Seems highly playable in a fast-combo deck.

- Gets you to threshold earlier.
- Pitches to unmask when needed.
- Makes I Seal, Vampiric and Mystical much better!
- Makes you see bombs more often.

Koen

Slightly off-topic but I won with TPS once against a resolved Lab, by Rebbing it.
Duress helps a lot in clearing the way for a REB/Bounce card.

Koen

Shouldn't we start by restricting Brainstorm??

Koen

This could be decent in Battle of Witts, but asides that I don't think it belongs in any deck

Koen

Necropotence seems the most powerfull card by far, but maybe that's because I simply love the card.
However in you have to bid life to get to play it, if becomes very interesting, since you're basicly giving away draws by bidding life points.

Trinishere is powerful in such a format because there will be a lot of decks with very fragile mana-bases, however most of these decks will be playing FoW, so I don't think Trinisphere is all that dangerous since it are just 4 cards and the remaining cards in the deck will probably fail to reach the powerlevel the other decks can.

Koen

EDIT:

LED seems pretty powerfull too, although I would drop Burning Wish, you don't need that card, Infernal Tutor is much better.
It allows you to play Will maindeck, and can be cast off Rituals. On top of that it allows you to run Unmask, making LED a huge contender too.

Congrats on the final.
Once again combo was everywhere, making control an obselete choice (and I played something close to it...)


I was very low on mana this game, and there was a Trinipshere on the board which was severly slowing me down. Tinker really was my only out at this point, and I won with only 1 mana on the board. This was not as one-sided as you make it sound.


I had loads of mana and needed a single business spell to get me going, but could't find one, not even after drawing 6 cards. I basicly went "Brainstorm - Scoop".


Actually I led with brainstorm and Intuition for AK for 3 and then dropped Sapphire and a fetch to bluff a Drain I didn't have. When you played a Cap I played AK for 3 and forced it pitching a Merchant. Next turn I ancestralled. All I could draw was counters, but with 4 basics and 6 artifact mana I was in a very good shape since half your threats became useless (Wire, Sphere and even ITEoC). But I continued drawing crap and you kept drawing threats that did matter (3 Welders, Smokestack).

All day I was either being extremely lucky or extremely unlucky. Somehow I still made top8 and lost a close match to stefan, who was just a bit more lucky as I drew crap in game 2, and lost to a topdecked FoW in game three (After a double duress the turn before).

Koen

First of all,

Wow!
You typed all decks
Mad props.

----

There's a little error in the top, where it says I was the one playing CA, versus Bastiaan with TT Confidant Control. It was the other way around off course, as is confirmed by the decklists. And I beat Bastiaan 2-0 on the back of a couple of Needles.

The tournament went really smooth, and I look forward to the next one.

---

On the top8.
Control-Combo made pure-control decks alsmost obselete.
But with 2 decks with Drains and Rituals in the deck we have to start wondering wheter Como-Control is going to make Control-Combo obselete

Koen

Leyline seems perfect
The deck mulligans pretty aggresive and often doesn't draw more than 3 cards in a game.

I'm sorry, I think thats what you get when you introduce a (new) format to some people.

On your deck:

The problems is there are not enough decent Berserkers, and there is not really 1 that makes it worth running some suboptimal ones.
The power of your deck lies in the other cards, and I think it's hard to improve those.

---

Oh, and Hounds probably already won too, it got some very decent creatures (Jackal Pup, Isamaru, Wild Mongrel backup with a lot of decent ones). If it hasn't won yet it should make a nice deck.

Maybe something with walls
Green has 5 walls worth playing for a good defense
and they all cycle, create mana or do both
The hard part is finding a decent win condition:

• Wall of Blossoms
• Wall of Roots
• Tinder Wall
• Wall of Mulch
  (this seems pretty decent)

• Vine Trellis

Every creature-type I think off already has won, and that takes away all the fun 

Koen

Edit: Can we cheat a little and use Mishra's Power Plant in Plants  (land - Mishra's Power Plant)

I see, I must have missed it
But would you/did you play Gamble yourself? Do you feel it belongs?


