I do like Drake quite a bit and I too have had the pleasure of wrecking people with the Gilded Bouncer tag team. That said, there are a number of reasons I haven't played the card for quite some time now and judging from lists run by people better than me I might not be alone and totally off on this one:
(a) Drake isn't necessarily gonna cut it against Oath: If they run BSC/E.M.Cool plus Breath(s) we're gonna end up dead / without a board before getting the chance to actually put the guy to use more often than not as you already pointed out. The very same applies if they run Elephant(blowing up your lands)/Angel(on U). Having an instantaneous effect on the board is a nice feature over the summoning sick Bouncer. But I'm fairly convinced that against Oath one's better off with the latter nevertheless.
(b) If not needed otherwise Bouncers / Welders are still cheap dudes to apply some pressure, make Standstill better and get ninja active. They offer utility when needed while still smoothly fitting into the decks game plan. Dedicating creature slots to stuff you can't actually cast without meeting specific requirements will mess with the decks current layout and will be an issue from time to time.
(c) A 3/3 Flyer is substantially bigger than anything we got. This might be a non-issue when stealing one turn clocks but is a considerable problem when finding yourself in more tooth and claw (in every meaning really) situations: Trading a Drake for a Trygon / Bear / even medium sized Goyfs is something this deck simply cannot afford to do the majority of the time. In matchups where you can't single handily ride the stolen creature to victory Drake is going to downright shut off our deck. Waterfront may not be killer in those situations either (well.. can be actually) but will provide helpful ground control to get ninjas rolling and can be a great way to pseudo-timewalk your opponent.

Syncing up Drake with Bouncer is sweet for obvious reasons. But I don't see how we can squeeze in both (Sideboard's just as tight) and how this is going to hit unquestioned in the mirror. Plus: Are we willing to dedicate sideboard slots to cards that won't do anything in matchups we need them the most? What's great about Bouncer is the fact that it complements our Snares (against Oath) our Sabotages (against Tinker), i.e. strengthens our existing answers in a very light-footprint way - not only fitting into the deck's 'attack with small men'-strategy but also being highly synergistic with both our draw engines and our ETB-effects. In matchups where Drake matters you won't be facing non-shroud creatures after board most of the time (thus running it in your board won't catch savvy players off guard anyway) whereas Bouncers just shrugs it off and supplements your overall strategy.

I've always had a soft spot for Old Man of the Sea (Goyfs somewhat changed that) and I can definitely see Singer as a one or two of. However considering that it sure is kind of slowish (are we gonna resolve that vs. Oath?) and the fact that it it blows harder than sea breeze vs. Shops make this one feel somewhat sketchy. (also see (b) above) Seems interesting though. I'll give it shot.

How have these cards been doing for you in the current metagame?

I've stopped counting the times a post-tinker sabotage has won me the game. For the time being running Sabotage in the Annul slot has paid off in a big way and has significantly changed the way the deck reacts to an early Tinker, i.e. not longer losing to it. I'm currently tinkering around with adding a pair of Waterfront Bouncers again and so far this has been working out (the guy loves his workout thats for sure *zing*) quite smoothly. Combined with Sabotages this forces Blue players towards strategies our deck's more than capable of dealing with (mainly artifact-fueled Will turns / time vault shenanigans) while providing solid assistance vs. Oath. (As it stands many of the most recent Oath builds are somewhat cold to an active Bouncer plus Rod.) Certainly not a card to replace our current instant-speed answers to said threats but a good way of preventing unpleasant comebacks when incorporated into your creature configuration. (Similar to the Apprentice/MMage on Tinker plus Rod vs. Colossus and Will lock in the golden age of UW men.) Additionally: (a) Bouncer is an excellent piece of board control and way to get your ninjas connecting. (b) A ninja-fueled Bouncer plus Clique / Stutter can lead to forbid-lock kind of situations in the later stages of a game without the need of running additional (and clunky) hard counters. Being able to squeeze that last bit of utility out of what's already in the deck and turn your early game sprites into a recurring answer to Tinker and Will? Now that's what a fish(er)man's dreams are made of.
  
I tried to make this guy work. I really did. But I could never quite get there. I don't mind 1 or 2 for the very same reasons you mentioned and he's a fine way to get a second turn Rod to stick (sometimes) but that's about it. Not only is he easily played around as you pointed out but he simply doesn't do anything against a wide variety of cards our deck's immensely worried about: Leading with a Catcher and watching your opponent drop an Oath/Bob/Timevault/Sphere etc. is a dangerous spot to be in considering that the deck doesn't run the amount of free counterspells it used to and thus can't always rely on getting value out of Catcher in a first turn counterwar.
To a certain extent this applies to any one drop we got and I love diversifying our angles as much as the next guy but in the light of early Confidants and MUD in particular maxing Shamans/Mancers might be downright better. But then again: We're really getting into details here and generating the numbers of games necessary to talk about the impact of changing single cards is close to impossible. En fin de compte: As long as they enable Ninja you could probably run just about any combination of the cards we've been discussing. If the cards and matchups fall your way you'll like like a genius, if not: there's only so much you can do with a strategy like ours in the first place.


I should have been more clear on this. I do not endorse cutting Mancer entirely. I've been running it as a two off for some time now but might as well move up two 3 again. See above: Hard to get a feeling for how switching single cards plays out in the long run.

As for the REB vs. Bolt debate: Having an immediate answer on the draw for an early Painter/Bob/Worker is something I value rather highly. (While leading with Mancer might cut it vs. an early Bob it certainly won't against Worker.) In my experience Bolt's also the single most effective card in the Fish mirror. With additional copies out of the side (as much as I dig Jitte (and I do love 'em), having access to 3-4 Bolts / 3 Mancers / x Stutters for 2 feels superior) my win ratio against Noble improved by a whole lot. Besides the fact that Jitte's a risky play vs. Rod (They will keep them in. Don't ask me why.), Pridemages, Trygons and in a matchup where mana's a scarce resource in general, Bolt is one of the few cheap answers (albeit one that's takes some additional work) for Goyf.

