It dies when the ability resolves, not when you "reveal the card".  The cost is "Exile the Top card of your library:" and the game allows you to look at the card you used to pay the cost before deciding if you want to pass priority, or if you want to hold onto priory and continue stacking effects. 

The typical ooze combo is Triskellion + Devourer which does work, if you understand the relationship between costs and effects.  You exile 1 card, look at it and say it has CMC = 5.  From there you just stack that effect and reveal another card in response to the "Put 5 +1/+1's on him, then sac him".  This time lets say lets say its CMC=2.  This ability we'll let resolve, so we pass priority and resolve the "put 2 +1/+1's on him, and he survives" now our first  "Put 5 +1/+1's on him, then sac him" activation is the only thing left in the stack.  But we get priority again, so we fire off 2 trike shots.  After the damage resolves, but before that 5-cmc activation does we have priority so we can respond to the 5-cmc activation by exiling a 3rd card.... and so on.  So we can keep hunting for cards with CMC 2 or less and just stack up a bunch of "add X and sac ooze" activations to the stack.

DubDub is right.  But to bring that a bit further (and make a math lesson out of it, we need to look at Laws of Conditional Probability!

Pr(Event A) = Pr(A | B) x Pr(B) + Pr(A | Not-B) x Pr(not-B)
Where "|" is our "Conditional on" or "...Given..."

Quick example:  Supose we're at seaworld and we have time for 1 more attraction.  We're going to flip a coin to either swim in the shark tank or the dolphin pool.  And we also know that 4 out of every 10 people who swim in the shark tank are eaten.  What is our probability of getting eaten by sharks?  Intuatively we may be able to derive that its going to be 20%, but using our law:

Event A ~> Eaten by a shark
Event B ~> we are swiming in the shark tank.

Prob(Eaten by a shark) =
Prob( Getting eaten by a shark GIVEN we are swimming in the shark tank ) x prob( ending up in the shark tank)
+ Prob( Getting eaten by a shark GIVEN we are swimming in the doplhin pool ) x prob( we decide to swim with dolphins)

Which ends up being = 40% x 50% + 0% x 50% = 20%


So with our exmaple:
Event A ~> A 7 card hand that looks like
 - Exactly 1 Mox Opal
 - At least 2 of the remaining 6 cards are Artifacts (that arn't other mox Opals, because its legendary)

For this, lets say that...
Event B ~> Drawing Exactly 1 Mox Opal

Then we can say that:
Prob( Event A ) = Prob( drawing 2+ artifacts in 6 cards given we've already drawn our Mox Opal ) x Prob( drawing 1 Mox Opal in 7 cards ) + 0% *
* because our probability of encountering a shark disguised as a dolphin is negligibly small
** wait no, I mean that we can't satifiy Event A without actually drawing a Mox Opal.

So to type it out in long hand: 
Prob( drawing 1 Mox Opal in 7 cards ) =
=HYPGEOMDIST(1, [Drawn], [Opals] ,60)
 ~ Where [Opals] is the Address of the Cell containg the number of Opals you are Running
 ~ And [Drawn] is in this case 7.  But if youre going do this in excel, might as well make a variable out of it.

We also need: Prob( drawing 2+ artifacts in 6 cards given we've already draw a mox opal ) =
=1-(HYPGEOMDIST(0,[Drawn]-1,[Artifacts],59) + HYPGEOMDIST(1,[Drawn]-1,[Artifacts],59))
 ~ where [Artifacts] is the number of other artifacts you're running.

 *Note that this formula is actually saying "The probability of Not drawing 0 or 1 artifacts" Which is simpiler than typing out prob(*2*) + prob(*3*) + prob(*4*) + prob(*5*) + prob(*6*)
 * Also note that this time its actually out of 59 cards, because we have to account for our "GIVEN we've already draw a mox opal" statement.  Meaning there are only 59 cards left in the deck we could draw from.

Now simply Multiply Event A|B and event B and you're good to go.
So if we plug in 1 Opal, 11 Other Artifacts, 7 Cards drawn => about 3% like DubDub said.

Now we can plug in all sorts of combinations.  Like running 3 Opals we end up with about 13%.  If we instead are on the draw (meaing we draw 8 cards) we end up with almost 18%.

