The Reserved List covers only Rares from older expansions.  Mana Drain, despite the $100 price tag, is actually an Uncommon.  Thus it is not on the reserved list.  However, MaRo has been quoted as saying "All of R&D would have to be run over by a bus before we reprinted Mana Drain," so i wouldn't hold out any hope for a reprint.

JP Meyer wrote an entire article on the deck.  It can be found here:http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=8372

My best advice is to check the Tournament Forum on this site. If that fails, try PMing somebody who lives in your general area. (This can be found by looking under "Location" to the left of people's posts under their Avatar.) It's been my experience that most TMD users will be more than willing to help if you approach them in a courtious way.

I think this will be tried in some 4cC builds for a month or so, then ultimately cut.  It just doesn't do enough for a 4cc sorcery, IMHO. Looking at matchups that it could possibly be useful:

DARgon: If you resolve this and yank all of their WGDs or their Laquatus, they still have the backup plan of reanimate a Sliver Queen and beat.  That means they have to find and reanimate her and hope you can't send her farming. If you resolve Cranial Extraction, you have most likely won that game.  The problem is that cheaper, more effective hate cards are already available.  StoP, BEB, and Stifle all make you win the game outright; the dragon player has no chance at "Plan B" if one of these resolves.

TPS: Depending on the build Extraction can either be an auto-win, or just a speed bump.  Against the decks without the Cunning Wish --> Brain Freeze option, your remove their Tendrils and it's game over. If, however, they have the Cunning Wish, all Extraction means is that they need 3UU to win instead of 2BB. I can see this being a solid 1-2 of if your meta includes a healthy number of non-Wish TPS decks.

LongDeath: You can only get 4 of their 5 Wishes, they have MD Tendrils, and a skilled pilot can go off without Wishing for YawgWin. I could be wrong, but I just don't see it being very effective in this match.

Belcher: In my experience, this is a go-for-broke deck. If they can't win in the first few turns, they won't win at all.  By the time you can cast a 4cc sorcery, the game should already be decided. I don't know anyone who is particularly good with this deck, so my testing may be a bit skewed, but Cranial Extraction just screams "win more" to me.

@Nehpits: What are these "non-control decks with low win conditions" that you speak of? Other than combo and control decks, I can't think of any that have a low number of win cinditions. Aggro, Aggro-Control, and Prision decks are all highly redundant.

I'm sure this one is gonna get closed down, but before it does, I might as well answer your questions.

1. Sui's disruption is no longer relevant.  Sinkhole is too slow. With so many Welder decks around, Hymn can help your opponent more than hurt him (Mind Twist has been cut from 4c Control for this very reason).

2. There are not even close to enough artifacts in your deck for the Affinity mechanic to work.  A good Affinity deck has over 60% artifacts, yours doesn't even come close.

3. Sui's biggest weakness is not it's creature base; it's the fact that Sinkhole, Hymn, Hyppie, and Mind Twist no longer matter.  Affinity's weakness is it's extreme succeptability to artifact hate. This combination does nothing to help either of those.

EDIT: By the way, re-posting a thread that has already been locked is grounds for banning from TMD.  I would suggest you read the forum rules before posting.

Thanks yo.  You saved me a lot of typing time.
Lockified.
-Kowal[/color]

While desertion may look like it solves some of Landstill's problems, it's Just too cumbersome to cast.  The only time you will ever be willing to pay 3UU to counter a spell is that rare instance where you actually hard cast Force of Will in a control mirror.

Against Hulk and Artifact Aggro/Prison, they will deploy threats before you get 3UU up.  The only time Slavery will hardcast it's namesake is if it's Drained into enough mana, in which case you won't have the requisite 5 mana available. Otherwise, it will just Weld in the Slaver, which can't be countersd by Desertion.

In short, no, Desertion will not work.

A Knight's Tale does rock, but I'm pretty sure the actual quote is "You have been weighed; you have been measured, and you have been found wanting."

Also, a question about the deck.  Why do you run 3 CoB over more Duals.  It just seems to me at first glance that 5 Fetches and only 5 Fetchable lands isn't exactly stellar.  If your one Trop/Volc/Sea gets wasted you have to rely on drawing into CoB/Mox and hope the other guy doesn't have Waste #2/Shaman.  It just doesn't sound very reliable to me.

If I were to add red to the deck, which I've been considering, it would be for Goblin Welders, not Shrapnel Blasts, and the great sideboard cards in Red.  I will be the first to tell you that I suck at pure aggro, and Ravager Affinity is one of, if not the hardest deck of that archetype to play correctly.  Control is also my preferred playstyle.  I've used it in one form or another since 1995 and am too stubborn to change.

