I'd use some more early discard so that your first turn usually is getting rid of an counterspell or messing up your opponents gameplan.

How does Dark Deal work out for you? I felt that there's never enough cards in their hands to give enough profit from it, making it a bad Mind Rot at best.

About Wistful Thinking, it's great in a way that it will never completely miss, they will always discard at least two cards. But if you place it next to Blightning they are at a similar powerlevel.

Turn 3 plays (1 caress)

WT - Two discards, 4 damage

B - No discards, 3 damage

WT - Four discards, 8 damage

B - Two discards, 7 damage

Turn x (two Caress)

WT - Two discards, 8 damage

B - No discard, 3 damage

WT - Four discards, 16 damage

B - Two discards, 11 damage

So as a turn three play, I believe that Blightning is the more consistent card. It can still be played without any set up and still get you closer to a win.

I'm very doubtful about the Smallpox in this deck. Why? You only play with 20 Lands. This will hurt you much more then your opponent. Either play 22~ish lands or remove them and add something else.

Oh, and talking about lands, there was a nice new land that came with this new set, Geier Reach Sanitarium.

Thanks for the advice, Louie! I'm not a great deckbuilder, but I like playing around with interesting cards, haha.

I've found Dark Deal to be pretty solid as a Turn 3 play, as it usually hits 4-5 cards and refills their hand for a Turn 4 chain of discard spells. It's also notable in that it's not a targeted ability, so it gets past Leyline of Sanctity, which is seemingly always boarded in against this deck.

You might be right about Wistful Thinking and Blightning, although it's really nice to still pull out discards even when my opponent has an empty grip.

Got any suggestions for a substitute for Smallpox? I had it in there when I was running a few Delve cards, so it was just good value at the time. I suppose that I could keep it if I put in a few Dakmor Salvage, right?

Geier Reach Sanitarium is nice; I wish it wasn't colorless :( Do you think that I can still run it here?

What about a Quest for the Nihil Stone or Rakdos's Return ? The Stone is a solid turn one play that builds up with what you're doing. And Rakdos's Return is a good fuck you for multiple discards and direct damage

That's really funny, BlackCoffeeMagician! I actually run Quest for the Nihil Stone right now in the MTGO version of this deck for testing it out. Seems to be a solid Turn 1 play.

Oh, how I wish that Rakdos's Return had Delve!!!!!!