MTG Salvation

Hey all.


I've been brewing a lot of Orzhov and Mardu lists to make a suicide deck but have decided I wanna stick to mono black for tons of mana to actually use my self inflicting dmg effects.


Now I can't figure out a commander, but here are 3 I've been looking into:


Erebos, God of the Dead

Pros:
Hard to remove
Spamable ability + CA
Easy to turn on Devotion wise
Prevents others from gaining life

Cons:
A lot of people use this deck at my LGS, well not suicide black but Erebos decks, and I prefer to usually not copy commanders
Turning into a creature could make him more susceptible to removal
Temptation of turning into mono-black goodstuff.


Chainer, Dementia Master
Pros:
Easy reanimation that self inflicts dmg
Gives abit of an anthem to whatever we reanimate
Is a cool looking old card

Cons:
5 mana is a bit high, and he's easily killed
3 black might be hard to make in some cases


Kothophed, Soul Hoarder

Pros:
Unused commander so A, its original which I like and B people will leave me alone
Consistent card draw when killing things
Selfinflicting dmg is easy with him

Cons:
Is unused for a reason
6 mana is a lot for first cast, and he's easy to kill.


Any thoughts? I'm open to other commanders as well in mono black if you suggest them!

Thanks for any help!

So, by suicide deck, you mean - commander that uses up your life total? Why is this what you want to do with the deck? Marchesa, the Black Rose plays in this area and I have lost several games because I brought down my life total too much.

What about Razaketh, the Foulblooded?

Erebos is great, but if you don't want to use him, don't.
I don't like Chainer as a big mana monoblack deck, because it is really a reanimator deck and you are not getting good use if you not a dedicated reanimator deck.
I do not like Kothoped, as anybody with a sac outlet can kill you.

Well it's a fun way to play the game, using life as another resource. Some decks like Selenia Dark Angel use it and swap life totals, but that's a little cheesy for me.


Razaketh is really cool looking. I'll have to keep him in mind.

I have a fun deck that runs all the things like Cruel Bargain, Infernal Contract, Skeletal Scrying, Promise of Power, Pain's Reward, and the various 'pain bears' (Pain Seer, Dark Confidant, etc.)

If you're wanting to skirt the line between card draw and suicide then those will get you there real fast.

The commander is Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath specifically so I can offset all the pain.

If you want to devote less of your main deck to it though, then I can confirm that Kothophed works better than you'd expect unless your meta is really competitive. The fact that it's any permanent is a pretty big difference from any creature. Card advantage means you can also run more rituals and whatnot to get him out early.

Thanks for the card suggestions. Ob does look cool, I might have to try him

Maralen of the Mornsong is also a good one. It just shuts so many players down by restricting the draw.

I have a saskia the unyielding suicide EDH deck, but I am not sure if your are willing to put forth for 4 colors. I would have to dig up my deck, since its been awhile I played EDH, if you want the deck list,I can post it.

I think the best "suicide black" deck for me is Marchesa v1
Its all about the aggro and paying life to bring down others.
Chainer is a great commander too, where life is a resource to manipulate.
Tymna the Weaver could do this style too and would be fun/decent

Chainer, dementia Master All the way! He rocks, seriously.

My Pros:

He turns innocent (ish) little dudes like Fleshbag Marauder and his 2 copies into repeatable stax effects. Chainer and any version of fleshbag creates a brutal lock that few decks can out-value or out-aggro.

The other biggest reason to play him is Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Kokusho the evening star, as you combine one of them with chainer and a sac outlet and drain the table for (prefferably all of) their life.

Addressing your listed cons:

You say he's easily killed, and that is totally true, but with the ability being an instant you are ensured to get some value off of it.

His 5 cmc is higher than many generals, but it doesn't really matter because you won't be playing him out very fast anyways. The way his (non-stax) decks work is by spending the early game getting creatures on the field/into the yard and setting up a sac outlet before you play him.

3 black is not hard to generate for the ability, it's mono black... You do end up pouring quite a bit of mana into reanimating the same creature over and over (be it a Rune-scarred Demon or Fleshbag Marauder), but the mana isn't a problem because it's mono black. This is the dominion of Crypt Ghasts and Cabal Coffers (there are at least 6 playable mana doublers). The biggest downside of the ability is actually the cost in life. 3 life per go seems mostly irrelevant, but it adds up fast. If you do only 7-8 reanimations in the game it ends up costing over half your life, so you need to win by then.

For an amazing primer by jmdt, look here.

Torgaar, famine incarnate!

He sets your opponents life to 20 so your sui black creatures can make quick work of him/her.

His 7 power means he is a 3 turn clock for another player.

He can even gain you life after you cruel bargains and necropotences.

i have a rakdos the defiler suicide RB at least. its actually really fun, mostly 'cuz the deck powers out pretty nutty things via rituals and whatnot, and then if a player's board position gets a bit too large, smash them back to size with rakdos. Not mono-black though.

But in terms of good suicide monoB, Drana, Liberator of Malakir could be good (though it might work better as a weenie than suicide black).

I'm a huge fan of kothophed, soul hoarder. He makes for very unique situations.

There are two problems with him tho. The biggest is his mana-cost to not having an immediate board presence.

Second problem with him will be on how your opponents deal with him. So he typically isn't warranted a target removal spell until you try to attack, and people don't always want to wrath since you'll draw a few cards. What happened with my Kotho when I played him was he typically got stolen via shackles/drake/treachery or the opponents would just make a clone of him.

I would still vote for him tho - while his card is very simple he does make for some very interesting games.