1) ONE DROP MANA DORKS Aside from their status as a creature and a source of mana acceleration, these little beauties facilitate a disgusting number of turn 3 victories. They allow me to tutor for a combo piece on turn 2 and then play both halves of Eternal Scourge + Food Chain
the following turn. They also allow me to Green Sun's Zenith for Hermit Druid on turn two. They can also be used as Diabolic Intent fodder to flash hulk on turn 3. I could go on but...
2) TUTORS: No competitive EDH combo deck can function without a full compliment of tutors. Mystical Tutor; Vampiric Tutor; Demonic Tutor; Imperial Seal; Survival of the Fittest; Lim-Dul's Vault; Worldly Tutor& Entomb are simply autoincludes for a graveyard based creature combo deck. My other tutors are simply good for this particular deck:
Tainted Pact: In most circumstances I can exile until I hit something useful or essential and often get to my win condition a little earlier earlier. Occassionally, this will tutor for both halves of my Food Chain combo. It also serves as a backup win condition with Laboratory Maniac.
Grim Tutor Being 3 mana is rough, but even a bad demonic tutor will get the job done.
Green Sun's Zenith: This is a fairly limited tutor with hernit druid being the primary target and Eternal Witness as the backup option. Where this card shines is how efficiently it can put HD into play from our library. A turn 1 dork will get us there on turn 2 and a Mana Crypt or mox+Dark Ritual/Lotus Petal will allow us to put him into play turn 1. This puts tremendous pressure on the table to find an answer and will sometimes be my early play just to draw hate away from my true plan A
Diabolic Intent: The efficiency of our combos and high concentration of mana efficient creatures offset the downside of losing a creature. Getting anything to hand for 2 mana is very strong.
3) CARD ADVANTAGE: We have opted to increase the number these sources over previous versions of the deck. This is proving to be a significant upgrade as the deck is more resilient against disruption, We are finding combo pieces faster on average, and are more likely to have a back-up plan or protection for the combos. Here are our choices:
Ad Nauseam & Necropotence: The two best forms of card advantage black has to offer. With recent changes to the deck we can usually win the game after drawing between 10-15 cards. For the first time ever SBT can utilize Ad Nauseam as a true "one card win condition."
Windfall: Draw 7s are usually pretty good. Windfall helps dump combo pieces into the graveyard and is a great turn 1-2 play that disrupts our opponents original plans while also usually setting us up to win on turn 3-4.
Mystic Remora: Utterly broken in every way. I have seen this card draw 19 cards for one mana before and it usually functions as a sorcery speed Ancestral Recall.
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
: Baby Jace provides incremental advantage and top deck manipulation for free after a small investment. His ability to flashback spells makes him one of the best creatures in the format.
Ponder and Brainstorm: Neither of these are technically card advantage, but they allow us to dig deep and set up combos early. They are quite simply the best cantrips in the format.
Skullclamp: On its own clamp can convert excess dorks and combo pieces (ex. Narcomoeba) into more cards, which can be very useful. However, when paired with Bloodghast it forms an incredibly powerful and mana efficient draw engine that allows us to generate insurmountable card advantage in control or stax heavy pods and power our combos through heavy disruption. Testing has suggested that (assuming you have the means to assemble the engine early) you will draw approximately 4-6 cards by turn 3, then an additional 2-4 cards every turn after that for between 1-2 colorless mana a turn.
4) INTERACTION AND CONTROL ELEMENTS:
SBT is one of the fastest decks in the whole format, and thus isn't planning to interact with its opponents too much. This means that the deck's interaction suite needs to be built around stopping its opponents from interacting with it moreso than to interact with them. Keeping that in mind, most of the interaction in this deck will come in the form of the cheapest counterspells in the format.
Daze
Flusterstorm
Force of Will
Mental Misstep
Pact of Negation
Spell Pierce
Swan Song
Let's give the cards that don't seem to follow this pattern a closer look:
Abrupt Decay - While Abrupt Decay does cost 2 Mana, it's uncounterable and hits basically anything we need it to hit. Guaranteed removal against the centerpieces of most decks makes this the best removal spell in cEDH.
Chain of Vapor - The cheapest Instant-speed bounce spell in the game, can have some extra utility by targeting our own Mana Crypt or Carpet of Flowers
Nature's Claim - The cheapest artifact and enchantment removal spell - an absolute must in a format with cards like Mana Crypt and Necropotence.
Gilded Drake- Steals problematic creatures (i.e Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite) and shuts down commander centric builds (i.e The Gitrog Monster). Worst case scenario we exchange it for a dork, which is almost always useful in this build.
5) REANIMATION AND RECURSION These cards provide us with many different paths to victory. They also serve as inevitability and resilience for our combos. This package is fairly large despite only having a few targets because they essentially provide counterspell protection to all three of our win conditions. They also allow us to steal opposing creatures that find thier way into the graveyard.
Reanimate: The gold standard
Apprentice Necromancer: While somewhat slow, this hapless necromancer helps all three combos and is essential to several lines. He also serves an essential role in our nooze labman finisher. He is simply one of the best cards in the deck. Either our opponents find an answer to this guy or they lose the next turn. He is also completely expendable.
Dread Return: The lynchpin of this deck. Also a wonderful Entomb target.
Necromancy: Reanimates then sacrafices Hulk. Also very useful, if expensive reanimation spell that effectively counters opponents reanimation shenanighans.
Shallow Grave: We almost always have control over the top creature in our library and haste is an essential keyword to all our combos.
Noxious Revival: Useful in all facets of the game.
Eternal Witness: A combo piece that also has a powerful standalone effect.
6) FAST MANA SOURCES: Mana Crypt; Sol Ring; Mox Diamond; Chrome Mox; Dark Ritual; Lotus Petal. These are simply the best at what they do. Not including these cards in a fast combo deck if you can afford them is a sin. They facilitate so many turn 1-2 wins its not even funny.