Turn 1 you've got yourself effectively a 3/4 goyf.  And you have 2 protection cards for said Goyf.  But after that you're leaning heavily on your top decks.
Against an unknown I would Keep

Run out fetch -> lotus.  Sac GGG drop the goyf.  If they force, fetch basic island and tap it for the hardcast daze.  If they fight it, then you KNOW they can't really beat goyf so defend it.  If they just let goyf resolve, then they are probably thinking they can beat it - and you have at least 1 daze for thier turn 1.  And and another daze for turn 2.  I'd daze almost anything on thier turn.  Land, Sol Ring?  - Daze.  If they lead with a mox without a land?  - Daze.  Land Ponder? - Daze. Land Thought Sieze?  -Daze.  

Probably the only thing I wouldn't do is Shop, Mox?  I'd wait, and hope thier next card is Lodestone ... so it can get dazed.

This hand has an early threat with a few dazes (going first) to prevent a blow out, as well as enough mana to cast anything you draw.

On the draw, those dazes aren't so hot.  So on the draw I would mull this hand.



Again, I'd probably keep, but this is the clostest to a mull of all 5 hands.  You have turn 1 Null Rod, followed up with more mana denial.  Which is good against anything blue.  If they are playing anything that doesn't care about rod (shop aggro, oath, aggro), you've got double swords, which should by you time to find treats.  You also have 2 more mana sources, so you have plenty to work with in terms of mana and casting your top decks.

What makes this hard is that you can't back up null rod.  So if they ~are~ playing combo or tezz, then you can't stop them from forcing your rod.  So actually if you think they are playing blue, and you think they have force in hand - this one goes back.  So while I'm thinking about this hand, I would be trying to get a read on my opponent's comfort with thier hand.  If they seem overly happy looking at thier hand, I might chicken out and mull.



Keep with certainty!  This hand has everything you need to be amazing.  Fetch, Mox go.  You're waiting on the stifle for thier fetch.  If they try and fetch you pounce.  Then drop trop, fetch basic and play trygon.  If they straight drop a non-basic then you waste.  

If they play fetch and pass, you need to play the waiting game a little.  You arn't going to tap out until that stifle is played.  But you won't be waiting more than 2 turns.  On your third turn (assuming you draw dead), you can play your 3rd land + the mox, and play Trygon.  Most likely if they are sitting on drain, they will fetch and you can drop the stifle bomb.

Actually, thinking abuot this again, I'd probably be sassy and lead with Trop, Mox go.

IF my opponent is playing shops I WANT them to spend thier first turn Wastelanding.  And I'll Stifle.  Even if they open with double mox sphere into the waste I can STILL stifle.  But you are going to be giving out quite a beating if you got turn 1 Trop, Mox go.  Thier turn 1, waste? nope! Turn 2, Trygon.  GG.

Reitterating again, that you have plenty of lands to cast anything in your deck.



I'd keep it, and lead with Delta for Trop -> Hierarch, go.  Holding the mox in hand.  This means you kept 5 cards in hand, and your opponent is going to hopefully not go all in - fearing force, or daze.  If they do, then hey oh well.  You want to set up for having 4 mana on your 2nd turn, so you can get that null rod in play.  

Assuming they do "blue things" on thier first turn, you have all the tools you need to ensure Null Rod hits play.  But you need to try and read thier board.  If you think they have spell pierce at the ready, play your land, mox, Timewalk first.  Then drop Goyf.  (if they counter your timewalk, just drop Null Rod immediately).  If they don't keep U open, then instead play your land and cast Goyf first, hoping they Force.  Then play your pearl and timewalk.

Either way assuming timewalk goes off, you lead your next turn with Rod with 2 open for pierce.  Swing with goyf.  Also you now have 2 new cards which might open up more lines of play.  

Assuming they do "Shop things" you're still going to be ok. You opened the game with 2 mana on the board.  Even if they drop waste + sphere, you can still hardcast your mox (probably hold back the land) and play goyf next turn. If they straight drop the tangle, you can get to 4 perms on your 2nd turn.  If they have a "crazy" shop opener, you probably will lose.

