[Deck] Recycle Pile

[Brutha]

// Lands
    4 Tropical Island
    1 Bayou
    1 Forest
    1 Island
    4 Polluted Delta
    1 Wooded Foothills
    1 Windswept Heath
    3 Wasteland
    1 Strip Mine
    1 Tranquil Thicket
    7 Solomoxen

// Speed Up
    4 Exploration
    1 Fastbond

// Recycle
    3 Eternal Witness
    1 Regrowth
    1 Nostalgic Dreams
    2 Life from the Loam
    1 Crucible of Worlds

// Kill
    1 Mark of Eviction
    1 Tinker
    1 Darksteel Colossus

// Others
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Intuition
    4 Force of Will
    1 Gush
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Time Walk
    1 Seeds of Innocence
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Vampiric Tutor
    1 Mystical Tutor

// Sideboard (in work at the moment)
SB: 2 Seeds of Innocence
SB: 1 Naturalize
SB: 2 Null Rod
SB: 2 Carpet of Flowers
SB: 3 Oath of Druids
SB: 2 Forbidden Orchard
SB: 1 Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 Coffin Purge
SB: 1 Darkblast

The main Win-Combo:
Eternal Witness + Time Walk + Mark of Eviction
is a 6 mana win.
Tinker Colossus serves as an alternate Win.

What to intuition for is one of the key questions of the deck.
You have to basic plans:
A power set up: Ancestral Recall/Timewalk/Tinker. You play this when you have Eternal Witnesses/Regrowth/Dreams in your hand.
The other Distruption setup is either:
Life from the Loam/Tranquil Thicket/Strip Mine is  good  when you have no Exploration or Fastbond or when you have one get someting else in place of the Cycleland.
The Cycleland is neccsary when you have only one land per turn to have not to much unused cards in your hand.

One black mana producing land is thanks to Life from the Loam enough for the two card slash.

Note the synergy between Life from the Loam and Brainstorm. You can either put lands back to your library or put the cards on top of your library into your graveyard via dredge.
Discarding the lands for Nostalgic Dreams is a similar card quality accelerator.

The 2 Life/1 Crucible is a good split because multiple Lifes are bad. Life has the advantage over Crucible in the early game because it is "counterresistent" and tutorable via Intuition.

Mark of Eviction can also be used as second class bounce against the creatures of your opponent.

Seeds of Innocence is a good silver bullet against Stax and a way to destroy mana artifacts.

Gush is in question, but it seems to be to good  to be left out in a deck with 4 Exploration. Maybe Gift of Ungiven would be better in this slot.

0 Mana Crypt:
You want to win with infinite turns, Mana Crypt produces problems.
0 Mana Drain:
You have a lot of sorcery speed cards and need to tap out.
0 Birds of Paradise/Werebears:
Exploration is just better in this deck.

[Dozer]

Interesting, to say the least. I think there's a couple of bumps that could be smoothed out, but I need some explanations before I even try to judge it. Good find on the Witness-Mark thing, though! I like that. Now...

The deck looks as if the plan is: find 6 mana (2GGUU), Time Walk, Witness and Mark -> win. That looks difficult on paper. On the other hand, the Recoup-Tinker-Will-Walk setup with Gifts Ungiven costs seven mana at least (4RUU), so it's certainly doable from that point of view.

Life from the Loam as the main draw engine looks awfully sloooooooow, though. Please correct me if I am indeed wrong, but if the plan is to find the combo cards as fast as possible, both AK and Bazaar of Baghdad appeal more to me. Lim-Dul's Vault, Impulse and all the other traditional combo finders are not in the deck. LftL isn't necessarily better than any other, faster searchers. It is noted in my head as "slow engine, control deck". Why is it good in this particular deck, and playable over AK/Bazaar? (Actually, I see huge synergy between Bazaar and LftL that this deck could abuse...)

