Your list looks really nice. You showed me a list a few days before which I wasn't super-impressed with, but I like your changes a lot. The hardest thing with this deck is getting the right balance of between combo and consistency, creatures and other things, and I think this is the first list that really has that. All of your plans look powerful and efficient.
I still have several comments regarding specific cards (please don't take them personally!!!):
Creatures:
Grim Lavamancer. I do like this guy, but it's a little awkward that you have plenty of cards you don't want to exile or don't get milled by Grenzo. In the very early game, when he's most useful, you might not be able to use him, and later on you don't necessarily want to be sinking mana into him. What about Sparksmith instead? You pay 1 more mana up front (if you have to cast it), but then it's free to use, and should consistently be able to get you 2 damage pings with the potential for more.
Viscera Seer. I think I get what you're trying to do here (scry creatures to bottom and enable Body Snatcher), but it feels a bit forced and underpowered. I goldfished some games against myself and was really unimpressed each time I drew this. There are only a few creatures in the deck you want to sac, and the scry is okay but not necessarily worth a card. I feel like you'd probably be better off just forgetting about Body Snatcher and getting rid of the little sacrifice subtheme. You definitely don't need Body Snatcher for a Doomsday stack with your list.
Chittering Rats. Not a bad card but it feels like filler. Is it really good? If it is, I'd suggest that Phyrexian Rager is probably as good or better, since +1 card for you is going to be more consistent than -1 card for your opponent, who may have 0 cards in hand, plenty to play, or a shuffle. You could play both though.
Ophiomancer. This is a sweet card but it just doesn't seem that great to me, though I could be wrong. I feel like it's mostly just one of the few cards that goes with Viscera Seer though, and I don't know that it's worthwhile overall in this list.
Blazing Specter. I still think this is very weak. It just doesn't put that much pressure on in most situations. I feel like if Blazing Specter plays a role in winning you a game (rather than being irrelevant overall), you were going to win that game anyway, since they probably had nothing. It's so much worse than the other specters.
Necrotic Ooze combo. I know I suggested this a while back but I was never really confident about it. It still seems a bit questionable to me. The problem with the combo is that you really need Buried Alive to set it up, and it takes all 3 cards. You can't get Griselbrand or Dragon too for backup, and in most cases Buried Alive for one of those cards alone would be almost as good. Factor in that Necrotic Ooze and Phyrexian Devourer are pretty bad on their own, and I'm not sold. How many games have you actually won with it? I think I still like Triskelion on its own merits, but I'd probably do away with the rest of the combo.
Workhorse. I know I said Workhorse over Priest of Urabrask, in your list I'm not so sure anymore. It's still pretty close, but I think your deck is more likely to actually want to cast the card. The creature density is high enough that having more bodies may be relevant. I'm not sure you need 2 of these effects at all, but if you do I think I'd favor the Priests now.
Your spells look really tight overall. The iffiest slots are Gamble, Dystopia, and Phyrexian Arena, but they still look fairly solid in this list.
I'm not sold on the hideaway lands, but that's pretty theoretical. I don't feel like you'll activate them very often, and the opportunity cost of citp lands is pretty huge in a fast deck like this. I get that they can scry a few cards to the bottom for Grenzo, but that seems more cute than anything else. Unless you have a shuffle it doesn't change much either. I could well be wrong though, and if they work for you, by all means keep using them. It's a cool interaction.
I'd probably drop Phyrexian Tower along with Body Snatcher. I never liked drawing it.
Although I don't like Body Snatcher (too hard to use), I feel like Doomed Necromancer and Apprentice Necromancer might actually be perfect for your deck. They both are the right size for Grenzo, and are no good with Dragon (like Body Snatcher), but great with Griselbrand, Necrotic Ooze (if you keep it) or assembling a disrupted combo. They're cheap enough that even just using them on value creatures is ok too. I think these are a great fit.
With this many creatures, I think Sword of Feast and Famine probably belongs. The card is just generally great in this format, and is particularly good with Grenzo around. Doubling your activations every turn while giving Grenzo protection sounds pretty awesome. Umezawa's Jitte may be worth considering as well, on the same principles, though this is probably the first deck ever where I think the Sword is actually better.
I think you're obligated to play Duress. Sorry, but those are the rules. Cheap discard is not the place to shave slots, since it's great against...everything. Cabal Therapy also makes you want to play as much of this sort of thing as possible.
This seems like a good list for Dark Ritual. Powering out a insta-kill Doomsday off 3 lands sounds fantastic, and turn 1 Liliana, Phyrexian Arena, or Hypnotic Specter are all super strong plays. I noticed that this deck tends to build up cards in hand sometimes, since it can be better to sink mana into Grenzo instead as long as you can keep him around, so I think you can afford to run this kind of effect.
That's all I've got for now. This is all theory-craft, but I'm digging your list. I'm excited about the Necromancers...please give them a shot (I won't have time to test).
Oloro of all types was a good matchup, but that's no longer relevant.
Lotleth Troll does nothing for this deck, as already noted. I'm not really looking for anything it brings to the table.
I don't like Slaughter Pact. I like cheap removal, and Slaughter Pact only appears to be free. It really costs 3. I don't want to pay 3 for it. I also don't like the non-black clause, though that's less important now than it used to be. Snuff Out would be better, but I still don't want to play that much due to a lack of swamps. It might actually be pretty good still though...maybe I'll try it. Thanks for the idea.
Yisan has been underwhelming in my testing thus far. He's very powerful eventually, but 9 mana (to use him twice) is like a bajillion in this deck, especially considering I need to play Varolz at some point too. The majority of the games in which I've drawn him, my hand has been good enough that I had better things to do than play or activate him. That said, he's the kind of card that is good when you're flooded and just trying to draw gas, and that happens once in a while. I'm going to keep testing him, but he's definitely too slow to be great.
He doesn't interact that well with Sylvan Safekeeper imo. The timing involved for that to be good (Yisan in play, no counters on him, 3 mana up, opponent playing removal that actually hits something relevant out of the blue...we're talking like 1 game in 1000. Sylvan Safekeeper hasn't been any good for me at all ever since he came back in...he's on his way out again.
The Mimeoplasm match was pretty memorable, at least game 1. You tried to go off with Doomsday and lost to the on-board trick when you forgot that he had Executioner's Capsule on the board. In the second one you got kind of manascrewed, against went for Doomsday, and lost to a counterspell. I never used the word "lie," which implies intent. I said something was untrue, which was factually accurate and personally witnessed. I can believe that you made a mistake, or even that you don't remember. That doesn't make what I said insulting.
Also, you edited that earlier post at some point to include Yisan and Kami. When I first read it, it just said Doran and Maelstrom Wanderer (I clearly remember this, because I was thinking about how I'd just seen you lose to something else). I didn't notice your edits sometime later.
As far as I saw, you didn't address a single one of those cuts.
And pretty much every cut has an explanation if you care to read through my conversations with other people.
Are they private conversations? I've read through this thread carefully and I don't see an explanation for why you chose to cut a single one of those cards. Maybe I'm missing something.
You messaged me on Cockatrice, calling me a douchebag, and asked me to edit my posts to be less insulting. I have not "slung profanities," that was all you. I asked you exactly want you want me edit out, and you couldn't tell me. I read through my posts again, as I said earlier, and couldn't find a single thing that I perceive as insulting. The only thing that comes close is the Mimeoplasm issue, which has already been discussed and was a statement of fact. Card discussion is not and has never been personal. I can think you're wrong about your reasoning behind certain cards, and say as much, without being insulting. It's an opinion. I put a lot of time and thought into my posts, and I'm not going to just edit for no reason. Everything I said was either fact or remains my opinion.
Cabal Therapy is not a crap shoot. The best use is as a second discard spell, after you've already seen their hand. It's a lot better than that in this deck though, since there are only so many cards you care about, and in the worst case scenario, you can play it blindly, miss, and still flash it back and win on the turn you go off.
I like this deck and was excited to see it get tuned, but I'm honestly getting sick of discussing it with you (and that's the most insulting thing I've said yet). I explain why a card doesn't belong (even when it should be very obvious, like with Viashino Racketeer), and you just write one short sentence that may or may not be relevant and say "it's final." Then you change them a few days later. If Oblivion Stone and Diabolic Tutor stay in your list long term, it will be out of pride or spite, not because they're good. I'm curious to see what happens.
Not listing a recent loss seems like a major omission when detailing how seldom you lose, but sure. Let's call it an honest mistake and move on.
I write long posts filled with discussion about card choices. There's nothing personal about that. When I questioned your win-loss ratio it was because of a specific discrepancy that I personally saw--again, not personal, nor meant to be insulting. I've reread my posts and I don't think that I've said anything insulting (though you certainly have just now...I'd edit that out, people have been banned for less).
I don't understand why you think it's personal or insulting when I bring up cards we disagree about. That's how debate works. We discuss our points of view until one of us persuades the other. I don't think we can never see eye to eye on these choices, and I disagree with your rebuttal. So I continue to bring up these cards. Why should I stop? This is how you arrive at a better deck. I'm helping you.
I don't mean to make anything personal, but you made a very bold statement about your win-loss ratio with details that I knew absolutely to be untrue. I have no idea how your recent matches have gone (or your previous ones), but I saw you lose 0-2 to The Mimeoplasm less than 12 hours before posting that you've only lost to Doran and Maelstrom Wanderer. Did you forget so quickly? When I know part of your claim to be untrue, I am not predisposed to put much stock in the rest of it. It's nothing personal, but if I don't point out the discrepancy who will?
I know that I only watched a tiny number of your games, and noted so myself. I saw the entirety of the games I'm talking about though, and those are the only ones I'm commenting on. It doesn't change the facts.
You did take most of my suggestions, whether you admit it or not. Since my post, the spells you have cut have been Viashino Racketeer, Night's Whisper, Tainted Pact, Rain of Filth, Infernal Contract, Blazing Specter, Sanity Gnawers, Goblin Chieftain, Cabal Ritual, and Yawgmoth's Will. Except for those last 3, which I didn't mention but agree with, all of those are cards which I specifically pointed out as cards that should be cut and you went "no no no, they're great." Then a couple of days later you quietly cut them without explanation. You can call that "cut for unrelated reasons" if you like, but I call that taking my suggestions. (You also added 4 creatures that I was first to suggest during these changes.)
Tutors are only good when they're good tutors. When they cost 4 mana, or when they shout in big neon letters to your opponent "I'M GOING TO WIN NEXT TURN UNLESS YOU KEEP UP A COUNTERSPELL OR REMOVAL OR ENCHANTMENT REMOVAL OR BOUNCE OR AT LEAST PRETEND THAT YOU HAVE IT," then they are less good (unless your opponents are terrible, I suppose). If your only goal was to goldfish a combo kill asap, then sure, tutors are the way to go. But no decent decks will let you goldfish like that. In a way, my Varolz deck is as much of a combo deck as this (it can't win without finding one of two specific cards), yet I've cut even Grim Tutor, which is quite a good tutor, because competitive French EDH does not let you goldfish. If your combo deck is streamlined enough then combo still absolutely works. If you're giving up turns playing bad tutors, then good decks that can interact will time walk you and win as a result. Simple as that.
Like priests over workhorse because colored mana, and can be cast out of hand basically for free unlike the huge 6 cost of horse.
Already discussed. Not a big deal either way to be honest.
Ripper is unblockable, and 3 cards is massive. Specters blow and are slow/blockable. May even cut the one I have already.
Yes, it's unblockable. 3 cards may or may not be relevant...the one time I saw you use it, it certainly wasn't. I never said that specters were necessarily worth playing, and they may well not be. But it's not about Mindripper vs specter, it's about Mindripper vs anything else you could be playing. Does the card have enough impact every time it's flipped or cast to be worthwhile? I don't think that it does. Unless your opponent has only 2-3 cards in hand, getting hit by it isn't that big a deal.
I like my red mana in on non-basics, so when I do play moons it typically only hits the land I was using for red mana anyways. The deck desperately wants to have red mana on turn two to drop grenzo so I need to keep that count up to make sure I get that consistently. By the time cabals kicks in especially in a non monoblack deck something has gone seriously wrong with my gameplan and I have likely lost anyways. It is not designed to sink lots of mana into grenzo so it does not need ramp, its designed to win by turn 5 or sooner with normal land drops.
It's just an idea. It has pros and cons. I do think it's possible to make Cabal Coffers good and still be able to consistently cast Grenzo on turn 2 though.
Stone answers problems I otherwise don't have an answer for and is very solid it will not be leaving.
I think this is code for "I'm scared of Leyline" again. What exactly are you worried about? Chaos Warp (which I don't think is even necessary, but is fine) handles problem permanents well enough. Stone is slow, expensive, and also messes with your board unless you make it ludicrously slow and expensive. You're not even a control deck. I like the card, but it has no place in French EDH, and even less so in this deck. Don't make blanket statements like "it will not be leaving," that only closes doors in your mind and is how you end up taking things personally.
I disagree about Tuktuk scrapper. Sure it's probably better if you run moggcatcher, but outside of that the 1 mana difference would mean a grenzo flip in this deck. Much better to cast, and manic's lack of "may" is mostly irrelevant. The mandatory trigger from manic is unlikely to hurt grenzo I think, since the only artifact that you care about is chrome mox (solemn simulacrum, workhorse and triskelion don't mind dying, neither does phyrexian devourer).
Again, just an idea. I convinced you to run Moggcatcher though, and that's a good reason to include Moggcatcher. I think Manic Vandal hitting your own stuff is more important than just Chrome Mox, since Defense Grid and Phyrexian Revoker are also very good.
Also Braids can be a game-winning card by herself, much more powerful than a goblin settlers/avalanche riders. I wouldn't classify her as an LD card, but more as a game-winning bomb that can take over if unanswered. She gets better the more creatures you run in grenzo obviously.
I guess so. She's very high-variance though...sometimes she's a bomb, sometimes she's doesn't hinder your opponent at all, and is worse for you. In my experience, it's more often been the latter, but if she's working well then by all means keep her.
What Deaths said about leyline hurting some various combo stacks, including my dread return/body snatcher stacks, applies with scavenging ooze/relic as well, so I guess he has a point. Mad auntie is generally safer in the doomsday stack, but dread return and snatcher are good cards by themselves I find (especially with griselbrand as an additional target) and they're alternatives if auntie is exiled/in hand.
Yeah, I mean, I guess that's valid. It's not like you don't know about a Scavenging Ooze or Relic sitting in play though, so it just means you need to find an answer or pick a different stack. I don't hate Mad Auntie either though. I did hate Goblin Chieftain, but at least regeneration is something. I think that any of these stacks will work equally well 95% of the time though, so I'm more interesting in how useful the cards are outside of a Doomsday stack. Dread Return still seems like the winner so far. I'm undecided on Griselbrand (leaning towards no, but not because of Bribery), but either way I still like Dread Return as long as Necrotic Ooze is in the deck.
Lili is strong, but not over dystopia which keeps on loving, and hits enchants which I otherwise dont have an answer for. Redcap/nekrtull are really too narrow, outrage is subpar in hand but can actually do enough damage to kill a wide range of real threats. He is not the greatest, but he is better then those two because of that.
Lili also keeps on loving...that's what planeswalkers do. Dystopia is terrible enchantment removal...if it's killing a key enchantment, you opponent must have nothing else, and you should win that game anyway. It's a lot like Braids, where there are situations where it's quite good and situations where it's awful, but with Dystopia it's awful even more often. I'm highly skeptical that 3-4 damage from Outrage Shaman deals with more threats than Nekrataal. It may still be playable, don't get me wrong, but it wouldn't be my first choice for removal.
