Subject: another suicide black tourney report Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 19:51:17 -0400 From: eeyoo To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Okay, as the official netrep of Team Quarterstaff my tourney reports are usually just about me. This one is a little different, as we finally decide to take a tournament seriously, and 4 of us play virtually identical decks. Of course, I designed it. Analyzing the current environment I came up with a few immediate conclusions which were integrated into the deck. Number 1- a few years ago it was 'play armageddon, or play against it'. Now it's 'play wasteland, or make your opponent wish he was'. The corollary to this is the deck must be able to decisively beat an opponent that is even slightly manascrewed. Also, to me this meant that the deck must be mono. Number 2- the deck must be aggressive and consistent. While we have several good control players on the team, none of us really wanted to play a slow deck through 8 rounds of swiss. Number 3- Walls were going to be everywhere. Thus it became imperative that our attackers have 4+ power, shadow, or flying to evade or go through them. Number 4- luck must not be a requirement to win with this deck. Sligh was eliminated as most of it's creature met none of the requirements. Also, it frequently runs out of steam and has difficulty rebounding in that situation. I'm personally sick of playing Fish, so I nixed blue even though it is my favorite color. WW has the shadow, plus geddon and disenchant, so it stayed on the table till near the end, but when it came down to make the final cut, the Bleed (Black spEed) Necro was our unanimous choice. I dumped the Sarcomancy's right away. Suicide necro can't afford to lose life to a creature that isn't even in play, in addition to which the zombies weren't big enough to blow through walls. I've read a couple regional reports from people with similar decks, and every one had at least one example of how their Sarcomancy killed them. Ditto Erg raiders. The prevalence of Prop-Orb variants and ensnaring bridges made them too risky. Remember, luck must not be required. Due to the distinct possibility of similar decks being there, Bad moon's were scrapped. And of course, all speed black decks must contain at least one SPITE! Volrath's stronghold made it till the 11th hour, but the fact it's ability was used exactly once in all of our hours of playtesting turned it into a swamp in the end. Bleed 4 sewer rats- 1cc, can pump enough to kill Blossoms 4 Black knights- the only creatures in the deck that blossoms were good against. But BK's are too damn good to leave out 4 Dauthi Slayers- Shadow! 4 Dauthi Horrors- Shadow! Unblockable by white 2 Foul Imps- 2/2 flyer. Almost unblockable in this format, the 2 life loss is a one time only effect, unlike Sarcomancy which keeps giving and giving. Bounce is too slow to make a difference 2 Necratogs- !!!! Must be dealt with in late game, guys think twice about incinerating your other critters 3 Necrataal- a little slow, but they kill walls as a comes into play effect 23 creatures 4 Unholy strength- everyone knows how good this is for speed rituals 3 Necro- with no way to gain life and no way to get rid of it, 3 necros is enough 1 kaervek's SPITE!!!- It's hilarious winning with spite 4 diabolic edict- why do my opponents keep sacrificing their creatures in such grisly rituals? Oh well, may as well attack since your blocker is gone 12 spells 4 dark rituals 4 Wasteland 17 swamps Sideboard 4 Bottomless Pit-I'm pretty sure you don't build one on purpose ;-) 3 Forsaken Waste 3 Cursed scroll 3 bottle gnomes 2 Terror All our sideboards had minor differences. This one is the one I used. There were approximately 210 competitors, and all four of us made the top 25. We missed cracking the final 8 by 1 loss, as we had two 6-2 guys, and two at 5-2-1. The draws were when Fritz and I faced each other and ID'd. Rather than list specific matches I'm just going to hit on a few highlights of each person's day. Fritz led all of us in Spite kills. One opponent played Teferi's Realm to get rid of Forsaken Wastes. During his upkeep Fritz phased out land after adding 3 B to his pool. His opponent was forced to either add mana to his pool, in which case Fritz would simply force burn onto them both, or hope Fritz didn't actually have the goods to win with. He didn't add mana, and Fritz discarded his hand and sacced all his permanents. SPITE! Another game, at 7 life, Fritz necro'd down to 1. Pulled Ritual-Spite out of his ass during his discard phase. With an opening hand of 3 swamps, 2 wastelands, ritual and Bottomless pit, Fritz kept it. Ritual-pit, proceed to pull every land out of the guys hand and waste any he put into play. Opponent died with a CoB his only permanent. Kevin Tamlyn, at 6-1 chose to play against topseeded Mike Bregoli, unaware that his opponent was playing Bloom. With no Bottomless Pit or Forsaken wastes, Kevin forgot to Necro to 0 in response to Mikes Drain, which would have meant a draw. Playing one of Hammer's crew who was with Sligh, Kevin dropped the Bottomless Pit and watched 1, 2, 3 Fireblasts fall into it. When you only have 3 land, you can't afford to sac 'em. I thought our deck would crush 3, 4, or 5c anything, and it was true all day. Kevin beat down Darwin Kastle who was with 5c Living Death. And as I mentioned b4, our deck was designed to ignore crappy walls. Unholy Strength is the best card in Magic. My opponent that was playing 5cB, who said 'I don't mind losing to a good deck, but that deck just sucks' (scoop). To be fair, first game I ritualed heavily and my early sewer rats went all the way with 3 THREE! Unholy Strengths. I necroed down to 1 on the last turn, pulling 2 edicts. In the second game he chose to play first and kept a 2 Undiscovered draw. Him- Paradise, shadow guildmage. Me- swamp, ritual, slayer, rats. Him- Paradise, shoot rats. Me-swamp, Bk. Him- Swamp, done. Me- Ritual, Horror, UNHOLY STRENGTH on the slayer. Attack, Cursed scroll. Him- bitch about how stupid my deck is, and how his ultimate card economy deck where all the cards have flexibility and multiple uses is better. Oh, yeah. Him-scoop! Don got 2 Spite kills, one against BurnBoy. Don also took out the Pox-Ensnaring Bridge deck which we all feared. One poor guy playing R/G Vineyard/Fat had to play Fritz, then me, and after a break where he won, Don. He took the poundings in good spirit tho, and took a couple games from us. Probably the only Crazed Armadons in the whole tourney. Okay, there are a lot more stories like these. You get the idea tho. Alan Webster Dead Last in Spite Kills