I grade academy like this, how many games has it won me due to it's effect compared to how many games I've lost because it's colorless. I can say I've only specifically list 1 game because this wasn't something like city of brass or another untapped colored source. I've won many games by throwing ad nauseam back on the top of my deck. Don't get me wrong, 99% of the time the difference has no effect on the outcome of the game, but the small percentage of times when it has the card has done more good than harm.
IMO leylines, the 4th pact, and echoing truth are musts in the sideboard. Everything else is up for debate. Fatal push has been weak. It's much better against affinity and hatebears than grixis shadow. I don't even board it in against grixis because so often they win with Tasigur and the zombie fish. Thoughtseize is fine against a lot of decks and has been in my board for a while. Cage can beat storm on its own, is decent against company decks, and doesn't do much else. Ehaze is fine against affinity, goblins, living end, dredge, and any other creature beat down strategy. Silence can probably go, it's great against control but we're already so favored. It could maybe be hurkyl's recall. I haven't cast a supreme verdict since adding it to the board. It could maybe be a godhead or other wincon (Elspeth, grave titan, dramoka). I feel like overboarding is certainly a thing. I really try not to board in more than 4 cards unless a particular match really, really, calls for it. Even then 5 is probably my limit.
There's been a lot of doom and gloom going around about the deck as of late. I guess I really don't think it's in as bad a spot as most people. This comes from my personal results with the deck both as of late and over the long run. It really just depends on your expectations. If you goal is to win 15 round tournaments then I agree, there are better choices. If your goal is to grind FNM for store credit, make day twos, or go infinite on MTGO, I think the deck is still great. I have been playing exclusively on MTGO for the last few months due to time constraints. Over the last 3 weeks I played 20 friendly leagues (100 games) and am on my way to playing 20 competitive leagues (only 4 done so far). For the friendly leagues I hit at a 64% win rate (64-36) and netted a 84 tickets total. I had 2 5-0's, 6 4-1's, 6 3-2's, 6 2-3's, and never went 1-4 or 0-5. So far with competitive leagues I have a 5-0, a 4-1, and two 3-2's. This is pretty consistent with my overall performance with the deck over the last 2+ years. I haven't put any actual money into mtgo since I bought into ad nauseam and have built several decks since. I'm effectively "infinite" at this point.
As far as matchups go here are some stats from my result of the 20 friendly and 4 competitive leagues: Burn is a good matchup and very popular on mtgo. I was 7-2 against the various varieties of burn. Titanshift is also very good at 6-3 and control decks not playing black, 7-0 (UW and Jeskai). Eldrazi tron I was 5-4, Gx tron I was 5-3. 4-1 against storm with most wins being directly on the back of landing a grafdigger's cage. 3-2 against traditional jund and 0-1 against death shadow jund (everyone is on grixis). 3-1 against grixis shadow (leyline and not over-sideboarding is key IMO). 2-2 against affinity though I have long said the match is probably like 55-45 in our favor. Most other matches were only 1 or 2 of's so the data isn't that meaningful. That said, I was 2-0 against dredge. 1-0 against fish, 2-0 against living end which are all good matches for us as well.
I recognize that I haven't played nearly enough games to account for variance but I still feel we're in an okay spot. Looking at the metagame from mtggoldfish grixis is the top at 11.5% which is bad for us. Affinity and Eldrazi tron are next at 9.5 and 7.6% and both of those are even to slightly favorable for us. The next 6 decks are IMO very favorable for us and make up almost 25% of the meta. They are, in order of metashare, burn, titanshift, U/W control, Gx Tron, dredge, Jeskai control. Everything below that makes up 2% or less of the meta. I feel like in general we do well against the brew and jank decks. So while the top deck is a bad matchup and the next two are even(ish), that still leaves a significant number of good matchups for us. Not to mention the number of decks that remain "free wins". I certainly don't think this meta is worse than when the top decks were infect, jund, and affinity.
To win a GP or SCG open you'll need some luck because you either have to beat Grixis shadow, dodge Grixis shadow, or a little of both. This was always true in the past when infect was still a deck. That certainly isn't impossible so winning major events can still happen. If you just want to have a "profitable" deck that performs well enough at FNM, PPTQs, 1k's, MTGO, etc, than Ad Nauseam is still fine. Most of all you should play a deck that is fun and IMO our deck is extremely fun but that is of course going to come down to personal tastes and playstyles.
