I go to a pretty big commander league myself, and I have never seen someone bring a hermit druid deck. I've gotta assume that there are people at your store who will bring the best cards.
If winning is all you care about, then you probably want to revolve your deck around infinite turn combo. This lets you win while getting those bonus points that you want. Bant colors can do this particularly easily.
If you don't want to go with infinite turns, then I don't quite know what to tell you. Your success will depend a lot on what your store's players do on Wednesday. When planeswalkers are so heavily encouraged, there is a possibility that quite a few people will bring stax decks, just as you are suggesting. What's more, some people might build decks that make the battlefield an absolutely miserable place for creatures. I think you should expect cards like Humility, Moat, Overburden, and the like. Even if they don't bring those cards, you should probably expect a lot more sweepers in general. I don't think bringing a deck that revolves around creatures is the best idea. Personally, I would bring an enchantment based pillowfort/control deck that runs very few creatures.
As for individual card choices, Take Possession is a house against Planeswalkers that are about to go ultimate.
I think that the proliferators and counter manipulation cards are just way weaker than playing with Time Warps and its cousins.
I always like to use Wargate to Control Magic a hexproofed/heavily protected creature. This even prevents reactive stuff like Vanishing, unless your opponent is psychic and knows what you're up to.
Phyrexian Tower allows you to respond to Split Second spells if you have death triggers.
I don't think fetchlands suit the needs of a set with cards that require three colors of mana to cast, and that presumably spawn decks that will run off of three colors. They only produce one color of mana after you get the land (in future standard), and so they are a lot more awkward than normal dual lands that can do either at any point in time.
I think they'll have the tapped wedge lands at uncommon, and maybe the'll incorporate some kind of unsymmetrical wedge design for the rare lands, a la Murmuring Bosk.
As far as I know, all of the Vanguard cards are supported under the rules, except this guy seems to break them. You can play instants and sorceries as copies of basic lands- a contradiction to this rule:
110.4. There are five permanent types: artifact, creature, enchantment, land, and planeswalker. Instant and sorcery cards can't enter the battlefield and thus can't be permanents. Some tribal cards can enter the battlefield and some can't, depending on their other card types. See section 3, "Card Types."
I mean, the card would still be playable as a colorless kind of dark ritual...
It would be like Mana Vault I guess.
If you really want to punish Mana Crypt players, just invoke the will of the council in a better way. Gang up on them to kill them. Why errata the card when you could just house ban it anyways? The errata you're suggesting also strikes me as not very good design, for reasons that DTrain mentioned.
So are they going to sell the 4 duel decks individually? I don't see this being sold in big box stores being viable otherwise. There's just not a lot of shelf space dedicated to tcgs in those places, and they have never put 80 dollar product in those sections before (correct me if I'm wrong)
I'm getting the vibe that these are going to be like From the Vault print runs.
Don't need to pay the costs when you copy it. All activated abilities have a cost, whether it's tapping a permanent, paying mana, paying life, or even a cost of 0. Kuresh wouldn't work too well if you needed to pay every cost, considering that you could activate the ability again if that were true.
Its better in decks like Zur or Arcum that want to pump out its general as fast as possible and that can operate on fewer cards. It's also better in decks featuring Land Tax, Weathered Wayfarer, and Surveyor's Scope so that there is more of an incentive to blindly play second if you win the roll.
I think its worth playing under those conditions, and a lot of people run colorless lands with less upside than Gemstone Caverns
You need a way to untap Strionic Resonator every time, but as long as you can pay all the costs, you can copy as many triggered/activated abilites as you want.
In your second scenario though, you don't even need the Rings of Brighthearth to have unbounded spell copies if you have infinite mana and untaps.
If winning is all you care about, then you probably want to revolve your deck around infinite turn combo. This lets you win while getting those bonus points that you want. Bant colors can do this particularly easily.
If you don't want to go with infinite turns, then I don't quite know what to tell you. Your success will depend a lot on what your store's players do on Wednesday. When planeswalkers are so heavily encouraged, there is a possibility that quite a few people will bring stax decks, just as you are suggesting. What's more, some people might build decks that make the battlefield an absolutely miserable place for creatures. I think you should expect cards like Humility, Moat, Overburden, and the like. Even if they don't bring those cards, you should probably expect a lot more sweepers in general. I don't think bringing a deck that revolves around creatures is the best idea. Personally, I would bring an enchantment based pillowfort/control deck that runs very few creatures.
As for individual card choices, Take Possession is a house against Planeswalkers that are about to go ultimate.
I think that the proliferators and counter manipulation cards are just way weaker than playing with Time Warps and its cousins.
Phyrexian Tower allows you to respond to Split Second spells if you have death triggers.
I think they'll have the tapped wedge lands at uncommon, and maybe the'll incorporate some kind of unsymmetrical wedge design for the rare lands, a la Murmuring Bosk.
You imprint an instant or sorcery onto Mimic Vat by animating the Dakkon land and then killing it.
Rule 110.4 says that "Instant and sorcery cards can't enter the battlefield and thus can't be permanents."
Doesn't say anything about instant and sorcery tokens. Ha! Now we can make Ancestral Recall, Lightning Bolt, or even Cruel Ultimatum tokens.
As far as I know, all of the Vanguard cards are supported under the rules, except this guy seems to break them. You can play instants and sorceries as copies of basic lands- a contradiction to this rule:
110.4. There are five permanent types: artifact, creature, enchantment, land, and planeswalker. Instant and sorcery cards can't enter the battlefield and thus can't be permanents. Some tribal cards can enter the battlefield and some can't, depending on their other card types. See section 3, "Card Types."
If Mr. Blackblade's ability is the exception to this rule, then we can get into weird territory with things like Wind Zendikon, Ixidron, and Ixidor, Reality Sculptor.
Oops?
It would be like Mana Vault I guess.
If you really want to punish Mana Crypt players, just invoke the will of the council in a better way. Gang up on them to kill them. Why errata the card when you could just house ban it anyways? The errata you're suggesting also strikes me as not very good design, for reasons that DTrain mentioned.
Curiously, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn does trigger when it goes into a graveyard even when it had no abilities on the battlefield.
Edit: Both interactions are explained by the rule that was quoted.
I'm getting the vibe that these are going to be like From the Vault print runs.
I think its worth playing under those conditions, and a lot of people run colorless lands with less upside than Gemstone Caverns
In your second scenario though, you don't even need the Rings of Brighthearth to have unbounded spell copies if you have infinite mana and untaps.