Bazaar is terrible in this deck.  It is more importantly a waste of proxies which would be SO MUCH BETTER as power.  Using black is not a necessity but access to more disruption, demonic tutor and most importantly yawgmoth's will is VERY powerful.  Adding 1-2 Underground seas doesn't really weaken the manabase in a deck with 4 basic lands.  It's not like the deck has no basics or needs any color other than blue more than once or twice.  If you are afraid of Black, that's not a problem, but in that case I would recommend:
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Goblin Welder
1 Pentavus
1 Triskelion
1 Platinum Angel
1 Mindslaver
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Tinker
4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Accumulated Knowledge (or 2 Titan/Dupes/Slaver + 2 Disrupting Shoals)
4 Intuition
1 Ancestral Recall (Proxy)
1 Mystical Tutor (still very powerful even if not as good as Demonic)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Volcanic Island
5 Island
2 Ancient Tomb (or WG moxen if >5 proxies)
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Lotus Petal / artifact land
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus (Proxy)
1 Mox Sapphire (Proxy)
1 Mox Ruby (Proxy)
1 Mox Jet (Proxy, any random mox will do)
1 Strip Mine

Gamble is certainly an interesting idea, but I do not like losing cards from my hand for any reason.  It's simply not worth it in most situations.  This list is basically a really good IntuiSlaver list -1 time walk, -2 moxen, -2 deep analysis -4 mana drain, +2 ancient tomb, +1 intuition, +1 pentavus, +1 lotus petal, +4 counterspell.

Um...so what's the point of not running blue or red?  Basically, for this deck white is about the worst color possible.  If you don't want stuff to be targeted, use FoW/Misdirection (and thus blue) or Lightning Greaves, which can be REALLY good and doesn't force you to run a terrible color.  Even black (duress, demonic tutor, yawgwill) and green (exploration/fastbond/mana acceleration/regrowth) are better than white unless white is only a splash (i.e. for seal & STP in 5/3).

In reading this decklist, I felt that you have too much artifact/enchantment/creature hate.  You would probably be better off focusing more on the mana denial plan.  You could also consider cutting down to 2 colors (RG) for consistency.  The beauty of using LD is that you don't need to worry about high-CC threats which you can't deal with using burn spells.  Thus, red is all you need for removal.  For example (this list is really rough but I'm sure you get the point):
4 BoP / werebear (the bear beats as well as adds mana)
4 eternal witness (sooooo good)
4 argothian wurm
4 elvish spirit guide
2 gorilla shaman / hull breach
2 genesis
4 avalanche riders
4 ice storm / pillage
4 stone rain
4 lightning bolt
2 hull breach
4 wasteland
4 taiga
4 wooded foothills
2 mountain
4 forest
1 strip mine
1 sol ring
1 black lotus
1 mox emerald
1 mox ruby
1 lotus petal

This deck is based around gilded lotus, not tolarian academy.  Frantic Search does not combo with Gilded Lotus.  The stated situation where you have an empty hand and topdeck Frantic Search but it sucks is very telling about how terrible the card is.  This deck tends to crap out its hand early and require re-filling.  This is why draw-7's were originally used in the deck--you need cards and if you slave then it's irrelevant what your opponent has.  I'm not necessarily saying that draw-7's are necessary now, but the necessity of using cards that draw more cards for you is illustrated by this concept.  

The situation where you have FS and an active welder and cards in hand is irrelevant because if you have this condition, you are already winning and intuition or gifts ungiven will be a strong play, and both cases will be better than playing FS.  Frantic search == complete dog crap.  It is playable in TPS only because of storm and synergy with lands.

EDIT:
I have been trying to accommodate the different suggestions mentioned in this thread into a single decklist, and this is what I came up with:
Threats (9):
4 Goblin Welder
2 Mindslaver
1 Pentavus
1 Memnarch
1 Triskelion
Card Draw (13):
4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Gifts Ungiven / Intuition
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
Disruption (8):
4 Force of Will
4 Chalice of the Void
Other Useful Things (5):
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Tinker
3 Gilded Lotus
Mana Sources (25):  
8 SoLoMoxCrypt
1 Mana Vault
4 Volcanic Island
3 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Seat of the Synod / Darksteel Citadel
1 Strip Mine
4 Mishra’s Workshop
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Tolarian Academy

Does this seem like a reasonable series of changes for this deck?  The question of whether or not this deck is truly viable is a different story...

