Suicide Black, on the cheap(ish)

[Venton]

coming out of lurk mode seeking deck advise.
So what would be the best way to go about this?
I looked up some reviews of tournament SB decks, but I don't have any Phyrexian Negators or City of Traitors. I do have two Hatreds so they're going in.
I was looking at some older creatures I used to use in a black weenie deck a long time ago. Actually the way it's coming together it might be better to pick up four Damnation and go straight "weeniegeddon".

Here are some creatures I'm considering:
Carnophage
Sarcomancy
Pump Knights that's eight if I use both sets
Erg Raiders old school, but I think they're good for 2 mana
Phyrexian Scuta is a 5/5 worth 3 life before it even attacks?

Would Hypnotic Specters be a good choice? Yeh, I know it's a great card but I'm trying for biggest bang for the mana.

Creature helpers:
Hatred I have two
Unholy Strength
Bad Moon
Nocturnal Raid worth it for 4 mana?

Other cards:
Duress / Hymn to Tourach
Strip Mine
Some kind of Tutor

I was thinking of splashing red with multilands but that might be pushing it.

 

[BigBlue]

Soulshriek is a decent "pump" for B once you get stuff in your GY...

Hypnotic Specter is pretty much always worth the mana... Tethered Skirge is decent too if you really want cheap fast fliers...

Once you build to 4 mana, you should have decent stuff for your Raid to pump?

How about going w/ some cheap Shadow for a bit of old school evasion? Also, I'm a huge fan of 187 type stuff... the 2 CC rats which force a discard

Pump knights are alright... but you need mana to run 'em... Cabal Coffers? Slower - so only put a couple in you don't want 'em early.

Also, what about the sacrifice a creature enchantment - Pillar Tombs of Aku...

I sort of like Phrexian Rager... for 3 you get a 2/2 and a replacement card... One of the biggest problems I ever had with turbo type decks is you run out of cards... So Necropotence is good - they made a new one in Coldsnap which is interesting too - but like Necro only gives the cards late in the turn...

Lot's of sort of random thoughts here... but maybe you'll like one of them.

 

[Oversoul]

With casual decks, the fact that you're not restricted to any particular block leaves you with a lot of options. But if you're also on a budget, that limits things. I have doubts about Hatred as a two-of. But people have pulled it off.

I prefer Black Knight over the pump knights in suicide because you should be running a tight mana curve. If you're going to spend mana to pump stuff, just pump Nantuko Shade, although looking at some newer cards, I also like Stromgald Crusader...

Flesh Reaver.

Priest of Gix is essentially free. I never had all that much luck using him when I tried building suicide black, but the option is there.

Dauthi Horror used to be THE creature to use with Hatred.

Sometimes I think Juggernaut should be in every aggro deck there is.

Skittering Skirge is a powerhouse if the rest of the deck works with it rather than against it.

Dark Ritual is an automatic inclusion.

Powder Keg or even Nevinyrral's Disk are what I remember seeing in the past. That was before Damnation was printed and I could see Damnation working too.

Some more selective removal might also be in order. Sinkhole is the obvious choice for lands, but too hard to get so you'd probably have to settle for Icequake or something instead, which is too bad. I like Diabolic Edict for creatures. Other options include Cabal Edict, Contagion, and Spinning Darkness. Actually, even Dark Banishing could work, although I never liked it (the opponent might be playing black).

Yawgmoth's Will is of course overpowered and if you want to use it, I'm sure it will work fine in this sort of deck.

Card-drawing of some kind is also great. Necropotence would be ideal. If you don't like banned cards, there are other, crappier options. There's Dark Confidant (it can draw some cards and do some damage too), Grafted Skullcap (meh), Phyrexian Arena (which I hate on principle because I used to play Necropotence control all the time and the difference between Necropotence and Phyrexian Arena is like the difference between an assault rifle and a blunderbuss), Skeletal Scrying, and Night's Whisper.

 

[Shabbaman]

Woah, calm down guys

You can build black aggro decks in different ways (duh). Suicide means just that: or you win, or you loose to your own cards. I've always played black, and you could say I'm an expert at losing. There are two defining aspects in sui:

1. Beatdown. For this, you need undercosted creatures, that most likely have a drawback.
2. Disruption. You attack your opponents hand and/or land to prevent him from disrupting your beatdown plan.

If you have more of 2 and less of 1, you're leaning more towards control. If so, you need 3: creature control. The suicidest suicide deck doesn't run creature control.

Now, there's only 1 card that makes suiblack a competitive archetype: Dark ritual. Black's discard is very strong as well, but ritual let's you play threats that should've been in your hand for some more turns. It's something like Goblin lackey, actually. So what you do is that you build your deck around Dark ritual: a low land count with cards that cost no more than 3, because you can't get to four mana anyway.

Traditionally Sui plays cards like Sinkhole, but unless you have it you probably can't afford it. Same goes for Wasteland. If you don't have these, you could just as well cut the land destruction and focus on hand destruction. You can take the hand destruction to the next level and play a pox deck (for maximum fun). You mentioned hippie: well, it can't get any better.

About splashing colors: if you have the lands, that's not a bad idea. In legacy I've seen red and green splashes (for lightning bolt and tarmogoyf). Especially green solves a lot of problems with Seal of primordium. Or white, for vindicate. But that's pricey.

You mention Carnophage, Sarcomancy (also a pricey card these days!) and pump knights. The nice thing is that you have new pump knights that are actually zombies. With the new Death Baron you could build a zombie suicide deck. That'd give you some synergy between cards.