For reference my decklist is here: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/695163#paper and a replay of that competitive league with commentary is here: https://youtu.be/7L7B5kdClz0. If people are interested I can do more of these replays. I find it hard to stream a full league due to not having enough time all in one block but doing replays is much more feasible for me.
Maindeck in Spoils version is probably the best we can have. 12 ramp spells, 12 combo pieces, 8 cantrips, 3 pacts, 2 wincons and 3 Spoils to glue whole deck proved that it works. Only discussion is what 20 lands you wanto and it all comes down to personal preferences since all lands do similar things - give mana - so having 0, 2 or 4 Gemstone Mines won't have much impact on our gameplan.
For me only acceptable changes in maindeck would be +1 land for 1 Unlife/Sleight or 1 Leyline main in extreme metagame shifts. But you shouldn't change much maindeck.
I agree with this. The main deck of the spoils version is very close to "set". It has the most consistent tournament results of all the various builds. As you mentioned, lands are the main thing that will differ from one list to another and honestly, I don't know that any one configuration of lands is "correct". There are pros and cons to the number of temples you play, gemstone mine vs city of brass, number and type of basics, and what, if any tech lands you play (urborg, tomb of yawgmothnephalia academy, etc). I'm not sure those selections make a huge difference either as far as win percentage. We will all lose a game here and there because we can't tap a gemstone as many times as we needed and we'll also lose a game because the 1 or 2 damage we took from city of brass allowed our opponent to get just enough damage in.
As for changes to the main deck there are really only a few flex spots and they are mostly meta dependent. The 4th unlife could also be a slaughter pact or an additional land. You can sub out a single spoils for a mystical teachings (I've been doing this lately and am pretty happy with it). Finally, the wincons. It's pretty much agreed upon that you need two if you have spoils in your deck. Labman shows up in nearly all the top lists. He originally made the list when infinite life decks were popular but they have faded pretty heavily from the meta. Having 2 lightning storm is nice because doubles your odds of being successful when you need to spoils and win at instant speed and is also a little less mana intensive then the labman. It doesn't die to abrupt decay either. On the other hand, there is something nice about facing main deck hate (leyline of sanctity, pithing needle, runed halo) and still being able to win. I know these cards aren't common main deck but I personally hate finding out on turn zero or one that I have no way to win. You likely won't see jank like that day two of a GP but you sure might day one game one which you still want to be winning. Beyond that you really do want to be playing 8 cantrips, 8 mana rocks, 2 wincons, 11-12 combo pieces, 3 spoils/teachings, 3 pact of negation 20-21 lands, and of course the simian spirit guides
The sideboard is where you can really make the deck your own. There are so many different sideboard packages that are completely meta dependant. I would say the 4th pact and the leylines are pretty close to musts but you can make an argument for just about any other card. From fogs to removal, to
I don't think we want it that badly. I don't see where it's better enough than unlife to use it main deck and I'm not sure I want to devote sideboard cards to the matches where it's slightly better than unlife. Against it, if it sees lots of play a main deck echoing truth is in order, otherwise you need to have lots of mana to both kill it and labman. A possible line if unlife is in play is to go off, kill it with storm, keep a hand of labman, grace, pacts, counter anything relevant they try and play, and win the following turn. This only works if they cannot deal 10 damage to you via creatures already on the board.
I think this card is good in more than just special situations. Against many decks if we can combo the next turn and this is in hand we pretty much just win. If affinity has a lethal board we can cast this, end the turn, untap and win. Yes grace can buy us a turn but we'll need another grace or unlife to win. Also, unlike grace or unlife this beats a lethal inkmoth nexus. Against any creature aggro deck this is basically time walk except they get to untap. If death's shadow plays a thoughtseize that will strip a combo piece and make a shadow lethal we can cast this with the discard spell on the stack and it's essentially pact of negation combined with etheral haze and we don't have to pay for the pact until our EOT. Slaughter games? No problem, your turn is over. Stops abrupt decay as well. The fact that it doesn't "come due" until the end step can be relevant as well. Sometimes you want to pact something the turn before comboing out but you also plan on winning with unlife as you have no grace. If you have 4 mana on board and 1 in hand + ad naus you will die before getting to play the land you need to combo. This lets you make a draw and play the land. Maybe it won't be as good as I think it can be but I'm certainly going to test it. My idea is to move 1 pact, 1 unlife, and 1 of something else to the board and retool the mana base to make the R less of an issue.
