Playtest the mana difference. We can't afford to EVER be mana screwed.

I agree with the Drakes. Back ups in case no Glider.

Unfortunately I'm on the road and not in a position to play test the deck. I like the list Landgraf issued (adjusted with the missing wind drake) but going below 16 land worries me that we will be gambling on opening hands a lot. We have a low mana curve, but pretty much nothing happens until we hit 3 mana.

My inclination would be to bump to 16 land with another mountain and go with 1 Uncovered Clues .

For the testers, how is it looking?

Yeah second Wind Drake seems to fill that spot nicely. The bump to 16 lands makes me happier than I was with 15.

Playtests pretty good. Won't know until it meets the opposition of course, but right now we should be doing 18 or more damge pretty consistently by turn 5. I have been mana screwed once and flooded once, but that's just normal luck of the draw.

Our card pool is now complete. We didn't get anything worth playing, although we did pick another Clear a Path which is a little reassuring. From what I gather, our working mainboard is this:

Creatures:
7 Nivix Cyclops
2 Fluxcharger
1 Maze Glider
1 Riot Piker
2 Wind Drake

Instants + Sorceries:
5 Hidden Strings
2 Weapon Surge
1 Dragonshift
1 Punish the Enemy
1 Flesh / Blood
2 Uncovered Clues

Land:
1 Simic Guildgate
2 Forest
6 Island
6 Mountain

Personally if we were to cut an Uncovered Clues for a mana source, I'd want the Gruul Cluestone , not a land. The extra draw can be great during stallouts, as well as reducing the chance of mana screw for Blood. Another switch I'm curious about is Riot Piker vs Murmuring Phantasm . The defender helps us stall out until alpha strike, and the piker becomes a dead draw after Turn 4.
I'm okay with not putting in Beetleform Mage at this point; it's just not the direction our deck went. Beastly card though, and I'm glad we don't have to fight it.
Thoughts on the cluestone or phantasm switch? Also, we have until Friday to get this list done, but I'd like to have it set by the end of today to maximize the amount of playtesting we can do.

I'm in favor of Riot Piker out, Murmuring Phantasm in.

Despite my virulent dislike of cluestones in general I have to agree with your logic. I do believe we need 16 mana sources and I'm fine with going 6/6/2/1 lands + 1 cluestone.

As for the creatures I don't have a problem with the phantasm. I figure either one is just a dead creature anyway and the wall is a much better staller than the piker.

Oh wow! Two Awe for the Guilds in the sideboard! Yes please! Side those in against opponents with boat loads of mono colored creatures.

My issue with Cluestones is that they cost 3 mana, which is where the rest of our deck already sits.

If we have the mana to cast a Cluestone then we're already fine, and if we don't have the mana to cast a Cluestone then the Cluestone isn't going to help us at all.

landgrafb I think it's more that I'd rather draw it as a green source if we needed it (this makes 4 total) and if we draw it late game we can just cycle it which is better than pulling an extra mountain.

I think I like keeping the Riot Piker mainboard and siding it out if it keeps getting stuffed in our matchup. The first strike interacts well with our deck, and 2 damage still gets us towards where we're going. Aggressive decks don't want to be sitting behind defenders (i know, irony).

In my prerelease deck I only had 3 sources of my splash color and I never found myself mana-screwed because of it. I think that wasting a turn casting a cluestone slows us down enough to be disrupted.

Again, could just be me being paranoid, but I hope that our deck can be as fast as possible because there are a lot of bomb cards in the format that could just end us.

I'm just having my doubts that any other deck is going to be either as streamlined or as consistent as ours. My theory about how this draft went: everyone else was fighting early over B/W (it seemed) and later over G/R as they tried to "fix" their weak decks by moving into 3rd (or 4th) colors while we sat pat on izzet and dominated these 2 colors. This is a draft deck that plays like a better-than-decent constructed deck. I really don't think anyone else will beat us outside of a bad luck shuffle here and there and that's just gonna happen sometimes.

That said I am on record for hating cluestones. If we don't run it I'm totally fine with that. Even with it in I've been drawing bomb hands and never getting any green sources and still dealing over 30 damage by turn 6.

Okay, here's how I see it. We have a core for the deck that I doubt anyone would contest. Let's make sure our core looks good before we move along to our semi-decent & mediocre cards.

Core (36-37)

Creature (10)
2x Fluxcharger
1x Maze Glider
7x Nivix Cyclops
Instant (4)
1x Dragonshift
1x Punish the Enemy
2x Weapon Surge
Sorcery (6)
1x Flesh / Blood
5x Hidden Strings
Mana Sources (16-17)
1x Simic Guildgate
15-16x Assorted Land/Cluestones

This list leaves us 3-4 open slots for filler cards, but we have our core combo and defensive pieces, as well as our land base. (I will be adamant about having at least 16 mana sources, preferably 17. One of the only things this deck will lose to is inconsistency. Let's not do anything risky.)

In any case, does anybody object to this list? If everyone likes this core, then we can move along to discussions on filling up the last few slots.

I don't think anybody's gonna dispute that core.

Also, if the core looks good to you, Darkness1835, would you mind moving all of our other cards to the Sideboard/Maybeboard? Have to keep everything nice and organized or my mild OCD will start giving me uncontrollable twitches.

You can pretty much straight delete all the cards that we have exactly zero chance of playing.

Anything with White or Black can gogogo

Agree with all that above, especially cleaning up the decklist ;-)

I like Riot Piker over Murmuring Phantasm because we have 5x Hidden Strings to befuddle our opponents thinking they will have an easy block. That first strike may come in handy.

I think 16 mana sources is what we need, and I favour going all land over the cluestone - my concern is getting to 3 land drops. After that, the deck should start to roll. If our target operating mana was 4+ or we had a bigger splash, I like cluestones for the card draw in the late game.

I'll also say that we'll have skyclops untapped to block enough of the time due to hidden strings, not to mention Fluxcharger s hefty bottom. Phantasm seems to be the king of redundancy for us. Add Riot Piker to main please (and hey, it's another body for an overloaded Weapon Surge to benefit).

Well, see, I predict some contention on Riot Piker . I don't like it.

I'd rarely if ever want to drop it before turn 5.

Can't Drop it turn 2, or it'll suicide. Can't drop it turn 3-4, that's when we're playing meaty creatures. If we drop it turn 5, it only does something turn 6, and that's assuming they don't block it. I feel like we'd be better off using that slot for something else, like another instant/sorcery enabler. After fishbowling a number of games, we tend to win on turn 6-7 anyway, so the Piker doesn't speed us up or help with consistency in regards to instants/sorceries.

And as a reminder, if he's blocked, Cipher won't trigger. All in all, he does so little, is easily avoided, and he decreases our Instant/Sorcery count. I really don't like him.

Maybe we don't play Piker OR Phantasm in favor of an Uncovered Clues ?

I'm good with that plan Darkness1835. Clues isn't the best activator, but once you have 3 cyclopses out it's good enough for a swing and can set up a next-turn alpha if we hit with it. To be honest though usually when I cast it I get 1 hit and 3 misses, or 4 misses, which may be my bad luck or (more likely) statistically accurate for our deck.

Also, I think we've overlooked Runner's Bane . It's great control that we can throw down against a speedy deck before we have our cyclops wall. Fills the 2 slot, doesn't lose it's playability nearly as quickly, and taps down a blocker if we need it.

I say Phantasm so that way we have a meat stick to block Clear a Path