Tell me, is your plan to drop a creature for its alternate cost on the cheap so that you can Pod it for something else? If that's the case, it seems convoluted.
Personally? I think you ought to adjust your deck so that it doesn't have so many 4ofs. I'm always leery of too many full playsets, it's usually a good indicator of a deck that still needs some tuning. Play with it a bit, see what you like and what you don't. Increase numbers and decrease numbers based on what you WANT to see more often than not. *shrugs* The cards seem solid. The amounts? No idea. I would probably drop a Temple of Silence or two myself. CIPT is pretty bad with the kind of aggro these decks have, so you don't want too many.
No. You choose a lot of iffy cards considering your purpose. Why Tormented Hero and not, say, Rakdos Cackler? Why Favored Hoplite? You've got three spells that target your creatures. Seems to me Dryad Militant, Boros Elite or Judge's Familiar would be stronger. Why Elvish Mystic and Deathrite Shaman? Will you often need the mana and utility? Your deck largely costs 1 mana, do you expect to overextend a lot with your extra mana? Or do you want a quicker Servitude? Why? The quicker you get it, the less likely it is to be relevant. Your deck looks like you want aggression. You want to not care that things die because you know you're getting them back anyhow. Erebos's Emissary is another questionable card. If you want something big, just use more Nighthowler. Cheap, still has Bestow and it will probably be bigger than Emissary ever will be. What about Sedge Scorpion? Why not Wasteland Viper? It's strictly better in every way possible.
Personally, I would sit down and look over your card choices again.
If you ask me, I could say that established heroics will be either WR or WU
Gonna have to disagree. I see some potential for a UB Control-based Heroics list as well, though currently I don't think much makes the cut in actual Heroic cards. More like over-abuse of Hidden Strings with Agent of the Fates, really. The next couple sets may bring us the Heroics for it, unless they plan on dropping Heroics past Theros. I haven't read anything to that effect yet, so here's hoping. From my skulking about on the forums and my own crawling through the entirety of the standard cardbase about 2-4 times, I would assume this would be a decent core:
And I'm still pretty unsure about the Thrill-kill Assassin, honestly. I do actually see some potential for fun with Tormented Hero, but I'm still kinda iffy on it, more so than I am about Thrill-kill to be honest. *shrugs* I have a list, but I'm gonna want to pilot it at my LGS before commenting much more on it.
I have to ask: why do you need scry effects to make Into the Wilds a good card? If you ask me, just it making sure you never topdeck a land (or at least more rarely, I suppose...there could always be two top) is decent enough. It cuts through dead draws straight into more of the cards you want...well, beyond the gates that is. It effect isn't immediate and it's not exciting if it's not doing anything, sure, but it doesn't really need to be exciting to do its job does it? And you're in for the long haul anyways.
Maybe a bit heavy on creatures and maybe four Crypt Ghasts are not necessary; it certainly allows you to abuse your Extort triggers better when you have 8 of them and every swamp adds 5 mana, though. Honestly, the only reason I left Liliana of the Dark Realms in is because she ramps as well and she's not a creature. She would probably be more used for removal, though. I replaced the Dark Prophecy with Erebos, God of the Dead. You got the devotion to use his body, his own draw ability, and he keeps your opponent from gaining life while you nickle and dime him. Also, he won't kill you on accident if an enemy wipes your board. One Rise from the Dark Realms because if you got the mana, why not? Your opponent is sure to have 1-2 dead things by the time you play it and, even better, you're sure to have some dead things by the time you play it. *shrugs*
Very light on the defensive cards right now but, as its a new meta and I don't know what the last meta was like, I'll maybe mess with cards as I learn what is and is not important later.
I was more awed than shocked when I found out, but I had two teachers in my high school experience who played video games on their laptop while teaching. Very un-apologetically too, lol. The best part was both were among my favorite teachers and I considered neither to be a bad teacher. They were actually very good at what they did!
1. Doesn't affect the board.
2. Little combo in my environment.
3. Costs 10
Simply weak in my meta.
I just want to point out that it DOESN'T cost 10. It costs 3 or 10, not just 10. That's part of the power of kicker cards, you get to choose at what level you need the effect. Also, that is one terribly biased poll.
Actually, I think that could work with Devil's Play, right? It gets cast for uselessness off of Epic Expirement and then you can use your infinite mana to flash it back from the GY.
