(Deck) Undead

[policehq]

Ever since Eric Miller won Worlds with his deck The Man Show, Chains of Mephistopheles has proven an excellent source of hate against the meta-game. Alongside The Man Show was Smmennen-Blue in the Top 8, and ever since a lot of people have been abusing mass-counters and Back To Basics against the meta. I wanted to take these two decks into account and make a deck that has resilience against combo and control, two dominant forces in every meta-game. Thus, I've been testing Sui-Black for over a month now, and it's had very good results. Here is the list, and some explanations and match-ups:

1 Black Lotus
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Jet
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
7 Swamp
4 Wasteland

4 Phyrexian Negator
4 Nantuko Shade
2 Masticore
4 Sarcomancy
2 Withered Wretch

4 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Duress
1 Mind Twist
1 Necropotence
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Sideboard
4 Coffin Purge
4 Diabolic Edict
1 Masticore
4 Null Rod
2 Withered Wretch

First, the card explanations:
Chains of Mephistopheles - This card shuts down all draw, nullifying the heavy counters from mono-blue, Draw-7s, Yawgmoth's Will, etc. It is the key to making this deck competitive (more on this in match-ups).

Chalice of the Void [and no MD Null Rod] - With the little artifact acceleration in the deck, you can afford to drop a first turn Chalice of the Void for zero counters alongside some sort of threat (Dark Ritual -> Phyrexian Negator or Sarcomancy). If you do draw artifact acceleration and/or Dark Rituals, you can prevent the casting of Goblin Welders, Brainstorms, half of Fish's deck, etc.

Demonic Consultation - Absolutely perfect tutor in this deck with Dark Rituals and hate cards that cost two mana (Chalice of the Void with 1 counter or Chains of Mephistopheles). Though it is risky against decks that play Mindslaver, since it is an instant, I am not worried about losing to it.

Phyrexian Negator - There is so little burn out there that the sacrificing of permanents is not a problem, and then the creature has plenty of things to eat in the late game (a Necropotence after drawing ten or so cards, a Chalice of the Void when your hand is full of cards it counters, extra Chains of Mephistopheles, extra land, Sarcomancy since it produces a creature when it comes into play, a Masticore when you have no cards in hand, etc.). The problem with Chains of Mephistopheles and Chalice of the Void are that most opponents have an answer somewhere for them. Whether it's in their sideboard and they have to wish for it, or it's in their maindeck waiting to be drawn, you need a fast clock to ensure that they do not draw it.

Withered Wretch - Helps against Crucible of Worlds, random.dec with Threshold/Flashback, Yawgmoth's Will, Regrowth, Dragon.dec, GroATog.dec, Grim Lavamancer eating at your Phyrexian Negator, etc.

Masticore - Eats fish and Goblin Welders, which is enough in my opinion.

Cards that aren't in the deck, and why:
Sinkhole - The card is just bad. It was in Sui-Black back in the days of old when Chains of Mephistopheles hadn't been realized as good disruption, and now Crucible of Worlds is so prevalent that this slow land destruction is completely useless.

Dauthi creatures - These proved to be too slow at two mana, and they're even less effective since they cannot block.

Null Rod - Proved to be too redundant to include in the maindeck alongside Chalice of the Void, and it prevents your Masticore from regenerating and eating your opponent's creatures.

Nevinnyral's Disk - Your opponent really shouldn't have that many permanents on board between Chalice of the Void and Chains of Mephistopheles, so usually the two of you will be in top-decking mode, and your creatures are more powerful. Secondly, disk has bad synnergy with Chains of Mephistopheles.

Night's Whisper - Two life and three cards for two cards? Nah.

Mishra's Factory - When I made this deck, I wanted to take complete advantage of the opponent's Wastelands and Back to Basics, so this card didn't get any dice.

Hymn To Tourach - There just wasn't room really, and Chalice of the Void and Chains of Mephistopheles can often make two of the cards in your opponent's hand obsolete, if not more.

The sideboard:

It would seem that the entire sideboard is built against Dragon, with the Coffin Purges, extra Withered Wretches, and Diabolic Edicts, but that's simply a bonus.

Diabolic Edict - Comes in against Oath of Druids, Dragon, Tog, Exalted Angel, and workshop Aggro.

Coffin Purge - Helps against Dragon, Meandeath, Goblin Welder, Tog, Flashback, Squee, etc.

Null Rod - Comes in for 12 hate cards against early-game combo decks like MaskNaught, Belcher, and Tendrils.

