
    1  Fastbond
    3  Future Sight
    1  Yawgmoth's Bargain
    1  Ancestral Recall
    1  Crop Rotation
    1  Mystical Tutor
    2  Stroke of Genius
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    4  Force of Will
    4  Mana Drain
    1  Demonic Tutor
    3  Sylvan Scrying
    2  Tendrils of Agony
    1  Time Walk
    1  Timetwister
    1  Tinker
    1  Yawgmoth's Will
    2  Crucible of Worlds
    1  Helm of Awakening
    1  Mana Crypt
    1  Mana Vault
    1  Memory Jar
    3  Sensei's Divining Top
    1  Sol Ring
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Mox Emerald
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Mox Pearl
    1  Mox Ruby
    1  Mox Sapphire
    1  Zuran Orb

Some notes on my version:

With this many artifacts, tutoring for tolarian academy generates a huge amount of mana allowing me to cast the bulky future sight with relative ease.

I am only running one helm of awakening since it's horrible to play if you're not going to win immediatly.

Since i can tutor for strip mine, a resolved crucible murders many decks while also making sure i dont die to my opponent's lock.

I have an alternative win condition if future sight gets removed in fastbond - zorb combo in which i can either kill with stroke or just sit on infinite life (nice possibility while only using 2 card slots).  About stroke itself, with academy AND mana drain it's quite good mainboard and it also pitches to Force.

Top with Fetchlands is AMAZING.  If you need a force or a drain NOW, you can frequently look at 6 different cards in search for it.  Looking at 6 cards in search of a combo peace isn't too bad either

With Academy, i dont usually have trouble playing yagmoth's bargain for its full cost and as we all know, resolved bargain = game in a vast majority of cases.

I think the rest of my choices are self explanatory.

Problems with my build:

Null Rod pretty much kills me.

Trinisphere stalls me a lot and forces me to try to win using the fragile zorb.  Still not as bad as Null Rod

Seal of Cleansing is annoying.

I hope this list has been helpfull.

12th finish out of a lot of decks does seem like a fairly good result.  Also using labels such as "worst" and "best" is usually not a good idea if you really do want to avoid people taking it as a flame.

Now for the feedback: This direction of adding more counters can possibly be the right direction and the different draw engine does get rid of the AK wars, however adding so many cards that cost more to play, do you find yourself short on mana more than earlier itterations of this archeotype?

what happens if you dont draw biorhythm in your opening hand?  I would suggest that you add vampiric tutor or perhaps spoils of the vault to make sure you can get it when you need it.

You will likely not be successfull in completely destroying their mana base.  Even if they have 2 non-basics, this is going to deal 4 damage.  I have done 10 damage with it easily against old tog that ran most non-basics.



Agreed

Also if you see affinity, try out null rod.  Shutting down their lands when your wastelands can deal with the glimmervoids is sweet.  It stops moxes too

Higure kinda sucks effectively costing 4 mana and all and most of the cards that cost 4 or more in t1 guarantee a win.  The new orphidian is a fun card in fish though to sneak under standstill.

the problem with Tormod's Crypt is that it doesn't work under Null Rod.

I said i played there, not playtested there
But yeah, there are as many random scrubs there as good players.  However it really is the only place that i know of that has SOME good people with power and experience.

Back to the discussion of the sui revival.
Here is the deck i'm testing now.

// Mana
    1  Plains
    5  Swamp
    2  Flooded Strand
    3  Polluted Delta
    4  Scrubland
    1  Strip Mine
    4  Wasteland
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Mox Pearl

// Creatures
    3  Phyrexian Negator
    3  Withered Wretch
    3  Kami of Ancient Law

// Spells
    4  Dark Ritual
    3  Swords to Plowshares
    1  Demonic Tutor
    4  Duress
    4  Hymn to Tourach
    3  Vindicate
    1  Yawgmoth's Will
    2  Crucible of Worlds
    2  Null Rod
    4  Chains of Mephistopheles
    1  Necropotence

// Sideboard
SB: 1  Swords to Plowshares
SB: 4  Contagion
SB: 4  Seal of Cleansing
SB: 3  Sacred Ground
SB: 3  Rule of Law

The changes:
I noticed that the main way that i lost is being outdrawn.  Most of my solutions are 1 for 1 so that makes sense.  I realized that i either need a draw engine or need to stop my opponent's.  It came down to Night's Whisper vs Chains of Mephistopheles. I took Veru_'s advice and tried Chains.  So far they seem to work fairly well.