Yeah, in theory it defenitly belongs.


I had a Darkblast and a Loam in those slots.
Loam was mainly there to avoid losses to Chasm and such, aside from locking people with Strip from time to time.

Koen

Especially with the last changes Steve mentioned this list looks very much like the last one I have been working with.
One of the main difference is that I found room for a coupe of Gambles, and I'm interested in people's opinion on Gamble

It's another first turn-tutor that gets Bazaar,
it also gets Chalice turn 1, which is very much needed after game 1.
If going first and dropping Chalice you almost can't lose the game if you have some gas
Gamble has a couple of other uses, but these are the main ones.

How has chrome mox been? I never really tried it, just went with the on-colour ones, but noticed that all you often want is a black mana.
Balance also sounds pretty cute, I need to give that a try too
4 Ashen defenitly is the right call IMO

Koen

It's been awhile since I shared my thoughts on some of the decks, but I have been working on a couple of things.

Clamp-Combo:

I tried turning this deck into a combo-deck less based around Skullclamp, but this is still a work in progress.
It did bring up a couple of nice cards however, especially Sprouting Veins!! This card is absolutely sick.
With Kobold and other Cheap cards I often play this turn 3/4 with stormcount 3+.
I didn't like the lands originally used either, and changed them into the Invasion sac lands that sac for two mana of the allied colours.
These lands allow you to combo out in a single turn when you are ready for it.
Clamp still is a part of the deck though, mostly because the only good white cards all interact with it.


LD:

I totally revised my LD deck, and it's better than ever.
Once again I found some new bombs.
Right now I'm using a whole lot of 3cc LD, or 3cc bounce that can hit lands.
Contrary to what other people have been saying I think you can't afford to miss a LD spell on turn 3.
Especially against decks with the bounce lands, resolving a LD spell on turn 3 can often set them back 2 turns.
To back up the 3cc spells I'm using a high amount of draw spells combined with bombs like Capsize (amazing!)


Recursion-Theme:

A lot of aggro-control decks on this thread already featured multiple recursion effects, but no deck really seems to get the full potential out of them, so I build a deck complete based around recursion, sorta like Rec-Sur.
The deck is very promising, but even if it turns out to be nothing it made me look up one of the most broken cards in Skittles: Victimize!!
This card is absolutely sick, especially in combination with Eternal Witness. These 2 cards combined let you return any creature from your graveyard to your hand for 2B.
This deck seems pretty completed so I will list it here:

//NAME: Rec-Sur v1.1
// Artifact
        1 Æther Vial
        1 Wayfarer's Bauble
        1 Etched Oracle (or Mask of Memory)
        1 Fellwar Stone
        1 Crystal Shard
        1 Skullclamp
// Red
        1 Shivan Harvest (sweeet!)
        1 Goblin Settler
        1 Imperial Recruiter
        1 Fire Imp
        1 Flametongue Kavu
        1 Avalanche Riders
// Blue
        1 Ninja of the Deep Hours
        1 Wonder (pretty weak, but sometimes needed)
        1 Drift of Phantasm (get's Witness, Victimize, Aura Shards etc.)
        1 Man-o'-War (pretty weak)
        1 Raven Familiar
        1 Trinket Mage
// Green
        1 Yavimaya Granger (one of the best cards in the deck)
        1 Wall of Blossoms
        1 Sakure-Tribe Scout (with Skullclamp or bounce lands this is amazing)
        1 Eternal Witness
        1 Uktabi Orangutan
// White
        1 Radiant's Dragoons
        1 Devout Witness
        1 Kami of Ancient Law
        1 Monk Idealist
        1 Steelshaper's Gift
// Gold
        1 Hymn of Rebirth (pretty decent)
        1 Aura Shards (absolutely needed)
// Black (need to find room for a Bone Schredder)
        1 Victimize (sick)
        1 Gravedigger
        1 Unearth
        1 Tortured Existence
        1 Phyrexian Reclamation
        1 Ghost-Lit Stalker (win's games against control decks all the time)
// Lands
        1 Wasteland
        1 Gemstone Mine
        1 Gruul Turf
        1 Orzhov Basilica
        1 Golgari Rot Farm
        1 Selesnya Sanctuary
        3 Island
        3 Mountain
        3 Swamp
        2 Plains
        3 Forest
        1 Krosan Verge
        1 Mirrodin's Core
        1 Mishra's Factory
        1 Terrain Generator (A must for control decks!)