Therapy is meh compared to other options.
What other options? It's a 1 mana (or free) discard spell. That's like the best possible type of card for a straight combo deck, since it makes sure the coast is clear. It also gets better and better as you include more discard spells, and you have a bunch. I think Distress is a bit meh (but still quite possibly worth including). Cabal Therapy is anything but meh, it's very powerful here.
I like how after all those rebuttals to my suggestions, you wound up making most of the changes I suggested You got rid of all the cards that were bothering me, and added a bunch more creatures, exactly like I proposed. It's only a matter of time before Leyline/Helm goes now too. Just saying...
I don't quite believe your near perfect record. I've only seen you play 2 matches with this deck on Cockatrice, one against Mimeoplasm and one again Yisan, and you lost both of them. The loss to the Mimeoplasm was the night before you posted saying you've only lost to Doran and Maelstrom Wanderer. You've made tons of big changes since posting your list, indicated clearly that the starting point wasn't especially tuned. There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't believe such a list was winning every match against good players and top decks, even with lots of luck. We may get to such a list, but we're not quite there yet.
I still think Doomsday was quite suspect in the previous list (actually, in 2 of the games I saw you lose, you lost to a single piece of creature or enchantment removal after casting Doomsday). However, the innovation for the 5 mana same turn kill with Doomsday increases the card's strength incredibly. I'd still not play Doomsday unless I could win that turn with it, but now that's definitely worth doing.
I'm not sure what the best stack is--I think I like Workhorse over Priest of Gix/Priest of Urabrask, since you'd never want to cast any of them but Workhorse is a much better random flip off of Grenzo. You said Priest of Gix is much better than Workhorse outside of the combo...I don't think that's true at all. Playing Workhorse and Priest of Gix together seems okay though. I'm not a huge fan of Mad Auntie but I guess it's ok. I like spastika's Dread Return or Body Snatcher stacks better, at least as long as you're playing Necrotic Ooze. Devil's Play and Spikeshot Elder both seem fine; I'm not really sure which is better.
In all your rationale for various combos, I think you're way too scared of Leyline of the Void/Rest in Peace. They saw some play when Zur was around, but now they never do. I've played easily over 200 games with Varolz (a deck which pretty much can't win with one of those cards in play), and have had to deal with Leyline or RIP literally zero times. They're not good against most decks, and they don't see play. You have frequently justified choices on the basis of "but X fails against Leyline," and that's irrelevant. It should influence any choices you make with this deck.
I don't like most creatures with activated abilities that take mana to use in this deck, since you already have a good mana sink in your general and want to put your mana there. The exception might be Moggcatcher, since fetching Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Siege-Gang Commander straight into play seems very powerful. It can also get removal in the form of Outrage Shaman, Murderous Redcap, or Stingscourger, and potentially land destruction (Goblin Settler) or artifact destruction (if you replace Manic Vandal with Tuktuk Scrapper, which also won't randomly kill your own artifacts sometimes when flipped off Grenzo). Just a thought.
I don't agree that the deck functions fine on 3 land. While you can sometimes win there with one of your combos, this deck comes with a built-in mana sink, and scales very well with increased land drops. I watched spastika win a game the other night where he basically did nothing but play lands and activate Grenzo, and he won that game. I also saw you get stuck on 3 lands in 3 separate games, each time complaining about how much you needed to draw more land. I'm not making this up. I think I like Solemn Simulacrum, Soldevi Adnate, and Palladium Myr in this deck, as extra accel that works with Grenzo, and I'd think about fitting in a couple more land too.
Other comments going down your list... Outrage Shaman is ok but I think Murderous Redcap/Nekrataal is probably better. 5 mana is just gross if you have to cast it, and it's not necessarily going to kill stuff any better than the other options, which are more playable and have more utility.
I'd consider Tuktuk Scrapper over Manic Vandal, despite the worse cost, not just for potential goblin synergies but because it's a "may." Opponents don't always have artifacts, and being forced to destroy one of your own off Grenzo sounds really bad.
Is Braids, Cabal Minion really worth it? I think it's very reasonable to leave out the land destruction suite for the reasons you explain. This isn't a deck that attacks an opponent's onboard resources, nor is it particularly filled with things you want to sacrifice. Braids doesn't really complement your plan, and I'm not sure she's good enough on her own to pull her weight. She seems much better if you do play the land destruction.
I don't really get what Master of Cruelties is doing for you. It's a cool card but it doesn't seem very good against anything. You're unlikely to get him through against most decks, and even if you somehow do you won't necessarily be able to finish the job.
I like Workhorse over Priest of Urabrask, as I said. I'd much rather flip a 4/4 that makes 4 mana when I want it than a 2/1 that makes 3 mana which may go to waste. Priest is easier to cast, but a free 2/1 isn't doing much of anything in this deck.
I think you play too many tutors. Cruel Tutor and Diabolic Tutor are particularly awful. Shred Memory doesn't seem to do too much for you. Gamble is quite a gamble, since you're usually going to be holding something you really don't want to discard. Even Dimir Machinations and Beseech the Queen are suspect, since if you tutor up something like Buried Alive or Doomsday, you generally have to pass the turn, and it guarantees that your opponent will play around it if they can. Most decks can. Even if they're not holding an answer, if they behave as if they do you're going to get screwed a certain amount of the time unless you always have discard as well. Despite all the combos I don't think this deck actually needs nearly so many tutors. They tend to be bad in multiples too, and you've got to draw multiples a lot.
Defense Grid is a great addition for this deck. Good job.
You have enough discard and creatures now that Cabal Therapy might be worth playing, even if you're not using it in a Doomsday combo.
I still think that Oblivion Stone has no place in this deck. You have enough sweepers already. I like Dystopia in general, but I don't think it's particularly good here either, since you're really not playing a slow control deck. Against some decks the card does nothing, against others they have so many little elves or tokens that they don't really care. I think you could definitely be playing something higher impact, like Liliana of the Veil, which accomplishes a similar role but with more versatility, precision, and synergy with your plan.
There might be something to be said for cutting back on the worse nonbasic lands (especially since you play Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon), and trying to play more swamps, Cabal Coffers, and Ruination. Your red requirements aren't high, Coffers could be very powerful with Grenzo, and Ruination is just a game-winning card against most decks right now. Even though the Moons do something similar, with so many tutors, it seems worth a try.
Overall the list is looking much stronger than the one you first posted though. Getting better and better. I look forward to seeing it continue to evolve--I think you definitely could have a top tier deck on your hands here.
I see you made some changes. I agree with the direction you're moving (replacing spells with creatures), though I think it needs to go farther and I still like some of the spells you cut (Liliana, Recurring Nightmare, maybe Terminate). I'd much rather cut clunky expensive spells like Oblivion Stone and Diabolic Tutor than these powerful and efficient ones. I don't think Master of Cruelties or Dauthi Mindripper are good enough either. The decision to include Necrotic Ooze and Triskelion without Phyrexian Devourer is a little odd, though I realize Mogg Fanatic also works. It might be too unwieldy a combo, but since you want more creatures anyway I'd at least try it.
I saw you play a game and a half on Cockatrice just now...still looks clunky to me. Powerful, yes, but kind of all over the place. I saw you activate Grenzo 5 times and only hit once, which is about what the math would predict. That's horribly inefficient. You gave your opponent about two virtual time walks on turns where you achieved absolutely nothing.
It's funny that you got the idea from lhf. He also made the last list I thought interesting enough to comment on, for Brago. I tried to get him to post on here since I think he has great ideas, but he said his English isn't good enough.
I still think your discard creatures are junk. You need targeted discard, repeatable or single use random isn't enough. A single random discard from Sanity Gnawers doesn't safely clear the way for anything, and if you have enough time to work someone's hand over with Blazing Specter their draw/deck must have been awful. It's too slow. Brain Maggot and Mesmeric Fiend are great, Entomber Exarch and Mindclaw Shaman are fine. I like both Hypnotic Specter and Shimian Specter over what you're using, and I suspect that Disciple of Phenax may actually make the cut if you're able to add enough creatures to make using Grenzo worthwhile. I'm also interested in Sadistic Hypnotist...it requires a certain density of creatures, but is potentially extremely powerful in this deck.
Doomsday is not as fast or safe as you're describing. It can sometimes be one or the other, but almost never both. It does not "easily steal games turn four or sooner," and requires a real godhand to get it off that quick with any sort of protection. Even then, it's not like you instantly win when you resolve it. In general your opponent is going to have at least 2 draw steps between you seeing their hand and you actually winning, and if they draw or have something as simple as any counterspell, any bounce, enchantment removal, in some cases creature removal, or a huge number of other cards that commonly see play, you just lose. That's not all that safe. It's also costing you more slots, since Rain of Filth and Infernal Contract are both quite sketchy in my opinion, and I'm not sure a properly built Grenzo deck even wants Night's Whisper...sinking that mana into Grenzo is usually going to be better if you have enough creatures. I don't get your Animate Dead, ?, ?, Spikeshot Elder, Worldgorger Dragon stack either, though maybe I'm missing something. Again, I'm not saying Doomsday isn't worth playing, but it requires rigorously testing once things are more tuned. I'm not sold on it.
Viashino Racketeer is bad. It's embarrassingly bad. The card was barely playable in limited, and it does nothing essential for you here. I'd much sooner play Mad Prophet or Rummaging Goblin, and I'm not at all sure those are worth playing either.
I was including those creatures in your win conditions when I counted. You were at 16% to hit before your changes, now you're at 22%. That is nowhere near a "comfy number". You're sinking an average of 10 mana into Grenzo for any creature you get, and few of those creatures are worth more than 4 mana. That's not how you win games unless you're insanely lucky all the time. I think "comfy" would be around 40% to hit, and acceptable would be around 30%.
Yeah, your list isn't really aggro, but several of the (too few) creatures you have are just very weak, as I've been explaining. They don't effectively compliment either a control or a combo plan. While anything's possible, it's highly unrealistic to expect that creature beatdown with your list is going to ever be viable against a competent opponent. You don't need chump blockers, and you shouldn't even be thinking about trying to enable this backup plan unless you're going to put some more creatures behind it.
I know the Ooze combo can be clunky too. I'm not at all sure it's good enough (though I like Triskelion by itself) That said, it's only a little bit more unwieldly than the Helm/Leyline combo, and the pieces have infinitely more synergy with Grenzo and the reanimation you're already playing.
I wouldn't worry about graveyard hate. It's not played that much, can always be played around, and all the discard you should be playing anyway is generally effective. Evergreen's Iname is much more graveyard reliant than this deck, and he hasn't had any problems. Since Grenzo wants you to play a bunch of creatures anyways, playing enough creatures to have a legitimate win through attacking is a better out to rare graveyard hate than yet another combo. The more combos you play, the weaker additional ones get, the more you need to play bad tutors, and the weaker your overall synergies get.
I don't deny that your deck is versatile. I still think it's unfocused. You're heavily focused on combo and playing a lot of inefficient fluff to try to make them consistent. All of your combos are fairly easy to disrupt though. I can't see your control or dorky creature suite being enough to best something like Animar, Marath, or a decent control deck though. Perhaps I'm wrong, but that's just how it looks to me.
I did a little search earlier for cards that I think are at least worth considering in a "big Grenzo" deck that's trying to maximize power from Grenzo activations. I would want at least 30-35 creatures that Grenzo can flip to make this worth considering, but such a deck should be excellent if Grenzo sticks. Such a deck can easily include the Worldgorger Dragon combo. There are plenty of small creatures that definitely make the cut too, I'm just talking about cards with cmc 4 or more that are somewhat inefficient to cast, but potentially backbreaking off of Grenzo.
Those are all the creatures with cmc 4 or more that I think are worth thinking about in a Grenzo deck. Difficulty casting these spells is inversely proportional to their power when flipped off Grenzo, so a list with a critical mass of cards like this would be very explosive provided you can get Grenzo to stick.
I'm a big fan of the innovation that went into this list. I've tinkered on occasion with Worldgorger Dragon shells, usually with Scion of the Ur-Dragon, but always found them lacking. Grenzo is a very powerful card, and you've correctly identified it as a potential win-condition with infinite mana, which I hadn't really clued into.
I haven't seen your deck in action, but I understand that your testing results have been impressive. That said, there are quite a few things about your list that bug me and make me feel there's a lot of tuning that needs to be done still.
The biggest issue is that you need to decide whether this is to be a "Grenzo deck" or not. By that I mean, are you going to play a sufficient quantity of creatures with power 2 or less to make activating Grenzo worth your time and mana? I don't have a clear idea of how many creatures is enough, but I would estimate that if you're playing dorky aggro creatures, you probably need to hit around 50% of the time. If you're playing more powerful creatures to flip, like Pentavus or Minion of the Wastes, something like 33% is probably sufficient. I'm making those numbers up but they sound about right to me.
Your list is only 16% to flip something in off Grenzo. That's horrendous, and basically means that you should be only be activating Grenzo if you have literally nothing else to do with your mana, since the expected value is so low. And yet, you're playing junk like Sanity Gnawers, Blazing Specter, and Viashino Racketeer that I can't imagine you'd play if you weren't hoping to flip them with Grenzo, since they're not powerful cards and I don't see any other reason you'd include them.
So you're playing cards that are only good to flip off Grenzo, in a deck where it's not profitable to activate Grenzo. That's bad. If you're going to play all these spells and so few creatures, just cut all the creatures except the ones that are great by themselves or part of your win, and plan on rarely activating Grenzo until you go off. That would be a bit boring (and probably worse than Scion of the Ur-Dragon, which gives you more options and also tutors Worldgorger Dragon), but I think it would be better for the style of deck you're presenting.
On the other hand...the Worldgorger combo is only, what, like 5 slots? You could play that AND play enough creatures to leverage this intrinsic power of Grenzo (which is very high indeed and definitely wins games). I think an aggro deck with a backdoor combo plan sounds very strong and difficult to deal with (decks strong against aggro tend to be weak to this combo, and vice versa). I also think a deck filled with expensive but powerful 2 or less power creatures and the dragon combo sounds completely awesome, though I'm not sure it would be better than the aggro version. Such a deck could also play the Necrotic Ooze, Triskelion, Phyrexian Devourer combo, since it already has the right kind of infrastructure and the latter two are pretty great with Grenzo anyway. It would probably be weak to decks that can attack your lands or repeatedly kill Grenzo though.
Speaking of win conditions, Rakdos Guildmage is awful here. Sure it wins with infinite mana, but so do plenty of other things. Grenzo is already such a powerful manasink that there are no other situations where you'd want to use Rakdos Guildmage. Siege-Gang Commander is great, and you can also just play Spikeshot Elder and not feel bad about it at all. Those 2 are enough. I'm not a fan of shoehorning in the Leyline of the Void/Helm of Obedience combo...any black deck in the format can play it, but there's a reason why none of the good ones do. It's too clunky, especially when it's getting you to include expensive tutors like Diabolic Tutor. Clunk clunk clunk. It's too slow to beat good decks and has 0 synergy with the rest of your deck.
I'm undecided about Doomsday. The card is certainly powerful, but it's also a little slow and extremely vulnerable to disruption. None of your stacks blow me away with their efficiency and elegance...they all include cards I'd rather not play in this deck and have no protection. I'm not going to say cut it or keep it but it's definitely not a slam dunk in this deck and I don't know how useful it really is. It wins sometimes, but it will also definitely lose you games you could otherwise have won. Tainted Pact is pretty bad in a deck with so many basics, especially one that requires that certain cards still be in your deck for you to be able to win. You simply cannot use it well with 14 Swamps. You can and should switch half of your basics to snow-covered lands, but even then I wouldn't use it here.