I could go on and on, but I'm finishing with the two cards you might be looking for. One is Nantuko shade, the best pump knight ever. It's not a knight (nor zombie), and it can be pricey. It just rotated out of extended, so perhaps you can get some for cheap. But there's a new star in black, and it's Tombstalker. I think it's fairly cheap as well.

BTW, the removal spell you're looking for is Snuff out. Look no further.

 

[Mooseman]

How about Death Stroke for non-color dependent removal or Ghastly Demise for non-black removal?
What about Fatal Blow for their big blockers, since you will be attacking a lot?
Or Circle of Affliction for cheap life loss mitigation?

 

[Oversoul]

About splashing colors: if you have the lands, that's not a bad idea. In legacy I've seen red and green splashes (for lightning bolt and tarmogoyf). Especially green solves a lot of problems with Seal of primordium. Or white, for vindicate. But that's pricey.

I see no point in splashing colors for Suicide Black. It would be better to just add white and go for straight up B/W Suicide or for Fiends. Splashing red or green seems boring and you might as well switch to a different aggro deck altogether.

BTW, the removal spell you're looking for is Snuff out. Look no further.

Snuff Out has the same problem as all the other Dark Banishing type cards. If the creature you need to kill is black or an artifact, you're stuck.

 

[Venton]

Thanks guys. I have some ideas I'm going to try out.

Yeh, Dark Ritual was so obvious I guess I forgot it.
I think I'll try Necropotence. I don't have anything to get rid of it after I play it so I'll need to be careful. (I used to have four Disks. I don't know what happened to them. ) Skeletal Scrying might work too.

I'm going to try Black Knights and Hippies instead of pump knights. A flyer that knocks cards out of the other guy's hand really is too good to pass up.
I thought I had some more Juggies, oh well.
Flesh Reaver, hmmm.

I have 1 Nantuko Shade and 1 Rotting Giant. I'll throw them in there and see how they do. What do you all think about Waning Wurm? 5/5 with vanishing 2. I could play it on turn two and get one attack for 7.

What about Dark Triumph instead of Nocturnal Raid?
I do have Kaervek's Spite. That's a good finisher.

edit:
The tentative deck is:
20 creatures, incl. Sarcomancy
Dark Rit, Duress, Dark Triumph, Skel Scrying, Strip Mines
I still need five spells to bring it up to 40. I'm only running 20 land. I think that should be enough.

 

[Venton]

One card I forgot about is Paralyze. I'm not really going for control but it might be handy for keeping blockers and/or nasty creatures locked down.

 

[Oversoul]

Kaervek's Spite is awesome and should be used in any deck wherein it has some chance of working. I love that card.

Don't forget Hymn.

 

[Venton]

Hymn instead of Duress or run both?

 

[Oversoul]

I'm a big fan of Duress. I probably wouldn't cut it for Hymn, but it does depend on the metagame. But I'd say at least consider running both. If in testing you find that it's too much discard when you should be focusing on beatdown, then perhaps cut Hymn.

 

[BigBlue]

I was going to mention Paralyze... You don't want to get too watered down from the focus of quick cheap creatures though, or it won't quite work.

If you decide to go more zombie based, don't forget Barrow Ghoul... a 4/4 for 2 where you remove a gy creature during upkeep or sac him...

Also, you might get a couple mercenaries... they'll get creatures out too. (I think I run the harpies 2/1 flier for 1 w/ upkeep cost - Spineless Thug, and the fear one to grab them out in my SB deck... I don't have all the "components" for the optimal build... it's just for fun. I used to run it as Buried Alive...

 

[Venton]

Well, I didn't want to go full-on discard. I already put together a discard deck recently with Megrim and Bottomless Pit. I like Duress because I get to look at their hand and choose which card they lose. If I can get a Hippy out early there goes more cards.

I was looking at Barrow Ghoul, but unless I'm losing creatures early (Lightning Bolt, Edict) I don't think it's going to work.

Actually, I did have an idea for a deck using Nether Shadows and Ashen Ghouls along with Buried Alive, Hidden Horror and other crap.
I guess I like playing black.

 

[BigBlue]

Also... if you have it, Hecatomb in Buried Alive... Nether Voids make good control mechanisms... but, those don't come cheap.

 

[Venton]

Also... if you have it, Hecatomb in Buried Alive... Nether Voids make good control mechanisms... but, those don't come cheap.

...and Fallen Angel and Derlaich!

 

[Ransac]

Some king of Tutor

Melkor?


Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Melkor]

Vampiric and Demonic Tutor as well as Demonic Consultation are the only ones that are fast enough for suicide (even Demonic is a little slow for a really optimal build but definitely works in a more casual deck). Consultation was played a lot back in the day before everything got put on the restricted list. If the deck has enough 4x then it is a good option if you have a 4x worth tutoring for. Otherwise it might just slow the deck down.

 

[Shabbaman]

Splashing red or green seems boring and you might as well switch to a different aggro deck altogether.

Boring, yes. Yet competitive. B/G suicide is a competitive deck in legacy now. Not among the best, but good enough to be tier 2. But as I said, running Tarmogoyfs isn't exactly budget. You're right about Snuff out, but it kills the two creatures that matter in Legacy: Tarmogoyf and Goblin lackey. But it's not competitive Legacy but casual Vintage, so yeah... there are probably better options. Spinning darkness is nice, because you can play it for free.

You know, if you have a little money to spare you could pick up some Bridge from belows, Zombie infestations and a bunch of zombie knights and Haakon. Zombies rule.

If you're looking for a replacement for Juzam, take a look at Plague sliver. But please, consider Tombstalker. If you're heavily into black you'll love this card.