I've played Mind Twist before and while it certainly has some applications, overall it's not as good as Yawgmoth's Will.  Someone suggested cutting Will for a Mind Twist I believe.

Secondly, turn 1 Ritual Mind Twist isn't very effective.  You are trading two of your cards for two cards of the opponents.  Random yes, but significantly worse than Hymn because now you can't Duress/Therapy.  For Mind Twist to be better, you need 4 mana.  Without full acceleration that means using either multiple rituals turn 1, or waiting a couple turns.  Since most of your opponents will play blue, this is both too slow, and too risky.  I say you want to use a Duress effect to clear the way because by turn 4 or 5 if you can Duress, then Ritual into a Mind Twist you can clear the opponent's hand, or most of it, depending on what you see fit.

I stole this from a SCG article found this randomly somewhere dealing with magic:

Unless you have 4 mana available to use it, it's a worse Hymn.  And if you are spending the resources to play it, you better make sure it get's through.  If it's played mid-game off solely lands for 4-5 then it serves a purpose.  Clears a good chunk of cards or draws a counter out.  But when you play it off Ritual, Ritual, Mind Twist, if you win, you're slightly ahead.  You haven't won yet but you're ahead depending on what you ripped from them.  If they counter it, then you've pretty much lost because you wasted 2 Rituals and a Twist.

Loam can be great with Tarmogoyf, in addition to some other cards (waste/Strip etc...).  You have too much randomness in here.  This is a fish deck.  You can't do crazy things to win games since your win conditions are creatures.

Blue decks get away with random 1 ofs with a combo finish because they play a bunch of tutors that can tutor for both their win conditions and their answers and win right there or shortly after.  I feel you should try and make your disruption more redundant.  Get rid of the random tutors and either up the Loams and find some synergy/disruption to help fuel it or find another way to disrupt/kill because you are just too slow right now and you don't have nearly enough draw to keep up with Tez.

Sorry, I am really bad for Text defenders

Sorry.

My points.

Mind Twist is too slow to be effective.  Cast early you waste resources on it (Rituals, Lotus) and cast late it's strictly not better than casting Yawgmoth's Will except in perhaps very few situations.  In order to make sure Twist resolves, you need a duress + at least 3 mana for the twist and that is too slow.  (This was the point I was making in the above quote).

Land Grant sucks.  It's a counterable land drop basically, and you reveal your hand.  If you want to play it play belcher.

Hymn is not that effective right now because of it's randomness.  Today's game calls for precise action.  While powerful, precise is exactly what Hymn is not.  I fear Hymn as a non blue player, and try and find my Mis-D when I am using blue.

4 Pernicious Deeds are too many MD.  1-2 should be sufficient.  More can be brought in against fish decks.

Keep Yawg Will, and if you are playing with Will, a Tutor, and Rituals, Tendrils is almost a must.

Those are the major points. Sorry again.

I would replace almost any card in the deck with a single will.  I like the idea of burn, but I don't think Anathemancer is the right fit.  3 mana is a bit high especially when it's 2 different colours and he has a weak frame.

I don't think replacing the Ankh's is wise.  Your main goal is to burn the opponent.  Neither of these cards really help too much on their own, and with your lack of draw, you'll be upset one would think to have a hand of Servant, Duress, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Land x3.

You need a better clock.  If you could find that one creature that is a house for you, I would say your blue matchup is pretty good!  Otherwise however you have WAY too many Duress/Rebs.  Especially since half of them only do something against blue opponents.

Now that I think about it, this reminds me of a deck I use to play.  It was essentially B/R control with Negators Bobs and Grim Lavamancers. 

Perhaps think about Rituals, as they work well with Ankhs.  I would definately sideboard the red blasts/pyros, get rid of the Anath.

Also, you have 22 mana sources.  That's a tonne.  The highest CMC is 3 and there aren't too many. 

I would cut a basic of each at least and think about changing them to rituals to allow for explosive starts but also keep the number of mana sources high.

Spiteflame Witch  Creature - Elemental Shaman [2/1]
BR: Each player loses 1 life. 
I would also consider adding in this guy with either Hyppie or Negator.  I haven't tested this guy.  But it's a possible first turn and let's you get rid of EoT mana since you will most likely be ahead of life.

For the record my official changes would be:

-2 basics
-4 Anathemancer
-3 Pyro
-4 REB

+4 Dark Ritual
+3 Phyrexian Negator
+3 Spiteflame Witch
+1 Yawgmoth's Will
+1 Demonic Tutor
+1 Tendril's of Agony

IMO the bottom three are much better and cheaper then adding 2 painters and a grindstone because individually they all contribute something to the deck.

