I was giving some thought to Howling Mine and so-called "fair" card draw permanents. The goal was to make a blue draw permanent that is "fair", but makes timing important.
Sorcerer's Bargain1U
enchantment -- Rare
Spells targeting this card cost 1 more to cast.
Whenever a player casts an instant, put a mage counter on Sorcerer's Bargain.
At the beginning of each players upkeep, remove a mage counter from Sorcerer's Bargain.
If Sorcerer's Bargain has no mage counters, that player draws a card instead.
The goal is a card that smooths out games and is self-limiting. Playing lots of instant-speed cards to affect the board means you draw fewer cards, but playing fewer instants means you get more card advantage. Actual advantage should rely heavily on when you play your cards (especially because your opponent can easily affect the number of counters). The card is costed at 1U because it is fair on turn 2 (your opponent is going to draw a card) and playing an instant with it pushes it off until at least turn 3-4 (and even then, you won't be drawing a card if the opponent plays an instant).
The biggest risk seems to be delver style tempo decks which may be able to abuse it with early threats (like they do with everything).
I've had some success splashing red (4 RW scrylands and 2-4 steam vents) to play assemble the legions, wear//tear, and warleader's helix. The manabase plays almost identical to normal UW with the black scrylands, but seems to offer more than blood baron or doom blade.
Having primarily played Mono-U for the last month and a half, this thread is hilarious to me. The people saying the deck is simple, are obviously talking out of their ass, and the OP saying it's bad other then Thassa and Master is silly. I win tons of games without either one of them, and the 'god draw' for the deck doesn't even need master or thassa. I've never understood this hate for some of the creatures, it's like people have a latent disrespect for them since they had gone unnoticed for a long time (especially nightveil, but also frostburn/familiar), but card power levels are always relative.
Difficulty is relative.
Did you play jund or aristocrats pre-rotation? Either one of those was FAR harder than mono-blue. In the current meta, mono-black, BW, or UWx control are all more challenging to play (with UWx being the most difficult IMHO).
Far?Away is not good in Esper, no lists are running it. It's too expensive for what it does. Devour Flesh is much better.
Look at the Esper threads here from pre-rotation (when standard was much faster I might add). Lots of lists started playing devour flesh only to later turn to far//away almost exclusively. Turn 2 vs turn 3 is seldom relevant to control for any midrange or aggro deck with a slightly slow hand (and if you need to simply survive to the late game, bouncing for tempo is just as good as permanent removal). The fact that the card becomes a 2 for 1 after turn 5 and most fast decks don't have a ton of cards after turn 5 means that it is usually almost as good as a wrath.
When facing hexproof creatures or tokens, the ability to bounce the token and then sack the creature (or bounce the targetable creature and sack the hexproof) is quite relevant. If the opponent has multiple power creatures that cost quite a bit to cast, the extra tempo is relevant (eg. I faced a back to back blood baron opponent. Top decking a devour flesh would have lost me the game, but killing one baron and bouncing the second allowed me the extra turn I needed to find a wrath).
Fact or Fiction isn't a win con.
Mill jace is bad
Elspeth is but she eats 2 burns or 1 dreadbore or 1 hero's downfall, or 1 Glare of Heresy.
Elixir - Elixir of Life? Not a win con either. It can allow them to beat us on draws. But if they rely on it then they are loosing.
Archangel?AoS? What are these cards.
Sphinx Rev is not a win con....
Literally everything but aetherling can be played around. Aetherling requires an answer in the form of Slaughter Games, or Pithing needle. Slaughter games is strictly better. Needle is easy as **** for control decks to deal with. SG requires hitting your land drops or at most missing 1. Or hoping that they dont get aetherling before you are able to SG.
That said, it is not a card that you wanna just build a deck around. Strictly sideboard material.
