Dark Confidant
One of the greatest 2-drop ever printed, Bob has 5 nice synergies in the Death & Taxes build:
(1) Because most creatures in the deck are human, Dark Confidant can be cast off of Cavern of Souls. This, in conjunction with Aether Vial, makes Dark Confidant difficult to counter.
(2) Chalice of the Void and Mother of Runes give Dark Confidant far superior protection than in Deadguy Ale.
(3) Overall cmc of the deck is far lower than in Deadguy Ale (1.2 cmc when calculated with lands, which result in about 1.1 lifeloss per turn).
(4) Aether Vial gets maximized when Dark Confidant feeds extra creatures to the hand.
(5) Being paired with equipment, Dark Confidant gets extra utility as a formidable beater that can offset the lifeloss.
Okay but is Dark Confidant worth playing over the traditional slots (e.g Serra Avenger, Mirran Crusader, 4th Flickerwisp, etc.)? The answer is yes. Being a non-blue deck, Death and Taxes is begging for extra card advantage. Often, Death and Taxes loses to itself because it needs more lands but lacks the card selection to consistently find them. Bob's application is universal, being relevant in both the fair and unfair match-ups.
Problem with DnT
When several statistics across multiple events, MTGO, and paper suggest Death & Taxes has a 35% to 45% win rate, DnT players must keep their minds open to innovations.
In my view, these are the problems with the archetype:
(1) Not good enough at denying resources
The 'ideal' Death and Taxes plan is to have a turn 1 Aether Vial, followed by Thalia and Wasteland/ Port activation. Unfortunately, I would imagine maybe 10% of games follow this perfect sequence. A fundamental problem is Death and Taxes isn't very good at denying mana to the opponent - a problem that exists due to its internal flaw and external state of the meta.
Several inherent problems exist. First, the mana "denial" usually doesn't happen until turn 3 or so, leaving significant time for opponents to execute their plan. Unlike Delver, this deck can't afford to Wasteland on turn 2 most of the time because it cannot operate on 1 mana. Second, the mana denial is almost always a gamble; lacking hand information, the player must blindly hope to slow down the opponent. For all we know, the opponent is flooding on lands or can operate fine with their available resources. Third, the use of Port/Wasteland means you are ultimately going down on mana yourself. This is great when you have nothing better to do, but an awful plan without an active Aether Vial. Without vial, the deck is not able to commit to a mana denial strategy at all because it needs extra lands to play its creatures and equipment (expensive especially under Thalia).
External problems exist in both the fair and unfair sphere of the metagame. For instance, Deathrite Shaman has largely weakened the mana denial strategy of Death and Taxes. In theory, the deck should be very good against greedy 3-color mana bases. But this is not necessarily so. Even without Deathrite Shaman, the opponent has many cantrips to find lands and can operate on 1-2 mana. Right now, very few Tier 1 decks are scared of Wasteland/ Rishadan Port: Show and Tell, Lands, Storm, Elves, Delver, Czech Pile, Deathblade, Reanimator, etc.
Overall, the deck is extremely over-dependent on Thalia and Aether Vial. Adding Chalice of the Void and Dark Confidant significantly strengthen the deck's ability to lock out an opponent with raw card advantage and resource denial.
(2) Lack of Options
Perhaps the most obvious indication of this is that the card has numerous 'flex' spots. It has too many slots that are dependent on the meta.
Because it lacks the universal answers in counterspells and the card filtering of cantrips, it must ensure each card in the deck has as much universal impact as possible. This is the consequence of playing a non-blue fair decks in Legacy. The best solution is to run Chalice of the Void. The card allows you to cripple most decks in the meta at X=1 - not surprising, considering Legacy decks thrive on efficiency. It's this sort of universal disruption that Death and Taxes crave when Thalia is not drawn.
Why Chalice
Combined with sol lands, DnT gains an extremely powerful turn 1 play in Chalice. This is crucial against the combo decks which DnT lacks any turn 1 interaction against. The card is valuable at x=0 and x=2 as well, especially when you can still cast your cards off of Aether Vial and Cavern of Souls.
Chalice of the Void is also great on turn 2, because DnT lacks meaningful turn 2 interaction against combo aside from Thalia.
