Over the weekend I also took out the Grave Pacts and Door of Destiny, dropping my curve to 1.90. This was not worth it. In fact, I have to live with the unrealistic curve skew that Korlash provides. He does a lot for the deck, and his Grandeur ability makes him well worth it. He's coming back as a 4x of. I had played with Rite of Consumption in their stead and sacrificing a really beefed up Nantuko Husk for insta-win. It's not consistent enough and has no backup plan. At this point, I'm questioning 'zombie only' feasibility to be competitive. It's a good deck, but just not quite there yet.
At this point I'm considering making a move that I had working previously in one of the older decks I had designed that made use of Blood Artist/Nantuko Husk/Gravecrawler synergy to prod at opponents and gain life between big plays. But I think I'll ultimately get caught up in the pitfalls of that deck instead of it being any better. I love this deck. It's really fun to play, but I'm going to probably give up on it being competitive.
On the plus, Thoughtseize has proved it's worth various times. Turn 1 Thoughtseize to steal the only land in the hand against Elves that only needed the one land has proved infinitely useful in buying a bunch of time. When they don't draw another land for 3 - 4 turns after while you're setting up boardstate just doesn't even feel fair. At any rate, they've learned to just not keep 1 land hands against my deck at this point. Which is great, because they're required to mulligan to fill their hands with otherwise not really needed hands because their curve is already so low anyways.
I did very well in a 5 man FFA where I was immediately deemed a threat and taken out fairly promptly. This deck is good, but I can only do so much against 4 others at once. I'm thinking Door of Destiny will reside in the sideboard or not in the deck at all ultimately. It synergizes very well, but for the most part if I have the state to get it in play and ramped up, then I'm already set to win and thus it's not helpful any other time than when I'm already winning.
In unexpected news, Tragic Slip may be coming out. Over the course of it being played there have been outright numerous times where I simply needed a creature gone without satisfying the 'Morbid' ability. These will be replaced with Go for the Throat so I don't have to deal with that.
Added Urborg in place of a swamp so that Korlash can benefit from all my lands regardless.