Aetherling If I play this on turn 7-8, you lose. Jace, Architect of Thought -8 to play your win condition is certainly a win con Jace, Memory Adept to mill you game 2-3 (when slaughter games comes in) is another win con Elixir of immortality recycling my graveyard until you deck yourself is also a win con Archangel of Thune and beating face, gain life, and buff elspeth tokens Angel of Serenity as an alternate removal/beat face Prognostic Sphinx dodges most of your removal and is the most powerful scry in the format (and leaving in devour flesh on the possibility that someone plays this card seems crazy).
If I revelation early, I gain enough life to dodge your early damage and draw into my win cons and removal far faster than you draw into your threats.
Finally, all of this is assuming that the player is playing UW control. My current list I'm testing is UWr (red-lite) and elixir + burn is a very real win condition.
The only cards you need to name are Elspeth, Aetherling (which has been cut from some lists), and Revelation (I could see naming D Sphere and Verdict in some other cases). Nobody (or very few people) is running either of the Angels or Prognostic Sphinx. Elixir is not worth naming if you have already hit their Revelations, and you should be running removal that can deal with planeswalkers anyways (Downfall or Dreadbore). Obviously it gets better if you pair it with Return, TS, and Duress.
In a sixty card deck with little card draw, what are the chances of drawing three (or even two) slaughter games out of four? By the time you have gotten around to drawing into them, the control player will have already had a chance to land a win con (which isn't affected by slaughter games until it's removed).
As to elixir, with control decks playing 2-4 divination (plus quicken, jace, azorius charm, etc), naming revelation doesn't kill that strategy. Further, what happens is your deck gets progressively worse while the control deck draws get progressively better (by improving the land to spell ratio). Control is very capable of killing you by countering/removing all your threats until you deck yourself (and this only gets better in games 2-3). Elixir is also very hard to thoughseize because a skilled player plays it out the turn he/she draws it (basically leaving a turn 1 thoughtseize on the play).
Consider the top control deck in the latest tournament. It has aetherling, elspeth, jace (his ultimate is a very real kill and he can be recycled with elixir if not exiled with slaughter games), and revelation with archangel of thune, and soldier of the pantheon in the sideboard.
I would advise against slaughter games. Many control decks run too many win conditions for you to name everything (jace, architect, elspeth, elixir, aetherling, revelation, archangel/AoS/sphinx, etc). The best way to use slaughter games would actually be to name dissolve or some similar card, but I don't think it offers much advantage if they don't have the card in hand (and if they do, duress or thoughtseize is better).
I would rather rakdos's return or play sire of insanity to empty their hand.
yeah right. that card won't be back for a while. but you can have some kind-of mana leak cards if you want.
Everyone's scared of mana leak because wizards screwed up by adding all the other cards mana leak needed to be overpowered (delver, snapcaster, vapor snag, ponder etc). If delver alone were not printed, mana leak would probably not be overpowered (the same goes for snapcaster, but he was broken no matter what).
I'm all for a reprinting of counterspell (I think it's needed in modern), but I think the best time for that was M13 where it would rotate out with cavern of souls. There would have been three months of terror where the game was cavern + zombies vs delver, but after that, it would have given blue the edge it needed to compete with decks like jund that popped up.
I think oracle is being vastly overestimated by some here. Let's say I'm playing against the player who is casting oracle.
I can counter (this card is far worse than bloodbraid's cascade)
I can allow tribute and then play removal
I can allow tribute and then trade it with my creature
I can ask how many cards are in their hand and assess the risk of a cast (how many cards in hand will they have on turn 4+)
Most importantly, if they're playing a normal R/x deck, the biggest sorcery they can land is 3-4 damage to the face or hit a creature. I'd rather take a lightning strike to the face than take 2 damage on the spot and even more damage later.
Overall, oracle strikes me as a worse vexing devil.
I forget what your list looked like but I agree with that MB change -- good luck tomorrow, take some notes if you remember to. &I agree with your evaluations of encroaching wastes and Prognostic Sphinx
Hmm I have actually decided I will cut my mb negate and move it to the side, and move ratchet bomb main, as I expect a fair bit of aggro tomorrow.
