Just bought into the deck two weeks ago but already seeing some success at my LGS. I went 2-1-1 at FNM last week and 4-0 this week. I'm running mostly just the deck's tax staples (vial, thalia, arbiter, mindcensor, familiar) and relying on land destruction combos to choke them out since my main threats are 2x Brimaz and any blade splicers I can flicker/resto.
Round 1: Battle of Wits (2-1)
Game 1: I had no idea what to expect when I sat down in front of a guy shuffling like 300 cards, so I defaulted to land destruction and search hate. Won the roll but mulliganed to six and ended up with a vial, thalia, leonin arbiter, and some land. Turn 1 vial, Turn 2 thalia, and Turn 3 arbiter into ghost quartering the only non-fetch he had out. He conceded a few turns later after failing to draw some non-fetches.
Game 2: I got greedy and kept a hand with a vial, thalia, path, a plains and some destruction lands. He drew into gifts before I could get an arbiter or mindcensor on the board (destroying his lands with them just played into his game of digging for whatever colors he needed) and that was pretty much game.
Game 3: Got super lucky and drew into a similar hand to Game 1 without having to mulligan and with Brimaz as the 7th card.
Round 2: Scapeshift (2-0)
Game 1: Fortunately for me, he had a lot of bad luck and couldn't get a scapeshift out. It was a long, slow match because I couldn't find any splicers or Brimaz. Even though he quickly had enough land out to pay the arbiter tax, mindcensor made him repeatedly shuffle his deck which I think also kept him from finding scapeshift. He had 9 lands out when I beat him.
Game 2: Boarded out my paths and put in the rest of my finks + mindcensors. I started aggressive with vial, thalia, and finks and he was forced to use his red burn on the finks to stablize. Flashed in a mindcensor in response to a search then vialed in Brimaz. Won two turns later.
Round 3: UTron (2-1)
Game 1: I got vial turn 1, thalia out turn 2 and arbiter turn 3, both of which he let me keep up. He seemed more interested in keeping the vial off the table but it eventually got up to 3. He conceded after I chained resto and then vialed a flickerwhisp to double the golems I had on the board during his turn.
Game 2: I took out some familiars so I'd have the full 4 mindcensors to lock down treasure mages and maps. He seemed to ignore the vial, which I thought was suspicious. He got an oblivion stone out, and I held back creatures until he used it. After he used it, he dropped a torpor orb so I conceded since all I had in my hand were blade splicers and flickerwhisps.
Game 3: I had a vial, Brimaz, thalia, a mindcensor, a plains, and two land destruction in hand. Got vial, thalia out but wasn't sure what I should do going into turn three. He made the mistake of tapping on his turn 2, so I hardcast Briamz and figured I could just vial him next turn in if he got sent back to my hand. He managed to find enough lands + a mana artifact despite a couple of ghostquarters+mindcensor to drop platinum angel with like 6-7 heath left. I flickerwhisped his angel off the field during my pre-combat main and swung for the win.
Round 4: Red aggro/burn
Games 1&2: Seemed like a low land deck that was great against some of the slower moving ones I'd played but super vulnerable to taxes. I went with the default plan of vial into thalia into arbiter both games and wrecked his curve. Game 1 ended quickly thanks to Brimaz being too big to die to bolt, and I kept him at one land for most of game 2 and unable to cast anything but low-life haste creates that couldn't attack into my thalia and golems.
All in all I'm very impressed with the deck, but I may be benefiting from the fact that no one has much experience playing against it. Flickering the platinum angel was definitely my favorite trick all night. Will probably pick up some mirran crusders and jotun grunts so I can have some heavy hitters in the board against decks where I need to win faster. Should probably also look into some disenchants too...
I just picked up the deck this week and would love to read a write up. Congrats on the 5-0!
Round 1: Battle of Wits (2-1)
Game 1: I had no idea what to expect when I sat down in front of a guy shuffling like 300 cards, so I defaulted to land destruction and search hate. Won the roll but mulliganed to six and ended up with a vial, thalia, leonin arbiter, and some land. Turn 1 vial, Turn 2 thalia, and Turn 3 arbiter into ghost quartering the only non-fetch he had out. He conceded a few turns later after failing to draw some non-fetches.
Game 2: I got greedy and kept a hand with a vial, thalia, path, a plains and some destruction lands. He drew into gifts before I could get an arbiter or mindcensor on the board (destroying his lands with them just played into his game of digging for whatever colors he needed) and that was pretty much game.
Game 3: Got super lucky and drew into a similar hand to Game 1 without having to mulligan and with Brimaz as the 7th card.
Round 2: Scapeshift (2-0)
Game 1: Fortunately for me, he had a lot of bad luck and couldn't get a scapeshift out. It was a long, slow match because I couldn't find any splicers or Brimaz. Even though he quickly had enough land out to pay the arbiter tax, mindcensor made him repeatedly shuffle his deck which I think also kept him from finding scapeshift. He had 9 lands out when I beat him.
Game 2: Boarded out my paths and put in the rest of my finks + mindcensors. I started aggressive with vial, thalia, and finks and he was forced to use his red burn on the finks to stablize. Flashed in a mindcensor in response to a search then vialed in Brimaz. Won two turns later.
Round 3: UTron (2-1)
Game 1: I got vial turn 1, thalia out turn 2 and arbiter turn 3, both of which he let me keep up. He seemed more interested in keeping the vial off the table but it eventually got up to 3. He conceded after I chained resto and then vialed a flickerwhisp to double the golems I had on the board during his turn.
Game 2: I took out some familiars so I'd have the full 4 mindcensors to lock down treasure mages and maps. He seemed to ignore the vial, which I thought was suspicious. He got an oblivion stone out, and I held back creatures until he used it. After he used it, he dropped a torpor orb so I conceded since all I had in my hand were blade splicers and flickerwhisps.
Game 3: I had a vial, Brimaz, thalia, a mindcensor, a plains, and two land destruction in hand. Got vial, thalia out but wasn't sure what I should do going into turn three. He made the mistake of tapping on his turn 2, so I hardcast Briamz and figured I could just vial him next turn in if he got sent back to my hand. He managed to find enough lands + a mana artifact despite a couple of ghostquarters+mindcensor to drop platinum angel with like 6-7 heath left. I flickerwhisped his angel off the field during my pre-combat main and swung for the win.
Round 4: Red aggro/burn
Games 1&2: Seemed like a low land deck that was great against some of the slower moving ones I'd played but super vulnerable to taxes. I went with the default plan of vial into thalia into arbiter both games and wrecked his curve. Game 1 ended quickly thanks to Brimaz being too big to die to bolt, and I kept him at one land for most of game 2 and unable to cast anything but low-life haste creates that couldn't attack into my thalia and golems.
All in all I'm very impressed with the deck, but I may be benefiting from the fact that no one has much experience playing against it. Flickering the platinum angel was definitely my favorite trick all night. Will probably pick up some mirran crusders and jotun grunts so I can have some heavy hitters in the board against decks where I need to win faster. Should probably also look into some disenchants too...