So...yeah, I like your deck a lot, but I'd change pretty much everything about it. You can't play combo and control and aggro all at the same time like this. It weakens all of them. I do think that Grenzo has reasonable synergy with Worldgorger Dragon combo and it gives the deck a nice angle, but you either need to focus on that entirely and ignore Grenzo's other applications, or make a strong Grenzo deck first and fit the combo in as an alternate win. You can't split the difference like this, it just makes both plans worse.
Sure, there are situations where any card shines. Needle Specter does indeed like Rancor very much: unfortunately, it's the only creature that really benefits from the power boost. Most of the time Rancor doesn't do much. But test all you like.
Arbor Elf over Tainted Pact...I mean, that's a thing you could do. I can't imagine it's worth it though. At the end of the day, Arbor Elf is just one more mana elf among many. It's nice, to be sure, but there's nothing special about it, and it's not even good when you draw multiple elves. On the other hand, Tainted Pact is insanely good in this deck--I really find it to be better than Demonic Tutor since I can cast it eot or in my combat step and kill by surprise. Yes, I have to make my lands back over backwards to accommodate this one card, which is annoying, but the mana can handle it and the card is SO GOOD that it's still definitely worth it in my mind. Resistance to nonbasic hate isn't a big deal at all I think--these cards are not that commonly played, are not always drawn on time anyway, and can absolutely be played around with most hands. Even though the landbase is soft to them, I've beaten these cards more often than I've lost to them. I don't think adding a few more basics will really help that much against them anyway, they're still going to be great against us no matter what we do.
I've found Oloro combo decks to be a great matchup actually. We're faster than they are, and they tend to have very minimal disruption. Our average hand definitely beats their average hand, and as long as you get a hand with a reasonable clock you should be fine.
I thought about Arbor Elf too. I was too lazy to actually do the math, but I drew 50 sample 6-cards on Cockatrice, imagining that the 7th was Arbor Elf and mulliganing appropriately. I was only able to make Arbor Elf live in 30/50 hands, and it makes mulligan decisions harder (you often have to mull it away because you don't know if it will be live). Also some of the "live" hands hinged on Dryad Arbor, which is both slow and precarious. Also some of those live hands had multiple mana dorks, and when I get those I usually like to mull away all but 1, so the Arbor Elf was sort of dead there too. It's good when it works, but there are lots of very real situations where it won't work, and in those situations it's really really bad. I still can't justify it.
I get what you mean by "instant speed creature protection" now, but the card you're looking for unfortunately does not exist. Nothing like this is good enough. Maybe someday.
Sylvan Safekeeper is okay but remember that it's not as good as it looks. It's actually very weak protection from instant-speed removal, since a savvy opponent will just wait until you try to scavenge and then use their removal. If you save your creatures, you fizzle the scavenge, which is not good at all. It's still a reasonable card but it's by no means indispensable. It's in and out of my deck, and those cards tend to wind up staying out eventually.
Kamenitza, Tainted Strike is bad. As you observe, it's really only good in the circumstance where you're attacking with a big (but not super-big from Buried Alive) Varolz and are unblocked and they have nothing. You win those games perfectly fine without Tainted Strike 99% of the time. Berserk is a whole different story because it grants evasion too, giving it a lot of extra utility. Tainted Strike is very one-dimensional, frequently going to be dead in hand, and usually win-more even when you can cast it.
I'm somewhat ambivalent about Chrome Mox myself, though I still play it. It's not the greatest (I'd rather have a mana elf most of the time), but I do use it much more commonly than you suggest. If it lets me play engine cards or card draw sooner, it's worth it. Most spell-heavy hands can use it effectively, and when you can't, you generally need more spells anyway and are pretty happy mulliganing it. Does that make sense? With most cards, saying that you can always mull it if it's dead doesn't mean much, because those cards make you mull when you don't otherwise want to, but with Chrome Mox that's not really an issue, since if a hand can't use Chrome Mox effectively, it probably doesn't contain enough action to begin with. Chrome Mox also takes the place of a land slot, not a spell. I don't think it's critical to include it, but I've been playing it for a very long time and I'm still pretty happy with it. It's frequently better than a random land would be.
Whether you play Chrome Mox or not, please don't play Mox Diamond. It's so much worse in this deck. There are 3 kinds of draws with this deck: good ones, ones with great spells but not enough land, and ones with enough land but light on action. The latter two are the ones that most frequently lead to losses (this deck doesn't lose much, but I think it loses to itself more often than to an opponent). Mox Diamond is terrible in both of those types of hands. If you're light on lands you always just wish it was a land, and if you have too many lands you can probably cast it, but don't have much to ramp into. You're probably better off mulling a couple of lands and non-essential spells (including Mox Diamond) hoping to hit a better balance with more action. That is not a situation where you want to be sacrificing card advantage for ramp. Compare that with Chrome Mox, which is still bad when you have too many lands, but can actually be very good when you're a little light on them. Just cut Mox Diamond, it's seriously awful here, you need some kind of perfect hand to make it ever even worth casting.
I'm trying out Yisan and Noxious Revival too. I have no opinion yet but I'm hopeful. I'm also trying Gemstone Caverns and Ulcerate (I looooove cheap removal).
Your deck is still within about 10 cards of what I'm currently testing, and every single card you're playing that I'm not has been in and out of my list at some point. I think that this deck is getting pretty close to optimized, and there's a core of about 80 cards that I wouldn't even consider changing.
From your list, I have:
-Reflecting Pool
-Gilt-Leaf Palace
-Mox Diamond
-Bloom Tender
-Scavenging Ooze
-Rancor
-Seal of Primordium
-Devour in Shadow
-Diabolic Edict
-Beast Within
-Putrefy
+Urborg
+Tectonic Edge
+Gemstone Caverns
+Chrome Mox
+Expedition Map
+Plague Myr
+Necropede
+Skeletal Scrying
+Ulcerate
+Hero's Downfall
+Read the Bones
I've already voiced my opinion on the Moxes. I think you're a little land light, considering I'm running ~2 more than you (Chrome Mox counts as a land, Mox Diamond and Expedition Map count as half a land). I feel like I've finally gotten the number right, since I get manascrewed almost exactly as often as I get manaflooded now, and this deck lives and dies off of that. Gilt-Leaf Palace is fine and was very recently in my deck (I just cut it to try out Gemstone Caverns, but I have no idea if Caverns is better yet). Gilt-Leaf Palace was definitely the worst land in the deck though, since sometimes you have to play it tapped and just lose a turn. I'm not a fan of Reflecting Pool since it's so ineffective at fixing. I think Urborg is better (it's also better than Vault of Whispers, but I still play that). I'd rather just have something consistent than Reflecting Pool. Expedition Map made its way back into my deck recently and has been fine. It's a little slower than you like, but Inkmoth Nexus is so important in this deck that I've found it to be worthwhile. Sometimes getting Wasteland or Rishadan Port is key too. I like having Tectonic Edge for the same reason--there are a few lands that really mess with us, especially Maze of Ith, and it's important to be able to find answers.
Bloom Tender was always really clunky for me. 2 mana accelerants don't fit the curve well, and it's hard to really capitalize on it in many hands. This deck wants to ramp fast, not high, and Bloom Tender isn't very good for that. I much prefer Plague Myr, which is almost as good as ramping (Bloom Tender often only makes 1 mana, or makes extra mana I can't use), and gives you immense potential to just win simply by being on the board. Your opponents have to respect that and play very differently, or risk just losing (and I've won many games exactly like that). I also like Necropede, which is not super powerful but demands the same kind of respect, and has also won me many games. The option to use it as removal for 1 toughness creatures also comes up more often than you would expect, and gives it a good bit of utility. I don't like Scavenging Ooze at all in this deck. Most of the best decks simply don't care about graveyard hate (including this one), and this deck isn't aggressive enough to win games off of its body either. It just doesn't play well with anything this deck is doing, and isn't powerful enough to constitute a plan by itself.
Rancor is bad. It's considerably worse than Bramblewood Paragon, and I don't think that's good enough either. Again, this deck isn't aggressive enough, even with as much infect as I play, to win by just attacking (it happens, but very rarely). Rancor is basically trample and nothing else here, and that's not good enough to be worth a slot.
You play more removal than I do right now. I used to play that much, but I think it's less important in the current meta. It's not like when Zur was running around--there are very few decks now that demand that you always have removal or just lose. I tried out playing less, and haven't regretting it at all. I really like Ulcerate though--mana cost for removal is absolutely crucial. I really hate 3 mana removal spells--in this deck, it usually takes most of your turn just to play one, whereas you can typically cast a cheaper one and still have enough mana to advance your gameplan. The difference between 3 and 2 is huge, and the difference between 2 and 1 is just as big. Ulcerate still kills most things I care about, so I think it will be worthwhile. I was pretty happy with Disfigure even, and could see playing that again sometime. I don't like Hero's Downfall, but it's still probably better than Putrefy, and I like having some answers to planeswalkers. I keep wanting to cut Maelstrom Pulse for being too clunky but can't quite bring myself to do it. I don't like Beast Within in this deck at all though, 3 mana is a lot and the Beast token is often very relevant against us. I'm strongly in favor of playing as much card draw as you can--in games where you're flooding out (the games you can easily lose), these are the best spells you can draw. Skeletal Scrying is very explosive and versatile and has won me lots of games. Read the Bones is a little clunky, but still quite good--honestly, it's better than Phyrexian Arena a lot of the time, since it's faster. I think this deck still wants the Arenas, since they can save bad hands that would otherwise doom you, but I could see an argument for cutting them, since this deck is so fast that it usually doesn't get many cards out of them. Read the Bones at least lets you dig pretty deep immediately, and fairly often lets you win the next turn. I'd work pretty hard to fit these in.
Needle Specter has been great. I've won several games with it in the short time it's been in the deck. My favorite thing about it is that it's the only creature that benefits hugely from smaller scavenges. I often have 1 and 2 power creatures sitting in the graveyard that I don't bother to scavenge because there's no real point. Needle Specter will just end a game if you make it huge, but it's still great even if you can only make it medium-sized.
Hypnotic Specter has been fine thus far. Needs more testing. Hymn to Tourach should stay though, the card is just extremely overpowered.
I had cut Green Sun's Zenith for a while, but realized that I really did want as many 1-mana creature accelerants as possible. Thanks to Dryad Arbor, GSZ counts. That alone makes it worth playing for me. Nothing else really factors in.
Bramblewood Paragon isn't necessary. Brawn truly is, but you can always do without the Paragon, and I found it was irrelevant most times I drew it. You know, if you draw Brawn at the wrong time you can always just cast it and sacrifice it to Varolz...
I've played Elvish Spirit Guide quite a bit, it's not really worth it. The way this deck functions, we do tend to need more mana every turn. Ramp that only lasts a turn just leaves you needing one more the following turn. It was only good for the turn you win, and it's not consistently helpful in that regard.
I still don't know why you play Skullbriar lol. The card seems awful to me.
I quite like the idea of Noxious Revival. I hadn't considered it before, but the price is certainly right. It's not a great card, but it has enough utility in this deck that I could see it being good. I'll give it a try.
I don't really understand what you mean by "creature protection to tutor for at instant speed." There's only 1 instant speed tutor. The best options are probably Vines of Vastwood or Sylvan Safekeeper, depending on what you're talking about, but I don't think either card is crucial. The more experience I get with this deck the less I've found myself wanted any sorts of dedicated protection cards. You don't need them, and can accomplish the exact same thing with tight play and well-timed discard.
Gemstone Caverns is interesting. I might try it out. My gut says it probably isn't good enough, since there are a lot of situations it's bad in, and plenty of hands where we wouldn't necessarily want to use it even if on the play (I mulligan Chrome Mox away a lot), but I wouldn't be too surprised if it worked. It's exciting to have another land I could potentially play too, since I've actually hit the limit of lands I'm willing to play under Tainted Pact's constraints. If you try it, let me know how it is.
I agree with most of what buddha's been saying. Plunge into Darkness doesn't cut it as card selection. DTrain, I wouldn't play this deck without Berserk, but the other cards you mention are not absolutely essential (I don't even play Grim Tutor anymore).
I'll try to update the OP soon. I'm not going to have much (if any) time to play test for about the next 3 months though, so progress will be slow.
Still not quite sold on Diabolic Intent, though it surely isn't that bad. I wouldn't say sacrificing a mana dork isn't a hindrance though--unless you're winning that turn, it's like you're stone raining yourself. Considering how critical every mana is when I win, and how frequently 1 mana is the difference between being able to kill or not kill, it's a major disadvantage. The card might work, but I'd want to have more sacrificial fodder since the mana dorks are precious. I will test it myself though. Which reminds me...I think I forgot to mention, but I did finally test a list where I included Skullclamp along with Bitterblossom and Bloodghast. It was awful. Unless I actually drew a pair to combo, I never had a use for any of these cards. They were pretty much dead. I had multiple games where I had Skullclamp and nothing I could afford to sac, since I needed the mana even more than the cards, or I needed to keep something around to regenerate. This kind of combo isn't something you ever want to tutor for, since a tutor can just get you a card to win instead of a card that will draw you some cards and hopefully find a win.
I like Hypnotic Specter a lot so far. I think it'll stay. I've even considered Hollow Specter and Shimian Specter quite strongly, though I think the mana costs involved there are probably too much. They might work though (haven't actually tested them).
I need to update the list in the OP when I have time. It's very outdated and I guess it's hard to follow the change-logs from newer posts. I haven't played Abyssal Persecutor in quite a while. I'm not playing Bramblewood Paragon anymore either. I am playing Green Sun's Zenith (it gets Dryad Arbor literally 99% of the time, but in this deck that's fine).
Nature's Lore and Three Visits were just because I wanted to try out a little more ramp and they seemed like the next best options. I don't think they'll stay though. 2cc ramp just doesn't seem to do it for this deck--even Bloom Tender didn't play well, when that card is usually so good. I should maybe try Wild Growth (it's probably a little better for curve purposes), but I'm pretty hesitant because I play so few basic lands. A lot of hands with Wild Growth are just going to absolutely fold to Wasteland, and considering that pretty much all decks play that, I think the risk is just too high. I'm not sure there's any other ramp I can play that's good enough, so I may just have to play something else in those slots. Arbor Elf really isn't an option unfortunately, since with my current land base it's just dead in the opening hand about 50% of the time.
Berserk is one of the absolute best cards in this deck and wins so many games. I'd play 4 or 5 if I could--it's actually the card I wind up tutoring for more often than anything else. The card is just impossible to play around and invariably ends games. I never have had to Berserk a 1/1 before though!
I'm not currently playing a creature that kills opposing non-artifact creatures. If I was to add one, it would probably be Shriekmaw despite the annoying cmc, but I don't think it's strictly necessary if you have enough removal otherwise. Removal in general has become slightly less important recently, since there are fewer "answer me NOW or die" generals running around. Kiku, Night's Flower is kind of cool, but surely costs too much to use. I don't think you'll find any playable land destruction on a creature, but with enough land-tutors it shouldn't be too big an issue. Sylvan Safekeeper is alright too (I'm trying him again myself, though not for that reason).
I haven't had issues with Skeletal Scrying. Sometimes it's 4-5 cards and sometimes just 2, but it always does something when I need it. If you have tons to do with your mana already, you probably don't need to be casting Skeletal Scrying--just save it for when you run out of things to do. It's fairly common for me to end games with stuff like Skeletal Scrying, Read the Bones, or even Phyrexian Arena in hand because I simply didn't have time to cast them...that usually means you just had a good hand. Even though the draw spells aren't so good in those situations, I think they're still necessary for when you have to keep worse hands and hope to draw into some action.