As for the list with prognostic, I am not a fan. Encroaching wastes seem like a "waste" given that you are suggesting you will blow it up at some stage, and that's not really the way this deck is going to win, tapping 4 mana and saccing a land to blow up their..what, mutavault? Lol. And mutavault is one of your win conditions.
Prognostic Sphinx is in my opinion a horrible card. It activates their removal, since you have to throw away a card and also tap the sphinx when you hexproof it. It doesn't affect the board when it comes in. And it wins very slowly. Aetherling is much better, and there is no reason to have both in the deck. That is my opinion
I faced 4 mono-black decks. Encroaching wasteland allows me to needle both basic lands and mutavault. I had one mirror and encroaching wasteland was decent there, but overall it's too slow for mono-blue, WR, and RG devotion (though mutavault isn't that good vs mono-blue because they either fly over or it trades with a token). If I had faced more aggro, I would definitely preferred my mutavaults. If ghostquarter were in standard, it would be the best choice, but the 5-mana destroy a land does limit the card. Overall, I would still choose mutavault for lots of aggro and wasteland for the grindy games (that is to say, it's a meta choice, but I currently think mutavault is a little better where it's good and less bad where it's bad).
To those saying mutavault is a win-con. If you're in a position where you can kill an opponent with one or two 2/2 non-flyers, you are already winning the game. Mutavault is much better at defence in UW IMHO.
see tl;dr if you don't want to read all this on prognostic sphinx.
Sphinx only "turns on" removal in the first game and only vs mono-black and UWx, but let's take a look at the matches.
In the case of mono-black, they play pharika's cure, devour flesh, and hero's downfall pre-board. Sphinx normally gets hit by devour flesh in game 1 but I still get 5 life for the trouble and often get in a swing too (and often prevent several points of damage from mutavault, specter, or packrat not being able to profitably attack). If they use a hero's downfall to "get a card out of my hand" instead of saving it for elspeth and jace, they will be punished later. Post-board, they don't play devour flesh (if they play their 3-4 copies just for a singleton sphinx, it's their card disadvantage). In my experience, landing aetherling as early as possible is the best way to win vs mono-black and sphinx is the fastest card filtering in the format.
In the mirror, an on-curve sphinx is very hard for them to handle. If they counter, I have a better chance landing a real threat. If they verdict, I stand a good chance of landing a threat on my next turn. If they play elspeth and -3, I have several more turns to answer it. If they +1, then I hit it down to 2 and then kill it. If they play aetherling, they don't have the mana to protect it. If they revelation, I'm free to play whatever (scry3 into divination with dissolve mana up is a wonderful thing).
Another aspect of sphinx is planeswalkers. RG devotion tends to give trouble when they play lots of planeswalkers. 2 pithing needles and 4 d-spheres often aren't enough and their mana acceleration often ensures the first planeswalker comes down too early to counter. Sphinx digs up answers while flying over their threats to control their planeswalkers.
Not much to say vs BW except that blood baron is a problem, but he is stopped dead by sphinx (I don't care about their life total, I can mill them with elixir if I need to). Desecration demon is a problem like he is in mono-black. I switched one rapid hybridization to a last breath at the last moment, but I'm considering re-adding the second rapid hybridization in sideboard as it deals with baron, stormbreath, and demon (I've got more ways to deal with 3/3 creatures than ways to deal with large or protected creatures).
Aggro is another matchup where sphinx shines. Aggro has zero answers to sphinx and usually have only 3 cards (chained to the rocks) that can force tempo game 1. If they hit sphinx with a lightning strike pre-combat, I simply don't block unless I want to trade (and it's a 2 for 1). If they try lightning strike into magma jet, I can counter the second or allow sphinx to sponge 5 damage and still 2 for 1 or I can turn that extra land into a zero cost counterspell. In this matchup, is mostly a wall that kills everything they play and stops stormbreath and chandra's phoenix. When my local meta was mostly aggro, I played 3 sphinx mainboard and seldom lost to anything except control. I now play a second sphinx in sideboard so I can swap out aetherling game 2 (aetherling is too slow to stabilize most of the time in my experience) so I can then either beat them with sphinx or (more commonly) wait for elspeth.