So what do you think about by force? The new artifact hate card. Was thinking that could that replace shattering spree from the side? Doesn't reguire as much red mana and does the same thing.
It costs 1 more mana which can be relevant. Spree can hit 1 artifact on turn 1 and 2 on turn 2 while this can hit 1 on turn 2 and 2 on turn 3. I feel like that makes it worse despite the upside of being able to use blue to pump it. Honestly, when they open with relic, go, I really like just using spree right away to deny them the card draw. On turn 2 we can kill their relic but they can possibly get some value off it.
Is there an argument for mainboarding 4 leyline of sanctity and placing all but one copy of pact of negation into our sideboard? Death shadow is nearly 16% of the meta and Abzan and Jund Midrange are a combined 7% of the meta. That is a nearly a fourth of the meta that runs ~8 discard effects. Not to mention other decks like burn where a leyline is a great way to stall. It seems equally useful as pact of negation was in an ideal meta and may be the only way we can survive if death shadow decks keep increasing.
I don't like main deck leyline much and I really don't like only 1 pact main deck. Pact does work in more than just the control match. Pacting a turn 3 Liliana, Karn, KKommand on our mana rock, etc, can all allow us to untap and win on turn 4. Also our control match will suffer significantly. In addition to removing 2 pacts you'd still need to remove 2 more cards. What comes out? I don't like removing artifact mana because that's how we win on turn 4. Removing cantrips when you've added 4 cards to the deck that you hate to draw seems bad too. Obviously we're not removing combo pieces and I'd hesitate to remove spoils because if you miss your leyline and get hit with discard anyways you'll want to have spoils. We only have a about 40% chance to open with at least 1 leyline and that includes about a 6% chance of opening with 2 which is essentially a mull to 5.
So 60% of game 1's all we did was add 4 dead cards to our deck at the expense of something better in matches where leyline is good and 100% of the time in matches where leyline is bad. I think if we're hard casting leyline they've already done most of the damage they were going to do with discard as it comes down turn 3 at the earliest and costs resources to pump it out that turn. It's also not an auto win against death's shadow though I will admit it helps considerably. I'm much more into the idea of adding 1 or 2 Nephalia Academy. It's not as good as leyline but is usually enough to do the trick against shadow. I've been running 1 since it came out and I have lost only 1 game (out of well over 100) because it wasn't a colored land. Adding 2 would up that percentage but it would still be low. You also aren't sacrificing any spells, just 1 or 2 lands leaving our shell completely intact. So basically it's less good than leyline in relevant matches, but MUCH less bad than leyline in irrelevant matches and it's an easy card to board out when boseiju comes in. All in all I think adding 4 main deck leylines will lose us more games than it wins but 1 or 2 academies seems like a decent choice. I'm still currently on 1.
On a slightly related subject I think I'm finally ready to move labman to the board in favor of a second lightning storm or conflagrate. Against death shadow lighting storm you for 5 is a real thing and I've won matches that way. Labman was great against certain things that aren't very prevalent at the moment. When main deck worship and infinite life combo was seeing regular play he was an all star but both of those have declined considerably. Occasionally he's good when affinity puts plating on a vault skirge or against bogles but those are corner cases. Winning with spoils + labman and seeing my opponent's face is the greatest feeling I can derive from this deck (I typically name whatever the namesake card of my opponent's deck is in order to mill myself out) but it happens so infrequently it might be time to move our beloved labman to the sideboard.
I'm less thrilled about Gideon in our deck than I am worried about him in our opponent's deck. He is certainly a sideboard option for us, possibly a main deck option but I'm not sold on that without testing. In our deck we can spit him out on turn 3, plus him to dodge bolt and whatever creature they have, and it shouldn't die until turn 4 unless they have 2 creatures + a bolt or something along those lines. It dies to abrupt decay just like Unlife. Where it's worse is when you're going to die on your opponent's turn 4 so you have no choice but to emblem him. He now simply dies to bolt or a 3 power attack where an unlife probably keeps us alive until the all important turn 4. For that reason I think he's better suited as sideboard tech. I'd love to board him in for unlife against infect. I also agree having him as a one of seems worse than a 2/2 split with unlife simply because if they kill one you have a chance of dropping another and already having the emblem out. Again, not sold on the main deck but probably makes it into the board.