What you can get from this is: if they are blue you have many lines of play, and if they are shops you have lots of lands and permenants.  So you should have no trouble keeping this.  However it doesn't have anything to stop a blow-out game.  But not every hand will ... that's why they are called blow outs.


Keep  This is almost the poster child hand for fish.  You've got 1 hard counter + 1 soft counter for turn 1.  You've got Goyf on turn 2, and assuming you draw a blue card, you've got Trygon turn 3 (or if you don't draw blue, just get there with goyf).  You can lead with misty if they are shops they won't waste you, and you can counter Lodestone (although I wouldn't pitch trygon to counter lodestone I might daze him if they give me the chance, but I'd likely force pitching daze, and then cast Trygon for the win against shops).

Goyf + Trygon will is very bad for most decks on the market right now.  They will likely try to dig for an answer, or rush for a win, and in either case you have Force + Daze to stop them.




In short, my biggest fear with Noble Fish is drawing 1 land hands when I mull.  So that means that sometimes you have to take a risk and say "this average hand will beat most average hands my opponent could draw; so its worth it.... I really hope they didn't draw the nutz"  If you mull to 6 and see 1 mana, you're almost assured to be going to 5, or keeping a hand with much fewer options.  These hands are all multi-mana hands, many with fetches, so don't forget about the cards you're going to be drawing.

Some people might consider this cheap, but a lot of the time it's as simple as: "just watch your opponent shuffle"
To do this well, you have to practice shuffling while not looking at your own cards.  AND practice shuffling without showing your cards. 

This serves two purposes:  1)  It prevents funny business.  You watching their hands will help you identify "false" shuffles.   But really.... that never happens. 

2) I would say 1 out of every 3 people show their cards when they shuffle.  Usually it’s when they are picking things up, and usually its 1 or 2 cards.  Another time is when they are taking their decks out of the box.   MANY people do it.  I probably do it.  Watching for it will not only help you NOT do it, but it will also give you free information about what your opponents are playing.  I learned this trick when I was playing Meddling Mage, and had to decide to name "Gifts" or "Oath" on the blind.  And trust me, I got more than one person steamy based on my "Lucky Guessing."

~ More recently I've actually started telling my opponent after the match I was able to see their cards when they were shuffling or preparing to shuffle.  Especially if they ask me about how they could improve or could have played better.  Hey, I want them to do well for my breakers right?
If they are very “Pro” at shuffling, then you can usually peg them as being a good player.  At least a good tournament player.  And you can use DA’s line of thinking there.  “Tournament Pros” are usually looking to win, and likely are up to date on tricks and trends.

Generally speaking there are very few draw effects that draw more than 1 card per mana spent. Bargin typically does this, as does ancestral recall, ad nausem, and draw7s.   Brain geyser simple cant.  The only cards that go 1:1 in the vintage spectrum have to hit that critical "faster than drain" threshold (ie nights whisper) or be instants (ie fof, thirst, or skeletal scyring).

I would say that they do infact have to fit strict mana constraints.  Looking at a card like Yawgmoth's Bargain, you end up drawing 10-15 cards off just 6 mana.... thats like 1 to 0.5 mana per card.  THAT is good, There are hundreds of draw effects that arn't even close to vintage playable simple because they don't draw enough cards per mana.

Also There are plenty of unique (never been done before) cards that won't see vintage play either... I mean:  Steamflogger Boss, Lucent Liminid, Zoetic Caverns, Leveler, Eater of Days, City in a Bottle.  Again hundreds of unique effects that will not see the light of vintage day. 

Another way to think about it, Immagine if Yawgmoths Will cost 7BBRRG.  Do you think it would see as much play? 

Sliver Prospector
Sacrifice a Sliver: Add to your mana pool
1/1

Maybe?

You can't play Plangalcial Wurm when they are Sad Sac'ing You can you?

If you could, then PGW would be a hate deck for Sad Sac ^_^

... oh wait, actually Sac Sac is a terrible deck.  You are force mulled to 3 no matter what.  If you happen to draw Sac in the first 7 cards, you lose if you keep.   Because if your opponent draws their card, they will undoubtably kill you before they get decked, and your Sac is worthless.  If they don't draw thier card, they are mulling to 1 (to find thier card) meaning the sac deck is going to get decked first (even after the -3 cards).

