Diabolic Edict, or lack thereof.

[Gizmo]

Mafia King
by Nate "this`ll do my street cred no damn good" Heiss

2 Adarkar Wastes
3 Plains
4 Swamp
5 Island
3 City of Brass
4 Coastal Tower
4 Dromar`s Cavern

1 Nether Spirit

1 Teferi's Moat
1 Story Circle
2 Seal of Cleansing
2 Yawgmoth's Agenda
1 Rout
3 Wrath of God
4 Counterspell
4 Dromar's Charm
3 Probe
3 Fact or Fiction
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Vampiric Tutor
1 Aladdin's Ring
1 Elfhame Sanctuary
1 Zur's Weirding
1 Tsabo's Web

SB
3 Lobotomy
1 Wrath of God
1 Dry Spell
3 Gainsay
1 Perish
1 Seal of Cleansing
4 Dread of Night
1 Dismantling Blow

"Nate Heiss who I love dearly wrote some horrible s**t, if you take his advice, you'll 0-4. Luckily with such a horrible article he can only improve as you can't write anything worse than his Mafia King."
[Eric Taylor @ #mtgwacky, night before regionals]

And Nate is on my tech ring, so this is what he had to say fresh from his regionals:

"I missed my mark a little, but would have made top 8 if I was not such a bad player. 6-3 is not horrible I guess, but the 8-1 would have been much better. Mafia King was great. Amazing even. I did a lot of mana tapping and ring pointing.
To the dome!"

 

[Ransac]

Wait a minute. I HAVE BEEN MISLED!!!!!! I was told it WAS going to be in.


That sucks.


Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[DÛke]

...Well put thoughts, Chaos Turtle. However, Supress isn't really a good card...nither is Parallax Nexus. The reasons may not be obvious in the beginning, seeing how much advantage these cards SEEM to give you...

...Supress is basically a dead card without Dark Ritual. Not only that, but using it later than turn 4 - 6 isn't really the best of advantage. One might argue Hatred (the card, not the deck) the same way I'm arguing Supress...but Hatred could be used effectively ANY time you get it, unlike Supress, and to a lesser extent, Parallax Nexus.

I agree, however, that it gives you amazing advantage if played right, and at the exact moment. Personally, I'll wait and see what the environment will be shifting to before I fully judge a card's power.

The upbringing of Diabolic Edict would, without a doubt, effect the envrionment...and with cards like Unmask, Duress, Diabolic Edict, and hopefully Parallax Nexus and Supress, we'll probably see some kind of a Black deck that is suicidal in nature...for sure, though, we'll see many attempts...

 

[Gizmo]

Surely Suppress is terrible.
Surely it`s Orims Chant, but for B2 and without the Kicker.

 

[Apollo]

CT, you make some interesting points, but I'm going to disagree with you. Supress isn't bad on the first turn with a Ritual. But then it's a two-card Time Walk that still lets them draw a card. Still not that good. And as you said, that missed land drop could hurt them if you are playing a fast black deck. But then again, you just went through your first turn without doing anything to threaten your opponent. And you've used your Ritual, which would probably be better used to just bring out something big and attack anyway. Heck, the loss of the Ritual may just hurt you more than the missed land drop hurts your opponent.

And finally, without the Ritual, the card does very little. If you don't have the Ritual, you end up playing this on the 3rd turn, which is right when suicide black wants to lay something big.

That's my take, anyway.

 

[Duel]

Hehehe. Ignore this. I thought Supress was Duress. I'm not deleting it so Zadok's post will make sense. It's late and I'm stupid.

 

[Zadok001]

Gizmo said: "Surely Suppress is terrible."

To which Duel responded with: "Hmm... if Duress is as bad as Orim's chant, why did Pandeburst splash black for just that and tutors. Surely the white card, which allows card-drawing, even, is better?"

Anyone else confused? Suffice it to say, I think there was a failure to communicate somewhere along these lines.

As far as Diabolic Edict is concerned, I was very disapointed to see it fail to make an appearance in 7th. But, even with Edict, Black is essentially screwed for the time being as the only color that can't effectively deal with enchantments. Edict or otherwise, Black screwed.

 

[Duel]

Whee! Zadok's post made sense. Mine didn't. I misread the post, thought they said "Duress" Editing now!

"Who needs sleep, aw, you're never gonna get it!"
-BNL

 

[Chaos Turtle]

I certainly didn't mean to suggest that Supress was good in any situation other than the one I described. In fact, I specifically said that anything later than the first turn, Parallax Nexus was better, and Parallax Nexus is bad. (And it can't even come to the same parties as Orim's Chant.)

I only said that it gave me "the willies," and that I could see some application for it in Speed Black in the current environment, as a way to take advantage of generally slow starts.

I just don't see Speed Black having the explosive draws that it used to. No deck does, it seems (even Fires' rare "explosive" start only kills on turn 4 when the opponent just sits there). So, chances are that Speed Black will take on a more control-oriented startegy, devoting the first couple of turns to disruption. The rumored mini-necro creatures make up for the tempo advantage lost early on (note that I'm assuming that these creatures won't just suck).

(It may seem like I'm arguing here, but I'm not... at this point, I'm just "thinking out loud.")

Any other turn one for monoblack looks just as grim. Ritual, Duress, Addle looks great, sure, but that's 3 cards and does nothing about land. And two creature to beat down your opponent with? Have you looked at black's creatures lately? Okay, Ravenous Rats, Duress would be good. But Rats, Unholy Strength? Maybe Foul Imp, Unholy Strength; but now Foul Imp, Blood Pet... hey, now we are talking tempo.

Okay, okay, so I didn't think all the way through the possiblities. Supress isn't amazing at all. But it's not the worst thing you could do to your black deck...

And I stand by my original statement. Having my entire hand removed for an entire turn does give me the willies.

Black's coming back...

 

[Cateran Emperor]

All I know is, I'm playing some good old B/G after Apocalypse comes out... Incase anyone else is wondering, here are the rest of the painlands:

Shivan Reef - R/U
Llanowar Waste - B/G
Battlefield Forge - R/W
Yavimaya Coast - G/U