dynathy

As far as draw goes, your best option is probably wild guess, and the sphinx's you mentioned. After seeing this deck I put together a sliver deck that sort of embodied what I was talking about. You pretty much hit the nail on the head with what you said already. Take a quick look.

http://www.mtgvault.com/dynathy/decks/glory-of-the-hive/

Now time for the questions.

Is aggro going out in m14 and theros? Hard to say, but if you ask me, with out a doubt I'd say it is. I thought it died in dragon's maze, if you'd ask me. In all evidence, it should have. Yet with dragon's maze, we saw an entirely new beast, Selesnya Aggro; most of which, is entirely a block build. I was actually sad how many 'bad' cards were actually released in Dragon's Maze. By bad cards, I mean cards that didn't make a difference in the standard tournament setting. What Dragon's Maze essentially did, was give modern and casual decks a very powerful boost. Players that have been around awhile are already raging at the new top quality commanders for EDH that were released in this set.

Yet you can wave farewell to the nasty Naya blitz considering most of their deck will cycle into the modern and extended formats and die out.

So what prevents other aggro decks from coming back? IN a core set? Not much... usually.

M14 debuted one nasty red two drop, that will definitely have an influence on the way we construct decks. Of course I am talking about Young Pyromancer. If you take a good look at that card, it is obvious the synergies it has with just burn decks, and shoot, he can be a core focus to aggro decks as well. Yet stick this guy in grixis, izzet or rakdos, and you'll start to see very powerful mid-range/ control decks start to form. If you can drop a creature that'll stick around to block, as a side effect for casting your control spells, you'll build a small army in addition to controlling your opponent. Just that would be enough to stay off the bears of naya blitz, but let's add insult to injury. Shock. Simply because, R&D are just too scared to reprint lightning bolt. In black? We get doom blade.

This is normal, anytime a set is to aggro, R&D cuts it back a bit. Anytime it is too slow, R&D speeds it up. We won't see the aggro deck die, but you'll be given some much needed breathing room for staying off the annoying turn 5 kills. The control has some very nice options, and as the turns progress, you'll start to see cards that weren't practical for their cost, show up more and more as players being to look at the possibility of the mid-game.

What does that mean for us? Things get a whole lot more complicated, and we'll have to have more answers to spells then just the usual creature and burn. Enchant removal, artifact destruction, control?

It'll begin to look a lot more like magic, seeing as three color decks are harder to pull off with out buddy lands, and tribal one and two color decks will be more common.

Death by defenders isn't really new, and I am not sure why there is a lot of hype over it. Maybe it just came around at the right time. I used a deck a lot like that back in gatecrash, that worked an awful lot like hyper fog. I am not an aggro player, but I play in a very aggro setting, so my decks are usually aimed for quick stabilization and field advantage for overwhelming kills. It's fun to watch an aggro deck drown in mana while I swarm with things just to big for them to compete with.

I never liked tribal decks, and I like to diversify my cards and my play style. Slivers have potential, but seeing as they are often seen in groups, and don't tend to work well with others, it is really hard to construct a functional sliver/something else deck. Frankly, they are dangerous, but it takes a lot of commitment to a full out tempo assault deck and leaves you open for removal or direct damage.

I tried to play around common removal spells by using enchantments. I don't really need trample if it takes two guys to block them, and I don't really need magnetic sliver if I have collective blessing.

M14 saw the return of doom blade, but offered several other outs for going up against creatures. You will see a lot of removal, and even more board wipes against decks like yours. You'll need draw early on in the game, and sphinx's revelation is more of a late game card. Rather then just load up on sphinx's revelation, drop a few copies, save a bit of cash, and grab some cards that will help you do work.

I like plasm capture, but you'll need a lower end counter too. Plasm capture is a one or two of, seeing as the trade off between other cards you could use makes a huge difference.