Sure: Additional Snares e.g. theoretically handle the same issues just fine. But (and this is a big one) the deck's already packed with cc1 counterspells and theres only so many spells you can cast on a mana base as tight as ours during the first few turns or simply being on the draw (!). Running Bolts (and Bouncers/Sabotages etc.) grants the deck a fighting chance when losing the roll, limits the amount of close to impossible judgement calls the fish player has to make (esp. one drops vs. cc1 counters) and allow us to tap out more aggressively for board presence without straight out losing to a wide range of resolved threats (and quite a wide range it is. ).
It's really all about diversifying our answers and being able to use our few colored sources to the max. I do believe there is a cap on how many (non-free) counterspells this deck wants and we're probably pretty close to it. (Running ESG or Petal might be an additional option to address this. I haven't tested this extensively enough to really have a take on this and I'd love to hear how this has been doing for other players.)

I do agree however that space is in fact the main issue here. There's no definite answer to this I suppose. (I've cut down on Snares before (but man, I do love that card) to make room for 1-2 Bolts. Which worked out fine when making room for 2 bouncers and Clouds (getting Stutter into the cc2 range more easily) but may be piscicidal in different builds.) At the end of the day you got to stick to what feels appropriate in a expected metagame while maintaining the amount of immanent synergy the deck needs to be relevant at all.

On a more general note however: Has anybody tinkered around with the mana base at all? I'm strongly leaning towards cutting a colorless mana source for an another Island / Fetchland. Muta's getting the axe at the moment: (a) Going down to 3 doesn't really weaken Stutter (esp. when running some number of Clouds) since it's still gonna show up often enough and activating two vault for Sprite has yet to occur. (b) I don't remember the last time I wanted to swing with 2 Vaults. The deck doesn't really want to pass the turn without colored mana up and activating two Vaults will tap us down more often than not. (c) The current versions LOVE blue mana. I can't stress this enough. (See above.) One of the main benefits these builds offer over more traditional versions (heavier on Dazes/MisDs) is the ability to out counter opposing decks without suffering heavy card and or tempo advantage. Getting value out of otherwise dead draws in the late game is a fine deal but being too careless when it comes down to colored sources will cost you games or at least annihilate a good deal of what otherwise solid deck building would allow us to do.

Addendum:
Regarding Bouncer: If you're looking for an equally solid answer to Tinker pre board and are excited by the prospect of turning the Shop matchup into a walk (it's getting pretty close) you may want to try out a couple of Welders in the cc1 spot instead. (Add the ability to recur your Rods and mess with their Vaults, painters and whatnot for some extra sweetness. I've also found that a good number of U players will go out of their way to keep this guy off the table - burning Forces on / readily trade their confidants for it, which most of the time we couldn't be happier about.)
I'm well aware that there's only so much one can fit into an 18-piece squad and running Welders is gonna take adjustments to the number of Shamans/Mancers/Bolts you're running (regarding the number of non-blue cards the deck can support) but the Goblin remains an excellent piece of utility that deserves further consideration nonetheless.
And even if you can't find room for it main: This guy's good against MUD.. like.. wow. If brown decks are a substantial part of what you're expecting you should seriously consider this as another option to complement Chewers in the board. Barring the absolute nuts a combination of Rods, Wastes, Shamans, Welders, Chewers, Sabotages, Forces is something most shop hands will have a hard time dealing with. (If they fail to apply early pressure in favor of dropping Kegs/Needles: the better.) Welder also offers the benefit of serving double duty: Being a cc1 creature it's a good early and mid game tool to hinder brown's development and build up board presence (playing the Chewer-role so to speak) while single handily locking the shop player out of the game in the later stages (Hey, it's like Flux / RnR except it doesn't blow).
The mud matchup's already fine as it is (especially when running Clique) but if you're feeling greedy go for 2-3 Welders. You won't be disappointed.

Greetings

Congratz to all of you doing well - just mumble something about format-related variance if someone dares to question your results.. - with ur men.
You guys have put serious effort into reviving a seemingly cold approach to the archetype and have successfully come up with a variety of excellent lists and the results to back them up. Kudos!

After extensively testing gayred for the last couple of weeks (picking up where I left about 5 years ago really) and going through about every possible configuration there is I'd like to add a couple of pointers/question to keep the discussion flowing:

- Play Clique. Like.. seriously. Sure does some heavy lifting in this deck: (a) Instant speed Duress effects are borderline insane and certainly not something your opponents will expect you to pull off. Ever. Also: You'll be surprised how many players will solely rely on / keep hands with only Pierce as there early game defense making an early Lotus/Moxen fueled Clique an unexpected and equally devastating play. Make sure you don't walk into a Drain (d'oh) by responding to cracked fetches or by simply casting it mainphase and you got yourself a superb addition to your arsenal. (b) Spanish Inquisition argument aside: ur's clock is not.. fast. With the lack of Stifle in particular (and to a certain extent Crucible) the current versions simply aren't capable of locking an opponent out of the game like they used to if at all. Sealing the deal as quickly as possible is crucial to not letting your hard early game work turn irrelevant. Adding the 3/1 flashy flyer to the mix makes our tempo oriented cards oh so more potent while proactively disrupting your opponents attempts of breaking out of your soft locks with a game changing Tinker or Bounce>Will. Of all the additions I've tested this has been the most promising by a longshot, not only providing a cool new effect but also and more importantly making the rest of the deck downright better. (c) Facing MUD? Clique is what the doctor ordered. Wha.. really? Yessir! (Who am I talking to?) Been there. The MUD matchup's all about aggressively trading 1:1, getting your opponent to play off the top and dodge bullets from there on. I wholeheartedly agree with boarding out small dudes for shatter effects to survive the early game even if it means weakening our ninjas (which need to stay whether we like it or not since getting some kind of draw engine online is absolutely crucial to keep up with the threat of a steady stream of dudes that are bigger than anything we bring to the table). Clique drastically reduces the number of draws our muddy friend's gonna get and will quickly get you in a position where you can ignore / race not only additional Spheres but also Lodestones and Karns. Coupled with Strips/Rods for tempo and something like a Vault, Ninja (obv. bonkers with Clique in any case) or simply heavy Tomb-action for damage will close a game in no time thus significantly reducing the chances of brown comeback. The key is not to think of Clique as a cc3 utility card but rather as a quick finisher after the dust of the first MUD ambush has settled.

