Skittles

[Hi-Val]

I'm putting together a second deck for people to use who want to try the format but don't have a deck yet. I figured Aggro would be a good place to start. How does this list look:

Green:
Wild Mongrel
Werebear
Eternal Witness
Thornscape Battlemage
Skyshroud Elite

White:
Kami of Ancient Law
Steelshaper's Gift
Swords to Plowshares
Mother of Runes
Soltari Trooper

Blue:
Sea Drake
Steamcore Weird
Cloud Elemental
Trinket Mage
Man O' War

Black:
Seal of Doom
Shadow Guildmage
No Rest For The Wicked
Flesh Reaver
Bone Shredder

Red:
Hearth Kami
Tin Street Hooligan
Flametongue Kavu
Seal of Fire
Fireslinger
Avalanche Riders

Artifacts:
Aether Vial
Skullclamp
Bonesplitter
Granite Shard
Fellwar Stone
Sensei's Divining Top

Gold: (B, U, W, G)
Moroii
Sleeper's Robe
Armadillo Cloak
Selesnya Guildmage

[Jacob Orlove]

That list is hot, but I'd add some more finishers. Decks in this format tend to have very few real answers to actual spells, so a Fireball or the like can often just end the game.

[Philatio]

That list is hot, but I'd add some more finishers. Decks in this format tend to have very few real answers to actual spells, so a Fireball or the like can often just end the game.

Fanning the Flames has often been hot in our metagame on and off.

[Thug]

So, I was a bit bored and decided to put some thought into this casual format.
I found it's really hard to come up with deck ideas, as 99% of decks that have ever excisted are based around rare cards.

I build several decks and tried them for a while:

I build a controllish deck with several Arcane and Splice cards in it.
Revival + Witness can be pretty nice, as can splicing a Glacial Ray.
Horobi's Whipser and especially Hideous Laughter are pretty decent removal cards.

I build a land-destruction deck that is pretty decent (I think its at least better than the one mentioned on the Skittles page)
I'll post it below

I build a deck based around lands which shows some promise but still needs a lot of work.

For some discussion, here's the LD deck, which is the deck I put most time in so far:

Skittles LD v1.1

// Lands
        1 Rocky Tar Pit
        1 Mountain Valley
        1 Grasslands
        1 Flood Plain
        1 Bad River
        1 Treetop Village
        1 Mishra's Factory
        1 Barbarian Ring
        1 Crosis's Catacombs
        1 Darigaaz's Caldera
        1 Rith's Grove
        1 Ancient Tomb
        1 Mirrodin's Core
        1 Gemstone Mine
        1 Wasteland
// Gold
        1 Pain // Suffering
        1 Electrolyze
        1 Terminate
        1 Wreak Havoc
        1 Temporal Spring
// Black
        1 Rain of Tears
        1 Nightscape Battlemage
        1 Despoil
        1 Sinkhole
        1 Befoul
// Blue
        1 Deep Analysis
        1 Allied Strategies
        1 Control Magic
        1 Annex (Best card in the deck!!)
        1 Confiscate
// Red
        1 Avalanche Riders
        1 Dwarven Miner
        1 Pillage
        1 Stone Rain
// Green
        1 Eternal Witness
        1 Fallow Earth
        1 Creeping Mold
        1 Ice Storm
        1 Llanowar Elves
// White
        1 Seal of Cleansing
        1 Raise the Alarm
        1 Icatian Javelineers
        1 Orim's Thunder
        1 Swords to Plowshares
        1 Benalish Emissary
// Artifact
        1 Icy Manipulator
        1 Skullclamp
        1 Pyrite Spellbomb
        1 Fellwar Stone
        1 Etched Oracle
        1 Ark of Blight

With many decks packing Lairs/New bounce lands LD seems a valid strategy.
Stealing 2 mana lands is savage, as is destroying them.
I prbably should have another Miner in there, but there are too many good red cards.
The white part is very weak, and I think I missed some cards there.

---

I also toyed around with the Skullclamp combo deck posted on the website and found it pretty consistent.
It sure needs to make room for a Reaping the Graves though, I would say I should replace the Priest of Gix.

Nice and fun format.
Koen

[Hi-Val]

Splice is a fascinating idea, Thug! I am going to get cracking on a list myself. I'm pretty sure you can get the Haze lock going too.

