1st place Bg Knives at Crazy Cards 11/2

[ump]

I think we almost didn't have a tournament on Saturday as we barely made eight people.  I believe a lot of people went to Type 2 - States or whatever that was.

It took me a while and several different configurations including splashing blue (for brokenness and Avatar of Will) and monoblack (suicide build minus the one drops), but I finally won a tournament.  Here is a decklist.

1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
4 Bayou
4 Tainted Woods
9 Swamp
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
4 Hypnotic Spector
4 Phyrexian Negator
1 River Boa
1 Masticore
1 Spiritmonger
4 Duress
4 Hymn To Tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Regrowth
4 Dark Ritual

1 Demonic Consultation
3 Planar Void
1 Nantuko Shade
2 Order of the Ebon Hand
1 River Boa
2 Powder Keg
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Filth
1 Perish
1 Tsunami

I suppose a justification of the deck is needed.  This is a butterknives deck so it loses the suicide aspect of suicide black in an attempt at some creature control to handle aggro decks.  (By the way, I hate the name butterknives, but that seems to be it's accepted name.  My friend suggested Dirty Deeds.)  It splashes green mostly for Pernicious Deed.  However, it sticks to the theme of monoblack decks, so it desperately wants black mana early;   therefore, no forests at all.  With less green sources, it can afford less greens spells.  So the number of boas, mongers, and other green spells are limited.  In my experience so far with this decks, the only change from the main deck I would make would be to replace the River Boa with something else such as another Masticore (I currently own only the one).  Prior to this tournament, I was running 2 River Boas in the main deck, but felt I needed the one Masticore I own to improve my odds against Sligh (which I still lost to on Sunday.  Ideally, I would run up to 4 Masticores between main deck and sideboard.)  Also, with the victory, I was able to get two fetch lands to replace swamps.  I would think that 2 more fetch lands may be the right number.  Note that the fetch lands replace the swamps and not the tainted lands because although the fetchlands get you the land, they are still not a source of mana.

The sideboard is a little more complicated.  I would say one of my biggest weaknesses is bad sideboarding.  Planar Void did not work well and has bad synergy with deeds.  I replaced the shade and voids with 2 Tormod's Crypt and 2 Ebony Charm, but I am still unsure if I like that form of graveyard hate.  (To those that don't know, graveyard hate is a must in this metagame.)  Demonic Consultation has been very good to me as far as finding defensive answers.  I use Order of the Ebon Hand instead of Nantuko Shade because there are matchups where the protection from white come in very handy.  Also, Shades tend to tie up all my mana as I go in an all out attack, but now I want to keep mana available sometimes for the deed.  I haven't used Filth yet, but I assume they would be good in some matchups, especially mirrors to make sure the Negator gets through unharmed.  Perish is an answer to some green decks that I've had problems with prior to splashing green.  I am unharmed by Perish (other than River Boas) as Spiritmonger can change colors.  Tsunami is an addition I made mainly because I still lost to grow last week and I forgot about green's anti-blue abilities that can come in handy.  Tsunami seems better than Choke because of the deed.

Sorry about the acutal tournament report as my memory is shaky and I don't take notes.  I just enjoy playing there so I don't bother with notes.

Round 1 - Earthcraft [/u](1-2 match loss)

Game 1 - Early negator to victory?  I just remember that this game was an easy win.

I forget how I sided against him.

Game 2 - The game seemed to be going very well for me.  I think I had a negator and a spiritmonger on the board with him huritng.  I had a deed in play.  He had a earthcraft on the board and casts a Squirrel Nest.  End of turn, I pop the deed for 3 to get rid of the enchantment.  He responds by using the Squirrel Nest to get a million squirrels.  For whatever reason, I overlook that he didn't rid of the tokens and give up the loss as a million tokens kill me the next turn.  I didn't even notice it until someone mentions it after the game.

Game 3 - I don't remember the details, but this time he gets his combo and I don't have an answer.  I want to say I stopped the combo at least once and he replenished it, but I am unsure.

Round 2 - Cocoa Pebbles [/u](2-0 match win)

This is my friend so I probably know his deck as well as he does.  He always had bad matchups against me that will probably change as he gets his jewelry (moxes and lotus).  As far as I remember, early creature beatdown both games.

Round 3 - Parfait [/u](0-1 match loss)

Game 1 - I have a bad memory.  I knew the first game would be hard, but there were a few times I thought I had the advantage only to lose it.  Chances are he used a replenish for the win.