- Sure they drop in value the longer a game goes (but so does Cursecatcher), sure a full four may not be the correct call in every metagame. Nevertheless: I've been running a full set of gorillas for quite some time now and wouldn't want it any other way. With the recent rise of artifact heavy tezz builds especially quadruple apes is something I strongly suggest considering. Back in ye olde days it sure was fancy to hold back your primatial friend to catch those moxen-yealding, overextending fools off guard. As it stands people try to get their jewelry online asap in fear of MUD thus exposing their moxen to shaman - often without having gotten any real value out of them, on the play I'm more than happy to lead with a shaman (barring access to a cc1 counterspell) if it means keeping my opponent off casting acceleration on their first turn (and actually putting it to work) and me playing a second turn rod to its fullest effect. (This is oh so more important when running Daze: A full set of shamans (i.e. the higher frequency of dropping one on your first) will often scare people away from playing out the mana required to pay the extra, turning their caution into a complete blowout.) (I'm leading towards ninja-heavy builds atm so Shaman gets the nod over the fourth rod (which remains a possibility worth exploring nonetheless).)

- Steel Sabotage is the real deal. If you're expecting a lot of oath: sure stick with what you got in Annuls. But if you're like me you (a) are expecting lots of MUD and Drains (b) HATE loosing to an early Tinker. First things first: Sabotage's far superior vs. brown decks, but you knew that already. It's not just about some extra flexibility: Bouncing dudes when racing, not (auto)losing on the draw with non-force hands, not losing to.. you know stuff that actually resolves, the possibility to bounce threats and waste/strip lock them under their own spheres etc. pp. provide valuable and much appreciated angles to attack the MUD player and make an already solid matchup even better. Judging from what I've read in this thread I'm not the only person having extensively tested this matchup and I can honestly say that with maindeck Sabotages and a solid post board plan this has become a battle I'm increasingly confident to fight.
Now the big un: I seriously cannot recall the last time I faced Leviathan pre. The prospect of faster kills and Hurkyl's Recall-related arguments ("The only answer they got's mass bounce anyway so why play Levi over Sphinx or BSphere?") have lead many players towards running bots fragile to spot removal (Yes: it ain't gonna be pretty, but you'll be able to race the four remaining myr more often than not). Sabotage provides a MUCH (!) needed answer to Tinker (not letting it resolve sure's solid but we've all lost to it nonetheless now haven't we. Even against Gush an additional answer to Tinker might be just as valuable as one to Bond.) without the necessity of running cards you don't actually want to have in your maindeck in the first place. (In a deck that can't reliably kill the opponent in the window provided by the latter Sabotage is better than Rebuild-style cards against MUD in most cases.) Being on the draw Sabotage will also buy you the extra turn needed to react to the threat of a second turn time vault blowout, i.e. bounce their vault in response to key, untap drop Rod or similar sequences. Complement/Exchange them with REB's, the last Rod and - if you must - Hurkyl's Recall out of the board and you got yourself a solid plan against your main enemy.
Running Sabotage's gonna take small adjustments to your counterspell config and your board but it's something you might want to look into.

- The word is out: Lightning Bolt's back in a big way. Savvy drain players have been running this for quite some time now and the possibility of insta killing walkers, bobs, bears, golems, workers (huge btw!) what have you certainly is something worth exploring. Not every build's gonna be able to run these but I've found myself constantly wanting to cut back on Lavamancers (they proved to be either to slow or simply unable to kill a good deal of the before mentioned threats) and some number of Bolts filled the void quite nicely.

- Try Mindbreak Trap. Not a whole lot to add here: Great against comboish big blue / gush builds while also of significant value against MUD. I run the misers copy maindeck atm and it has warranted its inclusion time and time again. Also take into consideration that ur is somewhat fragile to more traditional storm builds, matchups where a Trap or two can make all the difference.  

- Reconsider Cloud of Faeries. Here me out. With the current creature set up you'll sometimes find yourself in situations where Catcher doesn't do a whole lot tempo-wise (without some additional help from stifle and the like) and Stutter simply won't counter the stuff it needs to in order to keep you in the game. Getting stuck between a non-functioning denial/tempo plan and hardcounters that don't do anything is one of the worst situations a fish player can be in. I'm a believer when it comes to switching out Daze/Stifle for actual counterspells (though I still think a pair of the former might be worth including if only to defend a second turn Rod or having additional means to interact when going for a fast ninja) but it's an approach that might take some further adjustments to truly shine. I've had a lot of success with a list running 3-4 Clouds lately (replacing catcher): (a) Getting beef on board pre standstill's still solid tech. (b) Free > cc1. True: Running Cloud over additional one drops makes second turn ninja somewhat less likely. But then again: we still got plenty of one drops, plus tapping out for a ninja in the early stages is gonna be suicidal more often than not anyway. Don't neglect the fact that "free" is a solid deal in a deck that relies on counterspells that actually require mana. (c) Flying is relevant. Being able to race Myr Tokens / Bears / even mud creatures in the last stages of a game and getting ninjas online (or at least cycle them) is a treat. (d) Cloud (coupled with Mutas) turns Stutter into a reliable answer for cards like Oath / Goyf / Bob from the second turn on while also letting you reach the cc3 threshhold without too much trouble thus allowing you to achieve "Voidmage Prodigy -style" defense against mid/late game bombs.  
Speeding up our beatdown plan while making Stutters more reliable seems promising. Further testing needs to be done with this one but if getting full value out of Sprites is something the deck needs in order to succeed, this might be a possibility some of you may want to look into to. If a two dozens of games is any indication Cloud could be a  another way to glue the whole thing together.

Greetings.

Including a card like Serum Powder but cutting an integral combo piece (Hulk, to a certain extent Scroll) at the same time seems outright counterproductive. In order to maximize Powders effect I´d strongly suggest fitting in the last Protean Hulk. (Scroll)

Since the list´s already extremely tight, the addition of Serum Powder in general must be thought through very carefully. The deck´s fairly consistent already. (Because of the waste number of available tutors.) Cutting actual combo parts or tutors in favor of a card, whose purpose is to enable getting these cards in your starting hand, seems simply wrong in my opinion.

Don´t get me wrong, I highly appreciate your work on the deck. Especially because Serum Powder seems to fit into the Flash archetype perfectly. I´m looking forward to reading your take on the exposed issue.

(I also think that Serum Powder would be a evident addition to the deck regarding a possible restriction of Merchant Scroll.)

