Subject: Decks (Type 2, Ankh Black) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 09:58:01 +0100 From: David Sutcliffe To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com ANKH BLACK by David Sutcliffe This is a variant of Suicide Black that I have been toying with, it cuts down on the all-out speed that makes Suicide so - well, suicidal - and replaces it with some long term disruption that has proven annoying to anything outside another weenie horde, and they are dealt with in the sideboard. The deck gets off to a flying first few turns, which will scare the hell out of control, then plays permanents to slow your opponent`s mana development. Very often, because of the speed of the deck, you can lock your opponent on three or four land because of the Ankh - the creatures having quickly driven him down to only a few life points. Creatures 4 Sarcomancy 4 Carnophage (although these are unparalleled speed creatures I am gradually becoming disenchanted with them because they get blocked by the walls, which would otherwise be useless. At the moment the walls are quite rare in my metagame, so I keep them in, but if the environment shifts these become Dauthi Cutthroats and Ghouls) 4 Dauthi Horror 4 Dauthi Slayer 4 Dauthi Warlord (a lot of decks simply cannot handle the shadow black horde, despite the fact that it is a common feature. Until this changes the Ergs, Knights, and Askaris stay on one side) Disruption 4 Ankh Of Mishra (devastating against control, one poor blue player was facing two Ankhs on the table before he even played a land - land, Mox, Ritual, Ankh, Ankh) 3 Desolation (a strong card. The original idea of the deck was to move so fast that your opponent could not rely on getting a turn 4 Disk because it would be too late, and so had to slow you up in the meantime. The Desolations were in to mean that every turn your opponent cast a Legacy or Capsize, he loses another land towards the Disk. Actually, the Desolation is quite weak against Disks, but strong against most other control, and I occasionally switch them to Pox, which you cast the turn they tap out for the Disk) Other Stuff 3 Unholy Strength (send your Zombies through Walls) 2 Cursed Scroll (counter-productive with a Desolation, but usually there is no problem running the scroll by laying new land when needed) Speed Mana 3 Dark Ritual 3 Mox Diamond (this is where the deck loses out to other weenie hordes, it moves like lightning in the first two turns, but then quickly stalls out through lack of creatures. Against control this isn`t a problem because the cards you play are things like Ankhs and Desolation which really hurt in the long run, but against weenies these cards are almost useless) Land 2 Wasteland (support the Desolation/Ankhs. Maybe more, because they can be discarded to the Moxes to produce Black if needed) 20 Swamp (its mono-black, so I thought Swamps were the obvious choice. I was playing Forests for a while but kept getting mana-screwed :-) Sideboard Keyed up to face Weenies, mostly White and Red. 4 Dread Of Night (sided Vs WWeenie) 3 Wall Of Souls (sided Vs Sligh/Suicide) 3 Torture Chamber (sided Vs Sligh/WWeenie/Suicide) 2 Null Rod (sided Vs Disks and stuff) 3 Jinxed Idol (sided Vs Oath/Weavers/Propagandas) Usually, especially against the Weenies, you pull the Ankhs and Desolations to side in heavy creature control. Other times it might be worth losing some of the raw speed of the Rituals/Moxes, for a little more steady development, this is usually against slow decks that are not playing heavy counters - such as Survival/Nightmare.