Other possible additions I would consider making are equipment if you had a Gorilla Shaman/Vexing Shusher in your list.  More burn   Fireblast (it shouldn't really be a concern with confidant because you are playing with burn spells.  If you are resolving a late game Confidant at six life and end up losing then I would say somewhere else in the game something could have been done differently.  Magma Jet might be worth testing to help smooth over draws.  It's much better than you think in a burn deck.

The biggest thing you have to realize is that you are a combo deck and you want to combo off.  Resolving an Ad Naus means that you disrupted your opponent enough that you should win the game.  8 Duress effects should be plenty.  I like chalice as disruption because you can rock a Chalice at 0 or 2 if you are playing against Oath/Drains and still win.  Plus they don't hurt off Ad Naus.  That being said, your main goal is to get a bunch of rituals and a tutor ASAP.  You don't have to disrupt early you can hold duress and thoughtseize in your hand until you are about to go off or until you know your opponent has something you wanna strip from their hand.  At this point, you want to resolve Ad-Naus and put as many business spells into your hand as possible.  Sinkhole/Hymn off an Ad-Naus is not only less cards drawn from Ad-Naus, but neither of them get rid of your opponents F.O.W. or Daze.

Powder Keg could work because you can drop it early but I would run it in addition to probably 2 edicts.  If no one is laying Moxen, it sounds like you are probably playing against a lot of fish/aggro type decks.  I would keep both in there.

Also consider adding Sensei's Diving Top.  Once you are in top deck mode you need to pick up certain cards to maintain your advantage be it more land or more disruption.

I feel like you are heading in the right direction!  There is still 1 thing that is a bit off with this build.  That is simply the 4 Hymns and 4 Sinkholes.  These cards are to sui black what meddling mage is to fish.  But you don't want to be using a fish strategy here.  You don't really want to see a Hymn when you are using Ad Naus, nor a Sinkhole.  Both those cards have their niche but it is not in this deck.  4 Duress/Thoughtseize should be enough here, although I think I would run Thoughtseize/Therapy in this shell just to make sure you can get rid of creatures.  If you really want to keep one of those cards in, keep the sinkholes and change the Hymns for Null Rod. 

You also don't have any answers to permanents once they are on the board.  I would reccomend getting fetches (either Delta or Mire) and splashing one of black's ally colours.  You don't really need duals although they help, and even still only 1 or 2 in the deck. 

Splashing blue gives you access to more draw and bounce.  Repeal and Chain of Vapor (both less effective without moxen) echoing truth and Hurkyl's Recall all are effective.  In red you have Manamorphose to help you go off faster, red blasts to protect against blue, Mogg Fanatic, artifact removal in many forms etc...

This deck is shaping up nicely but still your ideas are a little dated or diluted.  Also this deck wants Dark Confidant in it.  Dark Confidant Null Rod and a few 'answer' cards (kill a meddling mage, chalice at 1, get rid of a sphere) are what you need to address I would think. I would cut a mana source or two and splash a colour.  You are playing 30 cards that produce mana, and you only have 4 draw spells.

my 2 cents:
+4 dark confidant
+4 Null Rod
+1 Brainstorm
+1 Ponder
+1 Echoing Truth/Repeal (for chalice at 1/mage/ethersworn)


-4 Hymn
-4 Sinkhole
-1 Waste

-7 Swamp for 4 Polluted Delta and 1 Island (Underground Sea).

You may have too many artifacts to interact with N Rod but it's something you would have to test for yourself.

You need more fetchlands with tombstalker as 4 won't cut it. 

Also I would cut the negators for bob. You don't have enough permanents with Negator and I can see him being very counter-productive for you.  You will take some extra life loss every once in a while from a flipped tombstalker but if you need to speed your clock bob is the way to do it.  Power out more threats and more disruption per turn. 

On the disruption note, I think one of your disruption spells should be exchanged for Therapy / Thoughtseize.  You are concerned about creatures, and both of these allow you to discard opposing creatures.  I will actually be using both of these sans duress in a similar list for that very reason.  My deck is a lock deck and an early threat needs to be handled effeciently.  I would honestly cut probably the Hymn's.  Or you could cut the Sinkhole, add Thoughtseize/Therapy and perhaps make room for hippie.

Also...you are running too many mana sources.  I understand Rituals are one time only etc...But honestly it seems like playing Void with Wastelands and Rituals is counter productive as odd as that sounds.  You want to have explosive starts with rituals meaning less long term mana.  Wastelands are most effective when you are playing cheap threats and then picking away at your opponents mana base etc...You want a land drop on turn 2/3 but after that you want to be laying down threats.  Since your creatures don't disrupt, after your 7 card hand you are in top deck mode.  You need to add some non-vanilla creatures.  11 vanillas isn't a good creature base especially considering how expensive they are.