The mana-base still needs some work, but the core of the deck is very strong.
Often you win the game by destroying 2 lands a turn while beating with multiple 2/x creatures.


Reanimator:

I also build this very funny Reanimator deck, which actually seems playable
All go check out Deep Spawn right now!!! (It's probably the best creature in the deck)
The key cards in this deck are the Incarnations, more than once I got Anger, Wonder and/or Filth with Buried Alive.
The nice part about this deck is that all colours have good options, white gives a lot of reanimation spells, so that you can use Black for other cards.
And off course this deck also has Victimize!

Koen

TT Confidant Control is about Tinker, but not all about early Tinkers.
I'm probably one of the few people who Brainstorms away early Tinker all the time.
I don't like gambling, when I can just play the control game and find that Tinker later when I need it.
A 3cc sorcery that finds Tinker does not really fit this strategy, and for that I don't think Transmute for Tinker is all that hot.

Koen

What decks actually play lot of removal? FCG is the only deck I can think of that has about 8 answers to a Confidant.

I actually think this deck is good in an Aggro metagame, but then again I don't rate aggro that high, so this doesn't really say anything.
Fact is that you should be able to find Tinker before dying to beats, this means you can ignore about 20 cards your opponent plays. An opponent needs to get real lucky to resolve an answer to Angel, since it's the only thing you need to counter.

---

What's more scary are control decks with acces to Darkblast.
If you know your opponent has a Darkblast you have to make sure you get in front before dropping Confidant, which is not always possible.

Koen

Fact and Gifts will only get you out of tight spots in your deck is build to do that. Adding a FoF to this deck will not help you get out of tight spots, not at all.

Confidant is not as bad and slow as you make it look. Against Stax it's great at any time you can afford 1B, against aggro it either helps you find Tinker or it buys you time by blocking things. Against Control it wins games if dropped early, and only becomes subpar if you're behind already, but it still puts stress on your opponent to win fast.


Every counterspell you draw ensures you of another 2 cards. Thats already 12 spells that gain card-advantage with an Confidant out, add to that the restricted cards, and Thirst, and you are up to 20 cards. With a few more cards that cycle at least I find it hard to believe you can stall out with a Confidant in play, but maybe you were playing the wrong cards...

Thirst hardly is card-selection. After turn 1 artifact mana isn't needed much anymore, and this deck can actually pitch it to Thirst, where Slaver and Gifts often can't. And with Top, Needle, Angel and Collosus you rarely need to dump 2 cards to it. As I mentioned before, the only times I recall discarding 2 cards is with an Angel out and too much Fetch Lands in hand.


What threats are you talking about? You never will be able to counter everything but the cards you mentioned above are pretty able of handling any problem. Smokestack is probably one of the most scariest cards that can slip into play, but aside from that I don't really think this is a realistic problem. Card Advantage will find you the few answers you have.


You plan your whole game towards the point where you have to defend the Angel. The fact that you can ignore a lot of things your opponent does and the fact that nearly every card in the deck is always a business spell makes it hard for your opponent to stop you after you set up the game.

If you re-read my report again you will see that I was able to protect an Angel against 3 Mutations in two turns; that I was able to defend my Angel against an deck with aty least 7 answers backed up with blasts. He knew it was coming, but still was unable to stop it.

If your opponent boards in 15 disenchants you (probably) won't succed in the Angel plan, but with what is your opponent left in his deck? 15 semi-useless cards. How hard can it be to win with Confidants then, or just a Colossus.