In my book there are two kinds of videogamers:  People who have player FFVII and everyone else.  Its just such an Iconic RPG.  

However, my "favorite" RPG of all time is Disgaea.  I loved FF Tactics, but I felt it was a little one dimensional.  The game started off like impossible, then once you spend a good 2 hours doing Accumulate vrs a chicken - and got a chance to skill up... the game was way too easy.  Cid dual weilding Excalibur & Save the Queen!?

Disgaea is all about leveling, with the same sort of playstyle combat system as FFT.

Disgaea is game where if you play your characters out really well, and put some time into them - you feel invincible!  But then the game will throw you some curveball and you will be kept in check.  With a level limit of 9999 and a damage limit of like 14 billion... there is always a challenge somewhere in the game.

Also the story is "great" in that its not trying to be serious.  Screw finding the princess in the castle, the plot of the game is that you start as the Prince of the Netherworld, awaking to find out your Father (the overlord) has been dead for 2 years.  The first part of the game is spent reastblishing yourself as the overlord.  The game isn't shy when it comes to adult jokes or jokes -about- how silly RPGs are... I mean how can you make "Thursday the Super Robot" the best playable character and keep a straight face!  

Also there is a "Dark assembly" where you have NPCs Vote on things (like better items in the store, or unlock new areas).  One of my favorite thing about the game is that when you "Fail" a vote, you are given the option "Persuade by force" and you are allowed to fight and kill the Assembly in order to pass your bill.  How many times have you been taking to an NPC in other games and though "God damn you!! I'm 10 times your level, what do you mean I 'Can't pass' - screw you! I could kill you easily!!"  Disgaea, lets you vent that frustration.

Currently, I just finished unlocking all the playable class and getting the two side characters.  I have 3 goals left in Disgaea:
- Kill and Item God (and not in some bootleg item, I plan on Arcadia)
- Kill Baal
- Kill Uber Prinny

Then I'm buying a PS3 for Disgaea 3.  ^_^

In retropect I would say that wauting with mox in hand is probably the best play, for the reason you outlined.  My goal in creating the example was to showcase an opportunity to outplay someone through subtle easily missed played.

Just goes to show how complex drain v drain hypotheticals can get...

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Echoing what others have said, evaluating this play in the lategame is one of those skill tests that separate great drain players from good drain players.  And an almost immeasurable amount of factors would go into the decision.   

So I'll focus my answer on a contrived early game example of this.

- Your opponent did first turn land-Mox-> Confidant, which you fought a small counter war over an won. Turn 1 ended.
- You played Land -> duress, and took some massive bomb.  Seeing no 2nd land drop, Mana Drain, Mystical.
- Your opponent draws, and plays a 2nd land (what they drew) and passes.  Their board is Land, Land, off color mox all untapped.  Their hand is known to be Drain, Mystical.
- Your turn begins your hand is: 2nd Land, Mox, Thirst.  You draw and its recall. Your board is a land.

-- At this point, you have a few lines of play ... many of which might be bad.
- Recall Right now, and walk it into the drain, potentially feigning the need to make a land drop.  This puts you down some cards, but potentially up a land drop.  Your opponent will now have UU1 + 1 + a random card.  or U1 + 1 + a card they mystical for.  Which is just enough for Tinker OR yawg.  Both of these plays are probably going to result in a loss.  So walking your mainphase recall into a drain is probably a bad play.  Also note that you will only have 2 cards in hand, without UU open if you do this - so your opponent might play risky hoping you don’t have Force+blue in hand.  This would be a risk that would pay off for them.

- Play Land, Mox, and Thirst right now.  
Assuming they swing at the meatball - This will put them on UU1 + 3 next turn, or U1 + 3 if they mystical.  This is probably even worse than above.  Because now they can mystical for Gifts or FoF.  Which will at least negate your recall advantage next turn, if not win them the game straight up right now.  Remember an Early Yawg is still perfectly viable depending on what you duressed back on your turn 1.

- Pass the turn with either Land, Land (mox, thirst, recall) or Land, Land, Mox (thirst, recall)

In either case you are really playing chicken with them.  You want them to mystical.  You know they don't have a 3rd land drop so unless they mystical for Pact of Negation they won't be able to play the card they mystical for AND back it with drain.  

