@moxlotus - I definitely understand what you are saying, but I don't think that people undesrstand what this deck does well, or even why it would do well against the named decks.
I'll give a brief synopsis of how it affects slaver and gifts. Slaver and gifts are considered "drain decks" because they run mana drain and are built to exploit the large tempo boost granted them from casting mana drain or spell. Mana Drain is usually active on turn 2. 1/10 times it will be castable turn 1, but thats part of what most people consider the nuts draws...
If you design your deck to setup on turn 1 so that it can overpower decks turns 2-5, you can almost negate the affect mana drain can have on a deck. For example:
Turn 1, drain player plays land, off color mox and merchant scroll for fow / gifts / ancestral (if gifts) or a turn 1 welder / brainstorm (if slaver). This play is to setup a turn 2 explosion into a turn 3-4 win. My deck (based on statistics), will do something incredibly pertinent to the board or hand of the opponent on turn 1. A turn 1 hypnotic specter (approximately 20% of the time), a turn 1 confidant (30% of the time), or a turn 1 duress (35% of the time) is the usual play of the deck (this is why cutpurse is a bad call for this deck).
Since all of the decks listed do some setup on turn 1 (mine actually can attack their hand on turn 1 erasing their setup), turn 2 is where the action starts. Gifts and slaver both usually have between 3 and 4 mana on turn 2 due to acceleration. This allows them to go for tutoring their crushing game finishers (gifts, thirst, recall). Gifts and thirst are often turned off with leyline, but in the event they are not, they cast a gifts. Statistics say that by turn 2, I should have a daze or fow between 70-80% of the time, so I would usually cast a counter on their spell. If my opponent counters my counter, they resolve the final piece of their setup puzzle. Now, 40% of the time, leyline has neutered their ability to flat out win with their gifts. 20% of the time, I should be able to swing with hypnotic specter and force them to dump a critical piece of the puzzle. Or 35% of the time, my duress hits one of their counters and I actually counter their bomb card.
No, I'm not saying that 95% of the time this means I win, but it means that my deck forces my opponent to have "the nuts" or just get buried in card advantage by dark confidant and / or hypnotic specter. This is actually completed by having a more relevant turn 1 play for the matchup. Duress, hypnotic specter, and dark confidant are much more pertinent to the game than merchant scroll and welder. MDGifts accels at setting up a bomb spell (ancestral recall or gifts ungiven) and then winning with a series of plays based off card advantage after that. Slaver's heavy reliance on the graveyard allows them to just run neutered against leyline most of the time.
Most decks aren't prepared to deal with leyline game 1. Gifts often runs echoing truth / chain of vapor game 1, but that means that they spend a tutor and usually turns 2-3 to get rid of a spell that I paid no mana for and can usually just replay at that point.
In both of the games I lost to gifts in the tournament, my opponent was smart enough to realize how to play against my deck.
Game 1 should have been a blow-out because he countered 4 spells before turn 4. Instead, Leyline turned off his gifts, and he got lucky on two straight mana crypt coin flips that allowed him to end the game at 1 life after I spent a turn 4 tendrils to try to get myself out of yawg-win range. He ended the game at 1 life and had just enough copies of tendrils to erase my tendrils +20.
Game 2 was extremely close. I actually lost game 2 to a resolved rebuild -> tendrils because confidant hit 2 straight leylines putting me at 9 life and allowing him to steal the game. The game played out almost exactly as scripted above. I opened a hand with 2x confidant, lotus, fow, delta, and usea. He forced the 1st confidant, but the 2nd resolved. He tried to gifts on turn 2, which got fowd (pitching brainstorm). I cast a turn 3 hypnotic and was swinging. I was one turn away from winning (yawg will in hand but needed a ritual effect to finish the tutor chain), but did not have the counter in hand (2x leylines). He cast rebuild into tendrils to put me at 1 life and I died to revealing duress off the top of my library.
<3 becker for implying that i'm a better player than my opponents most of the time
Maybe it is a question of playskill, but I feel that any competent player can play much better if they have a good idea of whats in their opponent's hand 90% of the time. This deck is built to exploit knowledge of the opponent's hand and most deck's vulnerability to leyline. In short, I believe this deck has strategic superioirity to drain decks. I'd love to take it to Becker's tourney saturday, but the best part of this deck is the surprise of getting hit by leylines and dazes. Once that is gone, it becomes a lot harder to stop cards like gifts and thirst when your opponent knows not to tap out for them.
Anywho, I hope that this explenation has been sufficient. Please feel free to provide counterexamples, but keep them within them reasonable. I don't take pleasure in hearing something like: well, they go lotus -> recall -> gifts on turn 1 you lose!
Edit - I usually throw out games in my results that ended where someone mulled to 5 and had 1 land or something. To try to make testing reasonable, events in which my opponent has to mull to 5 or less, I have them draw back up to 6 or 7.