TL;DR / SUMMARY
I view prognostic sphinx as more like jace architect. Jace *can* win the game, but he's usually used to survive the midgame and transition to the late game while digging up threats. Likewise, Sphinx *can* finish games (it's the same clock as resto, but more resistant to removal), but I use it to stabilize in the midgame, control threats (it's more targeted than jace plus it affects planeswalkers), and gain card advantage. I think it's rather incorrect to view sphinx only in terms of a finisher and instead think it should be viewed as creature-based (rather than spell-based) control and I suspect we will see more of this idea as the role of blue shifts away from traditional control.
Some misc thoughts:
I think 4 revelations is still too many. With elixir, you improve card quality when you shuffle your graveyard back which improves the chances of drawing revelation, but I think that having one in opening hand is a liability vs aggro.
I switched from 2 syncopate/1 essence scatter to 2 essence scatter/1 syncopate. It seemed to improve all my matchups except UWx mirror (which for the record is excruciating to play in game 1 due to elixir cycling).
Ratchet bomb in the main seems to improve most matchups (but like essence scatter, it hurts the mirror slightly). It provides a 5th answer to pack rat and of course does well against tokens.
Blind obedience was disappointing overall. I don't need the tempo and there are relatively few haste creatures being played in my meta. It helps some vs mono-black, but I think I'd rather have a third pithing needle or another celestial flare for that matchup.
Not much to say except prognostic sphinx is still great and encroaching wasteland seems better than mutavault in several matchups (mutavault, nyxthos, connections, greedy esper manabase, etc). Pithing needle in the mainboard has been good as almost every deck has a good target (basic swamp, mutavault, planeswalker, etc). Singleton Sundering growth has been decent in game 2-3 when the opponents bring in god weapons, connections, d-sphere, etc.
I don't think this is the right environment for counterspell at the moment, but I think it needs to be reprinted so it's legal in modern. In my opinion, M13 was the perfect time to reprint counterspell as it would have given blue decks the card they needed while not overrunning all those 2 for 1 creatures from innistrad.
edit: As to the card at hand, I wondered about such a card during last spoiler season, but I didn't think a card like that would be printed as it seemed fairly powerful. In the current meta, it's one spectre away from mana leak and any other creatures are just gravy. I suspect that in most games with mono-blue, this card is at least a miscalculation (minus the cycling) and very often a pay 4 (with 5+ being fairly uncommon)
Ephara is the replacement for bident of thassa in mono-blue. She draws cards more consistently, acts as an additional creature, and is much harder to remove.
Yep, as long as you dont have a lot of WBR Mythic or Jund in your meta. Slaughter Games exiles so the Elixir won't help there. I still prefer the 1 Aetherling and 2 Elspeths main for diversity. I have had good luck with the Elixir, but you don't really have the time in local FNMs to consistently win by decking people.
Elixir isn't about decking the opponent (with the possible exception of UWx). It is about recycling your win conditions and improving your draw by improving your land to spell ratio in your library
I play aetherling, prognostic sphinx, memory adept, architect of thought and fiendslayer. Having 5 win conditions is enough to fend off slaughter games.
For those of you who have tested the black scry lands, what has been your experience? I know aZn.FlipStar_650 above said he didn't like them. How about anyone else?
Personally, one of the things I like most about Azorius is the smooth mana base; and I have found that the scry lands feel clunky.
Lastly, I know I have asked this in the past, but has anyone tested Omenspeaker again recently? I am trying two in my list and so far am never unhappy to see it.
Also, Melissa De Tora just posted her updated list:
Interesting that she doesn't run Aetherling MB; neither did Cifka, and I just watched a set of videos in which Sam Pardee said he and Andrew Cuneo don't like MB Aetherling either.
