UPDATE 1/25:
This is the list that 3-0'd on 1/24/18.
It was my first time running glint sleeve siphoner's. I felt like they didn't fit the theme of ETB but their value cannot be understated. I am now a believer. Every time I casted an aetherborn vampire I just wished it was a siphoner. We don't even need the energy package because even if we only get one activation it is still great.To make room I went down 2 vampires and a Chart a course.
I also added 1 more Liliana. I am not sure whether or not this is a mistake, but I will keep it for now. I went down a noxious gearhulk to include her.
In the future I think I will go down the other 2 vampires to bring back a chart a course and a noxious gearhulk back into the main. I will likely add ravenous chupacabra's when I get them.
Cards to Play and Why We Play Them
We are looking to apply some early pressure to get a clock on our opponent and keep them a bit on the back foot before landing a liliana or scarab god and taking over the game. To this, our two drop slot is very important. We want to affect the battlefield early on and hopefully draw some removal. Let's talk 2 drops then.
2 drops
Kitesail Freebooter-This is the preferred turn 2 play in most match ups. Most match ups in the meta (except I suppose merfolk) will have a target for the freebooter to snag and at the very least it gives you a decent idea of what your opponent is up to.
Glint-sleeve Siphoner- LIkely the best black 2 drop in standard. Even without the energy package landing him on turn 2 is usually enough to get you the extra card on turn 4. If you get the card, it feels like you can't lose. If it dies to removal, that is not the end of the world as we will discuss in a second.
Gifted Aetherborn- before bannings I thought this guy was essential. Incidental life game shores up against aggro strategies and it is a great answer to bristling hydra and a fine answer to longtusk cub. Post banning he is less relevant though still decent against aggro. I would not be shocked if he is absent from future iterations.
How to use your 2 drops: We would prefer our opponent to use their mana to kill our two drops then to develop their board state or game plan. We want them to die to removal because we can just get them back later. The Freebooter and the Siphoner are particularly juicy targets because they both represent 2 for 1's (or more) if unanswered. So why they use a kill spell to kill a dude go ahead and say "oh man" but smile on the inside because they just used mana on something you don't mind. Similarly- get aggressive. Don't throw your creatures away but try to get some early damage in, we want our opponent to sweat a little and if you manage to trade creatures, that trade is probably favoring you.
3 drop
Champion of Wits: Best blue creature? I think so. Usually allows you to curve out perfectly and usually means you won't be missing land drops. Hitting lands is important we need to have 5 on T5 and would eventually like to get up to 7 to allow us to externalize this bad boy for a decent beater and basically 4 cards. The added benefit is you can pitch creatures that are good to reanimate as well setting up our T5 Liliana.
4 drop
Turn 4 is often a weird one to navigate with this deck. I think it is usually correct to try and double spell with maybe a kill spell or a chart a course along with a second 2 drop. Holding up mana to cycle fetid pools can also be a good idea depending on the board state. We do have some 4 drop creatures but I would often like these in the graveyard so I can reanimate them with Liliana as this ends up being a more mana efficient way to get them on the battlefield.
Hostage Taker- May be worse than chupacabra. Though it does have a higher upside. We need her in our deck because she is the only answer we have for artifacts. While we can win against GPG by going off faster than them it is still nice to have a way to interact with it. She can also grab one of those pesky gods and is one of our few answers to them. While grabbing a big expensive threat with the intent to cast it next turn is tempting, beware that having this die with a creature under it is a tragedy. Bringing her back from the graveyard with Liliana is a great way to save your mana for casting their creature/artifact straight away, so I usually prefer her in the graveyard. Don't be afraid to take a less powerful creature if it means you get to cast it straight away. Do not ignore the potential of taking your own creature's hostage. If you fear a board wipe (or know about it because of your freebooter!) this is great insurance. Recasting your gonti is also a particularly crafty thing to do against a control opponent for more card advantage.
Gonti, Lord of Luxury- This card is in the main as a hedge against control decks. He is an absolute card advantage machine against these decks and can give us access to our opponents cheap interaction or some of their bombs. I usually prefer to steal cheap interaction as burying their bombs is often good enough. This card used to be good against bristling hydra as well, now not so much.
