Decided to remove Increasing Vengeance --turned out to be too slow, and the ability to cast it with a powerful-enough spell was usually limited. I'm torn between the following changes:

1. Add 4 Chronic Flooding . Free milling if I get it early enough (hence having four), though obv. it's not guaranteed.
2. Add 4 Contaminated Ground . Sounds weird, but this could work as an interesting control: early game, it screws up dual lands (esp. non-black ones), thereby slowing down the opponent. Late game, it screws up special lands like Gavony Township , Kessig Wolf Run Vault of the Archangel and Nephalia Drownyard , denying them really powerful resources. Unfortunately, the 2 damage won't do much for me, except working in tandem with Breaking / Entering a powerful creature from their graveyard.
3. Add 3 Grisly Spectacle : One more mana than Murder , for the ability to mill.
4. Add 3/4 Rolling Temblor mainboard, figure out what to replace SB.

Thoughts?

this deck is awesome, but for standard, atm you would need to remove all basic land for this to be effective,... not to mention the guild gates, they are sooooo bad. also you should look into replacing some cards for lower cost equivalent, like Pilfered Plans for Thought Scour . you could also look into getting some Dissipate vs reanimator.

also cards like Mind Grind are really mana intensive, you need to think of a more effective replacement, Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker I think is an excellent replacement. swing every time you get the chance b4 your opponent tries removal and kabam half of his deck is gone before he can figure out what to do.

Thanks feyn_do_alduin! You're spot on: I've had a hard time deciding between Thought Scour , Pilfered Plans , Inspiration , and Think Twice , switching full sets of each in and out on several occasions. Originally I was outraged (yes, outraged!) that Pilfered Plans was so much more expensive than Thought Scour , AND a sorcery, for an extra card. But I'm not a fan of "Draw one" cards because they don't generate card advantage: you're merely cycling one card for another. The mill 2 is nice (so, basically you're getting a "I wave my hand and mill 2"), but as a control deck, I need to be ahead of my opponent in draws.

After thinking more about this, I'll go for Think Twice : it's instant, cheap (don't have dead card in hand until turn 4, like Inspiration ), and after using flashback, generates the desired card advantage. I lose out on the milling, but I'll take an extra card over mill 2 any day.

Yes, I hear you about the lands: the idea for this deck is to make something that could be moderately playable (not tournament material, clearly) for under $20-$25. That's where Slaughter Games and Reap Intellect come in: I can deny the big, T1 cards to my opponent (regardless of what he/she is playing), leveling the playing field (maybe I should call this "The Marxist Disassembler").

Obv. with shocklands and dual lands, that would be impossible. At one point, I had Chromatic Lantern and Gem of Becoming , but I'm always looking for ways to bypass the unfortunate (real-life) constraints.

Thanks again =)

About the Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker , I explained why I have him sideboarded. Does that strike you as sound reasoning?

How is Think Twice bad with Devastation Tide ? You can draw during their turn, reveal Devastation Tide and cast it for its miracle cost despite it being a sorcery. I like the idea of Reap Intellect -ing their library though. It used to be a theme of a deck I had.

Woa, I didn't realize that Miracle overrode the Sorcery restriction. My mind's been blown 8). Thanks a lot ShimmerVoid!

I'll play test a bit: Think Twice + Devastation Tide on their turn is amazing (cheaper than overloaded Cyclonic Rift !). That still leaves all the other 'problem' cards that Index let's me move around, but let's see how play testing goes.

In the meantime, I've replaced Think Twice with a Desolate Lighthouse , which works beautifully with Index .

What do you think?

A one-of Desolate Lighthouse should be fine but I like the idea of having a set of Think Twice s for the card advantage, Index is alright if you are running a lot of miracles but it's mediocre otherwise as you will be losing a card at the expense of arranging your library.

If you want to dig deeper, I would consider playing Forbidden Alchemy + Snapcaster Mage . They work really well together. Either that or Mystic Retrieval . :)

Agreed, card advantage is awesome =). I'll report back after several tests!

Snapcaster Mage is wayyy beyond budget unfortunately 8-P.