I played a lot of games last night with my controllish deck and found that if I get any two Hondens out, I basically cannot lose. Players need to integrate Hondens into their deck or expect them enough so that they do not run into problems with them if they pop up in the metagame. If they do, Aura Shards is pretty incredible when dealing with them.

[Jacob Orlove]

I suggested Annex to Kowal yesterday. I think it's the card I least want to face in the entire format. Between that and hondens, I may have to increase my enchantment removal capabilities (although I already have 3 and 3 tutors for them).

[Nomad]

I like the sound of Annex, it's like a blue colour fixer too.

And when the Treetop is giving you the smackdown...

[Philatio]

So, I was a bit bored and decided to put some thought into this casual format.
I found it's really hard to come up with deck ideas, as 99% of decks that have ever excisted are based around rare cards.

I also toyed around with the Skullclamp combo deck posted on the website and found it pretty consistent.
It sure needs to make room for a Reaping the Graves though, I would say I should replace the Priest of Gix.

I tried that around iteration 1 and thought it was decent, but then thought no rest for the wicked was just better.  I don't think I recall cutting anything to iteratively goldfish it though, so it might be an improvement.  But I adore Priest, if for no other reason that he gives me double black and can be fetched with impereal recruiter.  I'll pull the deck out again and see about RtG.

As far as spirit/arcane goes, right when kamigawa came out some of the locals made (like 3 different people) spirit/arcane decks that just built themselves and they are surprisingly good.  Splice gets sick, and the CIP spirits that return to your hand are nuts (especially the white one vs my honden deck).  The card advantage and the fact that some of the spirits are good on their own make it a versitile deck that can go beatdown or just avalanche you with critical mass late game.

[Philatio]

I played a lot of games last night with my controllish deck and found that if I get any two Hondens out, I basically cannot lose. Players need to integrate Hondens into their deck or expect them enough so that they do not run into problems with them if they pop up in the metagame. If they do, Aura Shards is pretty incredible when dealing with them.

I think my 2nd deck was a controllish Honden deck, and yeah, Hondens are absolutely awesome.  Simon promptly made a deck with plenty of enchantment hate that just spanks it though (but then again i lost pyroclasm when portal became legal, and that card was one of the most stupid cards in the deck).  He had aura shards, but already had crystal shard/CIP creatures, so it was even better.  Plus Kami of Ancient Law is just a solid bear anyhow.

Other people were toying with hondens at the time, and since they are legendary i wanted to assure "honden supremacy" and included lots of enchantment recursion.  Even so, the triggers are so slow, sometimes they just aren't quick enough.  I was running sterling grove, seal of doom/cleansing, auramancer, monk idealist, and of course the UBER UBER broken crystal chimes (the format's closest thing to replenish).  Even with all that, the deck loses to a decent amount of enchantment hate.

But you are right, sideboard wise, there are definately some cards you want against hondens.  aura shards and other multicolored cards are tough to board though just because sometimes the best card to board out isnt the correct one to board out due to color.  I think Simon has allay  in his board - very very solid.

[Jacob Orlove]

Ooh, while we're on the topic of sideboards, I'll talk about mine. First, I went through the deck to figure out which cards I can cut. In my list, there's just no way to cut any of the black or green cards, so I didn't bother to put any in my board. White had the most flexibility, since it was pretty much all random removal spells, but blue, red, and artifacts had some potential cuts as well. Before I did those, though, I looked at my gold cards. The two that I might want to cut are Spontaneous Combustion (against more controllish strategies) and Skyknight Legionnaire (against aggro decks). So, I just put a Terminate and a Captain's Maneuver in the board to allow simple one for one swaps (although I can cut both for Orzhov Guildmage and a red card, too). I put an Aura Shards in the board, and it can either come in for Selesnya Guildmage (frown), or I can cut a white card and Shambling Shell for Shards and Orzhov Guildmage.

For white utility, I currently have Tempest of Light, Kami of Ancient Law, Auramancer, and Shelter. Against different decks, I can swap out any and all of my white cards (Swords, Humble, Dragoons, Thunder, Seed Spark), so I wanted a good mix of utility. I also wanted to make sure that I could board in creatures if I needed to--I didn't want my postboard games to have to be creature light. I also really like having some surprise cards in my board, like Shelter and Captain's Maneuver. I think I want about one more white card in the board, but it's hard to figure out what it should be or what I should cut to make room for it.