Well that's the catch I mentioned: Confidant is at its best when cast as early as possible, something this deck can't afford to do. Later in the game he's simply worse than an catual draw spell, because moste of the time you want to find answers asap. Furthermore Keeper runs lots of very situational cards, suited to handle specific situations. A big Scrying grants a deep look into your deck and will increase your chances of finding a certain card. Confidant provides a single card per turn: Good luck in finding what you need..  (As a consequence Confidant's far better in decks that profit from a steady stream of (rather homogeneous) CA. (Like Confidant Tendrils (Moxen, Rituals.), Fish (additional pieces of disruption) or Mono U'ish decks (counterspells.))

Dark Confidant simly doesn't do anything early in the game. You want to spend the early few turns disrupting your opponent and slow the game down to level your deck's able to compete. If you cast a Confidant during these crucial turns instead of duressing your opponent and keeping drain mana up you're going to loose the game vs. a deck like flash or Gat, inevitably.

Well, same could be said about Skeletal Scrying, the difference however's that you gain an advantage as soon as you cast scrying. After disrupting your opponent for 2 or 3 turns you'll usually be able to cast a scrying for three or four to refill your  resources. Casting a Confidant in this spot won't strenghten your position immediately and grant your opponent time to rebuild.

In a nutshell you want to cast Confidant as soon as possible which causes a horrendous strategic leak in your decks overal strategy.

@Max:
With all respsect, your build bears some major design flaws. (And I'm not even talking about evidently wrong cardchoises like Timetwister.)
Your deck's packed full of one-offs.  As I mentioned before I don't think that's the way to go right now. In order to stay competitive the deck has to sacrifice diversity in favor of consistency: Your disruption package's very solid, but after the first few turns you're hand will be clogged up with situational cards. I see that you have Tutors to fetch what you need in every given situation, but without any  (!) source of carddraw besides Ancestral Recall and .. Twister you'll inevitably fall behind.

@MirariKnight:
Without addressing any of the archetypes inherent flaws I'll add a couple of points:
- I really like your straightforward approach of the deck. Not much I can add here..
- I'd cut the Trinisphere for another Slaver. The deck's not suited to incorporate a Card like Trinisphere. You simply do not have any complementary pieces of disruption to support the Sphere. (Even if you resolve a first turn Trinisphere, something that won't happen to often, I'd shouldn't bother your opponent to0 much, because you don't have any waste effects (besides the single strip mine) etc. to build up any kind of a lock. The Sphere'll basically hinder you as much as your opponent.)
- I would add another basic Island. (Or cut the random Mine/Library for it.)
- As you pointed out yourself you're probably playing to many counterspells. Try to integrate a Mystical Tutor and a couple Merchant Scrolls instead. (This will grant ya a much better access to Tinker, the sole Echoing Truth and give you some kind of an additional Drawengine. (Scroll, Tutor -> Recall.) The Scroll's aren't an auto-inclusion, the Mystical's a must though.
- Your Welderplan seems somewhat weakened. Magus of the Moon doesn't really provide an alternate win condition, simply because it beats rather slowly. So you'd better strengthen your main goal. (I would think about adding a Tormod's Crypt and another artifact fatty. (Prob. Trike.))
- Despite being not the hottest card right know, I'd try to fit in a couple of Mox Monkeys. They bear great synergy with the Blood Moon effect and the fact, that they can block Slivers, or chump a tog or a dryad and strenghten your little aggro plan shouldn't be neglected either.

I hope I'll be able to participate in this thread in a more elaborate manner later. Nevetheless I'd like to add a couple of points here:

@EKM:
Your build is way to clunky.
As Zherbus already pointed out correctly Cutpurse is simply not playable right now. I can see, why you would want to run a source of steady cardadvantage, but DimirCP's not the way to go. One has to spend the early few turns playing some kind of disruption, if you fail to do that and spending your resources playing a cc3 gold Spell that doesn't effect the game state immediately you'll get eaten alive.
This may be a solid approach in general, but right now the Top Tier decks are so 'blisteringly' fast, that one just doesn't have the time, to tutor up the answer fo any specific threat. Regardless of what Keeper's supposed to be doing, the deck has to incorporate proactive disruption elements in favor of the slower reactive approach, in order to withstand the power of Flash, GAT et cetera.
3 Duress is a solid starting point, but I'd strongly suggest adding another one. (and having a close look at zherbus suggestions regarding the Disruption package.)

Gorilla Shaman isn't that hot at the moment. The two most powerful decks in the format simply do not care about it. Playing three of them is a horrendous waste of space. I'd suggest no running more than one in pretty much every metagame.

3 Brainstorms / Drains: These numbers  seem to be huge mistakes to me: To be fair, Drain's not at its peak atm, nevertheless it's a particularly crucial element in this deck.
Running less than 4 Brainstorms is simply wrong in this deck. (Furthermore it's an integral part of your protection these days, because one has to be able to find a Force/Drain asap when facing a deck like Flash  combo.)

1 Extirpate/Chain/sword: In order to survive you have to cut these situational one-offs in favor of strong pro-active Disruption.

That's outright wrong. The count of maindeck Misdirections was probably never higher than it is right now. Casting Mind Twist (even with counter backup) was never more dangerous. As much as I like the card myself I think it's the correct decision to cut it entirely at the moment. (I think I'd run one as a silver bullet/tutor target though. However it's wrong to rely on it as a main part of your game plan.)

@Ufactor:
Although I disagree with several of you card choises (e.g. Daze, which is simply unplayable in this deck,) I think you made some very interesting and vital additions:
EE's a very good card at the moment, handling a wide range of problematic strategies. (Slivers, Fishes, Dryads..)
Cutting Cunning Wishes is the right call I think. Most of the time one's wishing for either an answer to a problematic creature or a draw spell (to sink drain mana into). By adding EE's and the fourth Scrying you pretty much get the same result. (Loosing an answer for DSC is a bit nasty though, despite Tinker not being the most dangerous threat right now.) 

This is indeed the cardinal question. Is the archetype inherently flawed? I don't think so. But there are lots of specific influences and trends that constituted the state of todays 4cc. One among others is the efficiency of the decks answers versus opposing threats. Cards like StPS and Mana Drain in particular were better than pretty much everything an opponent could possibly play. (Just look at the decks 4cc faced a couple years ago: UR Gay Fish, Academy.dec etc.) Todays metagame is extremely fast, most decks are well equipped and developed. (Combo Decks e.g. became nightmare Matchups for most Drain decks, whereas they used to loose to themselves a couple years ago.) Maintaining the control role in an evironment like this ist simply really hard.
On the other hand 4cc was pretty much the first combo/control deck that ever existed. (As soon as Yawgmoth's Will was included.) From this point on the deck started to ignore threats in favor of setting up a huge Will Turn. Other decks started to adapt this idea (Gifts, Slaver, ..) and dismissed the controlish element almost completely. (Just look at the most recent exclusion of Mana Drain in favor of Dark Ritual in Gift Builds.) As a consequence it could be argued that Keeper died as soon as Gifts and Slaver rose to the top. These decks did, what Keeper tried to do as soon as Will was released, just way better than The Deck.