Switching to playing against Gideon, in game one if our opponent plays him we are very close to just dead. We'll need the mana to lightning storm the Gideon and then still be able to labman + serum vision. Even with unlife in play we'd need 5 to ad naus, 3 ssg to storm, then 3 more mana + the last ssg to win. 8 mana (9 if using grace) is a lot and that relies on having all 4 ssg still available making spoils much worse. Game 2 and 3 it becomes any other hate card that just gets bounced with echoing truth which is far less mana intensive but I hate having an almost automatic game 1 loss. I'm not sure what decks will play him but I have to imagine he fits into some kind of U/W control or esper control list, possibly death and taxes, maybe in a R/W bloodmoon deck, and certainly in various superfriends lists. Who knows what else. If he gets insanely popular (kind of skeptical about this happening) then we'll need to make room for a main deck echoing truth which isn't honestly the worst thing in the world as that card is rarely just dead. It's insanely good to just bounce 2 tarmogoyfs or a Tasigur for a turn sometimes. It certainly will be interesting to see both what this new guy does for us or against us.
I have a question though, about the crovax plan.
I do know that once it lands, its mostly GG against infect (and i love the card btw, from the times i played with it in time spiral block ).
However my question is: why are we using a 6 drop creature, agains a deck that "combos" on turn 3?
I asked myself the exact same question. I feel like if I've lived long enough to play him, I've lived long enough to combo off.
As for eldrazi and taxes, I'd rather play against infect 10/10 times given the choice. 8 main deck discard effects that also attack us each turn + Thalia + land destruction. Oh and not to mention they can blink our unlife in response to ad nauseam and pact of negation can't stop it.
If we find our hate we can beat infect and while it's still a fairly unfavorable match, it's winnable with some luck. Against E&T even if we find a leyline we're still dealing with a deck that blows up our lands, makes our combo cost 8 mana and our wincon cost 4 (no using that extra SSG) while establishing a clock as early as turn two. The only real trick we have is pentad prism for 3 against Thalia but they also side in stony silence. I think this is actually our number 1 worst match that sees any level of reasonable play.
All this talk about tech lands and BGx...I really like a one of nephalia academy. It doesn't really answer Lili but it's great against thoughtseize, IOK, and collective brutality. It comes in untapped as well. If you are already running Mikokoro, Center of the Sea two colorless lands might be too many but the ability to make a late game discard spell blank is really strong. Also it's good for decks playing 2-3 discard spells where leyline isn't really justifiable (Dredge, certain grixis builds, etc). I also make it the land I board out when boarding in Boseiju, Who Shelters All for any non-black control matchups. I've won a few games due to having it and have yet to lose any due to it being colorless. In my current build I play only one other land that doesn't initially tap for a color in dreadship reef but it eventually does and that really isn't the same as a true colorless land like Mikokoro.
I really dislike playing less then 3 SSG. Even though your opponent knows you play 4 they always seem to take your ability to use one to combo off (or two if you have a land for turn available) for granted. Also, if you are on spoils and need 1 additional mana to go off the next turn you can spoils for a SSG knowing that you won't spoil away extra guides. Having all 4 in the deck minimizes the chances of spoiling away wincons or lands in the process.
Whir of Invention is worth testing but I have my doubts. Artifact destruction is usually boarded in against us and using whir at EOT means they have aw window to hit you. When bloom resolves and they go to destroy it on your upkeep I like the ability to combo in response. I'm also not completely convinced I'll have access to UUU EOT three either. Between playing unlife or cantrips the mana just might not be there. Also there is the non zero chance that one of my 3 lands is colorless or a plains. That being said, having increased access to a turn 4 lotus bloom is quite powerful if it can be done smoothly and I'll be eager to at least give the card a try.
Fatal push is excellent for ad nauseam. I'm going to run zero of them but all the other decks packing it will reduce infect's share of the meta. I think fogs are just better for us because they are more versatile but push will get played in a lot of other decks. I think I'll be shelving my spoils of the vault as well. If the meta slows mystical teachings is where it's at. I'm going to need to get used to playing that version again. While the basic strategy remains the same, many of the intricacies are different.
For me RG Tron tends to go like this: Did they get turn 3 Karn? If no, I win. If yes, did I suspend a bloom and have 3 lands on the table and an extra land/ssg in my hand or drawn on turn 4? If yes, I still win, if not, GG tron player. I will board in a thoughtseize to try and prevent turn three Karn but I believe we are heavily favored in this matchup. Another line of play is to pact their turn three karn and win on turn 4. Sometimes they will simply have early karn and you don't have what you need to fight through it but the simple fact that they can have the perfect hand and still lose shows how favorable the match is for us.