For blue, I have Probe and Veiled Serpent, which I'm surprised to not see in more decklists. I guess a lot of people are low on "real" islands, but it's huge! Probe is good in longer matches, and any time I want to really hammer their hand (I guess I'd bring it in against splice, for example). It's a nice default swap for Ray of Command in matches where that kind of trick is less useful.

For red, I have Steam Blast and Grab the Reins for more aggresive decks (cutting probably Thunderscape Battlemage and Avalanche Riders) and Keldon Vandals for utility.

Finally, I run Sun Droplet and Wizard Replica, because Droplet is amazing (comes in for Top, probably), and sometimes I don't want Infused Arrows (so Replica is a nice utility swap).

Interestingly enough, I can up my creature count by five if I really want more of them, or cut it by up to seven or eight if I don't want as many. I think that kind of strategic flexibiliy is a good goal for a skittles SB.

So, the full board:

Orzhov Guildmage
Aura Shards
Terminate
Captain's Maneuver

Shelter
Kami of Ancient Law
Tempest of Light
Auramancer

Probe
Veiled Serpent

Keldon Vandals
Steam Blast
Grab the Reins

Sun Droplet
Wizard Replica

[Thug]

Splice is a fascinating idea, Thug! I am going to get cracking on a list myself. I'm pretty sure you can get the Haze lock going too.

Here's my list so far:

//NAME: Splice Control
// White
        1 Ethereal Haze
        1 Swords to Plowshares
        1 Dismantling Blow (I really want a high amount of Disenchant effects!, could be a regular Disenchant though. Another option would be Altar's Light to RFG stuff)
        1 Disenchant
        1 Orim's Thunder
// Red
        1 Magma Jet (It's ok, but not spectecular, might be better options)
        1 Fanning the Flames (#1 Kill card)
        1 Fireball
        1 Glacial Ray
        1 Flametongue Kavu
// Black
        1 Hideous Laughter
        1 Horobi's Whisper
        1 Soulless Revival
        1 Skeletal Scrying
        1 Rend Flesh
(Exile into darkness??)
// Blue
        1 Exclude
        1 Eerie Procession (oooh, a Tutor!)
        1 Evermind (can be great, but sometimes rather useless)
        1 Deep Analysis
        1 Allied Strategies
// Green
        1 Hana Kami
        1 Wear Away (amazing)
        1 Kodama's Reach
        1 Thornscape Battlemage
        1 Eternal Witness
(I want a Tribe Elder in here as well, but there's no room...)
// Artifact
        1 Fellwar Stone
        1 Sensei's Divining Top
        1 Phyrexian Furnace
        1 Wayfarer's Bauble
        1 Etched Oracle
// Gold
        1 Ordered Migration (#2 win condition)
        1 Electrolyze
        1 Lightning Helix
        1 Mortify
        1 Putrefy
// Land
        1 Rocky Tar Pit
        1 Mountain Valley
        1 Krosan Verge
        2 Mountain
        2 Island
        2 Forest
        2 Swamp
        2 Plains
        1 Mishra's Factory
        1 Wasteland
        1 Izzet Boilerworks
        1 Orzhov Basilica
        1 Golgari Rot Farm
        1 Dimir Aqueduct
        1 Mirrodin's Core
        1 Gemstone Mine
        1 Grasslands
        1 Flood Plain
        1 Bad River
        1 Quicksand
        1 Maze of Ith

The manabase can be a bit shaky, but when the deck gets going there's no stopping it.
Maybe some of the gold cards could be removed to release some pressure on the mana-base, but I like how I fixed the colours with the golden cards. There's not really a weak card in there.
The deck could also use 1 more card drawer (maybe an Artifact?)
Using Dampen Thought for a kill is also an option.

In some limited testing this list shows that it can deal very good with some Aggro and Aggro-Control strategies.
Combo was kinda hard though, since Skullclamp is so hard to deal with. You really need to remove that thing from the game to deal with it.

I haven't put any time in sideboards yet, there's still so many things in various maindecks for me to explore.
But once again, enjoyable format!

Koen

[Hi-Val]

OMG, with a Splice deck you can run Elder Pine of Jukai, how INSNA.