I sided in kegs, planar voids, consultation, order of the ebon hand, river boa, and shade and sided out hymns, wastelands, edicts.

Game 2 - Humility hurt me as a Negator and a Spiritmonger became 1/1s.  Sacred Mesa punished me for a few turns.  I managed to get a deed to get rid of everything except the monger, but I think he had a swords ready.  Then I had to go to defense mode as I denied him the second win before time expired.  He almost pulled it out on the fifth extra turn before time expired.  I think I had a Keg ready for his tokens.  Still a match loss though.

Round 4 - Rebels [/u](2-0 match win)

This is the same rebels deck that just beat Nether Void (and won on Sunday).  Deed kills rebels.  I think one of the games I was able to use a Black Lotus 3 times in one game with the normal cast, regrowth, and will.  A bit of land denial went a long way.  I think I sided in Order of the Ebon Hand and possibly more creatures, some edicts, and the kegs.  I probably sided out hymns, necro, and negators(?).

Playoffs[/u]

At the time, I was unsure how I edged out in the tiebreakers to make fourth seed.  However, looking back, I did really well for a 2-2 match record as my game record was 5-3 (63% game win percentage).  I would have been really disappointed if I didn't make the playoffs because of my oversight the first round.

Playoff Round 1 - Rebels [/u](2-1 match win)

I win the first and lose the second.  I forget any details other than deeds do their job.

Game 3 - A late game Will wins as I recur a deed and put an Order of the Ebon Hand back into play from the graveyard to finish him off the next turn.  I believe he had at least one swords in his hand that he couldn't use on my creature.

Playoff Round 2 - Parfait [/u](2-1 match win)

Game 1 - First turn negator.  Attack, attack, attack.  He manages to get a story circle after the second attack, plays it the next turn tapping out, and I get one final attack before he shuts down the negator.  I play creatures, he removes them (swords, wrath of god, etc.).  He even manages to wrath my spiritmonger.  He gets enchantments, I get deed to get rid of them.  This goes on a few times.  He eventually gets a replenish and gets all his enchantments back.  Among the enchantments that came back were 2 Aura of Silence.  He attacks with Pegasus tokens, I attack with a River Boa, he blocks it, I regenerate it.  I eventually get another deed, but not enough mana to pay for it and pop it for 3 with the multiple Aura of Silences out.

Side out 3 wasteland, 4 sinkhole, 2 edict, 1 necro; in: 1 Demonic Consultation, 3 Planar Void, 2 Powder Keg, 2 Order of the Ebon Hand, 1 River Boa, 1 Nantuko Shade.  Note that this time I took out Sinkholes instead of Hymns.

Game 2 - I forget the details, but I believe it was early spectors, hymns, and more creatures.

Game 3 - He needs to mulligan to 5 cards.  Early spectors, mutliple hymns, more creatures.  It doesn't help him that he was 1 land short of a Balance before I make him discard it.

I am unsure if the hymns worked out better for me than sinkholes would have.  I assume that it would.

Awards:[/u]
MVP - Pernicious Deed - This card provides me with the best defense of any suicide/knives decks I had so far.
Most Underrated - Wasteland - Short of Teferi's Response, an uncounterable land destruction that goes a long way.
Most Overrated - River Boa - I am considering dropping these in favor of either another Spiritmonger or just more Masticores.  It just doesn't provide the beef needed for this deck.

On Sunday, I changed 3 Planar Void and 1 Nantuko Shade for 2 Tormod's Crypt and 2 Ebony Charm.  I lost 1-2 to sligh, won 2-1 to grow, lost 1-2 to grow (the one that won the tournament), and won 2-0 to pebbles.

[Matt The Great]

I would leave Hymn in over Sinkholes. They both suck against Land Tax (which fills up the hand with garbage lands to ward against Hymn) but at least Hymn has a good chance of catching something important...Sinkhole does nothing of import against a deck packing 4x Land Tax.

And yes, Deed certainly is "the bomb." In more ways than one.

In the "Parfait" vs. "any Deed-packing deck" matchup it is all about Aura vs. Deed. Really.

How did the Tainted Woods work out for you? Packing 9 swamps and 4 Bayou I kept having problems running only one Wood. I can't imagine having four didn't bite you in the ass at least once.