Kami of Ancient law seems like a good idea since they provide mainboard oath and dragon hate, however in testing they just seem too slow.  A 10 turn clock is not the way sui likes to put on pressure.  Still keeping the kami mainboard for now untill i find a better card.

Power: I think that this deck has some promice and i should test the optimal version even if i dont have all 3 of the power in question.  Also took out a Null Rod to minimize my chances of a hand filled with moxen and Null Rods while still having a good chance of drawing a mid game Null Rod.

Rule of Law:  Food Chain Goblins seems dead, while TPS and such are still strong.  Rule of Law is just a lot more versetile while also working against FCG to some extend.

No Vamp: not enough space in the decklist.  Perhaps will put it back in instead of 1 chains if i find myself looking for tutors more often.

Thanks for the feedback everyone, keep it coming.

Meandeck's Doomsday needs to generate 6 mana to cast [card]Mind's Desire[/card] and can frequently only deal 20 damage.  This option achieves a lock for 5 mana.  I can see situations where this would be better, however those cases are rare and usually 20 damage is better than stopping them from drawing.
Just my two cents.

try [card]Carefull Study[/card] it draws you cards while the discard allows you to win.

Can you explain your reasoning? with 12 Land destruction spells, I should always have more land than my opponent and it seems bad to destroy 4 of my lands to destroy his 1-2.

Masticore is a slow anti-creature card.  It's also vulnerable to artifact destruction that is roaming in the enviornment.  It also has a LARGE drawback.  I have tested it in regular suicide before and was extremely dissatisfied with its performance.

Now about angel causing me to lose tempo: i am never going to cast it untill i cast every single disruption spell in my hand.  When my hand is empty (barring 1 reactive StP). I usually CAN afford to spend 7 over two turns since due to the empty nature of my hand i have absolutely nothing else to do.  If you still think there are better creatures out there, do suggest please.

Recent decklist changes:
Took out 1 vindicate and upped the StP count to 3 : swords are just too amazing and 3 mainboard vindicates can prove to be enough to deal with my goal of keeping everything off the table.

Sideboard changes:
Took out humble, put in 3 sacred ground.

I dont like null rod as much as i used to, however in a deck that relies HEAVILY on resource denial, it is important to turn off moxes somehow.  

Night's Whisper is an OK card, but it has terrible synnergy with necro.  Most of the time i would rather demonic and vamp for necro.  I may test it as an alternative draw engine later on i guess.  

Yeah i'm not running mind twist.  Just like almost none of the versions of the original sui ran it.  Mind twist is a hymn that costs 3, and for 4 mana i would already be flipping the angel and killing him.  Also by the time i get to 4 mana, they are not likely to have much of a hand left.  8 efficient discard spells should be enough.

My original sui list had 14 creatures, this has 9.  I'm afraid that i wont draw any creatures thus alowing them more of a time frame to come up with solutions.  However i will try cutting 1 angel for a second StP and see if that makes the deck perform better.

A) Under trinisphere, any other card also costs 3, i can deal with that. (and have to if i am to win the workshop matches).
B) If i hoped to handle all troublesome permanents with this card alone, i would fail, however the first two turns are spent using the more conventianal suicide style disruption.  wasteland, duress, hymn, sinkhole, are all proven to work and work well.  This costs 1 more mana than sinkhole and fits snugly into the mana curve to be cast to solidify what the sinks have started.
C) It being a fast aggressive deck is exactly why sorcery vs. instant matters little.
D) Do you have any usefull suggestions on the alternative i have to running vindicate.

