[DECK] Trying to make random Sneak Attack deck viable

[Tank]

OK, here's the backstory: Around a year ago, I managed to trade for a playset sneak attack and dragon tyrants and thus started my first T1 deck. It consisted of 4 Weatherseed Treefolk, 4 Sneak Attack and the normal mana-accelerants (no P9 back then) along with 4 academy rectors (got me stuff like The Abyss and Nether void, Yawgmoth's bargain, etc) and 4 dragon tyrants plus my duals and stuff. In short, it was one hell of an expensive deck that was incredibly fun to play.
The deck was later stolen, which sucked. the insurance money was great, as they got me 6 pieces of P9, including Black Lotus
Anyways, to the point: I've been trading for Sneak Attack stuff and have now created my deck with what cards I now have, and it looks like the following:

Land (lots of fetches due to 4-mana deck):

4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained mire
4 Taiga
4 Plateau
3 Badlands
1 Library of Alexandria


Enchantments:

4 Sneak Attack (pretty important in this deck... )
2 Oath of Druids (new idea, I figure it as an early drop for free creatures and sideboard it out against creatureless decks)
1 Fastbond (a good opening hand=fast mana)
1 Pandemonium (big creatures=lots of pain)
1 Nether void (this'll disrupt most decks once my sneak is out)
1 Yawgmoth's Bargin (usually the first enchantment to get, this gives huge card-advantage)


Creatures:

4 Darksteel Colossus (great guy, this'll wreck serious havoc on an early drop and is leagues beyond Serra Avatar)
4 Weatherseed Treefolk (these are self-explanatory)
3 Academy Rector (drop early as a deterrent blocker, drop through sneak attack to get bargain and void)
2 Dragon tyrant (how can you not like this guy?)


Tutors:

4 Living wish (check the sideboard)
1 Demonic tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Enlightened Tutor (I need either accelerataion or sneak attack, thus this card rules!)
1 Spoils of the Vault (a litle dangerous, but hasn't kileld me yet)


Mana Acceleration:

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Lotus Petal (will be Mox Ruby once I get one, but it's better than chrome or diamond)
1 Mana Vault
1 Grim Monolith
1 Sol ring
1 Mana Crypt


Random:

1 Wheel of Fortune (I'm unsure about it, but 7 cards=usually enough creatures for the kill)
1 Balance (this is fun in this deck )


Sideboard:

4 Red Elemental Blast (sideboard in against keeper and 'tog)
3 Rack and ruin (d'uh!)

the rest is for "fetching" with Living Wish

1 City of Traitors
1 Wasteland
1 Dragon tyrant (for the kill)
1 Academy Rector (to get enchntments)
1 False Prophet (to kill big, badies)
1 Crater Hellion (to kill smaller problems and get 6 dmage through)
1 Wood Ripper (to get artifacts, silly!)
1 Aven Cloudchaser (to get rid of pesky enchantments)



When drawing, there are three categories you need at least two of: Tutors, Sneak Attack and /or Mana Accelration. If you only have one, you mulligan. It's essential, that Sneak Attack gets down FAST!mulliganning to 5 crds isn't a problem, usually

Depending on the opposing deck, rectors should fetch either Nether Void or Yawgmoth's Bargain the first time, but this depends on the individual situation. The wishes are used to get creatures to deal with individual situations. Once you get pandemonium into play, you're almost sure of a win.

The biggest problem with the deck is the dependancy of Sneak Atack and without it, you're basically screwed. I'v considered playing Sterling Grove, it also works as a tutor, but I'm not sure wht to cut to put it in :-/ The deck is also in deep troiuble against especially keeper, which leaves me with the final words: HELP! What should I do to make it better? I know it's not gonna win tournaments, but I want to make it strong enough for people not just to be able to trample over it

[Shadow Ninja]

I don't have a whole lot of time at the moment to reply, but I wanted to point you in the direction of my thread in the open forum, where many different ideas have been discussed.  The build I decided on is more of a toolbox approach, and doesn't run the green, instead running more blac for Duress, Cabal Therapy, Dark Ritual, and tutors.  I chose the disruption base over the perhaps more consistent green base (more creature tutors in green is good) because of the point you already brought up.  You basically have to force a Sneak Attack to hit the table, and without blue for Force and his friends black seems the next bet option.

I also chose more disruptive creatures than you, choosing guys like Nicol Bolas and Crater Hellion (Dragon Tyrant's in there, too, though).  Of course, that's all present in the thread I'm linking to, so I won't ramble about it again.

Oh, and Diabolic Intent is quite good in this, as it allows you to do something with your soon to be dead guys, and gives the deck two more ways to get Rector on its way to the yard.  Anyway, here's my thread on Rectal Sneak Attack:

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16412&start=0

One thing I hadn't considered before is running Pandemonium.  I don't know how I overlooked it, but I definitely plan to give it a look as a one-of to be found with extra Rectors.  I'm also going to look at Nether Void, although you can't afford to add too many utility enchantments if you plan to cast them only when you find them with Rector (which is my deck's plan most of the time).

Edited to add a few more thoughts.