Oh, and thanks for the +1!

I think dropping a Magmaquake would be your best option to bring your deck count down to 60. it's very mana intensive, which is REALLY bad for control decks.

Hmm, I'm not sure if that applies to this deck though: I don't have any counters, so it doesn't matter if it's mana intensive (i.e., I should have the mana available) and Magmaquake is instant, hits planeswalkers and (almost) the entire board. It's been quite good vs. blitz decks, since they'll usually play hasted creatures in the pre-combat mainphase (or Lightning Mauler , with or without Burning-Tree Emissary cheese), and a 4 CMC MQ can take all of that down (for only one more mana than Rolling Temblor , which is a sorcery).

On the other hand, it's not as reliable taking down planeswalkers, so, I might take it out for some Dreadbore . I'll think more about this, and test as well, but I feel the deck needs some form of boardwiping/blitz control.

Thanks for the suggestion :)

I am so going to buy this and go to fnm with it.Love it +1

Hahaha, thanks for the support man, but... before you spend any money on it, I'll come clean: I don't know if it's FNM ready. I think the main issues right now is that it's too slow (unless you draw the right cards early), and that it can get overwhelmed by powerful creatures (since it doesn't have anything like Terminus or Supreme Verdict ).

But I keep testing and hoping for an eureka moment, where everything will fall into place.

Well no problem i was thinking of splashing in some white for Terminus and meaby main deck some creatures like Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker with something like Unburial Rites to be able to back them up. But thanks for the heads up dude :)

Well, if you do, let me know how it goes--I've resisted splashing a fourth colour, since mana base would be ridiculous (since we're not using fast dual lands). Though Transguild Promenade and/or Chromatic Lantern might be what the doctor ordered.

Thanks again =)

HellCloud: I'm an idiot (I wiped the comments). Didn't mean to cut our conversation; far from it.

Keep me posted!

Absolutly no problem dude i dont mind one little bit :). If i have any ideas on making this deck better after i get my copy of the cards i just ordered i will let you know :)

I've been testing this online (I wanted to see how playable it was before putting any money in it), and so far, one "challenge" has been that very few people want to play a second game (even if they win the first). My guess is that, either games are too drawn out (given lots of removal + win cons being slow) or because of Slaughter Games (I've seen their entire deck after one, so, I know what to target right off the bat).

Or both?

Well i realy dont mind because most of my friends that play casual magic play decks like white weeny and other anoying tipes of decks.Plus that for FNM im not going to be taking it every single time since i want to play with my B/U/G Zombies aggro before inistrad rotates out and i cant use half of my deck :p

By the way what do you think about sidedecking or even maindecking some Mind Grind s to help you mill them out a bit faster in the late game ?

I used to have Mind Grind mainboard, and I would sideboard it with Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker . Eventually I took it out for being too slow, but maybe it can find it's way back in again.

I understand it's part of the point of this deck, but it's really hard to make Reap Intellect work which is why it was so heavily shunned and Dimir fans were enraged when it was spoiled. By the time you cast it for any non-zero number, your opponent should really only have expensive cards left which they won't mind losing because it's not the core of their deck and they're probably running just the one or 2 copies of it anyway.

For the most part I can see this sort of deck possibly being plausible in Modern where cards like Surgical Extraction and Extirpate are actually cheap enough to target a card of substance (and cards like Cranial Extraction and Memoricide exist as well), but in Standard the only other anti-meta card I could see going along with the Slaughter Games is Nevermore .

Thanks Formortiis, makes sense (I actually don't follow fan reactions to spoilers, so, I wasn't aware; and it's useful to know).

At one point, I had 4 Cyclonic Rift , which, O/L at EOT, went pretty well with Reap Intellect . Still, not easy to pull off by any means, maybe I should add 2 more to make the combo more likely...

I don't want to ditch Reap Intellect just yet =P

Well i thing i should congratulate you since i just saw the newest instalment of Bang for your Buck and i just noticed that youre deck is in line for a budget remake by ducttapedeckbox and Darkness1835, so congratulations! And i hope you like what they do with you're deck :)