With every creature you put down, you'll be helping the rest already on the battlefield. Once you get racing with an opponent, you'll see the deck continue to play out more in your favor, but I'd like to see some outs, and ways to spend the mana from the slivers. Spot some 'x' costs, bring in some control, introduce some very powerful cards to play. Just decking out with all slivers is pretty awesome, you get consistency with your creature choice, but they don't give you very many options outside of the combat phase. Manaweft sliver tapping for mana any color is amazing. The fact that it's a sliver? Even better. Manaweft laughs in the face of axebane defender, and is definitely more playable.

If you look at some of the axebane defender decks that were made, they grab him, grab mana, and then drop game ending cards like entreat the angel or door to nothingness. You can do the same, only with slivers, and all the while, dropping very aggressive creatures.

Young pyromancer is insane. I'd run him just because the support grixis has in it's color zone. A chump per instant? It'll be more than enough to hold off. Imagine running up against naya blitz, there isn't much value in killing off one of their bears, but when you can get a 1/1 to stick around and chump more damage, you're looking at a deck very capable of stalling the aggro decks long enough for their creatures to be worthless in comparison to yours.

I love swinging with my land, something about it seems so unusual. The thing is, you have to be careful, they don't usually stick around. A 7/7 giant is perfect removal fodder, and everything else is just until end of turn. So keep some mana open for some blockers. More safety sphere and more bonfires depending on what decks you like to play, will help you against those creatures. Check it, that last sentence, although arranged oddly, is grammatically correct! Look at that, I am talking like yoda.

Static Caster? Why? Give that girl death touch and then maybe.

Rakdos lord of riots? Eh. I suppose a four cost flying trample six six is nice, the rest might as well be flavor text.

Duskmantle seeker is nice, very nice. I used him in a deck paired along with Lord of Riots, to make a bunch of flash creatures cost next to nothing. In standard, you don't have much but a fist full of blue flyers to chose from, but it's not a bad thing to consider.

This deck has an allstar team of creatures, but it cluncky. While every thing you play does plenty of things when they get on the board, they do not work well with others. Young Pyromancer Pumps out 1/1's while Rakdos makes thing cost a bit cheaper, Exava is essentially a 4 cost 4/4 first strike haste, her abilities do nothing for except give a 2/2 haste, sometime around turn 6 or 7? It seems a little too conditional to be practical. Falkenrath Aristocrat however? She'll love the 1/1 elemental, and almost always fly in for a quick four burn.

Izzet Static caster want's deathtouch. It gives her more kill range, so instead of ping down spirits, humans, and pesky soldiers, you'll ping down everything. Necrobite isn't bad for a quick creature save, and it'll give you the death touch.

Your support cards are excellent, don't change a thing. No complaints about desecration demon either.

I'd simply just drop Static Caster altogether, or side board her. Favoring Grim or adding a blood scrivenger (combos with sire of insanity)

Grixis Good Stuff for the wins, over and over again.

I was running a pretty insane bant build before M14, but with all the guild and color hate coming towards my deck, I went for one that isn't as strait forward. Sure they introduced, and reintroduced, plenty of cards to shut down esper and that makes this deck vulnerable, but I like this build because it uses mill as its win condition. Seeing as this deck hits the draw pretty quickly, and spot checks with a healthy heathy amount of counter/removal, I am not too worried about the color hate in m14, seeing as I will usually have more than one game ending threat in hand at any given time.

My biggest concern is that this deck is highly centralized, elite arcanist and jace are your win conditions, without them, you just have a collection of draw cards, and a bit of removal.

You're a dick Vikingincarnate.

That being said, it would be a sound strategy to drop on down on Artisan of Kolizek down to one, seeing as he would be something' you'd like to cast. Drop down to one or two reforge the souls, and drop down on exhume.

Exhume is an awesome card for it's price, but you are reanimating eldrazi. There'll be plenty in their grave to choose from. So you might want to consider not running it at all, and run some of your other suit.

Essentially, this will give you the highest possible chance of drawing cards. The larger your deck is, the more the odds are not in your favor. It instantly gives you a disadvantage against regular sixty card decks.

Lose five cards?

You sir, are the greatest player in the world.

Hey look I just happen to have fifty-two of those guys! Funny, I never thought they'd be so useful...