I don't want to completely change the deck but I feel like:
-3Tombstalker
-1 Edict
-4 hymn

+3 Hippie
+4 Bob
+1 vampiric tutor

Would give you a stronger overall gameplan in a slow environment.  Bob is too good not to include and the discard every turn is better than two at random since you aren't trying to win in the next 2-3 turns.  This will net you more card advantage overall.

I apologize that my post was hard to read.
Let me make it more condense and understandable:

Obviously this deck was non-budget but every card is aiming at the goal of allowing the player to combo off.


This is Steve Menedians Sui budget deck.  Very similar to your list.  First off the only time Bargain is going to be effective is if you have at a Duress effect in your hand, and 2-3 rituals depending on your mana (you would need 7 for both, or a creature to sac for a therapy that has already been used).  This is too dependant.  I would at least test other options.  
Infernal Contract
Tainted Pact


I would still replace the tops and Bargain with 3x Null Rod since that is the route you would like to go.
Also I would try -1 fetch land (personally I believe 7 is way too many since they aren't that effective in thining your deck) +1 night's whisper.

Bargain is just too hard to justify when it will cost you at least 2+ cards to get it into play in the first place.

What is chalice for?  You will never want to see it aside from your opening hand.  Fish decks and lock decks use chalice because every part of their deck has a role in shutting down your opponent.  A second chalice means they can play it at 1-2 to stop their opponent from playing their key spells.  However you don't really want to be doing this because you want to combo out and you have a lot of protection at 1 CC and draw at 2 CC.  So if you don't have chalice in your opening hand what purpose is there in having it?  I understand a Chalice + Ritual + Negator by tiself can win games, but you don't really have much support for that strategy.  You have some card draw, you have some manipulation, and you have some 'hate' cards.  You're deck is trying to play every role, combo control and aggro but it doesn't look like it would be strong in either of those roles.  My first comment would be to get rid of the Tops and Bargain.  Against a good player, they will let you waste a Ritual and counter your Bargain.  Now you have serious card disadvantage.  You don't have enough control ish cards to play the long game so the top isn't going to help you that much.  It's more for smoothing over control players draws.  It costs you 2 mana to see 3 cards which is too much in combo.  I would keep Chalice SB for now against pure combo decks.  Right now it looks like it might help you if you can draw into it early enough, but you don't want to waste a draw on turn 3-4 drawing a chalice.  If you want to keep chalice in, then I would look at adding Bitterblossom and perhaps Null Rod and take the more aggressive route.  Bitterblossom is awesome with therapy and can chump block Inkwell and Gofy all day.  If you want to be more combo-ish then I would look at taking out the Chalice and Wastelands.  Combo decks are mana hungry and hate losing mana.  You could take out the Wastes/Chalices for Ad Nauseum and perhaps another solid 2 mana card.  Your deck looks just a bit too diluted.  I would stick to a main strategy and then have a back up plan rather than having two equal ways of winning because it confuses me whether or not you are trying to play beats (wastes/chalices/negators) or Storm (draw/Tendrils).  I don't think you need to remove the backup kill altogether, but remove the supporting pieces to your backup plan and go with a stronger main kill.

DO NOT cut Yawgmoth's Will for another Mind Twist.  Mind Twist shouldn't be in this deck, nor should land grant.
Let's say you Ritual into a Mind Twist.  Any  player is going to counter the ritual if they think you are playing Tendrils-esque combo or counter the Twist if they deem you won't win resolving a Ritual.  If you try and set it up with a duress, then this is turn 4 or 5 or so and at this point you should have been playing threats all along and a single Mind Twist may seal the deal for you.  Other decks refill their hands faster than you do.  Mind Twist is very counter-productive.  I understand this is 'suicide' black but you can't really play 'sui' effectively any more.  You have to play more of a fish or control style deck.  It's just the way the meta is.  You might snag a few wins using a Twist but more often then not you'll be finding this situation "My opponent has 5 cards, I have 3, I have dominant board position.  I'll use a ritual and tap 2 to twist for 4 - opponent Force of Wills" or in the same scenario you get Duress first, get the Mind Twist off and you have a Negator down.  Your  opponent (You want to be in the winning brackets meaning you are playing against  {U}control,  {B}combo, or ichorid in all reality) have much better top decks then you.  Every card in the U players deck is deadly and now they will be top-decking 3 cards before you finish them off.  More often then not they will find a card to help them.  Maybe an ancestral, merchant scroll, demonic tutor, tinker, Yawgmoth's Will (god forbid because now you've pimped out their graveyard), Accumulated Knowledge, Thirst for Knowledge etc...The point is suicide just isn't the way to win anymore because the speed at which your opponent can recover is too great.

Also, Land Grant does not belong is a serious fish deck.  Belcher is perhaps the only deck that should run it, or other decks that win on that turn.  Land grant turns into a COUNTERABLE land drop.  There is nothing worse than having your land drop countered.  Yes, good players will counter it because they know it's cuts off your resources.  Fish decks will make you cry and you'll be seeing a lot of fish decks in rounds 1-2 of large tournaments. 