I'll post my list up as soon as I have it finished.

Here it is:

// green
        1 Elder Pine of Jukai
        1 Hana Kami
        1 Kodama's Reach
        1 Wear Away
        1 Haru-Onna
        1 Sakura-Tribe Scout
// red
        1 Hearth Kami
        1 Yuki-Onna
        1 Firebolt
        1 Fanning the Flames
        1 Fireball
        1 Glacial Ray
// white
        1 Nikko-Onna
        1 Spiritual Visit
        1 Swords to Plowshares
        1 Candles' Glow
        1 Ethereal Haze
// blue
        1 Peer Through Depths
        1 Consuming Vortex
        1 Evermind
        1 Annex
        1 Eerie Procession
// black
        1 Exile into Darkness
        1 Diabolic Tutor
        1 Horobi's Whisper
        1 Death Denied
        1 Hideous Laughter
        1 Soulless Revival
// artifact
        1 Granite Shard
        1 Wayfarer's Bauble
        1 Isochron Scepter
        1 Sensei's Divining Top
        1 Etched Oracle
        1 Fellwar Stone
// gold
        1 Reviving Vapors
        1 Ordered Migration
// land
        2 Swamp
        2 Island
        2 Mountain
        2 Forest
        2 Plains
        1 Wasteland
        1 Gemstone Mine
        1 Dimir Aqueduct
        1 Gruul Turf
        1 Selesnya Sanctuary
        1 Golgari Rot Farm
        1 Boros Garrison
        1 Izzet Boilerworks
        1 Orzhov Basilica
        1 Barbarian Ring
        1 Cabal Pit
        1 Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
        1 Terminal Moraine
        1 Krosan Verge


I liked goldfishing it; Exile is particularly crazy because it provides a splice venue all the time. I ran Scout because I end up with a lot of land in hand and I want to play it, especially with guildlands or Elder Pine. However, I found that the deck has a poor splice finisher outside of Glacial Ray + lots of Spirit tokens beatdown.

[Matt]

If you like Annex, why not try [card]Conquer[/card]?

[Thug]

Exile is particularly crazy because it provides a splice venue all the time

Is there something wrong with Apprentice or am I right that Exile is not an arcane spell?
Do you like Elder Pine, I build my deck with as little creatures as possible so that opponent have lots of dead cards (no enchantments either).
Isochron seams kinda weak, every deck is packed with Artifact removal, and you hardly have any real bombs to put on it.

I missed the Terminal Moraine, need to put that in some of my decks, good call!

If you like Annex, why not try Conquer?

If this applied to the LD deck:
Red is filled with amazing LD, one of the great things about Annex is that it's blue.

Koen

[Philatio]

Exile is particularly crazy because it provides a splice venue all the time

Is there something wrong with Apprentice or am I right that Exile is not an arcane spell?
Do you like Elder Pine, I build my deck with as little creatures as possible so that opponent have lots of dead cards (no enchantments either).
Isochron seams kinda weak, every deck is packed with Artifact removal, and you hardly have any real bombs to put on it.

I missed the Terminal Moraine, need to put that in some of my decks, good call!

Koen

I think he means Exile into Darkness.  Exile would be amazing and all, but alas, it's rare anyhow.  I have run chastize in decks though, and it is a huge tempo swing against "big aggro" (as opposed to weenie aggro obviously).

Just on the topic of artifact hate in general, my feeling has always been that I like it there, but hell, there is no reason to overdo it.  I mean, unless someone is running artifact lands (possible but rare), no one is running more than 6 (or i guess 7) of them.  Things like Keldon Vandals or Oxidize are just too often dead.  Sure, I run naturalize/disenchant varients a lot, but if anything for the fact that they nail multiple types of perms.

For land D decks, I really like Simon's use of Slow Motion - god it is so annoying.  And I think rhystic things (even the mediocre cave) suddenly become better - I think rhystic study being the best.  I mean if you want to be a complete ass, have you considered suppression field?  i know it hits some of your stuff, but it seems like it can just cripple people, especially since it nails fetch effects so well for lands and the like.  but sometimes the plan fails and the guy hits that third land for kodama's reach or something, and then you feel like you want to be sitting behind propaganda or ghostly prison or something.

