Pernicious Jace

[A_Outcast]

I've been off and on about posting this decklist for a while.  Decided I might as well and get the community's thoughts on it.

The goal of this deck is to abuse Pernicious Deed or Jace to generate CA.  Or use Deed to protect jace while he generated CA.  A resolved deed is brutal against most decks, effectively wiping their board clean.  Trygons serve a purpose of just eating annoying artifacts and enchantments (oaths and lock pieces).  The main element of the deck is pernicious deed has such a suprise factor, plus people are forced to play around it.

Original Decklist
Lands (19)/Artifact Mana (7):
2x Misty Rainforest
2x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn
3x Underground Sea
2x Tropical Island
2x Island
1x Tolarian Academy
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
1x Library of Alexandria
5x Moxen
1x Black Lotus
1x Sol Ring *

Disruption/Protection (19):
4x Force of Will
4x Mana Drain
3x Spell Pierce
4x Pernicious Deed
4x Trygon Predator

Other Broken Stuff(15):
3x Jace the Mind Sculptor
1x Tinker
1x Blightsteel Colossus
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Time Walk
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Vampiric Tutor
2x Leyline of the Void
1x Helm of Obediance
2x Crucible of Worlds

Sideboard:
2x Leyline of the Void
4x Xantid Swarm
4x Mindbreak Trap
4x Nature's claim
1x ____________

*With pernicious deed often times destroying my own board, I'v considered putting in mana crypt over sol ring just for the pure purpose of its free, and that 1 extra mana can allow a earlier turn jace or deed and increases the mana on yawgmoth's will turn.

So this deck is all kinda of akward.  The goal is to resolve an early game deed and jace and sit on them till your opponent becomes scary.  The main trick this deck has is if your opponent overextends, you can deed and punish them for bad play.  Games 2/3 they will play cautiously, and you can use that as an advantage to push towards a win.  

Originally the deck ran a much different setup, including less lands, 4 leyline of the voids, and a regrowth.  Regrowth was cuz because it just was not as impressive as i wanted it to be.  Sure a regrowth on acall is good, but an extra basic land to combat stax is better.  The choice to cut leyline was not easy.  At first I went down to 3, then finally down to 2.  The reason is, while a pre-game leyline is great, especially against ichorid, having multiples is just bad.  And the deck does not push for a quick win like most other decks do.

Manabase:
I choose a slightly heavier manabase because of the rising popularity of stax and fish and both decks tend to attack your manabase.  Against non-fish/stax decks, I often board out extra lands to bring in more hate.  Library was included a natural include for the deck due to its speed.  This deck doesn't try to win quickly, it plays for the mid/late game, and tries to win with pure CA.  Library helps achieve this goal by allowing draw.

Disruption:
Force of will was an autoinclude as I am playing blue.  Spell pierce was included to combat opposing counters and oath of druids.  The inclusion of mana drain was the toughest choice.  while it is UU to cast, its a very powerful spell.  It is included as an accelerent.  T2 mana drain into a T3 jace is a very powerful play.  Or draining a stax lock piece in order to get the extra mana to cast a deed is another strong play.  Pernicious Deed and Trygon Predator serve a similar purpose, yet different.  Trygon predator's purpose is to disrupt your opponent by eating their spells, and in a clutch to protect Jace, while Deed's purpose is to generate CA by destroying more of your opponents cards over yours or, to protect jace.  Depending on the deck.

Other broken stuff:
Jace TMS is included for CA and filtering out cards to increase draw quality.  With 5 fetches and a crucible, each time i brainstorm i should be able to see a new 4 each following turn.  Tinker is an obvious addition.  The choice for my robot was iffy.  The only two robots I looked at were Blightsteel (1shot kill), Sphinx of Steel Wind (lifegain/ext) and Inkwell (shroud). I didnt really have a reason to pick blightsteel, i just like him the most for my meta.  Yawgwill/Timewalk/acall/demo tutor/vamp tutor are all pretty much autoinclude.  The reason I put 2 crucibles MD is to allow me to re-use the fetches to see 4 new cards a turn with jace, and to combine them with strip mine/wasteland to lock my oponents out of the game.

Sideboard:
I add in leyline 3-4 to fight ichorid.  With deeds, 2 leylines, 4 wastes and 1 strip mine in the main, i dont really care about my ichorid matchup.  resolved deed on 0 destroys all the bridge tokens.
Xantid Swarm.  The bane of blue.  Resolving this against a blue player makes your life easy.  The only concern is if I have to deed on their turn resolving another one might be a pain.  But by that time the deck should be in a position to struggle through it.
Combo is just a bad matchup for me.  Unless I can draw more counters then they have bombs, which normally doesnt happen.  I bring in mindbreak traps to help fight this game.  Mindbreak trap on tendrils is incredibly powerful.
For stax, I bring in the nature's claim.  The goal against stax is to resolve a deed and wait.  Counter their spheres/golems, resolve a deed.  and wait.  hell sometimes the plan changes and my gameplan is to lock them under their own spheres with crucible and wastelands. nature's claim is the cheapest way to fight this.  Its always great for oath, however between deeds and trygon, oath is already a match-up thats not too concerning.

The last spot I have debated and pondered over for a long time.  I have tried Roil Elemental, Tabernacle, propaganda.  I need something else to help fight agaisnt the aggroe matchup.  It's another bad matchup.  Resolving a deed mitigates this, but for the most part its another matchup i dread.  The reason I dont have more hate for this matchup is, because of maindeck deed.  a resolved deed normally is to aggroe, as a resolved tormods crypt is to ichorid.  sure they can come back but it takes effort.