The game right now isn't about winning or losing, its about who can make a 3rd land drop.  Our best chance of making our land drop next turn is going to rely on resolving recall.

The question is, do you keep the Mox in hand or not.  If you keep the mox in hand, your only castable card is Recall.  But if you play the Mox down, you will likely have to discard 2 of the 3 cards you draw... Unless it gets drained.

For now let’s assume you play the mox down, and go with Land, Land, Mox in play untapped with castable recall or Thirst in hand.  We can't cast both.

Now let’s explore our opponent's lines of play, and what we do to capitalize on them:

- Our opponent get's antsy and casts their mystical in our end-step.  Going to U1 open, drain in hand, with mystical on the stack.
-- Bluffing at this point is for the birds, we alpha strike with an uncounterable Recall.  Mission accomplished.  If they do this, they are almost certainly going to find recall to get their 3rd land drop.  Wich will put us 1 card up on them, because they lose a draw via the topdeck tutor (assuming we draw dead on Forces in our 3 cards).  Slightly weaker on their part is to say "screw it" and put all their chips on the table, finding Tinker.  Now you are 4 cards up on them... and robot shouldn't be too hard to beat knowing everything you do next turn (like Thirst) is uncounterable (assuming they cast tinker).

~ If your opponent greedily goes for Mystical despite taking themself off drain with no 3rd land drop, they are fool.  You probably end up on top by burying them in card advantage.

- They do nothing, and draw for turn - Fishing for a land drop.  

This is likely what will happen.  And what you do is totally dependent on if they rip a land off the top, and actually gets down to the detail of if they leave a fetch open or not... but let’s evaluate what happens.

-- If they either draw and say "Go", or draw play a land and say "Go" we get to make a very cool play.

The play is to cast Thirst during their combat step.  The reason is basically the same, but the point is to have them Not want to "waste" their drain mana.  

In the case where they drew a land, after draining the mid-combat thirst thier hand is only Mystical - thus the drain mana is wasted.

In the case where the drew a nonland, after draining the mid-combat thirst their board is only an untapped mox.  Barring their draw being a non-mox artifact, the drain mana will also go unspent as even if they drew FoF or Gifts, they won't have a 3rd blue mana. (they can't draw both blue mana and a bomb in one draw).

There is one other "balls-y" play we can make if they do the following...

-- They draw, play a fetch land, and thus have 2 non-fetchlands and a fetchland in play (with their mox) and say Go.  (hand being Drain, Mystical)

This is the only scenario where we can opt to do nothing and hope they make a mistake.  We go to our turn, draw, and say go.  If we draw a land here, our line of play doesn't change just play the land and say go.

If they play mystical tutor without cracking their fetch first, we can capitalize on this by playing our Recall after Mystical resolves in our End Step.  Now they have to choose between fetching away their Mystical Card - OR - countering our Recall.  Either way we end up on top of the card advantage war.  Because if they do fetch, they will have no hand + 1 mystery draw.  vrs our 3 mana + Thirst + mystery card x2 when we untap.  If they opt not to drain we still have our thirst, +4 mystery cards.  vrs their Drain + Instant/Sorcery they tutored for.

Again to make this play, we have to assume that they are going to "play sloppy" and forget to fetch before playing their top-deck tutor.  A common enough mistake, especially for an unseasoned drain player.


Hopefully after all that, every detail about the game - even the difference between a fetch land and a dual can change your line of play dramatically.  Changing parameters around slightly will change my choices here as well.  This is but a sliver in the Giant Redwood of possible scenareos.
But hopefully, this sort of stream of consciousness type of response helps the reader "think like a drain player."

The problem is that its very hard to get all those moving parts in motion if you arn't already ahead.  The power of Null Rod, Confidant, Goyf, etc is that they are all generally good cards on thier own (in that you don't need to put effort into setting up null rod).  There are two big consideration for Land Tax: You have to have lower amounts of lands than your opponent in play, and You have to have low fetchland count.  And there is one big consideration for Scroll Rack (and mox diamonds): You don't run Null Rod. 