The deck needs ways to draw cards, i.e. make n(cards in hand) --> n(cards in hand) + x.  Frantic search makes n(cards in hand) = n(cards in hand) - 1. This is not an improvement.  I would run Intuition over Frantic Search any day of the week and not think twice.  Frantic Search isn't really that good, it just has the potential to be broken in storm decks, etc.  If UG madness doesn't play it (where it would theoretically be great), then that's your first indication that it's not that good.  I'm still less than convinced that FoF > GU.  I guess that FoF can be a 4cc impulse for a welder or something, but it often can just suck.  Mystical tutor certainly can be very good in this type of deck, where resolving an instant or sorcery bomb often wins games.

I feel as though the strength of Mono-U is very proportional to the strength of Back to Basics.  When B2B is a huge bomb against your opponent, mono-U is s great deck.  But, when B2B is a minor annoyance for your opponent, then mono-U is weaker.  Right now, B2B is more on the level of minor annoyance vs. most decks, making mono-U weaker than it would be in a metagame of, say, 4cc with 0-1 basics.  As has been pointed out, most decks currently sport a sufficient number of basic lands to make B2B less than crippling, due to fear of CruciWaste.  

My point is this--while it would seem that B2B might in fact be the weakest link right now (i.e. possibly to cut for Shoals), does this not in fact suggest that mono-U itself might not be the right choice for the metagame?  I guess that 15-17 counterspells will probably always be strong, but if B2B is just so-so, then mono-U will also probably be only so-so.  

On a side note, I feel that you need to run brainstorm to run tinker/colossus, but brainstorm isn't good in this deck.  Thus, IMHO, Tinker/Colossus is not the right win condition for this deck.  Has anyone tried MD (Razormane) Masticore in this deck as a win condition?  It has the same CMC as a Morphling, has the same power, has first strike and can kill things.  Its vulnerability to artifact hate makes it less than optimal as the only kill condition, but maybe you would run a combination of morphling and razormane, especially if you decide to actually run Tinker.

This article was great--its shortness and to-the-pointness make it much more effective than many other long, drawn-out articles I have read.  I am personally in the state of having a set of 9, drains & shops but not a lot of time to playtest, and I find myself in a position of not knowing what deck to play a tourneys.  Since I'm not breaking any new ground in the realm of tech, this means that I will only play known tried-and-true decks.  The ease of play of decks is an important factor for me because of my lack of time to playtest (more playtesting = fewer play errors).  So, I certainly appreciate the effort.  

I do agree that people like me, with cards but no time, are fewer than those people with time but no cards. It certainly would be helpful to a lot of people to read an article about 5 or 10 proxy decks which are actually good (and don't need you to own any >$20 cards).

This is an interesting idea, but doesn't solve the problem that Maze of Ith has--it's a land used as hate against a deck with up to 5 strip effects.  True, you would have 3-4 Crucibles in Stax, but that doesn't solve the issue of your opponent stripping your Karakas before their fatty hits play.  Plus, Karakas doesn't do anything about Pristine or Platinum Angel.  In Stax, I would probably be more interested in using Spawning Pit as anti-Oath tech due to its synergy with the general deck strategy, unlike an off-color land which doesn't deal with all of your opponent's threats.

I have a few questions:
1.  Is Tolarian Academy really necessary?  The non-basicness of it makes me wonder if it's the right card, especially because I don't think it's as explosive as it can be in, say, Stax.
2.  Would it be better to replace Mystical Tutor with Will instead of replacing Welder?  Or, at least, to replace MTutor with Demonic Tutor in the URb build?  Mystical seems like the weakest link in this deck because the huge amount of draw can find pretty much anything pretty much anytime.  I really don't like running <4 welders in this deck because I think it needs them to play as aggressively as you are talking about.
3.  Shay used Lotus Petal at Waterbury.  What do you think about running it in the URb build, based on its synergy with Will and its usefulness as an additional source of black?

Fish IS about drawing lots of cards, because in general, the card quality is low.  If you don't draw lots of cards, you will lose because card-for-card, your deck is crap.  So, drawing a bunch of cards using standstill + ninja is a good thing.  Maybe white/blue fish isn't the best place for the ninja, but I wanted to give an example.  He also might not need to be in the deck as a 4-of, but I think it's worth a try.  Using him w/ cloud of faeries is quite good.  He can also be amusing with Meddling Mage if you change your mind mid-game.  Flying Men might not normally be as good as Spiketail, but it's presence as a decent 1-drop gives it the edge with Ninja.

Cutting curiosity if you run Ninja of the Deep Hours may be viable, but I still think it's a powerful draw engine in Fish.  The problem with the Ninja is that he doesn't have evasion, so you can't guarantee him as a draw engine like you can (relatively) with one of your flying dudes.