I can't see Filth being a good sideboard card for you, as you have no good way to consistently get it in the graveyard. Try Compost.\n\n

[ump]

The tainted lands have worked great for me and essentially act as dual lands.  Except for the tainted lands, all my black lands are either swamps or count as swamps.  The only time the tainted lands don't work is when you only have tainted lands.  So far in my experience, this only cost me once as far as I can remember.  That was back in GenCon when I faced reanimator.  In the third game, I went second and mulliganed down to 4 cards digging for a Planar Void.  I kept a hand of Black Lotus, Tainted Isle, Hypnotic Spector, and something else.  I got the Black Lotus duressed away and topdecked a Planar Void with no way to cast it.  Of course a Verdant Force followed next turn and I was dead.  Other than that, I have mulliganed surprisingly few times because I only had tainted lands.  I don't recall any games I have played where I faced land destruction and was stuck with only tainted lands.  They probably went for the tainted anyways.

Filth was only a late additional last week.  So far I have never sided it in, so I have no idea if it is good enough to see play.  After that first time, I thought it was a wasted slot, but for whatever reason I haven't taken it out yet.  I also considered using Filth against other decks that use Underground Seas.

[Matt The Great]

Right, but your only ways to get Flith in your graveyard are to either get 8 cards in hand and discard it, or to cast it and kill it (sac to Negator, blow it up with Deed, Edict yourself).

And what decks with Underground Sea do you face that also have blockers?

[ump]

It just occurred to me that you (Matt the Great) are the creator of the PT Funk deck that I saw on the other forum a while back.  I was already building my deck at that point, but there are a few things that I saw in your deck that influenced my decision for this deck, so I wanted to give you some credit.  It didn't occur to me that I could run Spiritmongers or River Boas in this deck until I saw your decklist.  Of course, I had a slightly different idea in mind than your deck and you see the differences.

As far as Filth is concerned, it will be removed as soon as I get more Masticores and maybe even before that.  Other than these two tournaments, I played this deck one other tournament.  The deck was missing the Masticore, Tsumani, and Perish in favor of Nantuko Shade (the other River Boa was maindeck) and 2 Contagions.  I lost to Sligh(0-2), beat Zoo(2-1), beat Control(2-0), beat Trix (2-1?), and lost to Grow(0-2).  So obviously, I need to do better against aggro and Masticores should help there.  Also, there could be enough green to support another Spiritmonger.

[Matt The Great]

Yep, that's me. Just be careful not to go too heavy on the 4cc+ guys (Core and Mongers). I run two Mongers and no Cores, and I haven't ever caught myself wishing for more or less.

I might point out that River Boas are pretty good against both Gro and Sligh, unless the Gro is a U/g/w version. The thing about Boa is that while it's not particularly great against anything but monoblue, it's not BAD in any matchup except combo (it is far too slow of a clock and doesn't disrupt like Specter). The fact that it regenerates through Deed was almost an afterthought for me.

I was surprised at just how similar our decks were to each other, even down to things like 2/2 Edicts main/board. If I were to try and include Sinkholes in my deck it would probably come out 90% like yours. I think you've made good choices on what to remove - I just didn't include the Sinks in the original deck and never felt a need for them.

As a final note, I've removed Emerald from my deck for a(nother) Llanowar Waste because it didn't accelerate anything really important out, and often I'd have to blow a Deed that set my mana back to like two land or something.\n\n

[ump]

Sinkholes have been invaluable to me.  I would sooner get rid of Hymn than I would get rid of Sinkhole.  There are many games that laying down a negator or spector early followed by sinkholes, wastelands, and strip mine bought me all the time I need to win the game even with only one creature.

My intention is to swap the River Boa maindeck for either another Masticore or Spiritmonger.  If I had more Masticores in the sideboard, they would come in as a replacement for Negators against most aggro decks.

I guess my concern with River Boas is not only that it's small and most of the time I drew it I wished it was a Negator or a Spiritmonger, but it requires an early commitment to green, more than I can afford with my mana distribution.  My top priority is to get 2 black mana sources in the first two turns.  I would think it would be kind of disappointing to have a Dark Ritual in your opening hand with only the River Boa.  Also, with many decks running Wastelands of their own, all the other green cards in the deck only need one use of the green mana to be effective, so they can destroy the land if they want, but it would be too late at that point because I already did what I wanted to do.  These are the reasons why River Boas have a decreased role in my deck.