This is the deck I used earlier today to win the 10/22/16 Kaladesh Gameday! First round vs W/G Token Displacer: 2-0, Second vs tournament winning Grixis Control: 2-1, Third game against one of my favorite people to play against; Tim and his R/G aggro deck: 2-1, And the final against another Grixis Control (slightly modified) 1-1 (rounds implemented).
PROPS TO DEV:
First and Foremost I need to give damn near full credit to Dev from Strictly Better MTG for the shell of this deck. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpZCNYMXJI_ptSBD3t47NOQ (Check this dude out, he likes Magic and he's a very creative deck builder.) And without him I wouldn't have known what to do with the Syndicate Trafficker I love so much. Here is the link to the specific video for the shell I took; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkkeZlfrSyQ (ALSO; super sorry about this but I couldn't figure out how to hyperlink the sites and the URL button didn't show up in the description, you can however right click the wording and it should give you and option to go to the video links. If not, just Youtube Strictly Better MTG. Go check him out!)
CUTS:
Now, I took the shell and made a deck around the Trafficker and the Tracker.... I took out some cards that just either weren't to my play style or I felt were inconsistent for my local meta's purposes. I completely wiped the side board, minus the Transgress for a more controlly shell (being a control mage at heart). First cut for me was the four of Scrapheap Scrounger. I understand why the card is so good, but it just isn't for me. I play tested a couple times and decided I was just not gonna run it- instead I threw in a four of Night Market Lookout.
Very last second I took out an Underhanded Designs for a one of Ob Nixilis, simply because I didn't want to cut anything else. Next bet would have probably been Weaponcraft Enthusiast... But I wanted something I could cut reliably and while this card proved to be very helpful pre-board, in post board I found it was just the easiest thing to cut.I moved the Mortuary Mire to the board and threw another Inventor's Fair into the main because I wanted to see it every game (Knowing it plays decent into control but really well into Aggro.) Otherwise the mana-base was untouched.
SIDEBOARD: As for the sideboard... I don't have any issues with Dev's sideboard for the deck but it isn't to my play style.. I didn't want to use Oviya to make more tokens (and honestly didn't even play test her so I have no idea how good or bad she is in the deck) I simply didn't want to make this deck entirely about tokens and going wide. Also worth note: I know my local meta, it's almost entirely made up of control or aggro, few to none mid range decks. In it's place I ran two Kalitas; great for aggro and just a good black sideboard staple in my opinion. Grasp of Darkness I didn't run simply because I didn't have my hands on them in time, easily worth the play set. Because I lacked these I ran a two of Murder and a two of Make Obsolete for the tokens builds. I only ran two Transgress the Mind instead of three, didn't have a third and it gave me a slot to run a two of Harsh scrutiny which can be better in certain scenarios. The second Harsh Scrutiny came from the slot of Root out. I decided that if I wasn't running anything but this and Tracker there wasn't enough reason to play it, I highly doubted anyone would play artifacts that I needed to get rid of at my store and aside from seeing one Panharmonicon drop one turn to late to influence the game I was correct in this assumption. The other three of those went to the Mortuary Mire and two Mind rot. (Dropping a Mind Rot right after a control deck Anticipates or Glimmer of Genius's proved to be game changing.) Last change was two Ruinous Path in the stead of Cultivator of Blades. I don't think the card is bad, but I just wasn't gonna risk stretching the green if I needed to and I found most of the time I was swinging in for wins with Copter and the crew of Night Market Lookout.
Style: Closer to Aggro than mid-range with this build, I would swing whenever it was obviously in favor, and found that the drain effects all around were more than enough resiliency for this deck to handle. (In almost every game I won I had more than twenty life at the end.) HOLD YOUR EXTRA TRACKERS/TRAFFICKERS/MASTERS. One thing I found heavily impactful of whether or not I won the game was my ability to replace the bombs that were removed from play. Dev recommends playing the Marionette Masters as much as possible and he has sound logic in this, it's big enough to dodge most damage or -1/-1 removal, however a lot of the meta I see is counterspell/destroy (Or the cheeky Harness Lightning they've been sitting on all day.) and it just isn't worth throwing all your bets on the synergy having two out provides. You can easily win the game off one copy.
Boarding: Versus aggro- I highly recommend your first cut here to be one Marionette Master (it's too high a CMC to consistently get out, and you have three more.) followed by Weaponcraft Enthusiast... Yes the fabricate mechanic is good to defend against aggro, but you have better turn three plays for that. (If you go turn one NML into turn two Underhand Designs and turn three "extorted" Smuggler's copter you have an amazing blocker with some drain built in on the NML that then can swing over and will generate you card tempo.) From there I generally took out the Hedron crawlers for the same reason, better plays for turn and it just isn't good enough for offense or defense, it's really only ramp or trade in this case. As for what you put in you generally have three different paths to take. Almost always I'd grab two Kalistas (Works so well into aggro.) as well as two make Obsoletes for those small creatures they play (If they aren't using a huge amount of one drops with one toughness skip for either Murder or Ruinous Path.) From there I would either grab two Harsh Scrutiny to remove a good creature on turn one, Murder, or Ruinous Path (Murder over Ruinous Path unless they have some good planeswalkers or you find yourself going wide most of the time.)Against Control- Again, cutting Weaponcraft and Hedron Crawler most of the time (NOTE: Most does NOT mean all, you do have to work a little here.) as well as maybe an Inventor's Fair or if need be another Marionette Master to grab the controlly/anti-control cards. Harsh Scrutiny, Transgress the Mind, and Mind Rot being most highly valued. I had each Control player I played so flustered and confused as to why I was running Mind Rot, but again as a control player I know EXACTLY what a good Mind Rot can do after you use your card advantage spells. Do NOT underestimate this card if you're playing Black into a control meta.
Now, as good as the deck is, and as glad as I am to have a gift for my girl's birthday I have to say this: I play Magic to have fun, and to have close games. Every game I played was close, and every game I played I was having an absolute blast. So I won't wish you luck to win.... I will however wish you to have a blast at your FNM or Gameday experience! And if you use this list or Dev's I'll let you know right now.... It's an absolute blast to play with.
Again: I can't thank Dev enough for his awesome deck techs, all of them have a considerable thought included in them, all are at least basely competitive, even the budget ones... And you should all go check out his channel because I can almost guarantee you there is something in his list for you.