As I suggested earlier, a more Fish-based deck would probably work better:
4 Flying Men
4 Meddling Mage
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Ninja of Ownage
4 Standstill
4 Curiosity
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Force of Will
3 Seal of Cleansing / Daze / Annul
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Island
1 Plains

The synergy of Ninjutsu with Standstill is good.  Flying Men is good because it's blue and comes down turn 1.  I'm not sure about the Seal/Annul/Daze question, and it might be possible to cut a land or the pearl to run 2 seal + 2 daze.  I wouldn't recommend using black lotus or skullclamp because at the very least you would run Null Rod in your SB.

I really enjoy playing Highlander (i.e. only one of each card in your deck), and building Highlander decks.  I first got interested seeing Jeff Anand's Highlander deck in action.  My deck started as a carbon copy of his deck, but it has evolved substantially since then.  I recently added in Oath of Druids as an engine to power out your fatties.  Of course, I only have one Oath in the deck, so I can't be completely dependent on it.  Thus, I only run creatures that I have other ways of getting into play (i.e. Tinker or hardcasting).  The deck is really fun to play and also very powerful.

The deck is still evolving, but overall there are two routes that I can take with the deck, either adding in countermagic or more removal.  There are advantages and disadvantages to each strategy:

Counters:  Being able to prevent spells from resolving is pretty good, I hear.  Countermagic in a way can act as removal by preventing offensive permanents from hitting play.  It can also prevent your opponent from dealing with your threats.  However, with only room for 4 counterspells in the deck, I don't think it's legitimate to depend on them.  And, if you can't depend on your countermagic, what's the point?

Removal:  Being able to remove threatening permanents from play is useful, obviously.  On top of this, the deck has some removal anyway, so adding more would also allow me to add in more card draw, which is good because it allows me to find Oath sooner and more consistently.  The problem with this route is that it cannot ever prevent anything from hitting play or resolving, so spells that would piss me off or permanents that I can remove can be problematic.  

So, I'm going to show the base of the deck, then the open slot options, then explain a few choices:
//Win Conditions:
exalted angel
platinum angel
morphling
darksteel colossus
//Engine:
oath of druids
gaea's blessing
scroll rack
//Graveyard Recursion and Dirtiness:
gifts ungiven
recoup
regrowth
yawgmoth's will
//Removal:
balance
pernicious deed
swords to plowshares
cunning wish
//Tutors:
demonic tutor
mystical tutor
vampiric tutor
tinker
merchant scroll
//Search:
tainted pact
impulse
sleight of hand
serum visions
brainstorm
//Draw:
skeletal scrying
night's whisper
ancestral recall
thirst for knowledge
//Power:
time walk
timetwister
//Mana:
8 solomoxcrypt
5 fetchlands
underground sea
tundra
tropical island
volcanic island
bayou
scrubland
city of brass
glimmervoid
forbidden orchard
island
library of alexandria
underground river / undiscovered paradise (still undecided)

//Basic SB:
powder keg
diabolic edict
terminate
razormane masticore
disenchant
orim's thunder / dismantling blow
funeral pyre
coffin purge
tormod's crypt / cremate
fact or fiction
mind twist

The last 4 maindeck slots can be either:
Counter:  Mana Leak, Mana Drain, Force of Will, & Counterspell or
Removal:  Vindicate, Engineered Explosives, Opt, & Deep Analysis

The last 4 sideboard are also up for debate, and can contain disruption (duress, unmask, misdirection, prohibit, etc.), removal (vindicate, EE, the abyss, etc.) or other sneaky things (i.e. conditional but useful wish targets such as enlightened tutor or argivian find).

Some interesting card choices:
Gifts Ungiven/Recoup:  Thanks Team CAB--Gifts is a huge bomb.  Imagine getting Regrowth plus the 3 pieces of blue power, or any other ridiculous combination.  The amount of graveyard recursion in this deck makes Gifts even more broken than it would otherwise be.
Merchant Scroll:  Fetches any number of good cards like A. Recall, Gifts, etc.--it's a great but often underrated card, at least in this deck.
Tainted Pact:  The more I play with this card, the more broken it is.  It can occasionally be weak, but often removes 4 land, 3 moxen and something else useless from your deck in the process of fetching you a bomb.  The amount of reshuffling the deck has makes removing chaff even more powerful.
Cunning Wish:  This is just fun, but also powerful because it can fetch Funeral Pyre when Oath is in play, any other removal, FoF, etc.  You could easily replace Wish with a specific answer, but I like the flexibility.  
Timetwister:  This card allows the deck to do stupid things like Time Walk 3 or 4 turns in a row, and allows incredible amounts of recursion in general.  It has great synergy with the Oath/Blessing engine and allows you to recycle your deck after removing chaff using cards like Tainted Pact and Skeletal Scrying.
Scroll Rack:  This card is needed because of Oath (to topdeck creatures and Blessing), but is also very very powerful, especially with the amount of shuffling and search the deck has--setting aside 5 lands/moxen/useless cards to get 5 more useful cards is incredible in a deck with this many bombs.  
Exalted Angel:  Hardcastable, powerful, gains life.  Null Said.
Morphling:  Hard to kill and can block large things, but might be replaced with Pristine Angel, who would serve the same purpose with less mana investment each turn.
Darksteel Colossus:  He's big.  Really big.  And Tinkerable.  He just wins games.
Platinum Angel:  Up for debate, but not losing can be good.
Razormane Masticore:  Used to be maindeck, but seemed weaker than the other 4 creatures in the deck.  Good in the SB for aggro decks as another win condition.

