Frustrated with my Sui deck ..:(

[doctrellor]

Another famous archtype long ago sent to the T1.5 leagues, yet can still make an impact on T1 tournies ... especially with changes that have come out to help the old Sui decks.

The one thing that frustrastes me so much about Sui is the lack of dealing with artifacts/enchantments -- and that consistent damage one takes giving one a fast clock. So Sui is strictly an Aggro deck -- with some distinct control elements.

Now Black is long known to have Disruption, Graveyard Manipulation, Land Destruction, Creature kill -- and now with Sacred Sacrament -- it adds Library Milling to it's style. But, black decks though solid -- have ALWAYS had a bad reputation vrs Combo decks -- and nobody I know uses Lich/Mirror Universe anymore (although it was an awesome combo)

So ... Vampire Hexmage & Dark Depths which has been heavily abused -- is the new combo.

Meta -- locally -- Aggro/Control (BW, UW, Elves, MBC, Mono-U, etc ..). Artifacts are rare, no power to be seen as most folks are T1.X/T2 players.

My current deck

1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland - standard in any T1 deck
11 Swamp - seems smooth (no mulligans) -- but I might need a bit more mana it seems.

1 Lotus Petal
1 Jet Mox
1 Black Lotus
2 Umizawa's Jitte -- With all the self-damage, these are critical for the life gain ..

*4 Tutors -- I felt with 12 critters and the combo here -- I needed the 4 tutors for definate silver bullets to take care of issues.
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tuttor
1 Grim Tutor
1 Imperial Seal

*Standard Black Deck Win conditions ..
1 Yawgs Will
1 Necropotence
1 Tendril

4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize

4 Diabolic Edict
4 Dark Ritual
4 Sacred Sacrament - the Milling card -- It hits combo decks and control decks hard - needs more playtesting.

4 Vampire Hexmage - The 1st half of the combo.
4 Gatekeepers of Malakir - needed for critter saccing. Works with the Edicts.
4 Dark COnfidant - Draw engine -- so with Necro, it makes for 5 cards as a draw engine.

What I need to figure out is where to add my 2 Dark Depths to form the combo...and so what to take out for those 2 cards.

For those who haven't seen it -- it goes something like this

Turn 1 -- Lay down Mox/Petal or Lotus -- Black Mana -- Lay down Vampire Hexmage, Lay down Dark Depths with 10 counters. Sac Hexmage to take off the counters -- DD becomes a 20/20 flying beat stick from hell -- swing for 20.

Now that's what I call a viable T1 1 turn kill ..

---

So now as far as Sacrament -- the new Milling aspect seems quite good -- but VERY expensive mana wise. It has a kicker of 7 .. ouch, but it's worth it if you can pull it off.  Normally it mills 3 cards, but with the kicker, it mills 15 cards ....But with the cost of the kicker -- I am not sure (yet) if the card is worth it. SOme swear by it -- but I wanna playtest it more and see how it does.

[madmanmike25]

A few things:

19 mana sources (Ritual isn't free) seems a tad low.  You can't always rely on Dark Ritual and you want to hit 3 black mana asap to cast Sad Sac or a clutch Gatekeeper.

Your weakest tutors are Grim and I. Seal.  Demonic Consultation is better so long as you run 3 of the cards you are trying to find.  Two cards might be ok, but its a tad risky.

Put Jitte in the sb.  Focus on getting the 20/20 indestructible flyer in play.  Here are 2 slots open for Dark Depths.  Personally I would want 3.

Try playing with at least a few fetchlands.  Deck thinning is quite helpful.  If you splash a color (U or G) it would give you a variety of sb options.

See if you can get by with fewer Sad Sacs.  If they are golden by all means keep 4.  Sometimes 2-3 main and 1-2 sb are fine.

[ArtOvWar]

Since ive hitted 2 top 8's in vintage with sui and alot of top16's in a oath/shop/ichorid meta maybe i can help you.
To start with. 8 edict effects is to much. Maybe u could test this list.

Mana = 26
11 Swamp
3 Urborg,ToY
4 Waste
1 Strip
1 Petal
1 Lotus
1 Jet
4 D.Rit

Combo Pieces = 7
2 Dark Depths
4 hexmage
1 Tendrils

Draw/Search = 8
4 Confidant
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imp. Seal

The Insanez! = 1
1 Yawgmoth's WINZ!

Backup Plan = 4
4 Bitterblossom

Disruption = 15
4 Duress
3 Therapy
4 Gatekeeper
3 Sadsac

= 60 cards MB

Now for the sideboard:
3 Jailer/Extirpate <-- Own choice
3 Needle
1 Massacre/Infest <-- Own choice
3 Innocent Blood <--- With the mainboard blossom this thing is insane vs shops and such Jank.dec
2 Jitte
3 Null Rod <--- This is needed to kill tezz.


U should give this a try and tell me what you think. SB can always be changed but MB is good enough to kick shop in le nuts if you can open with turn 1/2 Blossom

[the boogie man]

Why bitter blossom? is that just the most efficient threat at the mana cost or something? and also, why therapy over thoughtseize? you have to wait until you find a blossom or cast a confidant, which you probably don't want to sac anyway, or a gatekeeper, which you probably want to kick.

I also really like the utility of diabolic edict being an instant at 2 mana. you can kill of a goyf, for example, before they lay something else. And I would want another depths, so I could rely on not needing a tutor. I would also feel better about consultation-ing with 3 in my deck.

