You Stole My Tendrils!

[wiley]

Two cards coming out in Morningtide caught my eye

first
Grimoire Thief   UU
Creature - Merfolk Rogue 
Whenever Grimoire Thief becomes tapped, remove the top three cards of target opponent's library from the game face down.
You may look at cards removed from the game with Grimoire Thief.
U, Sacrifice Grimoire Thief: Turn all cards removed from the game with Grimoire Thief face up. Counter all spells with those names.
2/2

and

Knowledge Exploitation   5UU
Tribal Sorcery - Rogue 
Prowl 3U
Search target opponent's library for an instant or sorcery card. You may play this card without paying its mana cost. Then that player shuffles his or her library.

The second card is the one that got me thinking the following strategy might be viable.

The hardest part of most storm decks is getting the full 8-9 storm count required to make a deadly tendrils, well what if you could automatically reduce that number by at least one?  How about more than one?  Knowledge exploitation does just that every time you run up against another storm deck.  If you just storm to 3 using things like rituals and lotus as usual you can pay the prowl cost on KE and grab the opponent's yagwin (a staple in almost every deck running black) and you'll magically be at a storm of 9 (rit, rit, lotus, KE, yagwin, rit, rit, lotus, KE) and be able to steal an opponent's storm spell (tendrils or ETW since you don't have to pay the cost) or be at 8 storm and play your own tendrils.

So my Idea is as follows:  combine a fish-esque shell with tendrils to provide early disruption and early kills.  Note that I am a poor deck designer and that is why I am putting this idea out here to see if someone vastly better than me can make this deck truly viable.  That being said here is an extremely rough list with no testing behind it yet that I believe would do halfway decent.

// Lands
        7 Island
        4 Polluted Delta
        4 Underground Sea
// Creatures
        1 Darksteel Colossus
        4 Oona's Prowler
        4 Rootwater Thief
        4 Grimoire Thief
// Spells
        2 Knowledge Exploitation
        1 Ancestral recall
        4 Brainstorm
        4 Cabal Ritual
        4 Force of Will
        3 Gush
        2 Misdirection
        4 Dark Ritual
        1 Tendrils of Agony
        1 Tinker
        1 Yawgmoth's Will
// Artifacts
        1 Mana Vault
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Sapphire

Immeadiate problems w/ my deck: 
No tutors, this is bad, I'd like to know what would be good to cut for vamp, demonic, mystical and maybe m scroll.  MisD are my first choice of what should go, anything else?
Is tinker colossus needed in this deck?  It's very powerfull but its seems like a backup to the secondary win con instead of a wincon in itself.
A way to fit in the fourth gush might be nice.
The mana base looks fairly off, but I'm not sure what exactly it should look like.

[Rock Lee]

A 4 mana ability (Prowl on Knowledge exploration) that requires your to have attacked, is really really too late, at least for vintage. Even with the best accellerants out there, you'll be doing this on turn 3-4 regularly, which is 2 turns too late even against GAT.

Stealing spells is cool, but even if you ninja something important, you MUST win with it, as you're just entombing a hot card for them.

The grimoire theif is really neat. a jester's staff on a dude.

I guess I just don't see what the faeries do for you, outside slow you down.

I have seen some faerie decks, similar to faerie fish do well at recent vintage events. These builds are often based off ninja of deep hours + spellstutter sprite synergy. I think those builds will be enhanced by the "Sigil Tracer" printing. But again, this seems a different direction than you're looking to go.

Could work in legacy though. That's the mantra of Legacy. "Its too sucky for vintage, but it might work in Legacy!"

[Harlequin]

Agreed, I have a hard time justifying this card over It's 1 mana cousin: Extract.

[wiley]

All the creatures are rogues (except colossus) to make the prowl go off.  which means 1st or 2nd turn creature, 2nd or 3rd turn KE.  I also think that extract is a horrible comparison as you don't get to play that possibly game breaking spell.  Though the entomb comparison works fairly well, you don't play KE unless it will win you the game.

The restriction to the creature base is the worst part about this deck, since if you didn't need rogues you could run a better fish build, and if you take out the creatures all together you just have TES.  But to think that an evasive creature isn't going to hit the turn after it's played is wrong, the farie has flying, the rootwater theif can gain flying, and the Grimoire Thief actually hitting is just extra on top of the disruption it provides.

I do agree that the clock is currently too slow, which is why I asked people to try and improve the deck.  This thread was made to see if there was a way to make the deck idea viable.

[Rock Lee]

welp Wiley, I tried your U/B build for a bit. but was frustrated with failure. I DID come up with this insane fun badass mono black rogue deck though!

Name: "IMA SHANK YOU!: The story of Outlaw"

// Lands
    4  Polluted Delta
    7  Swamp
    4  Bloodstained Mire

// Creatures
    4  Oona’s Blackguard
    4  Frogtosser Banneret
    4  Earwig Squad
    3  Oona's Prowler

// Spells
    4  Duress
    4  Thoughtseize
    4  AEther Vial
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Black Lotus
    4  Thorn of Amethyst
    4  Noggin Whack
    4  Chains of Mephistopheles
    4  Dark Ritual

// Sideboard
SB: 4  Morsel Theft
SB: 4  Snuff Out
SB: 4  Contagion
SB: 3  Engineered Plague


Frogtosser reduces Prowl costs, making this deck SILLY! easily being able to turn 2 "Jester's Cap"/Earwigg someone. If that doesn't work, you've always got duress affects galore! fun fun!


::EDIT:: I'm currently working on a Oona's Blackguard + modular creatures for INSANITY deck.