Hymn is not good enough right now.  You need to be able to choose what cards your opponent discards.  Cabal Therapy or Thoughtseize + Duress is the staple of your disruption suite.  Also, powder keg is not good enough.  Deed is better but too slow if you want to be a punishing aggro deck.  You need Null Rod.  Let's say you are on the play.  You play Duress and then Tarmogoyf.  You nab your opponents Tinker and see Ancestral Recal, land, mox, mox , lands, Force of will.  You shut off your opponents immediate victory but they are able to Ancestral Recall into maybe a merchant scroll Yawgmoth's Will etc all on first turn.  Null Rod makes this hand a 2 mana hand, and it slows them down to 1 land drop a turn.  Provided you designed your deck appropriately you should be able to handle them a 1 land per turn.

Yawgmoth's Will is the most powerful card in Vintage.  You are playing rituals. Add a single Tendrils of Agony.  Now instead of Y.Will being mediocre, it's a powerhouse provided you have a tutor in your hand or grave and you will definately have a ritual in 1 of the 2.  It doesn't have to be a lethal Tendrils either, a Tendrils for 4-14 is still quite good.  Sometimes you can play Duress, Ritual, Tendrils for 6. With a Tarmogoyf down that's an extra swing basically.  Let's say next turn you get Will and you have another Ritual.  Ritual, Will, Ritual, Ritual, Duress, Tendrils for 12.  Yawgmoth's will, Rituals, and Tendrils all do stupidly good things on their own and it only get's better when they are together. 

Smemmen (Steve Menedian [sp?]) along with his team (meandeck) are some of the best deck creators around.  If you search these forums or Starcity games he has made a budget suicide black deck for todays meta.  It doesn't include a green splash beacuse duals aren't very budget, but if you notice his deck starts with slowing the opponent down turn 1 using 4 null rods and 4 chalice of the voids.  You need to be playing at least 1 of these, with Null Rod being better in this deck since you use Rituals instead of Moxen for acceleration.  Also, Land Grants should be Elvish Spirit Guides.  It's faster and it gives you an extra beater late game.  While Hymns are decent and cheaper (money wise) they aren't as good as Thoughtseize or Cabal Therapy in the hands of a skilled player.  You need to know how to win or how to prevent them from winning and what card to rid their hand of to make this happen. 

I wouldn't use 4 Deeds in a Vintage deck.  This is aggro so if you are wiping the board a lot you are in trouble unless you are playing Goblins.  I would use 1-2 Deeds MD, the rest in the SB against Fish and Goblin matchups. 
Add Seal of Primordium instead.  Blows up moxen, Sol Ring, Stax lock pieces, Time Vaults etc...for less committment.  You want to win quickly.  You don't need to rid your opponent of every artifact, just the one that allows them to win faster than you. 
I am making a  "sui" deck as well.  I will be using 3-4 Seals, 0 Deeds, 2-3 Edicts 4 Duress/Therapy, 0 Hymn/Mind Twist, 4 Null Rod/Chalice.

A great green card to look at is Root Maze.  Root Maze with Land grant is actually ok, since fetchlands need to be tapped.  I would only play land grant if you are playing Root Maze.  Also, this deck needs Wastelands.  Wasteland is soooooooooo good.  Wasteland + Null Rod + Seal/Root Maze is a Major Headache for your opponent and let's you gain board control through turn 2-4.  This is when you need to be winning.  Turn 1 you want to disrupt.  Turn 2-4 you want to disrupt whil trying to resolve your own 'win' spells.  By turn 5 You should know whether or not you will win provided something flukey doesn't happen.

Also, I actually think cutthroat is pretty 'cool'.  Against a lot of decks they will break their own fetch lands during your turn which helps this card.  I haven't tested it but with the right shell it could work well.  I would test this with Bitterblossom to make sure the damage goes through.  I will be posting my own g/b list soon if you'd like to take a look.  I don't want to hijack this thread so I'll summarize real quick.

You have some good points and fresh looks on a really fun deck to play.  Unfortunately, you're going a little bit backwards from what Sui Black has evolved into.  If you're allowed to use Proxies where you play, take a look at (I believe the spelling is) Fiorino suicide black.  It came in 3 at the Vintage Worlds a couple years ago.  It used a blue splash for Time Walk, Ancestral, and a single Bounce Spell I believe, while also using 3 Tendrils of Agony as "Mini-Tendrils"  They allow for more cards off Necro and more turns against aggro decks, while giving you a way to win when faced with bigger creatures standing in your way.

Good luck!

Is this graph a: "pretty" "new graph", or a "pretty new" graph.  If it's the former than damn, I didn't know you were the artistic type and can you mod my Yawg Will sil vous plait?