Has anybody tested playing 4 Spoils of the Vault and only 2 Pact of Negation in the main?
I don't like the idea of 4 spoils and dislike removing a pact even more. I agree with Joja that spoils is absolutely the definition of a 3 of card. It can function as an extra combo piece but can't really function as both combo pieces. If I was to run 4 I'd also run 8 temples to be more likely to have a scry effect. One way to utilize multiple spoils is to simply use it to draw a known card of the top in order to dig one card deeper. I just don't see any advantage to a 4th spoils. I'd rather have a one of mystical teachings than a 4th spoils. Pact of negation is such a broken card in our deck. I don't buy the argument that since blue/control is weak in the meta that we should go down a pact. I've won countless games pacting a card the turn before a combo. Stopping a game winning atarka's command from burn or a top decked thoughtseize from jund or a well timed blood moon to shut off our mana the turn before going off is such a powerful play especially considering that the play is for zero mana. Yes we board it out for more specific answers in matches where it's not as good but 90% of the time I still leave one in.
What are people's feelings about nephalia academy now that it has been out in the wild for a bit. I personally love it. I play spoils with a no fetch manabase. I used to play a 1 of horizon canopy for the card draw but replaced it with the academy. It is my only land that does not tap for a color. It has certainly won me more games then the draw feature of canopy. I have yet to lose a game due to it being colorless. I like it because it gives us something game 1 against discard if we're lucky enough to have it and it feels nice to have for certain matchups where 4 leylines seems like too much. If a deck will sideboard 2-4 discard spells I usually do not play leylines. Dredge, Affinity, certain Grixis decks, Suicide zoo & blu, etc. I would rather have haze effects against most of those decks and simply can't board in 6-8 cards. Against control I will swap it for Boseiju, who shelters all in the sideboard. It can also be a pseudo 5th leyline for matchups where you really need it like jund/junk and other discard heavy matchups (even though it doesn't solve the Lilianna lock). Occasionally it's a dead card against something like burn or regular zoo but I really don't think it hinders of that often. Anyone else testing this? What are your thoughts?
IMO leylines, the 4th pact, and echoing truth are musts in the sideboard. Everything else is up for debate. Fatal push has been weak. It's much better against affinity and hatebears than grixis shadow. I don't even board it in against grixis because so often they win with Tasigur and the zombie fish. Thoughtseize is fine against a lot of decks and has been in my board for a while. Cage can beat storm on its own, is decent against company decks, and doesn't do much else. Ehaze is fine against affinity, goblins, living end, dredge, and any other creature beat down strategy. Silence can probably go, it's great against control but we're already so favored. It could maybe be hurkyl's recall. I haven't cast a supreme verdict since adding it to the board. It could maybe be a godhead or other wincon (Elspeth, grave titan, dramoka). I feel like overboarding is certainly a thing. I really try not to board in more than 4 cards unless a particular match really, really, calls for it. Even then 5 is probably my limit.
There's been a lot of doom and gloom going around about the deck as of late. I guess I really don't think it's in as bad a spot as most people. This comes from my personal results with the deck both as of late and over the long run. It really just depends on your expectations. If you goal is to win 15 round tournaments then I agree, there are better choices. If your goal is to grind FNM for store credit, make day twos, or go infinite on MTGO, I think the deck is still great. I have been playing exclusively on MTGO for the last few months due to time constraints. Over the last 3 weeks I played 20 friendly leagues (100 games) and am on my way to playing 20 competitive leagues (only 4 done so far). For the friendly leagues I hit at a 64% win rate (64-36) and netted a 84 tickets total. I had 2 5-0's, 6 4-1's, 6 3-2's, 6 2-3's, and never went 1-4 or 0-5. So far with competitive leagues I have a 5-0, a 4-1, and two 3-2's. This is pretty consistent with my overall performance with the deck over the last 2+ years. I haven't put any actual money into mtgo since I bought into ad nauseam and have built several decks since. I'm effectively "infinite" at this point.
