I've run this deck in three tournaments so far to some moderate success.  I placed top 8 in a Superstars Mox Tourney, Top 4 of the Vintage Champs Prelim at Gen Con, but only ran a 4-3 record in the actual Vintage Champs event.

I absolutely love the deck, but there's something that bothers me about the stock build, and it's this:

The thought of playing Helm/Leyline maindeck in a Vintage tournament makes me feel nauseous.

I realize maindeck Leylines turn the Dredge matchup into some kind of sick joke.  But against many decks, they're marginal at best, and against some decks they're straight-up dead draws.  So is it worth it to completely own one fringe matchup (Dredge) while a very popular archetype (MUD) takes us to the woodshed?

To be fair, I only ran the deck as Mono-Black in my first tournament, so maybe some players with more time behind the deck can share some insights about these cards, because I'm just not seeing it.  For the combo to even be doable, you kind of need to turn-0 the leyline, otherwise we're talking 9 mana to get this bad-boy going.  So let's say you have the T0 leyline in your opener, maybe you even have the Helm, but no fast mana.  Are you okay with your win condition activating on turn 5?  Even turn 5 here assumes you never get a land Wasted or choose to Waste a land yourself.  What if you have the T0 Leyline and no Helm?  Are you now prepared to start burning tutors to put this combo together instead of HexDepths?  And if you don't go for the Helm, that T0 Leyline is basically a mulligan, while a Helm by itself in your opener is almost assuredly a mulligan.  Anytime I drew a Leyline or a Helm after turn 1,  I wanted to punch something very hard.  Flipping one of these spells to Bob is adding injury to the insult.  In the one tournament in which I ran Helm, I only went for it once.  That happened to be against Dredge, a matchup where I'm obviously going to mulligan into Leyline.  Against everyone else, however, either side of the Helm/Leyline combo turned into a mulligan (by that I mean my "7" card hand only really had 6 useable cards in it).

I feel like this deck runs a lot of fair-ish cards in an unfair format (sorcery speed hand disruption, Wasteland effects that often slow down our development just as much as our opponents').  Add to this a number of tutorable silver bullets and fast-mana accelerants that are great early game but not so great late game, and you end up with a deck that can find itself drawing dead a lot, in a format where every card you or your opponent draws is of critical importance.  I can't bring myself to run five more dead draws in the form of Helm/Leyline. 

The problem, I realize, with removing Helm and Leyline is that you are taking out Plan B, and making the deck all about Plan A.  We know that Bob beatdown is not really a viable strategy, so I feel like any move away from Helm/Leyline needs to do one of two things: provide an alternate Plan B win condition, or make Plan A as brokenly streamlined as possible.  Here are the things I've tried so far:

GREEN SPLASH - When you just want a good plan B

I played a friendly Vintage game against Conley Woods once.  He was playing MUD, and I asked him "Everyone seems to be afraid of playing against Workshops.  What are Workshops afraid of playing against?"

He said, simply, "Tarmogoyfs."

After my first tourney at Superstars, I axed the Helm and moved the Leylines to the sideboard.  In their place, I added 4 Tarmogoyfs and a Mox Emerald.  I suddenly felt like the MUD matchup was as unloseable as Dredge had once been. The first 'Goyf you play will usually trade with a 5/3, buying you lots of time against a deck that really only runs 8 threats.  The second goyf tends to be a 5/6, and at that point you really can't lose.

Nature's Claim out of the board gives you even more game against 'Shops, and helps with the Chalice-at-2 problem the rest of the deck has.  Claim is also good against Oath, a match-up admittedly made a little bit worse by the 'Goyfs.

My local shop is running its first Vintage event this Sunday, so I'm dusting off the Dark Depths again and getting ready to crush with some 20/20s.  There will be a lot of first-time Vintage players in the room, many of whom will probably try porting their Legacy decks over to this format.  In such an unpredictable meta-game, I want to be comboing.  I want to be ignoring my opponent and just winning faster.  So the question becomes, what is the best way to do that?

