He put the Grazing Gladeheart in their so he wouldn't kill himself with Fastbond. Regardless if another source allows you to play an additional land or not, you still lose one life for each additional land you play each turn. In this way, Grazing Gladeheart instead allows him to gain 1 life for each land played.
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I like the inclusion of Rampaging Baloths and Avenger of Zendikar. Very nice :) Still think you should consider running at the very least 4x Misty Rainforest and 4x Verdant Catacombs, if not also 4x Evolving Wilds.
I can attest to this. Explore (and other cards with built in draw utility) are a huge benefit to Oracle of Mul Daya. If you hit a pocket of non-land cards, Explore goes a long way to break though them and continue to drop lands. On that note, if you do decide to test out a U/G variant of this with Magus of the Future, then Preordain would be an obvious fit. Scry to pull the nonland to the top, draw it, and keep moving on.
This deck could be built for around $30-40 by replacing Green Sun's Zenith with Chord of Calling, Exploration with Gaea's Touch, and the G/U and G/B fetch lands with additional Forest, Evolving Wilds, and Terramorphic Expanse. Overall, that would reduce the speed and efficiency of the deck, but it would still be fast and powerful. Just thought I'd share, since the posted version would cost upwards of $200.
Definitely not disagreeing with you. If you get a mid to late game Baloth (in this case, late came would be turn 5 :P) much of your landfall "potential" is already spent, and Baloth won't be seeing much practical use.. Whereas no matter when you cast "Avengikar" he will provide some benefit. Whether you get him early for 7x 0/1 plants and dish out +1/+1 counters from there, or later on when you have 12-14 of your lands in play without much landfall left, you're still getting a swarm of 0/1's. I think in the context of what the deck does, though, it is rather moot. If /that much/ of the landfall is already spent, the game should already be over ;) That is also why you hoard fetch lands and spells after you have the mana to hardcast Liege of the Tangle, so you can explode with landfall once a Baloths hits the battlefield.
I dislike Avenger of Zendikar. Not because it is a bad card (it isn't!) but because it becomes annoyingly complicated when you have multiples in play, and even worse if you have additional sources of plant creatures/tokens. Rampaging Baloths is likewise very effective, but doesn't have to worry about cluttering the board with tokens with varying quantities of +1/+1 counters.
If I were to build this deck, it would likely look something like this: http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=144828 Just thought I'd construct it to put a visual aid to what I wrote above :) Hope this helps ^-^
To sum it up, you need cards to thin your library to enhance your chances of drawing the cards required to get the combo rolling. I'd also like to add that I do really like this deck, I think it'd be fun to construct somewhere down the road. But I also think as it stands it could use a lot of improvement.
The problem is (aside from legality, which you could replace Fastbond with Exploration to make the deck legal and pretty much equally effective), you are relying on a single creature (Oracle of Mul Daya) to thin out your deck and draw anything note-worthy. Without Oracle in play, you will be drawing one land most turns (two with Explore). IMO, this deck would be more consistent if you began trading out a few of the land cards for other "two for one" cards. For example, lands that fetch other lands, creatures that fetch lands, spells that enable you to fetch multiple lands... etc. Perhaps Howling Mines and the sort for additional card draws. This would reduce the overall efficiency of Oracle of Mul Daya, however it would prevent stagnant hands (if you don't draw at least 1 Oracle by turn two, you're pretty much consigning yourself to a very slow game, ineffectual game) The probability of this is: 4/63 + 4/62 + 4/61 + ..... + 4/56 = 53.86% Not bad, but consider this being just like weather forecasting. That also means there's a 46.14% chance that you will not draw her. Compound this over your need to draw mana acceleration to get her into play by turn 2 or 3, and your odds are looking more like drawing more stagnant hands than overwhelmingly fast wins. IMO, you could reduce this to ~30 lands, 10 of which being fetch lands themselves, and the additional 10 cards being land-fall oriented (Rampaging Baloths would own here) or fetch spells themselves, perhaps even Worldy Tutor to improve the odds of drawing Oracle out of your deck.