I have a lot of experience playing suicide black in powered enviornments.  During the height of fish, it even won several 15-20 people tournaments at neutral grounds having a favorable matchup against both Fish (u/r) and GAT and ok matchups against 4cc and Tog.  However with workshop decks becoming more and more popular and with Oath being an unwinnable matchup, i decided that the deck needs a major revamp.

For refrence here is the original decklist of my sui and my starting point.

// Mana
    15  Swamp
    1    Black Lotus   /Swamp in the budget version
    1    Mox Jet        /Swamp in the budget version
    1    Strip Mine
    4    Wasteland

// Creatures
    3   Nantuko Shade
    4   Phyrexian Negator
    4   Withered Wretch
    3   Hypnotic Specter

// Spells
    1   Necropotence
    1   Diabolic Edict  / Nice tutor target
    4   Dark Ritual
    1   Demonic Tutor
    4   Duress
    4   Hymn to Tourach
    4   Sinkhole
    1   Yawgmoth's Will
    3   Null Rod
    1   Vampiric Tutor

// Sideboard
SB: 1  Null Rod
SB: 2  Chains of Mephistopheles
SB: 4  Contagion
SB: 4  Planar Void
SB: 4  Smother/Powder Keg

Unlike most other aggro decks that rely solely on speed, sui works by attacking the opponent's hand and mana sources, restricting access to solutions, while the fast creatures demand they come up with those solutions or lose.

The problems arise when the opponent does come up with a solution.  Suicide has no way to deal with troublesome permanents.  Yes it kills small creatures post-sideboard quite efficiently (which is perhaps why i almost never lost to fish), however any enchantment or artifact threats can be deadly.

Since black simply does not have the utility to address the threats that hit play, the natural solution is to splash another color while maintaining the overall speed and threat frequency.  This of course has the drawback of destabilizing the mana base a bit, however I believe that the benefits gained outweigh the drawbacks.

The question is what color is best to splash.
Looking at our options:

Green: This adds Pernicious Deed, Naturalize, Oxidize, and perhaps a few efficient creatures.  Out of these, Deed is the card that really shines.  However Deed is a slow control card and while adding a solution to low costing permanents, it goes against the spirit of this deck.  I have played around deed before without much difficulty.

Blue: This adds a draw engine and counters.  However at that point, sui becomes tog.

Red: This adds Blood Moon, Random Burn, Rack and Ruin/Shattering Pulse.  While Welders really dont like the addition of burn, the deck still has no answer to enchantments.

White: The splash I decided is worth the most consideration.   The card Vindicate, while being expencive mana-wise, fits right into this deck.  White also offerst Swords to Plowshares to take care of almost anything an opponent Oaths or Tinkers out and Seal of Cleansing offers both enchantment and artifact destruction.

Here is the suicide list with the White splash.

// Mana
    1  Plains
    6  Swamp
    2  Flooded Strand
    4  Polluted Delta
    4  Scrubland
    1  Strip Mine
    4  Wasteland

// Creatures
    3  Exalted Angel
    3  Phyrexian Negator
    3  Withered Wretch

// Spells
    1  Necropotence
    4  Dark Ritual
    1  Swords to Plowshares
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    1  Demonic Tutor
    4  Duress
    4  Hymn to Tourach
    4  Sinkhole
    4  Vindicate
    1  Yawgmoth's Will
    2  Crucible of Worlds
    3  Null Rod

// Sideboard
SB: 3  Swords to Plowshares
SB: 1  Null Rod
SB: 4  Contagion
SB: 2  Engineered Plague
SB: 1  Humble
SB: 4  Seal of Cleansing

Note: power not added due to null rods and this being a budget deck, however I'm sure that substituting a lotus for one of the swamps would work.  