Match-ups:
Mono-blue - This is a favorable match-up because you are shutting down their draw-engines, forcing them and yourself into top-deck mode. Fortunately they have 2 Morphlings and 12-15 counters whereas you have 16 clocks with 3 tutors, Necropotence, and Yawgmoth's Will.

Sideboarding: -2 Masticore, +2 Withered Wretch. Diabolic Edict would seem to be a nice choice, but usually they have a useless Ophidian to sacrifice in place of Morphling. Masticores are faster clocks, but only once they are in play, and discarding cards is detrimental when you are facing counters.

4cc Control - Like Mono-Blue except better since they have more emphasis on drawing and less counters. Duress their Force of Will and/or draw spell and then resolve a Chalice of the Void for 1 and Chains of Mephistopheles. Diabolic Edict is a house post-sideboard.

Tendrils/Belcher - These are my favorite match-ups because neither deck has a chance of winning this deck unless they go first. Aggressively mulligan into an early Chains of Mephistopheles and beat them down while they're trying to find an answer. Chalice of the Void for 1 and/or 2 usually finishes them off. The best part about Chains of Mephistopheles is that all the disruption these decks play is usually against artifacts.

Dragon - Once again, a great match-up because your deck and sideboard seem to be built just to beat Dragon.

Fish - This match-up is similar to Fish vs. Workshop-Aggro since you're playing slightly bigger creatures, but here also you can counter the majority of their deck with Chalice of the Void and prevent them from drawing cards from Standstill, Curiosity, Brainstorm, etc. with Chains of Mephistopheles.

Sideboarding: -4 Phyrexian Negator, -1 Mana Crypt, -1 Mind Twist, +2 Withered Wretch, +4 Diabolic Edict.

And, of course, the problem match-ups [as in, these are the ones you're going to lose.]:

FCG - Your only hope really is to get an early Chalice of the Void for 2, countering Goblin Recruiter and Goblin Piledriver and then Duress their Food Chain. Even then, they can rush you with Goblin Ringleader and a swarm, and sometimes you don't have a first turn answer for that annoying Lackey.

Sideboarding: -4 Chains of Mephistopheles, -2 Phyrexian Negator, +2 Withered Wretch, +4 Diabolic Edict

Stax - You have such a low permanent count and a terrible problem working around Trinisphere, so really there's no hope for you to win, frankly.

Tips on playing the deck: Early tutors go for Necropotence or Mind Twist (obviously excepting Demonic Consultation), early Duress goes for any wish card, and try to mulligan into a Chains of Mephistopheles if you don't know what your opponent is playing. When playing against any deck with black, be sure to use Withered Wretch on your opponent's spells in graveyard to help against Yawgmoth's Will.

There you have it: a completely honest article about a deck that's brought back from the dead. I've been trying desparately to revive Sui-Black for a few months now, but it seems that it's purely a meta-game call. This deck is powerful in high-powered metas that don't use too many Mishra's Workshops. You win against fish, control, and combo, which is important, but if you expect FCG or Stax, don't take this to your tourney.

Barry

EDIT: Decklist was missing Necropotence.

[Bulls on Parade]

I'm not going to lie to you- I do not think this archetype is viable. However, I have a friend who stuck to it pretty inflexibly back in the day, and he won a lot of matches he had no business winning because of the sideboard we came up with. Sideboarding the Dragon combo will really let you stomp on aggro and Stax becomes marginally less terrible for you. I'd suggest running something like:
SB: 4 Buried Alive
SB: 2 Worldgorger Dragon
SB: 1 Ambassador Laquatus
SB: 4 Animate Dead
SB: 4? Necromancy

I'd also seriously consider running some MD Graveyard hate outside of Wretch, obviously swapping that out before you side in the combo. Maybe something like
-1 Chalice
-1 Mind Twist
-1 artifact mana (Chrome or Petal)
+3 Planar Void

[freakish777]

Having played Sui for a long time (even after JP announced it dead, largely due to the fact that money is in fact an issue for me) there are some things I disagree with in your list.

A quick sidenote though, you are absolutely right on the metagame call.  Don't bring this unless it is going to have a complete surprise value for your meta.  Even if it does have the element of surprise you actually have to do a fair amount of playtesting (which you wouldn't expect for an aggro deck)... so basically, for the majority of people this isn't worth the hassle when you could play "something better" (ie, something you will do better with).