How was Diabolic Intent relevant? It doesn't seem awful, but neither does it seem great. I'm not sure it's better than Grim Tutor, and I actually cut that recently for being too clunky and haven't missed it.
You make a good point about Thrun vs. Clique DL. It is indeed a great card there (or against mono-blue in general). However, at least on Cockatrice, mono-blue seems to be very seldom played recently (I literally haven't encountered Clique in months). I cut Thrun a while ago and haven't missed him yet. If blue control is rampant I'd definitely keep him in, but with the way the meta's going he may not be necessary. I did cut Dosan the Falling Leaf as well, and haven't missed him either.
Since my last changelist, I think I've gone:
-Dosan the Falling Leaf
-Thrun, the Last Troll
-Nihil Spellbomb
-Grasp of Darkness
-Grim Tutor
-Eternal Witness
I've also tested out (again) Glistener Elf, Elvish Spirit Guide, Chord of Calling, and Parallax Nexus, but wasn't satisfied with any of them and they all got cut again. Chord of Calling maintained its perfect streak of being utterly uncastable every single time I've drawn it.
Thrun and Dosan are discussed above. Nihil Spellbomb was nice but not necessary, and I wanted to play with the slot. I'm planning on replacing Grasp of Darkness with Ulcerate once M15 comes out, and figured I'd test Disfigure to see how different it is and whether it's worth playing. It's actually not bad at all--cmc on removal is tremendously important for curving out properly, and Disfigure still kills a lot of stuff. Ulcerate will be better though. Hypnotic Specter and Sylvan Safekeeper are still test spots and might not stay long. I've been impressed with Needle Specter, and while Hypnotic Specter is worse, my theory is that it's kind of a probe for removal spells. No one ever takes a hit from Hyppie if they're holding removal--it just doesn't happen. So if he gets through, the coast is probably clear. It's also just a pretty good card overall. Sylvan Safekeeper does have annoying dissynergy with scavenge, but it's still effective protection in many other circumstances...and it's possible my opponents won't realize that it blocks scavenge too (shh). I'm not sure it will be good enough, but it might still work. Nature's Lore and Three Visits are just a trial of some ramp that's immune to sweepers. I think these are the best options, since even though they don't fit the curve so well they still fix mana and sometimes effectively cost 1. So far in testing I haven't loved or hated them. We'll see.
Speaking of M15, it's a little questionable but I think Yisan, the Wanderer Bard will actually be worth testing. I really wish the activation didn't cost so much, but any card that can by itself tutor up a Dreadnought and then follow that up with Mesmeric Fiend or Plague Stinger is worth a look. I wouldn't be surprised if the card turns out to be quite good in this deck. I'm still interested in including another card or two to beat Marath: I actually have a positive record against the deck, but it doesn't feel so good. Toxic Deluge is fairly effective and I've been very happy with Phyrexian Revoker, but I want just a little bit more. Maybe Pithing Needle? My issues with the deck primarily just stem from Marath being able to machine-gun down all my little creatures at will.
I've been keeping track of all my games on Cockatrice in the last few months or so (only started recording player names recently though). I have descriptions for some of the games, especially the recent ones. Here are my results:
Jenara, Asura of War: 2-1
Horobi, Night's Whisper: 1-0
Akroma, Angel of Fury: 1-0
Geist of St. Traft: 2-0
Animar, Soul of Elements: 2-0
Tajic, Blade of the Legion: 2-0
Ephara, God of the Polis: 2-0
Ghave, Guru of Spores: 1-0
Ezuri, Renegade Leader: 2-0 Doran, the Siege Tower: 0-2 (g1 manascrew into g2 colorscrew, i had him dead both games if i just drew black mana) Doran, the Siege Tower: 2-1 (same player. the game I lost, i had duress to make sure the coast was clear, followed by lethal with berserk the next turn. On his one draw step, he topdecked instant-speed removal to stop me from winning) Grimgrin, Corpse-Born: 1-0
Tajic, Blade of the Legion: 2-0 Olivia Voldaren: 2-1 (the game I lost, I neglected to play around blood moon effects when I could have, and lost to magus of the moon with an awesome hand and a board of just mountains) Ezuri, Renegade Leader: 1-2 (g1 i lost one turn before i would have killed him with with a huge berserking guy. I had awkward lands this game and tapped wrong multiple times, giving him at least 2 extra turns I think. g2 turn 4 win. g3 i had a good hand but was a little tight on mana, and his wasteland made that much worse. I still would have won if i had found a second source of black mana, losing the game to ezuri going nuclear with the combo, victim of night, and grasp of darkness all in hand). Skithyrix, the Blight Dragon: 1-0
Azusa, Lost but Seeking: 2-0
The Mimeoplasm: 2-0
Maelstrom Wanderer: 2-0
Jenara, Asura of War: 2-0
Prime Speaker Zegana: 1-0 (ragequit) Oloro, Ageless Ascetic: 2-0 (Omniscience combo, I was faster) Oloro, Ageless Ascetic: 2-0 (control, this seems like a nice matchup overall since his deck is slow and I don't care how much life he gains) Azusa, Lost but Seeking: 2-1 (the game i lost, i kept a 1 lander on the play with swamp, dark rit, liliana, entomb, death's shadow. couldn't draw green mana in like 15 turns. if i had been able to play varolz, would have won, even after he terastodoned me. other 2 games were straightforward.) Azusa, Lost but Seeking: 2-0 (different player) Varolz, the Scar-Striped: 2-0 (different style of deck than mine, had the combos but didn't seem very tuned) Grenzo, Dungeon Warden: 2-1 (goblin deck, i lost a game due to never drawing a 4th land in 10 or so turns. had everything i needed otherwise. won game 3 on turn 3 despite his sparksmith: dark ritual + buried alive + berserk for the massive overkill) Nekusar, the Mindrazer: 1-0 Grenzo, Dungeon Warden: 2-1 (very tuned looking aggro deck. I lost a close game 1 due to multiple misplays. I let Slavering Nulls hit my hand several times, when I should have sucked it up and killed it early. Then I wound up making varolz big instead of inkmoth nexus because i was 1 mana short of insta-killing with nexus and was afraid of land destruction. He was able to kill me over several turns while repeatedly chumping varolz and my inkmoth just sat there. Game 2 was close but i was able to get there with nexus combo a turn or 2 before he could kill me. Game 3 i had a ton of lands, but dryad arbor + pendelhaven did a good job slowing him down, then when he played 5 guys toxic deluge for 2 destroyed him, and i even got to save dryad arbor. He kept trying, but liliana, plague stinger, and death's shadow wrapped it up 2 turns later) Azami, Lady of Scrolls: 2-1 (game 1: sweet hand, turn 4 kill with chrome mox, brain maggot, and a giant necropede. Still had demonic tutor in hand at the end. Game 2 I have a good hand but misplay horribly by playing sylvan library instead of dark confidant before casting nature's claim on his fellwar stone. The instant after I do that I realize how terrible my sequencing/choice is if he has Misdirection, and of course he has it for the monster blowout. Then he's able to play Azami, I get stuck on mana, and it's all downhill from there. My starting hand was so powerful that this was probably unlosable if I just played around Misdirection, which I could have done easily. Game 3 I have turn 1 Survival of the Fittest off of Chrome Mox. I get greedy and make a big mistake of hitting him with a 15/15 Varolz on turn 3 after he taps out for Sky Diamond (never do this against blue decks). He has Sower of Temptation of course, and I don't have any answers to it that I can get off of Survival. Luckily, I topdeck Tainted Pact, which finds me removal and the win, but that could have gone very badly for me. I definitely should have waited longer. Marath, Will of the Wild: 2-1 (g1 i keep a nice hand with 3 land, deathrite, library, liliana, viridian corrupter on the play. unfortunately, he has seal of cleansing to immediately kill library. liliana takes out his argothian enchantress but dies to marath. i draw no action cards for like 7 turns and lose. g2 i mull into a somewhat awkward hand with fauna shaman, an elf, tainted pact and 3 lands. i decide to play the mana elf on turn 1 (instead of saving it for Fauna Shaman) and never really draw another creature. We both have rishadan ports though, so his mana is awkward. He can't really play marath and tainted pact gets me there eventually. g3 i mull into an awkward hand with whispering specter, entomb, and 4 lands. the pieces are there...he has a turn 1 weathered wayfarer and skips his next land drop. i am not about to give him gaea's cradle and am perfectly willing to play the waiting game so we stare at each other for a few turns until he gives up and starts playing land. i have plague myr, he has aura shards. frown. i have whispering specter and tainted pact in hand, dreadnought in my gy from entomb. i just play varolz and pass. he plays marath as expected, killing my myr with aura shards. on my turn, i scavenge onto varolz, attack, and tainted pact for berserk when he chumps. so sweet.) Heartless Hidetsugo: 2-0 Doran, the Siege Tower: 2-1 (game 1, i have survival and am playing around his scavenging ooze. i misplay really badly and pass up the chance to make a 14/14 plague myr and make him start chumping, when i already know he has sword of feast and famine in hand and will make me discard and lose my chance. the game is still extremely close, and i would have won if i had 1 more life or a land other than tarnished citadel to make colored mana. as is, i eventually get that 14/14 trampling myr, but he just plays doran to chump, and i'm dead the next turn. i definitely could have won this with tighter play. g2 turn 3 kill. g3 turn 4 kill) Marath, Will of the Wild: 2-0 (g1 i go for the 14/14 varolz on turn 3 before marath is active. he takes 14, and then i have removal for his chump blocker.
g2 i mull to 5 to find lands and keep something slow with survival and tainted pact. he has turn 2 marath followed by skullclamp. i get to a position where i can win out of nowhere if he taps out, but he doesn't go for it, and i have to tainted pact for toxic deluge in order to survive. that almost lets me win right after, except that he has swords to plowshares to slow me down too. i'm able to survival up phyrexian revoker to curtail his 5/5 marath though, then play a 15/15 varolz to block, then win.) Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, piloted by Graddock: 2-0 (g1 i mull to a hand with a lot of discard and 2 lands. i miss a couple land drops while he ramps, but eventually sign in blood into enough mana. varolz comes down, then buried alive and attack for 27 the following turn. he's actually able to survive for a turn by chumping with prossh and some tokens, but still can't deal with varolz. g2 i keep a decent hand that just lacks a way to win, but draw worldly tutor pretty early. he has a bunch of ramp, while i get out varolz and inkmoth nexus. there's a turn where i could go for the kill with inkmoth nexus, but he has 1 unknown card and mana up and if he kills it i'd lose. i didn't go for it. the next turn he tutors for toxic deluge and kills all my stuff, including varolz and dryad arbor, while revealing that he didn't have removal. c'est la vie. i just play varolz. he plays prossh. i make a 14/14 nexus and force him to chump. next turn he replays prossh, but when he tries to chump again i have tainted pact for berserk.) Geist of St. Traft, piloted by mavrkhrom: 2-0 (g1 i keep a pretty powerful but land light hand. he has swords to plowshares and force of will to stop fauna shaman and dark confidant and gets geist going, alongside rishadan port and dust bowl to tie up my mana. i'm able to ambush his geist with necropede and crop rotation for pendelhaven though, which feels sweet. i miss a bunch of land drops and feel sure I'm losing this to his port and dust bowl, but i'm still able to get out survival and maneuver a bit. when he gets sword of feast and famine, necropede chump blocks, and then viridian corrupter takes it out. he tries to kill me with elspeth for exactly lethal, but i point out that he can't cast her (only 1 white). the next turn i'm able to discard dreadnought getting brawn, scavenge onto corrupter, and attack for lethal after i discard brawn. g2 the server crashes midway through this game so we don't technically finish, but i had plenty of mana, high life, varolz and sylvan library in play, and a strong hand vs his 4 lands and 3 cards in hand. i'm pretty confident i was winning that game.) Marchesa, the Black Rose, piloted by italicizedliez: 2-0 (g1 i'm attacking with 15/15 varolz on turn 3 with brain maggot protection. g2 he gets stuck on land and i have a great hand with turn 1 dark confidant, followed up by sylvan library and plenty of action.) Marath, Will of the Wild, piloted by Guino500: 1-2: (g1 i mull to find lands and wind up with something slow but keepable, with maelstrom pulse for marath. i have to use the pulse on his sylvan library though after sign in blood just draws me little creatures i don't want. turns out he has a great hand and i don't draw much, and he quickly assembles his infinite combo with fauna shaman on turn 5. g2 i'm able to maneuver into a 13/13 needle specter without him able to stop me. g3 he has a pretty average hand (just a bunch of mana) but mine is pretty slow and non-interactive (hymn into read the bones into hero's downfall into ad nauseum. he's not doing much but has taken some life off me. ad nauseum finds me about 15 cards but nothing i can use, and i lose.) Zedruu, the Great-Hearted, piloted by bata: 2-0 (g1 he keeps a 1 lander with land tax on the draw, and gets screwed when i just stay on 1 land and play elves. g2 glacial chasm actually buys him several turns right before i was about to kill him with buried alive, but it's not enough.) Horde of Notions, piloted by Agent of Cuber: 2-0 (he's playing some sort of creature-based combo deck. g1 i mull away a bunch of lands and draw more lands, then draw nothing but lands. however, those lands include rishadan port and wasteland and he has a land light hand, and he concedes (somewhat inappropriately i think) to mana issues. g2 i'm able to set up a turn 4 nexus kill right through his scavenging ooze, with discard backup.) Jenara, Asura of War, piloted by pizieno: 1-0 (i have a great hand, scoring a turn 4 kill off of buried alive when he taps out. he gets very excited and leaves.)
So...yeah. Those are all the games I've played semi-recently. Obviously some of those decks aren't as competitive as others, but plenty of them are, and I have a stellar win-loss ratio overall. This is absolutely the deck I would take a tournament, and I think a strong case could be made for it being tier 1 (if only anyone else played it!).
@SAUS9001: You're right about Tainted Pact. The card is so strong in this deck that it's definitely worth playing, but having any duplicates is just too much of a liability. Since I generally need a specific card to win me the game, the odds of getting screwed over by hitting 2 basics is just too high. That's why I'm back down to one of each.
@Gemiinus: Invigorate's not good enough in this deck. Free is nice, but +4/+4 isn't generally enough to be relevant. This deck one-shots (sometimes two-shots) people. It doesn't nickel-and-dime with smaller pump effects. If I wanted a protection instant, I'd play Vines of Vastwood or Ranger's Guile first (protecting from bounce is a big deal), but even those haven't been necessary. I haven't played them in a long time and haven't missed them.
@Jibux: Nah, Temple of Malady isn't good here. It's definitely not better than any of the lands you mentioned. All I want from my lands is that they make colored mana and that they don't come in tapped. It's hard to overstate how important the untapped part is. This deck has an extremely low curve and generally makes efficient use of every mana every turn. Playing a CITP land is usually like giving your opponent a free Time Walk, and that's really not an exaggeration. Gilt-Leaf Palace is by far the worst land in the deck, because it comes into play tapped about 40% of the time and is a reverse Time Walk 30% of the time. It's a necessary evil though, since there simply isn't anything better out there. Temple of Malady is far, far worse than Gilt-Leaf Palace in this deck.
Sakura-Tribe Elder and Sylvan Caryatid are cards I've considered. They don't fit the curve though, don't interact well with Varolz, and really aren't impactful enough to do that much vs Marath. 1 more mana is nice and all, but it doesn't really address the problem like Phyrexian Revoker does. If I was going to play another ramp card like that, I think it would be Viridian Emissary (somewhat better synergy with Varolz) but I don't like that either.