Also why is Intuition better than Gifts Ungiven here? Maybe you didn't want to build "just another Gifts list", which is understandable, but given your three-card kill, any potent Tutor should be considered and Gifts can help tremendously especially with Will and Witness in the deck. If you put Witness, Will, Mark of Eviction and Time Walk in a Gift, you are very likely to get Mark and Walk. With up to four Witnesses you can run, chances are high you'll have one in hand. With Intuition, you get one card and if you have Witness in hand, likely another one, so you can probably complete the combo with that, too. Only which is better, I wonder?

You also have only FoW as combo protection. Is that enough?

Have you considered using Vinelasher Kudzu and using Witness+Mark as secondary kill, taking the deck to a more aggro-combo route? Fetchlands, LftL, Exploration, Crucible make Kudzu an awesome fit.

These some starting questions to get a better handle on your take. I really like the Mark/Witness-combo. Convince me, because I really want to like the deck as well!

Dozer

[warble]

Comment 1: This is not a mana drain deck and packs a whopping 4 Force of Will to protect.

Comment 2: Tendrils can run 4 Force of Will and mana drain, and way more broken cardz.

The deck basically comes down to this: you have a combo that has to resolve to win (unlike tendrils) so whereas tendrils will cast a bunch of junk you're forced to let through and then tendrils an uncounterable win, this deck will do the same and then cast a counterable win.  Your win also forced green into the deck whereas tendrils forced BLACK.  Who wants green over black, again?  Sure, 5cc likes green, but DOUBLE green?  Honestly, life/loam is great because it costs 1 green.  Witness is great in dragon because dragon has infinite colored mana.  However, you don't have witness recursion like dragon does (animate dragon -> mana -> animate witness return animate -> win)  In fact, the win here costs so much more mana and is so much slower it's ridiculous.  Dragon likes being hate-able because it's inevitable, fast, and runs a minimum of dead cards (still a butt ton).  This deck is hateable with friggin' everything including counterspells which is the worst part.

No draw power + blue + green + black + 3cc manabase = weak as hell.

Also, would you ever enter this into a tournament?  Is this a casual deck or a competitive vintage deck?  Basically, I'm seeing a pile of cards thrown together, not a deck, and I can only critique this list as that.  It's not going to beat CS, FCG, Workshop, Dragon, Gifts, Tendrils, TMWA, Fish . . . so why?

[unicoerner]

I don`t understand why you don`t pack the Zuran Orb in your deck, this would be a second chance of winning. And loke Dozer i think that another configuration of Intuition and Gifts Ungiven would be better. I would play 2 Intus and 3 Gifts. If you really want to play Intus. But with such a mana base I would never prefer Intus. Perhaps i missed one of you points, if it`s so plz explain to me. thx

[Blitzbold]

Dozer's idea of adding some Vinelasher Kudzu seems tempting, but that might be because I love Quirion Dryad and Kudzu obviously is some kind of descendant of her. I fear Kudzu to be too conditional too. Without Fastbond or at least Exploration out she won't grow faster than a Dryad nowdays. She might be a better topdeck, though, at least in your deck.

Another question I have is: Why should I play this deck over Sex.dec? The gameplan of endless Time Walks is the same, but  your deck has less protection and a slower draw engine. Additionally your combo of Witness + Mark seems to be very vulnerable.

[Kieranwolf]

Intuition gets three Witnesses, which makes it attractive. When I was running my old green combo, I once used that play to get them out with Echoing truth and Time Walk for the round against CS. Don't underestimate Tinker-> Colossus early game with wasteland, either.

Umm, otherwise, I tend to think that this is strictly worse than Sex, really. Eight counters are kind of necessary against decks that drop multiple bombs. The deck seems to have a weak mid-game, and early game it needs Colossus for the win. Relying on one-ofs for combo pieces seems like a bad idea.

[VarienTanafres]

Crystal Shard seems more appealing to me then the Mark. It's low on counters and I don't think it'd stand up to control unless you Chains out fast enough, only then a good player can still do their damage. Relying on 1 creature to win seems bad to me.