As far as matchups go here are some stats from my result of the 20 friendly and 4 competitive leagues: Burn is a good matchup and very popular on mtgo. I was 7-2 against the various varieties of burn. Titanshift is also very good at 6-3 and control decks not playing black, 7-0 (UW and Jeskai). Eldrazi tron I was 5-4, Gx tron I was 5-3. 4-1 against storm with most wins being directly on the back of landing a grafdigger's cage. 3-2 against traditional jund and 0-1 against death shadow jund (everyone is on grixis). 3-1 against grixis shadow (leyline and not over-sideboarding is key IMO). 2-2 against affinity though I have long said the match is probably like 55-45 in our favor. Most other matches were only 1 or 2 of's so the data isn't that meaningful. That said, I was 2-0 against dredge. 1-0 against fish, 2-0 against living end which are all good matches for us as well.
I recognize that I haven't played nearly enough games to account for variance but I still feel we're in an okay spot. Looking at the metagame from mtggoldfish grixis is the top at 11.5% which is bad for us. Affinity and Eldrazi tron are next at 9.5 and 7.6% and both of those are even to slightly favorable for us. The next 6 decks are IMO very favorable for us and make up almost 25% of the meta. They are, in order of metashare, burn, titanshift, U/W control, Gx Tron, dredge, Jeskai control. Everything below that makes up 2% or less of the meta. I feel like in general we do well against the brew and jank decks. So while the top deck is a bad matchup and the next two are even(ish), that still leaves a significant number of good matchups for us. Not to mention the number of decks that remain "free wins". I certainly don't think this meta is worse than when the top decks were infect, jund, and affinity.
To win a GP or SCG open you'll need some luck because you either have to beat Grixis shadow, dodge Grixis shadow, or a little of both. This was always true in the past when infect was still a deck. That certainly isn't impossible so winning major events can still happen. If you just want to have a "profitable" deck that performs well enough at FNM, PPTQs, 1k's, MTGO, etc, than Ad Nauseam is still fine. Most of all you should play a deck that is fun and IMO our deck is extremely fun but that is of course going to come down to personal tastes and playstyles.
For reference my decklist is here: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/695163#paper and a replay of that competitive league with commentary is here: https://youtu.be/7L7B5kdClz0. If people are interested I can do more of these replays. I find it hard to stream a full league due to not having enough time all in one block but doing replays is much more feasible for me.
As for changes to the main deck there are really only a few flex spots and they are mostly meta dependent. The 4th unlife could also be a slaughter pact or an additional land. You can sub out a single spoils for a mystical teachings (I've been doing this lately and am pretty happy with it). Finally, the wincons. It's pretty much agreed upon that you need two if you have spoils in your deck. Labman shows up in nearly all the top lists. He originally made the list when infinite life decks were popular but they have faded pretty heavily from the meta. Having 2 lightning storm is nice because doubles your odds of being successful when you need to spoils and win at instant speed and is also a little less mana intensive then the labman. It doesn't die to abrupt decay either. On the other hand, there is something nice about facing main deck hate (leyline of sanctity, pithing needle, runed halo) and still being able to win. I know these cards aren't common main deck but I personally hate finding out on turn zero or one that I have no way to win. You likely won't see jank like that day two of a GP but you sure might day one game one which you still want to be winning. Beyond that you really do want to be playing 8 cantrips, 8 mana rocks, 2 wincons, 11-12 combo pieces, 3 spoils/teachings, 3 pact of negation 20-21 lands, and of course the simian spirit guides
The sideboard is where you can really make the deck your own. There are so many different sideboard packages that are completely meta dependant. I would say the 4th pact and the leylines are pretty close to musts but you can make an argument for just about any other card. From fogs to removal, to
So 60% of game 1's all we did was add 4 dead cards to our deck at the expense of something better in matches where leyline is good and 100% of the time in matches where leyline is bad. I think if we're hard casting leyline they've already done most of the damage they were going to do with discard as it comes down turn 3 at the earliest and costs resources to pump it out that turn. It's also not an auto win against death's shadow though I will admit it helps considerably. I'm much more into the idea of adding 1 or 2 Nephalia Academy. It's not as good as leyline but is usually enough to do the trick against shadow. I've been running 1 since it came out and I have lost only 1 game (out of well over 100) because it wasn't a colored land. Adding 2 would up that percentage but it would still be low. You also aren't sacrificing any spells, just 1 or 2 lands leaving our shell completely intact. So basically it's less good than leyline in relevant matches, but MUCH less bad than leyline in irrelevant matches and it's an easy card to board out when boseiju comes in. All in all I think adding 4 main deck leylines will lose us more games than it wins but 1 or 2 academies seems like a decent choice. I'm still currently on 1.