1 Black Lotus
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Chrome Mox            (1)
4 Dark Ritual
1 Lotus Petal               (2)
1 Mana Crypt              (3)
1 Mox Jet
1 Sol Ring                   (3)
1 Strip Mine
7 Swamp                    (4)
4 Wasteland

4 Phyrexian Negator    (5)
4 Nantuko Shade         (6)
2 Masticore                 (5)
4 Sarcomancy             (6)
2 Withered Wretch       (7)

4 Chains of Mephistopheles  (8)
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Chalice of the Void           (9)
4 Duress
1 Mind Twist                        (10)
1 Necropotence
1 Vampiric Tutor                  (11)
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Sideboard         (all of this could be changed)
4 Coffin Purge
4 Diabolic Edict
1 Masticore
4 Null Rod
2 Withered Wretch



1:  Chrome Mox is unnecessary in my opinion, especially when you have moderate acceleration in Ritual, in an aggro deck.  However you seem to be playing with more acceleration to try and push the envelope.  The problem I have with this is that becomes extremely easy to over extend.

2:  Again, I think this is unnecessary, I'd change this for a basic swamp, however its better than Chrome Mox.

3:  The colorless mana seems unnecessary as well, its appears to only be able to help you with Mind Twist, Yawg's Will, Negator and Chalice.  While this in fact makes up 1/6 your deck, I'll get around to why I don't like Negator and Chalice.

4:  That said on your acceleration (that I think you'll wind up over-extending) I think your basic land count is low by two.

5:  Let's skip the creatures for a second, and go to the disruption.

8:  4 Chains seems a bit high, I've found that 3 works well enough, however this is your call.

9:  I'm not really a fan of Chalice here.  I'm much more tempted to play with less acceleration and then play with a two pronged attack in place of Chalice (and the extra Chains) by using Null Rod and Crucible of Worlds instead.

10:  Mind Twist, even with all that acceleration, I'm not a fan of Mind Twist in an aggro deck.  

11:  Vampiric Tutor I am also not a fan of due to the card-disadvantage.  V-Tutor works in 4cc because it's fetching the right bomb for the situation at hand, where as you're fetching Yawg's Win, Necro (which is a bad move in my opinion) or Mind Twist, as you'll rarely want to waste a turn going and fetching a creature or something else.

5:  Back to the creatures...

The "Fat" isn't all that great in my opinion.  Negator has a large drawback and dies to Fire/Ice, Lavamancer, and opposing creatures.  Masticore is not a lot of fun with Null Rod, which would be handy if you could use it more effectively.

6:  The quick beats, I think that the number of shades can be dropped by one.  He is capable of putting a quick clock on your opponent, but is that really what we want?  I've never been a fan of the Zombies...

7:  The utility creatures.  I think you can afford to up the Wretches by one in the maindeck.  He's not all that bad for 2 mana either.



In any event, I think Suicide has a more "promising" (read, less dead) future with a build that looks something along the lines of:

Mana:
9 Swamp
4 Wasteland
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
4 Dark Ritual

Mana-Denial:
1 Strip Mine
4 Fetchlands
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Sinkhole (or Encroach*)
3 Null Rod

Stripping their Hand:
4 Duress
3 Chains
4 Hymn to Tourach (or Cabal Therapy)

Digging:

Demonic Consultation
Demonic Tutor
Necropotence

Beating the Opponent:

2 Razormane Masticore
4 Hypnotic Specter
3 Withered Wretch
3 Nantuko Shade
1 Yawgmoth's Will


Some quick explanations...

None of your creatures initial purpose is to beat the opponent other than Nantuko shade.  

Specter is playing a similar role as Ophidian in MUC, with the added bonus that he still deals damage.  

Withered Wretch is to handle Welders, making Tog small, stopping Dragon, stopping YWin randomly, Deep Analysis before it can be flashed back, their lands in their graveyard after you blow them up (in case they have Crucible in play), Accumulated Knowledge, Skeletal Scrying, Squee and possibly Wonder/Genesis.  

Razormane obviously is here to mop up welders, and other creatures that you wouldn't be able to otherwise in addition to a 5/5 body (with first strike, which can be handy against Juggernaut, though you'll probably lose that match-up).


The disruption:

Sinkhole is not a "good card" anymore.  It is a support card.  Wasteland and strip mine are far superior.  However, its still plays support for that second Workshop that is dropped after you stripped the first one.  Or that second white mana source that 4cc puts down after you nailed the first.  You'll notice there really isn't a way to deal with Exalted Angel, that's because attacking the white mana in 4cc is a better option then trying to get rid of it once its in play.

Hymn to Tourach is only for those that aren't afraid of the fact that it could randomly take out your opponents Wurms, or Mindslaver.  I haven't had a problem with it.  If you want, replace with cabal therapy.

Duress is self explanatory.