Consider a game where your opponent has mulled to 5 and keeps a hand with no lands, but a few moxen and something.  This should be a Tempo decks auto-win, but if your hand was the perfect land tax hand... then you are going to be as slow as your opponent.  You also run the risk of color screwing yourself with all your basics, should land tax get countered.  Also you don't draw land tax every game, and when you don't things get out of control quickly.  Lastly your opponent can shut of your engin by not playing lands.  Without Null Rod, they can crutch on moxen just like you are crutching on Mox Diamond.  While this may set them back more than you in most cases... there are plenty of times when they can sit around with Land+Sapphire waiting to draw tinker.  If it stop you're draw engine its worth it.

Lastly, I think quality is overrated in fish.  I 100% disgree that Old Gifts era WU fish was improved by running brainstorm.  If you drift back through the archives you can find where I argue that point out in several places.  But that is niether here nor there.  Scroll Rack isn't brainstorm.  Its a 3 mana commitment at least, and it doesn't cantrip.  And It opens you up to common hate.

I would agree with others when it come to tax itself. However you might want to try life from the loam instead of tax. Its similar to tax in that you activate rack, put back 3 lands.  Then dredge loam for your next draw, which clears your topdeck, and gives you tergets for loam.   Its more mana intensive but you gain the benefit of running lots on non-basics (like strip).  Also you get to make a land drop every turn, instead of needing to stay 1 land down from your opponent.  Lastly you could run something like entomb or intuition to enable your engine. 

Its certianly fine to test other ideas... But at some point, you have to justify the loss AND vulnerability to null rod.

Haven't you ever seen Dragon Ball Z.  Travis is now only at Travis-Level-2.  After this minor loss, the next time he plays he will be Travis-Level-3.

but this still isn't his true form...................

OMG I can't believe I forgot him!! /shame

Wow I never even knew this card existed!  Its amazingly bad, but totaly great for this deck.  

I think part of the idea of this deck is to be awful enough to drum up some support from other players in a multiplayer game.  And just hopefully get there with your general + Sigil of Distinction or something...  Piracy is definatly a good test of Political Test.

Yeah Legacy Allure is actually in the deck, I forgot it.  As well as Memory Plunder!!

General Ramirez DePietro -- The MF'ng Pirate!!

-- The TRUE Pirates --
Cloud Pirates
Kukemssa Pirates
Reef Pirates
Rishadan Brigand
Rishadan Cutpurse
Rishadan Footpad

-- The Fleet (which is not recognized as being a pirate, these creature - Ships as printed on the damn cards!)
Pirate Ship
Rishadan Airship
Ghost Ship
Warbarge (for the classic combo)

-- Scallywags --
Homarid
Homarid Warrior
Vicerid Drone
Deep Spawn
Homarid Spawning Pit

-- Scurvy Dogs --
Sinbad
Erg Raiders
Merfolk Looter
Looter Il-Kor
Dimir Cutpurse
Nekrataal
Drowned
Tradewind Rider
Waterfront Bouncer
Merfolk Assassin (c-c-c-combo!)
Stormscape Familliar Scarlet Macaw (personally modded)

-- PIRATES' BANE ---
Old Man of the Sea
Seasinger
Giant Oyster
Giant Shark
Sand Squid
Wall of Kelp
Vedalken Shackles
Sea Serpent

(34)
-- Pirate Weapons / Treasure --
Heartseaker
Quietes Spike
Sigil of Distiction
Surestrike Trident
Quicksilver Fountain
Pirate's Explorer's Scope
Sol Ring
Dimir Signet
Gilded Lotus
Eye of Ramos
Skull of Ramos
AEther Vial Bottle of Rum

-- The Pirates Way --
Greed
Treasure Trove
No Rest for the Wicked
Black Market
Costal Piracy
Trade Routes
High Seas
Flood
Piracy Charm
Memory Plunder
Legacy Allure
Death Rattle
Terror
Doomblade
Capsize
Deathmark The Black Spot (personally Modded)

-- The high Seas --
A bunch of Islands
A bunch of SC Swamps
Underground Sea (artist modded with a pirate ship!!)
Dreadship Reef
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
Soaring Seacliff
Underground River (sorta stretching it on the pirate theme)
Polluted Delta (ditto)

Its probably a little bit over In terms of cards/Land ratio.  So I would might have to leave some pirates on shore.  But anyone else got some good pirate themed cards I missed?

