If you can find a way, try and squeeze a few of the blue leeches into your sideboard. It'll give you an edge over a third color, you can play it with your City of Brass (since you seem to be using it right now solely to power out spells with Fiend of the Shadows), and blue really is the color that can screw you over by countering whatever it wants; blue's also not well known for mana acceleration, so it basically slows down their control by one turn a pop. The green leech is too much of a threat to you to use, and the black one does nothing with Contamination. I'd swap out a Ruby Leech and the Memoricides (which seem to be randomly dumped into the sideboard anyway) for three of the blue leech and give it a try, but that's just me. It's really up to you.
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Yeah, I did realize that after saying it. I think I'm just going to go with Bloodstained Mire for a fetch-land. This really is just a "project" deck I started working on again after updating my MachineHead deck just where I wanted it, and I'm not looking to have it "done" right away. If I have to save some money to "finish" the deck, I can wait it out.
In the fetchland department, I could always use Terramorphic Expanse or Evolving Wilds, if I was looking to save money. Having the nice expensive lands would be nice, but I can make due with cards that are easier to come by for now. What do you think?
Like what kind of elimination? The prototype for this deck used Devour In Shadow, but that was back when it had some life-gaining cards in it. I'll try adding some Chainer's Edicts for now, but any suggestions would be nice. Also, I was thinking of shaving 4 lands off to add some kind of deck-thinning fetch-land; any thoughts on that idea?
I'd take out either Mutagenic Growth or Berserk for Rancor. It grants permanent trample and a power boost for a low amount of mana, plus it comes back whenever the creature it's enchanted to dies. I think it would be better than just using all one-shot effects for your pump. Just sayin'.
I think it has a lot of problems with fast creature-based decks. I do like the deck, but it seems like an aggressive creature deck will give you fits. I'd consider putting some creatures in the sideboard at least, just so you have something to bring in when your opponent has boarded out his/her elimination for games 2 & 3. As I always say, there's no shame in a suckerpunch.
I'm a huge fan of Rakdos Cackler, myself.
Okay, I see how my post could be a little mean, so I just wanted to put down the background of the deck and where exactly we got our prices (for the claim in the intro). Back when the Kamigawa Block was coming out, a bunch of us got drunk and decided in a moment of drunken bravado to make a cheap version of the Tolarian Academy deck; this is what we came up with, which was set down in a full-proxy deck. I posted it because I found it buried in some old stuff while cleaning up my room, and after running it through a few times to get the hang of it I thought it would be fun to share. I ended up finding the magazine we used to get the prices (an old Scrye, as a matter of fact), and now do want to change the deck's lands. I don't need the ability to produce all colors of mana, so using lands that do just seems like a waste unless I want to squeeze in Grapeshot, which I don't. Breeding Pool should be a ton cheaper, and I think will get moreso once it's re-released in the next set. I'm not using Wild Cantor because it's not "free", seeing as how you need a land in play to play it; the Spirit Guides can produce mana without being in play, meaning they're better when you have no lands in your hand, which is a real possibility for this deck. I also want to use 4 Cradles because you really don't want to have to burn a land and a tutor fetching one, especially since this deck can require a lot of mana depending how you draw. If you can straight-up draw it, it lets you have your tutors all intact when you need them to dig. Besides, Academy used 4 of its star land, so why can't I? Anyway, I can change the Tropical Islands to Breeding Pools, which should help the deck's money cost by a great deal. Hoping to hear what other people have to say, especially since this deck is basically one night's drunken fling with deckbuilding.
When I said the thing about not spending "thousands of your hard-earned $$$", I was referring to the Tolarian Academy deck that got banned out of existence after two tournaments, which was a more consistent version of this, using a ton of artifact mana, Tolarian Academy (as a 4-of), a bunch of card drawing, and stuff to untap the Academy to build up a colossal amount of blue mana to power a giant forced drawing of cards from your opponent, decking him before he could take a turn. I'm not being snarky or anything, but the point of the deck was not to win in a tournament; I just wanted to see if I could do it. I do appreciate the suggestions on making it mroe affordable, though.
I'd find a way to squeeze a Samurai of the Pale Curtain or two (or three or four!) into this deck somehow. It's a pretty good card in more ways than one, and would make a huge difference against decks that abuse the graveyard. Look into it if you can.
Not bad. I've always considered the Simic to be the weakest of the guilds, myself, but I might actually try and build this deck to see if it can change my mind.