MTG Salvation

I like your new build Funeral. It's looking more and more like a combo deck but I like it. How well is Traverse the Ulvenwald working for you? Are the Street Wraiths to burn through the deck instead of Probes main to help activate Ulvenwald's delirium requirement? Thoughts on Living Wish in the Ulvenwald slot? Or is that too slow. It does get around CotV and you could grab either Hexmage, Depths or Death's Shadow from a toolbox sideboard to assemble your combos.

Btw, I do still like the consistency of my aggro list above. Perhaps IoKs could/should be more Thoughtseizes. My thoughts on that were that I didn't want to kill myself by running too many suicide cards.

The depth combo main isn't always necessary but gets you those 'easy' wins or can turn the game around (against maverick, blindly therapy'ing the STP's out of his hand).

Sounds like the deck is working nicely! I wonder if deck runs better without Marit Lage combo though, which still seems like a random encounter. Cutting the Marit Lage combo opens up going back to the consistency plan of card advantage with Confidant, mana denial/tempo plan with Wasteland and a few other flex slots for brewing.

Perhaps:
-4 Hexmage +4 Confidant
-3 Depths -Land of choice +4 Wasteland
-2 Postmortem Lunge +2 Rite of Consumption or some other tech in the flex slot.

Berserk seems really good here. Rite of Consumption also looks good. Flinging a Death's Shadow or Goyf at an opponent as a finisher seems not $h!tty and/or a versatile way to gain life in a pinch. Even Rancor in this slot would be nuts. No seriously. Giving Goyf, Shadow or Bone Picker +2/0 and trample is really good. Also Apostle's Blessing could possibly fit, perhaps by effectively countering an opponent's removal or giving your dude evasion for that alpha strike.

EDIT: Hymn to Tourach in the flex slot seems like a no brainer.

Here's my most recent list:


Are you really liking the Marit Lage combo? Thoughts?

Okay, so how about if I tap a forest equipped with both Wild Growth and Overgrowth? I get 4 mana correct? One for the Forest, one for the Wild Growth and two for the Overgrowth? So with New Horizons + Wild Growth I get 3 mana, but with Overgrowth + Wild Growth I get 4 correct?

Hi, if I have a New Horizons enchanting a Forest that happens to also have a Wild Growth on it and I tap the Forest for the "New Horizons" ability (not the Forests ability) to add two mana to my pool do I get an additional mana for the Wild Growth or does Wild Growth only give me the additional mana if I tap the Forest for it's own (the Forest's) mana producing ability?

Xoddy, that's great! I really like FuneralofGod's list. Post Mortem Lunge looks to be a hilarious finisher. Perhaps we should cut one though to make room for an additional Plunge into Darkness. Plunge helps not only to grab your Death's Shadow but also helps assemble the Marit Lage combo. I'd love to see more testing results, please post them if you get the chance.

Okay, perfect. Thanks guys!

I'm in the middle of a game right now. My opponent has an untapped Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and an untapped Containment Priest in play. I attack with Thrun, the Last Troll and my opponent chooses to block with both creatures. What happens? Does Thrun die and both Thalia and Priest live? Or does everything die?

Hey guys, this deck is actually quite competitive. I just haven't had a ton of time to test it thoroughly. Lately I've been busy working on a new build of Winter Maze. However, FuneralofGod your build looks impressive and I like the Depths combo. I've tried to steer away from Plunge into Darkness but here it has two uses: pump and find Death's Shadow or assemble your Depths combo. Vampire Hexmage for Depths but he is great for pumping out an early Bone Picker too. Also, Postmortem Lunge looks interesting here. I might pick this deck back up though and give you guys some testing results. I'd love to see other people working on the deck as well. Any testing results would be very welcome.

I really like this deck. In fact it looks a lot like something I would build. I run something fairly similar but mine is BW and less aggro and more lock centered. I run Smallpox for Bloodghast and Lingering Souls synergies and Sinkhole to attack my opponents mana base. Something you might want to test is Root Maze to tie up your opponents mana. Root Maze wrecks a lot of combo on it's own and it also hates on opponents fetchlands. Of course you would have to fix your mana base to exclude fetchies. Cool deck though! I might test it and chime back in later.