[Brutha]

Comment 1: This is not a mana drain deck and packs a whopping 4 Force of Will to protect.

Quoting from a article from Stephen Menendian about Gifts:

Randy Buehler: [...] I'm actually growing to hate Mana Drain. It's probably the worst card in the deck right now and I sideboard out 3 of them with some regularity.[...]

[/url]
Mana Drain is not so important when you aren't playing pure control.

Comment 2: Tendrils can run 4 Force of Will and mana drain, and way more broken cardz.

Imagine a Draw like: Exploration/Wasteland/Tropical Island/Fetchland/Life of the Loam/xxx/xxx, your opponent starts with playing a Nonbasic Land.
You play Tropical Island/Exploration/Wasteland/Destroy Land go.
Next turn you play Fetch search a Land then play Life of the Loam for a Fetch/Wasteland. Maybe your opponent sees now his problem and forces the Life of the Loam. Well you get a new one next turn.
Conclusion Exploration is an effective Lock Card. It is no bad card. It is a broken card. In this Example the opponent probably had to force it to be in the game. And that isn't bad for a 1 mana casting cost card.

If you tutor with Intuition your Strip Mine your opponent can also not go back to the Basicland defense. When you have 2 Strip effect per turn leaving a Fetchland open also doesn't allow the opponent to come back.

Have you considered using Vinelasher Kudzu and using Witness+Mark as secondary kill, taking the deck to a more aggro-combo route? Fetchlands, LftL, Exploration, Crucible make Kudzu an awesome fit.

I play a Lock/Combo Route. If I wanted to play aggro combo I would rather play Werebears than Vinelasher Kudzu's. In fact this deck envolved out of a aggro-combo list ('Sex'), but I think aggro combo isn't realy good. It gives your opponent to much time. If I attack the Mana base it has an immediate effect. And if I get him to 0 Lands it is also nearly a win.

LftL isn't necessarily better than any other, faster searchers.

Umm, otherwise, I tend to think that this is strictly worse than Sex, really. Eight counters are kind of necessary against decks that drop multiple bombs.

Sex does play four counters. I have more distruption than sex.
Life of the Loam is not so much a searcher, it is distruption. Life of the Loan/Crucible and Exploration is just as good in term of manaproduction as Werebear and Birds in 'Sex'. A Werebear or a Vinelasher Kudzu needs a few turn to put pressure on the opponent. Life of the Loam can also put pressure on them and it has an immident effect.

It is noted in my head as "slow engine, control deck".

The problem is that you need to tap out to use Life from the Loam to it's fullest potential. For that reason it has a lot of disharmony with Mana Drain. Much like Bazaar of Badgad + Manadrain. And Life from the Loam works so much faster with Exploration.

Also why is Intuition better than Gifts Ungiven here?

My game plan is to play the card the second turn. Gifts come a turn later.

Is this a casual deck or a competitive vintage deck?  Basically, I'm seeing a pile of cards thrown together, not a deck, and I can only critique this list as that.  It's not going to beat CS, FCG, Workshop, Dragon, Gifts, Tendrils, TMWA, Fish . . . so why?

At the moment my testing ground is MWS. I know that many people who play their aren't playing good. But it works good against the good decks that show up.

Crystal Shard seems more appealing to me then the Mark. It's low on counters and I don't think it'd stand up to control unless you Chains out fast enough, only then a good player can still do their damage. Relying on 1 creature to win seems bad to me.

The combo costs 10 Mana with Crystal Shard. 6 Mana is better than 10 I think. You can also pitch it to force and switch to the plan of Gifts Collosus/TimeWalk plan. (and this deck is good at Time Walk recurssion). I don't rely on one creature. Beating with a Witness does also work when you have infinite turns. If you destroy the whole board of your enemy with Strip Mine recurssion and Seeds of Innocence you can even beat your opponent with one Witness without Time Walks.

