I haven't played Magic in about 3-4 years. I'm just now getting into standard and I'm trying to build a competitive BR deck utilizing cards from Shadows Over Innistrad, Battle for Zendikar, and Oath of the Gatewatch so that I can work with this deck and meld it without having tons of cards drop from Origins and Dragons.
The idea here was inspired by a Mindwrack Demon and a Scourge Wolf I pulled. I'm trying to get stuff into my graveyard to bring delirium into play, and using madness cards to keep discards relevant, draws to keep my hand filled with something to use, and different control oriented cards. Ever After and From Under the Floorboards. I'm not totally convinced any of this is gonna be useful together and because I still have a very broad understanding of the current standard environment, I'm messing around. If this looks like it's gonna get crushed in too many ways then I may just go for a UB deck.
Here's why I picked each card:
3x Insolent Neonate: I needed a one drop creature, but I also was looking for a couple draw cards. This vampire provided me with a discard for a madness cost if I needed it as well, thinking about using 4 of him as a means of focusing on the madness casts. Menace just makes him a threat early game for some easy poke damage.
3x Asylum Visitor: I'm still iffy on this card. I like that I can cast it with madness just in case something happens to it. Losing the 1 life is dangerous in this deck but in playtesting I found I was clearing my hand too fast and needed a good way to draw. I thought about Skeleton Key because it also functioned as an artifact in my graveyard for delirium effects to proc on, but I just felt it was weak in comparison to what I could get damage wise from my visitor.
3x Relentless Dead: This card is just too good with a discard themed deck to not have. I need to check the rules because I believe it has a great synergy with Ever After even though I have no zombies in my deck. I could be making a mistake having it in here though.
3x Scourge Wolf: This is my other delirium creature that I feel is very under appreciated in the format. I have been seeing some price increase so maybe something good will happen with him. My only concern is that delirium only gives him double strike and he sits as a 2/2 for RR which can be an issue cast wise with certain hands.
2x Drana, Liberator of Malakir: I liked the synergy with Scourge Wolf, beefing up a little creature with double strike every attack. This could snowball into some good damage. I suspect people know Drana is already good.
2x Sin Prodder: I needed a way to dish out damage and put some pressure on the enemy player while getting card draw otherwise. I like the idea of revealing some removal spell and having the player make me sac it and take the damage, or be sitting there waiting for me to even the board out and being apprehensive with creature casts.
4x Mindwrack Demon: With my very little playtesting (three games for fun) I've found that a turn four demon tends to have delirium so with Drana, Liberator of Malakir he can swing for 5 almost unquestioned. He is also safe from a Languish which I hear is a very popular removal spell.
4x Lightning Axe: Creature removal and discard. This works nice mid game when I can discard something and play it's madness cost while taking out a beefy creature from the board. Issue is running out of stuff to discard, thus needing some draw engines.
2x Liliana's Indignation: I didn't wanna overload on these but felt it could be a good game winner if I've been whittling an opponent down and I can potentially get 2-6 damage in. I have 20 creatures so there's a good chance I'll discard at least one, and pumping a bunch of mana into this is my idea of having a last chance at a win and felt it would be very rewarding.
2x Corrupted Grafstone: I liked this card because it meant I didn't have to worry about having the right mana for a card like Scourge Wolf and it also gives that little opportunity for an extra card type to work on that delirium.
3x Tormenting Voice: I just added this card in and haven't tested with it yet, but I realized I needed to be drawing cards more so I added it in.
2x Ruinous Path: I probably won't ever awaken cast it, but it's there as an option. Nice part of this card is I can take out a planeswalker from a nasty control deck... On a sidenote: I feel like I'm the only deck not running at least one planeswalker and I may suffer for it...
3x To the Slaughter: I like that this uses delirium to make the enemy player sac a planeswalker even if they have a good amount of creatures.
2x From Under the Floorboards: I needed some lifegain to keep me alive into turn 5 or 6, which is when I saw games starting to come to an end in PT: SOI. The Madness cost on this is cool cause it just gives me a chance lategame to pump up the field with some zombies, but also just to gain some life.
2x Ever After: With all this discard I needed something to be bringing back the power players if they suffer from removal. I'm used to putting a 6 mana creature into my deck for win conditions, but I'm going against my own tradition and playing a 6 mana sorcery to hopefully win more than I used to.
2x Cinder Barrens: For some extra B/R mana but may remove these for more Westvale Abbey
s or Corrupted Grafstones because I really like that card...
1x Drownyard Temple: I liked that I could bring a land into play late game to help pump up a Floorboards.
4x Foreboding Ruins: I needed some way to get some red and black, haha.
1x Westvale Abbey
: Honestly I pulled this game with no knowledge of the standard meta and knew it was insane. I threw it in my deck telling myself it's probably viable no matter what... Well, turns out pretty much everyone is running them and I might add a second one.
Swamps and Mountains because mana.
Thanks for any feedback!
EDIT 1 (5/13/16): So I took in some feedback and added a couple things and removed a couple things. I'm questioning the Westvale Abbey
solely because sometimes it's a pain to keep enough creatures on the field to ever transform it into Ormendahl, Profane Prince but it's nice always having a way to pop a chump blocker on the field, but at the expense of a life which is already hard to keep up right now. The maybeboard currently reflects possible removal, burn, and life gain.