The deck you posted isn't DeTora's list (from her most recent article -- it seems different from yours).
Some general and slightly disjointed answers, observations, and opinions.
I don't like Cifka's list playing only elspeth. If even one jund player sided slaughter games, he would have no way of winning (SotP, fiendslayer, and archangel of thune are inferior to jund's creatures). His deck feels like it's tuned to specifically play well against boros aggro and mono-blue (3 elspeth, 4 mainboard last breath, 4 gainsay, and lots of small creatures). I doubt he has a great game vs MBC or other control decks. With all those creatures, he should have looked long and hard at angel of serenity over the third elspeth.
I've been playing elixir and it seems to be working well.
In my experience, MBC is able to deal with elspeth very easily, but doesn't have a good game vs aetherling. Elixir is also very good in this matchup as it allows continuous, large revelations in the late game to counteract the inevitable gray merchant drain.
DeTora plays a misers copy of cyclonic rift, but I don't know that I'm a big fan. By the time you've got overload mana, the only decks that should have much in the way of permanents are MBC and UWx control. I may test again, but it hasn't been that good in the past.
I play 2-4 scry lands and don't mind the extra tapping when it makes more hands keepable and finds answers a turn faster.
I continue to dislike omenspeaker and still hold that fiendslayer, precinct captain, and frostburn weird are all better options.
I see merit in not playing aetherling in mainboard if you don't expect to see a lot of control, but if I have aetherling and you don't game 1, I'm willing to bet that I'm highly favored. As I said above, I don't even know that game 1 vs MBC is winnable for cifka due to thoughtseize and downfall (at least DeTora can cycle her elspeths with elixir).
Sorcerer's Bargain 1U
enchantment -- Rare
Spells targeting this card cost 1 more to cast.
Whenever a player casts an instant, put a mage counter on Sorcerer's Bargain.
At the beginning of each players upkeep, remove a mage counter from Sorcerer's Bargain.
If Sorcerer's Bargain has no mage counters, that player draws a card instead.
The goal is a card that smooths out games and is self-limiting. Playing lots of instant-speed cards to affect the board means you draw fewer cards, but playing fewer instants means you get more card advantage. Actual advantage should rely heavily on when you play your cards (especially because your opponent can easily affect the number of counters). The card is costed at 1U because it is fair on turn 2 (your opponent is going to draw a card) and playing an instant with it pushes it off until at least turn 3-4 (and even then, you won't be drawing a card if the opponent plays an instant).
The biggest risk seems to be delver style tempo decks which may be able to abuse it with early threats (like they do with everything).
Difficulty is relative.
Did you play jund or aristocrats pre-rotation? Either one of those was FAR harder than mono-blue. In the current meta, mono-black, BW, or UWx control are all more challenging to play (with UWx being the most difficult IMHO).
Look at the Esper threads here from pre-rotation (when standard was much faster I might add). Lots of lists started playing devour flesh only to later turn to far//away almost exclusively. Turn 2 vs turn 3 is seldom relevant to control for any midrange or aggro deck with a slightly slow hand (and if you need to simply survive to the late game, bouncing for tempo is just as good as permanent removal). The fact that the card becomes a 2 for 1 after turn 5 and most fast decks don't have a ton of cards after turn 5 means that it is usually almost as good as a wrath.
When facing hexproof creatures or tokens, the ability to bounce the token and then sack the creature (or bounce the targetable creature and sack the hexproof) is quite relevant. If the opponent has multiple power creatures that cost quite a bit to cast, the extra tempo is relevant (eg. I faced a back to back blood baron opponent. Top decking a devour flesh would have lost me the game, but killing one baron and bouncing the second allowed me the extra turn I needed to find a wrath).
Aetherling If I play this on turn 7-8, you lose.