My friend, Phil (saspook on TMD), thought I should go back to the mono-black version.  This isn't a terrible idea since I can name at least two Legacy Dredge players I know who are going to proxy some Bazaars and call it a day.  But again... nauseous.  So I've been tinkering with this:

BLUE SPLASH - When you just want Plan A, and you want it now

I'm a greedy bastard and I wanted to run Jace in a Dark Times deck.  Sue me.  So I started testing with blue for 2 Jace, Ancestral, and Time Walk - adding a Sapphire and Mox Diamond to make the mana work better - and I've found Plan A to be waaaay more consistent.  In fact, Plan B has become "do Plan A again."

Phil, again the voice of reason, thinks UU for Jace is just a bit too greedy.  He may be right, and without Hurkyl's Recall, I'm leaving myself open to the trump cards that can actually shut down Plan A (Needle, Ensnaring Bridge [do people even run that card?]).

So after some more tweaking, I've ended up with this list:

4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Dark Confidant
4 Thoughtseize
4 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Intuition (This is a new addition and the slot I'm the least sure about.  I'm considering trying out Preordain, or maybe running the Sapphire in it's place. Maybe it should be one of the cards that used to be in the deck, like the SB Darkblast or the 3rd Edict.)
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk
1 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Necropotence
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Pithing Needle
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Diamond (seems weak, but is surprisingly good)
1 Lotus Petal
2 Dark Depths
4 Black Fetchland (1 of each)
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Underground Sea
4 Swamp
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Sideboard (very rough)
1 Emissary of Despair
2 Bitterblossom
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Yixlid Jailer
1 Trinisphere
1 Pithing Needle
1 Darkblast
3 Null Rod
1 Engineered Plague

Other cards I've considered for the sideboard: Annul, Spell Pierce, Energy Flux, Perish.

So that's where I am right now,  The extra card draw and tutor(s) make the HexDepths combo more consistent.  I have a bullet against MUD, but I still lose to a Chalice for 2.  I'm no longer favored game 1 against Dredge, but neither is anyone else in the format, and I feel comfortable enough post-board.

This is the deck I hope to run two weeks from now at Superstars, a more established metagame, but (and I can't believe I'm typing this after all I've already said) I MIGHT still run mono-black at my local tourney this Sunday.  It's only because I know there will be a disproportionately high number of Dredgers in the room and I don't expect much MUD.  Maybe somebody here can convince me that the Helm/Leyline combo isn't completely jank.  But right now, I'm (obviously) not seeing it.

@policehq, Bibi
I am about to ask you to do a long and tedious task.  If you don't feel up to it, I'll understand.  Go back and read not only this thread, but the thread I linked to at the start of this thread.  That is a good 20+ pages of R/G discussion.

I'm not telling you to do this because I hate you (because I don't), Its just that we have previously covered the Oath matchup, and some reasons why Naturalize is better.  Jujulautre has already covered some of them.  (just to re-cap, the best way to beat Oath is to try to race them, and disrupt them with rootmaze.  That is were naturalize comes in handy, EOT naturalize while their stuff is CIPT.  This coupled with other hate like mox monkey and wastelands can usually be effective against Oath)

As for library, I believe it was talked about in the old thread.  I also think that our conclusion was that this deck is too pressed for space as it is, and the consistency makes up for its lack of draw.

Also, I undestand how Hull Breach can be better in some situations, but Naturalize is by far more versatile since it can be played at instant speed.  Against Stax, for example, game 1 I would want naturalize over hull breach because of the instant abilty and the easier to cast part.  Since I'm MDing some artifact/enchantment removal, I'd probably go with naturalize just for versatility.

You can use kobolds with summoning sickness to untap basic land. And there lies the problem, it needs to be basic land

Today I played Kobolds in the Eindhoven tourny. Knowing the metagame would be packed with FoW's I put 3 xantid swarms main and 3 kobolds in the board for non-control opponents. Although I don't want to write a full report, I did type out a short match-by-match report.