Chalice has multiple uses, both offensively and defensively. It shuts off cantrips, destroying the capacity for blue decks to outgrind or combo against DnT. It shuts off removals, serving as copies of Mother of Runes, and therefore keep your threats alive on board. Shutting off mana acceleration is something that DnT always wanted to do. This is your best card against tough decks like Elves, Burn, and Infect which operate mostly on 1-cmc spells. Combined with Sanctum Prelate, the deck has many ways to shut down the best decks in Legacy.
Due to its power in both the unfair and fair matches, Chalice of the Void is powerful addition to DnT. I've had couple opponents concede after casting a Gitaxian Probe because a hand full of Aether Vial and Chalice of the Void are too difficult for fair decks to beat.
Pros and Cons over Traditional DnT
The first reason to play this deck is to abuse Chalice of the Void to shore up MANY different match-ups. Chalice not only destroys the popular Delver variants but also strengthen our bad match-ups: Elves, Burn, Infect, etc. Against combo decks, we gain an additional interaction at x=0, x=1, and x=2. Offensively, the card shuts down a large portion of the opponent's deck; defensively, it grants additional protection to our creatures from 1-cmc removals.
The second reason to play this deck is its resistance to counterspells. With 4 Aether Vial, 4 Cavern of Souls, and 4 Ancient Tomb (helps with Daze), the deck neutralizes many of the fair Blue decks of the format.
The third reason is its stronger creature selection. Dark Confidant adds a significant power across all match-ups, both fair and unfair. Magus of the Moon is an "I win" card against Lands, most 3-color decks, Depths, etc. The deck has many ways to ensure they stick on board (Chalice of the Void, Mother of Runes, Cavern of Souls, Aether Vial, etc.). Orzhov Pontiff in the side is the best card we have against Elves, Young Pyromancer, and True-Name Nemesis.
The deck loses four traditional cards: Flickerwisp, Swords to Plowshares, Wasteland, and Rishadan Port.
Why Mardu
What else is different?
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No Rishadan Port (read below for explanation!). Instead, the deck focuses on accelerating 3 cmc taxes and Blood Moon to disrupt the opponent.
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4 Cavern of Souls since the deck is now basically human tribal. It provides superb mana fixing for Dark Confidant and Magus of the Moon. It ensures our threats stick to the board. It provides a more stable mana base than mono white DnT, especially ones that incorporate Magus and Pontiff.
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No Flickerwisp. This deck wants human creatures; in addition, it's a mediocre card without an Aether Vial on the field. Double white is difficult to achieve. Flickerwisp does give you greater ways of "coming back" from a losing board state and is an additional evasive blocker against Delver. However, I would argue this deck gains more from dropping Flickerwisp.
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4 Ancient Tomb:
This allows Chalice of the Void to be playable on turn 1 and cards like Vryn Wingmare and Recruiter of the Guard) on turn 2. The main criticism of these cards is that they can be slow. But with acceleration, this downside is mitigated. In addition, the Sol Lands allow you to play two 2-cmc threats on turn 3. Other benefits including being Daze resistant and exceptional acceleration of equipment plays (e.g helps pay Thalia tax, turn 3 equip Swords of Fire and Ice, etc.)
Why not Rishadan Port and Wasteland?
Rishadan Port is not consistent without an active Aether Vial. What is the probability of having an aether vial in an opening hand? It's about 40% of having 1 or more copies. Out of this 40%, many vials will be either discarded or countered. The ideal scenario is having a turn 1 Aether Vial and disrupting your opponent's lands with Port while simultaneously developing your own board. Without the ability to cheat creatures into play, Port becomes either a target of Wasteland or a colorless mana source.
Port and Wasteland are especially powerful in Goblins because they not only have Aether Vial but also Goblin Lackey to cheat creatures into play. Having only 4 ways to proactively advance the board state is exactly why Port and Wasteland can be a hindrance more than a win condition. In the current meta, many decks simply do not care about Wasteland (e.g deathrite shaman decks); you simply go down a mana. Rishadan port just becomes a colorless land that gets wasteland'd if it's relevant.