On a more serious less ambiguous note, if Flash were to be unrestricted, whould the sliver kill be preferable to Rector or perhaps something else?  I didn't read as I can't afford Premium (student).  If this was discussed than I apologized, but I was always a fan of Rector and trying to make her work somewhere and for me flash -> rector was the best way to do this.

Thanks.

To me your list looks like an early adaptation of a mix between Mono Blue Control and Landstill. 

What I would personally do with your list is decide on a particular strategy and stick to it.  For example mana denial, spell denial (FoW and counterspell type effects), creature beatdown and take it from there.

If you want to play a permissions control deck, I would look at Ophidian and/or Trinket Mage.  Mana denial will want to use stifles, wastelands, null rods, blood moon to limit an opponents mana.  Beatdown, or creature kill is very ineffecient in these colours, however some combination of the decks can work.  For example using Stifle, Trinket Mages, Phyrexian Dreadnought, Wastelands, Null Rods, a Tool Box of artifacts to fetch with Trinket Mage, and lots of denial could work well.  At the same time, you might find it to be too dilluted.

Decks I would look up are Sullivan Solution (off colour but relevant), Landstill, Bomberman, E.B.A, and Urphidian.  These decks have done well since your dpeature and all are different but similar at the same time.  Hopefully these lists can help inspire your comeback with a competitive deck.

Bitterblossom is a great card.  I think that the biggest problem in trying to 'break' it is that it would be best used in slow decks.  It needs time to get the full effect.  In doesn't fit in a typical SUI style deck because they want to be balls fast and disrupt, neither of which Blossom is.  IMO you need to give the card a prison or a heavy control shell.  If I ritual out a Negator first turn, second turn I want to either be refreshing my hand or disrupting my opponent. 

This card is similar to smokestack in that it doesn't do anything as soon as you cast it.  That being said, I feel like this card does belong somewhere because of how great it is in general against every deck (not great against combo, but could be made with other effects).  I was originally thinking of a SS type deck that ran this, Cliques, Spellstutter, and the 1 mana counter critter (name eludes me atm, will edit it in) and using perhaps a singal coastal piracy, although that is probably win more.  Anyhow, in that deck, it's a u/b control deck with a TONNE of disruptiona and a relatively slow clock.  IMO this is acceptable however because 90% of my non land cards disrupt, even if they are critters.  If you can resolve one of these you can fly overtop with clique against aggro while holding off a goyf every turn, leave mana open against combo after you resolve a blossom for stifles and counters, or just land go for a while while this is down against control. 

Well, maybe not great examples but you understand.

Personally...when I made an enchantment deck for fun, I splashed white because white has the most BADASS enchantments bar none.  Moat, Serenity, Seal (green as well now), Opalessence, Solitary Confinement, just to name a few.  This requeires a heavier commitment to white then green however, but it also allows you to play Chants and Replenish (which is absolutely unholy).  Replenish is a must counter easily.  I used opalessence as a win condition, since as soon as it is cast your opponent has usually 1 more turn to answer (it usually will come down turn 5-6 and you will have 4 enchantments or so on the board with an average CC of 2-3).  It gives you swords as well!  Unfortunately it takes away from the win condition you invisioned this deck having.  If you want to stick to this game plan, then easily the colour you need to splash is black.  Tutors, Duress, Extirpate.  In a combo deck I see Ext as great disruption getting rid of forces, drains, or opposing duress effects.  Those are really the only colours I would consider splashing unless you want to rock red for Gamble, but why bother when black is better for what you might want?

Not a problem, as long as you aren't just saying no.  You are backing up your response with a logical thought process.  Here's mine when thinking about adding fetches.  If you are playing IGG you might be playing it off a ritual early on.  If my opening hand is something like Leyline, Lotus, Ritual, Ritual/Lotus Petal/Spirit Guide/moxen, Swamp, Confidant, IGG, then I would almost 100% keep against an unknown opponent.  This shouldn't really be too uncommon of a scenario (That being getting an early IGG with Leyline).  Perhaps I don't have enough experience pilotting this particular deck type, but a similar hand would be kept IMO 9 times out of 10.  The only way I can see that hand getting better is if the swamp is a fetch in case 1 of the 3 cards you want to return is a land.

Now, that being said, I am also a firm believer in playing very little fetches except to fix colour screw/fight against waste.  Evaluate when it would be useful and go from there. 

Secondly, I mentioned the blue splash for Cutpurse because it fits the flavour of the deck.  I understand shade can get huge, but I really have never liked him.  If you are playing MD leyline I would encourage finding another way to abuse it rather than playing shade, but that's just my 2 cents.

Actually in this list I would say it is very beneficial to run 4 fetches because you can return them with IGG.