I would appreciate feedback about which plan (removal vs. counters) people would recommend, and about specific maindeck and sideboard choices.  Thanks.

Maybe I'm the only one, but I think Mogg Flunkies is good in this type of deck with ~24+ creatures (3/3 for 2 is good).  Also, Grim Lavamancer is a really good card, even though this is a goblin deck.  The 5-strip + mountain manabase is definitely the right way to go. About siege-gang commander--it's a bomb, but it's mostly only good w/ lackey, which most people manage to kill.  Also, Price of Progress is a bomb against a lot of decks.

I don't think it's worth it to waste 4 proxies on Bazaars, especially when you don't have any moxen in the deck for acceleration.  I'd suggest:
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
2 Duress
4 Goblin Welder
1 Pentavus
1 Triskelion
1 Platinum Angel
1 Sundering Titan / Duplicant (Titan if you face multi-color control, Dupes if you face Oath or fat aggro)
1 Mindslaver
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Tinker
4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Intuition
1 Ancestral Recall (Proxy)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Polluted Delta
4 Volcanic Island
4 Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Ancient Tomb (or WG moxen if >5 proxies)
2 Seat of the Synod / Darksteel Citadel
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus (Proxy)
1 Mox Sapphire (Proxy)
1 Mox Ruby (Proxy)
1 Mox Jet (Proxy)

If the increase in prize payouts attracts more pro/semi-pro players, the result could be either good or bad:

Good could result if these players decide to innovate, create new decks, invent new tech, etc.  The premise here is that good players make good decks, and experienced players from other formats might be able to bring new ideas to our format.  This would lead to metagame evolution.

Bad could result if these people simply start to win because a great player running a decent deck will win tourneys (think Nassif & EBA).  This might lead to more people playing the "best" decks and no additional people inventing "better" decks.  One aspect of the whole PTQ format idea comes into play here, but potentially in a negative way.  People might try to hone existing decks to win tourneys rather than to try to invent new decks to win tourneys.

Teams are good insofar as they bring a bunch of capable like-minded people together for a common purpose.  Teams can be bad insofar as people keep decks quiet for a long time rather than sharing them with the community.  But let's be fair--more good decks have been shared by teams than hidden away.  Once a deck breaks out, it's not like the team that created it tries to hide their tech and not tell people how to play the deck.  Instead, they write articles, primers and/or start topic about the deck, sharing it with communitites.  

Getting more good, serious, dedicated players to join the vintage community would be an incredible boon.  For a lot of people, vintage is what happens at the local cardshop when you get to pull out your 5c sliver deck and go to town against some crappy goblin decks and the one person who actually has good cards and wins every time with the same deck (similar to the local 1.5 format that Hi-Val alluded to).  Obviously, this doesn't advance the format.  Tourneys allowing 5-10+ proxies (I always ran unlimited-proxy power tourneys to allow unpowered players to win power) are one important step toward getting more serious players into the format.  If you force people who don't have a lot of expensive cards to play a format that requires a lot of cards in the $300+ range to be competitive, it is much harder for these people to do well, and thus get excited, than if you allow them to proxy these big guns and focus on collecting the lesser cards in the $10-15 range.  

Proxy tourneys are the best thing to ever happen to vintage in terms of metagame evolution.    IMHO, having more proxy tourneys is more important than having more teams because people who play together don't need to be on a team to work together towards change, but having proxy tourneys can stimulate new players to enter the format and focus on good decks rather than on their non-competitive pet deck.  Teams may be good, but proxy tournaments are more important.

