So I think this deck can have a very serious home in vintage. From testing Ive found it has roughly a 65~70% chance of going off turn 1 on the draw, and if we get to go to turn 2 the chance of winning is much higher.
The main combo of the deck rotates around resolving either of these two cards.
The trick lies within running 0 lands in the deck, and instead netting mana from cards like elvish spirit guide, simian spirit guide, Moxes, Lotus/Lotus Petal.
The deck is very all in. You want to try and go off turn 1 or bust. It has a very reliable win rate, but you really need to know whether your hand is a keeper or not. The entire game is purely decided by your ability to mulligan, play wise it takes very little skill to lay down 4 mana and cast a dude. Cabal therapy usage and tutoring up the right cards also are important.
Since we aren't running any lands in the deck, recross the paths lets us stack our entire deck ala Doomsday style, for three mana as well (though less restrictive)
Proper use of a well timed Recross the Paths can often instantly end the game too, meaning we often only need to get to three mana and resolve Paths to win.
Now, how do we actually end the game? It's a very very convoluted combo, made even more complicated in vintage vs our legacy brother since we have a lot more threats to dance around before safely going off.
Here's where it gets tricky. We now pitch our Narcomeba's to cabal therapy to rip our opponent's hand apart before we continue, this will turn our Narcomebas into 2/2 Zombies via Bridge.
We can safely use Azami's ability to deck ourself with Lab Maniac out. If our opponent still has an answer here, we can use it a second time as Lab Maniac is also a wizard.
So, tl;dr:
This puts us at 23/60 of the deck towards the combo. The rest is a mix of the following cards to your personal choice based on how all in you want to go.
Chrome Mox●●●●●
Another great source of black mana, definitely want at least 2 of these.
Dark Ritual●●●●●
Probably the best ritual, gets us 2 mana from 1 card. Value town! I run 4 of these.
Manamorphose●●●●○
Doesn't net us mana, but replaces itself and can convert red/green mana from Spirit Guides into Black. I'd run 3~4.
Elvish Spirit Guide●●●●○
Great source of green Mana, useful for casting Morphoses and Recross the Paths.
Simian Spirit Guide●●●○○
Strictly worse than Elvish guide in this deck, only good for casting manamorphose and getting some colorless mana, still good as a 2-3 of.
Mana vault●●●●○
Colorless mana, but is basically Dark Ritual #5 in the deck.
Sol Ring●●●○○
Strictly worse than crypt/vault, but has longevity for late game if we don't win turn 1. Can help us top deck a game ender when our opponent thinks they beat us turn 1.
Mox Sapphire●●●●○
Our main source of blue mana outside of Lotusing.
Mox Ruby●●●○○
The slightly better simian spirit guide.
Mox Emerald●●●●○
The slightly better Elvish Spirit Guide.
Consistency
Not much to say here, these are basic deck thinners, Id run x4 of each
The main combo of the deck rotates around resolving either of these two cards.
The trick lies within running 0 lands in the deck, and instead netting mana from cards like elvish spirit guide, simian spirit guide, Moxes, Lotus/Lotus Petal.
The deck is very all in. You want to try and go off turn 1 or bust. It has a very reliable win rate, but you really need to know whether your hand is a keeper or not. The entire game is purely decided by your ability to mulligan, play wise it takes very little skill to lay down 4 mana and cast a dude. Cabal therapy usage and tutoring up the right cards also are important.
Second, this deck employs the big bad version of Doomsday, Recross the Paths
Since we aren't running any lands in the deck, recross the paths lets us stack our entire deck ala Doomsday style, for three mana as well (though less restrictive)
Proper use of a well timed Recross the Paths can often instantly end the game too, meaning we often only need to get to three mana and resolve Paths to win.
Now, how do we actually end the game? It's a very very convoluted combo, made even more complicated in vintage vs our legacy brother since we have a lot more threats to dance around before safely going off.
First off, we activate our dude and mill our whole deck, Balustrade Spy/Undercity Informer
This causes a few of our Narcomebas to hit the graveyard and come into play. Optimally we want 2-3
We also run 1-2 Bridge from below and Cabal therapys in the deck.
Here's where it gets tricky. We now pitch our Narcomeba's to cabal therapy to rip our opponent's hand apart before we continue, this will turn our Narcomebas into 2/2 Zombies via Bridge.
Now we pitch our 3 dudes to our 1-2 of Dread Return to reanimate Angel of Glory's Rise.
This in turn reanimates our singletons of Azami, Lady of Scrolls and Laboratory Maniac
We can safely use Azami's ability to deck ourself with Lab Maniac out. If our opponent still has an answer here, we can use it a second time as Lab Maniac is also a wizard.
So, tl;dr:
Deck Skeleton:
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Undercity Informer
3 Recross the Paths
3 Cabal therapy
4 Narcomeba
1 Bridge from Below
1 Dread Return
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac
This puts us at 23/60 of the deck towards the combo. The rest is a mix of the following cards to your personal choice based on how all in you want to go.
Mana
Black Lotus/Mox Jet/Lotus Petal●●●●●
Our Main sources of black mana, you need to run these.
Chrome Mox●●●●●
Another great source of black mana, definitely want at least 2 of these.
Dark Ritual●●●●●
Probably the best ritual, gets us 2 mana from 1 card. Value town! I run 4 of these.
Manamorphose●●●●○
Doesn't net us mana, but replaces itself and can convert red/green mana from Spirit Guides into Black. I'd run 3~4.
Elvish Spirit Guide●●●●○
Great source of green Mana, useful for casting Morphoses and Recross the Paths.
Simian Spirit Guide●●●○○
Strictly worse than Elvish guide in this deck, only good for casting manamorphose and getting some colorless mana, still good as a 2-3 of.
Mana vault●●●●○
Colorless mana, but is basically Dark Ritual #5 in the deck.
Mana Crypt●●●●○
Dark ritual #6
Sol Ring●●●○○
Strictly worse than crypt/vault, but has longevity for late game if we don't win turn 1. Can help us top deck a game ender when our opponent thinks they beat us turn 1.
Mox Sapphire●●●●○
Our main source of blue mana outside of Lotusing.
Mox Ruby●●●○○
The slightly better simian spirit guide.
Mox Emerald●●●●○
The slightly better Elvish Spirit Guide.
Consistency
Not much to say here, these are basic deck thinners, Id run x4 of each
Gitaxian Probe●●●●●
Mad combos with that Cabal Therapy
Street Wraith
Pay 2 life and draw a card. Simple enough.
Sample Decklist:
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Undercity Informer
4 Narcomeba
1 Bridge from Below
1 Dread Return
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac
Mana: 27
1 black lotus
1 lotus petal
4 chrome mox
1 mox jet
1 mox ruby
1 mox emerald
1 mox sapphire
4 dark ritual
1 mana vault
1 mana crypt
4 manamorphose
4 elvish spirit guide
3 simian spirit guide
4 street wraith
4 gitaxian probe
3 Cabal therapy
3 recross the paths
1 demonic tutor
1 ancestral recall
Recross the Paths allows you to reorganize your library. So then you just need to draw into a win.