I would actually remove Nantuko, and add another creature that discards.  This is because IGG is only great when you haev leyline out.  If you don't have leyline out, you'd like to be able to use it anyways.  A blue splash could be made for Dimir Cutpurse x3 and Ancestral + 1 bounce and it will still be very suicide feeling.

Previously, the replacement effect of Leyline made it vastly superior to Planar Void.  I do believe that is based on Ray of Revelation (flashback for  to destroy target enchantment).  When Ichorid used this, you just play it while the Void removal effect is on the stack.  So if Ichorid players use Ray, then Leyline is much better. However it doesn't appear that many lists now run Ray.

Personally I prefer a mix of cards, totalling 5-7.  Jailors, Needles, and Crypts perhaps.  I only really like using leyline when I am playing +4 duress effects and it's useful in other matchups.  This makes you more resilient to their Therapies and means that you can bring in needles against Welders, Tez, and Crypts against Y. Will decks.  On the same token, Leyline pretty much covers the same bases as the Jailors + Crypts and running 4 leylines instead of 5-6 of the others can free up more SB room for decks that will be more frequently facing you (fish-type, blue control).

Playing Gush Tendrils I had my master plan laid out, and it was a guarenteed win.  Then I forgot my plan, passed the turn with 8 cards in hand.  My opponent duresses and we notice I have 8 cards.  Judge is called and he discards one at random.  Unfortunately it was vamp tutor which was going to get me my win piece.  I go on to lose because now I have protection and ritual but no gas.

My hand was something like Ritual,   Ritual,   Bluecard,   Duress (Which I meant to play),   Vamp,   FoW,   Land,   Lotus.

Would have been a third turn kill for sure.  I stomped FlashHulk in 2 in my first round as I had FoW/Duress game 1 leading to like a fifth turn kill or so because I had to pitch something juicy to stop turn 1 flash.  Game 2 I had double force for first turn flash, and he had force backup on turn 1.  I felt bad.  Anyhow, I lose second round 2-0.  Game 1 I wasn't in.  Game 2 was mine but I kept drawing shit after the random discard.  Can't comment on game 3.  Next round I play my best friend, as we always play each other in tourneys.  He lost to something like Sliver or a ridiculous Tog hand while playing URphidian.  I ended up winning a tight one in 3, then lost the next round playing against Shockwave who was playing Confidant/Countertop Control.  It pretty much owned me.  I think I might have comboed out once but top + counter balance won every time it stuck.

Big tourney too, but my friend went on to split in the side event and I played out my remaining games.

If only...

How can I forget to duress.  Duress + Y. Will are the reason I play black.

I have been out of Magic for roughly two years now.  The last deck I played, can't remember the name, was essentially togless tog, comboing out with tendrils/warrens.  The field I played against was Flash, Tog, Bomberman, and all the staples (Stax, Fish, Aggro! etc...)

Anyhow, upon hearing about the new restrictions and the fact that their is a local tourney for a lotus soon, I wouldn't mind coming out and playing for kicks.  Reading these forums over tremendously the past couple days, it seems that the vast majority of successful decks are drain decks that combo out (Tez, Painter).  I'm not trying to take away anything from people who are successful with other decks, but those two seem to be the most...resilient right now in a 5 round tournament.  Other decks can obviously do well (Ad naus, Mystic Remora, Stax, Ichorid, Fish style decks) but the seem to be less prevelant amongst top 8s.  It brought me around to thinking about the inherent weaknesses of decks. 

To me, it seems like the days of tog all over again.  The best deck at beating tog was other tog style decks.    Or at least decks with similar tools (ie duress, Forces, Y. Will).

Theory crafting I would think that aggro decks have the advantage over drain decks.  However this poses another problem a friend and I were discussing.  Fish/aggro decks don't go broken.  They seem like they are winning, the as Steve Menendian pointed out about TPS (I think it was), they win the turn before their opponent does.

Therefore what does a non-blue control/combo deck in order to be successful.  A fast clock, and lock down elements.  To me, this would insinuate playing black for duress and hard hitting beats like negator.  However these cards become worse in matchups like fish.  Not to mention these blue decks can easily recover thanks to their card drawing power!

So now you need constant disruption and beats in order to beat the big blue machine.  Or in a blue vs blue combo/control mirror, you need to be able to out counter/top deck/bluff your opponent.

This leads me to the point I wanted to discuss.  How does one effectively deal with drain decks.  I want to say r/b would be a strong counter between duress/rebs but you still have to offer a threat and draw answers to theirs.  Mana denial was the old route to victory, but with the decks being almost solely reliant on blue, I am at a loss for a way to handle drains without making myself vulnerable to fish/stax.

Anyhow, what beats drains?  What are the best critters/disruption combos?
Negator and goyf?  Things like Mindcensor/Teeg?  Or is blue really the best way to battle blue?  I can't wrap my mind around what could possibly beat a proper drain deck, without using a drain deck, unless you top deck like mad.