Keeper always had the abbility to cast silver bullets, that completely annihilated an archetype. (Despite most decks being far more resilient and diverse than a couple years ago, this strategy may be still viable,  granted, that the bullets are broken enough. (Crucible plus Mine, Balance and so on.))

The first concept can't be denied. 4cc will always be of ambigious natur, the second one, which truly identifies the archetype, must be carefully thought through. Is playing bullets better than fully concentrating on an proactive approach?

I don't have time to answer this at the moment, but I'll gladly return to this discussion later.

Granted Scroll is not an auto-4off it's at least worth some consideration. The strong core you mention could unfortunately be an obstacle in deckbuilding: It's solid enough to win even when running suboptimal cards..

Wishes simply won me a fair share of my testing runs. But as you (Phele) mentioned correctly, they certainly don't belong in a deck which's already featuring Scrolls. That's the reason I didn't wrote about them in my previous post since I mainly wanted to show the benefits of scroll over more conditional cards.
As long as you run Fact or Fiction in the Sideboard Cunning Wishes ar at least as neckbreaking as Scrolls in the lategame while providing even more flexibility throughout the whole game. However They're apparently more expensive to cast which makes them weaker vs aggresive strategies in the early game. (Which you compensate by running Leaks, which shows another strenght of the wishes: more room in the maindeck.)
But let's not forget: Scrolling for Ancestral Recall is HOT. (Same goes with scrolling for Force (see above) and scrolling for Mana Drain.  Seriously, these options alone could warrant its addition.
Nevertheless he made Top4 in a very competitive field. As I mentioned earlier: Scrolls best use's to be found in MDG. Without a doubt. But that's not an argument against running it. (CS uses Thirst's way better than Bomberman does.. go figure ;D.) Scroll is strongly associated with MDG, nevertheless it's a very powerful card in most control/combo decks and shouldn't be dismissed without careful consideration.
Actually I already touched most of these subjects above, I can't add that much within 10 minutes ...

This is obviously true but not an argument pro running Wishes, at best a bonus when doing so.

- In testing I've found that they came too late...
Although I used too run a version with 3 Salvagers for quite some time and don't have much experience with the forth under my belt I still think he's a needed inclusion. We're running a 3 card combo without any tutors. Therefore one has to increase the odds by simply running enough copies of each individual card.
- Mana Crypt is a card I've been running since the start. Not running it is simply a mistake.
- Before cutting basics I'd rather abandon the Strip Mine and the Loa. The latter's just too slow in the current environment and Mine's simply a random card that doesn't fit into the deck's game plan at all. (Obviously both of them can be amazing in certain circumstances, but having UU up by turn 2 is crucial and I'd not want to weaken my manabase my running unneeded cards. This however's more or less a personal preference. (I don't run mine but loa e.g). One has to consider the pro's and con's of the two options. (safer manabase vs. brokeness. Without them you'll be better at having drain mana early (and a safer base in general) but later in the game they would apparently be better than a basic often.)

@all players considering running bomberman in the future:
I've tested Bomberman quite excessively in the last few days and JR's List (barring the Sideboard and some odd choices like 3 Brainstorms) is pretty much one of the best builds I've played.
Although the deck wants to go beatdown fairly often, Meddling Mage simply doesn't belong.
Bomberman can apparently described as an aggro/control (and obviously combo) deck, but it's still totally different from fish. (As mentioned before) Meddling Mage's simply not good enough most of the time without an additional piece of disruption. (In fish e.g it can be used to lock a gifts player out off the game by naming Will, completed by an anti tinker card like apprentice.) It's of course good from time to time (see oath), but doesn't really fulfill a crucial role in the deck. (Running only 3 doesn't seem "role being well defined") One of bomberman's strenghts is apparently its versatility (which could be used as an argument pro Mage) however Scroll's simply the more flexile card of the two. Mage only matches the aggro/control theme whereas scroll acts as contro-l (e.g fetching force), combo- (fetching draw spells to complete the combo as fast as possible) and solution (-> truth) card. Therefore it definetly fits more smoothly the deck's plan. Aditionally it's simply a more powerful card. Besides its flexibility it increases the (virtual) number of threats: later in the game e.g, both players exhausted card-wise, a topdecked scroll can end a game immediately. Granted it's effect isn't as strong as in MDG it's still one of the better cards to put into deck. (If the deck's stronger than MDG in general is a totally different question and shall not be answred now. Aditionally the comparison is pretty flawed either way, since other decks like CS used to run Scroll in the past with good results. Therefore it's not so much a deckshaping card than just a powerful tool bluebased control/combo decks should use or at least considering this option. (4's probably too many. But imo one's well off by running 3. ) )
Not to mention that it is much better than Mana Leak in many situations. Granted leak's better against combo the first few turns for obvious reasons, (No carddisadvantage) it won't offer aditional benefits unlike scroll. (Mana Leak's also a pure control card and won't help much when trying getting the combo on. (Besides protecting it.) On the other hand it's useless against hate which hit the table and pretty bad in the late game. Therefore Scroll is again the more versatile and powerful card.)

As a conclusion I think that scroll (even if it's probably not needed as a four-off or even needed at all) is simply a better card than the situational Mages/Leak. Both of these card were used with quite some success because of being "allright (or some sort of conservative deckbuilding). The addition (or the ability to add) of either of the two shows the deck's versatility but limits it at the same time.

