oh well, i guess it was just a matter of time before it became public. since there aren't exactly any big money t1 tournaments around here, here's the decklist. i'm not going to play theoretical magic with anyone. barring from insane draws by the opponent with any t1 deck, red burn is unfavorable game 1, pox is bad game 1. aside from pox, even if you have a slightly bad matchup game 1 the sideboard should fix it. no mercy is an interesting idea, but i feel, like misdir maindeck, it's just unessesary...

with the inclusion of torment's mutilate, i think that this deck is pretty soild.

the biggest weakness is hoards of gorilla shaman game 1 that rape and pillage your mana, which of course stunts your development. hence the 3 hydros in the sb and 3 more edicts. about burn decks that go after your creatures, with all the non creature card drawing (virtually equivilant to weissman's deck or keeper), i'd prefer they burn my creatures, so i won't die. even if they let the creatures live, i usually draw into the answers.

the weakeness of my opponent sbing 50 creature kills + moat + abyss is symply to to just take out the creatures go into double morphling mode, control spells and necro.

like all t1 match ups, no match up is an auto win or auto lose, but i do like my odds vs. almost any deck out there.

below the decklist is the evolution...

//NAME: soso ver 2.dec
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Diamond
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Wasteland
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
3 Swamp
4 Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Underground River
4 Hypnotic Specter
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Braingeyser
4 Shadowmage Infiltrator
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
2 Recoil
1 Diabolic Edict
3 Duress
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Mind Twist
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Morphling

SB: 1 Mana Short
SB: 1 Necropotence
SB: 1 Duress
SB: 3 Misdirection
SB: 3 Diabolic Edict
SB: 1 Zuran Orb
SB: 1 Ivory Tower
SB: 3 Hydroblast
SB: 1 Morphling

the evolution:

as i told smmenen, the deck started out w/ every broken card in t1 in blue and black including 4 duress, 4 hymns, 3 misdir, and practically every restricted good card (they pretty much all turn out to be black and blue anyway). hymns were the first to go out because of mana troubles and found the extra discard past 3 duress to be worthless, since i will find myself with a handful of hymns and duresses late game while beating my opponent down w/ specters.

i played mon ami, brian weissman, a couple months ago(him using 'the deck' of course), and he busted out w/ turn 1 abyss via lotus. i spent the entire time search for my 1 recoil, which lead me to die horribly. i knew this was a possible weakness, but i had no idea how much of an uphill battle it was. interstingly enough, i upped it to 2, which seems like a small change, but it actually made the fight not only bearable, but somewhat easy at the expense of your first creature.

incidentily, i talked to him at ptsd this weekend and he said he change his main deck abyss back to his signature moat, which is much better for the matchup because you infiltrators can just sit there until you're ready to try to get rid of it.

anyway, misdirection, although nice, became totally unessesary, they would almost always sit in my hand the whole game. the decision to add them is similar to weissman's decision to limit his pre alliance counter base down to 4 mana drain and 2 counterspell instead of the full 4/4. more of the time you really just want plain counterspell over misdir as misdir can't stop some of the most devestating spells against you, balance, yawgmoth's will, gorilla shaman and phyrexian negator.

i played against the land tax/rack/replenish deck and got bashed after he sbed in like 50 creature removal, so i made my sb into creatureless. if the deck or keeper ends up sbing that much creature removal, i suggest you go into creatureless mode too. else, if it's just bolts and chain lightnings, i prefer they roast my creatures than me since i have no main deck life gain.

mox diamond is a curious choice. it started out as the 4th duress, and while duress was good, ironically, it wasn't fast enough. what i mean by that is, the deck used to be based on consistently busting out w/ turn 2 spector or infiltrator. while you don't always get those draws (or the turn 1 spector infiltrator draw), mox diamond increases the chance you can get that draw. the card advantage you get from the rest of the deck virually makes the disadvantage negligible. the other added side effects were that when you go into yawgmoth will phase, you usualyl draw into mox diamond and extra land that or just extra land and mox diamond in your gyard. lastly and most importantly, is the help against back to basics/bloodmoon(and choke). i used to play w/ 6 islands and 3 swamps to limit back to basic's, blood moon's and wasteland's effectiveness. mox diamond let me pitch a useless underground river for a shiny underground sea and made the fight against bloodmoon and b2b much easier. in recent times, b2b/bloodmoon count has died down, so the basic land count has gone down. if it completely disappears, one might try using 2 or 3 reflecting pools to replace more basics. if b2b comes back up. tolarian academy and prehaps wasteland and a underground river will be the first to go for more basic lands.

every other card choice is pretty self explanitory.

after board, most of the time your advantage increases as you can sb out mox diamond and useless cards for something useful to the matchup, but game 1 i think mox diamond is still the most solid choice.