The Inkmoths are a huge deal for this deck. So far as sideboard removal, I don't mean that people will run cards explicitly to remove Blightsteel, but every worthwhile deck already runs /something/ in its sideboard that is capable of neutering Blightsteel. White runs Condemn (for counter-quest) and/or Revoke Existence, Blue is typically already full of counter spells and unsummons, Black has Memoricide, Red (I suspect) will begin to run Into the Core, but otherwise already has artifact destruction galore, Green likewise has plenty of artifact destruction. Each of these is capable of removing the threat that Blightsteel poses (in your current deck) even despite being indestructible. (Remember, if you only have 1 artifact and you cast Shape Anew, they can destroy that artifact in response to fizzle Shape Anew) Discarding is indeed a potent defense, but it doesn't guarantee you getting your plan off without a hitch.. and if a hitch you do hit, then its gg for you.
So, you see.. I have this crazy idea. I agree 100% with the above comments, this deck dedicates too much to one single creature.. a creature that /every single deck/ is going to side-board a solution to. (I can't stress that enough, *every* deck will have a solution for Blightsteel in its sideboard) You're relying too much on "It shouldn't go wrong." but what if it does (and trust me it will). Lets focus on what you've got. You've got a U/B control deck that supports only a single win condition. So.. how about provide another win condition with what you've already got? Liliana's Caress, Quest for the Nihil Stone, Bloodchief Ascension (with a little more focus on discard -- Liliana's Specter, Horrifying Revelation is AMAZING with Bloodchief..) and you can turn your U/B counter/discard control support into a driving force in this deck. Then you're not tethered down to just a single creature to win or lose the game for you :) Just a thought.
I just want to emphasize that Naturalize is a perfectly legal counter to Shape Anew (Though imo, Nature's Claim is vastly superior). Shape Anew does not have any additional costs, the sacrificing does not occur until the card resolves. So, if you can remove his /only/ artifact before the spell resolves.. guess what. No legal targets, no Blightsteel Colossus.
Except... you're not running Valakut. O.o
Love Thrumming Rats, but this needs a few tutors. You'll have no problem drawing the rats, but if you're missing Thrumming Stone, Mortal Combat, or Maelstrom Pulse, the win condition sort-of falls apart. You can do without Mortal Combat or Maelstrom Pulse, but if you don't draw Thrumming Stone you'll be dropping rats too slowly, hence need the tutor.
Indeed it is, but then again most worthy cards are vulnerable to Lightning Bolt ;) My hope was that there were enough other threatening creatures that any form of removal like that would be spent on one or the other, and I'd always have a back up. I mean, even a Birds could win the game with a sword equipped to it ^-^ It's definitely overkill, but the thought of having 4x NWP, 4x Doubling Season, and 4x Oran-Rief in play is jaw dropping. 68x 67/67 cats, every combat phase (64 of which are persistent) Yowza! That's the kind of math that makes other players cry :)
Hey, glad you like it! :D Some really disgusting token generation going on here. Made this on a whim, and the way it turned out.. I think I might add it to my list of decks to build ^-^
Btw, Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil is so awesome! I've always wished they'd printed something legit along these lines. The whole "while you search your library" mechanic holds so much potential to impact legacy in a big way.
^ Agreed. Would be kinda cool to get a collab like this on top-decks, though. I'll start with my Bloody Fast Black deck. It's pretty sick, and does just what the name suggest... plays bloody fast and makes fast blood! Comments, criticism, and complaints welcome. I'm planning on expending a lot of my spending power to make this deck for real, so your opinions are important! http://mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=140659
I'm loving this. Two classic builds make front page within the same day :) This is one of those decks I wish I had the $$ to build. I started playing with a lot of these cards, but they were all my brother's and I lost access to them when he sold his alpha-ice age rares to supplement the cost of college :3 I've recently seen a variation of this that ran more artifact manlands + steel overseer + more dredge / card retrieval. Was a scary effin deck! I'd consider an Elixir of Immortality for your side-board, though, just in case an opponent is running a lockdown deck and the game drags on. It messes with your graveyard retrieval a bit, but it'll prevent you from decking yourself if it comes to that.
Wait.. what? I am? :3 I didn't know that . . . But you know, there are many reasons for egregious spelling errors, including but not limited to: extensive sleep deprivation, excessive alcohol consumption, spazmatic pinky fingers, too much Red Bull and/or Mountain Dew, 72 hour Team Fortress Classic binges (the ORIGINAL Orange Box.... or whatever games you play nowadays. See also League of Legends. Also see also extensive sleep deprivation), momentary-final-exam-psychosis, running out of coffee and only just realizing it after you get out of bed.. etc... any of which I think we can mostly relate to. Just saying, egregious spelling errors != spam, not necessarily. :)
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