BEHOLD,a deck borne from Madness! A deck that can either be the most incredible inefficacy or the crowning moment of your entire Magic: The Gathering career. This deck entirely relies on your ability to bluff and trick your opponent and play with them like the the marionettes they are! Needless to say, this deck is only for those with the suave charisma and controlling personality to pull off mission impossible! You need to be like Puppet Conjurer: Control your opponents like they're homunculi and then destroy them!
Now that introductions are done, time to explain what this deck actually does. This deck uses Shahrazad to create a sub-game within the actual game. The most important part though is this. You Must Trick Your Opponent To Play As Many Of Their Lands As Possible! Use cards like Ghost Quarter, Path to Exile, and New Frontiers to let them play as many lands as possible. When their deck is thinned out enough, imprint Shahrazad on a Panoptic Mirror and cast it each turn from then on. In these sub-games, they will have little to no mana (because they played the large majority of their lands in the main game). This gives you a huge advantage, one that should allow you to run them over with the elves you have. Do this enough times, and Shahrazad will kill them.
Now comes the bluffing part. After you use Shahrazad once, they will not fall for it again! You MUST only use Shahrazad in one match or else you've written your own obituary and do not deserve to win. That is where the sideboard comes into play. How you pick your sideboard and the choices you make in regards to that sideboard will make or break the game for you! For example, I would start out pretending to just be a run of the mill elf tribal deck. I have the elves I would run listed in the sideboard because they are only part of the ruse. The main strategy is Shahrazad. Simply replace Panoptic Mirror, counterspell, Mystical tutor, and Shahrazad as well as a couple mana producing elves with the sideboard to get the starting list.
Whether I win or lose, I will use this first round to put an idea into their heard. "Oh boy, their mana ramp also allows me to mana ramp as well. I'm gonna use that to my advantage!". This is KEY! This would set me up for the second game, where I replace half the elves in my deck with Panoptic Mirrors, Counterspells, Mystical Tutors, and finally Shahrazad. The second game, I let them play all the lands they want and then I spring the Shahrazad trap mentioned above.
If the game goes on for more than two rounds, then it comes down to you psyching your opponent out. Now that they've seen Shahrazad, they are going to be careful of that strategy and not overextend the "main" game. They think they are so smart not falling for the same trap twice, but they are playing into your hands! Your sleak self predicted this and has done something special. You Have removed Shahrazad from your deck in sideboard, however you need to keep them psyched out throughout the game. This means you aren't playing Shahrazad, but you APPEAR to still have it. To help do this, keep the Panoptic Mirrors and counterspells, but sideboarding out the Shahrazad and tutors. You will have to bluff to the win.
Whether you win or lose depends entirely on how well you can predict your opponent and plan around them. To win, you must think like the mad genius, while presenting a calm and dapper facade! This deck is also highly customizable as well. If you don't like elves, choose another strategy. As long as it's a strategy that can generate mana without lands, it can work. Above, I have posted my simple list that I came up with in a mad fit of either genius or stupidity at 5:00 in the morning. It is very likely flawed, and I would love any suggestions you might have so please post a comment. I'd love to see what you have to say. Thanks.
Ps. This deck is obviously not meant to be competitive, it is only meant to have fun.