@buddha84: Chord of Calling has been in and out of my list several times. Every time it's in, I hate it and find it unbearably clunky. It tends to get stuck in my hand even though it's instant speed and I only ever want to cast it for 1. Experience has shown that it's way harder to cast it in a real game than you would expect. I still try it out every once in a while, because in theory it seems decent and this deck wants the effect badly, but it's never performed well for me.
Since my last update, I've taken out Sylvan Tutor and Mindslicer, and replaced them with Needle Specter and Nihil Spellbomb. Sylvan Tutor is semi-valid for grabbing Dark Confidant or Mesmeric Fiend, but I don't want to play a tutor for that. It's terrible for getting a Dreadnought, since it telegraphs what you're doing and gives your opponent a turn to prepare. This deck needs to be trickier than that. Mindslicer has always been either pretty good or very bad, depending on the situation. The problem is that it's so high variance, and it's never extremely good. Needle Specter is very similar to Whispering Specter (which has been testing quite well) and I've liked it so far. It's somewhat relevant to just grind away with it (more so than Whispering Specter), and is actually a reasonably good scavenge target as well. It's the very best target to scavenge small stuff like mana dorks on, and when you think you can get a hit in, build-your-own-Nicol-Bolas has been enough to win the game on the couple of occasions I've been able to make that happen. I like it so far. Nihil Spellbomb is just a great card with very low opportunity cost, and I wanted a little bit more control of the graveyard. It's kind of filler and could definitely be replaced in the future, but I like it fine for now.
I'm considering cutting Dosan the Falling Leaf and Thrun, the Last Troll. It seems that the better I get with this deck, the less useful "protection" cards like this become. They just usually aren't very relevant. Sometimes they're good, often they're bad, but even when they're good I generally feel like I could have won the game without them. I'm not sure what I'll add instead, but I think I can do without them now.
The deck continues to test well. I've played several matches on Cockatrice in the last week, winning all of them. In full matches, I've beaten Oloro twice, Geist twice, Ezuri once, Marchesa twice, Grenzo once, and a few others I don't remember. I think I lost one match, but can't remember to what (it wasn't a top deck). Almost all of the games I've lost were to my own lands (not drawing enough, or not drawing a color, despite multiple mulligans). It's hard to figure out how to fix that though.
Interesting, I didn't realize the counters affected p/t when out of play as well. Skullbriar has to be the only card in history where that's relevant so it's sort of a unique ruling. That makes him better, though I'm still not sure he's worthwhile. It's still weak to bounce or exile, and in most situations where you could scavenge onto him, scavenging onto Varolz is probably just better. Worth thinking about, but I doubt he's worth the slot when this list is so tight already.
I don't like Tainted Strike much, since it's dead unless you have a dreadnought, and if you have a dreadnought scavenged and attacking and getting through you're probably a 95% favorite to win that game anyway. It's also mostly dead if you have an infect creature already in play. It does have the potential to get people sometimes, so I guess there's some potential there, but my gut says it's not worth it.
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Your list looks really nice. You showed me a list a few days before which I wasn't super-impressed with, but I like your changes a lot. The hardest thing with this deck is getting the right balance of between combo and consistency, creatures and other things, and I think this is the first list that really has that. All of your plans look powerful and efficient.
I still have several comments regarding specific cards (please don't take them personally!!!):
Creatures:
Grim Lavamancer. I do like this guy, but it's a little awkward that you have plenty of cards you don't want to exile or don't get milled by Grenzo. In the very early game, when he's most useful, you might not be able to use him, and later on you don't necessarily want to be sinking mana into him. What about Sparksmith instead? You pay 1 more mana up front (if you have to cast it), but then it's free to use, and should consistently be able to get you 2 damage pings with the potential for more.
Viscera Seer. I think I get what you're trying to do here (scry creatures to bottom and enable Body Snatcher), but it feels a bit forced and underpowered. I goldfished some games against myself and was really unimpressed each time I drew this. There are only a few creatures in the deck you want to sac, and the scry is okay but not necessarily worth a card. I feel like you'd probably be better off just forgetting about Body Snatcher and getting rid of the little sacrifice subtheme. You definitely don't need Body Snatcher for a Doomsday stack with your list.
Chittering Rats. Not a bad card but it feels like filler. Is it really good? If it is, I'd suggest that Phyrexian Rager is probably as good or better, since +1 card for you is going to be more consistent than -1 card for your opponent, who may have 0 cards in hand, plenty to play, or a shuffle. You could play both though.
Ophiomancer. This is a sweet card but it just doesn't seem that great to me, though I could be wrong. I feel like it's mostly just one of the few cards that goes with Viscera Seer though, and I don't know that it's worthwhile overall in this list.
Blazing Specter. I still think this is very weak. It just doesn't put that much pressure on in most situations. I feel like if Blazing Specter plays a role in winning you a game (rather than being irrelevant overall), you were going to win that game anyway, since they probably had nothing. It's so much worse than the other specters.
Necrotic Ooze combo. I know I suggested this a while back but I was never really confident about it. It still seems a bit questionable to me. The problem with the combo is that you really need Buried Alive to set it up, and it takes all 3 cards. You can't get Griselbrand or Dragon too for backup, and in most cases Buried Alive for one of those cards alone would be almost as good. Factor in that Necrotic Ooze and Phyrexian Devourer are pretty bad on their own, and I'm not sold. How many games have you actually won with it? I think I still like Triskelion on its own merits, but I'd probably do away with the rest of the combo.
Workhorse. I know I said Workhorse over Priest of Urabrask, in your list I'm not so sure anymore. It's still pretty close, but I think your deck is more likely to actually want to cast the card. The creature density is high enough that having more bodies may be relevant. I'm not sure you need 2 of these effects at all, but if you do I think I'd favor the Priests now.
Your spells look really tight overall. The iffiest slots are Gamble, Dystopia, and Phyrexian Arena, but they still look fairly solid in this list.
I'm not sold on the hideaway lands, but that's pretty theoretical. I don't feel like you'll activate them very often, and the opportunity cost of citp lands is pretty huge in a fast deck like this. I get that they can scry a few cards to the bottom for Grenzo, but that seems more cute than anything else. Unless you have a shuffle it doesn't change much either. I could well be wrong though, and if they work for you, by all means keep using them. It's a cool interaction.
I'd probably drop Phyrexian Tower along with Body Snatcher. I never liked drawing it.
Other cards to consider...
Already mentioned Sparksmith and Phyrexian Rager.
Although I don't like Body Snatcher (too hard to use), I feel like Doomed Necromancer and Apprentice Necromancer might actually be perfect for your deck. They both are the right size for Grenzo, and are no good with Dragon (like Body Snatcher), but great with Griselbrand, Necrotic Ooze (if you keep it) or assembling a disrupted combo. They're cheap enough that even just using them on value creatures is ok too. I think these are a great fit.
With this many creatures, I think Sword of Feast and Famine probably belongs. The card is just generally great in this format, and is particularly good with Grenzo around. Doubling your activations every turn while giving Grenzo protection sounds pretty awesome. Umezawa's Jitte may be worth considering as well, on the same principles, though this is probably the first deck ever where I think the Sword is actually better.
I think you're obligated to play Duress. Sorry, but those are the rules. Cheap discard is not the place to shave slots, since it's great against...everything. Cabal Therapy also makes you want to play as much of this sort of thing as possible.
This seems like a good list for Dark Ritual. Powering out a insta-kill Doomsday off 3 lands sounds fantastic, and turn 1 Liliana, Phyrexian Arena, or Hypnotic Specter are all super strong plays. I noticed that this deck tends to build up cards in hand sometimes, since it can be better to sink mana into Grenzo instead as long as you can keep him around, so I think you can afford to run this kind of effect.
That's all I've got for now. This is all theory-craft, but I'm digging your list. I'm excited about the Necromancers...please give them a shot (I won't have time to test).
Lotleth Troll does nothing for this deck, as already noted. I'm not really looking for anything it brings to the table.
I don't like Slaughter Pact. I like cheap removal, and Slaughter Pact only appears to be free. It really costs 3. I don't want to pay 3 for it. I also don't like the non-black clause, though that's less important now than it used to be. Snuff Out would be better, but I still don't want to play that much due to a lack of swamps. It might actually be pretty good still though...maybe I'll try it. Thanks for the idea.
Yisan has been underwhelming in my testing thus far. He's very powerful eventually, but 9 mana (to use him twice) is like a bajillion in this deck, especially considering I need to play Varolz at some point too. The majority of the games in which I've drawn him, my hand has been good enough that I had better things to do than play or activate him. That said, he's the kind of card that is good when you're flooded and just trying to draw gas, and that happens once in a while. I'm going to keep testing him, but he's definitely too slow to be great.
He doesn't interact that well with Sylvan Safekeeper imo. The timing involved for that to be good (Yisan in play, no counters on him, 3 mana up, opponent playing removal that actually hits something relevant out of the blue...we're talking like 1 game in 1000. Sylvan Safekeeper hasn't been any good for me at all ever since he came back in...he's on his way out again.
The Mimeoplasm match was pretty memorable, at least game 1. You tried to go off with Doomsday and lost to the on-board trick when you forgot that he had Executioner's Capsule on the board. In the second one you got kind of manascrewed, against went for Doomsday, and lost to a counterspell. I never used the word "lie," which implies intent. I said something was untrue, which was factually accurate and personally witnessed. I can believe that you made a mistake, or even that you don't remember. That doesn't make what I said insulting.
Also, you edited that earlier post at some point to include Yisan and Kami. When I first read it, it just said Doran and Maelstrom Wanderer (I clearly remember this, because I was thinking about how I'd just seen you lose to something else). I didn't notice your edits sometime later.
As far as I saw, you didn't address a single one of those cuts.
Are they private conversations? I've read through this thread carefully and I don't see an explanation for why you chose to cut a single one of those cards. Maybe I'm missing something.
You messaged me on Cockatrice, calling me a douchebag, and asked me to edit my posts to be less insulting. I have not "slung profanities," that was all you. I asked you exactly want you want me edit out, and you couldn't tell me. I read through my posts again, as I said earlier, and couldn't find a single thing that I perceive as insulting. The only thing that comes close is the Mimeoplasm issue, which has already been discussed and was a statement of fact. Card discussion is not and has never been personal. I can think you're wrong about your reasoning behind certain cards, and say as much, without being insulting. It's an opinion. I put a lot of time and thought into my posts, and I'm not going to just edit for no reason. Everything I said was either fact or remains my opinion.
Cabal Therapy is not a crap shoot. The best use is as a second discard spell, after you've already seen their hand. It's a lot better than that in this deck though, since there are only so many cards you care about, and in the worst case scenario, you can play it blindly, miss, and still flash it back and win on the turn you go off.
I like this deck and was excited to see it get tuned, but I'm honestly getting sick of discussing it with you (and that's the most insulting thing I've said yet). I explain why a card doesn't belong (even when it should be very obvious, like with Viashino Racketeer), and you just write one short sentence that may or may not be relevant and say "it's final." Then you change them a few days later. If Oblivion Stone and Diabolic Tutor stay in your list long term, it will be out of pride or spite, not because they're good. I'm curious to see what happens.
I write long posts filled with discussion about card choices. There's nothing personal about that. When I questioned your win-loss ratio it was because of a specific discrepancy that I personally saw--again, not personal, nor meant to be insulting. I've reread my posts and I don't think that I've said anything insulting (though you certainly have just now...I'd edit that out, people have been banned for less).
I don't understand why you think it's personal or insulting when I bring up cards we disagree about. That's how debate works. We discuss our points of view until one of us persuades the other. I don't think we can never see eye to eye on these choices, and I disagree with your rebuttal. So I continue to bring up these cards. Why should I stop? This is how you arrive at a better deck. I'm helping you.
And now...back to the cards?
I know that I only watched a tiny number of your games, and noted so myself. I saw the entirety of the games I'm talking about though, and those are the only ones I'm commenting on. It doesn't change the facts.
You did take most of my suggestions, whether you admit it or not. Since my post, the spells you have cut have been Viashino Racketeer, Night's Whisper, Tainted Pact, Rain of Filth, Infernal Contract, Blazing Specter, Sanity Gnawers, Goblin Chieftain, Cabal Ritual, and Yawgmoth's Will. Except for those last 3, which I didn't mention but agree with, all of those are cards which I specifically pointed out as cards that should be cut and you went "no no no, they're great." Then a couple of days later you quietly cut them without explanation. You can call that "cut for unrelated reasons" if you like, but I call that taking my suggestions. (You also added 4 creatures that I was first to suggest during these changes.)
Tutors are only good when they're good tutors. When they cost 4 mana, or when they shout in big neon letters to your opponent "I'M GOING TO WIN NEXT TURN UNLESS YOU KEEP UP A COUNTERSPELL OR REMOVAL OR ENCHANTMENT REMOVAL OR BOUNCE OR AT LEAST PRETEND THAT YOU HAVE IT," then they are less good (unless your opponents are terrible, I suppose). If your only goal was to goldfish a combo kill asap, then sure, tutors are the way to go. But no decent decks will let you goldfish like that. In a way, my Varolz deck is as much of a combo deck as this (it can't win without finding one of two specific cards), yet I've cut even Grim Tutor, which is quite a good tutor, because competitive French EDH does not let you goldfish. If your combo deck is streamlined enough then combo still absolutely works. If you're giving up turns playing bad tutors, then good decks that can interact will time walk you and win as a result. Simple as that.
Already discussed. Not a big deal either way to be honest.
Yes, it's unblockable. 3 cards may or may not be relevant...the one time I saw you use it, it certainly wasn't. I never said that specters were necessarily worth playing, and they may well not be. But it's not about Mindripper vs specter, it's about Mindripper vs anything else you could be playing. Does the card have enough impact every time it's flipped or cast to be worthwhile? I don't think that it does. Unless your opponent has only 2-3 cards in hand, getting hit by it isn't that big a deal.
It's just an idea. It has pros and cons. I do think it's possible to make Cabal Coffers good and still be able to consistently cast Grenzo on turn 2 though.
I think this is code for "I'm scared of Leyline" again. What exactly are you worried about? Chaos Warp (which I don't think is even necessary, but is fine) handles problem permanents well enough. Stone is slow, expensive, and also messes with your board unless you make it ludicrously slow and expensive. You're not even a control deck. I like the card, but it has no place in French EDH, and even less so in this deck. Don't make blanket statements like "it will not be leaving," that only closes doors in your mind and is how you end up taking things personally.
Again, just an idea. I convinced you to run Moggcatcher though, and that's a good reason to include Moggcatcher. I think Manic Vandal hitting your own stuff is more important than just Chrome Mox, since Defense Grid and Phyrexian Revoker are also very good.
I guess so. She's very high-variance though...sometimes she's a bomb, sometimes she's doesn't hinder your opponent at all, and is worse for you. In my experience, it's more often been the latter, but if she's working well then by all means keep her.
Yeah, I mean, I guess that's valid. It's not like you don't know about a Scavenging Ooze or Relic sitting in play though, so it just means you need to find an answer or pick a different stack. I don't hate Mad Auntie either though. I did hate Goblin Chieftain, but at least regeneration is something. I think that any of these stacks will work equally well 95% of the time though, so I'm more interesting in how useful the cards are outside of a Doomsday stack. Dread Return still seems like the winner so far. I'm undecided on Griselbrand (leaning towards no, but not because of Bribery), but either way I still like Dread Return as long as Necrotic Ooze is in the deck.
