Suicide Black
5.25.04

You have them.  We have them.  We all hate them.  That’s right, the arrogant teenage player.  Every shop has this one kid, roughly fourteen or so in age who swaggers about like he owns the place and makes anyone who loses to them feel really stupid.  It’s one thing when a younger kid is modest when he beats you, shakes your hand, and it’s nothing more than that.  Sometimes, you gotta chock it up to a bad draw or a misplay.  But more times than not, you know you have the tools and the brain capacity to outplay them.  In the end, you don’t feel to bad.

Then enters that cocky little something-or-other.  He plays you, never shuts up, is usually talking to a friend while trying to play you at the same time, which is very disrespectful.  He also makes little inklings where he’s making fun of your play style, but thinks your too stupid to know.  And you lose to them, and you hear about it for ten minutes and feel like the lowest point on the face of the earth. 

Why do godforsaken people like this win?  Because they’re throwing you off your game.  Subconsciously, you become so overwhelmed with winning against this kid, not overly glamorous or anything, you just want to beat him so bad.  And your strife for this throws you off your game.

It takes a lot of practice to deal with people like this, and sometimes the people you play mean more than the decks you play, which is why when I playtest I usually play one or two games where the other guy makes jokes and does annoying things, even if they’re in a bad spot.  Being overly cocky during a match can actually give you a good game face, but don’t do it.  I personally show no respect for people who speak they’re better than they play.

Either way, when you play people like this, you usually want to beat them at any cost.  You’ll give up shields, creatures, even card advantage.  You don’t care a whole lot about the long game, you just want to beat down on them short, efficiently, and hard, and you’ll do whatever you can to get there.

Enter Suicide Black…

Suicide Black	Ronald Waclawski
4 Bloody Squito	4 Critical Blade
4 Chaos Worm	4 Death Smoke
4 General Dark Fiend	4 Lost Soul
4 Horrid Worm	4 Terror Pit
4 Poison Worm
4 Swamp Worm
2 Ultracide Worm
4 Vampire Silphy

Of all the decks I had the option of playing, I was most anxious to play Beasts, thought I had no Fighter Dual Fangs, so I switched to what I felt was the next best deck, Suicide Black.  I had my doubts on the decklist, as I threw it together fairly quick, but I needed it to pull through, for the first sanctioned match I had.

Round 1 VS Mike

This kid had a Shobu theme deck with Bolshack Dragon.  Game one was good, as he got the Armored Garblov promo card just for entering.  Shobu’s deck is pretty similar to your basic weenie rush, and I soon realized this version was fairly tweaked.  He was still one of those, “Bolshack Dragon!!! Awesome” kids you’ll get from time to time.  Horrid Worm really went to town on turn 3, busting through 2 Deadly Fighter Braid Claw and totally depleting his hand.  Soon after Chaos Worm hit the field and that’s all she wrote.  Round 2 was much of the same.

1-0

Round 2 VS Eric

Eric is my partner in crime, and he wanted to run Retro, a mono-blue bounce deck.  Lost Soul and Ultracide Worm completely own this archtype, as does Vampire Silphy for any creatures they happen to slam down.  It was a fairly solemn victory, and Eric wasn’t too disappointed, especially since we wouldn’t meet again until much later.

2-0

Round 3 VS Ben

Ben is proof of what can happen when good players play janky decks.  In this game, you depend more on play skill to win than your deck, which I do like.  Ben played Lawn, or Light, Water, Nature, for those of you who don’t know the slang round here.  His Lawn deck basically used a bunch of blockers, a bunch of unblockables or near unblockables (like Xeno Mantis) and Holy Awe.  His game was solid against me, and we pulled off a win for my failure to punch through.  Later on Lost Soul got out turn seven, followed by a Vampire, then a Swamp Worm + Chaos Worm, which sealed games two and three.

3-0

I won’t bore you with the specifics, but I went on to win the tourney, going undefeated, a grand total of 12-2.  I have noticed that I overextended my game versus Domain though, which seems to have become a now dead archetype, though it could spring back.

In analyzing the deck, it can be said you have way to many cards versus control, and you need to stop those stupid turn 3 evolution craziness decks.  After you stem the initial rush, winning isn’t that hard, especially with discard mechanics.

While Marrow Ooze, the Twister seems to have Suicide Black written all over it, I think delving away from a mono-black build would be best.  Adding Red might be the best since shield triggers are abundant, and you can add Scarlet Skyterror for the increasing amount of Blockade decks, which can give nightmares to Darkness decks everywhere.

First off, General Dark Fiend is unnecessary against agro, as you need to hit the creatures and can’t afford to knock a shield away.  You’d also probably chuck some Poison Worm, which while good usually messes up your synergy with Horrid Worm.  It’s still Evolution bait so I’d keep some in.

I’d half the Vampire Silphy for two Skyterror, and throw in a playset of Burst Shot and Tornado Flame for the stupid weenie rush draws.  Since the cost of those is so high, it’s okay to only run about nine fire cards, as you can usually play around the mana screw or lay them down early on in a quick decision.  Lost Soul is still awesome, but unnecessary as you have all the tools you need versus control, so half that down to two.  Critical Blade came in handy, but with Skyterror, you have a whole new threat now, so I‘d dump that, or a most run two.

The end result has been trimmed from the initial 46 card test version to a slightly lower number, after seeing what works, what doesn’t, and what needs lower quantities.  If I had to play a darkness based deck in today’s format, this would be it. 

Suicide Black/Red	Ronald Waclawski
4 Bloody Squito	4 Burst Shot
4 Chaos Worm	4 Death Smoke
4 Horrid Worm	2 Lost Soul
2 Poison Worm	4 Terror Pit
2 Scarlet Skyterror	4 Tornado Flame
4 Swamp Worm
2 Ultracide Worm
2 Vampire Silphy

At twelve shield Triggers, you should either be able to trigger a Burst Shot or Tornado Flame, or have enough in your deck to hard cast.  The Squitos and the Horrid Worm are still in for good early game measure.

The five-cost slot now lies entirely on Chaos Worm, followed up by the good kill spells and mass destruction spells.  I’ll personally be playing this at my next tournament, so I’ll let you know how it goes.

Until then, wait until next time where I’ll preview the Nature Beast deck.  What cards you should be using, and the one card that you shouldn’t be running, but probably are.  Plus a decklist.

Until next time, may your Worms bring you nothing but Card Advantage…