- Phil

Although it might be rather obvious: Just keep in mind that in general slaver's simply more broken than Oath. Besides the enchantment itself Oath's not able to go seriously broken. (Even their best aggresive play: 1.Turn Oath grants some time to find an answer/kill the oath player.) It's not capable of using Drain/Tinker and Will effectively and plays out rather unimpressive without an early Oath. All the games I won vs Oath playing CS were based on serious brokeness and tight playing. If one's able to survive the early game and get out a fair amount of manasources Oath's outdrawn and therefore outcountered fairly easily.  Draining a single spell can often lead to a game ending advantage. (Furthermore resolved Will wins in pretty much every situation.) I'm not claiming it's an easy task to accomplish facing a deck packed with Chalice/Rod/Duress(Countermagic and a fairly quick win condition but Oath won't start every game with a hand full of gas and simply hasn't got the same powerlevel regarding single cards. I'd be careful with playing too many narrow cards since CS is apparently able to fight Oath nevertheless.
(If one's environment contains a lot of Oath though, I'd rather want to play a different deck.. )

edit:
The main problem here's the "fair". One of the most important goals of CS in this matchup has to be "going unfair". One of the few advantages CS has got is the bigger chance of doing broken things. As long as both play fair CS hasn't really a good shot at winning but since it will play broken things more frequently than the opponent it will still win a fair share games.
Obviously the game can also be won in the pure control mode. But most of the time this won't work without some serious brokeness involved. (Let's say counter their first turn threat followed by a very early Recall/Thirst and drain mana up.)

@all: Nice analysis so far. There's some solid tech in this thread for sure.

It was mentioned several times that Mud's kill conditions are too slow without a game ending lock. Have you guys ever considered running a more aggro oriented build? (The question to be asked however is: are we better off with some guys, who put pressure on the opponent and therefore limit the time he has got to get rid of our disruption OR would one rather want to have additional lock pieces to enable a game ending state as soon as p.)
I'm aware that this would probably not accurately match Mud's normal game plan but it would offer some very promising possibilities:
I've tested some sort of stacker a few days ago. Stacker does run red for Welder and Pillar, these two however weren't that impressive so that I thought about cutting the color entirely and going mud style.
A big benefit of running a mono brown deck is (imo) Rishadan Port. Seriously, this card's impressive and it eliminates a good deal of MSW Aggro's biggest flaws. Most notably the vulnerability to Mana Drains. Additionally it's HOT with a guy on the table.
Chalice/Sphere + guy + Port (or Waste) is very efficient, I have never saw a tempo deck like this!
It's pretty much everything fish wants to be. You could even run Null Rod without too much trouble. But while Rod's actually fair in fish, mud aggro doesn't even play by its one rules, since Workshop cheats mana costs nevertheless. First turn Shop + Rod, second turn guy is just amazing! (Additionally it crushes aggro by having twice as big creatures as pretty much every other "creature deck" in the format!) 
 Dont't forget about the really cool interaction between Port and Null Rod.
As I sated above I'm not totally sure if that's the way to go, but everybody who's interested in playing mono brown should consider these options. With a fair arsenal of Su-chi's, R. Masticores, Juggs et cetera every card in your deck actually spells "5-10" damage. (Waste, Sphere, Chalice, ... However.. while this lock components simply slow the opponent down without pressure on the board, they suddenly become very dangerous when there are critters on the table cause now you're actually using the Time Walks you're generating. These creatures will end the game easily without a complete lock. To be fair, they're fairly amazing even with a single prison element and simply get the most out off your individual cards. Regard this little example:
We: First turn: Chalice@0, jugg.
Them: Land go.
We: Port, attack. (Upkeep tap land.) (Time Walk 1)
Them: Land go. (one U up.)
We: attack. drop sphere. (Time Walk 2) If they force: the better. (Upkeep tap land)
Them: Land (at best), go.
We: Use Port to tap down drain mana, attack. Any lock piece. Waste e.g. (Time Walk 3)
Them: Two lands in play. Every Spell costs one more to play. GG

Barring a force, this situation's pretty likely to occur. Pretty much every card in our deck becomes apparently a Time Walk. (Which is much more threatening since were beating their face.)
- One could of course drop an additional lock piece instead of a guy. But barring a Smokestack it would probably not be half as effective, right?
- Without a threat Port isn't nearly as good as above. But since one of the few strenghts MUD has, are his options regarding the mana base, using Port effectively could become one of the deck's goals.  (which could very well be the best land in this deck (except Shop and the 5 Wastes))

Therefore my suggestions are apparently:
- Use Port!
( - Use Null Rod! )
- Or in general: Don't produce bad stax lists being colorless for the sake of colorlessness. :/ The main goal of this thread must be (in my opinion) identify the strenghts of mono brown. Is it Worker? Ist it Tomb? Is it something different? I made a couple suggestions, enjoy.
- Phil

Ok, I was probably looking at the Skullclamp to vehemently. On the other hand you're vulnerable to creaturehate like Pyroc. (I admit that this is not the most crucial argument, just wanted to state it once.)
The problem with non-U combo decks in general however is well known:
Look at belcher or KI.TT  for example. Especially the latter's fairly well-equiped vs hate. (Pretty much immune vs. Rod e.g)
But if you fail to go off, these decks tend to crap on you because of the lack of good draw spells (Infernal Contracts aren't so hot..) and bombs like Desire, Twister or Tinker. (Not to mention the inability to run cards like Force of Will, Rebuild/Recall et cetera.) Rituals do simply not draw cards. (This flaw's somewhat reduced by Empty the Warrens only needing a few spells to be effective, but it's still there.)
Blue's HUGE. And you'd better have a good reason to cut it. The argument "Well, let's just add blue then.." is somewhat flawed because on the one hand red rituals + U cards isn't that great, on the other hand you'll probably claim similiar niches as existing decks. Empty t.W therefore gets probably reduced to the "supplement status" right after tendrils itself.   


As I stated: I'd love to see some innovative lists! I just wanted to warn everyone who's trying to build a deck like you described it of getting misleaded by the "doing cool things" factor as long as there are better options around. (Yeah, this actually happened many times before..)


Edit:
Rhetorical Bonus Section:
Actually .. no
Since the second part of my statement's apparently a definition of the word "redundant" itself, (in magic terms obv.) there's no way that it's not true. ("There's no need for a thing that's not needed." C'mon. )
BUT: if your referring to the second part of my statement I'm 100% fine. But that's actually the thing I'm pointing at the whole time.

The first question that comes to ones mind's though:
Why would I want to play a deck like this? Is it more resilient than Pitch Long? Probably not. So: Will it have a higher percentage than let's say Meandeck Tendrils regarding first turn kills? Probably not. Seriously, there's just no need for another combo deck which does not offer benefits over already existing archetypes at all. I'd love to see some solid lists, but one must seriously considering these points.

