Back in maybe ’95 or so, me and a couple of my friends took part in one of my first tournaments (see Gaming Stories in the top of the page to see my actual first tournament) in small municipality some hours drive outside of our hometown. I was playing a black and white weenie deck with [scryfall]Armageddon[/scryfall]. Don’t really remember, but it probably looked something like this:

[cardlist title=My Deck from the 90s]
[creatures]
4 Savannah Lions
4 Erg Raiders
4 Black Knight
4 White Knight
4 Order of Leitbur
4 Order of the Ebon Hand
[/creatures]
[spells]
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terror
4 Armageddon
4 Hymn to Tourach
[/spells]
[lands]
4 Scrubland
8 Plains
8 Swamp
[/lands]
[/cardlist]

So the mana was a bit awkward with all the double colored cost spells in the deack, but I wasn’t analytical enough to identify that problem, and in that context it was a good deck. The locals didn’t see it like that. One of them laughed when I played a turn two [scryfall]Erg Raiders[/scryfall]. He showed a [scryfall]Shivan Dragon[/scryfall] from his hand and asked me how I thought my little guy would ever stand up against his mighty dragon. His friends were actually egging him on in this.

So how did my lowly brigands do? After an [scryfall]Armageddon[/scryfall] on turn five, that little creature that could killed him on its own. I still have great fondness for these two cards even though I haven’t played them in well over a decade. He was deeply embarrassed. He seemed to be the local big fish and he had been taken down several notches that match. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who beat him senseless that day. Another player from our group of friends did the same, not letting him resolve his dragons.

From what I heard (and this is complete hearsay), that guy didn’t learn, but some of his friends did, completely altering the pecking order within that small municipality, which was sort of nice, because apparently, before that guy had been dominating mostly based on family money, which he had used to buy those dragons, which were very expensive back in the day.

We all top 8’d that event. Not that it was a big deal in the bigger picture, but we didn’t have much tournament experience at that point, so we were very happy.

The message here is that drawbacks are fine. Even though today you can get really good creatures without one, they are still very, very good. [scryfall]Jackal Pup[/scryfall] was a big thing back in the day. Today you wouldn’t even play one if it didn’t have some extra benefit attached (well, maybe you would, but the extra ability of [scryfall]Firedrinker Satyr[/scryfall] definitely makes the decision easier). You don’t care how fast you are dying as long as you can kill your opponent just a little bit faster. Therefore this was a pretty big deck in the late 90s:

[cardlist title=Suicide King by Brian Schneider]
[creatures]
4 Carnophage
2 Flesh Reaver
4 Skittering Skirge
[/creatures]
[spells]
4 Dark Ritual
4 Demonic Consultation
4 Duress
4 Cursed Scroll
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sarcomancy
4 Sphere of Resistance
[/spells]
[lands]
4 Mishra’s Factory
4 Wasteland
14 Swamp
[/lands]
[sideboard]
4 Dystopia
4 Engineered Plague
4 Funeral Charm
3 Spinning Darkness
[/sideboard]
[/cardlist]

Yes, you’ll be half-dead before winning, but winning by an inch is the same as winning by a mile.

But why bring this up now? Because I think the suicide method is again on the table. Born of the Gods will bring us two notable cards: [scryfall]Pain Seer[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Herald of Torment[/scryfall]. That should give us something to work with.

[cardlist title=Suicide Black 2014 Mix]
[creatures]
4 Tormented Hero
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Pain Seer
4 Thrill-Kill Assassin
4 Herald of Torment
4 Desecration Demon
[/creatures]
[spells]
4 Thoughtseize
4 Hero’s Downfall
4 Ultimate Price
2 Underworld Connections
[/spells]
[lands]
4 Mutavault
18 Swamps
[/lands]
[sideboard]
3 Dark Betrayal
4 Duress
4 Nightveil Spectre
4 Lifebane Zombie
[/sideboard]
[/cardlist]

Maybe, if you want to win, you should change the [scryfall]Thrill-Kill Assassin[/scryfall]s to [scryfall]Pack Rat[/scryfall]s, but since it doesn’t have an in-built drawback, I left it out. Just a matter of philosophy, although I do enjoy those assassins myself. The sideboard might benefit greatly from [scryfall]Bile Blight[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Drown in Sorrow[/scryfall], both from Born of the Gods as well.

The deck has a pretty good curve and should be able to win matches. Blocking isn’t really in your agenda, so don’t worry about that. Just keep the pressure up.