[cssamerican]

Crystal Shard seems more appealing to me then the Mark.

Crystal Shards is utter crap. It is hosed by Null Rod. It is destroyed by your own Seeds of Innocense. And it can't bounce opposing creatures unless your opponent is tapped out. On top of all that it cost more.

Have you considered using Vinelasher Kudzu and using Witness+Mark as secondary kill, taking the deck to a more aggro-combo route? Fetchlands, LftL, Exploration, Crucible make Kudzu an awesome fit.

I play a Lock/Combo Route. If I wanted to play aggro combo I would rather play Werebears than Vinelasher Kudzu's. In fact this deck envolved out of a aggro-combo list (Sex), but I think aggro combo isn't realy good. It gives your opponent to much time. If I attack the Mana base it has an immediate effect. And if I get him to 0 Lands it is also nearly a win.

Hey, my thread inspired someone, how cool is that! Well as you know my pet deck is the Sex Deck. I play it all the time, not because I think it is Tier 1, but because I think it is an extremely fun deck to play. I must say, this is an interesting variation on that theme and Mark of Eviction was an excellent find (I am stealling that piece of tech); however, there are some serious problems with your deck.

The first problem is it will be very difficult for you to win if your combo gets disrupted. And right now I think most decks will be hard to disrupt through land destruction because of fetchland-lots of basics mana bases. So, the likelyhood of you getting disrupted seems pretty high at first glance. You have no Werebears to fall back on, and while that might seem trivial I have won a lot of games with my deck just by beating down while recurring Force of Will here and there to slow my opponent down long enough for me to win. The Tinker plan is a sound (I use that in my deck as well) plan for an alternate win, but without the Werebears I am not sure if it is enough.

Secondly, your only answer to a Chalice of the Void for one is Seeds of Innocence. Since a CotV for one kills your combo and your mana acceleration engine I would think this might be a problem for you. Though I will admit I haven’t tested this as of yet, so it might not be as bad as it first appears.

The one thing that I am curious about is, do you feel that Intutioning for two lands and Life from the Loam is better than Intutioning for three Accumulated Knowledge? Without any testing in the Life from the Loam engine I am hesitant to believe that; however, it is possible that I am wrong in this assumption. But either way, I would like to here your opinion on this matter.

[Brutha]

The one thing that I am curious about is, do you feel that Intutioning for two lands and Life from the Loam is better than Intutioning for three Accumulated Knowledge? Without any testing in the Life from the Loam engine I am hesitant to believe that; however, it is possible that I am wrong in this assumption. But either way, I would like to here your opinion on this matter.

If a Exploration lays already I am confident that Life from the Loam+2 Lands is clearly better. If not it is as strong as Accumulated Knowledge. Keep also in mind that you tutor for power cards when the LftL wouldn't work in the situation.

Secondly, your only answer to a Chalice of the Void for one is Seeds of Innocence. Since a CotV for one kills your combo and your mana acceleration engine I would think this might be a problem for you.

Exploration could be played before the Chalice comes into play.
On top of that you can switch to the Tinker plan. And one Strip Mine per turn can also sometime be enough to distrupt a opponent enough, remember the Stax player is also hosed by  his Sphere of Resistances.

And right now I think most decks will be hard to disrupt through land destruction because of fetchland-lots of basics mana bases.

If I resolve a Intuition I have a Strip Mine for the basics.

I must say, this is an interesting variation on that theme and Mark of Eviction was an excellent find (I am stealling that piece of tech)

I am looking forward to reading a 'Sex' list with Mark of Eviction. It would be interesting if it affects other card choice in your deck and how often you win with beating your opponent with Werebears afterwards.

I don`t understand why you don`t pack the Zuran Orb in your deck, this would be a second chance of winning.

In my counting it would be the fourth chance of winning. Infinite Turns, Lock your opponent and 'Tinker Collosus' are already three ways.