[Philatio]

You know, since there has been so much activity on this thread as of late, I am wondering if maybe we should try to set up a time or something to maybe meet up on MWS in a chatroom and do some sort of ad hoc tourney, or even just someplace we can test these decks and such.  I've only used that program to just look for strangers for random games, but does it support something like that where a group of people can meet in one place and just propose games to one another or something?

I personally have been away from building new decks for a while and wouldn't mind getting started again.  And so many people have posted solid ideas I want to play with, but I guess more so AGAINST, since one thing that's cool about this format is that people tend to play their own decks their own way.

Simon mentioned there's a skittles side event at the T1 tourney he is holding in Princeton NJ, but I think something online could happen before or after then.  I suppose we could make it a one time thing at first, but if people prefered the idea, we could maybe make it a regular thing?  So far my metagame has consisted of Simon, myself, Harriet and a few other people who come in and out of the format (Ultima built some solid decks to infuse us with some new competition not too long ago), but the idea of something more varied certainly sounds appealing to me.

[Jacob Orlove]

I've been having a lot of fun playing a few MWS games against Kowal and others, but I suspect an IRC channel or the like would suffer from not quite enough people ever being on to make it worthwhile, and would make it tougher to get new people interested. I think we should just use #themanadrain on EFnet to meet up and play whenever.

Also, if people insist on playing these crazy splice control decks, I'm going to have to break down and run a Nightmare Void in my board. That makes me want an r/g card, though, so I can board out Shambling Shell and Spontaneous Combustion, instead of Gravedigger. I may have to cut some of my cute SB cards.

[Kowal]

I tried tinkering with Koen's LD deck and my version of it.  Both are adorable when they work, but the problem I am finding is that every skittles deck runs like infy mana fixing and development spells, so you never really get a good chance to stunt somebody.

Or it could just be that both myself and Jacob have enormous bone for green cards that say "get lands"

I'm gonna try a couple other new things.  I'm not a big fan of control decks in this format since most of the solid card advantage spells are men anyway, and I want to take advantage of that.  Similarly I'm noticing all the problem artifacts are either equipment, etched oracle, or sensei's divining top, all of which work nicely in an aggro build.

[Hi-Val]

It's so sad that Exhaustion was printed as a rare in P3K, I like Time Walk a lot : \

I need to look at Nightmare Void myself, it looks crazy delicious. Also, Exile Into Darkness isn't arcane either, so no spliceys : ( There's Death of 1000 Stings but it is ass. I feel like the early turns are slow enough that if you have 1-2 removal spells or threats, then you hit enough mana to make ExileID really powerful as a recursive device.

[Kowal]

Here's my newest toy.  This is the aggro deck I've been playing against Jacob.  It's been revised like ten or twelve times since this hour tuesday night.


BLUE
Control Magic
Ninja of the Deep Hours
Trinket Mage
Aquamoeba

BLACK
Tendrils of Agony
Phyrexian Reclamation (best card in the deck)
Nezumi Gamerobber
Bog Wraith
Bone Shredder

RED
Spikeshot Goblin
Lightning Bolt
Thunderscape Battlemage
Flametongue Kavu
Fire Imp

GREEN
Kodama's Reach
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Yavimaya Elder
Thornscape Battlemage
Rancor

WHITE
Taj-Nar Swordsmith
Kami of Ancient Law
Nagao, Bound by Honor

GOLD
Lightning Helix
Goblin Legionnaire
Selesnya Guildmage
Tempest Drake
Psychatog
Moroii
Ordered Migration
Armadillo Cloak

ARTIFACT
Bonersplitter
Skullclamp
Mask of Memory
Darksteel Ingot
Aether Vial
Etched Oracle

LANDS
Island
Snow-Covered Island
Forest
Snow-Covered Forest
Mountain
Snow-Covered Mountain
Plains
Snow-Covered Plains
Swamp
Snow-Covered Swamp
Pendelhaven
Mishra's Factory
Treetop Village
Quicksand
Krosan Verge
Terminal Moraine
Gemstone Mine
Mirrodin's Core
Nantuko Monastary
Vitu-Ghazi, The City Tree
Orlove Basilica
Izzet Boilerworks
Golgari Rot Farm
Dimir Aqueduct


The Tendrils was originally Erg Raiders, and will probably become that again.  I just have a total boner for effects that hurt my opponent without using the combat step, and coincidentally give me life back.  Phyrexian Reclamation is the savagest card to ever see print by the way.  The mana has been working really nicely too.  I'm pretty happy with it so far.  I need to obtain foil guild lands though.