Ninja of Deep Hours could be nice as well, Something that can turn your 0/1 and 2/2 draw engine when you're out of lands with a Standstill in play.  It also has solid synergy with Factory too.

Yeah, or Arcanis the Omnipotent.  For the same cost as Sphinx he draws you +3 cards a turn for 0 mana.

If you don't want to go infinite, you don't nessisarily have to - however I would definately look into abusing Kraj a bit more.  There are some really interesting artifact creatures that use and abuse +1/+1 counters.  Like Spinal Crusher, Lunar Avenger, Penatvus, Sawtooth Thresher, Arcbound Ravager.  Also penty of creaturs with crazy abilities with or without +1/+1's   Like all those crazy spike creatures! 

Along those lines, I would drop the wasteland/strip.  Just plan on playing moons and run 4 Rainforest + 1-2 more of each of those basics.

The other problem is that you don't really have any solid answers to Sphinx of the Steelwind.  RG beats is often already at the bottom of that barrel with Pro-Red-Green.  Splashing another color into RG should naturally give you -something- to answer Steelwind.  Any thoughts to running a bounce spell to answer sphinx?  Grudge doesn't currently effect ANY tinkerbots, and Tezz is going to immediatly go to Plan-B against any deck sporting Null Rod anyway.

Unfortunatly, This event falls on United Nations Day AND World Development Information Day, So I'm not sure I can attend  

However, this is the store where Jer and I L2P Vintage - from none other than Travis himself.  So I guess I will have to miss out on all that great World Development Information and UN fun...

This topic should be closed based on that!  This totally should be a Priate Deck...

Lotus Vale is an option too.

At that point you ~might~ want Candelabra of Twanos As you run a fair amount of lands that tap for multiple.   

Darksteel Pendant is kinda cool with karn, and Culling Scales could be good based on your curve.  It adds some nice cheap removal (and if you have DS Pendant or DS Ingot in play you can kinda control the board for anything under 3cc).

Myr Incubator and Myr Matrix arn't too bad either. 

I would take a 2nd look at anything indestructable that can be turned into an indestructable creature with Karn.

I can't see any reason why Fish (with blue) wouldn't want to run 4 stifles.

Its a GREAT maindeck card because EVERY deck in the format including the random decks will be doing something stifleable in the first 3 turns.  As you point out in the opening post.
- Fetches
- Wasteland
- Bazaar
Right there you hit easily the top 90% of most common decks.  Some decks like fish run both Fetch and waste!  Even outsiders like Oath or Elves can be suseptable to Stifle.  Goblins is a deck of Triggered abilites.  Also in a deck of mainly 2cc cards, Stifle can push a 2cc through a Chalice at 2.  This is especially powerful if you run answers to chalice that cost 2 mana like Qalsali.  Lastly, it can answer answers like Engineered Explosives or Sower.

As you point out Stifle is extremely good in the first few turns of the game, which is why you absolutely want 4, to maximize the stifles in your chances of getting one early.  

I disagree that Stifle is less useful late game against Tezz.  It IS less useful as mana denial if they have alot of mana - however it has different uses.  For 1 it can stifle Tezzeret's Search ability, and they still pay the cost.  This can be an issue if they tutured up a , they won't be able to do that again and have Tezz live.  Also Many Tezz decks right now also run a Maindeck Tendrils and often don't include many duresses.  The stifles can be very good here as well, at least steal a game from time to time.  Finally it can get you a timewalk against and impending TV-Key combo.  Which makes it better than many things.

I think Spell Peirce is much more situational than stifle.  Every deck is going to give you something to stifle, where Peirce is only good against decks that have little mana and no relevant creatures.  I do like spell peirce as a compliment to stifle, because it allows you to do alot of damage to most lines of play with a simple open.  Also with open, you can use peirce to force someone into cracking a fetch, and follow up with a stifle, therefor getting a solid 2 for 2.  

That seems extremely powerful, especially on a guy with legs.  I would think that a 2/2 for 2 with "Creatures cannot be equiped" would be good.  Which this is, and much much more.