[Liam-K]

I think Gifts is going to be the best enabler for this sort of deck.  A spread like ancestral, time walk, regrowth, nostalgic dreams makes me pretty sad.  It's better than anything intuition can do for you, that's certain.

With gifts ensuring you can have ancestral and time walk in the yard nostalgic dreams becomes pretty obscene.  Start with 3 cards, end with 3 cards and an extra turn... bleh.  Wankerage.

[Brutha]

You are probaly right that Gifts is very powerful. I will test a split of Intutions/Gifts.

[Glix]

Why aren't your running Crop Rotation?  That seems like a natural fit to me.  It makes that example of a hard lock you had a harder lock.

I agree that Gifts > Intuition, in almost all situations.

[vroman]

as others have pointed out, the witness + mark of eviction + time walk win condition is inventive, but the overall package seems clunky at best. is the exploration + loam engine actually productive? maybe if you had more functional lands like cephalid coloseum which is getting play in extended tog. I definitely would not go the AK route. acumulated knowledge + intuition is so dead. gifts is broken everywhere, esp w your infi regrowth effects. your disruption is fairly nonexistant. youll get rolled by stax. seeds of inocence is cool tech, but control slaver doesnt depend on rack and ruin to survive stax. maybe more crucibles and natty lites.
crop rotation should be auto-include in any green deck

[Kieranwolf]

Echoing truth is tech. What about running two, and cutting Mark in favor of an instant that can't be hit with Naturalize?

EDIT: Err, where's the board control? I'd say Truth is better for that anyway, and well...I'm still worshiping Pernicious Deed. It's best for what ails ya, and blows up just about everything that isn't indestructible.

[Dozer]

Echoing truth is tech. What about running two, and cutting Mark in favor of an instant that can't be hit with Naturalize?

Because Mark returns itself, and Witness can't get both Walk and Truth.

[TheStu]

as others have pointed out, the witness + mark of eviction + time walk win condition is inventive, but the overall package seems clunky at best. is the exploration + loam engine actually productive? maybe if you had more functional lands like cephalid coloseum which is getting play in extended tog.

Cycling lands are better.

[Zomar]

In almost a year of playing sex, i've never once needed to take infinite turns. I'd say that in less than ten games, I've even done it. When it is needed to win, echoing truth does the same thing by bouncing two or more eternal witnesses. Mark of Eviction is clunky and not necisarry. It leaves extra room for your "combo" to be disrupted and is terrible as a bounce spell in general as it takes a turn to work and only hits creatures.

[Brutha]

In almost a year of playing sex, i've never once needed to take infinite turns. I'd say that in less than ten games, I've even done it. When it is needed to win, echoing truth does the same thing by bouncing two or more eternal witnesses. Mark of Eviction is clunky and not necisarry. It leaves extra room for your "combo" to be disrupted and is terrible as a bounce spell in general as it takes a turn to work and only hits creatures.

So your argument is:
"Because a 10 Mana Combo which requires 4 cards doesn't work (or is unnecassary) a 6 Mana combo which requires only 3 cards will not work"?
And if I have the 4 extra mana and an extra witness the combo is even more difficult to distrupt than the Echoing Truth combo.

Why aren't your running Crop Rotation?  That seems like a natural fit to me.  It makes that example of a hard lock you had a harder lock.

In this deck the "Land war" is about card advantage. When LotL give me 3 useable (this word is the problem of LotL, it needs Exploration to be solved) cards for only 2 mana, I can outplay Gifts or Staxs.
Crop Rotation results in permanent disadvantage. I rather take a Intution to tutor my Strip Mine because Intution gives me LotL and a Wasteland or a Cycleland on top. And here I am not sure that Gifts can replace all Intuition, because it comes one turn later.

I'm still worshiping Pernicious Deed. It's best for what ails ya, and blows up just about everything that isn't indestructible.

