Suicide Black for the Suicidal

[Ephraim]

I've always looked at Suicide Black and wondered, "What's the guy playing that deck really doing to kill himself?" I mean, it's called Suicide, right? Where's the wrist-slitting goodness? My Suicide Black deck eschews the passe disruption tools of yesteryear in favour of a more grisly end for both the player using the deck and the opponent.

(By the way, while I've couched this as a joke this is a deck I actually play. It's loads of fun in casual arenas - particularly multiplayer games, since it effectively deals with many players at once)

Creatures (32)
4 Maggot Carrier
4 Carnophage
4 Shepherd of Rot
4 Blind Creeper
4 Wretched Anurid
4 Gangrenous Zombies
4 Vengeful Dead
4 Gempalm Polluter

Spells (8)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Vicious Hunger

Land (20)
20 Snow-Covered Swamp

As previously suggested, the goal of this deck is to kill the opponent just a little faster than you kill yourself. The mana-curve's pretty tight, so it doesn't often get mana-screwed.

Blind Creeper, Wretched Anurid, and Shepherd of Rot are the core of the deck's offense. Shepherd of Rot makes this deck a house in multi-player games.

It's fairly straightforward aggro besides the Shepherds of Rot. The Gempalm Polluters also take advantage of the deck's numerous Zombies. Vengeful Dead is a formidable creature in its own right and also helps to make chump blocks worth something. Finally, with a load of creatures on the table (at least one Vengeful Dead and one Gangrenous Zombie), I can sweep my own side of the table clean with the Gangrenous Zombie, sending a bunch of Zombies to the graveyard at once, for a large stroke from the Vengeful Dead.

[Shabbaman]

This might be like stating the obvious, but if you're running the V.D., throw in a couple of tombstone stairwells. Patriarch's bidding can be an awesome finisher as well.

Oh.

If you throw in the stairwell, you might want to reconsider running the wretched anurid.

[Ephraim]

It isn't stating the obvious, but nor is Tombstone Stairwell necessarily the right card for this deck, either. It's a very situational card. I would only ever cast it with a Vengeful Dead in play and then only if I had plenty of mana to spare. The Tombspawn tokens aren't bad, but typically, there would only be three or four of them in play, when Tombstone Stairwell would leave play, which yields a relatively small amount of damage for a significant investment of mana and time -- and not all of the creatures it creatures would even belong to me. (Yes, I've read the card properly, but this deck doesn't kill many creatures, nor do its creatures tend to die a lot, except when I want them to.)

Neither Tombstone Stairwell nor Patriarch's Bidding seem useful until after I've detonated a Gangrenous Zombies to send a bunch of creatures to the 'yard, in which case, I should already have won the game.