[Terminus Est]

This is a build that I have been toying with that uses living wish to get whatever creature you need, however I think the deck should run some creatures maindeck because relying on only 4 fetches hampers the degeneracy and mana smoothing of my build of this deck, but it does usually goldfish turn 2 or 3, sometimes after aggressive mulliganing. Anyway heres the build:

Fling!
Manabase:
        4 Polluted Delta
        2 Tundra
        2 Bayou
        2 Badlands
        3 Tropical Island
        3 Volcanic Island
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Sol Ring
Draw 7 and brokenness:
        1 Timetwister
        1 Wheel of Fortune
        1 Windfall
        1 Memory Jar
        1 Time Walk
        4 Exploration
        2 Helm of Awakening
Combo:
        4 Sneak Attack
        1 Gratuitous Violence
        1 Pandemonium
        4 Academy Rector
Utility:
        4 Living Wish
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Mystical Tutor
        1 Demonic Tutor
        3 Intuition
        4 Accumulated Knowledge
        1 Darksteel Colossus
        1 Moat

Sideboard
        2 Havoc Demon
        3 Darksteel Colossus
        2 Reiver Demon
        1 Tolarian Academy
        1 Serra's Sanctum
        2 Bloodfire Colossus
        2 Dragon Mage
        2 Dragon Tyrant

Manabase:
The current manabase has been working for me pretty well, I only need 1 W source on the board to drop rector, if even that, however 3 sources of white mana allows me to hardcast the MD moat pretty consistently. The only problems I have with it are weakness to wastelands and nonbasic hate but hopefully I can win with the amount of acceleration I have before I can really be hampered by it.

Card Choices:
This deck is pure combo, it goes out of the way to drop first turn sneak attack as quickly as possible and activate it to throw down rectors in order to fetch the gratuitous violence and pandemonium, then use Living wish to grab a tyrant and with those 2 enchantments in play usually wins as soon as he drops. I was originally useing Phage as a kill but apparently she is errata'ed so as to be an autoloss when used with sneak attack so I removed her.

Problems with the deck:
No disruption or counter however since its reliant on enchantments stifle is the only thing besides a counter of sneak attack that ruins it. Another problem is the lack of MD threats and the reliance on Living Wish. Game 1 should usually be won based entirely on the fact that your opponent won't necessarily know to counter Living Wish. I'm sure there are others but I hope that you can get some other kinds of input and deck ideas from my build and perhaps this will develop into something tournament viable.

[xzero]

The biggest problem with the deck is the dependancy of Sneak Atack and without it, you're basically screwed.

So basically, you're saying that you scoop to:

Force of Will
Mana Drain
Mana Leak
Counterspell
Annul
etc.

And as far as Dr. Sylvan's reports tell us, Force of Will is a largely played card.

And the only way you have to counteract this, is 4 REB in the board.

You may want to rethink this.

[Shadow Ninja]

The biggest problem with the deck is the dependancy of Sneak Atack and without it, you're basically screwed.

So basically, you're saying that you scoop to:

Force of Will
Mana Drain
Mana Leak
Counterspell
Annul
etc.

And as far as Dr. Sylvan's reports tell us, Force of Will is a largely played card.

And the only way you have to counteract this, is 4 REB in the board.

You may want to rethink this.

This is exactly the reason my version runs the black for early disruption.  It's completely necessary to protect the Sneak / Rector early when you need to get them on the board.  The one plus is that most people won't have maindeck (or even sideboard) answers for a Sneak, seeing as most decks don't break enchantments, except for other Rector decks, which are easier to disrupt by hitting the Rector's graveyard ability with a Stifle or Coffin Purge or something.

[Tank]

Well, I looked at Ninja's deck and drew some inspiration, cutting a few cards (fastbond, 1 Bloodstained Mire (you don't need all that land anyways ), 1 Oath of Druids, 2 Dragon tyrant and Balance in favour of 2 Duress and three Orim's Chant and a ground seal)- it actually works quite fine now, however, I still need to test it of course The side-board has been altered dramaticaaly due to this, so it now reads:

1 City of Traitors
1 Wasteland (getting rid of mazes which can be a hazzle otherwise)
2 Dragon tyrant (for the kill, or sideboarding in agaisnt random non-counter decks)
1 Academy Rector (to get enchntments)
1 False Prophet (to kill big, badies)
1 Crater Hellion (to kill smaller problems and get 6 dmage through)
1 Wood Ripper (to get artifacts, silly!)
1 Aven Cloudchaser (to get rid of pesky enchantments)
3 Red elemental Blast (agianst fish especially)
2 Oath of druids (also against fish and other creature-heavy decks)
1 Ground Seal (against dragoin, 2 is better than 1!)

The biggest changes being losing rack'n ruin and gaining some situation-dealers in form of oath and seal. I'm gonna see if anybody feels like helping me playtest later tonight

[Tank]

Well, after testing it yesterday, I made these changes:

- 1 Wheel of Fortune
- 1 plateau

+ 2 Serum Powder

Despite their appearance, these things really shake up the deck and got it working a lot better!

Apart from that, I first played against a stompy Deck (powered)- I won. The second game I sideboarded in the other two Oath of Druids, which effectively won the game before I even played Sneak

Then it was fish- 2-2 so nothing really good happened there, however, it DID do better than I'd expected, which was cool

I then played against an old-school stasis-deck, you know, the kind that has more coutner-spells and stuff than anything else I'v ever experienced. Fortunately, it allows you to take time, which made me go 2-1 against it.

Finally I played against an Underworld dreams deck. Not top-notch, I know, but interesting. Needless to say, I won though ;P

Next time I'll be trying 'gainst welder and 'Tog, the two decks that really make me the most nervous

[xzero]

So what do you do when Serum Powder is not in your opening hand and you draw into it later? A dead topdeck? Not good at all.

[Tank]

No, but it solves more problems than it creates- and with only two in the deck, it isn't all that much trouble, you'd usually have a Bargain out by then and it wouldn't matter too much if that was the case :-/