The problem here is that infinite mana combos aren't that useful unless that are obscenely easy to get (i.e. Dragon).  If you want to build a combo deck, there are about 15 other, better, decks that are combo based.  No offense, but on what turn do you expect this deck to go off?  You would probably be better off with old-school 5-color academy using candelabra of tawnos and capsize or something.  Using anything other than charbelcher or tendrils for a combo kill is fairly inferior because those are 1-card combos and 1 card is nearly always better than 2+ cards (much less 4).  If you want to run a combo for infinite mana, make a grim monolith/power artifact deck--it's easier to make it control-ish, which is more likely to succeed.  Or, just play some derivative of the new Gifts Ungiven deck which is running around--you can play the combo version with Goblin Charbelcher and Mana Severance.  I'm not trying to dump on your idea, but it's just that combo which is slower than turn 3, has no protection, and is not otherwise superior to any exisiting combo isn't that good.

This is the worst thing I have ever heard.  I assume the lol means that you were kidding, but I'm not sure based on what you said before the quoted line.  Saying that 4cc spells can beat decks with a fundamental turn of 1 is terrible and simply wrong.  I therefore doubt that you even know what these other decks have in them, and/or how to play them.  This deck has like 3-4 actual threats--scroll rack.  Saying that you can punch them through 16 counters to beat mono-blue (or even 12 to beat Oath) seems unlikely.  How will this deck beat Tog through 4x duress 4x mana drain 4x force of will and one of the best draw engines ever?  Same with control slaver except that control slaver has an even BETTER draw engine and can slave you before trying to win.

If you are talking about playing in a non-powered super-scrub metagame, then maybe mono-white parfait is a decent choice.  Unpowered Oath would probably be much better.  However, saying that Parfait will beat Oath because you have Humility in your deck is completely ridiculous.  

It is very true that parfait should at least splash Red for SB options (you don't even need palteaus because you can search out a lone mountain using Tax).  REB, Rack & Ruin, etc. help to answer the problems that mono-white parfait has, namely, sucking.  I have considered playing WB Parfait using Duress/Cabal Therapy with Rector to allow running more 1-of bomb enchantments, but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be as good as WR using some of the best SB cards ever.  The problem is space--it takes too much space to add in the cards that will make this deck good.  The parfait strategy is fundamentally flawed because it is inherently slow, avoiding artifact acceleration and relying on NOT playing lands for a few turns to activate Tax.  A control deck should run blue--any control deck lacking blue is inherently not as good as one which does.

Not to be an elitist asshole, but why do you care what people say on the SCG forums?  I don't recall ever seeing anything profoundly insightful on those boards--that's the reason that this site exists.  If people get pissed off because it sounded to them like you were saying that people who are not on teams are worthless (not that you said anything even close to that), then they should get back at you by creating a new deck or variant and winning some power or beating you at a tourney with it rather than bitching about it on some internet forum like an ineffective putz.

I will echo what Gabe said--I'm sure that it takes a long time to write a well-thought-out article on any topic, but a lot of people (myself included) would rather hear about a deck or specific issue related to the game or metagame rather than about teams, which you could almost refer to as the meta-metagame.  No offense, but I'd rather hear about something that means something.

I can't even count the number of times people from Europe (especially Sweden) have referred to how much better their stax decks are than those stateside, but I can't recall ever seeing a swedish stax decklist.  I don't see how it is even remotely possible that Stax decks from Europe are so much better than US stax decks, and no one has ever shown me a swedish stax decklist, much less one that proves how good their stax build is.  The thing with Stax decks is that they have little room for variation--much less so than workshop aggro.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but all Stax decks basically require the following cards:
3-4 welder
4 trinisphere
4 smokestack
4 tangle wire
3-4 crucible of worlds
1 tinker
1 ancestral recall
2-3 win conditions (trike/karn/titan)
9 crysolomoxvault
4 workshop
1 academy
4 wasteland
1 strip mine
8-9 more lands
That leaves for about 7-11 more cards which can vary, 4 of which are usually TFK/mediate (leaving 3-7 cards different).  I seriously doubt that there are 3-7 cards that make Stax decks from Sweden so good that nothing can beat them.  Basically, it sounds to me like the preponderance of Stax decks in Sweden is the only reason that Stax is so successful, rather than it somehow being so much better than any other deck that exists.  Players over there are pissed about having to play stax or beat stax, so they try to compensate for "metagame envy" by talking about how good their stax decks are and how bad ours are.

So, Swedish people (or other Europeans who think their Stax builds are so much better), please post a decklist that shows how much different and better your build is.  I agree with Smmenen that if you want people to believe you about how good your stax build is, then write an article for SCG about a big tourney you succeeded at with Stax, explaining your matchups and why you succeeded.  If you won power with Stax, write a tourney report or a Euro-Stax primer.  Don't just say "our deck is just better but we won't tell you what it is."

P.S.  Turn 1 trinisphere may be really powerful when it hits, but it doesn't hit as often as people seem to think it does.  Yes, 3sphere-->smokestack is incredibly powerful and game-breaking, but how often does that really happen?  Is it more likely for that to happen, or for you to have to mulligan because your first 7 cards smoke serious pole?  Part of what makes Stax inconsistent is the need for 27-29 mana sources in a deck without many draw spells, and specifically without brainstorms.  

