@ the two color manabase
Crop rotate is one of my favorite cards in the deck being bazaar #5 and insta-strip. I can't see myself playing w/out it, even if you keep the extra 4 spell based draw slots. That being said, a two color base does have its advantages. For one you can run wonder out of the SB, ditto on massacre, ageist wennie decks you have to race. as easy as fish/goblins/TMWA (4x MD crypts, grah!) *can* be, its awfully nice to to worry about blockers or ashen mana (fetching basic swamp obv.).
Fetchlands also have a significant affect on your land counts considering you are really only running 9 or so lands. In a deck that runs on %'s AND has the ability to see all 60 cards with regularity during any given game, knocking out a fetch or two can mean nabbing an extra business card off a draw effect unlike in something like say, gobbo's.
BS + fetchies is also nice.
The one problem you can run into is occasionally the land thinning effect can be too good, and leave you with no real land left to fetch during critical game states. meh.
on Steve's list...
Maindeck:
Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
4 Chalice Of The Void
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
Creatures
4 Ashen Ghoul
4 Golgari Grave-troll
4 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
Enchantments
4 Leyline Of The Void
Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Chain Of Vapor
1 Crop Rotation
1 Vampiric Tutor
Sorceries
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Imperial Seal
4 Unmask
Lands
4 Bazaar Of Baghdad
4 City Of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Strip Mine
I'm not sure what to think. I tried out a version with unmask last month, but I didn't cut brainstorm. I'm not sure I feel that this is the correct thing to do. I've never been totally sold on BS, and always though careful study was the bee's knees in most environments (something I initially missed btw), but it did allow a certain amount of reach b/c of its insta-speed. BS made it more possible to run the wait-a-turn tutors (vamp + imp seal), as well as being easier to search out chalice on the play (+1 card compared to either study or bazaar is important). Brainstorm for me was always simply better at finding mana too, making it more comfortable to play balance and null rod post board.
Course it has its slew of drawbacks also, but not including it makes me question again some of your other choices again. Aren't you worried right now that you simply don't have enough draw to really get the engine going? I'll give you that pithing needle and wasteland seem to have temporarily left the building, but it still seems pretty risky having no back-up plan what-so-ever. You can of course play the deck more slowly, but is that really worth the tempo addition that leyline and unmask can buy you? After all, the point of gaining tempo on someone implies that you can then capitalize on it.
~more thoughts in general,
card options:
gamble and orims chant are something I'd like to look at more closely in a 5 color version. Chant is like the super strip mine, or a timewalk thats costed 1 cc cheaper. Gamble for chalice/unmask/therp/bazaar 1st/2nd turn seems like a significant threat even though after that its pretty much going to be worthless.
SB:
The more I play it, the more I just kinda want to SB in bounce spells for game 2. Since just about all the hate against you is permanant based (leyline, crypt, planer void, strange upkeep doodads, pingers, tinker -> dsc, etc) bounce + 8 free discard spells can pretty much solve it all. It also alleviates the problem of guessing incorrectly about exactly what kind of SB hate your opponent is bringing in, while staying on curve at 1cc. Game 3 is a different story if we ever get there, and after I've had a look at my opponents deck I can decide a little better how I want to modify mine.
