Tralese

Thanks for the clarification Endgamer31. I was able to confirm that you are indeed correct. It does make it a little less powerful, but is still a pretty good card. I feel like Assemble the Legion would be better if you had a way to ramp up to it and would be able to cast it on turn three. That way you would start benefiting from it on turn 4.

Actually the text in the card says "return those cards" which means that technically the Legion's Initiative should return as well. We'll have to see specific rulings on that one, as it is a little unclear. And yes Frontline Medic is a really good add.

Permit me to disagree with you Endgamer31. The Initiative will boost everyone of the creatures and thus plays into the aggressive strategy of this deck and when you go for aggro, you don't want to have to wait until turn 6 to get a single 1/1 in play. With Legion's Initiative you can begin pumping your red creatures with +1 power as early as turn 1 and if they happen to be white as well, they get a defense bonus also. This also means you can attack every turn that you want and if the opponent happens to play an instant to hurt one of your creatures during the attack, you simply blink everyone out and they show back up as defenders. Heck, even if you make it through you can blink and in effect get the same effect as if all your creatures had vigilance. In my mind it's a main deck card more than the Assemble the Legion for aggro purposes.

Hold on and think about it for a minute. Legion's Initiative is similar to Glorious Anthem apart from the fact that it makes all your creatures impervious to any board wipe. So bye bye Supreme Verdict, Terminus, Bonfire of the Damned, Mutilate, Sleep..... That's what makes this card insanely awesome, not so much the +1/+1

Yes, I have. I honestly wasn't going for the typical red deck wins, but I had though about it. One small change I will do though is switch the Guildmages for lightning maulers since they can help trigger a battalion with the medic on turn three.

replace assemble the legion with Legion's Initiative and you got yourself some beefed up peeps.

You make a really good point though, against aggro decks, I would absolutely go with pillars of flame and/or searing spears to cull the opponent's enthusiasm. The Helix was there more as a mid game strategy, to burn and gain live at the same time. If I had Boros Reckoners I would include them in this deck, but I don't.

I had thought of all three of those and should probably side board them. The nice thing about Legion's Initiative is that it addresses board wipes since it exiles your creatures for the turn, then bring them back with haste.
Thanks for the recommendations.

Yeah, I thought of putting some closets in there, but the problem is the detain effect ends when my turn starts again. Still I've used the closets to great effect with detain before.

I have a different version of the snipe deck that makes use of Tandem Lookout, which can be soulbound to the Guttersnipe and trigger every time his ability hit, which make you draw a card. You thus get an inordinate amount of card draw, especially if you use artful dodge on your Guttersnipe and also attack with him. Here is the link to the deck http://www.mtgvault.com/tralese/decks/guttersnipe-tandem/

Skullcrack is a brilliant idea! As are all of the others. I've only recently started playing again after a many year hiatus and thus don't have a lot of the old cards, so I am working with the post 2013 stuff. But I greatly appreciate the feedback.

Changed this deck to include Strangleroot Geists in order to make the deck more aggressive. Removed Talrand, Sky Summoner and a couple of instants. Also switched out the Tandem Lookouts for Simic Guildmages which allow me to remove counter for card draw, including removing counters from undying creatures to make them undying again.

This way all creatures are 1 or 2 drops, making this deck very cheap to run.

I am considering removing one more land to drop down to 21 and adding back in a Simic Charm. My only other though is to maybe put in Rancor.

Stuffman has a great point there, your mana curve doesn't play well into having only 20 lands, especially if Mind Grind is your clutch card. With Mind Grind you want as many land in play as you can in order for it to hit with great effect. I would still include more Aberrations. It's such a great card, I mean broken. Combined with cipher, it is utterly broken. I milled through a 60 card deck on turn 7 with 2 Aberrations and an invisible stalker ciphered with paranoid delusion. And the funny thing is that if you happen to have an essence harvest in hand once your Aberrations hit 20/20, which happens fast after turn 5, then you have a win condition right there.

Here are my thoughts, remove the specters and put more Aberrations in there. Lazav is kind of unnecessary. Put in some invisible stalkers to combine with paranoid delusion. The counterspells are nice, but not as useful as removal and not your main source of mill. Better to focus on instants that can be used to protect your heavy hitters (negate, mizium skin, unsummon...).
Finally you need more early mill options such as dream twist and thought scours in order to get a quick lead on your opponent's graveyard to feed your beasties that depend on that (Wights and Aberrations).

Oh and Nephalia Drownyards are a must in a mill deck. Anytime you have excess mana you can use that to mill.

Last but not the least, take out some of the murders or grisly spectacle and put in Mutilates. Those are board wipes that will more than likely not kill your wights or aberrations and give you more room to charge.

So I've been playing this deck, and I would like to say that it is very powerful and effective against other tournament decks that some friends have tried against it. The one thing that I decided to change is to remove Cyclonic Rift and Silent Departure and replacing them with more Sleeps. Sleep affects the entire opponent's board and gives me two additional turns to attack and finish them off.

I like your deck combo, very cool with the infinite mana combo. The nice thing is that you at least have one fall back with the Subject in case things go south. That's why I included some removal, the Lobber Crews and stab wound. These are ways to slowly kill your opponent while staying on the defense. I'll do one change to add another "win condition". It's a card I've used before to great effect.

The only thing is that if Krenko is killed at instant speed, you can't get your combo off. You might want to include a way to protect him when he comes out. Mizzium Skin for example.

OH! great suggestion! Devil's Play it is!

You don't really need the nightveil specters in there. Consider using invisible stackers instead which work very well with paranoid delusions. Mind grind isn't useful unless you have a lot of mana, and by then you often find yourself overrun. You should have some removal yourself. Use mutilate for board wipes. Your Aberrations and wights will probably be big enough that they will live through those. Finally a really useful spell to include is essence harvest. It drains life based on the power of your biggest creature. If you have a 20/20 aberration in play one essence harvest means game over. It can also be used earlier to give you some life to gain time to mill some more. Finally, include a couple rogue's passages. If you have an 20/20 aberration but no artful dodge, but you have the mana, you can still swing in for the kill unblocked. I have a similar deck and love playing it. I included two Talrand, sky summoners since the ciphers and spells can give me a lot of 2/2 fliers. Enjoy!

I would take out the Rakdos Returns from there and add 2 more Aristocrats, or another Aristocrat and another Elf.