Urza

Inexorable Tide is a turn 5 maximum card to play. it speeds up the poison of your opponent since if you give them one poison counter, then when you do your combo, you constantly add more. My friend made a poison deck kinda like yours, and the inexorable tide means he usually has a guaranteed win if i cant pull out a removal. it works as a late game win condition if you run into difficulties. (same goes for Painful Quandary)

The Putrescence and Narcolepsy i said to put into Sideboard because if you are playing against someone who uses artifact creatures, it is a hell of an annoyance. along, it means 10 turns to kill the opponent, but coupled with the rest of your deck means a nice support card.

When you look at the mana costs, most of the cards land in the 2-3 mana field. that means 20-22 lands is enough to sustain the amount of mana needed. If most were in the 1-2 mana field, i would say 20 lands is plenty, while if most branch into 3, and even starting into 4, then 24 - 26 is the number.

Add in:

Inexorable Tide = proliferate every time you cast a spell.
Relic Putrescence = (probs SB) so that every time that artifact taps, they get a poison counter
Narcolepsy (not Scars) = Couple it with Relic Putrescence and its a poison counter a turn.
Sylvok Lifestaff = to improve your combo, every time you sac the Cur, you gain 3 life.
Silver Myr = you play blue black. you need blue mana.

Take out:

Palladium Myr = its not worth it.
Copper Myr = you dont need green mana... at all
2 lands = you have a rather stable mana curve. a 1/3 mana ratio is good enough.

thanks for the info!! ill add them into the sideboard for now and consider what to swap them in for. Love the idea of basilisk collar!!

The time warp doesnt really matter seeing as i can drop burn spells almost every turn while keeping up the pressure by removing/countering all the stronger items. like turn 1, deal 3 damage, turn 2 deal 6, turn 3 deal 3, and control. next turn, deal 3 and 3 (searing blaze), and still control. thats 15 life gone, a creature either dead or just weak, and two things of theirs countered on turn 4. turn 5, i just go all burn and they die.

By the title im guessing you plan on having no cards in your hand... watch out for those Helfire Mongrels (at the end of each turn, if your opponent has 2 or less cards in their hand, it deals 2 damages to him/her)

Why use creatures when they are already dead? You can hold off creatures with counters by stopping them from entering the field, or just get a Chain Reaction from the SB to remove everything. Flame Slash is also used for creature control, and for a weak creature (below 3 toughness) you could leave them be, or use a flame servant if you really wanted to.

Put in Reliquary Tower instead of spell book... because at least that also can generate mana AND keep yur hand to no max.

If this is mill, throw in Memory Erosion (and/or forced fruition but thats from lorwyn)

Throw out Leyline of the void, chuck in Traumatize and Haunting echoes (traumatize = mill 50% of their deck, haunting echoes mills the other half ONLY if half is in their GRAVEYARD)

Take out howling mine: those font of mythos can deal with it well enough. Throw in Hedron Crab and/or Nemesis of reason

Take out Cancel, throw in another Jace's Erasure. Also SB Archive Trap unless you know they will search their library. (like if you are playing against green or a deck that employs archmage ascension)

Less 1 copies, more 2-4 copies. you want a deck that works the same every time. there is no point putting 1 of a kind unless you know your deck can work with all of them taken out. if its a 1 - repeat card, you have a 1 in 60 chance of drawing it.

Secondly, Twitch. that taps. big whoop. tap a land, they just tap it for mana, tap a creature and they dont really care. the cost is WAY overpriced for just a tap and draw. Now Redirect works well in this deck, and twincast. but having only 1? thats just useless. Cancel is one of the crappier versions of Counterspell, but Mana Leak is by far better, with deprive running up second or third.

Your deck should be something like this: cards with OR means you can choose 1 or the other, or mix.

3x Wall of Frost OR Guard Gomazoa
4x Mana Leak
4x Deprive
3x Negate (see SB for creature control instead of spell)
2x Redirect
2x Twincast
4x Preordain OR Ponder
2x Foresee
4x Distortion Strike
2x Narcolepsy
3x Diminish
2x Roil Elemental
2x Explorer's Scope

20x islands

Diminish cause it turns really strong guys into 1/1 weaklings, distorsion strike so your teammate can land some hard hits, roil elemental because it can begin to control your opponents stuff, narcolepsy to take out some of the creatures, and Wall of Frost/ Guard Gomazoa for defense.

Sideboard:

2x Quest For Ancient Secrets (against mill)
3x Clone (well... it clones)
3x Into the Roil (bounce)
2x Fleeting Distraction (Can be used as a replacement for your other drawers if ur opponent goes creature crazy)
2x Kracken's Eye (for life gain)
3x Essence Scatter (if you need creature control)

Well, you forgot the L in the name XD

Anywho, run Essence Scatter and Negate instead of Spell Pierce and Unsummon, and get Deprive instead of Cancel. you want your creatures to be able to handle what creatures you let through, and save the counters for instants, sorceries, enchantments, etc. Just use an into the roil to return something that you let slip if you must, but nothing should.

To make a quicker end, throw in Distortion Strike to be able to nail your opponent directly.

