Big Bad Black at it's Best
This deck's goal is to take apart the combo pieces of other player's decks and then watch them burn out.
A secondary goal is to build a very uncomfortable boardstate that terrorizes your opponent with very unappetizing choices at every turn, more on that later.
Start out with some hand disruption in both creature and spell form Brain Maggot + Despise/Thoughtseize +
Black Cat
= an annoyed opponent.
Mid Game moves into a slow death from continual life loss Master of the Feast + Fate Unraveler = steady burning from each card drawn. Master of the feast is also an amazing beatstick, and even better with Whip of Erebos at his back.
Stab Wound
also sits on the board bleeding your opponent's dry, while providing devotion for your savior! Gray Merchant of Asphodel
During the mid game you can start to appreciate the synergy between the cards. Normally your opponent would want to kill off Brainmaggot as fast as possible but after you play Grim Haruspex and Dictate of Erebos it makes them wonder if they even want to kill the maggot just to re-claim one card card given that you may gain ALOT more from his death than they will. - what about
Black Cat
? Normally most players don't like the idea of this cat dying but add a few additional effects to his death and the prospect of swinging at one gets more grim with each passing turn.
- Sign in Blood can deal some serious damage to an opponent when used along with Fate Unraveler it probably should only be used in this way as a finisher but 4 damage for 2 mana is great - double it with a second Fate Unraveler and your opponent will need to pick their jaw up off the floor when they lose 6 health for 2 mana - Pass turn and they take another 2 before they can do anything about it!
---- With all the hand hate and life gain in this deck late game is going to be fairly common.
Late Game could end one of two ways either Master of the Feast + Fate Unraveler + Sign in Blood finally burn them out in a slow painful fashion (With no hope of recovery since Erebos cuts off their healing) OR Gray Merchant of Asphodel's effect for 8+ damage to brutally finish off your prey.
I know some of you are thinking it "Why one 1 Despise?"
I started out running 3 but I managed to trade for 2 Thoughtseize so I put them right in that slot. If I get another that'd nice. However I USUALLY RUN BUDGET DECKS so they aren't really my style - I don't care if I get another or not. The deck cost goes down by like $30 if you switch them back to despise... Also you burn yourself less ;)
Stab Wound
is more thematic than overly effective, but still 2 damage and a weakened creature for 3 mana isn't bad but as the turns pass that damage adds up to the point where your opponent wishes their creature was dead >:)
Update: 9/28/14
So far I have played 4 games Vs other decks and I must report that Sultai is MUCH better than I expected. more importantly I have gone 4/0 with this deck so far
Update: 10/2/14
After play testing several times VS Temur I'm very happy with how this deck works but I must add more lands! I find that the constant card draw matched with the limited land makes for consistently big hand sizes, which isn't really a good thing.
I enjoyed turning a pair of
Black Cat
into the scariest blockers in the game by backing them up with 2 Grim Haruspex and a Dictate of Erebos at one point, you'd have to be crazy to swing at them! My opponent didn't have any hand left at this point so I actually used Hero's Downfall on my own cat to draw cards and force them to kill one of their remaining creatures... I really never expected it to come to that. >:D
My deck is now 7/2 in play testing Vs 3 very different decks.
-2 Extinguish All Hope +2 Swamp
Update: 10/9/14
For a budget deck I'm impressed. It just beat a very fast aggro deck the other night 2/0
It also played a funky enchant hate midrange deck which exiled everything rather than "killing" it... which broke my trigger-based playstyle. I had little to sideboard and won only 1 out of the 4 games we played.
So this deck is now 10/6 in playtesting Vs 5 very different opponents. The extra lands helped and I never missed my 6 drop wipe.