Jace, Architect of Thought -8 to play your win condition is certainly a win con
Jace, Memory Adept to mill you game 2-3 (when slaughter games comes in) is another win con
Elixir of immortality recycling my graveyard until you deck yourself is also a win con
Archangel of Thune and beating face, gain life, and buff elspeth tokens
Angel of Serenity as an alternate removal/beat face
Prognostic Sphinx dodges most of your removal and is the most powerful scry in the format (and leaving in devour flesh on the possibility that someone plays this card seems crazy).
If I revelation early, I gain enough life to dodge your early damage and draw into my win cons and removal far faster than you draw into your threats.
Finally, all of this is assuming that the player is playing UW control. My current list I'm testing is UWr (red-lite) and elixir + burn is a very real win condition.
In a sixty card deck with little card draw, what are the chances of drawing three (or even two) slaughter games out of four? By the time you have gotten around to drawing into them, the control player will have already had a chance to land a win con (which isn't affected by slaughter games until it's removed).
As to elixir, with control decks playing 2-4 divination (plus quicken, jace, azorius charm, etc), naming revelation doesn't kill that strategy. Further, what happens is your deck gets progressively worse while the control deck draws get progressively better (by improving the land to spell ratio). Control is very capable of killing you by countering/removing all your threats until you deck yourself (and this only gets better in games 2-3). Elixir is also very hard to thoughseize because a skilled player plays it out the turn he/she draws it (basically leaving a turn 1 thoughtseize on the play).
Consider the top control deck in the latest tournament. It has aetherling, elspeth, jace (his ultimate is a very real kill and he can be recycled with elixir if not exiled with slaughter games), and revelation with archangel of thune, and soldier of the pantheon in the sideboard.
I would rather rakdos's return or play sire of insanity to empty their hand.
Everyone's scared of mana leak because wizards screwed up by adding all the other cards mana leak needed to be overpowered (delver, snapcaster, vapor snag, ponder etc). If delver alone were not printed, mana leak would probably not be overpowered (the same goes for snapcaster, but he was broken no matter what).
I'm all for a reprinting of counterspell (I think it's needed in modern), but I think the best time for that was M13 where it would rotate out with cavern of souls. There would have been three months of terror where the game was cavern + zombies vs delver, but after that, it would have given blue the edge it needed to compete with decks like jund that popped up.
I can counter (this card is far worse than bloodbraid's cascade)
I can allow tribute and then play removal
I can allow tribute and then trade it with my creature
I can ask how many cards are in their hand and assess the risk of a cast (how many cards in hand will they have on turn 4+)
Most importantly, if they're playing a normal R/x deck, the biggest sorcery they can land is 3-4 damage to the face or hit a creature. I'd rather take a lightning strike to the face than take 2 damage on the spot and even more damage later.
Overall, oracle strikes me as a worse vexing devil.
I faced 4 mono-black decks. Encroaching wasteland allows me to needle both basic lands and mutavault. I had one mirror and encroaching wasteland was decent there, but overall it's too slow for mono-blue, WR, and RG devotion (though mutavault isn't that good vs mono-blue because they either fly over or it trades with a token). If I had faced more aggro, I would definitely preferred my mutavaults. If ghostquarter were in standard, it would be the best choice, but the 5-mana destroy a land does limit the card. Overall, I would still choose mutavault for lots of aggro and wasteland for the grindy games (that is to say, it's a meta choice, but I currently think mutavault is a little better where it's good and less bad where it's bad).
To those saying mutavault is a win-con. If you're in a position where you can kill an opponent with one or two 2/2 non-flyers, you are already winning the game. Mutavault is much better at defence in UW IMHO.
see tl;dr if you don't want to read all this on prognostic sphinx.
Sphinx only "turns on" removal in the first game and only vs mono-black and UWx, but let's take a look at the matches.