---

Adding more answers to the deck means you weaken your control matchup and your combo matchup to hopefully shore up your Aggro and maybe Prison matchup a little. Aggro shouldn't be a problem in this configurations, and whether the deck gets stronger agaist Prison when more answers are added, I'm not ever sure of.

I really like this deck, as it's the perfect shell for Confidant

Koen

Actually there is a difference between Ichorid and Ashen Ghoul:



Ashen Ghoul's can be activated during your whole upkeep, so also after you used the Hermit
That is what I thought at least,

Koen

Maybe the main card advantage of my control deck is that it runs zero enchantments and only creature that will do their job, removal or not: (Sakura, Witness, FtK, Etched Oracle, Bone Schredder). This gives the deck such an huge advantage to start with.

The problem I have with creature based strategies is that there are too many cheap answers. You often spend 2/3 mana on a creature, and need to infest more to make it useful, while a Firebolt/Swords/Horobi's can take it out for almost nothing.

---

I almost succeeded in my own challenge: building a deck that beats the control deck
But I think the deck I'm working with will lose too anything with some beatdown 

Koen

There are too much reasons to run a control deck in this format:

Bad mana-bases, control decks often are more forgiving.
Because of the bad mana-bases aggro decks tends to be pretty slow, giving control the time to fix their mana base first.
Amazing card-advantage options, right now I have these cards in my deck to provide card advantage:

Krosan Verge
(Firebolt)
Deep Analysis
Orim's Thunder
Horobi's Whisper
Electrotyse
Flametongue
Explosive Vegetation
Skeletal Scrying
Fanning the Flames
Soulless Revival (Hana Kami)
Wear Away
Eternal Wintess
Hideous Laughter
Glavial Ray
Allied Strategies
Etched Oracle
Concentrate
Kodama's Reach
Fireball

All these cards are able to create card advantage.
The rest of the deck is removal, more mana fixing and some finishers.

I build an aggro deck that was as aggresive as possible and was able to handle it with my control deck after some slight modifications (Sun Droplet is sick!!)

Most of the deck posted here are aggro-control, and basicly very slow deck when paired against a control deck. This will probably upset some people, but I think most of these are almost byes for a well build control deck pre sideboard.

I think these decks should try to incorperate more disruption (Ghost-Lit Stalker is pretty decent for recursive decks)

---

For any decks having mana problems (mainly aggresive strategies, or ones with heavy gold cards) take a look at Mana Cyclix it's amazing.

I'm waiting for someone to post a deck that posed a real threat to a control deck, see this as a challenge

Koen

Is there something wrong with Apprentice or am I right that Exile is not an arcane spell?
Do you like Elder Pine, I build my deck with as little creatures as possible so that opponent have lots of dead cards (no enchantments either).
Isochron seams kinda weak, every deck is packed with Artifact removal, and you hardly have any real bombs to put on it.

I missed the Terminal Moraine, need to put that in some of my decks, good call!


If this applied to the LD deck:
Red is filled with amazing LD, one of the great things about Annex is that it's blue.

Koen

Wow, 4 Rituals, no Drains.
I never liked it, but results don't lie.

All the AK-decks are interesting too,
#2 even found room for 3 Duresses, I like that.

Koen

Here's my list so far:

