Actually I overlooked what happens when you have more than one Fraying Sanity. I was really only concerned about what happens when you attack with the big fish thing and overlooked what Gatherer had to say about it.

"The value of X is determined only as Fraying Sanitys triggered ability resolves. For example, if three Fraying Sanity Auras are attached to one player who had four cards put into his or her graveyard this turn, X will be four for the first ability to resolve, eight for the second, and sixteen for the third."

This means that it definitely becomes a relevant backup plan because having even just two on one person and then hitting them with Compelling Argument means they mill 5, then 5 more, then 10 more. That's pretty much an Ulamog trigger.

Still not sure I want to go up to 4, but I did drop one land and go up to 4 Arguments. I find it to be pretty flexible with cycling and self mill to dig for what you need.

This revelation about how those stack might shift the way I build the sideboard yet again and go for a more traditional mill strategy that involves either cheap spells or cheap creatures with mill effects. I'd probably only replace the Abrade and Sweltering Suns, but then the whole thing would be blue in the sideboard. I suppose I could pull out the red dig cards and go that way.

The gears keep churning.

My first win with mine was off 2 FS and 2 CA (40 mill). Having a playset doesn't mean you expect to play four in a game, it just increases the odds of you having one at the right time.

Don't get rid of Abrade; it's got so much utility it should be there.

I'd argue to take the Gate to the Afterlife of the mainboard. It is just too slow and you almost never fulfil "the get back Gift" condition as there are usually not enough creatures in your graveyard. By the time you are able to fulfil the condition, you can just cast Gift from your hand. At least this was my experience.

Another tactical question to people who are playing this deck - how do you tend to use Compelling Argument, mill yourself or an opponent? I find myself "chickening" from time to time to use it on myself with a fear to mill the combo pieces I need?

For me, it's the cycling plus back-up mill, because I don't use Gate. I do use Abandoned Sarcophagus for card advantage as well, but I'm still testing Sanity Swallower so I may go in a different direction.

I forgot to say, Committing a Carnage Tyrant and then casting Compelling Argument is a great way to troll Dino decks.

So Gate to the Afterlife has come up a lot and my final thoughts on it after a lot of games is that I still like to have one around. It's true that getting it online for it's second ability is pretty slow, but not impossible. I'd say maybe 5% of games at best. So why keep it? Well, the fact that it has the second ability at all got it on the list, but the first ability hasn't come up in conversation and it turns out that is actually not a bad effect to have on the field. In games where I don't have the optimal opening hand with all of the things (1 Swallower, 1 Reunion, 1 Sanity, 1 Madcap, 3 land) I do end up with a few of the Bloodwater Entity on the battlefield because they are a decent threat in the air. Whether you hit Gate with Madcap or just cast it that first ability lets you loot when they die. That part actually has been pretty relevant as it usually gets to loot 3-5 cards a game when I've had it out early. Again, not incredible, but not completely dead.

As I type this, I've had another epiphany.

Mirage Mirror.

This actually is way more flexible for the same cmc, I literally just had this major "ah ha!" moment when going through this thought line in my head: "I already dug through all of the artifacts in Standard right now and Gate was the only one that had flexible uses and it literally pulls out the main win condition if you stall out and can't find it oh my god I completely overlooked that stupid mirror."

Let me list some things that it can do here in the order they flew by just now:

• Turn into a second copy of Fraying Sanity before each end step that your opponent dumps a bunch of cards.
• Turn into a second copy of Bloodwater Entity or Enigma Drake to attack for a bunch more damage.
• Turn into a second copy of something juicy from your opponent's board and use it against them.
• How funny would it be if you were playing in a Gift mirror and you use the mirror to copy their Gift?

But does it work on Sanity like that? It probably doesn't because it isn't attached to the opponent. Ok, scratch that first one off, but the other things are right. Or does it? If it's a copy does it share that property as well? Or is it unattached from either player and do nothing? I'm going to look into that.

Ok, so pending the results of that little tangent I think the Mirror is a solid replacement for the Gate. So much so I may consider actually having two? Dunno.

Compelling Argument I use differently depending on what I have/don't have. I'd definitely say that the best early game digging tools are Cathartic Reunion (more-so when you already have the fish in your hand to discard) and Strategic Planning (more-so when you have everything but the fish). If all I have are Arguments then I'd absolutely just use the cycling. This means I probably won't get set up fast enough to use it as a win condition but it'll still help me get there faster. If I have a Madcap Experiment and Fraying Sanity in hand but only Argument and no Reunion or Planning then I'd 100% use it to mill myself and hope that a fish drops in there, but I'd be ok with a Gearhulk and could work with a Drake or Entity as well. I'm torn when I don't have a Sanity yet, but I'd still probably do it if that was all I had. A deep Scry of 3 or more would be sweet to help in those situations but I'm unaware of a good option for that, especially since it would have to be for one mana to do on your first turn to really be worth it and not effect the tempo of the deck.