In the case of mono-black, they play pharika's cure, devour flesh, and hero's downfall pre-board. Sphinx normally gets hit by devour flesh in game 1 but I still get 5 life for the trouble and often get in a swing too (and often prevent several points of damage from mutavault, specter, or packrat not being able to profitably attack). If they use a hero's downfall to "get a card out of my hand" instead of saving it for elspeth and jace, they will be punished later. Post-board, they don't play devour flesh (if they play their 3-4 copies just for a singleton sphinx, it's their card disadvantage). In my experience, landing aetherling as early as possible is the best way to win vs mono-black and sphinx is the fastest card filtering in the format.
In the mirror, an on-curve sphinx is very hard for them to handle. If they counter, I have a better chance landing a real threat. If they verdict, I stand a good chance of landing a threat on my next turn. If they play elspeth and -3, I have several more turns to answer it. If they +1, then I hit it down to 2 and then kill it. If they play aetherling, they don't have the mana to protect it. If they revelation, I'm free to play whatever (scry3 into divination with dissolve mana up is a wonderful thing).
Another aspect of sphinx is planeswalkers. RG devotion tends to give trouble when they play lots of planeswalkers. 2 pithing needles and 4 d-spheres often aren't enough and their mana acceleration often ensures the first planeswalker comes down too early to counter. Sphinx digs up answers while flying over their threats to control their planeswalkers.
Not much to say vs BW except that blood baron is a problem, but he is stopped dead by sphinx (I don't care about their life total, I can mill them with elixir if I need to). Desecration demon is a problem like he is in mono-black. I switched one rapid hybridization to a last breath at the last moment, but I'm considering re-adding the second rapid hybridization in sideboard as it deals with baron, stormbreath, and demon (I've got more ways to deal with 3/3 creatures than ways to deal with large or protected creatures).
Aggro is another matchup where sphinx shines. Aggro has zero answers to sphinx and usually have only 3 cards (chained to the rocks) that can force tempo game 1. If they hit sphinx with a lightning strike pre-combat, I simply don't block unless I want to trade (and it's a 2 for 1). If they try lightning strike into magma jet, I can counter the second or allow sphinx to sponge 5 damage and still 2 for 1 or I can turn that extra land into a zero cost counterspell. In this matchup, is mostly a wall that kills everything they play and stops stormbreath and chandra's phoenix. When my local meta was mostly aggro, I played 3 sphinx mainboard and seldom lost to anything except control. I now play a second sphinx in sideboard so I can swap out aetherling game 2 (aetherling is too slow to stabilize most of the time in my experience) so I can then either beat them with sphinx or (more commonly) wait for elspeth.
TL;DR / SUMMARY
I view prognostic sphinx as more like jace architect. Jace *can* win the game, but he's usually used to survive the midgame and transition to the late game while digging up threats. Likewise, Sphinx *can* finish games (it's the same clock as resto, but more resistant to removal), but I use it to stabilize in the midgame, control threats (it's more targeted than jace plus it affects planeswalkers), and gain card advantage. I think it's rather incorrect to view sphinx only in terms of a finisher and instead think it should be viewed as creature-based (rather than spell-based) control and I suspect we will see more of this idea as the role of blue shifts away from traditional control.
Some misc thoughts:
I think 4 revelations is still too many. With elixir, you improve card quality when you shuffle your graveyard back which improves the chances of drawing revelation, but I think that having one in opening hand is a liability vs aggro.
I switched from 2 syncopate/1 essence scatter to 2 essence scatter/1 syncopate. It seemed to improve all my matchups except UWx mirror (which for the record is excruciating to play in game 1 due to elixir cycling).
Ratchet bomb in the main seems to improve most matchups (but like essence scatter, it hurts the mirror slightly). It provides a 5th answer to pack rat and of course does well against tokens.
Blind obedience was disappointing overall. I don't need the tempo and there are relatively few haste creatures being played in my meta. It helps some vs mono-black, but I think I'd rather have a third pithing needle or another celestial flare for that matchup.