Something different:

What would you guys (being more experienced with the archetype than I am) run in a fish (and aggro, aggro/control) heavy meta?
My standard list looks similar to Shay's Richmond list:


5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
4 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain

4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact or Fiction

3 Goblin Welder
1 Triskelion
1 Darksteel Colossus

2 Mind S.
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 D Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk

1 Echoing Truth
2 Fire/Ice

SB:
1 Fire/ICe
3 Pyro/Reb
2 RnR
4 CotV (Sphere of Resistance might be better)
2 Pyroclasm (is this any good?)
3 Tormod's Crypt

Old Man?

I used to run 2 Monkeys and 1 Crypt main. But since there's lots of aggro in my environment these cards are simply not needed. (I'm thinking about cutting the last monkey for another anti-aggro card.)
Should I run Vampiric Tutor for an additional *iwin* chance vs. random aggro? Is my robto setup optimal? (DSC was very nice in testing, but vs aggro and hate like Rod a vanilla beater to weld in (pentavus e.g) would certainly be nice.)
What's THE tech vs goblins, fish, friggorid et cetera?
Last but not least Triskelavus seems pretty good, right?

I don't run any tutors. Obviously. ;D Anyway: I couldn't agree more. Seriously I'm not a big fan of Brainstorm. But only Ninjas for draw (although Brainstorm does not generate CA of course,) seemed hardly justifiable. (That's a weak argument, I admit, but nevertheless...) There are situation where Brainstorm shines, but I certainly have a sympathetic ear for good suggestions here. ;D

That's exactly what I was getting at: A long-term CA engine's certainly better in preventing your opponent going off. (Whereas digging helps in the early stage of the game, but mulliganing into your hate's a fair plan too, I guess ;D.)

Therefore: I'm not even arguing that Brainstorm's better in every scenario, but in a build without Men I would not want to run Curiosity without further consideration.

I believe this without hesitation, but the same is true when I analyze my test results regarding Apprentice. My primary goal was to deliberate about the advantages and disadvantages of the given cards. Whose ability is more critical in most games?
However, coming to a conclusion ain't that simple due to the fact that these choices seem to be closely related to the expected metagame. (Lots of fish: Men swing in the sky, net card and keep/bring jitte online. Lots of colossi: Tapping = tech. Etc.)

That's correct of course. (Standstill seemed to be worth some consideration in the early stage of development though, but was abandoned pretty quickly.) Note however, that I've never thought about including Curiosity excessively anyway. (And the lack of Men's definitely a reason for that.)
In the stage of deckbuilding I was positive about the power of Apprentice. (,and the need for a good number of cc1 drops to support ninja.)  As a consequence my deckconstruction was somewhat influenced by these facts. (I'm not even 100% convinced that Apprentice's the bomb fish's looking for in general, but Stormscape served me well in many matches, so I stuck with it.) It seemed to be pretty much the total way around in your testing, as you mentioned correctly.

But: Was my deckbuilding influenced by my first impressions too heavily, so that I abandoned good cards like Curiosity frivolously. Or were you too focused on making use of Curiosity, so that you dropped the real gems in favor of suboptimal creatures? (I'd go for the second obviously ;D, but there can't be a final answer I guess ...)

I'd love to. ;D But as I mentioned above and you commented correctly: My choice was a consequence of my test results and impressions. If my only goal was to use Curiosity in the most effective way I would have gone with Men for sure for obvious reasons, however, I exemplified that concept before. ;D
The comparsion should be pretty simple: Curiosity generates long term CA whereas Brainstorms has a greater "dig capability". When playing fish I'm worried about the early and lategame the most. (Varies from hand to hand though, obviously.) Each of the disputed cards serves a different part of this allocation. (Brainstorm's obviously better in the early game to find or help resolving our proactive hate cards whereas Curiosity generates real CA to defend fish player's board / winning position longer-term. (I'd rather have a Brainstorm in my hand when facing a DSC though, but that's probably just me. ;D)

Definitely a good approach, however: note that I run all these cards too. Have a look at my creature base:
4 Meddling Mage
4 Ninja
4 Stormscape
2 Icatian Javelineers
2 Old Man of the Sea
(+3 Swords Main; +1 Sword, 1 Man, up to 4 Extracts from the Board.)
My metagame's lots of gifts and fish. (And I'm really looking forward playing the latter.) Therefore Kataki's not included, Javelineers in its place etc. (And I'm not arguing that my build's even close to an optimum in a vacuum, which's pretty silly  anyway, when talking about a metagame deck. )
So: Our disrupting regarding DSC or the mentioned aggro decks is pretty much the same.
As I hinted before, my biggest concern's the necessity of Evasion in the current environment. I glanced through your report and couldn't find any situation where the key word "Flying" would have done any good. Don't get me wrong: obviously 6 rounds or so are not nearly enough to let a card shine in every of its aspects but seriously: in what matchups is evasion crucial? Especially when deliberating about the obvious advantages of Apprentice. Sure, you can fly over opposing fishes, shamans or whatever, but an additional way to eliminate basic weaknesses of the deck seems better to me.

Sure, but if his abilities aren't needed, Apprentice can be used as a vanilla beater the very same way. (Lack of evasion is obviously a disadvantage, but I got at that before.)
On the one hand I never had severe problems sneaking in Ninja via Apprentice or pitching the latter to FoW , but on the other I agree partly: Apprentice + Curiosity just does not seem optimal on paper. (If I play with that I want at least see it work.. (Since I prefer Brainstorm ATM anyway that's not that much of a problem though.))
However, I couldn't tell how big the difference in most matchups really was. (If so, one would rather play a guy with an ability which is useful than with one whose feature's mostly irrelevant, right?)

As I indicated before: That argument was completely flawed, so just forget about it.