Pernicious Deed could be a replace for Seeds of Innocence as mana artifact destroyer but I think that I have not enough black manasources for Deed. Tutoring Deed and playing it in the same turn requires 2 black Mana and Mystical Tutor can't even search Pernicious Deed.

seeds of inocence is cool tech, but control slaver doesnt depend on rack and ruin to survive stax

Seeds are also used in other matchups as tool against mana artifacts when enough damage is already done via Strip Mine Recursion.
Life of the Loam/Exploration is a good engine against Stax.

[Zomar]

In almost a year of playing sex, i've never once needed to take infinite turns. I'd say that in less than ten games, I've even done it. When it is needed to win, echoing truth does the same thing by bouncing two or more eternal witnesses. Mark of Eviction is clunky and not necisarry. It leaves extra room for your "combo" to be disrupted and is terrible as a bounce spell in general as it takes a turn to work and only hits creatures.

So your argument is:
"Because a 10 Mana Combo which requires 4 cards doesn't work (or is unnecassary) a 6 Mana combo which requires only 3 cards will not work"?
And if I have the 4 extra mana and an extra witness the combo is even more difficult to distrupt than the Echoing Truth combo.

No my argument is you don't need infinite turns to win the game. It's nice that it is there but rarely is it required to win. Think of the infinite mindslaver position in CS. A large number of turns is enough. The deck does need a bounce spell, IMO, to answer any number of permanents. Mark of eviction takes a turn to work, cant be countered by naturalize or bounce spells, and only bounces creatures. echoing truth hits anything instantly, and if the situation arises where you need to take infinite turns, you still can.

[cssamerican]

as others have pointed out, the witness + mark of eviction + time walk win condition is inventive, but the overall package seems clunky at best. is the exploration + loam engine actually productive? maybe if you had more functional lands like cephalid coloseum which is getting play in extended tog. I definitely would not go the AK route. acumulated knowledge + intuition is so dead. gifts is broken everywhere, esp w your infi regrowth effects. your disruption is fairly nonexistant. youll get rolled by stax. seeds of inocence is cool tech, but control slaver doesnt depend on rack and ruin to survive stax. maybe more crucibles and natty lites.
crop rotation should be auto-include in any green deck

Intuition comes on line a turn earlier than Gifts Ungiven in many cases. This is a BIG deal. Frequently what you want will go to the graveyard no matter which tutor you are running; therefore, you will need to play a regrowth effect before you can play what you searched for. So, playing the tutored card from the graveyard will usually constitute an entire turn because you will need to use mana to recoup and play the card. Having to wait an additional turn to do this just gives your opponent an additional turn to disrupt you or worse win. This is one of the reasons why people were running Aks in the Sex deck and why I assume Brutha is running the LotL engine here, you need some kind of guaranteed play off the graveyard tutors when you don't have access to recursion, or when you feel the recursion you do have will be needed to fight through a counter wall.

In almost a year of playing sex, i've never once needed to take infinite turns. I'd say that in less than ten games, I've even done it. When it is needed to win, echoing truth does the same thing by bouncing two or more eternal witnesses. Mark of Eviction is clunky and not necisarry. It leaves extra room for your "combo" to be disrupted and is terrible as a bounce spell in general as it takes a turn to work and only hits creatures.

I haven't tried to take infinite turns with Sex either, but that is because it was difficult to do. Besides, when you had the resources to do it in most cases you were already winning, so it was pointless. However, Mark of Eviction allows you to oops into infinite turns, while not being completely useless on its own. Yes, it isn't the best bounce spell, but you can still use it to bounce a turn one Lackey or a turn one Tinkered Colossus. This notion that you become more disruptable because it can be hit by Naturalize is preposterous, if anyone sides disenchant type spells versus you should be ecstatic because they have obviously boarded in the wrong cards. All that being said, I am not sure if it should be included in future Sex decks; however, I feel that it is worth some serious testing before it can be discarded.