After reading the article on Dragon vs. GAT, I realized for the first time how powerful Dragon can potentially be.  Or, at least how powerful it's draw engine is.  When Gush was unrestricted, the first thing most people did I assume is throw together a GAT list.  Those who didn't soon realized how powerful the engine was, and soon multiple Merchant Scrolls (also thanks to Gifts pre-restriction) and multiple copies of Gush have been at least tested in almost every deck that could possibly support them. 

If you haven't practiced with Gush Fastbond and Scroll, I suggest you do.  Not only is it some of the most fun you can have, but it allows you to understand the inner workings of the dreaded Gush engine.

Anyways, back to my mini-rant.  I recently read three different reports/articles all containing decks using Bazaar in some capacity.  The Dragon deck as I previously mentioned, enabling Dragons and Deep Analysis to get to the grave.  But then there were two decks in which Bazaar was less obvious.  Vromans deck (which I am sure a lot of you are familiar with) and the mono B deck that top 4'ed at the vintage championships.  Vroman's creation is a controlish prison style deck, while Dragon is a combo deck and the mono B was combo controllish, yet they all utilized Bazaar.  There are also many Stax variants which run Bazaar with great success due to Goblin Welder.  Then of course there is the dreaded Ichorid.

My point?

The same draw enabler/engine is used in multiple decks, each of which has different routes to victory.  I know in Vroman's thread about his deck he cites it as the best draw engine in the game.  I don't necessarily disagree, however I find it funny that of all the decks that utillize it, IMO Vroman's has the least synergy.  Is Bazaar good enough that decks that don't auto-include it should be testing it?  Is it too skill intensive for the average player? 

With the use of Crop Rotation perhaps, can Bazaar see it's way into decks like Flash, filtering out additional Hulks/Rectors/Flashes?  Are there decks could be abusing it that aren't?  Are there aspects of each deck that can somehow be combined?

All I am saying is that Goblin Vandal, opposing Welders, and Viashino Heretic (all 3 are used, obviously some are more frequent) really need to be taken care of asap.  And although uncommon, a Trygon Predator also can make short work of you very quickly.  This is why I say run jitte, so that hopefully you can get a few swings in and get counters.  You can't always rely on having smokestack early.  That and the fact that Glowrider and Thorn don't affect the above creatures.  Stax is pretty prevalent in the meta right now, so IMO those creatures will be in the SB, and I just think you need to have a gameplan for them, other than hoping they sac them to smokestack.

I see a lot of people asking on TMWA thread how to play these decks.  These decks are actually quite difficult to play.  The first thing you need to do is find a list that seems optimal to you.  Then you have to learn when to use the cards in the deck against certain other decks.  Your main goal with these decks is to slow down your opponent with enough disruption (duress, thorns, removal) while developing your board in order to lock them out.  So for example, you want to Duress them, then follow closely with a Magus of the Moon (Confidant etc...) that both helps you kill your opponent and shuts them out of the game.

Thanks to Myriadgames' success (as well as others) with this deck and similar archetypes (Vromans lavamen), this archetype is generally represented at most every major tournament.  The deck does not have any matchups that are completely 1 sided except for the Oath matchup.  However if you think you'll meet Oath on your way to the top, you might wanna tweak the deck to include multiple hide/seeks and disnechant effects.  If you red tourney reports using these types of decks, most losses the player suffers are due to a play error that provided the opponent an opportunity to run away with the game.  Sometimes, other decks just have more raw power.

To conclude, this is a powerful archetype that is underrepresented because many people give up way too early.  This deck has a high learning curve and allows little room for error in both play and design.  You can't waste slots on a card that is too narrow in function.  I once saw a combo player get a game loss for not including enough SB cards, because he only needed 7 in his opinion.  Such is not the case with Man Prison archetypes.  Every card has to be able to be useful in multiple matchups.  Hence Duress, Confidant, and Lavamancer are some staples as they prove to be useful in multiple matchups. 

I really like the premise, but IMO you need either swords, or welder in this deck because you need creature kill.  Welder allows you to reuse Trike, and Swords allows your creature with equipment on it to get through.  To me, it looks like you don't have enough umph against aggro.  Only 4 of your spheres hurt them, and if someone casts a Kataki your kinda hooped.  I would def add + 3-4 Welders and +2 Trikes, and maybe a 7/10 and take out the Synods and the Solems.  This also allows you to throw in a Bazaar or two and not get hooped.  You have 4 basic plains, and you are most likely saccing a trokair to a smokestack if you add them back in.  But playing a Solem to improve your mana base and provide a blocker, it basically buys you a turn maybe.  If you don't like the idea of Welder + Trike, then please add the Jittes over the SoFI as you can do more than 2 damage to a creature at one time.  Juggs are an artifact beat staple, I've lost many games to a turn 1 jugg.  It's all the glory of the ritual negator, but the drawback is much less severe. 