1 Aetherling
1 Prognostic Sphinx
Artifacts: 3
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Pithing Needle
Planeswalkers: 4
3 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Instants: 15
1 Quicken
4 Azorius Charm
3 Sphinx's Revelation
3 Dissolve
2 Essence Scatter
1 Syncopate
2 Last Breath
4 Supreme Verdict
2 Divination
Enchantments: 4
4 Detention Sphere
Lands: 26
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Azorius Guildgate
2 Temple of Deceit
2 Temple of Silence
6 Island
6 Plains
2 Encroaching Wasteland
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Prognostic Sphinx
1 Jace, Memory Adept
1 Blind Obedience
2 Negate
3 Gainsay
1 Sundering Growth
2 Celestial Flare
2 Rapid Hybridization
Not much to say except prognostic sphinx is still great and encroaching wasteland seems better than mutavault in several matchups (mutavault, nyxthos, connections, greedy esper manabase, etc). Pithing needle in the mainboard has been good as almost every deck has a good target (basic swamp, mutavault, planeswalker, etc). Singleton Sundering growth has been decent in game 2-3 when the opponents bring in god weapons, connections, d-sphere, etc.
edit: As to the card at hand, I wondered about such a card during last spoiler season, but I didn't think a card like that would be printed as it seemed fairly powerful. In the current meta, it's one spectre away from mana leak and any other creatures are just gravy. I suspect that in most games with mono-blue, this card is at least a miscalculation (minus the cycling) and very often a pay 4 (with 5+ being fairly uncommon)
Elixir isn't about decking the opponent (with the possible exception of UWx). It is about recycling your win conditions and improving your draw by improving your land to spell ratio in your library
I play aetherling, prognostic sphinx, memory adept, architect of thought and fiendslayer. Having 5 win conditions is enough to fend off slaughter games.
The deck you posted isn't DeTora's list (from her most recent article -- it seems different from yours).
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
4 Jace, Architect of Thought
Spells (28)
3 Azorius Charm
2 Celestial Flare
1 Cyclonic Rift
4 Detention Sphere
3 Dissolve
3 Divination
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Essence Scatter
4 Sphinx's Revelation
4 Supreme Verdict
2 Syncopate
4 Azorius Guildgate
4 Hallowed Fountain
6 Island
2 Mutavault
6 Plains
2 Temple of Deceit
2 Temple of Silence
1 AEtherling
2 Celestial Flare
4 Gainsay
1 Jace, Memory Adept
4 Last Breath
1 Negate
2 Pithing Needle
Some general and slightly disjointed answers, observations, and opinions.
I don't like Cifka's list playing only elspeth. If even one jund player sided slaughter games, he would have no way of winning (SotP, fiendslayer, and archangel of thune are inferior to jund's creatures). His deck feels like it's tuned to specifically play well against boros aggro and mono-blue (3 elspeth, 4 mainboard last breath, 4 gainsay, and lots of small creatures). I doubt he has a great game vs MBC or other control decks. With all those creatures, he should have looked long and hard at angel of serenity over the third elspeth.
I've been playing elixir and it seems to be working well.
In my experience, MBC is able to deal with elspeth very easily, but doesn't have a good game vs aetherling. Elixir is also very good in this matchup as it allows continuous, large revelations in the late game to counteract the inevitable gray merchant drain.
DeTora plays a misers copy of cyclonic rift, but I don't know that I'm a big fan. By the time you've got overload mana, the only decks that should have much in the way of permanents are MBC and UWx control. I may test again, but it hasn't been that good in the past.
I play 2-4 scry lands and don't mind the extra tapping when it makes more hands keepable and finds answers a turn faster.
I continue to dislike omenspeaker and still hold that fiendslayer, precinct captain, and frostburn weird are all better options.
I see merit in not playing aetherling in mainboard if you don't expect to see a lot of control, but if I have aetherling and you don't game 1, I'm willing to bet that I'm highly favored. As I said above, I don't even know that game 1 vs MBC is winnable for cifka due to thoughtseize and downfall (at least DeTora can cycle her elspeths with elixir).