Sui Black/Blue

[Lordomor]

I just got back from my first real vintage tounry this weekend. I placed 12 out of about 40 people, which was better than I had hoped, but not good enough to win a Black Lotus

I wanted to post up my deck list somewhere to try and get help with it. I found that the deck, in play, had more dead draws than I was expecting. I threw in 4 maindeck force of wills, expecting a lot of flash decks and other combo decks, but I really didn't go against any, so usually force sat stale in hand. Though a hardcast force won me my last game. I'm thinking they'd be better sideboarded, with hymn maindeck over them.

The Decklist (As it is Post-Tournament)

//Mana Sources\\(22, including strip/waste)

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
4 Underground Sea
1 Watery Grave
3 Polluted Delta
5 Swamp
4 Dark Ritual

//Cuddles\\(16)
4 Phyrexian Negator
4 Nantuko Shade
4 Carnophage
4 Sarcomancy

//Disruption\\(17)
1 Wasteland
1 Stripmine
2 Echoing Truth
2 Sinkhole
4 Duress
4 Hymn To Tourach
3 Leyline Of The Void

//Accel\\(7)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timewalk
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Brainstorm

//Side Board\\ (12+3)
4 Force of Will
1 Mystic Tutor
1 Echoing Truth
4 Smother
2 Umezawa's Jitte

+3 Open Spots, currently (probably will become Infests)


The major changes I made Post-tourny: The maindeck forces, got swapped with my sideboard hymns, I cut mystic tutor, Frantic Search, and 2 Fleshreavers from maindeck to put back in Carnophage. I took 2 more fleshreavers out of my sideboard.

Overall, what I realised is I was underestimating the deck. Even after all these years, newfangled counterspells and card drawing only mildly helped Sui black. Cutting some of that crap out to make room for more black disruption and face eating upped my win rate/kill speed.

I started out lossing both my first rounds, and around then was when I realised how worthless Force/Frantic had been so far, and I started siding in all my black pretty much every game. I won all my other 4 rounds after that realization.


So please, I want any and all feedback. I haven't played competetively since ravnica block (and I was playing T2 then). I haven't bought any of the new block, and really don't plan on it. I have very limited knowledge of the newest cards, and newest decks as a result. I know hulk smash, GAT, fish, etc etc, I saw most of them in play, but I'm still racking my brain for good ways to deal with them all.

[limitedwhole]

I don't have an overall indepth critique, but I did notice one thing.  All those weenie creatures aren't any good with negator.  Negator hits for 5 a turn.  Doing four damage with a weenie leaves the negator clock at four turns.  Weenies work better with flesh reaver than negator.  Negator works better as a solid four turn clock.  I would either, go the reaver route, or cut the weenies and put in more disruption.  4 Negator, 2-3 Scuta is a solid critter base.  All you want is two creatures and a bunch of disruption in a negator build.  By amping up on the disruption, you give yourself a better chance against disruption.  If you want to go the weenie with reaver route, I suggest going with cabal therapy, as you can sac creatures to flash it back.  You will end up with spare weenies you don't need.  Insidious bookworms is underated (unless the printed another B creature that is strictly better.)  In short you haven't payed much attention to your clock.  A good aggro deck kills on the nose (20 dmg) everytime (unless Zuran Orb or something sees common use).  For this reason sometimes a less efficient weenie with special ability might be more useful than a 2/2 for B.  You might not need that much power to kill.  If you do 22 dmg instead of 20, your aggro deck is out of tune.  Likewise coming up one short is out of tune.  Initiates of the Ebon HAnd isn't as bad as it looks.  What is important isn't that you do as much damage as fast as possible, but twenty damage fast with disruption.

Finally is you decide to go the negator route, Blackmail is actually pretty good.  Many decks are so comboing they cannot affor to lose anycards from there hand when you are backing up with further disruption.  Add in the fact that allot of decks muuligan aggresively and Blackmail should at least be considered as a complement to duress if you are not playing therapy.

I suggest you go back and study about clocks and try to figure out what you really want out of a creature and how they will gel together to kill the fastest.  Can you reliably pump Shade?  Does carnophage do anything or do you always end up doing 22 dmg?

P.S. And no I am not telling you to put bookworms and initiates in your deck.  I was just trying to mention examples of cards that MAY be better than a 2/2 if they sequence with eth clock better.  I don't have a complete understanding of all black weenies ever printed or anything.