Virus9, thanks for replying to this thread. I thought everyone forgot about this deck, this thread's been dormant for over a year now. For a long time I've tried to figure out why nobody plays this deck, it is hands down the most fun and best Legacy deck I own. I've come to the conclusion that players in general typically go straight to MTGtop8.com to see what decks are winning and create variants of those decks. This deck did get a little attention back in the day however that attention was diverted to Black Red Reanimator and my guess was for reasons of budget. Those whom own a set of LEDs will typically gravitate toward the old tried and true Storm variants (ANT / TES) rather than invest time and effort in a deck they feel lightly tested. However, that still doesn't change the fact that this deck is faster, more consistent and versatile than any of the previously mentioned decks. In fact I own every card to build both Black Red Reanimator and TES but am unwilling take this deck apart to build them.

It's interesting because at first glance the deck looks really good. Like really really good, but after you actually play it you start to notice synergies that you didn't initially see and it begins to become clear that this deck is a stable, resilient, blazing fast, versatile Tier 1 monster.

Virus9, I like your build btw. I think however you may find that you need your 4th Thoughtseize. Not just for disruption purposes but because often you will need to use it on yourself as a discard outlet for Griselbrand. I'd recommend cutting one of either Children of Korlis or Anger. Honestly I prefer running Anger as once Griselbrand is online and you draw 14 you WILL most likely come across an Entomb in which to tutor him up allowing you a hasted Grisel and thus another 7 free cards in which to combo out. I think you will find that only one of them (either CoK or Anger) is necessary though. The deck needs a tad bit more disruption than what you have going on. In fact I now run 2x Chancellor and 4x Thoughtsieze main which brings me up to 6x maindeck disruption. Love your build other than that though. How has testing been going for you? I'd love your feedback.

That looks like a decent budget build, but of course spending the extra bucks for Thoughtseize, Bloodghast, Bob etc.. would really make this deck shine. I also feel like Dark Ritual is unnecessary in this deck. Back in the day it was an auto include but because the meta is so competitive it is really just sub par outside of combo as it results in card disadvantage. (Edit:). Also you are running an intense amount of mana. 20 main deck Swamps plus 4 Dark Rituals and 4 DRS is way over the top. Remember that most of the deck is one drops for tempo. Cut some land and add more disruption and removal. This is also why Wasteland is important to keep you ahead of your opponent. You should be casting 2 to 3 spells a turn with Bob refilling your hand. You really only need 18 land. 4 of which should be Wasteland. For budget purposes perhaps Sinkhole could suffice.

I'm in the middle of a move right now so I've had limited time but I'll test my build in the next few days against BUG Delver (which I think should be an easy matchup), BR Reanimator (which should also be fairly easy especially with sb) and then Eldrazi (which should be it's worst) and post results.

Are there any matchups you guys would like to see?? Also any more recommendations? How viable do any of you feel this deck is in the current meta? What is the level of overall interest in the development of this deck??

I had considered adding Hexmage Depths combo. Trying to figure out what I'd cut. Possibly on the sideboard. Another card I meant to mention was possibly adding a Berserk main deck.

SUICIDE BLACK 2017



Hi guys, I haven't posted in the forums for a while but still brewing as usual. Lately I've been toying with Bone Picker from Amonket and thought I'd start some discussion. First I want to point out that I've always felt mono black aggro has been extremely underrated and also noticed it's reappearance on MTG Top 8 piloted by Davide Foglia, you can check it here. His list is certainly not SUI Black but it got my gears turning and helped me escape some of mono black's tunnel vision due to the deck The Gate. Anyhow, my latest brew has had some incredible goldfishing results. I haven't gotten around to testing it yet but it appears to be ferocious in theory. Right now I'm splashing green for Abrupt Decay, Deathrite Shaman and sideboard options but other than that the deck is mono black. There are a bunch of synergies here but the main idea is that of a basic tempo strategy, first disrupt your opponent's hand and mana base with discard spells and Wasteland followed along with a ton of removal and heavy beats. Here's a basic list of card choices and syngeries.

Lots and lots of removal. After putting your opponent into top deck mode with discard spells, removal is key to take out any remaining threats. Just as in Pox builds with twelve main deck removal spells your Delver match ups should be extremely favorable.

Abrupt Decay is important and one of the main reasons to splash green. With the extremely low mana curve a Chalice set for 1 would single handedly wreck any of our strategies.

Fatal Push can take out almost all of our problem creatures from Delvers to Anglers. It is here not only for removal but it's cheap to cast allowing you to cast it and Bone Picker the same turn.

Dismember and Snuff Out are here for the same reason but also can lower your life total beefing up Death's Shadow.