No my argument is you don't need infinite turns to win the game. It's nice that it is there but rarely is it required to win. Think of the infinite mindslaver position in CS. A large number of turns is enough. The deck does need a bounce spell, IMO, to answer any number of permanents. Mark of eviction takes a turn to work, cant be countered by naturalize or bounce spells, and only bounces creatures. echoing truth hits anything instantly, and if the situation arises where you need to take infinite turns, you still can.

In his deck you do need infinite turns because it doesn't really have a clock like Sex.dec.

[Zomar]

mark of eviction doesnt answer collosus or goblin lackey. the permanents bounce during your upkeep, so they will still hit with lackey, and you will still take 11 from collosus.

[cssamerican]

mark of eviction doesnt answer collosus or goblin lackey. the permanents bounce during your upkeep, so they will still hit with lackey, and you will still take 11 from collosus.

You are correct. I was thinking that it would trigger during the enchanted creature's upkeep; however, after checking the rules I now know it doesn't. I guess we need more playable auras in vintage so I can remember all the rules associated with them. Well, this definitely makes it a MUCH weaker card than I initially thought, since it really is only a combo card; therefore, I am going to have to agree with you that the card is basically trash.

[Brutha]

Mark of eviction takes a turn to work

Yes, that is true.
But taking 11 damage from a collosus is okay. Decks who play Tinker-Collosus usually don't play beats to do the other 9 damage. I have still a few lifepoints to do a bit FoWing or Fetching, so what is the problem? Yes, Echoing Truth is a better bouncer and yes Mark is a bad card for bouncing opposing creatures and the Echoing Truth-Infinite Turn combo is realy bad. The Mark infinite turn combo is good. 

No my argument is you don't need infinite turns to win the game. It's nice that it is there but rarely is it required to win. Think of the infinite mindslaver position in CS.
A large number of turns is enough.

The mindslaver position is different because you can destroy your opponents hand in addition to taking turns. And for a matter of fact th infinite mindslaver combo needs a lot more set up.

But think about the Oath Matchup, they play the Oath and you have around 2 turns left. If you resolve the infinite turns combo you win. This is a typical situation in which you need to win now. And gathering 4 additional mana sources needs maybe 2 additional turns.
Sure you can try to counter Oath by bouncing Oaths creatures a little, but this doesen't gives you a win and it leaves the threat in play.

If I have already 10  manasources out I have probably already won the game. In this deck having ten mana sources out often means your opponent has ~ 0 lands in play. If I have that mana mana I can also hardcast Darksteel Collosus but that doesn't make Tinker 'unneeded'. And Tinker realy can't do much else than getting Collosus, so discard it?

[warble]

If I have already 10 manasources out I have probably already won the game.

No, you've probably lost.  Because they let you play your mana and countered all the recursion and tinker.  This is a terrible assumption.  TPS can regularly get 10 mana out...and then you counter the last card that happened to be wheel with force backup and TPS stalls out the same way this deck stalls out.  10 mana?  Who cares, I have force of will + drain in my hand.  BAD assumption.

[Zomar]

obviously infinite mindslaver and infinite turns its different, but the point I wanted to make is that they are both possible but rarely required to win.

But think about the Oath Matchup, they play the Oath and you have around 2 turns left. If you resolve the infinite turns combo you win. This is a typical situation in which you need to win now. And gathering 4 additional mana sources needs maybe 2 additional turns.
Sure you can try to counter Oath by bouncing Oaths creatures a little, but this doesen't gives you a win and it leaves the threat in play.

or you could just destroy the oath.... that's probably a lot easier than the combo.

[Kieranwolf]

But taking 11 damage from a collosus is okay.

One thing I learned from playing Gifts is that it often recurs Tinker, and can do so more than once in one game if it wants. Actually, sometimes Gifts can even hard-cast the dude, especially if they've resolved a Mana Drain. Watch out for Shamans too, as many decks run them MB, and you still have almost no answers to a resolved 1/1 for one red mana, other than bouncing it and killing the red mana sources, or blocking with Witness.