[Anusien]

I have an extreme fascination with Astral Slide.  Here's my slide list for Skittles.  I've played all of one game, where I had everything imaginable versus Kowal and still lost because he had Guildmage, Reclamation and Legionnaire:

Artifact:
Darksteel Ingot
Sensei's Divining Top
Wayfarer's Bauble
Fellwar Stone
Etched Oracle
Crystal Shard

Black:
Honden of Night's Reach
Shred Memory
Phyrexian Reclamation
Dimir Machinations
Nekrataal
Dimir Guildmage
Dimir Infiltrator

Green:
Wall of Blossoms
Eternal Witness
Uktabi Orangutan
Thornscape Battlemage
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Krosan Tusker

Red:
Lightning Rift
Flametongue Kavu
Honden of Infinite Rage
Slice and Dice
Scrap
Magma Jet

Blue:
Dimir Guildmage
Dimir Infiltrator
Exclude
Annex
Drift of Phantasms
Condescend
Complicate

White:
Orim's Thunder
Clear
Astral Slide
Auramancer
Honden of Cleansing Fire
Renewed Faith

Land:
Snow-Covered Island
Tranquil Thicket
Plains
Forest
Mountain
Swamp
Snow-Covered Forest
Smoldering Crater
Snow-Covered Mountain
Snow-Covered Plains
Snow-Covered Swamp
Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
Dimir Aqueduct
Gemstone Mine
Lonely Sandbar
Island
Drifting Meadow
Barren Moor
Blasted Landscape
Forgotten Cave
Slippery Karst
Polluted Mire
Remote Isle
Secluded Steppe

The mana is awful.  The transmute cards except for infiltrator are UU or BB.  Perplex was suggested, and I have no idea where to fit it.
I need really good 2 mana and 3 mana removal.  I kept running into situations against Kowal where I could do sick tutor chains, but at the end of it I couldn't stop men from bashing me in the face.
This deck really feels the loss of StP.  I'm considering it over Clear.

[Matt]

I threw together Hi-Val's aggro deck and stole someone's manabase to play against Spencer's land destruction/control deck today.

Changes:
Flesh Reaver became Daggerclaw Imp
Werebear has been pretty shitty, I need to find something better. Mongrel wasn't amazing either, I think Basking Rootwalla would be better.
Fliers were AWESOME, Sea Drake and Moroii are top-notch
No Rest For The Wicked sat dead in hand an awful lot
Granite Shard was ass and I dropped it for Wayfarer's Bauble

[Kowal]

As a rule I stay away from things that only ping for one.  Granite Shard and tims are right out, but effects like Goblin Legionnaire and Fire Imp are pretty tight.

I would expect effects like Flesh Reaver would hurt you a lot, given that you can't really guarantee your hand is more aggro than the control player running a bunch of battlemages and 187 men.

I can understand Werebear being bad, but it's not what I would have assumed.  Is it just trouble reaching Threshold?  I seem to reach it pretty regularly by turn 4 or so, but I also run Skullclamp, Mask of Memory, Etched Oracle, Psychatog, and Aquamoeba, so maybe that's the only reason why.

[Matt]

Yes, threshold is difficult.

I would stay away from most tims but Fireslinger is badass, since he is cheap and so easy on the mana.

[Jacob Orlove]

Anusien: you should really run Diabolic Tutor over one of your black transmute cards. You also need more CIP for some kind of card creatures, like Cartographer to work with all your cycling lands.

Steam Blast is solid removal, although I would definitely switch your focus to 3 and 4 mana transmutes, instead of 2 and 3, because you can turn 3 transmute, say, Clutch of the Undercity into your turn 4 drop, but not so much with Dimir Infiltrator. 4 mana lets you run really solid answers to stuff, like Radiant's Dragoons, FTK, gravedigger (which you should run), etc. All you can get for 2 mana is Lightning Rift, which you can just Diabolic Tutor for if you really need it.

Something like -infiltrator -shred +diabolic +perplex, then cut whatever for gravedigger and all that.

Doug's list is missing Civic Wayfinder for no reason. Also, Moldervine Cloak in green would be pretty hot, esp w/fliers.