Abandoned Sarcophagus is a neat card, but I don't like it in this build without a lot more cycling. The huge problem with it for me is that any time I cast Fateful Showdown to cycle my hand, Compelling Argument myself to dig for a fish, or dump cards to Combustible Gearhulk anything with cycling would just be exiled instead of going to the graveyard. If I ran it here I'd have to remove all of those things to get the value out of it. That said, it is very "build-aroundable" and I did that with a mono-blue Sphinx Tribal deck of all things that is actually really sweet. I play it on MTGO because it was cheap as hell (less than 3TIX for the whole thing). It's great because you pretty much always cycle cards before playing them so you always have a nice full hand. It also can be problematic for your opponent because they have to keep track of what is in your graveyard because pretty much everything in there is basically also in your hand. Again, like the card a lot, but can't fit it in here the way I'm set up. (Not that you were suggesting I add it, I just wanted to get that out in case it ever came up)

Commit / Memory is a fun card. I like where you are going with it against big Dinosaurs, though sometimes just Argument on it's own to mill them away still works, especially if you have Sanity on them as well you are bound to drop things they wanted to play. Before rotation I had a few builds that were similar in design to this but without the Madcap/Artifact condition. They used a lot of these cards to cycle through the deck very quickly and get out as many copies of Fevered Visions as possible. I could have all four of them out in 8 or 9 turns, it was hilarious. The Memory part of that card was in there to keep myself from getting decked because with sooooo much draw and recycling entire hands it was impossible not to run out of cards in 11 or 12 turns. Like literally impossible. Shuffling it all back in and starting over was critical, plus any Wheel of Fortune effect that makes your opponent draw a new hand is always funny. Sometimes it helps them more than it hurts them, but that look on their face when you cast it, the eye roll in particular, makes it worth it.

I think that addresses everything, thank you Soulus101, ShpoK, and only_the_finest for all the continued inquiries and suggestions. Building and sharing is probably the most rewarding part of this game. It's truly exciting when other people play your decks or run similar combos and come back to talk about it. Much appreciation, thanks again :)

Oh, on a side note: I'm making custom Zombie tokens just for this deck and they are pretty funny. I'll share them once I have them all finished :)

Mirage Mirror does not work with Enchantments and curses for precisely the reason you suspect. Possible sideboard, but not mainboard worthy.

It's weird, there are actually many decks posted and discussed on several different sites that specifically use Mirror with Sanity as a main component of the build, it was used in conjunction with Startled Awake  ^Flip. Not seeing pushback in their comments about whether or not it actually works that way.

However, I can't seem to find an actual ruling that supports it. I can see both sides, but I would think that the internet would have hosed the combo if it broke an easily identified rule. I'll keep looking to be sure.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=430854

Specifically:

If Mirage Mirror becomes a copy of an Aura, its put into its owners graveyard unless its somehow attached to an appropriate object or player already. If it becomes a copy of an Equipment and is attached to a creature, itll become unattached when it becomes a non-Equipment artifact again.

And there it is, thanks. See that's exactly why I thought it didn't work that way but now I'm really surprised to see so many builds trying to do it "illegally". Alert the authorities!

:)

So I probably will put Gate back in for now and continue the search for something "better". I dunno, maybe I'll just put in a third Gearhulk and call it a day.

It's certainly not a tier deck, but I don't think it's going to get much better before another set releases. Good job on the brew. I certainly wouldn't have thought of it.

Actually there is one card left that does enjoy all of the drawing... The Locust God. Guy is a beast, but costs so much... I guess $8 isn't that bad, he's come down. That's tempting.

A friend of mine has one and I'm almost certain he's not using it, I could definitely make a case for playing one here as yet another finisher that wouldn't be hard to pull out of the deck.

Hmmm....

So you'd add him as an optional reanimation target if you can't hit the fish?Doesn't seem as effective, but adds to consistency. If you don't get swept you have a fair chance at winning.

Yeah pretty much. Cathartic Reunion creates 3 tokens, Fateful Showdown gets you up to 6 tokens, and you get one every upkeep. I don't know, I guess if I were to use him for sure I'd want to replace Strategic Planning with something that actually says "Draw". It's not a slam dunk, but it's something. Still not ready to commit to more changes but I'll keep him on my radar.