//NAME: Splice Control
// White
        1 Ethereal Haze
        1 Swords to Plowshares
        1 Dismantling Blow (I really want a high amount of Disenchant effects!, could be a regular Disenchant though. Another option would be Altar's Light to RFG stuff)
        1 Disenchant
        1 Orim's Thunder
// Red
        1 Magma Jet (It's ok, but not spectecular, might be better options)
        1 Fanning the Flames (#1 Kill card)
        1 Fireball
        1 Glacial Ray
        1 Flametongue Kavu
// Black
        1 Hideous Laughter
        1 Horobi's Whisper
        1 Soulless Revival
        1 Skeletal Scrying
        1 Rend Flesh
(Exile into darkness??)
// Blue
        1 Exclude
        1 Eerie Procession (oooh, a Tutor!)
        1 Evermind (can be great, but sometimes rather useless)
        1 Deep Analysis
        1 Allied Strategies
// Green
        1 Hana Kami
        1 Wear Away (amazing)
        1 Kodama's Reach
        1 Thornscape Battlemage
        1 Eternal Witness
(I want a Tribe Elder in here as well, but there's no room...)
// Artifact
        1 Fellwar Stone
        1 Sensei's Divining Top
        1 Phyrexian Furnace
        1 Wayfarer's Bauble
        1 Etched Oracle
// Gold
        1 Ordered Migration (#2 win condition)
        1 Electrolyze
        1 Lightning Helix
        1 Mortify
        1 Putrefy
// Land
        1 Rocky Tar Pit
        1 Mountain Valley
        1 Krosan Verge
        2 Mountain
        2 Island
        2 Forest
        2 Swamp
        2 Plains
        1 Mishra's Factory
        1 Wasteland
        1 Izzet Boilerworks
        1 Orzhov Basilica
        1 Golgari Rot Farm
        1 Dimir Aqueduct
        1 Mirrodin's Core
        1 Gemstone Mine
        1 Grasslands
        1 Flood Plain
        1 Bad River
        1 Quicksand
        1 Maze of Ith

The manabase can be a bit shaky, but when the deck gets going there's no stopping it.
Maybe some of the gold cards could be removed to release some pressure on the mana-base, but I like how I fixed the colours with the golden cards. There's not really a weak card in there.
The deck could also use 1 more card drawer (maybe an Artifact?)
Using Dampen Thought for a kill is also an option.

In some limited testing this list shows that it can deal very good with some Aggro and Aggro-Control strategies.
Combo was kinda hard though, since Skullclamp is so hard to deal with. You really need to remove that thing from the game to deal with it.

I haven't put any time in sideboards yet, there's still so many things in various maindecks for me to explore.
But once again, enjoyable format!

Koen

So, I was a bit bored and decided to put some thought into this casual format.
I found it's really hard to come up with deck ideas, as 99% of decks that have ever excisted are based around rare cards.

I build several decks and tried them for a while:

I build a controllish deck with several Arcane and Splice cards in it.
Revival + Witness can be pretty nice, as can splicing a Glacial Ray.
Horobi's Whipser and especially Hideous Laughter are pretty decent removal cards.

I build a land-destruction deck that is pretty decent (I think its at least better than the one mentioned on the Skittles page)
I'll post it below

I build a deck based around lands which shows some promise but still needs a lot of work.

For some discussion, here's the LD deck, which is the deck I put most time in so far:

Skittles LD v1.1

// Lands
        1 Rocky Tar Pit
        1 Mountain Valley
        1 Grasslands
        1 Flood Plain
        1 Bad River
        1 Treetop Village
        1 Mishra's Factory
        1 Barbarian Ring
        1 Crosis's Catacombs
        1 Darigaaz's Caldera
        1 Rith's Grove
        1 Ancient Tomb
        1 Mirrodin's Core
        1 Gemstone Mine
        1 Wasteland
// Gold
        1 Pain // Suffering
        1 Electrolyze
        1 Terminate
        1 Wreak Havoc
        1 Temporal Spring
// Black
        1 Rain of Tears
        1 Nightscape Battlemage
        1 Despoil
        1 Sinkhole
        1 Befoul
// Blue
        1 Deep Analysis
        1 Allied Strategies
        1 Control Magic
        1 Annex (Best card in the deck!!)
        1 Confiscate
// Red
        1 Avalanche Riders
        1 Dwarven Miner
        1 Pillage
        1 Stone Rain
// Green
        1 Eternal Witness
        1 Fallow Earth
        1 Creeping Mold
        1 Ice Storm
        1 Llanowar Elves
// White
        1 Seal of Cleansing
        1 Raise the Alarm
        1 Icatian Javelineers
        1 Orim's Thunder
        1 Swords to Plowshares
        1 Benalish Emissary
// Artifact
        1 Icy Manipulator
        1 Skullclamp
        1 Pyrite Spellbomb
        1 Fellwar Stone
        1 Etched Oracle
        1 Ark of Blight

With many decks packing Lairs/New bounce lands LD seems a valid strategy.
Stealing 2 mana lands is savage, as is destroying them.
I prbably should have another Miner in there, but there are too many good red cards.
The white part is very weak, and I think I missed some cards there.

