A Four Horsemen variant of Winds-Chains. Only cards from first 4 expansions are allowed, except for dual and basic lands. Tournament 15 rules. Note that Maze of Ith, Diamond Valley, Strip Mine, The Abyss, and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale are all restricted to 1 copy.
This deck is a defensive version of what would normally be a very fast RB burn-aggro deck. It has to be defensive to buy time for the primary combo to work out: The Rack + Chains of Mephistopheles + Winds of Change. Winds forces the discard of everyone's hands, Chains prevents everyone from refilling their hand (instead forcing them to mill), and the Rack pings the opponent for their empty hand. The 4HM format preserves all the combo pieces while banning the cards that make it challenging to pull off (e.g., Disenchant, Shatter, and Counterspell).
The deck is rounded out with defensive creatures and spells to protect the player until the combo is set up. Brass Man and Dancing Scimitar create walls that are difficult for usual 4HM creatures to get thru. Cuombajj Witches protect against weenie and Ball Lightning. Burn via Chain Lightning helps speed things along. Atogs can be incredibly deadly late game. This deck kills via damage, not milling (see discussion below).
Spice picks include Knowledge Vault to provide card draw without actually drawing which Chains prevents (note KV says "put into hand", just like Land Tax), and Wand of Ith which forces the opponent to discard or pay life. Those are fun additions that are little seen in any format, and strongly support the main combo in longer games.
This deck will be challenged by a deck running artifact removal like Divine Offering, Crumble, or Scavenger Folk. The Rack is the weak link in the combo, since 4HM format has no enchantment removal and few counterspells, but still has artifact removal. Also, RB has no way to return artifacts from your graveyard, so an opponent who deals with The Rack defeats the combo. When facing that, put in the Guardian Beasts, and make sure to play them as early as possible.
The sideboard can support with creature-hate (Falling Star, The Abyss, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale) to stop RG aggro and weenie; Artifact Blast to stop Robots, especially Triskelion, or Mirror Universe; anti-blue (Active Volcano and Magnetic Mountain) to stop mono-blue/blue flyers decks; and extra burn (Pyrotechnics) as needed. As mentioned, Guardian Beast should be used to protect The Racks against artifact destruction, or as additional high-toughness creatures as needed.
Maybeboard contains cards I considered and ultimately dropped from the deck design. The most notable are Millstone, Storm World, and Underworld Dreams. Millstone is simply too slow for a deck trying to kill with damage. Storm World is spicy, but its damage is symmetrical which is challenging in a deck that forces both players to discard. Underworld Dreams is always a good card, especially in 4HM with no enchantment removal, but it does not support the basic combo of the deck and requires BBB which is challenging to achieve.