Any more than 3 Chains of Mephistopheles is overly redundant.  You want to see one of them the entire game.  Never really 2.  Chains makes anything with Bazaar of Baghdad suddenly hate you if they haven't already gotten their use out of it (which is one of the reasons I have had much trouble with Wurms or Rootwallas).  About the only problem with Chains is if they have an active Library of Alexandria on the to draw in their draw step.

Null Rod stops jewelry for a while, Crucible provides a soft lock against... well almost everything, and Wretch makes sure their Crucible is irrelevant.


The SB:

2 More Razormanes
1 More Wretch
1 More Crucible
3 Chalice of the Void (to safe guard agaisnt combo)
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 something tailored to your meta.



Again though, the entire deck is going to be tailored to surprising your meta game.

It has a ton of fun against 4cc, MUC, some Control Slaver builds (though this feels more like a race, and due to the fact that there is more hate in the deck, it wants to slow the game down [less threats]), and it does decently against the combos (including Hulk, though death-long still gives me a headache) when it goes first.

It DOES NOT do well against anything that can out-fat it, which is of course, what it looks like the meta-game is reverting to (TnT, 5/3) so... it's not really revived just yet.



Additionally, Encroach really shines against Workshop, and is mediocre against everything else... too bad your match against workshop is already almost beyond repair.

[snotball007]

I just have a small and quick question regarding the card choices. I saw that you had already tried out the dauthi creatures and said they were too slow being at 2 mana and unable to block, but have you tried out [card]Wretched Anurid[/card]? I know he does have the setback of 2 mana cc but he is a 3/3 with a minor drawback. Seems like a logical choice against fish.

The reason why I ask is that my suicide deck is tuned more for an aggro metagame and it is neccessary against stompy to include a 3/3. Plus against some of the faster aggro decks I use my first dark ritual for other things and follow up with a 3/3.

Thanks.

[cssamerican]

None of your creatures initial purpose is to beat the opponent other than Nantuko shade.

When I was reading your post and I hit this sentence I knew I had to post something.

Suicide is never gonna win a good tournament; however, some people just seem to like play atrociously bad mono-black decks. What I mean by this is most people who play "Suicide" decks don't even play well designed ones. For example, the goal of a suicide deck is to do as much damage as possible with under-costed beats (That means all of your creatures' primary goal should be to inflict as much damage as possible) while denying your opponent the ability to remove said beats. This denial is usually in the form of hand and land destruction.

Chains of Mephistopheles is an excellent card, and if I were to include it in my list I would probably replace Withered Wretch with it (Since that is what it gets sideboarded for most of the time). However, it doesn’t beat down and it doesn’t help against Goblin Welder decks. So for now I still consider it a sideboard card.

Hymn To Tourach is the best disruption card; not running it is stupid. For {B} you get a chance to destroy someone’s games long enough for you to win, that is all disruption is supposed to do and Hymn To Tourach does it better than anything else.

Nantuko Shade sucks in suicide. I don’t know why everyone thinks he belongs in suicide decks. For him to have any impact in the game he requires you to top deck land (Something you don’t want to do), to pump him prevents you from playing another threat or some disruption (Something you don’t want to do), and his power to casting cost ratio is pathetic.

Necropotence is another card I find highly over-rated in suicide decks. Maybe this is because I have played so many combo decks lately, but when play cards like Necropotence I want to win, and I want to win now. In the case of suicide decks this just doesn’t happen, and it is especially useless when your using your life totals as a resource constantly.

If I had to play a suicide deck this is what I would play.

Bad Suicide
Creatures  
4-[card]Carnophage[/card]
4-[card]Flesh Reaver[/card]
4-[card]Phyrexian Negator[/card]  
3-[card]Withered Wretch[/card]

Spells  
4-[card]Dark Ritual[/card]    
1-[card]Demonic Consultation[/card]    
1-[card]Demonic Tutor[/card]
4-[card]Duress[/card]
4-[card]Hymn to Tourach[/card]    
1-[card]Time Walk[/card]
1-[card]Vampiric Tutor[/card]
1-[card]Yawgmoths Will[/card]

Enchantments
4-[card]Sarcomancy[/card]

Artifacts  
1-[card]Black Lotus[/card]    
1-[card]Mox Jet[/card]
1-[card]Mox Sapphire[/card]  
3-[card]Null Rod[/card]

Lands  
3-[card]Bloodstained Mire[/card]    
3-[card]Polluted Delta[/card]
1-[card]Strip Mine[/card]
5-[card]Swamp[/card]
2-[card]Underground Sea[/card]
4-[card]Wasteland[/card]

Sideboard
4-[card]Emissary of Despair[/card] (Anti-Artifact Tech, and it works pretty good)
4-[card]Diabolic Edict[/card]
3-[card]Chains of Mephistopheles[/card]    
3-[card]Engineered Plague[/card]
1-[card]Null Rod[/card]

The reason why I ask is that my suicide deck is tuned more for an aggro metagame and it is neccessary against stompy to include a 3/3. Plus against some of the faster aggro decks I use my first dark ritual for other things and follow up with a 3/3.