---

I also toyed around with the Skullclamp combo deck posted on the website and found it pretty consistent.
It sure needs to make room for a Reaping the Graves though, I would say I should replace the Priest of Gix.

Nice and fun format.
Koen

Slaver can be a bit rough pre-sideboard.
I think the key is that you dont want to spend too many resources battling Welder.
Forcing a Welder first-turn almost always in the wrong play. (Unless you're hand only allows Tinker as a gameplan)
If you can get a Confidant to stick you should be able to find an answer to Welder before they will be able to hardcast their artifacts.
After sideboard you get very cheap answers to Welders, where they get cheap answers in general (REB's, Darkblast/Lava Dart)
With everything trading 1-on-1 you get very tense matches, which are pretty even.


Mana Cost by far.
Ophidian has been too slow for a while.
You can't justify tapping out turn 2/3 without counter backup.
Confidant often hits turn 1, and if not you often can play it turn 3 with counter backup.
The fact that it doesn't need to attack is ok, and makes cards like Wire less useful against you.

Koen

I see a lot of comments from in my opinion spoiled people.

People are used to winning immediatly from Will
People are used to winning after drainin a 3+cc spell

This deck just doesn't do that, and it will always lose that comparsion to something like Gifts.

---

Still I don't think I have lost a game with the deck after resolving Will.
Nor can I recall losing a Game after resolving Tinker.

---

Intuition + AK doesn't fit this deck.
Thirst digs for anwers, and refills your Counterspells.
Intuition doesn't dig before spending 5 mana.
Having an AK instead of Confidant/Leak is just bad.
(You might argue that you replaced Lands etc, but if you feel you can get away running less lands why wouldn't you replace them with good cards?)
Tendrils doesn't fit this deck either, since it's only good when you're resolving Will, at which point you're winning anyway.

---

Duress doesn't really fit the deck because it's pro-active, making it bad after the early game.
Also it doesn't force your opponent to spend mana on their threat before you stop it.
You might duress away a Smokestack, but your opponent will still have 4 mana for that Uba Mask... Leak just stops what they cast.

---

If you would compare this deck to Mono-U you would get comments like:

Wow I got tutors!, wow I can get a win condition when I want to!
Wow I got a Will that wins games!
Wow I got a Phid that always lands first turn, and actually hurts my opponent!

Koen

Agreed,

First of all I think sideboard don't have all that much impact on Vintage matches.
Personally I hardly ever test with sideboard, except when I need to try out a new sideboard card.
Most of the sideboard cards are pretty common and it's not hard to know what effect they will have.

I often let game 1/2 be factors in how I sideboard, and I don't think this is worse than thinking up list before the tournament.
This way you can adapt to your opponents play style, individual card choices etc. Especially game 3 pre-made list are crap, you need to adept on what your opponent might have done etc.

Also a huge factor can be whether you are on the play or on the draw.
Making up list is just generalizing, whats wrong with a little thinking in between games?
I think this will eventually lead to better results, although you might have to get used to it.

Koen

@ Mr. Nightmare

First of all, congrats on the finish and thanks for reporting about it here.
Maybe you could give some more information about certain cards, if you liked them or not etc.
I'm mainly interested in your opinion on Thirst, Academy and the sideboard.

I've played with Academy for a while, but I found I wasn't worth the vulnerability against Wastelands and Chalice to gain a small boost some times. This deck doesn't win on Academy like Gifts do. THe only reason I wanted to keep it in is the reason you also mentioned, it's still a Strip Mine against an other Academy.

Strip Mine has been very good to me, and Having 2 colorless lands hardly ever gives problems.

