The deck is now performing nicely. It took a while to fine tune it, but it's there for sure.
Hypnotic Specters are gone. They are too slow, and too vulnerable. It used to be easy to get them out early with the Dark Ritual but in Modern, it's not so.
Mind Rot is gone for Stupor, which was a total no-brainer.
As far as racks, I'm down to 4 The Rack and 4 Shrieking Affliction, which seems to do the trick. Down to two Liliana's Caress, which is plenty. Having two in your opening hand is kind of useless. One is great, but I'd rather be spending my time taking their cards than setting up damage dealers in the opening few hands.
I kept the 3x Phyrexian Obliterator and 1x Nyxathid. I suppose I could go 4 Phyrexian, but I left in the Nyxathid for variety. It hits like a truck in end game.
For my 1 mana single card discard spell I went with Raven's Crime for it's epic late game utility. It's fantastic in an opening hand and even better around turn 9 when you're both top decking and you're trying to keep them on the ground so your racks and creatures can finish them off, this card turns every land into a Raven's Curse, basically. I don't need more than 5 lands out to make this deck work, so everything else I can use as discard fodder.
Jury is still out on the Black Cat's. They are basically just fodder and deterrent. They seem to play well, but I keep thinking maybe more Nyxathid's might be a good idea.
I ran this against a red/white aggro deck and it did really well. Even with my opponent's superior creature generation, my Phyrexian Obliterator and Damnation was enough to keep the baddies off me long enough to engage the sleeper hold. I think I went undefeated, actually.