First, suicide decks suck against aggro decks, and there isn't much you can do to them to change this. If everyone is playing aggro decks play something other than suicide. Wretched Anurid isn't a bad creature; however I don't think he is as good as Flesh Reaver, and that is what he would be replacing in my opinion.

Edited: For grammar and spelling.

[freakish777]

That means all of your creatures' primary goal should be to inflict as much damage as possiblewhile denying your opponent the ability to remove said beats. This denial is usually in the form of hand and land destruction.

Right....

Suicide is aggro-control, not aggro with random disruption.  And we all know that the main purpose of Faeries in fish is to beat face  

In any event, I disagree that your creatures first and foremost course of action is to eat away at the opponents life count.  They should be able to put pressure on the opponent immediately, not 4 turns from now (such as Negator).  There are only a handful of creatures that can produce that type of pressure, and in my opinion they include the following:

Ophidian
Curios Faeries
Dreadnaught
Colossus
Exalted Angel (against aggro)
Hypnotic Specter (against control)
Xantid Swarm (against control)

Although the creatures I have in my list don't put as much pressure on the opponent as the ones I just listed, I feel that they serve a good utility purpose for place a happy medium of pressure on their resources as well as their life.

Although this discussion is fairly pointless (because you aren't going to see suicide in the T8 anytime soon at a mid-sized tournament), I don't think its without its merits.

Suicide "died" when the meta game shifted away from favoring the decks it could beat.  I think that similiarly, Fish is now fading as a result of its own over-whelming popularity by pushing the decks that it beats out of the meta-game, making room for the come back of decks like TnT and MUC.

I think we will see history repeat itself, with Suicide coming to life (albiet, weaker) with a few players playing it and doing alright with it, and then it will go under again when the meta-game shifts again due to other decks defining the format themselves.  I do think that at some point though Suicide will no longer be revivable, and neither will Sligh, or Stompy (though I think that Sligh and Stompy will go sooner).

As a meta game deck, suicide will be forced in each incarnation to drop more and more threats for more and more hate/control elements, much as fish has gone from merfolk being backed by lord of atlantis and lots of counterspells, to the utility of manlands (for mana + beats), Null Rod, and Spiketail Hatchling.  

(Note:  the current build of Fish easily did better than previous versions, however I think this has more to do with better deck-building than with anything else)

I think this is the inevitable outcome of Aggro-Control builds that are already defined.  They will be playable when the meta-game allows, and the will not be when the meta-game doesn't let them make use of the hate they can run.  The number of times that an aggro-control deck can be revived and the strength at which it comes back with I think are dependant on the number of hate cards/control elements that it can run effectively.  Fish will in all likelihood have more incarnations then Suicide due to the fact that the control elements it runs are better (Force of Will is better than Hymn to Tourach in almost all scenarios), and it has access to more hate, meaning it can do well in a larger variety of metas.

[snotball007]

The reason why I ask is that my suicide deck is tuned more for an aggro metagame and it is neccessary against stompy to include a 3/3. Plus against some of the faster aggro decks I use my first dark ritual for other things and follow up with a 3/3.

First, suicide decks suck against aggro decks, and there isn't much you can do to them to change this. If everyone is playing aggro decks play something other than suicide. Wretched Anurid isn't a bad creature; however I don't think he is as good as Flesh Reaver, and that is what he would be replacing in my opinion.

Good reply. I would run the reavers but the fact is that I have a necro in the deck. Might as well post my very rough list (made recently, after being out of magic for a good 8 months):

Swampst3hgood.dec

-Mana/Lands-
18x Swamp
4x Dark Ritual
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine

-Saviors-
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Demonic Consultation
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Necropotence
2x Zuran Orb

-Disruption-
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Contagion

-Creatures-
4x Hypnotic Specter
4x Nantuko Shade
4x Phyrexian War Beast
2x Wretched Anurid

SB:
2x Powder Keg
3x Withered Wretch
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Smother
4x Flesh Reaver

You can post any questions you wish and I will try and answer them.

Anyway..........back on topic. I just looked over the list posted and had another quick question. I always heard that running vamp tutor in a suicide deck was bad because you cannot immediately draw said card or take it into your hand. So, is it just to get a chains out second turn more reliable?