Card Choices:
Vindicate: With 5 stips and 4 Sinkholes already in the deck, this card most frequently acts as a land destruction spell, resulting in a total of 13 ways to kill a land.  However if your mana denial routine doesn't work and they do get out a threat that must be delt with, Vindicate deals with it.  What i love about this card is that it's almost never dead.  Just like every other card in the original sui, it's a threat that can be cast immediatly upon drawing it.

Swords to Plowshares: This card is self expanatory; however unlike Vindicate, StP can be a dead card against certain decks.  My only concern is that in my current build i can only fit one in.  

Exalted Angel:  Yes it's double white, yes it has echo, yet it very frequently ends the game.  4cc has already proven that an 8 point life swing is nothing to scoff at, and with my deck being full of disruption spells, my opponent is frequently unprepared to deal with it when it flips.  It also has nice synnergy with Necropotence.

Phyrexian Negator: 4 turn clock for 3 mana.


Withered Wretch:  Deals with dragon, welder, and helps against tog.  Great tech against a great number of decks.

Crucible of Worlds:  If I ever run out of ways to destroy the opponent's mana sources, Crucible is here to help me reuse that wasteland.  In a deck that runs ritual, a complete stip lock turn 2 is very possible.  Can also help me get that last white mana source to morph up angel.

Vampiric Tutor: while being card disadvantage, it is an instant and only costs 1 mana.  Also, unlike demonic consulatation, it doesn't kill you.

Sideboard Choices

Seal of Cleansing:  Better than disenchant in that i can cast it on a turn when i have nothing else to do and then continue with my disruption routine.

Contagion:  Has a tendancy to kill fish dead.  In fact, almost every aggro deck groans when i kill two of their creatures for 0 mana.

Engineered Plague: Anti-Goblins tech.

Humble: Swords #5.  Also stops most leaves-play abilities.   Is probably a sub-optimal card.

Cards I'm considering

Balance: This has the potential to be a game breaking card, however much of the time it is more likely to be a dead card.  I am constantly destroying my opponent's land and hand and i'm usually the one with more creatures in play.  Still, i am tempted...

Serenity: ok it destroys my crucible and possibly a null rod, but at the same time it can destroy a lot of their permanents.  Still slower than seal.

Sacred Ground: Makes sure my mana base is indestructable and ignores Sundering Titan, Smokestack and Wastes.

Matchups:

Oath: I may lose game 1 if they get a fast hand with both combo pieces game 2 however i bring in both seals and 4 swords giving me effectively 8 disenchants and 4 ways to deal the Colossus/Akroma/Spirit of the Night. Irridescent i can race with my own angel and pristine will be hard-pressed to stay untapped ALL the time.

Workshop and variants: My chances have improved.  Even though opponent going first turn trinisphere when i start without a wasteland in hand STILL tends to spell quick death for me even with this build.  Game 2, having 8 artifact destruction and 4 swords for welders makes it a bit easier.

4cc: Not only is cutting it out of several colors even easier than it was before, now i can even deal with a random angel with a Vindicate.  My matchup has improved from ok to favorable.

Fish/Gat/Tog: Insufficient testing.  Did win one match against GAT though.

In conclusion, i think splashing white may help revive the dying (dead?) suicide black decks and I eagerly await any input/suggestions any of you may have.

Frenetic Efreet is amusing, however i am not convinced that it's better than lavamancer.  Have you tested lavamancer in it's place?

edit: also with mainboarded crusables, i would advice you to run more wastelands.

the problem is that energy chamber targets and you need to choose that target at the time it triggers.  At this time pentad prism is still in the graveyard and thus is not a legal target.

No, it implies that if the player discards a card to satisfy the replacement ability for drawing, then you get to draw.

Ok, let's hear it for posting two days after the fact.