One thing that surpsrised me in your report is the amount of games you won on an early Tinker.
Were you just lucky, or was is your goal to Tinker a.s.a.p
Tinker doesnt really fit my playstyle, for Example I often rather keep countermana up than gamble a Tinker, what your opinion on this?

---

@ Gabethebabe

Thanks for posting those results and your thoughts as well.


Tough one, if you drop Flux you commit suicide.
If you go Lotus Go, it does look pretty bad.
I would probably keep it and Brainstorm right away, hoping to see a fetch. Than either drop what you have drawn, or Brainstorm again hoping to find some artifact mana to get Leak up.

But mulliganning makes sence too, because with Annuls you have a high chagne of having a first-turn counter even after mulliganning.


The deck hardly has broken plays, except early Tinkers off course.
Mana Drain is hardly as good as it is in GIfts and Belcher, often you're just casting a Confidant or Thirst off the mana.
Leak is maybe even better in this deck than Drain is.

What tight spots do you mean exactly, were there situations in which Angel wasn't enough of an answer?
Did you like EE?

---

I've been trying 4 Confidants too, and because of that I had to fit in the second Top as well.
What do you guys think about the land count? I think I have to remove a land to fit in Both Confidant #4 and Top #2.
I can't get myself to remove a Brainstorm, since it's just too good with so many fetchlands.

Koen

This might be how it feels, but it's nonsense.
Theres no reason why Vault is strictly superior to Ritual if you want to fill just one spot, just because you're used to running either 0 or 4 rituals.
I think it's a pretty hard call between the both, and it depends on multiple other choices.

Right now I don't run either, because I had to make some room for some experimental cards.

---

@Thirst:

Right now I run 1, mainly to be able to fetch some card-drawing with Scroll if I have spend Ancestral already.
For this reason I don't have to run much more artifacts maindeck, and the deck is actualll taking a different approach, moving more towards my control version.

Koen

I think the only 4cc+ cards worth restriction are Desire (because of uncounterability (sp?)) and Jar (because of Welder and Shop)

Spiral, Bargain, Dream Halls just cost too much.
Spiralling into Spiral is great, but you should win anyway if you resolve one with the business cards you get form it.
Bargain doesn't even always make the cut right now in combo decks. You could run a deck based around it, but it would be pretty fragile.
Dream Halls requires at least 2 more cards too even do anything...

As long as Crop and Academy stay restricted I have no problem at all with the above cards.

I guess Belcher could use 1 or 2 more Grim Monolith, but I think thats not reason to keep in restricted.
Grim + Power Artifact might be a reason to keep it restricted, but I'm not sure if this would be superior to other 2 card combo's.

I'm actually slightly scared of Frantic Search, because it becomes a very good card if you can rely on having one all the time.

I would love to see Burning Wish come off, since it has so many uses.
But before Burning Wish comes of, Personal has to be unrestricted first.

Koen

Needle is either good becasue you draw it very early and have a very cheap solution for a problem (like Vial, Welder, Thief, Waste etc)
Or when you tutor for it later on to deal with a Problamtic Card (like Bazaar)
Late game it doesn't always have an amazing use, but with 4 Brainstorms, 3 Thirst and a Tinker is can hardly be condired useless.

Against Oath and Aggro it still stops Wasteland, so you're stopping your opponent from Time Walking you, that's a good thing.
Againt various combo decks it can be slighly useless, but Thirst is also slightly useless against Those, since it's often too slow, Confidant is also worse than Leak here etc.
Combo can be so fast that half your deck doesn't matter, however with 4 Leak, 4 FoW in the other half you still stand a change.

Needle and Truth are not consistant cards, but mostly tutor targets that have other purposes as well.
These can be changed with other Silver Bullets in a different metagame.
You could run a Tormod's Crypt and an Arcane Lab/Null Rod if you expect a lot of combo and graveyard based decks.

However Needle and Truth are probably best suited for an unkown or vary random metagame, and should be the cards to start with.

Koen