Leveler is one of my favorite creatures of all time because of the interesting combos you can make with him. +1 from me.

HA!

Leveler rose from $1 to $5 overnight thanks to Laboratory Maniac .

Haha, nice.

I find it hilarious that once they start trying to kill the Maniac, you can just Pact of Negation their futile attempts and then order the win trigger on top of the lost trigger. I guess you could also pay it.

You have to pay for Pact of Negation if you want to not lose. The Pact triggers at the beginning of the Upkeep, before your Draw step. That's one of the reasons I have Edge of Autumn and Street Wraith , since they're Instant-speed, no-mana ways to draw a card right after you stick the Tooth and Nail .

I was thinking about building something like this too. The right deck with this combo could be great in modern. I was designing for legacy though. Arcane Denial is a great protector of your creatures at that point

I agree that a couple more counters of some sort would probably be good. Spell Pierce comes to mind, but so does Voidslime since you're in blue/green, and that gives you a bit more utility just in case.

Cryptic Command and Remand could let you both counter a spell and win the game with a card draw. ("Ha! Not only do you not disrupt me, you lose sir.")

Also - why not Gitaxian Probe ? It's not instant speed, but it is free, and can give you valuable intel on what your opponent might have to disrupt your combo if you're ready to go off.

Remand is probably the card I'll add if I go down to 1 copy each of Leveler and Laboratory Maniac . Voidslime and Cryptic Command are too mana-intensive for how tight I want to be able to play this with ramping into the combo.

The one factor holding back Gitaxian Probe is that it's not an instant, but it might be worth experimenting with -2 Forest , -1 Island , -1 Vesuva and +4 Probe.

Because I'm not likely to ever build a physical copy of this deck, I don't know how much more thought I'm going to end up putting towards improving it.

Makes sense. I assumed you had this, or at least most of it. Your collection seems pretty prodigious from what I hear on the show. =p

The color weight problem also makes a lot of sense. You wouldn't have trouble making a lot of mana en masse with this deck, but it'd be all colorless, so a three-color-pip spell would be a little harder, I see what you mean.

Haha, damn. Cloudpost just got banned in Modern. Oh well, I guess I'm glad I didn't actually go out and spend any money on this.

Updated to use the Urzatron instead.

Whoops, I forgot Ponder and Preordain also got banned. They've been replaced by Augury Owl and Coiling Oracle , respectively.

Coiling Oracle 's mana cost is too awkward. Switching to Sylvan Scrying instead.

Augury Owl was also silly. Time for Gitaxian Probe .

Honestly, the playtests are starting to feel faster and more consistent than the original Cloudpost version.

I like your realization of the Laboratory Maniac -Leveler combo.

One thing i'm currently unsure about is whether or not you should really run the entire Urzatron four times though.

You have eight cards that can immediately get you the next card in your library, but nonetheless there are "only" ten cards in your deck that can get you started.Some of my sample hands didn't have any lands that could produce green mana in it.

Maybe you could also cut the last Island for a Forest, since you probably don't to pay for Pact of Negation anyways.

I'd probably exchange an Island and a Forest for two more fetchlands (Verdant Catacombs , if we're playing modern).

I'd also exchange Edge of Autumn or Explore for a playset of Birds of Paradise , especially since you don't currently have any cards for turn one aside from Gitaxian Probe .

Yup, seemed to work.

Quicken to cast Tooth and Nail while they're tapped out at the end of their turn. Built-in cycling to boot.

It looks like you're waiting until your draw for turn to trigger Laboratory Maniac. There is a good chance he will be taken out. I recommend you do something like add a Azami, Lady of Scrolls

Drawing a card for cheap or free is pretty well covered by Edge of Autumn, Street Wraith, Gitaxian Probe, Serum Visions, Explore, and Remand. Azami would slow me down.

Heartbeat of Spring- Needs more accel- Kept hitting 7 rather than the 9 I needed.