Puschkin

"Please can anyone help me make this more consistent and figure out the mana base."
You need no less than SIX cards in hand/play - among them three creatures (if the opponent can kill a single low toughness creature, you can't go off). I fear there is no way to make this more consistent - not within Type II and certainly not for turn 4!

You are actually 3 cards above (the commander counts, too, afaik). Tidal Force could go. Archivist ... I would probably replace him with Urza's Blueprints. Other picks of mine: Silkbind Faerie can go (we have enough tappers, I think, and she can only tap creatures, the weakest of all). And Ephara could probably go, too.

I see a weak point: You have tons of tricks when Derevi is triggered but I don't see many option to get sure the trigger actually happens!

What I miss are a few (nearly) unblockable creatures or ways to make them unblockable. Here some suggestions:
- Aqueus Form: Incredibly strong and useful!
- Soltari Visionary: Also destroys stuff while he goes!
- Invisible Stalker: Won't be killed off that fast
- Thalakos Seer: Replaces itself when killed, combos with bounce
- Thassa, God of the Sea: Probably the best of the bunch.

Cards you can easily cut:
- Musician: I like him but he has always been bad
- Prodigal Sorceror: Sorry, Tim, but you'll always have better targets for an untap...
- Mossbridge Troll: You don't have enough big creatures to easily meet the conditions and even if: You'll end up with a 25/25 guy without trample ... so he'll get blocked by a token and that's the end of the story.


Other adjustments:
* Tidewater Minion might be useful in this, probably replacing some of the smaller untappers.
* You also missed Elder Druid, I would run him over guys like Minister of Impediments.
* MORPHLING, king of all untapping dudes :)
* Thunderstaff might come in handy because you can untap it after combat.
* Puppet Strings! Replaces Magewright's Stone.
* Rings of Brighthearth!
* Arcanis the Omnipotent ...

And the obvious of course: With Book Burning the oppoenent just mills himself for six and no damage is dealt. Nothing if importance happened.

* Unfortunately, Honor the Pure will make 2/2s come into play as 3/3s and thus prevent Mentor from triggering. It may have worked way in the past but it won't now:
"9/22/2011: Apply power bonuses from counters the creature enters the battlefield with and continuous effects like Mayor of Avabruck's when checking to see if Mentor of the Meek's ability will trigger."

* You could remedy the problem above by replacing Honor the Pure with something like Crescendo of War because then the creatures will only be bigger during combat. Gerrard's Battle Cry is also possible.

* Mangara of Corondor would fit the theme but is maybe too expensive money wise? I don't know where you Northy-limit is.

* Ethereal Haze is okay, but consider some alternatives:
- Dawn Charm: More options than just Fog and you'll want all three of them.
- Angelsong: In case you don't need a Fog you can cycle it.
- Riot Control: Costs more but adds lifegain
- Comeuppance may cost four but is all you ever wanted for this deck, it can win the game alone for you!
(Comeuppance could also replace Hallow)

Definately. When they started focussing on the graveyard as a resource I hoped it was just a block thing and would die down eventually but it got worse and worse each year. It becomes an ever increasing problem in multiplayer. Not only does the number of annoying cards grow, there are also more and more ways to bring them back. So, unless you exile, destroying something will only give you a short reprieve. And in multiplayer, where you have more than one opponent and the games are longer, it is feasible to run cards like Tormod's Crypt or Relic of Progenitus (any black deck worth it's salt runs Bojuka Bog in multiplayer for example). You can't blame them. BUT that generates lopsided games, decks that rely on their graveyard just fold when a Planar Void or Relic hits play.