Lili also keeps on loving...that's what planeswalkers do. Dystopia is terrible enchantment removal...if it's killing a key enchantment, you opponent must have nothing else, and you should win that game anyway. It's a lot like Braids, where there are situations where it's quite good and situations where it's awful, but with Dystopia it's awful even more often. I'm highly skeptical that 3-4 damage from Outrage Shaman deals with more threats than Nekrataal. It may still be playable, don't get me wrong, but it wouldn't be my first choice for removal.
What other options? It's a 1 mana (or free) discard spell. That's like the best possible type of card for a straight combo deck, since it makes sure the coast is clear. It also gets better and better as you include more discard spells, and you have a bunch. I think Distress is a bit meh (but still quite possibly worth including). Cabal Therapy is anything but meh, it's very powerful here.
I don't quite believe your near perfect record. I've only seen you play 2 matches with this deck on Cockatrice, one against Mimeoplasm and one again Yisan, and you lost both of them. The loss to the Mimeoplasm was the night before you posted saying you've only lost to Doran and Maelstrom Wanderer. You've made tons of big changes since posting your list, indicated clearly that the starting point wasn't especially tuned. There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't believe such a list was winning every match against good players and top decks, even with lots of luck. We may get to such a list, but we're not quite there yet.
I still think Doomsday was quite suspect in the previous list (actually, in 2 of the games I saw you lose, you lost to a single piece of creature or enchantment removal after casting Doomsday). However, the innovation for the 5 mana same turn kill with Doomsday increases the card's strength incredibly. I'd still not play Doomsday unless I could win that turn with it, but now that's definitely worth doing.
I'm not sure what the best stack is--I think I like Workhorse over Priest of Gix/Priest of Urabrask, since you'd never want to cast any of them but Workhorse is a much better random flip off of Grenzo. You said Priest of Gix is much better than Workhorse outside of the combo...I don't think that's true at all. Playing Workhorse and Priest of Gix together seems okay though. I'm not a huge fan of Mad Auntie but I guess it's ok. I like spastika's Dread Return or Body Snatcher stacks better, at least as long as you're playing Necrotic Ooze. Devil's Play and Spikeshot Elder both seem fine; I'm not really sure which is better.
In all your rationale for various combos, I think you're way too scared of Leyline of the Void/Rest in Peace. They saw some play when Zur was around, but now they never do. I've played easily over 200 games with Varolz (a deck which pretty much can't win with one of those cards in play), and have had to deal with Leyline or RIP literally zero times. They're not good against most decks, and they don't see play. You have frequently justified choices on the basis of "but X fails against Leyline," and that's irrelevant. It should influence any choices you make with this deck.
I don't like most creatures with activated abilities that take mana to use in this deck, since you already have a good mana sink in your general and want to put your mana there. The exception might be Moggcatcher, since fetching Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Siege-Gang Commander straight into play seems very powerful. It can also get removal in the form of Outrage Shaman, Murderous Redcap, or Stingscourger, and potentially land destruction (Goblin Settler) or artifact destruction (if you replace Manic Vandal with Tuktuk Scrapper, which also won't randomly kill your own artifacts sometimes when flipped off Grenzo). Just a thought.
I don't agree that the deck functions fine on 3 land. While you can sometimes win there with one of your combos, this deck comes with a built-in mana sink, and scales very well with increased land drops. I watched spastika win a game the other night where he basically did nothing but play lands and activate Grenzo, and he won that game. I also saw you get stuck on 3 lands in 3 separate games, each time complaining about how much you needed to draw more land. I'm not making this up. I think I like Solemn Simulacrum, Soldevi Adnate, and Palladium Myr in this deck, as extra accel that works with Grenzo, and I'd think about fitting in a couple more land too.
Other comments going down your list...
Outrage Shaman is ok but I think Murderous Redcap/Nekrataal is probably better. 5 mana is just gross if you have to cast it, and it's not necessarily going to kill stuff any better than the other options, which are more playable and have more utility.
I'd consider Tuktuk Scrapper over Manic Vandal, despite the worse cost, not just for potential goblin synergies but because it's a "may." Opponents don't always have artifacts, and being forced to destroy one of your own off Grenzo sounds really bad.
Is Braids, Cabal Minion really worth it? I think it's very reasonable to leave out the land destruction suite for the reasons you explain. This isn't a deck that attacks an opponent's onboard resources, nor is it particularly filled with things you want to sacrifice. Braids doesn't really complement your plan, and I'm not sure she's good enough on her own to pull her weight. She seems much better if you do play the land destruction.
I don't really get what Master of Cruelties is doing for you. It's a cool card but it doesn't seem very good against anything. You're unlikely to get him through against most decks, and even if you somehow do you won't necessarily be able to finish the job.
Dauthi Mindripper seems a little subpar compared to the other discard. Hypnotic Specter is probably better.
How's Herald of Leshrac been? Just curious.
I like Workhorse over Priest of Urabrask, as I said. I'd much rather flip a 4/4 that makes 4 mana when I want it than a 2/1 that makes 3 mana which may go to waste. Priest is easier to cast, but a free 2/1 isn't doing much of anything in this deck.
I think you play too many tutors. Cruel Tutor and Diabolic Tutor are particularly awful. Shred Memory doesn't seem to do too much for you. Gamble is quite a gamble, since you're usually going to be holding something you really don't want to discard. Even Dimir Machinations and Beseech the Queen are suspect, since if you tutor up something like Buried Alive or Doomsday, you generally have to pass the turn, and it guarantees that your opponent will play around it if they can. Most decks can. Even if they're not holding an answer, if they behave as if they do you're going to get screwed a certain amount of the time unless you always have discard as well. Despite all the combos I don't think this deck actually needs nearly so many tutors. They tend to be bad in multiples too, and you've got to draw multiples a lot.
Defense Grid is a great addition for this deck. Good job.
You have enough discard and creatures now that Cabal Therapy might be worth playing, even if you're not using it in a Doomsday combo.
I still think that Oblivion Stone has no place in this deck. You have enough sweepers already. I like Dystopia in general, but I don't think it's particularly good here either, since you're really not playing a slow control deck. Against some decks the card does nothing, against others they have so many little elves or tokens that they don't really care. I think you could definitely be playing something higher impact, like Liliana of the Veil, which accomplishes a similar role but with more versatility, precision, and synergy with your plan.
There might be something to be said for cutting back on the worse nonbasic lands (especially since you play Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon), and trying to play more swamps, Cabal Coffers, and Ruination. Your red requirements aren't high, Coffers could be very powerful with Grenzo, and Ruination is just a game-winning card against most decks right now. Even though the Moons do something similar, with so many tutors, it seems worth a try.
Overall the list is looking much stronger than the one you first posted though. Getting better and better. I look forward to seeing it continue to evolve--I think you definitely could have a top tier deck on your hands here.
I saw you play a game and a half on Cockatrice just now...still looks clunky to me. Powerful, yes, but kind of all over the place. I saw you activate Grenzo 5 times and only hit once, which is about what the math would predict. That's horribly inefficient. You gave your opponent about two virtual time walks on turns where you achieved absolutely nothing.
It's funny that you got the idea from lhf. He also made the last list I thought interesting enough to comment on, for Brago. I tried to get him to post on here since I think he has great ideas, but he said his English isn't good enough.
I still think your discard creatures are junk. You need targeted discard, repeatable or single use random isn't enough. A single random discard from Sanity Gnawers doesn't safely clear the way for anything, and if you have enough time to work someone's hand over with Blazing Specter their draw/deck must have been awful. It's too slow. Brain Maggot and Mesmeric Fiend are great, Entomber Exarch and Mindclaw Shaman are fine. I like both Hypnotic Specter and Shimian Specter over what you're using, and I suspect that Disciple of Phenax may actually make the cut if you're able to add enough creatures to make using Grenzo worthwhile. I'm also interested in Sadistic Hypnotist...it requires a certain density of creatures, but is potentially extremely powerful in this deck.
Doomsday is not as fast or safe as you're describing. It can sometimes be one or the other, but almost never both. It does not "easily steal games turn four or sooner," and requires a real godhand to get it off that quick with any sort of protection. Even then, it's not like you instantly win when you resolve it. In general your opponent is going to have at least 2 draw steps between you seeing their hand and you actually winning, and if they draw or have something as simple as any counterspell, any bounce, enchantment removal, in some cases creature removal, or a huge number of other cards that commonly see play, you just lose. That's not all that safe. It's also costing you more slots, since Rain of Filth and Infernal Contract are both quite sketchy in my opinion, and I'm not sure a properly built Grenzo deck even wants Night's Whisper...sinking that mana into Grenzo is usually going to be better if you have enough creatures. I don't get your Animate Dead, ?, ?, Spikeshot Elder, Worldgorger Dragon stack either, though maybe I'm missing something. Again, I'm not saying Doomsday isn't worth playing, but it requires rigorously testing once things are more tuned. I'm not sold on it.
Viashino Racketeer is bad. It's embarrassingly bad. The card was barely playable in limited, and it does nothing essential for you here. I'd much sooner play Mad Prophet or Rummaging Goblin, and I'm not at all sure those are worth playing either.
I was including those creatures in your win conditions when I counted. You were at 16% to hit before your changes, now you're at 22%. That is nowhere near a "comfy number". You're sinking an average of 10 mana into Grenzo for any creature you get, and few of those creatures are worth more than 4 mana. That's not how you win games unless you're insanely lucky all the time. I think "comfy" would be around 40% to hit, and acceptable would be around 30%.
Yeah, your list isn't really aggro, but several of the (too few) creatures you have are just very weak, as I've been explaining. They don't effectively compliment either a control or a combo plan. While anything's possible, it's highly unrealistic to expect that creature beatdown with your list is going to ever be viable against a competent opponent. You don't need chump blockers, and you shouldn't even be thinking about trying to enable this backup plan unless you're going to put some more creatures behind it.
I know the Ooze combo can be clunky too. I'm not at all sure it's good enough (though I like Triskelion by itself) That said, it's only a little bit more unwieldly than the Helm/Leyline combo, and the pieces have infinitely more synergy with Grenzo and the reanimation you're already playing.
I wouldn't worry about graveyard hate. It's not played that much, can always be played around, and all the discard you should be playing anyway is generally effective. Evergreen's Iname is much more graveyard reliant than this deck, and he hasn't had any problems. Since Grenzo wants you to play a bunch of creatures anyways, playing enough creatures to have a legitimate win through attacking is a better out to rare graveyard hate than yet another combo. The more combos you play, the weaker additional ones get, the more you need to play bad tutors, and the weaker your overall synergies get.
I don't deny that your deck is versatile. I still think it's unfocused. You're heavily focused on combo and playing a lot of inefficient fluff to try to make them consistent. All of your combos are fairly easy to disrupt though. I can't see your control or dorky creature suite being enough to best something like Animar, Marath, or a decent control deck though. Perhaps I'm wrong, but that's just how it looks to me.
I did a little search earlier for cards that I think are at least worth considering in a "big Grenzo" deck that's trying to maximize power from Grenzo activations. I would want at least 30-35 creatures that Grenzo can flip to make this worth considering, but such a deck should be excellent if Grenzo sticks. Such a deck can easily include the Worldgorger Dragon combo. There are plenty of small creatures that definitely make the cut too, I'm just talking about cards with cmc 4 or more that are somewhat inefficient to cast, but potentially backbreaking off of Grenzo.
Land destruction:
Avalanche Riders
Ravenous Baboons
Goblin Settler
Petravark
Braids, Cabal Minion
Discard:
Disciple of Phenax
Entomber Exarch
Mindclaw Shaman
Shimian Specter
Sadistic Hypnotist
Removal: (I only particularly like Duplicant and perhaps Murderous Redcap out of this bunch)
Duplicant
Murderous Redcap
Nekrataal
Faceless Butcher
Outrage Shaman
Big guns:
Herald of Leshrac
Ignition Team
Minion of the Wastes
Pentavus
Triskelavus
Triskelion
Other:
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Mad Prophet
Moggcatcher (while I don't like creatures that cost mana to use since Grenzo is such a good manasink, this guy is worth the mana)
Phyrexian Devourer
Siege-Gang Commander
Solemn Simulacrum
Those are all the creatures with cmc 4 or more that I think are worth thinking about in a Grenzo deck. Difficulty casting these spells is inversely proportional to their power when flipped off Grenzo, so a list with a critical mass of cards like this would be very explosive provided you can get Grenzo to stick.
I haven't seen your deck in action, but I understand that your testing results have been impressive. That said, there are quite a few things about your list that bug me and make me feel there's a lot of tuning that needs to be done still.
The biggest issue is that you need to decide whether this is to be a "Grenzo deck" or not. By that I mean, are you going to play a sufficient quantity of creatures with power 2 or less to make activating Grenzo worth your time and mana? I don't have a clear idea of how many creatures is enough, but I would estimate that if you're playing dorky aggro creatures, you probably need to hit around 50% of the time. If you're playing more powerful creatures to flip, like Pentavus or Minion of the Wastes, something like 33% is probably sufficient. I'm making those numbers up but they sound about right to me.
Your list is only 16% to flip something in off Grenzo. That's horrendous, and basically means that you should be only be activating Grenzo if you have literally nothing else to do with your mana, since the expected value is so low. And yet, you're playing junk like Sanity Gnawers, Blazing Specter, and Viashino Racketeer that I can't imagine you'd play if you weren't hoping to flip them with Grenzo, since they're not powerful cards and I don't see any other reason you'd include them.
So you're playing cards that are only good to flip off Grenzo, in a deck where it's not profitable to activate Grenzo. That's bad. If you're going to play all these spells and so few creatures, just cut all the creatures except the ones that are great by themselves or part of your win, and plan on rarely activating Grenzo until you go off. That would be a bit boring (and probably worse than Scion of the Ur-Dragon, which gives you more options and also tutors Worldgorger Dragon), but I think it would be better for the style of deck you're presenting.
On the other hand...the Worldgorger combo is only, what, like 5 slots? You could play that AND play enough creatures to leverage this intrinsic power of Grenzo (which is very high indeed and definitely wins games). I think an aggro deck with a backdoor combo plan sounds very strong and difficult to deal with (decks strong against aggro tend to be weak to this combo, and vice versa). I also think a deck filled with expensive but powerful 2 or less power creatures and the dragon combo sounds completely awesome, though I'm not sure it would be better than the aggro version. Such a deck could also play the Necrotic Ooze, Triskelion, Phyrexian Devourer combo, since it already has the right kind of infrastructure and the latter two are pretty great with Grenzo anyway. It would probably be weak to decks that can attack your lands or repeatedly kill Grenzo though.
Speaking of win conditions, Rakdos Guildmage is awful here. Sure it wins with infinite mana, but so do plenty of other things. Grenzo is already such a powerful manasink that there are no other situations where you'd want to use Rakdos Guildmage. Siege-Gang Commander is great, and you can also just play Spikeshot Elder and not feel bad about it at all. Those 2 are enough. I'm not a fan of shoehorning in the Leyline of the Void/Helm of Obedience combo...any black deck in the format can play it, but there's a reason why none of the good ones do. It's too clunky, especially when it's getting you to include expensive tutors like Diabolic Tutor. Clunk clunk clunk. It's too slow to beat good decks and has 0 synergy with the rest of your deck.
I'm undecided about Doomsday. The card is certainly powerful, but it's also a little slow and extremely vulnerable to disruption. None of your stacks blow me away with their efficiency and elegance...they all include cards I'd rather not play in this deck and have no protection. I'm not going to say cut it or keep it but it's definitely not a slam dunk in this deck and I don't know how useful it really is. It wins sometimes, but it will also definitely lose you games you could otherwise have won. Tainted Pact is pretty bad in a deck with so many basics, especially one that requires that certain cards still be in your deck for you to be able to win. You simply cannot use it well with 14 Swamps. You can and should switch half of your basics to snow-covered lands, but even then I wouldn't use it here.