Round 1: Menno playing UB Scepter Tog
Having played vs Menno twice before in tourny's and losing both matches 2-1 doesn't bode well. Him winning the last 2 tourny's makes it even better. I do know he packs either FoW or 3sphere, as he is known to run a full complement of one or the other. At least a worthy adversary.

Game 1: I start off with a swarm to fish for FoW. It doesn't come, so I ancestral into some mana acceleration, play it, and pass the turn with a hurkyll's recall and frantic search in my hand. During his turn he plays 2 scepters, using a lotus. He imprints a counterspell and an AK. During my turn I swarm him, cast frantic search, draw twister, play hurkylls on him wrecking his board, twisting into a new hand containing ritual, necro and time walk. He dies a horrible death turn 2.

Game 2: He FoW's a turn 1 clamp, I drop a seal of cleansing, and watch him gather a handful of counters with me drawing no threats. When he drops his tog I know his win condition, concede, and we go off to game 3.

Game 3: I draw some early disruption in the form of some duresses, we both seem not to find any drawspells however. I gather some resources, and start casting threats while he is low on mana from a cast scepter on his previous turn. He drains the first two. His hand is empty except for 1 or 2 cards, so I cast yawgmoths will. He casts AK for 4, tops a FoW and stops it. Three turns later I try again wih necro followed by twister, but again he topped a drain. He resolves tog and beats me. We both know it was close, but he had luck on his side...

Games 1-2, Match 0-1

Round 2 : Mathi with TPS
Game 1: He starts with an underground sea. This time I start with a turn 1 swarm again, followed by ritual -> necro. I draw 12, set up for a turn 2 kill, and pass. He plays crypt, ritual and a topdecked lotus to cast a bargain, and rides it to victory. Had I won the coin flip, I would have won the game

Game 2: We both keep the duress disruption hand. We both draw go for several turns, but a clamp turns some kobolds into a nice draw engine, and I ride it to victory.

Game 3: He starts off with a sea, I start (with a mulligan) for a turn 1 necropotence, depleting my hand. He has the force, and I die his turn 2, to once again a topped bargain that he cast of of double ritual and a crypt.

Games 2-4, Match 0-2

Round 3: ??? with goblins
After a mulligan I get the 4 artifacts, land wheel hand. His discard reveiled goblins, so I turn a couple of rituals into bargain. I kill him T1.

After boarding my SB tech reveils itself, showing him a T2 DC out of a tinker. He has no solution and dies turn 4.

Games 4-4, Match 1-2

Round 4: Joren with Ankh Sligh
Game 1: I have a hand with fast mana (including ritual) totalling 5 mana and a bargain. Knowing he plays goblins and he is playing first, I keep. I lure a wasteland from him onto my land, turning it into another gemstone mine with my crop rotation, stunting his development. My 3rd turn I get the mana source I need, cast bargain and win.

Game 2: A T2 necro turns into a turn 3 win

Games 6-4, Match 2-2

Round 4: ??? with Control Slaver
Game 1: Mana acceleration + vampiric + duress turns into a turn 2 bargain with no worries. I ride it to victory.

Game 2: I bait a FoW with clamp, going for the twister after that. The new clamp resolves, and he dies with never being near to winning a game.

Games 8-4, Match 3-2

After 5 rounds (only 23 players this time) I miss top 8 by tiebrakers. I turn out to be 9th... Seeing I played against good opponents I am happy with my deck, but less so with my luck. If in the first two rounds lady luck had favoured me instead of the opponent, I could have won a match more. If anyone is interested in my decklist, PM me. I made some minor alterations, that turned out quite well.

I do.    

I will say this:  Cabal TheRAPEy is awesome, and Tinder Wall is really good in the right build.  As andrewpate points out though, if you run a Tinder Wall build (which I did at the VA tourney) you do need to have some way to fix your mana.  I also ran the full 4 ESGs, and a card which allowed me to change my mana to the color I need.