I will be taking my exam to become a level one judge on august 28th (at neutral grounds after the PTQ). I would like your advice on how to prepare for it. How well am i expected to know the penalty guidelines? the floor rules?  Are there any specific parts of the rulebook that are usually emphasized?  Any advice is greatly appreciated.

thanks for the link Phele

Hello people, i have finally decided to come out of lurking and actually post.  Lately out of pure boredom i have been looking for decks to revamp that are fun to play but are somewhat competative.  Im the proccess i came upon the mono-green LD deck that won Turnhout (12/14/2003).  I am trying to make it playable in today's enviornment. Here is the original list:

Mainboard-61 cards

///Mana=23///
1 Dust Bowl
14 Forest
1 Pendelhaven
1 Strip Mine
1 Treetop Village
4 Wasteland
1 Sol Ring

///LD=11///
3 Thermokarst
4 Winter's Grasp
4 Ice Storm

///Creatures-13///
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Terravore
1 Argothian Wurm

///Utility-14///
4 Ankh of Mishra
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Powder Keg
1 Zuran Orb
4 Tangle Wire

Sideboard
2 Gaea's Blessing
1 Glissa Sunseeker
2 Masticore
3 Null Rod
1 Powder Keg
3 Root Maze
3 Troll Ascetic


Here is my list that i have been testing againts Magic Workstation opponents:

Mainboard-60 cards

///Mana-28///
2 Dust Bowl    
8 Forest    
1 Pendelhaven    
1 Strip Mine    
2 Treetop Village    
4 Wasteland
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald    
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant

///LD-12///
4 Ice Storm        
4 Thermokarst    
4 Winter's Grasp    

///Creatures-10///
3 Fyndhorn Elves    
4 Llanowar Elves    
3 Terravore

///Utility-10///
3 Null Rod
3 Root Maze
4 Ankh of Mishra    

Sideboard (probably needs a lot more work)
3 Naturalize    
3 Oxidize    
3 Drop of Honey    
3 Ground Seal    
3 Powder Keg    

Card choices:
Null Rod - With the popularity of slaver and belcher along with Raffinity trying to enter the t1 enviornment, i find this card to be essential mainboard.  In the original version challice was used for similar purposes- to neutralize enemy moxen; however if you happen to go second, your opponent can possibly drop 2 moxen on you before challice comes out.  Of course i loose the utility of setting challice to 1 against random stompy/sligh, but i dont consider that to be much of a loss.  Also Null Rod is harder for a mox monkey to kill  

Root Maze - First of all, i laugh at fetchlands (it gets funnier with multiple ankhs in play, but that's a given   )  It makes a first turn kill for Belcher unlikely and makes mindslaver come into play tapped (useful after i SB in oxidizes and ground seal).  It also has a side effect of completely annhilating dragon's main win condition.

Elvish Spirit Guide - Oh look, it's a dark ritual... well not quite but it helps start destroying lands earlier with much more consistancy than the original deck while doubling up as a beatstick later on in this creature-light deck.

Treetop Village -  Well it IS Wasteland bait, but if they dont draw those, it's big and trampling and after just 2-3 hits they may find themselves unable to play lands in fear of instant death by ankh.

Choices to NOT run cards:

Argothian Wurm - It's a nice useful creature, but the last thing i need is some aggro deck sacking it's last remaining 2 lands to it while winning with something annoying.  Also it IS 4 mana as opposed to terravore which is only 3 and is often just as big.  If further testing prooves i need more creatures, it may likely still go back in.

Powder Keg - Horrible synnergy with both Null Rod and (against moxen)Root Maze.  I'd rather die to some creature due to lack of the keg than to belcher without a Rod.  SB material only

Tangle Wire -  Oh it is a good card, but there are too many decks that can drop as many permanents as i can, and i would rather keep my mana open for casting LD.  Also i dont know what to remove MB to fit this card in.  Perhaps further testing will proove me wrong

Challice - Null Rod is better in so many matchups.

Wow quite a lot of information for my first time really posting .  Well talk guys and girls.  Does this type of deck have a chance out there in the wild and dangerous world of T1? What other cards can i consider MB? SB?  Am i totally evil for considering absolute mana denial to be a fun fun deck?  Oh and tell me if i did something stupid in the post, i want to learn how to be a valuable member of this community and stuff