as a long time player of brassman type 4 (it is in fact the only type 4 i know) i am of the opinion that no card (excluding things like fireball) is too powerful for type 4. this guy is really really good, but i really dont see him being too good. there are a good number of ways to replenish your hand size, not to mention, if he is really that scary, just counter him. reanimate effects dont give him his counter back, so once he hits the yard, he is pretty much useless.

i think the white bringer has potential to be the most powerful. white bringer with cards like mindslaver, grinning totem, bosh, etc etc make it really fricking good. there are just so many powerful artifacts that so frequently end up in your graveyard, white bringer on the board becomes a threat you just have to deal with. blue bringer is also nice becuase it usually lives for at least a few turns, and a few turns drawing 3 cards instead of 1 will put you in a pretty good position most of the time.

Mist Dragon is alright, but i'll take a chance at getting to draw a few cards over a little 4/4 guy anyway. I mean, I personally do whatever i can to phase out a mist dragon when its on the table, just for fun, and a phased out creature isnt all that useful. go for card drawing.

Decree of Silence all the way. It just wins games.

I'm not sure if the game still works like this, but in the original version of Shandalar, I think one of the more effictive decks was something like this:

lightning boltx40
mox rubyx10
mountainx10



There was some special item that allowed you to have as many of any card as you wanted. Multiple mox rubys allows for mutiple first turn lightning bolts, leading, in many cases, to first turn wins.