A lot of the infinite combos rely on Ashnod's Altar and Enduring Renewal plus sacking a two-drop like Gleaming Barrier, Myr Sire, or Runed Servitor. Additional effects can be provided with different board states (like Suture Priest (life Gain), Altar of the Brood (Milling), Psychosis Crawler or Karn Ultimate (damage), draw (Archaeomancer, Clear the Mind).I may replace “Lion’s sash” with citizens crowbar or remove rule of law because it is a bad interaction. Nevertheless, most players hate rule of law enough to destroy it. In a worse case scenario, Archon of Justice can die to exile it.
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I doubled checked. The card that I missed was Kardur, Doomscourge. I entered Nightmare Shepherd twice by accident.
The deck is not meant for optimal play. It is a deck made for Halloween fun. I think Undead Alchemist is fine in this deck. I did not build my deck around Undead Alchemist, but I included milling strategies to augment Undead Alchemist and pull creatures out of my opponent's graveyards. I feel making decks slightly more casual while still retaining competitive edges improves player fun. I am also working on a demon/devil brew for Halloween.
I am a fan of Undead Alchemist, so I emphasized the milling a bit more than some players would. I can see where other people might take the deck in other directions.
Well, the meta is pretty mean right now because if you miss a land drop, you basically lose. I think what makes the deck fun to pilot is it still allows you some agency to make choices as to how you interact with the board state. Being able to either kill your opponent with damage (Otekra really helps), mill them out, mill yourself out (Jace win-con), or win with HEA give you plenty of options as the game moves forward. I should polish the sideboard more but most of the time I'm either grabbing a mana ramp (Firemind Vessel), Meteor Golem, or going for the 5 color Sphinx. Once in a while I get the Magic Mirror in play, but I'm usually way ahead on board by then.
I enjoy it. It's fun to be able to brew guild decks using only the Gatecrash set. So far, only two guilds have budget viable builds. The other builds require more expensive cards to work.
Whatever I steal. I used to have Bump in the Night and considered splashing with some Rakdos Guildgates, but then I decided to focus more on removal with the assumption that if the game went very long I could just keep using Elixir's to get Shadow Slice back. Since I have a Tormod's Crypt mainboarded, the Elixir vs. Elixir scenario should still break out in favor of this deck.
Too expensive.
Although the MTGO version of Detention Sphere is $1.00, the paper version is much more. I'm not sure if I would get much more utility out of it than the Oblivion Rings I already own. As for the Azorius Arrester, it often does a few points of damage at some point during the round and can benefit from the Trepanation blade better than Feelings of Dread. Some of my earlier decks stalled because of the over-emphasis on defense and the lack of offense.
I find that Fog Bank is easily removed. I like the card a lot, but with Pillar Flames, Stab Wound, Annihilating Fire around, Hover Barrier tends to stick around. Thought Scour is a good choice, and I put it in the sideboard to let people know it is an option as well. This deck is doing okay in casual play just for fun on MTGO and it is very affordable, unlike your deck, so I'll keep with it and make adjustments as need be.
Detention Sphere costs too much money. Besides, the real beauty of this deck won't be realized until I make a modern version substituting Viral Drake for Hoverbarrier and Contagion Clasp for Rain of Blades. I actually went with Blustersquall in the version I ran in case someone ran Entreat the Angels or had some crazy populating going on...
Something I've been exploring is Worldslayer with the unblockables. Most of the unblockables are fairly low mana cost- like Blighted Agent, Neurok Invisimancer, and Invisible Stalker so they can get back onto the field with a few land cards if you strike with Worldslayer.
I suppose it depends on how long you think you have. In the multiplayer setting I am playing in, infect for 10 poison counters is a better scenario than doing 20 damage. I agree that the hexproof is nice on invisible stalker and keeps the invisible stalker a bit safer.