Throw in some Temporal Trespass for the lore as well, the once you hit that 11, sac, and take another turn. ! It could be fun. I have a couple Living Lore decks, and there are a million things you can do with the beast. Good on ya for making a deck with him. +1

Temporal Trespass is better for Red and Blue. Without Temur Battle Rage or Howl of the Horde you can't land hits to the player any better than a Treasure Cruise or get enough turns to make up for sacrificing your Living Lore.

Right now Treasure Cruise and Taigams Strike kills in two hits. Replace it with Temporal Trespass and the only difference is the ability to quickly discard your fuel card is extended by three mana, possibly three turns. And one draw turn is two less cards gained than three from Treasure Cruise.

Most importantly, you exile the card after use. A single Treasure Cruise however, can be reused. And I don't have room for both, not with Necromantic Summons also.

Thanks for the compliment though.

Oh snaps, I had no idea you were trying to make this competitive in any way. mb. Yeah you're right then, the tresspass is wayyy better off in UR or Jeskai. I hear ya. Well good luck.! It looks fun.

Yeah, I can only find games at FNM right now so everything needs to be competitive, eventually anyways. I started bringing a 'fun' deck last friday for when it's obvious my deck isn't doing well. Probably third or fourth match is when I could switch it out. But Living Lore is in an odd position since it is always a 'fun' deck. So maybe I should bring a Blue/Black and a Blue/Red Living Lore deck? :p

Hahaha, they wouldn't know what to do. I love the lore man, and im glad you're bringing it a little closer to competitive, it's fuckin' sweet.

on a sidenote, have you thought of bringing in a Rogue's Passage in case you don't have a taigam's in hand? Maybe if you find that people are bringing in millions of cool creatures at your lgs, pop in a Clone Legion (then again I think your reasoning for not using the trespass is fully applicable for this card as well, and maybe it's better off in a Narset/lore deck idk haha)for the ol' Living Lore. And if you do get that UR version, don't forget about ol Alesha. She's a bomb. Anyhow. awesome deck.

I will consider using Rogue's Passage if Mage-Ring Network or Mortuary Mire prove unecessary or too disruptive to my mana.

Still saving up for Bloodstained Mire and Smoldering Marsh to use Grixis at FNM. Maybe in a couple more months. Too slow and unreliable draws otherwise.

Living Lore Lifesteal is my alternative. Black and Red Rakdos with a summoned instead of cast Living Lore. The lack of Blue mana makes it more vulnerable to removal and control though. It relies on haste, resurrection, cloning, and copying to play through it. Not my favourite strategy.

Modified the Living Lore deck after FNM. Was a very fun deck to play. Nobody uses it but me, and it did a good job of keeping me in the game. A bunch of opponents also had lifelink though so my big hits didn't win much. Speed is still my biggest opponent. The new additions should help with that. As always with big hitters, many losses that were a turn or counterspell away from victory. Another thing adding a few creatures should help solve.

So both Mortuary Mire and Mage-Ring Network are looking unecessary. Necromantic Summons and Polluted Delta are more than enough. Added Rogue's Passage as a backup to Taigams Strike. Will try without Dark Deal next week since Treasure Cruise is mostly what currently benefits and Taigam's Scheming has proven very capable. Replaced it with Dark Petition.

Added some unblockable cheap and fast creatures and Deadly Wanderings to make sure even without mana for Butcher's Glee I can still gain life. Changed up my sideboard and maybe I'll remember to bring it this time.

Why did I add Dark Petition?

Once cast for five mana you can get the game moving. Add one blue to cast Living Lore that same turn, use Dark Petition as fuel. Sacrifice to recast it next turn. Add two colourless to cast Necromantic Summons, revive Living Lore with +2/+2, use Necromantic Summons as fuel to attack as a 7/7 next turn. Sacrifice after each attack to essentially untap and imitate vigilance, as well as removing any negative effects or enchantments.

This is why adding Deadly Wanderings is important. It uses no mana to give you nine life each turn with its +2/+0 lifelink.

I think Living Lore is an awesome card to build a deck around! My concern though is the interaction between delve and spell mastery: I playtested your deck a couple of times, and found delve messed with spell mastery triggers because of the exiled graveyard. Is that an issue when you play?

Nope. I usually am casting plenty of spells. Never even had to think about it. Telepath may be an issue for that though.

Try replacing Treasure Cruise with Dig Through Time and see if that doesn't save your spell mastery in a more effective way than just using two mana for Treasure Cruise. Though, that has merit as well in a Blue and Black mana base.

Modified my Double Dealing - Turn 5 Mill deck, with a large influence taken from this deck. So if you like this deck you might like that one.

Now that I have Dark Petition in my mainboard, I can add Gravepurge and Infinite Obliteration to my sideboard.

Played again. This time with the new additions of unblockable creatures. Won games on those creatures alone thanks to Dark Petition and Butcher's Glee. Particularly strong with Elusive Spellfist. Deadly Wanderings also combos well with Stubborn Denial.

Used a sideboard that was a miniature version of my Double Dealing deck.

Won two matches, tied, lost two matches.

Very close, and very long games. Also extremely fun to play, both as a Lifegain Damage deck, or a Mill deck. Both powerful and both unblockable.

Needs more land possibly. Could've just been a bad draw, but 23 or 24 lands might be needed. First match had no mana, so added two and won. Hard to tell these things playing only FNM though.