As for the Draw7 engine, against most decks in my group that would be fine.  There are 2 decks, however, that I do not want to give a full hand and load their grave.  One is a B/g powerless Dragon with Bazaars and the other is a partially powered Hulk Smash.  They, along with my deck, are the top 3 in my group, and I'm reluctant to give up ground in my matches against them.

The Mind Twist is most definately coming out, but I'm not too sure what to replace it with.  Tinker/Jar is the most likely, or, If I splash Red, I will test it as the 21st mana source.

Also of note is that making changes is very hard in this deck.  Trying to juggle Affinity, FoW, and the usual T1 brokenness means that any cards cut from one place require other changes to bring the balance back to the deck, otherwise it just loses to itself.  That's probably the biggest reason I haven't gone for the Red splash yet.

Since I forgot to include it in my first post (brainfart), here's my meta approximately ordered from best to worst.
1. Hulk Smash! (has Mox U, Mox B, Ancestral, and Walk)
2. B/g Dragon (Bazaars but no power)
3. U/B Affinity (me)
4. Classic Sligh (think Ball Lightning, Fireblast, Goblin Grenade, etc.)
5. "S&M Black" (Juzams, Scutas, and MD Chains of Mephistopheles)
6. R/G Beatz (Mostly old T2 stuff, but has Kird Apes, Mox Monkey and a few others)
7. Enchantress (Land Tax/Scroll Rack engine w/ Auratog for the kill)

This is a pretty good deck, but I have no delusions of it ever winning a T1 tournament, so I guess the Casual Forum is the place for it.  It’s one of the better decks in my playgroup, but I’d like to hear what you guys think.

Beaters (20)
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Somber Hoverguard
4 Myr Enforcer

Counters (8)
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will

Draw (8)
4 Brainstorm
4 Skullclamp

Restricted (4)
R Yawgmoth’s Will
R Demonic Tutor
R Mind Twist
R Vampiric Tutor

Mana (20)
R Tolarian Academy
R Mana Crypt
R Mana Vault
R Sol Ring
R Chrome Mox
R Lotus Petal
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
3 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Island

Sideboard
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Tormod’s Crypt
4 Chill
3 Stifle


Maindeck Inclusions
Somber Hoverguard: He fills a dual role as a beater and cards 12-16 that can be pitched to FoW.

Mana Drain: Much like Hulk, this deck uses it as a tempo swing.  Often, Draining a somewhat insignificant spell just for the mana acceleration is the right play.

Brainstorm: This used to be Thoughtcast, but Brainstorm is just a better card, IMHO.  Althought, when that switch was made, I was running 4x Fetch.  With the 3 that I have now, Thoughtcast may well be better.

Skullclamp: I know a lot of the people who have been working on competitive T1 Ravager have cut these in favor of the Draw7 engine, but w/o Frogmites, other cheap artifacts are a necessity.

Restricted: YawgWin and both Tutors are a must in the deck.  Mind Twist, however, is probably the most expendable card in the deck.  I had Tinker in its place, but was incredibly under whelmed.

Mana: I’m not too crazy about Mana Vault, Chrome Mox, or Lotus Petal, but they are better than more lands, and, in the absence of Moxen, are the best artifact mana I can get.


Strengths
The deck is very apt at playing both types of Aggro-Control.  It can either lay threats and back them up with counters and drawing, or it can play control for the first few turns then magically poop out a 2-turn clock for 2-3 mana, which is backed up by counter and drawing.


Weaknesses
There are several permanents which give this deck headaches, and it’s unable to remove pre-board.  First and foremost is Null Rod.  Also Meekstone (It’s played in my group, yikes.), and Chains of Mephistopheles severely hurt its performance.


Possible Changes
I would like to fit Frogmites in place of the Hoverguards.  That, however, would leave me with too few Blue spells to reliably play FoW.  This could be made up for in the draw engine by switching from Clamps to the Draw7s, or possibly even Standstill. The changes would probably be something along the lines of this:
-4 Somber Hoverguard, -4 Skullclamp, -1 Mind Twist
+4 Frogmite, +1 Windfall, +1 Memory Jar, +1 Tinker, +2 Diminishing Returns
~or~
+4 Frogmite, +3 Standstill, +1 Tinker, +1 Memory Jar
I’m kind of skeptical about the Draw7 setup, but the Standstill version may be better than what I have so far.  In any case, I will test both proposed changes to the deck.