P.P.S.  Is WS aggro beats Stax, and your metagame is filled with Stax, and you can play WS aggro or Stax, why do you play Stax?  Play an anti-stax TnT deck with MD Artifact Mutation/Rack & Ruin and laugh because TnT tends to already have a good matchup against Tog (i.e. one of the other decks that should succeed in a Stax metagame).

I think that bazaar simply doesn't fit into a control deck.  True, squee can eliminate/reduce the card-disadvantage inherent to bazaar, but trying to get UU up for drain (or keep cards in your hand for force) works against the idea of bazaar.  Even worse, you need 4 mana to use your slaver.  The beauty of cerebral assassin (the worst deck name ever--it should simply be Bazaar Titan) is the synergy--once you drop your Titan into the yard, you only need 1-2 mana to get it into play, and once it's in play, you don't need any further mana input to have it be useful.  Not the same with mindslaver.  The only other successful decks using bazaar are decks that really take advantage of discarding and/or the graveyard (dragon, madness).

As has already been stated, portal by itself doesn't really do much.  You would be better off trying to put it into an intuition-stax deck where it has massive synergy, rather than into a deck which lacks this synergy.  Basically, the problem that I see with this deck is the bazaar/squee engine.  True, Squee makes the portal one-sided in your favor, but it's not worth the loss of a land drop to poop out a bazaar.  Bazaar simply lacks synergy with mana drain, mindslaver and the control strategy in general, and this deck doesn't have enough other synergy to make up for it.  If you want to run bazaar + portal, don't run a control deck.  Run a combo-ish/aggro-ish deck, more similar to CA.  

I have considered running mono-red stacker using bazaar as a draw engine.  For example:
4 welder
4 juggy
4 su-chi
2 sundering titan
2 duplicant
2 (razormane) masticore
2 triskelion
2 mindslaver
4 bazaar
4 squee
2 crucible of worlds (allows you to discard lands and play them; also allows infinite slaver lock with artifact lands)
8 solomoxcrypt
1 mana vault
1 lotus petal (good because you miss land drops for bazaar)
4 mishra's workshop
1 tolarian academy / artifact land / ancient tomb
1 strip mine / artifact land / ancient tomb
2 ancient tomb
2 darksteel citadel / great furnace
8 mountain

Unfortunately, bazaar has negative synergy with the wasteland mana-denial strategy that makes stacker not suck horribly.  Due to this, this deck probably wouldn't work that well, but at least it has more internal synergy (welder/bazaar, su-chi/mindslaver, crucible/bazaar) than a control variant.

Toad--
It sounded like you said 5/3 is a bad matchup for stax (you said turn 1 juggs is scarier than turn 1 FoW).  Does that support my suggestion before that a well-build 5/3 deck could dominate a stax-laden metagame (hint hint Dexter)?  

I certainly can see how Stax can be better than 5/3 in many situations (especially the stack/jugg comparison).  My problem with Stax has always been that many of its lock components aren't that strong on their own (specifically tangle wire).  If you're in an even race with your opponent, and you both have expended all of your resources to deal with each other, and you topdeck tangle wire, you are cooked while topdecking a juggy can win.  Maybe that's an unlikely and/or irrelevant comparison, but I think it's a legitimate weakness.

Slaver certainly can be a powerful weapon for stax in a metagame which isn't aggro-based (or combo-based I suppose).  I don't think I support it in a 5c build, but if you used it in a UR build and used intuitions rather than draw-7's it could be very strong against many matchups.  The problem of course is what Toad already said--finding 4 non-workshop mana can be challenging, especially since you probably won't be able to run ancient tomb because you will have to run darksteel citadel.

Egg is not there because it's a draw spell.  It's there as a mana fixer, giving you U which can be hard to come by in this deck.  If you could run 6-8x chromatic sphere, you would.  But, you can't--so you run Egg.  For this reason, bauble isn't the right card.  Add to that the fact that threshold is good for the deck and putting cards on the bottom of your library is bad for threshold.

On Delta vs. Sea--I was forgetting about using the Delta to add to Threshold.  That alone makes it good.  My beef was that I find myself occasionally in need of both black and blue (i.e. turn 1 brainstorm, turn 2 DR/win) with only one U/B source available.  

On 2 chain vs. chain + hurkyll's--is hurkyll's there specifically as an answer to chalice for 1?  Because otherwise, I can't see it as more useful than chain or rebuild.  Basically, for this deck, turn 1 trinisphere = game loss.  So, chain, hurkyll's and rebuild are equally useless because you can't play any of them off 2 lands with 3sphere in play.