So...yeah, I like your deck a lot, but I'd change pretty much everything about it. You can't play combo and control and aggro all at the same time like this. It weakens all of them. I do think that Grenzo has reasonable synergy with Worldgorger Dragon combo and it gives the deck a nice angle, but you either need to focus on that entirely and ignore Grenzo's other applications, or make a strong Grenzo deck first and fit the combo in as an alternate win. You can't split the difference like this, it just makes both plans worse.
Arbor Elf over Tainted Pact...I mean, that's a thing you could do. I can't imagine it's worth it though. At the end of the day, Arbor Elf is just one more mana elf among many. It's nice, to be sure, but there's nothing special about it, and it's not even good when you draw multiple elves. On the other hand, Tainted Pact is insanely good in this deck--I really find it to be better than Demonic Tutor since I can cast it eot or in my combat step and kill by surprise. Yes, I have to make my lands back over backwards to accommodate this one card, which is annoying, but the mana can handle it and the card is SO GOOD that it's still definitely worth it in my mind. Resistance to nonbasic hate isn't a big deal at all I think--these cards are not that commonly played, are not always drawn on time anyway, and can absolutely be played around with most hands. Even though the landbase is soft to them, I've beaten these cards more often than I've lost to them. I don't think adding a few more basics will really help that much against them anyway, they're still going to be great against us no matter what we do.
I've found Oloro combo decks to be a great matchup actually. We're faster than they are, and they tend to have very minimal disruption. Our average hand definitely beats their average hand, and as long as you get a hand with a reasonable clock you should be fine.
I get what you mean by "instant speed creature protection" now, but the card you're looking for unfortunately does not exist. Nothing like this is good enough. Maybe someday.
Sylvan Safekeeper is okay but remember that it's not as good as it looks. It's actually very weak protection from instant-speed removal, since a savvy opponent will just wait until you try to scavenge and then use their removal. If you save your creatures, you fizzle the scavenge, which is not good at all. It's still a reasonable card but it's by no means indispensable. It's in and out of my deck, and those cards tend to wind up staying out eventually.
Kamenitza, Tainted Strike is bad. As you observe, it's really only good in the circumstance where you're attacking with a big (but not super-big from Buried Alive) Varolz and are unblocked and they have nothing. You win those games perfectly fine without Tainted Strike 99% of the time. Berserk is a whole different story because it grants evasion too, giving it a lot of extra utility. Tainted Strike is very one-dimensional, frequently going to be dead in hand, and usually win-more even when you can cast it.
I'm somewhat ambivalent about Chrome Mox myself, though I still play it. It's not the greatest (I'd rather have a mana elf most of the time), but I do use it much more commonly than you suggest. If it lets me play engine cards or card draw sooner, it's worth it. Most spell-heavy hands can use it effectively, and when you can't, you generally need more spells anyway and are pretty happy mulliganing it. Does that make sense? With most cards, saying that you can always mull it if it's dead doesn't mean much, because those cards make you mull when you don't otherwise want to, but with Chrome Mox that's not really an issue, since if a hand can't use Chrome Mox effectively, it probably doesn't contain enough action to begin with. Chrome Mox also takes the place of a land slot, not a spell. I don't think it's critical to include it, but I've been playing it for a very long time and I'm still pretty happy with it. It's frequently better than a random land would be.
Whether you play Chrome Mox or not, please don't play Mox Diamond. It's so much worse in this deck. There are 3 kinds of draws with this deck: good ones, ones with great spells but not enough land, and ones with enough land but light on action. The latter two are the ones that most frequently lead to losses (this deck doesn't lose much, but I think it loses to itself more often than to an opponent). Mox Diamond is terrible in both of those types of hands. If you're light on lands you always just wish it was a land, and if you have too many lands you can probably cast it, but don't have much to ramp into. You're probably better off mulling a couple of lands and non-essential spells (including Mox Diamond) hoping to hit a better balance with more action. That is not a situation where you want to be sacrificing card advantage for ramp. Compare that with Chrome Mox, which is still bad when you have too many lands, but can actually be very good when you're a little light on them. Just cut Mox Diamond, it's seriously awful here, you need some kind of perfect hand to make it ever even worth casting.
I'm trying out Yisan and Noxious Revival too. I have no opinion yet but I'm hopeful. I'm also trying Gemstone Caverns and Ulcerate (I looooove cheap removal).
Your deck is still within about 10 cards of what I'm currently testing, and every single card you're playing that I'm not has been in and out of my list at some point. I think that this deck is getting pretty close to optimized, and there's a core of about 80 cards that I wouldn't even consider changing.
From your list, I have:
-Reflecting Pool
-Gilt-Leaf Palace
-Mox Diamond
-Bloom Tender
-Scavenging Ooze
-Rancor
-Seal of Primordium
-Devour in Shadow
-Diabolic Edict
-Beast Within
-Putrefy
+Urborg
+Tectonic Edge
+Gemstone Caverns
+Chrome Mox
+Expedition Map
+Plague Myr
+Necropede
+Skeletal Scrying
+Ulcerate
+Hero's Downfall
+Read the Bones
I've already voiced my opinion on the Moxes. I think you're a little land light, considering I'm running ~2 more than you (Chrome Mox counts as a land, Mox Diamond and Expedition Map count as half a land). I feel like I've finally gotten the number right, since I get manascrewed almost exactly as often as I get manaflooded now, and this deck lives and dies off of that. Gilt-Leaf Palace is fine and was very recently in my deck (I just cut it to try out Gemstone Caverns, but I have no idea if Caverns is better yet). Gilt-Leaf Palace was definitely the worst land in the deck though, since sometimes you have to play it tapped and just lose a turn. I'm not a fan of Reflecting Pool since it's so ineffective at fixing. I think Urborg is better (it's also better than Vault of Whispers, but I still play that). I'd rather just have something consistent than Reflecting Pool. Expedition Map made its way back into my deck recently and has been fine. It's a little slower than you like, but Inkmoth Nexus is so important in this deck that I've found it to be worthwhile. Sometimes getting Wasteland or Rishadan Port is key too. I like having Tectonic Edge for the same reason--there are a few lands that really mess with us, especially Maze of Ith, and it's important to be able to find answers.
Bloom Tender was always really clunky for me. 2 mana accelerants don't fit the curve well, and it's hard to really capitalize on it in many hands. This deck wants to ramp fast, not high, and Bloom Tender isn't very good for that. I much prefer Plague Myr, which is almost as good as ramping (Bloom Tender often only makes 1 mana, or makes extra mana I can't use), and gives you immense potential to just win simply by being on the board. Your opponents have to respect that and play very differently, or risk just losing (and I've won many games exactly like that). I also like Necropede, which is not super powerful but demands the same kind of respect, and has also won me many games. The option to use it as removal for 1 toughness creatures also comes up more often than you would expect, and gives it a good bit of utility. I don't like Scavenging Ooze at all in this deck. Most of the best decks simply don't care about graveyard hate (including this one), and this deck isn't aggressive enough to win games off of its body either. It just doesn't play well with anything this deck is doing, and isn't powerful enough to constitute a plan by itself.
Rancor is bad. It's considerably worse than Bramblewood Paragon, and I don't think that's good enough either. Again, this deck isn't aggressive enough, even with as much infect as I play, to win by just attacking (it happens, but very rarely). Rancor is basically trample and nothing else here, and that's not good enough to be worth a slot.
You play more removal than I do right now. I used to play that much, but I think it's less important in the current meta. It's not like when Zur was running around--there are very few decks now that demand that you always have removal or just lose. I tried out playing less, and haven't regretting it at all. I really like Ulcerate though--mana cost for removal is absolutely crucial. I really hate 3 mana removal spells--in this deck, it usually takes most of your turn just to play one, whereas you can typically cast a cheaper one and still have enough mana to advance your gameplan. The difference between 3 and 2 is huge, and the difference between 2 and 1 is just as big. Ulcerate still kills most things I care about, so I think it will be worthwhile. I was pretty happy with Disfigure even, and could see playing that again sometime. I don't like Hero's Downfall, but it's still probably better than Putrefy, and I like having some answers to planeswalkers. I keep wanting to cut Maelstrom Pulse for being too clunky but can't quite bring myself to do it. I don't like Beast Within in this deck at all though, 3 mana is a lot and the Beast token is often very relevant against us. I'm strongly in favor of playing as much card draw as you can--in games where you're flooding out (the games you can easily lose), these are the best spells you can draw. Skeletal Scrying is very explosive and versatile and has won me lots of games. Read the Bones is a little clunky, but still quite good--honestly, it's better than Phyrexian Arena a lot of the time, since it's faster. I think this deck still wants the Arenas, since they can save bad hands that would otherwise doom you, but I could see an argument for cutting them, since this deck is so fast that it usually doesn't get many cards out of them. Read the Bones at least lets you dig pretty deep immediately, and fairly often lets you win the next turn. I'd work pretty hard to fit these in.
Other than those, the list looks perfect though
Hypnotic Specter has been fine thus far. Needs more testing. Hymn to Tourach should stay though, the card is just extremely overpowered.
I had cut Green Sun's Zenith for a while, but realized that I really did want as many 1-mana creature accelerants as possible. Thanks to Dryad Arbor, GSZ counts. That alone makes it worth playing for me. Nothing else really factors in.
Bramblewood Paragon isn't necessary. Brawn truly is, but you can always do without the Paragon, and I found it was irrelevant most times I drew it. You know, if you draw Brawn at the wrong time you can always just cast it and sacrifice it to Varolz...
I've played Elvish Spirit Guide quite a bit, it's not really worth it. The way this deck functions, we do tend to need more mana every turn. Ramp that only lasts a turn just leaves you needing one more the following turn. It was only good for the turn you win, and it's not consistently helpful in that regard.
I still don't know why you play Skullbriar lol. The card seems awful to me.
I quite like the idea of Noxious Revival. I hadn't considered it before, but the price is certainly right. It's not a great card, but it has enough utility in this deck that I could see it being good. I'll give it a try.
I don't really understand what you mean by "creature protection to tutor for at instant speed." There's only 1 instant speed tutor. The best options are probably Vines of Vastwood or Sylvan Safekeeper, depending on what you're talking about, but I don't think either card is crucial. The more experience I get with this deck the less I've found myself wanted any sorts of dedicated protection cards. You don't need them, and can accomplish the exact same thing with tight play and well-timed discard.
Gemstone Caverns is interesting. I might try it out. My gut says it probably isn't good enough, since there are a lot of situations it's bad in, and plenty of hands where we wouldn't necessarily want to use it even if on the play (I mulligan Chrome Mox away a lot), but I wouldn't be too surprised if it worked. It's exciting to have another land I could potentially play too, since I've actually hit the limit of lands I'm willing to play under Tainted Pact's constraints. If you try it, let me know how it is.
I agree with most of what buddha's been saying. Plunge into Darkness doesn't cut it as card selection. DTrain, I wouldn't play this deck without Berserk, but the other cards you mention are not absolutely essential (I don't even play Grim Tutor anymore).
I'll try to update the OP soon. I'm not going to have much (if any) time to play test for about the next 3 months though, so progress will be slow.
I like Hypnotic Specter a lot so far. I think it'll stay. I've even considered Hollow Specter and Shimian Specter quite strongly, though I think the mana costs involved there are probably too much. They might work though (haven't actually tested them).
I need to update the list in the OP when I have time. It's very outdated and I guess it's hard to follow the change-logs from newer posts. I haven't played Abyssal Persecutor in quite a while. I'm not playing Bramblewood Paragon anymore either. I am playing Green Sun's Zenith (it gets Dryad Arbor literally 99% of the time, but in this deck that's fine).
Nature's Lore and Three Visits were just because I wanted to try out a little more ramp and they seemed like the next best options. I don't think they'll stay though. 2cc ramp just doesn't seem to do it for this deck--even Bloom Tender didn't play well, when that card is usually so good. I should maybe try Wild Growth (it's probably a little better for curve purposes), but I'm pretty hesitant because I play so few basic lands. A lot of hands with Wild Growth are just going to absolutely fold to Wasteland, and considering that pretty much all decks play that, I think the risk is just too high. I'm not sure there's any other ramp I can play that's good enough, so I may just have to play something else in those slots. Arbor Elf really isn't an option unfortunately, since with my current land base it's just dead in the opening hand about 50% of the time.
Berserk is one of the absolute best cards in this deck and wins so many games. I'd play 4 or 5 if I could--it's actually the card I wind up tutoring for more often than anything else. The card is just impossible to play around and invariably ends games. I never have had to Berserk a 1/1 before though!
I haven't had issues with Skeletal Scrying. Sometimes it's 4-5 cards and sometimes just 2, but it always does something when I need it. If you have tons to do with your mana already, you probably don't need to be casting Skeletal Scrying--just save it for when you run out of things to do. It's fairly common for me to end games with stuff like Skeletal Scrying, Read the Bones, or even Phyrexian Arena in hand because I simply didn't have time to cast them...that usually means you just had a good hand. Even though the draw spells aren't so good in those situations, I think they're still necessary for when you have to keep worse hands and hope to draw into some action.
How was Diabolic Intent relevant? It doesn't seem awful, but neither does it seem great. I'm not sure it's better than Grim Tutor, and I actually cut that recently for being too clunky and haven't missed it.
You make a good point about Thrun vs. Clique DL. It is indeed a great card there (or against mono-blue in general). However, at least on Cockatrice, mono-blue seems to be very seldom played recently (I literally haven't encountered Clique in months). I cut Thrun a while ago and haven't missed him yet. If blue control is rampant I'd definitely keep him in, but with the way the meta's going he may not be necessary. I did cut Dosan the Falling Leaf as well, and haven't missed him either.
Since my last changelist, I think I've gone:
-Dosan the Falling Leaf
-Thrun, the Last Troll
-Nihil Spellbomb
-Grasp of Darkness
-Grim Tutor
-Eternal Witness
+Cabal Therapy
+Disfigure
+Hypnotic Specter
+Sylvan Safekeeper
+Nature's Lore
+Three Visits
I've also tested out (again) Glistener Elf, Elvish Spirit Guide, Chord of Calling, and Parallax Nexus, but wasn't satisfied with any of them and they all got cut again. Chord of Calling maintained its perfect streak of being utterly uncastable every single time I've drawn it.
Thrun and Dosan are discussed above. Nihil Spellbomb was nice but not necessary, and I wanted to play with the slot. I'm planning on replacing Grasp of Darkness with Ulcerate once M15 comes out, and figured I'd test Disfigure to see how different it is and whether it's worth playing. It's actually not bad at all--cmc on removal is tremendously important for curving out properly, and Disfigure still kills a lot of stuff. Ulcerate will be better though. Hypnotic Specter and Sylvan Safekeeper are still test spots and might not stay long. I've been impressed with Needle Specter, and while Hypnotic Specter is worse, my theory is that it's kind of a probe for removal spells. No one ever takes a hit from Hyppie if they're holding removal--it just doesn't happen. So if he gets through, the coast is probably clear. It's also just a pretty good card overall. Sylvan Safekeeper does have annoying dissynergy with scavenge, but it's still effective protection in many other circumstances...and it's possible my opponents won't realize that it blocks scavenge too (shh). I'm not sure it will be good enough, but it might still work. Nature's Lore and Three Visits are just a trial of some ramp that's immune to sweepers. I think these are the best options, since even though they don't fit the curve so well they still fix mana and sometimes effectively cost 1. So far in testing I haven't loved or hated them. We'll see.