Disruption.
All are self explanatory however Thoughtseize nabs any card all the while beefing Death's Shadow and Cabal Therapy synergies nicely with Fatal Push and Bone Picker's requirements. Plus it's especially nice in conjunction with Bloodghast or for killing off a Bob when your life is dangerously low.

Beatz!
Bone Picker is nuts so far in goldfishing. He's essentially mono black's Delver of Secrets but also boasts the added ability of Deathtouch. His cheap mana requirement is super easy to meet. You don't really even have to build the deck around him, he's effortlessly easy to cast. First you have Cabal Therapy and tons of removal spells to meet his requirement, but you can also cast him early by dropping a Death's Shadow while your life total is above 13 effectively turning your DS into a Dark Ritual.

Death's Shadow fits here nicely as cards such as Dark Confidant, Snuff Out, Dismember and Thoughtseize will suicide you to some extremely cheap heavy beat sticks for smashing face.

Deathrite Shaman does so much. He keeps graveyard based decks in check, fixes and ramps your mana, adds to the beat down but also helps you manage your life total in the event you get too low.

Dark Confidant synergizes nicely with all of your discard disruption giving you a large card advantage and the over all mana curve of the deck is low enough that he won't hurt you too much but high enough to manage with DRS for maximizing your Death's Shadows. You can always kill him off with Therapy or any of the many removal spells if you get too dangerously low on life. Plus he beats for two.

Bloodghast is awesome for applying pressure but also nice with early Cabal Therapys and opponents board wipes and removal spells.

Sideboard and cards to consider. I've toyed around with Vampire Nighthawk, Gatekeeper of Malakir, Liliana of Veil, etc.. but these are better suited for mid range aggro/control strategies as they would drastically increase the mana curve. Other cards to consider: Umezawa's Jitte, Cursed Scroll, Zuran Orb, Sinkhole, Plunge into Darkness, Infernal Contract, Rite of Consumption etc.. Feel free to discuss these and add any other suggestions. You can test the deck here. Comments and critiques welcome! Thanks in advance!

I'm not a huge Garruk Wildspeaker fan in this deck, I did test him in earlier builds. This deck evolved out of a budget deck I created called Budget Green Prison that had a fairly big following involving Black Vise, Winter Orb, Root Maze and Garruk. There was even an article about it that I will post later (if I can find it). My original posting of that deck can be found here. Anyhow, Wild Growth and Utopia Sprawl especially with Arbor Elf simply crank out so much mana that Garruk is not necessary. Maybe as a one of, but his benefits outside of his mana ability are not that great.

Test him again though. Winter Maze is very different deck than Budget Green Prison and I possibly had bad match ups and/or draws. Honestly though, I do not see him as more than a one of.

I also have new info on my latest testings. I've been retesting and Tangle Wire is really nice as 2x slot, it's no Trinisphere but the combination of the two is dope. Wish I had more time but I'll hit up on that later.

Masticore is nuts btw, but certainly a meta call.

I was trying not to be redundant and posting my list too many times. In the third paragraph of my last post I mentioned: "The list I'm playing right now (listed above)", I should have said "the post above is my current list but with the -1x Griselbrand +1x Sire". Sorry for the confusion. Speaking of which and to clear any confusion here's the list:



Looking at recent Black Red Reanimator lists I've seen new tech such as Collective Brutality. I've toyed with it and really it doesn't make the cut. This deck wins turn one more often than not and CB with it's casting cost regarding it's options is not necessary. Although, it could and possibly should be on the sb as a BW target. Also, Black Red Reanimator doesn't go off as consistently. With Burning Reanimator you get the basic Black Red (Faithless Looting / Entomb) package plus you get LED which dumps fatties to yard only to be reanimated with Unburial Rites, and you get the Exhume + LED combo. With Black Red you only get the basic Faithles Looting / Entomb package. That being said you get better chances of going off early. Burning Reanimator (at least my list) goes off with the consistency of Belcher but better because you at least get some disruption. 4x maindeck Thoughtseize game one and an additional 3x Chancellor game two, putting you at 7 disruption. If you are on the play you almost always win game one. Game two you will almost always side in Chancellor and either win with his protection or Belcher out goblins to avoid grave hate. Not to mention Tin Fins style storm wins and a Burning Wish toolbox.

EDIT: I'm thinking +1x Collective Brutality for the sb -1x Pithing Needle. I've made the adjustments to the deck in this edit.