I hope your bringing the circus to town again this Friday! This deck looks so much fun to play. I bet it would hold some heavy weight in my meta which is slightly less professionally challenging than yours.

Curious why the 1-ofs for both Obzedat, Ghost Council and Unburial Rites ? Also, how often do you get use out of the Staff of Nin ? I know when it was in my orzhov midrange deck it was just too slow...that and I hardly drew it since there was only 1

The 1-of Obzedat, Ghost Council is there to diversify my threats in game 1. Resolving him against control means the game is pretty much over since now they will have to choose between dealing with the ghost dad or my other creatures since in most cases he can't deal with both parties at the same time. He also gives me the reach and sustain I need in longer games. He's too good to not run mainboard but not versatile enough to cut something else to add to his count, hence the second one in the side against control.

I used to run Unburial Rites at first, then cut them. However, Ertl nagged me to give it another try even as a one-of and so I decided sure I'll give this another shot at an FNM. That card actually won me a game once. It basically gives me an extra one or two copies of whatever I need to win the game. Being able to reanimate Angel of Serenity in a long game will usually finish it for me. In the end, this card earned its spot even as a singleton. Once again, it gives my deck flexibility and an opponent seeing the one copy may even lead him/her to wrongly assume that I am running a Junk Rites list and adjusted his/her play incorrectly.

Staff of Nin , believe it or not, gets drawn more often than it statistically should during games and usually at a pretty good timing too. You play it as you're going into late game to start digging through your deck for answers or finishers. Getting to draw one more card per turn than your opponent is a HUGE advantage. The damage on it is just a minor pressure to add to whatever you're drawing into. I side it out against faster aggro decks since I usually won't have time to play it.

The main difference between your deck and mine is the ramp. Having 5-6 mana by turns 4-5 or even earlier makes a huge difference in what cards you can consider running. That's why Prime Speaker Bant can afford to run more big spells than most decks dare to run, it's because they usually run at least set of mana dorks plus a set of Farseek which gives them a potential for fast mana acceleration.

Another difference is how each of our decks work its way to stabilize. My deck just dumb a few tokens to chump block until I start throwing down bigger stuff and gaining tons of life and then start swinging for win. Your deck basically does the same thing but since you can't gain a stupid amount of life or play ginormous creatures like green can, you focus a bit more on actually removing whatever is threatening your life total and play creatures that your opponents can't trade favorably with.

Since I didn't play last week, I'm pretty pumped to put the Circus back in action this week.

I just wanted to let you know. I tried out Staff of Nin . It does wonders with card advantage. However, it's doesn't fit in my version of GBW. It is over kill with Garruk, Primal Hunter and Griselbrand in main board.

Staff of Nin is clutch. Extremely hard to remove in current standard. Of course the other side of the argument is that some people prefer the investment to pay off up front, hence Griselbrand , Garruk, Primal Hunter , Prime Speaker Zegana , and of course Sphinx's Revelation .

Btw, how has Ground Seal been working for you? It should works better with my deck than Rest in Peace but it still can be removed so I've been running Purify the Grave against graveyard tech. I wish I could run Memory's Journey .

Are you as excited as I am that Putrefy is in Dragon's Maze?

You have no friggin' idea. It's like Christmas all over again!

I have not taken my deck to a FNM yet.... I have been testing and adding my final touches to my Esper deck in preparation for a Star City Games Open tomorrow. Tuesday I am finally going to be able to play this beast and I'll post results. All my play tests thus far have been matches in between rounds, without side boards. I would like to say that I surpassed 200 life vs a human re-animator during the last play test :o

That pic from the lion king just makes me feel so sad now...

Not to be too much of a devil, but now I feel the urge to whisper, "Slaughter Games ... Slaughter Games" over and over again over your shoulder. Not that it's anywhere near reasonable with only two red sources and four ways to fix it.

Obzedat, Ghost Council + Trostani, Selesnya's Voice = fun

Trust me. I've gone down that road before. And with Rhox Faithmender . I was taking 3 Hellrider s to the face but everything was 'kay.

Have you considered Ready // Willing?It is so awesome for Junk, even if you're only casting Ready.
I mean, making your creatures indestructible and untapping all of them is pretty clutch, it's even better when you're swinging into a wall of creatures and get to cast both.In my opinion, it's the best split card in Standard.other than that, I love this deck and I plan on building your Dementor's Kiss and taking it to my FNM.
Props, dude!

Thanks for all the compliments! Yes, I have considered Ready / Willing in my deck. It's just that I've been playing with Dementor's Kiss in the past tournaments so I haven't gotten to work on modifying this list yet. I got a few cards in mind and Ready / Willing is definitely one of them. Let me know how you do with Dementor's Kiss! It did well for me especially in my aggro-heavy meta!

Why does this still say standard?