TheSwarmer

Yeah, but usually no Racks are run, fewer than 28 lands are run, and more [[Inquisition of Kozilek]] and more [[Thoughtseize]]s are run. I don't think that really works in this case.

Love the description xDD

Oh, I haven't tested this one unfortunately. Covid kinda killed most non-standard play in my city, and the social aspect of the game is important enough to me to where I am not keen on looking at my opponent through a thick pane of glass with a mask on for 2 hours.

My issue here is that you want fetches, really, but you can't really include them without sacrificing either the consistency with which you can sac [[Flagstones of Trokair]] to a [[Smallpox]] or getting rid of the cycle lands.

Honestly, with decks like this I would likely just be best off having a friend of mine with a masters in math turn this into an equation and solve for the ideal manabase given the deck's mana symbol distribution xDD

What other approaches have you used for iterating/testing things like this?

Uhm, 20 lands? And why not lean into [[Utopia Sprawl]] as well as, or instead of [[Abundant Growth]]?

[[Relic of Progenitus]] exiles my own yard as well, saving a single [[Life from the Loam]] doesn't seem worth it, especially when [[Elixir of Immortality]] is an option. [[scrabbling claws]] could work, in fact, I considered simply cutting both copies of [[The Rack]] for a [[retrofitter foundry]] and [[scrabbling claws]]. I'd have to do some serious testing to figure out what's better though.

I've had [[Witherbloom command]] in here as both a 1x and a 2x at various points during development but I always wound up cutting it. Having Raven's Crime every game seems more important to me, as does having 1x of [[Buried Ruin]], [[Darkmoss Bridge]] and both basic lands.

What would you guys cut for it?

Oh God this is fun xD Nothing to bind a community together like an enemy. Even brought me back from the dead. Then again, when someone spends a year sounding more and more like they have paranoid schizophrenia, that tends to make them quite entertaining to listen to.

I've had a good run on here, but life has sped up too much in the past two years for me to continue to be involved in this site to any real degree. So long and thanks for all the fish.

Hahaha, I still think there's value in what you're doing, 99 out of any 100 creative ideas fall somewhere between useless and stupid, but there is still immense use in creativity of the sort you are displaying here because of that 1 in a 100. Keep it up!

See, why build this when both Acid Trip and Dimir Hand-lock are both existing, relatively refined, mostly viable decks? This is a criticism that could be applied to a lot of your decks, though I have refrained from doing so due to just how much out of the box innovation you often engage in.

Like with [[Blood Researcher]] I think you're onto something. A deck running those and [[Putrid Leech]]s could be a viable, aggressively slanted midrange contender in most metagames I'd say, especially if they're slow.

Damn, I can see some, relatively control/removal - light metagames being utterly brutalized by that. Seems a bit niche to be honest, but it definitely is something to try. Thank you for the suggestion!

I do computer networking and I extend the troubleshooting mindset that the field often demands of you onto everything amendable to it. I started in I think February 2018 when I played in my first sanctioned pauper event, but I could be wrong on that detail.

In the end I just think that stats matter, they're what those parts of the world that run well run on, no reason to not include that in Mtg.

The issue with further optimizing this stat-keeping approach is that at some point my time is better spent elsewhere, especially these days.

Whoa, no way I'm responding to all that xD

I guess the way to answer all the relevant raised points is by saying that I always have a notepad on me that I use for testing notes. What I tend to do is identify the flex spots (Dimir Aqueduct, Libation, Echoing Decay, Alchemy, etc.) and the cards that might better fill those flex spots (Feed the Swarm, Bojuka Bog, etc.). Then, each time a situation comes up where I use one of the flex spot cards (or even if I just draw one) I make a note as to whether I would or would not prefer to have drawn/played the other card (e.g, Feed the Swarm instead of Libation).

I'll be sure to do this once playing pauper is an option again.

Yeah, though many of the decks seem like themed brews that have no hope of ever being optimized into anything competitive. In pauper this is a huge problem as A tier 4 deck costs 5-15$ less than a tier 1 deck.