[asi]

Though most of the things limitedwhole said feels wrong to me, I would agree that the weenies (4 Carnophage
4 Sarcomancy) might not be the best choice, because they are really slow clocks and don't generate virtual or actual cardadvantage, something (nearly) every creature with power<5 should do in vintage (see Mindcensor, Trinket Mage, Ringleader and so on). So, did you test Dark Confidant and/or Yixlid Jailer?

If I were you, I'd cut the Sinkholes to include more Wastelands. With Confidant/Jailer, they provide actually useful mana. i would also cut the Watery Grave for an additional fetchland, because I really dislike the Ravnica lands in vintage.

How did the Brainstorms do? Without Force (which I would perhaps cut from the SB as well), there's no reason to play a special number of blue cards, so you might consider other cards like the fourth void, Night's Whisper + off colour-Moxen (nice with Jailer/Confidant) or even Umezawa's Jiite, which is a tad too slow in my opinion.

[limitedwhole]

My point is the deck isn't tuned.  He took cards that were good based upon some criteria and put them in because they were good based on that criteria without paying attention to the tuning.  A good aggro deck does 20, not 18, not 19, not 21, not 22.  This is basic deckbuilding theory.  Whenever, I post basic deckbuilding advice, people disagree, I have no idea why.  This is the whole reason weenies suck with Negator.  They are like throwing cards away.  They didn't increase the clock and could have been disruption instead.  If you want to see a terrible sui black deck for an example of what not to do, check out Oscar Tans builds circa 2004.

Dark Confidant is intriguing, but you end up playing more like fish, which really begs the question why not just play, fish?  What's attractive about sui black to begin with is disruption and a fast clock.  If you want to draw cards, tutor for Necropotence or Ancestral.

Turn 1: Swamp, Carnophage
Turn2: Swamp Hymn (counter), attack with carnphage
Turn three: attack with Carnphage, negator (counter)
Turn four: attack with phage (swords)  Opponent at 16.  Still four turns of negator clock.

[Luecifer]

Limited I agree with your assessment of aggro decks for most formats. But in vintage, with the variety of cards that will deal damage to your opponent ie fetchlands, vampiric tutor, and to a lesser extent grim tutor, necro and yawgs bargain, you can, when designing your deck, factor in the 1-3 average life loss your opponent will inflict upon himself.

Now onto the deck that has been posted. Sui black has always been a pet deck of mine, it was the first deck I ever played at any vintage event. I would have to agree that sinkholes in the current meta are too slow, with cards like wastelands and stripmine being much better. Duress is a must for your deck, it is far and away the best turn 1 hand disruption you can play. Negators are very strong, and are even stronger as a turn 1 play. That being said, adding dark ritual to increase your turn 1 explosiveness, along with a few more turn 1 plays like duress and cabal therapy, allow you to give yourself a big enough lead to win based on your turn 1 play. These additions would allow a creature like dark confidant to make its way into your deck. I personally love dark confidant, as he provides card advantage by simply sitting around and adding cards to your draw, whether it be disruption or extra beaters. All of this being said, a blue splash for bounce and more draw, but do not be afraid to explore other colors for splashes. Green and Red both offer solid cards to a sui-style deck, and white offers options as well. I hope i could be of some help here and wish you luck with your deck.

[Lordomor]

Turn 1: Swamp, Carnophage
Turn2: Swamp Hymn (counter), attack with carnphage
Turn three: attack with Carnphage, negator (counter)
Turn four: attack with phage (swords)  Opponent at 16.  Still four turns of negator clock.

Just no, not 1 bit like my deck usually plays My plays would be more like:

Turn 1: fetchland for a dual, tap dual for ritual, sarcomancy/hymn or negator
Turn 2: Nantuko Shade/any disruption
Turn 3: It's already goodgame.

Yes, counterspells sucked, but most people were retarded and didn't use them on my deck properly. One guy countered my ritual, instead of waiting for the turn 1 gator, by letting me keep the gator, it was still over. Not 1 person swords my anything, though I did get a vindicate thrown at me once.

Let me reiterate something: I was running flesh reaver, I cut it because 90% of the time it killed me harder than them, or was left sitting useless because I couldn't afford to eat the 4. He sucks against any aggro to top that (the meta I was going against was like 1/2 GAT, some elves, some goblins, etc etc). Sarcomancy is fucking AMAZING with negator, you get 2 permanents to sac for 1 mana, and you get a 2/2 beater with virtually no drawbacks, also I can echoing truth it to get even more creatures (won me a game, a neat trick, but not a key thing). Carnophage has amazing synergy with sarcomancy since he is a zombie.