Unblockable + Cipher? That's cool... I guess. Why not try other ways to have those ciphers trigger? When you don't give them a choice to block your creature or not as to change how your opponent plays against you. When you give them the option to block your creatures, it can seriously change the way this deck plays out. What am I talking about? Well, have you considered ciphering on to a deathtouch? OR even first strike or double strike?

Perhaps you even add in some other cards that penalize your opponents for blocking. Rakdos has plenty of support for this (seeing as it works well with the unleashed mechanic).

The idea is to control the way your opponent plays by giving them no easy way out. Block a cipher to prevent a deathtouch creature from going through, and lose a creature from it, OR let a cipher trigger. Stack up the rakdos blocking penalties you'd get with Carnage Skeleton and Rix Madix guildmage, it can be a cruel ultimatum.

Then with ciphers like midnight recovery, you could conceivably grab some bloodrush creatures. Some of the mono-red bloodrush would be perfect for a u/b/r deck, and have interesting effects with cipher.

Then you could add a void walk in the deck, and use sepulchral primordial etb over and over.

Essentially, I'd drop whispering madness and paranoid delusions, the mill wont be enough to deck them out.

I only needed to take one look at this deck to get a good idea of how it would run, but hold on, let us not judge a book by its cover.
I built the damn thing, and ran it against a few of my decks that do alright in competitive play.

First thing I noticed, it likes three land starting hands, and there are far too many four drops. Everything below a four cost just draw's you cards. Which you don't need because you haven't played any spells to empty your hand until then.

Even the slower control decks were dealing hefty damage before this had a chance to retaliate. My esper control build isn't THE top teir, but it's a great build. All the win conditions for that deck are five mana, you know, ghost council, and stuff like that. Esper likes plainswalkers, and they just tear this deck apart. You've already said you've handled giest of saint traft, but it's a threat through an through.

Soul Ransom is a life saver, and you usually get to play two a match, but it simply isn't good enough. Combo off with lazav? Then it begins to work a bit better.

Once the hand destruction begins, your deck is well on it's way to winning. Yet hold on, don't get too excited. People can still top deck good cards, all whispering madness seems to do is prevent. Most of the time, they draw more cards then they had in the first place, seeing as this deck keeps a healthy hand size. Notion theif fixes it but with only two... you might have one alive turn 6... maybe?

That's all good and wonderful, when the combo is on the field, but what about removal?
Whispering madness needs good cards to cipher too. 12 creatures make it few and hard to come by. You need a creature capable of dealing combat damage turn four, something with Trample, Unblockable, Protection, shoot... deathtouch! even deathtouch would be nice. If you have a creature still on the field by the time you start casting ciphers, you now have to worry about how you are going to protect that creature. Simply put, this deck can't. A dumb burn spell is usually enough. Good thing for you though, Mirko Vosk is victim of night proof.

When it comes down to it, there ARE decks out there can kill turn three. That requires a good hand, and a fairly good draw. Yet most of the time, those aggro players aren't exactly truthful about how 'great' their deck is. Yet, this deck is JUST too damn vulnerable. I like nightviel specter in the sideboard, and the third notion theif. That set up seems to be a bit more reliable. Yet no mater what you'll do, you'll always fall victim to the bloodrushed ghor-clan rampager on the boros reckoner/ strangle root giest.

Load up on augur of bolas, give that nightviel a spot mainboard, drop down on some of those copies of four drops, carry some healthy counter spells, and healthy removal or field wipe. Don't be afraid to splash some white for some quick spirits, and maybe your very own giest of saint traft. Nephelia drownyard for more constant mill is also nice. deathcult rogue isn't half bad at all. I'd lean more towards invisible stalker while he still is in standard though. Pick one, Pilfered Plans or sign in blood, run for of the one you like, and find some really useful 2 drop (snapcaster ;D) and run that instead. Play more Extort, and put those spells/ciphers to work! This deck as it stands is too slow to get going and once it does, it doesn't do enough to give you game in a competitive environment.

