Kind of hard to cast anything without land ;) why the tablet of the guilds? You only have two multicolored spells and most of the deck being artifacts will cause them to have little effect. I'd replace them with ring of xathrid, and then add phylactery lich and vampire nighthawk for board control with your emphasis on black.

Oh I stopped working on this awhile ago lol.

I'm actually working on a new and improved version with Gatecrash cards. I plan on using Phylactery Lich and Vampire Nighthawk along with some other "life gain" methods of discarding cards with Trading Post etc.

I'd like to use ramp to put out things like Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker , Garruk, Primal Hunter etc as win conditions (or there's always Door to Nothingness as well

To be honest, this deck has almost no answers to control.

Not true. They are only going to counter a few of your spells and it DOES have creatures to deal damage. Not to mention Haunted Plate Mail avoids main phase Terminus and Supreme Verdict

After sideboard I add in the 2 x Chalice of Life  ^Flip and Sin Collector 's to help with taking care of their cards.

Why would you say it has nothing against control? What suggestions would you make to increase "answers" to control?

In regards to your forum post:

I would say that we definitely have the tools in Standard to add a 3rd color, especially seeing as your deck isn't very saturated with symbols. It really depends on what you want to add.

In your situation, I would probably splash some black so I could use Thoughtseize , some kill spells (Hero's Downfall maybe, but the BB would suck), and perhaps Obzedat, Ghost Council .

That being said, I think saying UW is definitely viable, so it's basically down to preference and how much you're willing to spend on land.

On an unrelated note, why are you using Spear of Heliod ? The anthem seems irrelevant and the removal it packs is pretty subpar. Am I missing another function? Curse of the Swine seems like a solid inclusion as well because you rock some rocks, so you could easily neuter some threats with it. Perhaps you could even swap those directly?

Either way, solid build and +1

Thanks for the reply Jp3ngu1nb0y!

The Spear of Heliod would be my FIRST thing to replace (maybe even with a couple of 5 drops if I find something worth putting in). They were a shot at extra removal, pump my artifacts when they're "manimated" to close out the game faster, and they also pump up goat tokens if I don't have a keyrune or a Haunted Plate Mail .

I definitely thought about going Esper (maybe even for Ashiok and some removal like Devour Flesh ) and I like Obzedat, Ghost Council as I can activate the plate mail when his trigger is on the stack.

What would you take out for 2 x Ghost dad, 2x Devour Flesh /Doom Blade and 2-3 Thoughtseize ?

I have no problems spending some money as I am buying a box of Theros when it comes out anyway :)

I would say:

-1 Azorius Charm

-1 Syncopate

-2 Spear of Heliod

-1 Supreme Verdict (put that extra in the sideboard)

-2 Jace, Architect of Thought

For

+2 Obzedat, Ghost Council

+2 Kill Spell of choice

+3 Thoughtseize

SOrry to break it to you, but Trading Post is rotating out of standard

Heliod, God of the Sun Would be a great replacement to his spear (unless you use both).

As for going a third color. I would stick to 2 colors. You could go for some Utility lands or Mutavault s with such an open manabase. I will say playing a 3 color deck is super fun so there's that aspect, but 2 colors are easily super competitive right now and you don't have to worry about burning earths getting in your way too much.

infinitemana it was reprinted in M14, bud.

It was! wow, now I feel like an idiot, +1 anyway

I completely forgot about Ratchet Bomb !!

What are your thoughts on using Codex Shredder as a "cycle engine"?

Codex Shredder is one of the strongest support cards I have ever played with. So it's worth considering (especially with Trading Post ). I gave it a trial run this summer and it blew me away how helpful it was. I don't care if my strategy isn't Mill based, you just dropped an obzedat into your GY and the number of times I used it to create a barrage of Rakdos's Return against my opponent is glorious. Or even just a late game counter spell for 8ish mana isn't a bad use either. It's like a tweaked Snapcaster Mage , turning your Graveyard into a bag of holding for your spells while at the same time disrupting your opponent.

I apparently have very strong feelings for this card.

lol Ggjeed!

Do you think I should up the count then to 2? or more?

I'm currently using 2. I wouldn't do more as it is still a supporting player. 1 is fine, too. Wait until you have played with 1 and if you get the same vibe I got then up it.

I played with it at the pre-release when it first came out and it was a surprising "dig" spell when my Selesnya deck ran out of gas. I thought at the time it would be good to pair it with something that can like Trading Post for MORE recursion, but I never thought about returning thinks like Supreme Verdict or Sphinx's Revelation until recently

+2 burnished harts. they are amazing because they can be brought back with trading post just pulling every land from you deck

Yes but that requires 6 mana in order to get to that point for the first time (3 to cast and then 3 the next turn to activate). I like having mana up for counterspells and removal. IF I were to run a 3 CMC artifact it would be a keyrune as it generates a mana AND allows me to "manimate" it to attack or block