Overall, I think it's a really cool and good idea, but right now, the deck is too vulnerable to some popular cards (Viashino Heretic, Vandal, Magus of the Moon, Kataki).

Well. the first thing to do better is to explain what is going on.  Atog Lord pointed out that you have some non-obvious card choices in a deck type that hasn't been seen at the top tables in a while if I am not mistaken.  The first suggestion I would have for you is to NOT use the helms.  They are very counterproductive in any deck considered to be aggro.  Control players usually win by developing enough mana to deal with all of aggros threats, and combo attempts to use rituals and cheap but effecient spells to kill aggro and combo in the first couple of turns.  By playing this card, you use mana that could be used to play another threat or something to stop your opponent. 

Secondly, when I look at your deck, quite frankly I am wondering what you are trying to do.  If you want to storm out for the win, some of the cards you list are sub-optimal at best.  You are attempting to do multiple things half-assed.  What I mean by that is you have a lot of combo elements, but you also have some aggro elements, and then you have some cards in your deck that are just insufficient for both types.  If you want to have a rogue hybrid, that's cool, but you still need to do a bit of research. 

I reccomend you search TMD for a list known as crusher.  It uses many of the cards you have listed but it puts them together in a tighter body.  I would use that as a shell and then go from there, tweaking cards as you see fit.  Plus, Null Rod spells your doom as it shuts down all your mana sources except maybe two or three.  All the artifact lands are suboptimal, and would be better as mishra's workshops, city of traitors, ancient tomb etc.  You really don't want thoughtcast in this list either. 

It might net a few random wins, which could be reason to include in some kinda deck somewhere in the universe.  What I believe the other people are trying to enforce is that this card does nothing if you have it and your opponent is NOT at 10 life.  Gifts (and the rest of the list of cards) actually DO something at every point in the game.  If you drain someone, and it just so happens they are at 10 life, you might be able to pull a win out by wishing for it and casting it.  It kills someone of itself in extremely narrow situations, whereas the other cards mention at 4cc have a much broader scope in which they are useful. 

The biggest problem is the inconsistency.  If it wins 1 out of 5 matches, that's pretty bushleague.  A card like Gifts and Empty probably win closer to 2 out of 3.  So it might be cool in conjunction with another similar finisher, but otherwise you are trading substance for style.

I would probably use 2 Fire/Ice MD and another side if I were to play this, allowing for a better goblins/welder matchup.  It's really not that hard to squeeze those cards in.  Also, is it worth it against goblins to bring in Sprees for vials?  I have tested a more straight forward Urphid deck against Goblins and echoing truth ruined their day with the vials all day long, so perhaps sprees to prevent that siege gang from coming in would be good.

The thing about the board however, is that FTK and Pyrokinesis are good against more decks than just Goblins.  FTK comes in against Fish and Bomberman, and Pyro comes in against Flash and possibly Fish and perhaps even Workshops if you are switching the Rebs for Sprees. 

I guess it's a matter of choice really.  As it stands, using a list similar to MirrariKnight's tournament list, maybe -1 EE +1 Dreadnought MD, what are the good/bad matchups?  I guess if combo/control mirrors are decently easy, we really should tune the SB for Stax and Goblins moreso.

If you choose the route with 3-4 REB, 2 Fire/Ice and 4 Magus, perhaps pyrokinesis could make its way into your side to help even farther with goblins and flash and even to help stall ichorid until you get your crypt.  I would say 2 pyro in the SB would be better than Tinker/Angel if you aren't running mystical.

Perhaps you could give us your take on the card and the deck you think it could be playable in.  I would assume Sui black, however the only deck now-a-days that don't pack lots of critters pack lots of counters.  So you might get a few surprises with it, but in all reality, only testing will tell.

Mirari brought up a good point.  If you do end up cutting things like Drains, then you rely a lot less heavily on coloured mana sources, and this would allow you to run Magus of the Moon yourself. 

What I would do, is ask yourself what you want this deck to achieve.  Do you want it to be control, or more prison/lock?  Or do you want it more aggressive?  From there, I would look at the cards that help you achieve your goal.  For example, Sphere of Resistance is a lock card, where as Triskellion is more of a control card, however it can compliment the lock role very nicely with recurring usage (Goblin Welder).

I think right now, everyone is making a suggestion, however after thinking about this deck again, there seems to be a bit of doubt as to what this deck wants to do.  Winning with fatties is cool, as is locking your opponent out, but I think you need to decide exactly what it is you want this deck to achieve.  Personally, I think Workshop Aggro has potential at the moment with the right lock piece compliments and the right creatures.