That's because more cards were printed that fit the card slots.
And your timeline is off anyway ... Cursed Scroll is from Tempest which is much later than Mirage. The original Sligh decks had Dragon Whelp to make use of access mana. Dragon Whelp is casting cost 4, you can figure by that, that Sligh became a lot faster, but that is due to the card pool becoming bigger and better. Sligh became more burn oriented when better burn was printed - you only had Lightning Bolt, Incinerate and Chain Lightning (and the latter wasn't Type II). But later, with cards like Fireblast, everything was sped up and the need for creatures dropped and with that the entire structure and mana curve changed, up to a point where the term "Sligh" was applied to everyhing that looked like it.
Yes, it is only a technicality and probably only relevant for Magic historians which I am sure don't exist outside of WotC employees :P

Gothy: Alpha/Beta/Unlimited is just one set, the basic set. We are talking of blocks of expansion sets. Urza was the most broken, by far. I actually lived and played to every single block and can assure you that nothing came ever close to "Combo Winter" caused by Urza. From the mentioned Academy and Memory Jar decks that got emergency-banned outside of the regular schedule to others that haven't been mentioned here yet but would be considered insane in today's environment, like Yawgmoth's Bargain-Academy Rector-Phyrexian Tower decks or those crazy ones with Opalessence.

Let's put it this way: In Urza era mono-red Gobo-Burn could kill turn 3 (and quite consistently thanks to Goblin Lackey). But Gobo-Burn was considered *too slow* ...

Zendikar? More OP than Urza`s Saga block?

Have it backwards there ... the recursion has become too commonplace and OP, exile is just a way to fight back.

All it needs is a creature similar to Phyrexian Dreadnought withing the next 4 sets! Yes, WotC knows what they are doing so they would not print a brainfart, but that also means they know pretty what to print to make something worthwhile to push certain decks or concepts if they want. If Manifest turns out to be too weak in the Future League, they can still adjust in the upcoming sets by printing one or two cards specifically designed to be played in a manifest deck. They doing this for many years now, I don't see them stopping this habit.

Ghastly Concription is a killer in Multiplayer/EDH!

By the way, manifest will be broken in other formats, here is why (and Gothy, you should have seen this with your competitive eye!):
Manifested creatures can be turned face up for the mana cost. The thing is, when you turn something up, it is already in play, so no come-into-play effects are triggered! So, all you need is cheap creatures with drawbacks that trigger when they hit play - for example Phyrexian Dreadnought! Manifest it and then you can turn up a 12/12 trampler for 1 mana!

Bazinga!

The cards aren't even out yet and if you played them in a prerelease, then you played it in a very limited format. Magic has dozens of formats and roughly 15000 cards to play with. Plus, the block it was released in isn't finished yet. If you dismiss it that early ... well ...

You are both wrong.

"Bury" = "Destroy without the ability to regenerate".

I really do not know why WotC dropped this keyword.

if it isn't built to utilize every mana every turn, then it isn't Sligh - because that's the only thing that makes a deck "Sligh". Sligh is not another name for mana efficient red burn spells, it is a deck building principle where you value a proper mana curve and mana uitillization higher than the objective play value of the cards you add ... and this principle could be applied to any aggressive deck, mono red is just the one best suited for this. For example the original Sligh deck had 4 Ironclaw Orcs because the Sligh structure asked for more 2-drops and that was the best there is. (Ironclaw Orcs were bad even for 1993/94 standards)

I think I hit my nitpicking limit for today :P

You have to think around corners - if you manifest an instant, it is a creature, so you can bounce it as if it was a creature for example. There are also ways to manifest opponent's cards => again, cards that wouldn't be creatures are creatures now, so you can Swords to Plowshare an Ancestral Recall :) but it also triggers Oath of Druids do give a more practical example.
Manifest isn't weak per se, it always depends what the card does otherwise and at what price it comes. If you can use it multiple times for example, you can build an army fast.

Dude, "Manifest" isn't even a card. What the heck do you want?

My bad on Pongify and regenerators ... I read "destroy" and think regenerating is viable because it doesn't say "bury" ...
... still a bad choice for a multiplayer control deck without any mass removal or token control.

Orcish Librarian is too slow (and fragile for that matter) for a regular burn deck. You would always add a Cursed Scroll to your burn deck before something like Librarian. Orcish Librarian would be used in a deck that wants to thin out and then reshuffle, but meanwhile better cards than that have been printed. The thing is, a deck that would Utilize Orcish Librarian would be controllish and most likely run blue - but if you have blue, you have access to way better cards like Browse, Mana Severance, Ancestral Knowledge etc.

He is a fun card, though.

People wouldn't complain if the deck would still be decent but more often than not they are run-of-the-mill, lack synergy and are suboptimal even within their limitations (budget).