Speaking of M15, it's a little questionable but I think Yisan, the Wanderer Bard will actually be worth testing. I really wish the activation didn't cost so much, but any card that can by itself tutor up a Dreadnought and then follow that up with Mesmeric Fiend or Plague Stinger is worth a look. I wouldn't be surprised if the card turns out to be quite good in this deck. I'm still interested in including another card or two to beat Marath: I actually have a positive record against the deck, but it doesn't feel so good. Toxic Deluge is fairly effective and I've been very happy with Phyrexian Revoker, but I want just a little bit more. Maybe Pithing Needle? My issues with the deck primarily just stem from Marath being able to machine-gun down all my little creatures at will.
I've been keeping track of all my games on Cockatrice in the last few months or so (only started recording player names recently though). I have descriptions for some of the games, especially the recent ones. Here are my results:
Horobi, Night's Whisper: 1-0
Akroma, Angel of Fury: 1-0
Geist of St. Traft: 2-0
Animar, Soul of Elements: 2-0
Tajic, Blade of the Legion: 2-0
Ephara, God of the Polis: 2-0
Ghave, Guru of Spores: 1-0
Ezuri, Renegade Leader: 2-0
Doran, the Siege Tower: 0-2 (g1 manascrew into g2 colorscrew, i had him dead both games if i just drew black mana)
Doran, the Siege Tower: 2-1 (same player. the game I lost, i had duress to make sure the coast was clear, followed by lethal with berserk the next turn. On his one draw step, he topdecked instant-speed removal to stop me from winning)
Grimgrin, Corpse-Born: 1-0
Tajic, Blade of the Legion: 2-0
Olivia Voldaren: 2-1 (the game I lost, I neglected to play around blood moon effects when I could have, and lost to magus of the moon with an awesome hand and a board of just mountains)
Ezuri, Renegade Leader: 1-2 (g1 i lost one turn before i would have killed him with with a huge berserking guy. I had awkward lands this game and tapped wrong multiple times, giving him at least 2 extra turns I think. g2 turn 4 win. g3 i had a good hand but was a little tight on mana, and his wasteland made that much worse. I still would have won if i had found a second source of black mana, losing the game to ezuri going nuclear with the combo, victim of night, and grasp of darkness all in hand).
Skithyrix, the Blight Dragon: 1-0
Azusa, Lost but Seeking: 2-0
The Mimeoplasm: 2-0
Maelstrom Wanderer: 2-0
Jenara, Asura of War: 2-0
Prime Speaker Zegana: 1-0 (ragequit)
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic: 2-0 (Omniscience combo, I was faster)
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic: 2-0 (control, this seems like a nice matchup overall since his deck is slow and I don't care how much life he gains)
Azusa, Lost but Seeking: 2-1 (the game i lost, i kept a 1 lander on the play with swamp, dark rit, liliana, entomb, death's shadow. couldn't draw green mana in like 15 turns. if i had been able to play varolz, would have won, even after he terastodoned me. other 2 games were straightforward.)
Azusa, Lost but Seeking: 2-0 (different player)
Varolz, the Scar-Striped: 2-0 (different style of deck than mine, had the combos but didn't seem very tuned)
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden: 2-1 (goblin deck, i lost a game due to never drawing a 4th land in 10 or so turns. had everything i needed otherwise. won game 3 on turn 3 despite his sparksmith: dark ritual + buried alive + berserk for the massive overkill)
Nekusar, the Mindrazer: 1-0
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden: 2-1 (very tuned looking aggro deck. I lost a close game 1 due to multiple misplays. I let Slavering Nulls hit my hand several times, when I should have sucked it up and killed it early. Then I wound up making varolz big instead of inkmoth nexus because i was 1 mana short of insta-killing with nexus and was afraid of land destruction. He was able to kill me over several turns while repeatedly chumping varolz and my inkmoth just sat there. Game 2 was close but i was able to get there with nexus combo a turn or 2 before he could kill me. Game 3 i had a ton of lands, but dryad arbor + pendelhaven did a good job slowing him down, then when he played 5 guys toxic deluge for 2 destroyed him, and i even got to save dryad arbor. He kept trying, but liliana, plague stinger, and death's shadow wrapped it up 2 turns later)
Azami, Lady of Scrolls: 2-1 (game 1: sweet hand, turn 4 kill with chrome mox, brain maggot, and a giant necropede. Still had demonic tutor in hand at the end. Game 2 I have a good hand but misplay horribly by playing sylvan library instead of dark confidant before casting nature's claim on his fellwar stone. The instant after I do that I realize how terrible my sequencing/choice is if he has Misdirection, and of course he has it for the monster blowout. Then he's able to play Azami, I get stuck on mana, and it's all downhill from there. My starting hand was so powerful that this was probably unlosable if I just played around Misdirection, which I could have done easily. Game 3 I have turn 1 Survival of the Fittest off of Chrome Mox. I get greedy and make a big mistake of hitting him with a 15/15 Varolz on turn 3 after he taps out for Sky Diamond (never do this against blue decks). He has Sower of Temptation of course, and I don't have any answers to it that I can get off of Survival. Luckily, I topdeck Tainted Pact, which finds me removal and the win, but that could have gone very badly for me. I definitely should have waited longer.
Marath, Will of the Wild: 2-1 (g1 i keep a nice hand with 3 land, deathrite, library, liliana, viridian corrupter on the play. unfortunately, he has seal of cleansing to immediately kill library. liliana takes out his argothian enchantress but dies to marath. i draw no action cards for like 7 turns and lose. g2 i mull into a somewhat awkward hand with fauna shaman, an elf, tainted pact and 3 lands. i decide to play the mana elf on turn 1 (instead of saving it for Fauna Shaman) and never really draw another creature. We both have rishadan ports though, so his mana is awkward. He can't really play marath and tainted pact gets me there eventually. g3 i mull into an awkward hand with whispering specter, entomb, and 4 lands. the pieces are there...he has a turn 1 weathered wayfarer and skips his next land drop. i am not about to give him gaea's cradle and am perfectly willing to play the waiting game so we stare at each other for a few turns until he gives up and starts playing land. i have plague myr, he has aura shards. frown. i have whispering specter and tainted pact in hand, dreadnought in my gy from entomb. i just play varolz and pass. he plays marath as expected, killing my myr with aura shards. on my turn, i scavenge onto varolz, attack, and tainted pact for berserk when he chumps. so sweet.)
Heartless Hidetsugo: 2-0
Doran, the Siege Tower: 2-1 (game 1, i have survival and am playing around his scavenging ooze. i misplay really badly and pass up the chance to make a 14/14 plague myr and make him start chumping, when i already know he has sword of feast and famine in hand and will make me discard and lose my chance. the game is still extremely close, and i would have won if i had 1 more life or a land other than tarnished citadel to make colored mana. as is, i eventually get that 14/14 trampling myr, but he just plays doran to chump, and i'm dead the next turn. i definitely could have won this with tighter play. g2 turn 3 kill. g3 turn 4 kill)
Marath, Will of the Wild: 2-0 (g1 i go for the 14/14 varolz on turn 3 before marath is active. he takes 14, and then i have removal for his chump blocker.
g2 i mull to 5 to find lands and keep something slow with survival and tainted pact. he has turn 2 marath followed by skullclamp. i get to a position where i can win out of nowhere if he taps out, but he doesn't go for it, and i have to tainted pact for toxic deluge in order to survive. that almost lets me win right after, except that he has swords to plowshares to slow me down too. i'm able to survival up phyrexian revoker to curtail his 5/5 marath though, then play a 15/15 varolz to block, then win.)
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, piloted by Graddock: 2-0 (g1 i mull to a hand with a lot of discard and 2 lands. i miss a couple land drops while he ramps, but eventually sign in blood into enough mana. varolz comes down, then buried alive and attack for 27 the following turn. he's actually able to survive for a turn by chumping with prossh and some tokens, but still can't deal with varolz. g2 i keep a decent hand that just lacks a way to win, but draw worldly tutor pretty early. he has a bunch of ramp, while i get out varolz and inkmoth nexus. there's a turn where i could go for the kill with inkmoth nexus, but he has 1 unknown card and mana up and if he kills it i'd lose. i didn't go for it. the next turn he tutors for toxic deluge and kills all my stuff, including varolz and dryad arbor, while revealing that he didn't have removal. c'est la vie. i just play varolz. he plays prossh. i make a 14/14 nexus and force him to chump. next turn he replays prossh, but when he tries to chump again i have tainted pact for berserk.)
Geist of St. Traft, piloted by mavrkhrom: 2-0 (g1 i keep a pretty powerful but land light hand. he has swords to plowshares and force of will to stop fauna shaman and dark confidant and gets geist going, alongside rishadan port and dust bowl to tie up my mana. i'm able to ambush his geist with necropede and crop rotation for pendelhaven though, which feels sweet. i miss a bunch of land drops and feel sure I'm losing this to his port and dust bowl, but i'm still able to get out survival and maneuver a bit. when he gets sword of feast and famine, necropede chump blocks, and then viridian corrupter takes it out. he tries to kill me with elspeth for exactly lethal, but i point out that he can't cast her (only 1 white). the next turn i'm able to discard dreadnought getting brawn, scavenge onto corrupter, and attack for lethal after i discard brawn. g2 the server crashes midway through this game so we don't technically finish, but i had plenty of mana, high life, varolz and sylvan library in play, and a strong hand vs his 4 lands and 3 cards in hand. i'm pretty confident i was winning that game.)
Marchesa, the Black Rose, piloted by italicizedliez: 2-0 (g1 i'm attacking with 15/15 varolz on turn 3 with brain maggot protection. g2 he gets stuck on land and i have a great hand with turn 1 dark confidant, followed up by sylvan library and plenty of action.)
Marath, Will of the Wild, piloted by Guino500: 1-2: (g1 i mull to find lands and wind up with something slow but keepable, with maelstrom pulse for marath. i have to use the pulse on his sylvan library though after sign in blood just draws me little creatures i don't want. turns out he has a great hand and i don't draw much, and he quickly assembles his infinite combo with fauna shaman on turn 5. g2 i'm able to maneuver into a 13/13 needle specter without him able to stop me. g3 he has a pretty average hand (just a bunch of mana) but mine is pretty slow and non-interactive (hymn into read the bones into hero's downfall into ad nauseum. he's not doing much but has taken some life off me. ad nauseum finds me about 15 cards but nothing i can use, and i lose.)
Zedruu, the Great-Hearted, piloted by bata: 2-0 (g1 he keeps a 1 lander with land tax on the draw, and gets screwed when i just stay on 1 land and play elves. g2 glacial chasm actually buys him several turns right before i was about to kill him with buried alive, but it's not enough.)
Horde of Notions, piloted by Agent of Cuber: 2-0 (he's playing some sort of creature-based combo deck. g1 i mull away a bunch of lands and draw more lands, then draw nothing but lands. however, those lands include rishadan port and wasteland and he has a land light hand, and he concedes (somewhat inappropriately i think) to mana issues. g2 i'm able to set up a turn 4 nexus kill right through his scavenging ooze, with discard backup.)
Jenara, Asura of War, piloted by pizieno: 1-0 (i have a great hand, scoring a turn 4 kill off of buried alive when he taps out. he gets very excited and leaves.)
So...yeah. Those are all the games I've played semi-recently. Obviously some of those decks aren't as competitive as others, but plenty of them are, and I have a stellar win-loss ratio overall. This is absolutely the deck I would take a tournament, and I think a strong case could be made for it being tier 1 (if only anyone else played it!).
@Gemiinus: Invigorate's not good enough in this deck. Free is nice, but +4/+4 isn't generally enough to be relevant. This deck one-shots (sometimes two-shots) people. It doesn't nickel-and-dime with smaller pump effects. If I wanted a protection instant, I'd play Vines of Vastwood or Ranger's Guile first (protecting from bounce is a big deal), but even those haven't been necessary. I haven't played them in a long time and haven't missed them.
@Jibux: Nah, Temple of Malady isn't good here. It's definitely not better than any of the lands you mentioned. All I want from my lands is that they make colored mana and that they don't come in tapped. It's hard to overstate how important the untapped part is. This deck has an extremely low curve and generally makes efficient use of every mana every turn. Playing a CITP land is usually like giving your opponent a free Time Walk, and that's really not an exaggeration. Gilt-Leaf Palace is by far the worst land in the deck, because it comes into play tapped about 40% of the time and is a reverse Time Walk 30% of the time. It's a necessary evil though, since there simply isn't anything better out there. Temple of Malady is far, far worse than Gilt-Leaf Palace in this deck.
Sakura-Tribe Elder and Sylvan Caryatid are cards I've considered. They don't fit the curve though, don't interact well with Varolz, and really aren't impactful enough to do that much vs Marath. 1 more mana is nice and all, but it doesn't really address the problem like Phyrexian Revoker does. If I was going to play another ramp card like that, I think it would be Viridian Emissary (somewhat better synergy with Varolz) but I don't like that either.
@buddha84: Chord of Calling has been in and out of my list several times. Every time it's in, I hate it and find it unbearably clunky. It tends to get stuck in my hand even though it's instant speed and I only ever want to cast it for 1. Experience has shown that it's way harder to cast it in a real game than you would expect. I still try it out every once in a while, because in theory it seems decent and this deck wants the effect badly, but it's never performed well for me.
Since my last update, I've taken out Sylvan Tutor and Mindslicer, and replaced them with Needle Specter and Nihil Spellbomb. Sylvan Tutor is semi-valid for grabbing Dark Confidant or Mesmeric Fiend, but I don't want to play a tutor for that. It's terrible for getting a Dreadnought, since it telegraphs what you're doing and gives your opponent a turn to prepare. This deck needs to be trickier than that. Mindslicer has always been either pretty good or very bad, depending on the situation. The problem is that it's so high variance, and it's never extremely good. Needle Specter is very similar to Whispering Specter (which has been testing quite well) and I've liked it so far. It's somewhat relevant to just grind away with it (more so than Whispering Specter), and is actually a reasonably good scavenge target as well. It's the very best target to scavenge small stuff like mana dorks on, and when you think you can get a hit in, build-your-own-Nicol-Bolas has been enough to win the game on the couple of occasions I've been able to make that happen. I like it so far. Nihil Spellbomb is just a great card with very low opportunity cost, and I wanted a little bit more control of the graveyard. It's kind of filler and could definitely be replaced in the future, but I like it fine for now.
I'm considering cutting Dosan the Falling Leaf and Thrun, the Last Troll. It seems that the better I get with this deck, the less useful "protection" cards like this become. They just usually aren't very relevant. Sometimes they're good, often they're bad, but even when they're good I generally feel like I could have won the game without them. I'm not sure what I'll add instead, but I think I can do without them now.
The deck continues to test well. I've played several matches on Cockatrice in the last week, winning all of them. In full matches, I've beaten Oloro twice, Geist twice, Ezuri once, Marchesa twice, Grenzo once, and a few others I don't remember. I think I lost one match, but can't remember to what (it wasn't a top deck). Almost all of the games I've lost were to my own lands (not drawing enough, or not drawing a color, despite multiple mulligans). It's hard to figure out how to fix that though.
I don't like Tainted Strike much, since it's dead unless you have a dreadnought, and if you have a dreadnought scavenged and attacking and getting through you're probably a 95% favorite to win that game anyway. It's also mostly dead if you have an infect creature already in play. It does have the potential to get people sometimes, so I guess there's some potential there, but my gut says it's not worth it.