Pack Rat. Every match I pulled it, I won. As far as I could tell, nobody had a sweeper (never saw one throughout the whole event) and removal was pretty scarce. But if we're talking non-rare, my pool was pretty weak. Grim Roustabout unleashed was generally my best threat. A Deviant Glee on that and it smashed for trucks and survived most everything. I had one guy get desperate enough to put three cards into killing it, haha.
In my opinion, Doomed Traveler will always win out unless there's some token deck that's really hankering for a way to get some centaur tokens to populate.
It deserves testing. Also, you wouldn't play this in a deck with Niv-Mizzet, that would be a terrible idea. He's a legend and having 4 of them is generally a terrible idea. And if counterspells are a problem...don't play them? They're being bashed pretty hard right now anyways...
Personally? I think you ought to adjust your deck so that it doesn't have so many 4ofs. I'm always leery of too many full playsets, it's usually a good indicator of a deck that still needs some tuning. Play with it a bit, see what you like and what you don't. Increase numbers and decrease numbers based on what you WANT to see more often than not. *shrugs* The cards seem solid. The amounts? No idea. I would probably drop a Temple of Silence or two myself. CIPT is pretty bad with the kind of aggro these decks have, so you don't want too many.
Personally, I would sit down and look over your card choices again.
Gonna have to disagree. I see some potential for a UB Control-based Heroics list as well, though currently I don't think much makes the cut in actual Heroic cards. More like over-abuse of Hidden Strings with Agent of the Fates, really. The next couple sets may bring us the Heroics for it, unless they plan on dropping Heroics past Theros. I haven't read anything to that effect yet, so here's hoping. From my skulking about on the forums and my own crawling through the entirety of the standard cardbase about 2-4 times, I would assume this would be a decent core:
4x Agent of the Fates
4x Thrill-Kill Assassin
4x Hidden Strings
And I'm still pretty unsure about the Thrill-kill Assassin, honestly. I do actually see some potential for fun with Tormented Hero, but I'm still kinda iffy on it, more so than I am about Thrill-kill to be honest. *shrugs* I have a list, but I'm gonna want to pilot it at my LGS before commenting much more on it.
How would that be an easy HPM? Rakdos works for creatures and HPM isn't a creature til it activates its ability.
4x Thrull Parasite
2x Blood Scrivener
4x Nightveil Specter
4x Crypt Ghast
4x Grey Merchant of Asphodel
2x Shadowborn Demon
3x Abhorrent Overlord
2x Erebos, God of the Dead
2x Strionic Resonator
1x Whip of Erebos
Planeswalkers (2)
2x Liliana of the Dark Realms
Instants and Sorceries (7)
3x Rescue from the Underworld
3x Read the Bones
1x Rise of the Dark Realms
19x Swamp
4x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Maybe a bit heavy on creatures and maybe four Crypt Ghasts are not necessary; it certainly allows you to abuse your Extort triggers better when you have 8 of them and every swamp adds 5 mana, though. Honestly, the only reason I left Liliana of the Dark Realms in is because she ramps as well and she's not a creature. She would probably be more used for removal, though. I replaced the Dark Prophecy with Erebos, God of the Dead. You got the devotion to use his body, his own draw ability, and he keeps your opponent from gaining life while you nickle and dime him. Also, he won't kill you on accident if an enemy wipes your board. One Rise from the Dark Realms because if you got the mana, why not? Your opponent is sure to have 1-2 dead things by the time you play it and, even better, you're sure to have some dead things by the time you play it. *shrugs*
Very light on the defensive cards right now but, as its a new meta and I don't know what the last meta was like, I'll maybe mess with cards as I learn what is and is not important later.
I just want to point out that it DOESN'T cost 10. It costs 3 or 10, not just 10. That's part of the power of kicker cards, you get to choose at what level you need the effect. Also, that is one terribly biased poll.
Actually, I think that could work with Devil's Play, right? It gets cast for uselessness off of Epic Expirement and then you can use your infinite mana to flash it back from the GY.
Anyhow, yeah. Plenty possible then. Ranger's Path is going to be excellent fixing thanks to the Forest specification.
Edit: Well, there's artifact ramp. Other than that, I think Caravan Vigil, Dawntreader Elk and Boundless Realms are the only real ramp spells that exist.