Love the Idea of a The Locust God!!!. How about playing Chart A Course instead of Strategic Planning? It draws two cards for the same mana, and as you've probably didn't attack lets you discard. So In an Ideal scenario make two tokens and get the Fish in the grave :)

I still don't like the Gate :D and plan to try out Primal Amulet  ^Flip. It makes your instants and sorceries cheaper and after transformation forks a spell. Will report back.

The Amulet might not be terrible I suppose, doubling a Compelling Argument for a late game finisher if you need it and then making your other things cheaper is obviously never bad. Everything does cost at least two and everything has at least one colorless that can be reduced so that's a bonus. I pre-ordered a set of Amulets even though I only needed 3 for another deck so I happen to have one extra that I could slot in there and see how it goes.

Chart a Course would be the right draw spell as it actually draws cards instead of just putting one in your hand and still allows you to discard. You still net one card in hand but could dump something already in hand which Planning could not. The God himself has his own built in loot which is handy.

I think I only have maybe one Chart and don't currently have a Locust God so I'll add all of that to the maybeboard so I don't forget, but I do have the Amulet and that would still function with everything else so I'll put that in and see what happens.

In my opinion, the Amulet hurts the all-in plan of the deck.

I suppose it depends. Compared to the Gate, it's just as useful but in a different way and has a nice back up with enhanced milling potential.

The whole reason to have any other artifact besides Gift is to protect you from dying if they are all too deep in your deck when you use Madcap. If you didn't, you would hit Gift 100% of the time, but likely take a lot more damage in the process which could kill you before you turn around and kill them. To cushion yourself you need to add a few more targets just in case and minimize the damage you take. The Gearhulks will trigger when you hit them and either give you three cards or mill three cards which helps in both cases. It may mill a Swallower for you, or just any 3 cards and deal anywhere between 0 (3 lands) to 21 (3 Swallowers and/or Gifts). This can, but won't likely be, lethal. Drawing 3 cards will likely give you ways to keep searching for the combo. Win win.

So that's slightly off all-in but still moves forward if you "miss". 7 seems to be the right number of artifacts to make sure you avoid killing yourself, so the question is do you just run a third Gearhulk, or do you give yourself another "out"? Having 8 or more targets meant missing the primary target way too often, so the last card needs to have some other value.

Gift has mixed performance, usually underwhelming with its activation cost. It's not terrible, but it's definitely the weakest target. Amulet won't immediately change the game either, but it's spell discount means you can cast nearly twice as many spells per turn since most of them cost 2 or 3. Flipping it means you get double duty from your spells, most notably Compelling Argument. By now you should have your Sanity out so getting a double cast of Argument will mill 10 cards and then another 10 at end of turn. If you cast another one that becomes 30. It's not the main strategy of turbo milling with the fish, but its still quite a lot of cards.

For that reason I feel it does help you stabilize and accellerates your ability to finish if you miss your Gift. You probably won't get a second or maybe third chance to hit Gift depending on your life total, so you'll need to ensure you drop lands every turn and get to 7 mana to hard cast it if possible, or make sure one if the other strategies gets online.

The other possibility is that you have to hard cast the Amulet on turn 4 and try to recover and the discount on turn 5 and beyond will help get there. In casual play you may be allowed to Milligan until you get a decent hand, but when you lose a card every time you shuffle and redraw you have to be prepared to take a different path. I believe that all of these paths lead you the same direction even though one may be more scenic than the other.

I hope that explains it, I do think the Amulet will be the best current Standard fit until we see what Rivals of Ixalan has to offer.

I think I'm just going to like 3 Combustible Gearhulks instead of trying to find the best one-of artifact. Amulet does cool things but always seems to come up at the wrong time. It didn't on paper, but in paper the timing has been unfortunate and I got frustrated by it.

I could absolutely get behind a more traditional mill deck that runs 4 copies of Amulet along with a full set of Sanity, Argument, and every other mill spell in the format with Torrential Gearhulk to help seal the deal. That seems completely viable and there should be plenty of support cards out there to make it happen.

Anyway, -1 Amulet, +1 Gearhulk.

Fair enough

Champion of Wits just hit my radar. Works great with or without the Gift and adds another way to put cards into the graveyard while also being on a body. Same CMC as the Bloodwater Entity, but better to hit early on to get things running were as the Entity is great later on to replay Argument if the Swallower gets shut down. I think I want to give them a try for increased consistency. My win rate is fine, but the games that are lost feel like I'm always just a few cards away and this would give me a way to increase the odds.

What did you cut for it?

Just trying from 4 Bloodwater Entities to 2 to make room for a pair. So far, I like them.

Might want to add some more sideboard cards against RDW, as Game 1 looks pretty sketchy against it.