DJ, I'm not sure what you are so afraid of running 8 disruption spells. True believer is terrible vs. you because all you do is just go off with Desire. Meddling mage can only name 1 card (usually desire) so you switch to tendrils combo or tutor up an answer. Duress isn't all that bad when you play infinite business + 4 Brainstorm + 4 Vamp. There were only 2 cards I was afraid of when playing the deck, Orim's Chant and Stifle.
I'm afraid of the Classic Online metagame. =)
In all seriousness though, as I described in my primer, the deck as I designed it is all about numbers. Any effect that runs as a eight-of in the deck will (on average) put one into your hand every opener. I found that, running five disruption spells, I would have hands without disruption, and they would fold to any threat. Running eight slots gives me the odds to have the answer I need every opening hand.
Incidentally, as people got used to the deck, often the card named with Mage was Burning Wish, which is much more problematic. And I'm pretty sure True Believer is a major problem for the deck if it goes unanswered, since you can't target your opponent with the Tendrils, forcing you to hope that you hit your bounce off the Desire or scoop. That's the major reason to run so much disruption, and also a reason why adding access to Empty The Warrens is so strong.
Duress is very bad to face in my testing. Brainstorm makes it better, but not much more than Vampiric Tutor, and both of those are terrible on the play. Discard is really the main weakness of the deck; it's a bye for mono-black hand disruption. (I know this from experience, sadly...)
Brainstorm is amazing. There is a reason why its an auto 4-of in every vintage combo deck and Serum Visions isn't in any. I think you'll find that with the fetchland manabase brainstorm is ridiculous. Brainstorm also lets you sit back, develop, and then find answers to opponents hate if needed rather than trying to be proactive about it (something combo hates doing). Finally, Brainstorm makes Infernal Tutor better.
I come from a long history of Vintage and Legacy, and I'm fully aware of the power of Brainstorm...but it tested terribly in *this* deck. The only reason to play a deck like this is to be able to race anything else in the format, which means aiming for turn two. For that reason, I got rid of the fetchland manabase (which I agree is great, especially with Brainstorm), because it wasn't as strong as just tutoring up the win. In this format, this deck can't afford to sit back and look for answers or develop. Goblins and Affinity win on turn four. Control decks will have Chalice or Counterbalance up on turn three with backup. Aggro-control decks will drop Chalice, then Mage, then True Believer, and be beating you with their prevention. You simply have to strike before your opponent can set up; I figured out that my chances of winning in the face of one piece of disruption were much higher than two or more, so I redesigned to do just that.
One thing that we seem to disagree on is the number of Desires in the deck. I found 2 to be perfect, since you don't really want to draw desire, because its tough to cast without LED. Instead, you want to tutor up desire and cast it with LED. Playing 2 allowed me to draw the desire and still have 1 to tutor up.
I run the max allowed with room for one in the board simply because the deck lives and dies by Desire. If you can only muster up a storm count of 4 before playing Desire, your chances of fizzling are pretty good. If you reveal a Desire, you're almost guaranteed *not* to fizzle, so I wanted to maximize my chances of hitting another off the first Desire. Besides, drawing one is not ever a problem since you can simply adjust your plan to Wish or tutor up a Sins Of The Past anyway. Sometimes, it's easier on the mana that way to boot.
The other thing I don't get is why you are running the rainbow manabase? You clearly value the Xantids on the board very highly, but don't most control decks still have something like Fire/Ice or Helix to kill them? I personally think that Defense Grid is better because they are much more difficult to deal with.
The rainbow manabase makes it easier to run the deck in the first place; when every land will allow you to Vamp Tutor, or Chain, or Rite, you're never worried about looking at a hand of two Rite, Island, and Grave. Anything goes. As well, it opens up Xantid from the board, which proved to be golden over Grid for three reasons:
1) It costs one less and comes down on turn one, which puts your opponent on the defensive, forcing him to deal with it under fear of losing on turn two. Great utility, great psych-out card. And if they want to aim a Helix on turn two at my Swarm, I'm stoked, because they now have no mana to stop my win as soon as I untap.
2) Most opponents realize what they're facing game one, and board out creature hate for game two.
3) If the game goes later, the value of Defense Grid falls off dramatically, whereas Swarm is golden no matter.
When it comes down to it, you don't want to waste a Rite Of Flame turn one to play Grid, and you want to be winning turn two by Infernal Tutoring or Wishing for Desire. Believe me whan I say that the chances of this deck *in this format* drop drastically past the second turn. As a result, I built it to win by turn two.
--->DJ