Exactly, essentially, seeing as you will search them up and throw them in the grave, you only need one copy of the cards you want to reanimate. Find your self some solid support, and solid draw cards, and you are set! Drop fogbank btw....

Drafting is always fun, for this one, I went with the colors that gave me a good amount of fixing support, and had a good balance of creatures and effects.

Emmara Tandris is so good looking, but its such a bad card. For one more, you can just drop avacyn, angel of hope, and make Everything indestructible. In modern she might just find a place in elf token spam, but its a deep breath and a long way to the top. Other than that it's not a half bad deck. Garruk Primal hunter wants to be in here, so does Vitu-Ghazi guildmage, rootborn defense is good too!

Trump cards? One up cards? Great cards that are good all the time.

Like for you deck, voice of resurgence is the ideal card. Yet with good cards come high cost. There are some lower end cards, that are just too good not run or run more of. Selesnya Charm is a trump card, and interacts well with wayfaring temple. Centaur healer and Loxodon Smitter are great cards to run just because they are aggressive and easily played. Yet for token spam, you want advent of the wurm, and might want to spot in a trostani summoner or two.

I like carnage gladiator for the burn though

You know what? This deck isn't half bad. Not half bad at all. I'd drop the deadbridge Goliath for a ghor-clan rampager though, bloodrush him, or use varolz and scavenge him, its a nice replacement. I'd probably lose a few copies of grisly salvage, for a few more creatures or possibly removal. Another selesnya charm would be nice too. It's a good card to get put to your hand when deadbridge chant goes off.

I always suggest Jarad's Orders, just because it searches two creatures, and one goes to the grave. IT makes the Serenity more useable. I'd replace unburial rites with Jarad's Orders when it goes out of standard. Or something like that.

I think the simplest way to put it, you're taking the LONG way around. Putting creatures in your graveyard, especially if they have scavenge and dredge and things like that is advantageous. Yet you WANT the most for your mana in reanimation suits. Grave play is popular in standard right now, but not always effective.

Your scavenge cost are generally pretty high, sluiceway Scorpion is especially useful because it has a relatively low scavenge cost. I would run more of him. I would lose dreadbrige Goliath altogether, he'll sit in your graveyard, and will not be a very popular selection. I can see why you have desecration demon, the removal is nice, yet you may consider a few less, or possibly lose him altogether. If you want play from the grave, you need cards that help you do that. I would say the same for vampire nighthawk, but it is also vampire nighthawk. Experiment one looks weird here, although I can understand the necessity for aggro play. It is field wipe proof, it gets bigger when things come into play, but it does NOTHING when it's in the graveyard. It also doesn't interact with scavenge very well. Over all, lose him, free up some spots.

Run a grim flowering or two. The Key to this deck is to keep a few good cards on the field and buff them as you can with scavenge. So your creatures will be useful in the grave yard.

Run ghoul tree. It CAN be an 10/10 one drop with a good game. Usually in around 4 or 6. How many is up to you, but four would be a little ambitious.

Next you will need deathrite shaman, and plenty of them.

By the time you are done, varolz, the scar-stripped will not be needed very much, saddly, he doesn't really find a place here. Trade for an additional Corpse Jack. (Throw Varolz, the Scar-Stripped in your gruul blood rush deck, he'll be happy there!)

You won't need wildwood rebirth. Ever. You'll need more treasured finds. Look into Jarads orders, three or four if you can swing it. Use it to put a beater (moldgaf montrosity?) in the grave and deathrite shaman, or dredge mangler in hand.

Next thing you want to do is add unburial rites. So when you mill it away, you can flash it back using deathrites tap for any color.

What I mean by taking the long way around is currently, this deck puts cards into the graveyard, only to put them into your hand so you can play them later. It doesn't really give much use to the cards that are in there, unless you have a lot of mana. Which it would take to play the creatures anyway. Which means putting them into the grave just to scavenge them away, just puts you down on a potential creature you could have just put on the battlefield. I hope my suggestions capture what this deck is trying to do, and help you along your way. I don't mean to just build something entirely different then what you intended.

Any way, Lots of luck!