Lucifer is 100% correct in his comment abouit opponents killing themsevles a lot. A negator 4 turn clock is amazing, especialy starting turn 1. I was getting, on average, probably about 1 turn 1 negator a round, one round I got it 2/3 games. I can get it pretty consistently, but the phages/mancys really help back it up with sacs, damage, and an alt win. I had one guy exterpate my negator, and that would have owned me, if I didn't have a double sarcomancy to drop.

I would not play cabal therapy, I sac enough creatures to negator as is. I really like sinkhole over wasteland just because it can kill basic's (which did come in useful), also the fact that it lets me potentially down 2 lands in one turn. I really perfer hymn/duress to blackmail, though that is a pretty good idea and I might consider it. Lucifer, I don't know if you missed them or not, but I have 4 rituals in the deck, I'm not like the other newbs on this board (seen 2 other sui black builds, both without rituals). I really hate dark confidant, from my experience he tended to kill my opponents more than he helped them. Brainstorm worked pretty well as card draw, but now that I cut force to SB, nights whispers would be better, especially now that I'm not running reaver.


Limitied, on the note of "do I pump shade" Shade usually min. beats for about 4, it is a Reaver that doesn't kill me, and he eats up "late" game rituals/lotus's.

[Lordomor]

Though most of the things limitedwhole said feels wrong to me, I would agree that the weenies (4 Carnophage
4 Sarcomancy) might not be the best choice, because they are really slow clocks and don't generate virtual or actual cardadvantage, something (nearly) every creature with power<5 should do in vintage (see Mindcensor, Trinket Mage, Ringleader and so on). So, did you test Dark Confidant and/or Yixlid Jailer?

Don't own any of either, and I thought about them, but didn't care enough. Jailer seems superlative with leyline? I don't see why anyone would run both, there was pretty much no time ever when Jailers ability would have helped me. Confidant..I must be the only person in the world who really hates this card. He has a solid ability, and a 2/1 for 2 is great. But he's doing about as much to me, as he is to them every turn. If I want more card draw, nights whisper will go in, 2 life for 2 cards, way better than confidant, imo. Confidant I think of as a smaller flesh reaver, which is originally why I was running reaver over him.

[limitedwhole]

If the field has so much aggro, why play the negator or the reaver?  Why not play a black blue combo deck?

[Luecifer]

Yes my appologies Lordomor, i did miss the 4 dark rituals, glad to see that you did pick up on that as i too saw the 2 other posts without rituals and felt like i needed to say something about them on one forum. Glad to see you picked up on their power.

[Lordomor]

I've been running Sui black now for years, probably since around judgement, as I recall, maybe before. I love the deck, and honestly Limited, it is not suicide black without negator, he defines the deck. Also turn 1 negator = autowin, even against aggro, it's just too much for most decks too soon, especially with all the disruption to back him up. The zombies are there as meat tenderizers, mostly, and to help be creature destrcution. Negator is my main killer though. But yes, I agree, if there is so much aggro, why play reaver, he blows

If I wanted to play a lame black/blue combo deck I woulda remade my deep Black/blue deck, and raped face. But honestly, I like to have fun, and playing some stupid boring combo deck is not fun. I would rather give my opponent a sporting chance, then rob them of all hope by killing all their lands, making them discard to nothing, and smashing their face. It's really just more my style of deck, I'm an awful blue player, but aggro I can play quite well.

[limitedwhole]

Blood Pet.

[Lordomor]

Blood Pet.

Fun comboing card, but miserable for aggro, imo. I'd rather beat with a 2/2 for 1. Also I never have a "too little mana" problem more often than not there will be a "too much mana" problem.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

you had a comment about FOW. have you considered spell snare instead? it hits flash, scroll, dryad, most of fish, drain, chalice at 1. the list goes on with relevant cards. Spell snare also does not require blue card support

[Lordomor]

you had a comment about FOW. have you considered spell snare instead? it hits flash, scroll, dryad, most of fish, drain, chalice at 1. the list goes on with relevant cards. Spell snare also does not require blue card support

I was actually considering it, but I wasn't sure of the utility beforehand. I think now that would definately be a reasonable switch.