I've refined my opinion about your combo. It is better to be fast in many cases, but I still think that with Exploration and Loam, you'll end up being able to win at your leisure if and when you stabilize. Tinker -> Colossus is still often great in the early game. Do you find that you win more with one or the other?

Lastly, if you need more black sources, why not go with 2 Bayou, 1 Sea? Is there a reason to go with more basic lands?

How is the Gifts/Intuition split working out? Have you considered Fact or Fiction?

[Brutha]

No, you've probably lost.  Because they let you play your mana and countered all the recursion and tinker.  This is a terrible assumption.  TPS can regularly get 10 mana out...and then you counter the last card that happened to be wheel with force backup and TPS stalls out the same way this deck stalls out.  10 mana?  Who cares, I have force of will + drain in my hand.  BAD assumption.

You if you have 10 manasources (note that they need to be permanent sources and no Lotus Mana) you have the LotL engine going or a Crucible in play. And then you can destroy the manabase of your opponent. So while I am "stalling out" I destroy 2 lands per turn.

But even when it is a situation in which they have force+drain in hand and a living manabase this is no situation in which the Echoing Truth combo is realy useable.

You don't draw that many cards that you have a full set of moxen in play, mana is mostly produced by lands in this deck.

Lastly, if you need more black sources, why not go with 2 Bayou, 1 Sea? Is there a reason to go with more basic lands?

Having basic Lands is good against decks like Stax or fish.
And I would only need more black sources if I would play Pernicious Deed. It would probably weaken my stax Matchup and only improve the aggro matchups. I have not much problems against Aggro because of the Oath Sideboard plan, the Staxs matchup seems more important to me at the moment.
But I should probably test the Deed.

or you could just destroy the oath.... that's probably a lot easier than the combo.

Yeah, but Echoing Truth doesn't destroy the Oath.

Playing threats is IMO better than playing anwsers. Thats why Gifts is better than Keeper.

Tinker -> Colossus is still often great in the early game. Do you find that you win more with one or the other?

I win Game one mostly with the infinite turns combo. But when the opponent boards enough graveyard hate I switch to the collosus plan.

One thing I learned from playing Gifts is that it often recurs Tinker, and can do so more than once in one game if it wants. Actually, sometimes Gifts can even hard-cast the dude, especially if they've resolved a Mana Drain. Watch out for Shamans too, as many decks run them MB, and you still have almost no answers to a resolved 1/1 for one red mana, other than bouncing it and killing the red mana sources, or blocking with Witness.

But after the first Tinker the second is probably powered by a Yawamoth Win anyway. And the Will produces a situation in which a Echoing Truth wouldn't realy help and a turn more or less would be insignificant because the Gifts player has a good counter wall.

Blocking Shamans with Winess sound like a good plan. I know that bouncing a Darksteel Collosus is no win, but it brings me back into the game.

How is the Gifts/Intuition split working out?

I am at the moment fine with 2 Intuitions and 3 Gifts. But that results in a 61 card deck

[Brutha]

I have switched to:
-1 Polluted Delta
+1 Cabal Pit (having a maindeck way to handle Welder or Fishes is nice)

-1 Exploration (having 2 at the same time is not good enough to play 4)
-2 Intuition
+3 Gifts

and
-1 Brainstorm
+1 Sylvan Libary (a old Keeper tradition to play a single Sylvan Libary, it is a nice card with all the shuffle effects)

Sideboard:
-2 Carpet of Flowers
+2 Nullroad (to have a better combo matchup)
-2 Forbidden Orchard
+1 Naturalize
+1 Oath of Druids (The Oath Sideboard tech doesn't need Forbidden Orchards, because I board them against aggro I can also defend myself against the Manlands of Fish with my Loam Engine)