Thanks for the +1! Running [[Bojuka Bog]], or any other land that enters tapped for that matter, would likely make the deck too slow. It's already a deck that spends its early turns rather passively, I don't think it's a good idea to add to that. Though many of the decks I see online run only 19 lands of which around 9 enter tapped, so maybe I'm wrong.

As for making cuts, neither [[Thought Scour]] nor [[Gurmag Angler]] are cards that you can run less than 4 of. [[Brainstorm]], Anlger, [[Accumulated Knowledge]], and [[Ghastly Demise]] all rely on Scour, and 4 threats is already a number low enough to where losing games due to milling one, getting 2 counterspelled or killed, and not finding the last one is a real danger.

You might be right about [[Forbidden Alchemy]]. The card used to be the main star of the show 2 or 3 years ago in decks like this as it provided card advantage via flashback, card selection for obvious reasons, and also fuel for delve an other gy interactions. These days it's possible the card is no longer any good. Though I'll have to wait for some pauper events to be held to test whether this is the case.

[[feed the swarm]] targets, the main draw of Libation is that it is great against boggles *and* against Tortured Existence, while also being useful against the new threat-heavy cascade midrange decks.

These days with [[Thriving Moor]] and [[Thriving Grove]] the cost of running [[Auramancer]] can be virtually 0. The main advantage of running the latter is a relatively common situation where you prepare for enchantment hate in advance by getting an Auramancer in your hand via TE in expectation of that very TE getting blown up. This is something you cannot do with Gift as it indeed cannot be brought back with TE.

This sounds quite niche buy it is frequently the reason you are able to win games 2 or 3 against midrange decks like Boros or Orzhov.

Furthermore, with [[Dead Weight]] and [[Seal of Primordium]] both being good SB options, Auramancer is simply good in a wider array of situations.

Thanks! I used to have a TE primer that I would simply link in the description each time, but as new viable commons kept coming out I could not keep up & update it so I dropped it.

Most of the silver bullets that comprise the toolbox were chosen such that they have multiple purposes;
[[Fume Spitter]] is a Delver-pooper, a [[Wickerbough Elder]] resetter, a combat complicator, etc. Liliana's Specter blocks Delvers & [[Mulldrifter]]s while also being helpful in grindy matchups, etc.

[[Battlefield Scrounger]] is similarly versatile: It helps fight against GY hate in long games, it prevents you from decking, and it closes the game in 4 swings on its own.

Oh yeah, [[Thoughtpicker Witch]] is extremely good in certain matchups, and once it's legal to do more in the UK than merely sit at a bench with at most one other person, I'll be sure to test for how much better or worse Lampad is. And for example, should I be greeted to a metagame of Tron, MBC and UB control, then it's bye bye Lampad immediately.

But from a purely theoretical standpoint (though hypothetically buttressed by hundreds of games with previous versions of the deck) I think Lampad will - on average - be more valuable.

Exam season is upon me so I'll get back to you once the amphetamines clear my system and my days consist of a wider range of activities than cooking and studying.

Hakoon decks have an extremely polarized matchup spread, which I am not a fan of, the 3 colors are also a turn-off for budget reasons. I have built many Hakoon versions in the past and all of them, no matter the colors, felt clunky. I'm waiting for more knights like [[Nameless Inversion]] until I try that again. And even then, I'd lose to Hakoon's dies trigger after stabilizing too often for comfort.

Relic, Claw, and Surgical were gone a few months after Matthew Dilks came up with his first BW eldrazi deck after Oath of the Gatewatch released, and we're talking 2 years here.
https://untapleagues.com/forgotten-pasts-eldrazi-winter/
No relics here after 2017 here... No relics needed when you go Mimic into Mimic into Smasher swing for 15. It is true that Living end became the answer of choice to the Eldrazi and that shuffled sideboards a bunch, but then again, that's later on and relegated to sideboards.