[Kowal]

I made the startling realization that Psionic Blast is legal.  So I cut Control Magic.  Suck it, double mana costs.

Tendrils earned its keep a couple times over since I said I would cut it, so it's not going anywhere.  It's just a shame that there are still two cards in my deck that require two identical specific manas.

[Thug]

There are too much reasons to run a control deck in this format:

Bad mana-bases, control decks often are more forgiving.
Because of the bad mana-bases aggro decks tends to be pretty slow, giving control the time to fix their mana base first.
Amazing card-advantage options, right now I have these cards in my deck to provide card advantage:

Krosan Verge
(Firebolt)
Deep Analysis
Orim's Thunder
Horobi's Whisper
Electrotyse
Flametongue
Explosive Vegetation
Skeletal Scrying
Fanning the Flames
Soulless Revival (Hana Kami)
Wear Away
Eternal Wintess
Hideous Laughter
Glavial Ray
Allied Strategies
Etched Oracle
Concentrate
Kodama's Reach
Fireball

All these cards are able to create card advantage.
The rest of the deck is removal, more mana fixing and some finishers.

I build an aggro deck that was as aggresive as possible and was able to handle it with my control deck after some slight modifications (Sun Droplet is sick!!)

Most of the deck posted here are aggro-control, and basicly very slow deck when paired against a control deck. This will probably upset some people, but I think most of these are almost byes for a well build control deck pre sideboard.

I think these decks should try to incorperate more disruption (Ghost-Lit Stalker is pretty decent for recursive decks)

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For any decks having mana problems (mainly aggresive strategies, or ones with heavy gold cards) take a look at Mana Cyclix it's amazing.

I'm waiting for someone to post a deck that posed a real threat to a control deck, see this as a challenge

Koen

[Jacob Orlove]

Heh, my deck is secretly a control deck too, I just run lots of creatures because they're good and they allow for amazing recursion.

Here's my card advantage stuff:

Eternal Witness
Yavimaya Elder
Thornscape Battlemage
Civic Wayfinder
Phyrexian Reclamation
Haunted Crossroads
Gravedigger
(Ray of Command)
Trinket Mage
(Exclude)
(Flametongue Kavu)
(Fire Imp)
Avalanche Riders
Thunderscape Battlemage
Orim's Thunder
Seed Spark
Skullclamp
Etched Oracle
Crystal Shard
(Infused Arrows)
Selesnya Guildmage
(Spontaneous Combustion)
Dimir Guildmage
Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree

All the guild lands count:
Boros Garrison
Gruul Turf
Dimir Aqueduct
Izzet Boilerworks
Orzhov Basilica
Golgari Rot Farm
Selesnya Sanctuary

Finally, my tutors, because they set up insane stuff:
Perplex
Clutch of the Undercity
Drift of Phantasms

I'm not a huge fan of simple card drawing in this format (stuff like Deep Analysis or Allied Strategies), because you tend to draw more lands than you need (thanks to Guild Lands and mana fetching, you usually have more than enough anyway). I prefer recursion and tutoring because it gives me much more control over what I get--a deep analysis could yield one decent card out of the four you draw, while a transmute or regrowth effect gives me much more control over what I get.

I will admit that my current build is heavily biased against more aggressive strategies--the six cards in (brackets) are only advantageous against decks with enough creatures. Your build runs a few of the best creatures, so they're not totally dead, but they're not really optimal, especially with my other removal too. However, all those cards have been crucial in beating the creature-based decks everyone else insists on playing. I really want to test against a much more focused control deck, and against that clamp combo build.

[Thug]

Maybe the main card advantage of my control deck is that it runs zero enchantments and only creature that will do their job, removal or not: (Sakura, Witness, FtK, Etched Oracle, Bone Schredder). This gives the deck such an huge advantage to start with.

The problem I have with creature based strategies is that there are too many cheap answers. You often spend 2/3 mana on a creature, and need to infest more to make it useful, while a Firebolt/Swords/Horobi's can take it out for almost nothing.

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I almost succeeded in my own challenge: building a deck that beats the control deck
But I think the deck I'm working with will lose too anything with some beatdown 

Koen

[Kowal]

Goblin Legionnaire is where like half of my kills come from.  He's insanely super hot.

That is all for now.