With that said, have you thought about contamination? it is sick with blossom, and you already run urborg, why not lock them on black? and it makes for an excellent tutor target when you have a blossom but none of the depths combo.

If I was to play this, this would be my list:

Your list (ArtOvWar)

-3 therapy
-2 gatekeeper
-1 urborg
-5 swamp
-1 sadistic sacrament

+1 contamination
+3 thoughtseize
+4 fetch
+1 edict
+3 chalice of the void

3 Chalice seems strange, but I think you would love to play chalice on 0, but hate it everywhere else. You only run 3 0-mana accelerants, and wastelands. And with 3, you reduce the risk of drawing multiple useless copies. At the very least you could pitch extras to chalice on a will turn. These also interact really well with the rods in the board. And with contamination, you gain the ability to completely lock them out of non-black. Maybe 24 mana is too low (20 free sources, 4 dark rit), but the deck doesn't seem very mana intensive.

And I think thoughtseize is way better than therapy.

[doctrellor]

19 mana sources (Ritual isn't free) seems a tad low.  You can't always rely on Dark Ritual and you want to hit 3 black mana asap to cast Sad Sac or a clutch Gatekeeper.

Demonic Consultation is better so long as you run 3 of the cards you are trying to find. 

Put Jitte in the sb.  Focus on getting the 20/20 indestructible flyer in play.  Here are 2 slots open for Dark Depths.  Personally I would want 3.

Yeah -- I normally use Consultation - and only for 2 life --

Jitte in the SB eh? but with all the damage I'm getting -- the jittes are there for life that I need -- and 3 with only 12 critters, isn't that a bit much? (not like I have say 16 critters, where 3 would make perfect sense)

True -- the whole flavor of the deck has gone from Aggro to striking it rich with a quick combo .. So the key is to get the combo out fast.

[doctrellor]

4 Bitterblossom
3 Therapy

3 Innocent Blood <--- With the mainboard blossom this thing is insane vs shops and such Jank.dec

Yeah I was looking at Bitterblossums .. I got tired of running into flying critters at yesterdays tournament. I'll run that list (although for me, I like Thoughtseize a bit better, since I could look at thier hand and give me an idea what they're up to .. lol). But wth all the self-damage, which is why I would have the Jitte's MD .. but your list looks very cool.

[vassago]

A few things:

19 mana sources (Ritual isn't free) seems a tad low.

Demonic Consultation is better so long as you run 3 of the cards you are trying to find.  Two cards might be ok, but its a tad risky.

Focus on getting the 20/20 indestructible flyer in play.  Here are 2 slots open for Dark Depths.  Personally I would want 3.

Try playing with at least a few fetchlands.  Deck thinning is quite helpful.  If you splash a color (U or G) it would give you a variety of sb options.

See if you can get by with fewer Sad Sacs.

JItte is shit unless everybody and their mother plays zoo or some other aggro B-S.  Gatekeeper also sucks. I like I seal, but tis not everybody's cup of tea. 

You really only need two-ish diabolic edicts.  Odds are, you big fat dark depths tokens will eat everything out of the way, including the poor sap on the other side of the table. 

Some people have used Leylines of the Void and Helm of Obedience in their decks as additional win conditions. I like this, it works well.  Try it.

Urborg tomb of yawgmoth.  It's good. It makes alll your swamps into swamps, plus your other non swampy lands.   

[AmbivalentDuck]

Given the format you describe, I strongly suggest playing a legacy deck with a few vintage staples thrown in to be stupid.

Maybe even just spring for a Time Vault and own your local meta?  It'd cost less than a set of Underground Seas or Tarmogoyfs.

[Delha]

Given the format you describe, I strongly suggest playing a legacy deck with a few vintage staples thrown in to be stupid.

Agreed w/ this. Sui typically does what it does by preying on the very finely tuned nature of Vintage combo or control. You wreck their hand and mana, then beat down unopposed. Sui traditionally falters once they start dropping creatures. If you're looking at an aggro meta, that's not a good sign. This seems to be supported by the fact that you're pushing Depths and Tendrils for kills, have relatively few creatures for beatdown, and a heavy removal package.

While I was in college, my meta was probably pretty similar to yours. If you want to win (and don't mind drawing a lot of flack), balls out combo tends to trump almost anything in that sort of field. Something like ANT would probably dominate. I'd recommend that you have a much "fairer" backup to play most of time though. People get tired of being quickly and unanswerably stomped pretty quick.

I had a really jank welder/affinity build going, and practically never got to play it without hearing complaints. Hell, one of my buddies still calls me "The Dirty One" (or variants thereof) for all the decks I used to run back then.

[RecklessEmbermage]

Alternatively, run pox. It owns most creature decks and all the discard hurts combo and control. There are bound to be tried and tuned lists out there, but I would start with something like this:

4 dark depths
4 urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
4 wasteland
1 strip mine
4 swamp
5 fetch

3 crucible of worlds
4 mox diamond (Dark ritual here and null rod instead of leylines and helm if the meta calls for it)
1 helm of obedience
4 leyline of the void

4 vampire hexmage

4 duress
2 thoughtseize
2 raven's crime
3 hymn to tourach
4 smallpox
4 pox
1 demonic tutor
1 consultation
1 vampiric

[Delha]

I totally recommend Pox. It's brutal, but at least your opponents feel more like they played a round, instead of just sitting down and scooping twice inside 10 min.