Suicide decks

[walkingdude]

A simple thought. Suppose you reversed the victory conditions in magic. You win if your life is 0, if you are unable to draw a card, you have 10 poison counters, or some other effect says you lose the game.

What is the best strategy/deck list? Note, that I’m thinking about 1 on 1 games here, not gold fishing. So its possible that the best strategy is to disrupt the opponent and take control before eventually losing.

I think though, that the best deck possible is some form of black suicide. Spoils is insane, as in necro, consult etc.

Here was my first attempt

//NAME: Suicide
        4 Unmask
        4 Duress
// search/draw
        4 Lim-Dul's Vault
        4 Tainted Pact
        4 Death Wish
        3 Spoils of the Vault
        1 Demonic Consultation
        1 Necropotence
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Vampiric Tutor
// mana
        4 Cabal Ritual
        4 Dark Ritual
        2 Snow-Covered Swamp
        2 Swamp
        2 Polluted Delta
        2 Bloodstained Mire
        2 Flooded Strand
        4 Underground Sea
        1 Chrome Mox
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Lotus Petal
        1 Mana Vault
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Sol Ring

SB 1 spoils of the vault

The basic idea is to find spoils and search for hunted wumpus. You can also use the vaults to kill yourself.  One might want to replace the pacts with special bindings to get 4 more win conditions, but I think the search might be better cause the deck is mana tight and the off color isn’t as reliable. Wall of blood also looks good, but 3 mana is pricey. It may turn out to be better than vault though since its all black and can be ritualed out.

[CmdrSam]

I never thought I'd say this, but you should probably play Blood Celebrant. It's an instant suicide as soon as you get open.

Since you're playing blue and black, Cavern Harpy is also instant death, as are Lim-Dul's Vault and Spatial Binding.

It seems like nobody in this format should survive past the 2nd turn if you mulligan aggressively, so you might need to play Force of Will.

--Sam L-L

[Krizzyn]

Wall of blood.  Can be powerd out by dark rit, lotus.  Once it hit's the table, you're done.

[walkingdude]

thanks, I think I'll replace the pacts with Blood Celebrant. Why search when you can just win.

Also I've been gold fishing and the number of times you win on the first turn with duress or unmask backup is crazy. I think even with force another deck of this type would just go right through it. I think this format might be inherently degenerate. Though it is possible that restrictions would slow it down to allow for actual games.

[Toad]

I'm often playing this format with a friend on Apprentice, but we have settled some specific rules in order to make the format viable. Blood Cerebrant or Wall of Blood are obviously overpowered here. Hence we have a rule which says "If a player would lose life, instead he wins that amount of life". This fixes Blood Cerebrant. We have also banned auto loss cards such as Demonic Consultation, which allows stupid turn 2 kills. There are a lot of cards that have to be watched here. My pet deck in this format is a Rector based Boomerang Lich deck. It's kinda fun. Combo are the best deck choices.

[Fëanor]

with the technique you use to determine wins there are some other borken cards.

leveler
lich + disenchant
doomsday
final fortune
dragon with laquatus    
dragon with pretty much anything else
dragon with X casting cost draw or burn spells
channel
underworld dreams...plus draw engine, like greed, or how about DUH, necro...bargain...
copper tablet + time walk infinite turn combo
tog...Fling your own tog at yourself....okay thats just too goofy
paradigm shift
ankh + fetch + fastbond + burn
you could play nice big creatures like cosmic horror and lord of the pit which give you pain when you dont pay for them next turn.

if you want to take literal control, think of the ways one would normally stay alive, then Trix it. donate worship, ali, lich, platinum angel...etc.

if im just wasting time here, say so and ill post back with thoughts concerning your decklist instead...but the list i gave may give you some ideas.

peace

[DavidHernandez]

With Lich, i think you go to zero immediately, so you would satisfy the victory condition.

dave.

[xrizzo]

Channel seems like an easy suicide.  GG isnt too tough to get - just need a bunch of elves, concoordinate crossroads, ESG, lotus, emerald....

I bet you could mulligan into a first turn loss 75% of the time...

[Pyrthas]

Why are you only using 3 Spoils? You Spoils for a card that isn't in your deck and you win. I think your best bet is just to mulligan until you get a Spoils or Consultation, though, and hope your opponent didn't play first.