On a slightly related subject I think I'm finally ready to move labman to the board in favor of a second lightning storm or conflagrate. Against death shadow lighting storm you for 5 is a real thing and I've won matches that way. Labman was great against certain things that aren't very prevalent at the moment. When main deck worship and infinite life combo was seeing regular play he was an all star but both of those have declined considerably. Occasionally he's good when affinity puts plating on a vault skirge or against bogles but those are corner cases. Winning with spoils + labman and seeing my opponent's face is the greatest feeling I can derive from this deck (I typically name whatever the namesake card of my opponent's deck is in order to mill myself out) but it happens so infrequently it might be time to move our beloved labman to the sideboard.
Switching to playing against Gideon, in game one if our opponent plays him we are very close to just dead. We'll need the mana to lightning storm the Gideon and then still be able to labman + serum vision. Even with unlife in play we'd need 5 to ad naus, 3 ssg to storm, then 3 more mana + the last ssg to win. 8 mana (9 if using grace) is a lot and that relies on having all 4 ssg still available making spoils much worse. Game 2 and 3 it becomes any other hate card that just gets bounced with echoing truth which is far less mana intensive but I hate having an almost automatic game 1 loss. I'm not sure what decks will play him but I have to imagine he fits into some kind of U/W control or esper control list, possibly death and taxes, maybe in a R/W bloodmoon deck, and certainly in various superfriends lists. Who knows what else. If he gets insanely popular (kind of skeptical about this happening) then we'll need to make room for a main deck echoing truth which isn't honestly the worst thing in the world as that card is rarely just dead. It's insanely good to just bounce 2 tarmogoyfs or a Tasigur for a turn sometimes. It certainly will be interesting to see both what this new guy does for us or against us.
As for eldrazi and taxes, I'd rather play against infect 10/10 times given the choice. 8 main deck discard effects that also attack us each turn + Thalia + land destruction. Oh and not to mention they can blink our unlife in response to ad nauseam and pact of negation can't stop it.
If we find our hate we can beat infect and while it's still a fairly unfavorable match, it's winnable with some luck. Against E&T even if we find a leyline we're still dealing with a deck that blows up our lands, makes our combo cost 8 mana and our wincon cost 4 (no using that extra SSG) while establishing a clock as early as turn two. The only real trick we have is pentad prism for 3 against Thalia but they also side in stony silence. I think this is actually our number 1 worst match that sees any level of reasonable play.
I really dislike playing less then 3 SSG. Even though your opponent knows you play 4 they always seem to take your ability to use one to combo off (or two if you have a land for turn available) for granted. Also, if you are on spoils and need 1 additional mana to go off the next turn you can spoils for a SSG knowing that you won't spoil away extra guides. Having all 4 in the deck minimizes the chances of spoiling away wincons or lands in the process.
Whir of Invention is worth testing but I have my doubts. Artifact destruction is usually boarded in against us and using whir at EOT means they have aw window to hit you. When bloom resolves and they go to destroy it on your upkeep I like the ability to combo in response. I'm also not completely convinced I'll have access to UUU EOT three either. Between playing unlife or cantrips the mana just might not be there. Also there is the non zero chance that one of my 3 lands is colorless or a plains. That being said, having increased access to a turn 4 lotus bloom is quite powerful if it can be done smoothly and I'll be eager to at least give the card a try.
I don't like the idea of 4 spoils and dislike removing a pact even more. I agree with Joja that spoils is absolutely the definition of a 3 of card. It can function as an extra combo piece but can't really function as both combo pieces. If I was to run 4 I'd also run 8 temples to be more likely to have a scry effect. One way to utilize multiple spoils is to simply use it to draw a known card of the top in order to dig one card deeper. I just don't see any advantage to a 4th spoils. I'd rather have a one of mystical teachings than a 4th spoils. Pact of negation is such a broken card in our deck. I don't buy the argument that since blue/control is weak in the meta that we should go down a pact. I've won countless games pacting a card the turn before a combo. Stopping a game winning atarka's command from burn or a top decked thoughtseize from jund or a well timed blood moon to shut off our mana the turn before going off is such a powerful play especially considering that the play is for zero mana. Yes we board it out for more specific answers in matches where it's not as good but 90% of the time I still leave one in.