I guess my real question about the 5/3 vs. Stax thing was basically--why hasn't Stax been putting up the numbers that 5/3 has (specifically in the US of A)?  Is it simply that nobody plays it here, or is there something fundamentally better about one deck or the other?  

I was trying to suggest that 5/3 might be better because it has more space to run cards like Seal of cleansing and STP, which are hard (not impossible) to run in Stax because you are forced to run so many lock components and lands instead of win conditions and utility removal.  My point was that, although turn 1 stack is in fact really nasty, it doesn't move your opponent from 20 to zero.  

I think that the lone mindslaver in Stax is awesome, a natural fit because you already run 4x crucible and fitting in a lone Citadel isn't that hard if you want to infinitely slaver-lock.  But, infini-slaving isn't necessary because if you slave even once with lock components on board, you should probably win.  I have been running Trike in my stax build for a while--he's so good I would consider running 2.

Why would you ever run Enlightened tutor in this deck?  You would have to use a chromatic sphere to play the enlightened tutor in the first place, thus eliminating the synergy between sphere and top-deck tutors.  Plus, what would you tutor for?  Lotus?  No offense, but that's terrible.  

The point of this deck is not bombs--it's cantrips.  There is only a single bomb in this deck--will.  True, it might be nice to turn 1 vamp turn 2 win with will, but wouldn't it just be better to win turn 1 because you didn't have to wait a turn?  A deck with moe bombs like timetwister, tinker/jar, etc. might support vampiric tutor better, but this deck doesn't have those cards.  Vampiric tutor could potentially be good, but I believe Smmenen when he says he tested it and it fell flat.  I mean--a combo deck without vampiric tutor?  That's lunacy!  Except, it's not really because losing card advantage rapes this deck really hard when it's playing so many spells which generate mana rather than cards.  

This deck isn't about draw-7's, but if it was, then maybe topdeck tutors would be better.  But, as far as I can tell, the manabase will not support draw-7's and they are simply unnecessary.  Why give your opponent another 7 cards to draw force of will if they don't have it already?

On another note, I replaced egg #4 with chrome mox and I haven't looked back.  I also replaced the delta with an underground sea, and I'm still on the fence about whether I like it or not.  I feel like it can be the difference between winning turn 2 or not at all, which seems like a good reason to run it.  The question will ultimately be:  Does it interfere with winning turn 1?  I have been mostly goldfishing and in that capacity, I have been finding Hurkyll's recall and chain of vapor to suck, but I doubt that's the point of having them in the deck, so I'll leave them in until I play some real matches against other decks.  I'm still trying to understand the deck, what to spoils for, etc.  I find myself demonic consulting for yawgwin an awful lot, which occasionally backfires but it the bomb when it hits.

I keep wondering again and again when and/or why Stax is better than 5/3 or some other aggro workshop variant.  It seems to require more space for all of its lock components, few of which win the game on their own, allowing less space for threats and/or answers.  I guess I just don't see what match-ups Stax will shine in as opposed to 5/3 (for example).  I keep hearing tons of people talk about how their metagame is dominated by Stax, and I can't help but wonder if the right 5/3 deck would OWN that metagame.  Maybe I underestimate stax and/or overestimate 5/3 but I'm still interested to know what the advantages and disadvantages of each is.  

On the topic of B/R list changes, I agree that a comparison of LED/Wish/Gush to 3sphere is a retarded.  Shop-->3sphere can win games all on its own, provided that it occurs first turn by the player who plays first, against an unprepared deck.  Dark Ritual is close to the power level of LED, and I'm still not sure that it should be restricted.  Burning wish is simply stupid--if it was unrestricted, very bad things would happen.  Gush I'm less sure of because the metagame has changed completely since 4-gush GAT, but considering the utter dominance of the meta by that deck, why should we potentially let it return?  LED, in the right deck, is a black lotus which may have either a negligible disadvantage or a strong advantage (i.e. B over B).

I think that the lack of dominance of the metagame by any one deck means that no restrictions should occur.  In fact, the closest deck to dominating is control slaver, so we should be talking about restricting welder before we talk about restricting anything else (based on the nebulous "metagame dominace" criterion).  I don't think we should restrict anything because the metagame is strong, varied, healthy and still broken, but in a good, balanced way that keeps anything from being too unfair.

In this deck, I might think that the fourth Gifts is better than FoF.  Certainly the fourth Gifts is better than the much-too-even Wheel.  I will echo that MemJar is really nasty, but possibly unnecessary because you aren't going to drop 3 6/7-cost cards in one turn.  The deck has too many expensive cards and too many spells as opposed to permanents, and simply might not need the Jar.  

