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Peering into Pauper – Scenes from Suicide Black
Posted on December 2, 2010 by Pitlord
Great article,
I’ve always had a soft spot for suicide black myself, it’s too bad that in my exclusive preoccupation that it’s banned heh (in Heirloom).
I haven’t had a chance to look around the site that much yet, is there a guide on how to link cards and make the shnazzy decklists like you have here somewhere?
X-
Welcome and thanks for the article.
I tried to play Sui Black but it has such a hard time against the meta that Id rather not play it. Instead I played a R/B Haste deck. It usually loses to U or U/R control unless they keep an iffy hand. Against Gobos its ok. Most of the time its a loss since they have so many outs to x/1 creatures. Against Affinity and Combo its does fine. I have a hard time playing decks that dont contain Lightning Bolts in Pauper since its such a powerful card.
Discard is a little overrated since so many cards have flashback.
Off note, Im hoping Cloud of Faeries receives the ban it deserves. Such a good card in so many ways.
@Pitlord Great article. Glad to see some Pauper content again. It is a popular format and many players are interested to learn more about the metagame and deck ideas.
@Xaoslegend Our contributors only have to deliver the decklist in .txt format and we convert them into the decklists you can see in the articles. The tool is part of our web platform.
I also tried to make this work when Carnophage came online, but failed to bring anything better than the metagame at the time. A useful card was Spinning Darkness as removal. I like the inclusion of Liliana’s Specter. From MED IV, I’ve been oogling Hasran Ogress but I don’t know if it’s any help.
regards
Thanks for all the comments already guys!
@moerutora: I also actually started work on a more aggressive B/R build after some initially mediocre results with mono-black but I haven’t worked too much on refining the list. Perhaps another deck worth working on and writing about?
@Reinaldo: I initially used Carnophage as well but found him to be less than thrilling. Spinning Darkness though I totally whiffed on, didn’t even cross my mind. It probably warrants testing at the least, though I am concerned about it not taking down Spire Golem or a Ninja of the Deep Hours that shows up too early. Lastly, Hasran Ogress doesn’t seem that exciting, since the 2 slot is already clogged with better guys and I’m still concerned about Staggershock.
A Pauper Metagame Breakdown without Frantic Storm aka Familiar Storm seems just incomplete, imho its differnt enough from “normal” Storm to get its own entry.
It’s very cool that you took an archetype that wasn’t showing up and showed us your progress in a detailed experiment. I think the experiment is a success even if Suicide Black is merely a Tier 2 deck. After all, it’s pretty hard to bust into an established meta with a new deck that all of a sudden dominates everything. Anyway, nice approach to this article. Hopefully you’ll be able to come back with more content like this.
@StewardUlk: I agree it’s a very differnet deck that I’ve seen in some top 8 results, but I honestly haven’t played a single game against it in the 21 two-mans I’ve played or the countless other practice games. This is probably a fluke since the deck does seem strong though. Maybe I’ll cover it sometime soon!
@Zimbardo: Thanks for the kind words. I hope I can keep coming up with content too.
On a final note, I did create a thread for the deck itself in the forums, so any card discussion or alternate builds can be held there and easily tracked.
Was the meta-game really the first thing you considered? It seems you were already pushing for the idea of sui, and wanting to play sui restricted the full utilization of this perspective. By not focusing on a deck type, color(s), etc., it allows you to find the best answers to the mega-game threats as well as providing threats that the meta-game does not have an answer to among the card pool of everything in the pauper format, instead of just those cards that happen to be black or artifact. After this analysis, then start the deck construction process, connecting the colors, the tempo. Only at this point does compromising start, swapping for a similar though not as effective response, that fits the colors, the mana-curve, in order to make enough cards for a deck.
But you bring up a good point when you talk of interaction. This process isn’t so simple as to look for just individual cards, but those groups of cards that together form the best response against the meta. The caution here is to note the luck factor, however: it is a card game, after all, and you won’t always draw into the combos that best disrupt the meta. Even if your playing blue with a huge card-drawing engine, the critical group of cards aren’t guaranteed. Thus, another compromise: the cards should be good individually (silver bullets) as well as in combo against the meta-game, even if the full strength of the group of cards is lost. A jack-of-all-trades deck, as it were.
Specialized decks (storm, and to a lesser extent goblins and sui) seem to take the group concept to its extreme, hoping to draw that explosive hand that will devastate the opponent before they have a chance to react. However, what if you draw a bad hand, get mana flooded? Or if the opponent plays a silver bullet at just the right time that foils everything, even with the best hand you can draw? There’s a plan A, but not much plan B (besides trying to rebuild plan A though drawing cards or burning the rest of the opponent when the creatures have been neutralized)
Of course, the other, individual, decks (mostly control) have the silver bullets, but are completely reactionary, having no real group synergy to proactively attack the opponent. Thus the critical build-up time needed for such decks.
But of course if the meta is filled with the latter decks, then the former decks would be the best answer even though they aren’t the most… aesthetically pleasing type of decks. If it wins, if it works, it doesn’t matter.
As a baseline, though, if you’re still trying to find out about the meta, then a good place to start would be in the aggro-control, or mid-range type decks that tend toward the above balance of individual vs. group cohesiveness. As more input is gained, shift deck type, colors, etc, etc, accordingly.
That’s how I always built decks, anyway. Kinda like how I wrote book reports. Gather all the info, quotes that seemed would be relevant to the professor (the meta), then organize the report into a thematic, binding whole after, starting with transitions between quotes, then between paragraphs, and finally ending with an introduction and conclusion. External factors like length (opponent’s decks) thus never mattered – if the paper needed to be short, gather only a few quotes. If it needed to be longer, gather more. Additionally, you didn’t have to worry about writer’s block because you were not trying to fit the data to a preconceived notion, goal, or thesis (deck type/color) that you had in mind.
Deck building, or a way of life…
This isnt suicide black. This is mono black aggro.
The suicide part of suicide black comes from the use of many cards that will actually kill you. Especially if your opponent manages to stop you in the first few turns.
Please magic players get it straight!
Really cool to see a pauper article ! I play mostly pauper and hope to see more articles on it in the future.