I have done a fair amount of testing with fish builds lately and Apprentice just proved to be a very effective and elegant solution in addressing different problems with a single card.
First of all: Apprentice can swing too. It's not like he's delaying the game if there isn't something better to do. I'm not afraid of blockers at all in the current environment, seriously.
- I'm scared of 11/11 dude bashing my head, e.g. Very often Apprentice just completely foils the plan of an opposing tinker route. (While Rod takes care of the Y's Will plan.) My Gifts match up improved quite a bit with the availability of four Apprentices.
- When facing non-u aggro (Beatz, FCG, WS Aggro etc.) I'd much rather have the ability to nullify its biggest threat at any given time than an unblockable dude, who grants me some extra digging for StPS while big creatures eat my life points.
- Apprentice's much better vs Oath Strategies. A Sword plus an Apprentice is pretty much a guaranteed win. (And more likely than having 2 Swords, which's the only possibility to win the oath match up after name-giving enchantment's resolved, since racing is just not possible with your list.)
- I'd love to tap enchanted or equipped guys in the fish mirror ALL THE DAY LONG. Seriously, this guy was huge in pretty much every fish mirror I played. As mentioned before ignoring the biggest threat at any given time (especially when it's a virtual 1:2 trade) is pretty darn good. Obviously I "loose" a card and one W each turn, but as a reward I'm able to adapt to different situations, always gaining the best "creature:creature trade" available. (Slowing the game down until Man, Crucible, Jitte or whatever mirror bomb you chose gets online's good enough anyway very often.) 
As a conclusion there aren't many situations/matchups I'd want evasion over an actually useful ability. (Addressing one of the main concerns of the archetype.)

This argument is downright flawed. The only reason why it's worse to ninjutsu up Apprentice instead of Men is that Apprentice's is a better card and has additional uses than simply attacking. (The evasion issue you did not even mentioned in this context was addressed before.)

Just for the record because you referred to it from time to time: I'm not running Standstill in my current list. In fact Brainstorms do fairly well for me ATM.

As long as they are not in danger of running out of cards in library there's nothing wrong with darkblasting as many guys as possible. (Most of the time there isn’t any need to do that anyway. Additionally cards like Pyroclasm or Massacre are much scarier cards than 1:1 trades like blast.) You can't rely on "beating down while my opponent's concerned with me dropping additional threads every turn", since 20 life > 18 creatures, which have to turn up in the first place. Anyway, it's not the right thread for discussing the applications of Dblast.

Keep in mind:
I don't want to slap your build without any discussion, your success obviously grants some sort of importance when discussing your list, however: the correctness and eligibility of your choices is not set in stone, therefore fully discussing 'em can't be the worst thing on earth.   Fish caught my attention a while ago and I'm just trying to expand my "database" ananalyzing successful (bound to a specific metagame though) builds and viewing / utilizing other peoples takes on the archetype.

As I stated above, I don't like Standstill that much either, just wanted to read your personal take on this.
(Playing around standstill's tech for years now I guess...)

Darkblasting Men's fun I heard. Anyway: I don't like 'em for the very same reason I don't like Curiosity: They do nothing on their own. Curiosity needs a full turn to cycle itself (Edit: k, that's not the best argument... ), Men are just ... Men! :/ Especially when fighting Combo or Combo/control that's not all that much. I used to run Stormscape Apprentice in the cc1 slot with fair success. They really improve your prebaord Oath and gifts macthups and are "the beating" vs all kinds of aggro decks. (Block Lackey, completely dominate the board vs fish (Apprentice+Basic Plains=tech) etc.)
(Swapping out Standstills for Curiosity might be a fine idea though, Brainstorms ain't that bad too, I heard.)

I couldn't agree more, however:

StPS definitely is not.
They are fine vs Oath preboard, but I don't like 'em in the gifts matchup that much, unless your opponent's playing tinker blindly. (Otherwise he'll just completely outdraw you and find an alternate way to win the game, while your hand's clogged up with narrow cards.)

Nice Report, Fish doing well's definitely a fair subject to write about. Congratz.
However: Could you explain some of your rather unorthodox cardchoices further? Curiosity, no Standstills (I'm not arguing them being peak, but still...), 4 (!) Swords, etc.
thanx
- Phil

Confidants seem to do fairly well overseas too. Second time bobs finish first! (Split though, but still ok, I guess.)

100% agree.

When playing combo board- and cardadvantage (*) are mostly irrelevant as long as you can still win the game. Therefore there's no need for (..) playing Spree over a card like Rebuild or H's Recall, since these cards do their job much more effective. (in accomplishing your goal as a combo player. Why would you bother about lock pieces in your opponents hand when you win now anyway? Additionnaly Spree's more expensive to cast (when fighting different hate cards obviously,), sorcery speed, (no: eot->  bounce, untap,gg) does not foil the opponents welder plan, can't help reaching 9 spells (which is a very crucial thing to have access to very often) et cetera. The combo only deck I'd want to play Spree is non U belcher.)

Spree dodges Chalice@1 also, therefore this argument against it isn't that viable.

Mainly Deathlong and Belcher.
I'm familiar with stax and some drain decks too. (Paradoxically I prefer the more controlish concepts here. (CS, but no gifts, etc.)) I never quite had the heart to bring a non-combo deck to a serious tournament though.
So I'm pretty much a 100% specialist. (I play other decks to get a feeling for 'em though, regarding testing.)

You´d loose Will. So: no way.

Why play a deck which dies to stax?
Why not play a deck with a fast clock but the abbility to play proactive diruption such as Chalice and Choke instead?

I really can't see many good reasons to play GAT over Oath right now.

My first thought was: This deck is freaking terrible!
My second thought was: Let's see, doesn't seem that bad, esp. vs Fish.
So I did some testing.
My last thought was: This deck is freaking terrible.

But: I only played a few games and I really could not post my final verdict yet. In my testing the deck had serious consistency issues. (Having bad opening hands and mulliganing to nowhere, or fizzling. (E.g not draw into additional Tutors, Draw4's.)) Also the deck pretty much dies vs. Chalice @1. (Oath, Stax, which's a bad matchup anyway.)

Some of you tended to compare the deck to TPS, but the most important comparsion IMO is the one to decks like long, which are a bit slower, but very potent vs. Mana Drain Decks. (/worse vs. fish.) (But have a much higher power level regarding the individual cards. (Desire, Bargain, Brainstorm vs. Ornithopter, Cabal Ritual and multiple copies of tendrils.)  Therefor the only place I see for this deck is in a fish-heavy metagame. (Vs. Stax Belcher's probably better, vs. control long definitely is.) What's your take on this?

Addressing the deck itself: The Sideboard seems terrible. Why would I ever want to play cards like massacre or blast? Trying to control the opponent's definitely not the way to go with this deck, IMHO.

I'd like to test the deck further and help developing it, but ATM I don't see many reasons to pick it up again ...