I dont see the point in having 3 Leyline of Anticipation seeing as you use instants and your creatures dont seem to need to go down on your opponent's turn (cause you need to save up mana for counters)

Totally agree, though i would SB the Cruel Edict, dont bother with the tutor because you should run a pretty consistent deck if you are playing rats, so you should run 3-4x everything (besides relentless rats and swamp of course) ending with

3x thrumming stone
3x unearth
4x doom blade or cruel edict
3x door of destinies
3x sign in blood
24 relentless rats
20 swamps

you dont have to worry much on mana since you average on 2 - 4 as your range so i felt a 1: 3 mana ration was good enough

sorry, not jace's Ingenuity... the other jace card: Jace's Erasure is the mill one (tho it does work well with ingenuity)

throw out the mill cards. it doesnt work in this deck. unless you are fully devoted to mill, its worthless. Same goes with the cancels. Sub out traumatize, cancel and grimoire thief for Wanderwine Prophets + Protective Bubble(to go with your token generating), Sleep (as a backup plan for your token gen), and Scroll Thief (card advantage)

If you really want mill, then take out the cancels, and veteran of the depths, and throw in Jace's Ingenuity and Memory Erosion and swap one of the merrow commerce with a greater auramancy. (a litte trick is to have 2 greater auramancies on the field at once) and DEFINATELY tome scour

If you want to go control, take out traumatize, grimoire thief, veteran of the depths and one of the merrow commerces, and throw in mana Leak, Deprive, Riptide Pilferer, and Stream of unconciousness / Fleeting Distraction.

your current deck dabbles in all 3 sections and makes it so none of them can do the job right. Your mill parts can be easily countered by a Quest for Ancient Secrets, your control can just be ignored, and your aggro can be swept aside by a few early lightning bolts (or just trampled over by a turn 4 8/8 trample deathtouch birds of paradise. yeah. ive seen it happen before.)

AND MORE SUGGESTIONS: put in a forced fruition. any time they cast a spell, they draw 7.

i dont see that epic combo of yours except the underworld Dreams + Forced Fruition... a everflowing chalice would come in handy here though

another thing, sideboard the archive trap unless you are playing against green. most decks dont rely on searching that often. Throw in more defensive creatures in their place and especially Quest for Ancient Secrets (it allows you to shuffle your graveyard back into your deck).

if you are playing against an standard deck and followed all my suggestions, by the time you run out of cards in your deck and have not used a Quest For Ancient Secrets and nothing died yet, you will have milled a total of 300 - 600 cards.

Take out the excavator. if you end up putting out ALL 4 and they survived that long, you will have milled a total of 10 cards. not worth it. Throw in some Tomb Scours instead. they are cheap 1 mana instants that mill off 5 cards in one go.

If this is a mill deck, you want defense not offense, so throw in Wall of Frost and/or Guard Gomazoa instead of Goliath Sphinx.

A nice mill card would be Jace's Erasure.and Memory Erosion. Jace's Erasure because every time you draw a card, you mill a card from your opponent, coupling with your draw dependency... well it would be an annoyance. Memory Erosion because everything besides lands are spells. so if they do anything, its bye-bye top 2 cards.

Dont bother with 4 Traumatizes. two is enough. its not made to be a win condition, its just meant to speed things up. a traumatize will only work well the first time you draw it, and will do decently bad the second. on the third, its just plain crap. might as well throw in some better removal spells.

Nice deck anyways.

i dont get how jace fits into this deck... his role is either to draw cards or mill... i would think an Enclave Cryptologist would be more of use... and preordain could be swapped with ponder. I would also suggest taking a Wall of Frost or two out and putting in Guard Gomazoa.

reason is, though wall of frost prevents the attacker from untapping, if it was a 8/8 with trample, it would die. Guard Gomazoa however, is a 1/3. That may sound bad, but not even a 100/100 with trample can get past it as it has the effect that it cannot receive any combat damage :D.

ok. first off: take out the ice cage. narcolepsy costs just as much and takes out ice cage's weaknesses. Ponder should replace Preordain, dont bother running 2 leyline of anticipations, screw a crystal ball as another island would do better, and 4 conundrum sphinxes... really? if this is control, add in Roil Elemental and instead of Cancel, put in Deprive. sure it makes you put a land back to your hand, but its cheaper and you just return a pre-tapped land anyways.

Next off, what defenses do you have that will last past an attacker stronger than a 3/3? that maritime guard pales in comparison with a Wall of Frost which also takes 3 mana, but is a 0/7 with some effects similar to a frost titan.

nice deck though.

a good start. a question i have is whether or not you want it to be standard. if not, then add counterspell definitely.

Anyways, the sleep isnt really necessary. maximum i would have to say is two. seeing as with the Stormtide Leviathan out, everything you have almost all has islandwalk or flying and those frost titans and narcolepsys can screw over any big blockers they have. I suggest throwing in a Clone to either A: steal a good card your opponent has, or B: putting down a 8/11 with trample, islandwalk, and shroud for only 5 mana. (aka an inkwell leviathan :p)

Take out an everflowing chalice cause if this a control deck, when you play one then ur surely to tap out or run the risk of leaving only one slot open for a weak counter and thats not a good thing to be doing.

IMO, i dont like the mindsculptor that much. yes its an INSANELY powerful card, but with all the firepower you have, im sure you can deal without one. instead i would think a Wall of Frost or Guard Gomazoa would do well as a defense (them being a 0/7 for 3 with a frost titan-like effect when it blocks, and the other being a 1/3 for 3 that cant take combat damage.) or some cheap 1 drops that are just made to screw with your opponent a bit and if ur lucky, get a quick little offense out to start nipping away at their life. (merfolk spy?)

nice job though!

PLEASE COMMENT AND RATE ON MY DECKS TOO!!! just on a sidenote cause i forgot to put it in my comment above XD