Anti-Crop Rotation Control

[MkeMagic]

I was playing a Fae-Tez list at Xtreme Games in Chicago yesterday (T4, first time, yay me), and the discussion of the effects of Crop Rotation came up. The overriding agreement was this was better for Shop than Icky. With the changeover coming up in a couple of days, I am already thinking about a list for the following tournaments. Root Maze, combined with Back to Basics, is a strong defense against any Crop Rotation scheme. It locks down 8 ball and gives bazaar the finger. It also locks out fetch lands, so this mana base can be tuned to survive that. Whereas it might be a metagame choice, there is a basis for strength here. The issue I see is that U/G run along different axis of the color wheel, and no Onslaught fetch gets both Islands and Forests unless it goes for a dual. Plus, this allows for a control suite of Glen Elendra Archmages and Spellstutter Sprites, while still allowing beaters like Lorescale Coatyl and Tarmogoyf. In theory, if Icky plays enchantment removal, it powers up Goyf.

4 Root Maze
4 Back to Basics
4 Glen Elendra Archmage
3 SpellStutter Sprite
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection

3 Tarmogoyf
3 Lorescale Coatyl
1 Inkwell Leviathan

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Gush (bounces useless duals).
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 windfall (Coatyl, Goyf)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Tinker

1 Sol Ring
5 Mox
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt

This is a core list, I am still working on some numbers as well as the mana base. This is by no means the end all be all of the new format, but it might be a deck for it's place and time at the first post July 1 tournaments. I eagerly await feedback.

[Grand Inquisitor]

1 Brainstorm
1 windfall (Coatyl, Goyf)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor

These cards seem strange given the rest of the core of the deck.  Tutors are usually used to find game winning threats, but you're using a lock & beatdown strategy.  Black as a splash seems to needlessly complicate your manabase.  Windfall seems pretty poor and will probably help your opponent more and brainstorm will only be effective with the tutors and if you're running fetchlands (which you should avoid with root maze).

3 SpellStutter Sprite

It seems like these will be worse defense than mana drain, negate, spell snare, etc.  They really don't have synergy with anything else in the deck and they won't really speed up your clock.

4 Back to Basics
4 Glen Elendra Archmage

These are good cards, but they're also high mana curve.  These should probably be three and two of respectively to make room for misdirection #2 and maybe some dazes (although daze and gush both have bad synergy with rootmaze).

1 Sol Ring
5 Mox
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt

Mana crypt may be too much damage in a slow deck like this.  Also, you may want to consider chalice since it has good synergy with root maze and won't keep you from playing your own moxes and higher cc spells.