I don't know whether the 3cc intuition is better than the 4cc Gifts.  Intuition searches out fewer cards and doesn't give you +1 card, but it can guarantee what you get.  Have you tested both and decided that Gifts is better?

I would consider running a more diverse and larger threat base, by cutting the draw-7's for 2 more large things, ending up with:
Jester's Cap (so the bomb)
PentaBus
Smmemnarch
2 Mindslaver
Trike (he rules)
Big Platz (why not just win sometimes?) or Dupes (removal can be good)

Just a few thoughts.

Z wrote:


1.  Does this mean that you would discourage running 3 non-fetch lands (i.e. Sea instead of Delta)?  If so, do you find yourself with the types of hands I describe--needing U and B for a turn 2 win but having delta?  Or, is this a scenario when you would mulligan because turn 2 is too slow....

2.  So, would you recommend replacing 1 egg with chrome mox, considering that I play chain of vapor and hurkyll's recall maindeck?  Necro is a bomb, but it seems like an unnecessary card that facilitataes turn 2 kills rather than turn 1 kills.

3.  If you don't know that you can kill turn 1, do you mulligan, or do you accept some turn 2 win hands?

Thanks.

After putting together and playing this disgusting pile of broken, I have a few questions:

1.  What made you choose polluted delta over underground sea as land #3?  I have found myself needing black AND blue mana (usually to set up a turn 2 kill when turn 1 isn't going to happen) with the delta in my hand and no other black/blue sources.  If it was a sea (as I have changed it to), this would be a non-issue.

2.  Would is be legitimate to replace Egg #4 with a chrome mox?  Sometimes, I find myself with a 2-egg hand and not enough mana sources, so I wonder if 4 eggs and 4 spheres might be overkill.  Also, there is that occasional hand with a blue mana source, a blue card or two, an egg and some black cards--the mox would be the difference between turn 1 and turn 2 or 3.  

3.  How often does this deck mulligan?  I haven't played enough to really recognize when to mulligan or not, just which hands cannot possibly win ever (i.e. obvious mulligans like only 1 off-color mox, no sources or 3 tendrils).  Recognizing the hands that aren't going to win fast enough is much harder for me.  Are there any general rules or just advanced pattern recognition?

4.  Why are people arguing over the point of building a turn-1 combo deck that's really hard to play?  The point is to build a turn-1 combo deck.  End of discussion.  It's not the deckbuilder's fault that you aren't good enough to play the deck.  MeanDeck doesn't build decks so the rest of us don't have to innovate.  They build decks to win tourneys.  If they build decks that are hard to play, then that is only because they are good enough to play them with a reasonable degree of success.  Don't whine about it.

5.  Are people really disparaging Land Grant in this deck?  Stop eating paint chips--they may taste good, but they're bad for your brain.  Play the deck with a legitimate knowledge of the game and the rules and the deck and then shut up.  Land Grant is so good here that it might get restricted.  It allows the deck to win turn 1.  Period.

I think it's interesting to hear people talk about restricting tendrils over DR.  How well would most combo decks work with only one tendrils?  I'm sure TPS would still work just fine, but I don't think people mind a deck winning turn 3-4 most of the time.  But, how would 3-land Tendrils (call it whatever you want) work with only 1 tendrils?  How would DeathLong work?  Belcher wouldn't change, but I don't think that most people mind Belcher any more.  Why nuke a card utilized by many decks other than the major offender, when you can nip the problem in the bud by specifically axing the win condition that makes the deck busted?  I don't favor any restrictions at this time--the metagame seems balanced despite the existence of turn-1 combo decks.  But, if turn-1 storm combo becomes too prevalent and/or successful, then maybe answering the problem directly by cutting tendrils would work sufficiently to stem the tide of brokenness.  

I also wanted to point out that I find it funny to hear people saying that it's bad for combo to ignore the opponent and play like Magic Masturbation.  But, isn't that the point of combo, to make your opponent irrelevant and then shoot your load all over their face (metaphorically speaking)?  The very idea of combo is NOT to interact with the opponent--that's the entire point.  The only interaction you should have with the opponent as a combo player is to rape their hand or prevent them from stopping you (sure, that's minor interaction, but you basically don't need to care about the threats that they play).

People have talked a lot about skullclamp, but it's basically crap against Oath for the reasons previously explained.  Some other anti-oath tech (for red-containing decks, obviously) is Goblin Bombardment.  The beauty of spawning pit is that it is free and allows you to make creatures at instant speed later to beat face and possibly use for goblin welder.  Claws of Gix isn't that great because it costs mana to use, and life doesn't mean much.  But, it's free, which can be good.