What are your alls comments/thoughts/concerns about the deck?  Also, would you take out sol ring for mana crypt?

Current Decklist

Lands (19)/Artifact Mana (7):
2x Misty Rainforest
2x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn
3x Underground Sea
2x Tropical Island
2x Island
1x Tolarian Academy
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
1x Library of Alexandria
5x Moxen
1x Black Lotus
1x Mana Crypt

Disruption/Protection (19):
4x Force of Will
4x Mana Drain
3x Spell Pierce
4x Pernicious Deed
4x Nature's Claim

Other Broken Stuff(15):
4x Jace the Mind Sculptor
1x Gifts Ungiven
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Regrowth
1x Tinker
1x Blightsteel Colossus
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Time Walk
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Life from the Loam

Sideboard:
4x Leyline of the Void
4x Xantid Swarm
4x Mindbreak Trap
3x Sower of Temptation

[DubDub]

I've played around with something very similar because I've seen this be a beating in Legacy, but it just hasn't become appealing enough for me.  Nuking your own mana is a big issue.  And not dropping fast mana to avoid losing it to Deed can backfire if your opponent drops a Sphere.  Despite dual lands I've felt generating both  and  as early as possible is difficult.

I don't think 4x Trygon Predator is necessary.  I would look at, in particular, Maelstrom Pulse and Nature's Claim in that spot.

I would also look at Life from the Loam in the Crucible spot, since Crucible can die to your own Deed, and Loam does an equally good job of clearing the top of your library for Jace.

[A_Outcast]

I've played around with something very similar because I've seen this be a beating in Legacy, but it just hasn't become appealing enough for me.  Nuking your own mana is a big issue.  And not dropping fast mana to avoid losing it to Deed can backfire if your opponent drops a Sphere.  Despite dual lands I've felt generating both  and  as early as possible is difficult.

I don't think 4x Trygon Predator is necessary.  I would look at, in particular, Maelstrom Pulse and Nature's Claim in that spot.

I would also look at Life from the Loam in the Crucible spot, since Crucible can die to your own Deed, and Loam does an equally good job of clearing the top of your library for Jace.

The fact that deed can nuke your own mana base does hurt, however, it also hurts their manabase.  Especially if you can stall out the deed and eat a few olf their shops with wastes/strip.  As far as generating the mana, yes sometimes it is akward and difficult, but for the most part I haven't felt it as being too dificult.

After thinking about what you said about the trygon, I completely agree.  I'm not a fan of maelstrom pulse, because its sorcery speed and 3 mana.  I do like nature's claim in that spot, as it helps keep their spheres in deck, doesnt hinter any of my kills, plus hits time vault and oath.  It also lets me free up 4 board slots for bad matchups which is awsome.

As for Life from the Loam, I'm not a big fan.  I haven't tried it, but can't really see getting on the train with it.  Sure crucible can be nuked by my own sphere, but at the same time, if you get unlucky and nail away a few key cards like yawgwill or extra jaces and they manage to deal with the first jace, you can end up being in a bad way.

ill update the original list to take your suggestions into account.

[Mantis]

I like this idea a lot. To state the obvious, this deck looks very strong against MUD and Fish. But how do you deal with Gush and TPS? They draw more cards and thus more counters and broken stuff, while you draw into Pernicious Deed and Nature's Claim. I see you dedicated a large portion of your sideboard to fight TPS but Gush seems like a very hard matchup.

This is pure theory, but I don't think losing your own manabase against MUD is going to hurt too much if you can clear up the entire field with Deed:
MUD is forced to pick it's poison. Either be deliberate with their lock pieces, allowing your Drain to come online, or  go all-in, play it's Moxen, Chalice, Golems, Spheres etc. and walk right into Deed. MUD has no way of generating true cardadvantage, so it can't play multiple bombs every turn. With so many control cards at your disposal it doesn't seem to hard to deal with 1 threat per turn.

I was wondering why you opt for Leyline and Helm of Obedience instead of restricted cards such as Mystical Tutor, Merchant Scroll and Gifts Ungiven?

Some additional thoughts:
- I don't think you can play 4 Wasteland and 4 Mana Drain in the same deck.
- I think you definitely need more draw power, I would replace Helm, Leyline, Crucible and 1 or 2 Claims with a combination of Top, Mystical, Merchant Scroll, Gifts Ungiven, Fact or Fiction, Thirst for Knowledge etc. Ultimately you are a Y. Will deck, since after Deed Will allows you to get all of your Moxen back and assume control, I believe you want to build the deck with that in mind.

[A_Outcast]

No local players play Gush so I have never had a chance to test against it.  Also I am unfamiliar with the deck so I can't theorize on how to beat it.  Thankfully with 2 spots open in the board I can put some more gush hate in if the matchup is bad.

The reason I opt for leyline/helm is because it was originally the main wincon for the deck and i had 4 leyline and 1 helm.  I have slowly been decreasing the number of leylines to opt for more lands to increase my chance against stax.

In terms of other restricted cards sand Y.Will.  Having jaces render's top subpar.  I dont like Merchant Scroll.  Sure it can find a blue isntant you need but most of the time its meh.  If I do add in some restricted stuff, it will be as a group.  Regrowth, Fact, Gifts, Mystical.  I don't have a good enough artifact count to support thirst, so I would rather play compulsive research considering I can bring back lands, however I am not a fan of sending things to my graveyard if I dont have to.  I'll play around with adding those 4 cards and see if it helps any.