I think you might be able to get away with it if it had a drawback...

Whenever an a player activates and ability of an artifact destroy that artifact and ~this~ deals 1 damage to you.

That way its really good (in that it basically makes most artifacts unplayable), but dangerous. Because It means they can use something like Chimeric Idol to kill you.   Or even just build up a bunch of artivatable artifacts in play, and activate them all at once for the win.

I like Steve's Explanation of the "Bowed Outward" Relationship between Speed and Resilience.  Anyone who studies these give-and-take relationships will usually see this type of trend.  

A classic example of this is the Economic Idea of the "Production Possibilities Curve"  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production-possibility_frontier


Think of your deck as a factory, you have enough budget to hire 60 workers.  Your factory can make two things:  Coat Racks or Spice Racks.  And the profits for those Items are identical.  

If you hired 60 workers all for Coat Rack production let’s say you could produce 100 coat racks in one day.  If you hired 60 workers for Spice Rack production you could produce 100 spice racks in one day.  However if you decide to hire 30 Workers for Coat Racks, and 30 Workers for Spice Racks, you end up producing say 60 of each item; or a total of 120 items.  Thus earning you more profit.

This is because the pool of workers isn't Uniform.  Out of 1000 people, you'd be better off hiring the top 30 Coat Rack makers, and the top 30 Spice Rack makers.  Instead of the top 60 of either.  The driving concept being that 30 best of one trade will naturally out produce the 31st to 60th best of the other.

This is a very simple example... but its application can be extrapolated out.

If you think of your combo deck in the same way, out of 60 cards if you choose a good mix of the 30 fastest cards and the 30 most resilant cards the product at the end is greater than the 60 best of either.  Again the benefit comes from the disparety found within the pool of resources.  You can't run more than one Lotus, much in the same way you can hire more than one Bob McLaith the Legendary Coat Rack Smith.  If you go all in on speed, then you end up running cards like Simian Spirit Guide over Force of Will - comperable to Hiring Fumbly-Pete over Mrs.Dash the Spice Rack Queen.

As I understand it, 421.6 covers why you wouldn't have to play your confidant.  However It doesn't allow you to turn WGD into a draw if there are other options that would not draw the game.

This is probably a better question for Clariax or some other judge to talk about why 421.6 covers Player B's choice to not activate Relic and not Player A's choice to not animate phage in my example above.  I'm not sure how best to articulate it.

Echoing the other's here:

- Lobotomy is Jank
- Jester's Cap is not really worht the mana cost w/o bazaar
- Bitter Ordeal is probably not that good in this deck
- Circu is slow, and somewhat Janky

-- You also need a way to deal with aggro decks, right now you sorta scoop to turn 1 goyf.

Cards you definately Want:

- Dark Confidant
- 2-3 Thoughtseize
- Extirpate
- Something to answer Creatures

The rules are clear on this example, in that case you are not forced to -do- something.  The rules don't require you to play Confidant

Here is a interesting illustration of this...
Player A - is playing Dragon
Player B - is playing Turbo Phage!!

Player A has Dragon in his yard, and player B has Phage in the yard.  No other creatures are in any graveyards. 
Player B also has Relic of Progenitus in play untapped.

Player A starts the loop via animate thinking hes going to win - however Player B cunningly cast crop rotate to get stripmine thus destroying player A's onl Bazaar.   Now things are awkward at best.

Player A, is in an infinte dragon loop - that has one way to end -> by animating phage and thus lossing the game to the phage trigger.  Player B however -can- "end" this loop in one of two ways:  by targeting Player A with relic at the right momoent to allow him to remove WGD, or Player B can target himself and remove phage and draw the game in a forced loop.

In this case, the rules clearly say that Player B doesn't have to do anything he can sit there with untapped relic all day long.  The judge and the rules won't tell him otherwise, Player B can choose NOT to do anything dispite having dirrect plays to advance the gamestate. Conversely Player A DOES eventually have to target Phage after some number of WGD loops.  And the Judge should enforce the rules that instruct Player A to do so and thus lose the game.

The "right" way this should resolve is that Player B does nothing with relic, and the judge tells A that he must at some point target Phage and lose; chalk up a win to Turbo-Phage!