Ravenous Chupacabra Blah Blah Blah kill spell on a stick most include. I don't actually have this card in the deck yet but I know I should, I will likely include 1 or 2 but I don't know what to cut yet. I think it's better than hostage taker because there is no risk and I think it is better than noxious gearhulk because it we can actually cast it from our hand. That said, the upsides on those cards are higher than this guy, so I suppose it is consistency vs impact. Not quite sure what to do yet. Like I said, we often want our 4 drops to be reanimated anyway so it could be that the gearhulk is just straight better.
5 drops
Liliana, Death's Majesty- The cornerstone of our deck. She is a 5 mana reanimation spell that threatens to take over if left unanswered. This is our prefered turn 5 play if we have access to a nice reanimation target. She is better in our deck than scarab god because she gets the creature out right away. Nearly all of our creatures have a relevant ETB so this becomes a huge tempo swing. Often times, the correct reanimation target is actually a kitesail freebooter, which is usually in your graveyard by now. This gives us information on your opponents mid game plan and often leaves them stranded with no way to answer Liliana. It is nice that she brings back creatures as proper creatures as opposed to tokens so we do not have to worry about our graveyard running out. Do not forget, she also brings them back as zombies which helps set up our big boy...
The Scarab God- Best creature in standard? Yeah, probably. I do not like casting Scarab God early, I like him to come down after our aggressive play has exhausted some of our opponents resources and we feel like we are in a relatively safe position. The turn he comes down it sort of feels like a 5-mana-do-nothing enchantment and is a HUGE tempo loss (and don't forget, tempo is in the title). If you aren't already in control of the board state when you cast him you can run into trouble. This guy is NOT indestructible, if your opponent kills him and swings in you lose your next turn casting him again. Congrats, you've now spent 2 turns doing nothing. We are a tempo deck and can't afford to do nothing unless it means we get to win. That said, if you can untap with him it is probably GG. When he is on the battlefield, I tend to do nothing except reanimate creatures on my upkeep and dig for answers to my opponents potential outs. Do not risk him in combat. Best reanimation target usually is freebooter again- 4/4 flyer is great and we get to take our opponent's answers. From here, you pretty much know that you've won and it is usually correct to play it safe and switch into a game of attrition while slowly building up an army that you'll never get to attack with because your opponent will concede.
The Non Creature Spells
Of these we have very few because you can't reanimate them. We would generally prefer to be playing threats than answering them but you will know when something needs to die asap.
Fatal Push- This is for must answer plays in the early game- Siphoners, Cubs, Ministers, red creatures. Obviously a 4 of in the main.
Walk the Plank- Save. This. For. Big. Threats. Glorybringers love to walk the plank.
Vraska's contempt- Sometimes, you need to kill a planeswalker. Her name is often vraska. If you suspect your opponent is planning on casting a glorybringer, I will often do nothing on turn 4 and hold this up. Forget not, our Turn 4 is a little weird and often does not involve curving out, so if you have a vraska's contempt in hand holding it up is often fine if you get good value. This is also one of our few god answers.
Chart a Course- Now that's a card. 2 cards for 2 mana? Yum. We are aggressive enough early that we generally always get to trigger raid but sometimes we don't want to because we want to bin a creature for reanimation. Might even deserve to be a 4 of to be honest. Playing a 2 drop is better but playing this on turn 3 or 4 feels pretty good.
Yahenni's Expertise- Originally in here to deal with Red and Tokens. Now it is even better as a hedge against vampires and merfolk. This might not be as good as Golden Demise which has the potential to spare our own creatures. I will need to do some testing. It is more expensive but again our T4 is a little empty. And the ability to get a free cast is a nice tempo swing so I'm sticking with it. You won't cast it in most games but when you do it will save your life. And it is easy enough to loot away with Champion or Chart a Course when it's bad so it is okay main board.
Quick Land Discussion
25 is a lot of land. But with the amount of looting that we have we still rarely flood out. I keep my opening hand about 80% of the time and I think running 25 has a lot to do with that. We have 2 utility land in Field of Ruin _and I think that is important _for Search for Azcanta's, Scavenger Grounds (screw that card), and any number of these new cards that will be showing up from rivals. A good consideration is Arch of Orzaca as a way to deal with control match-ups (which aren't great). I don't think this is super necessary but might be worth doing, especially if we get rid of the gifted aetherborns and therefore the need for double black on turn 2. A Bad consideration which I thought of was_ endless sands_ as a way to retrigger some of our ETBs. Don't do this.
Quick Sideboard guide (will develop later)
Control- Negates, Duress, maybe Doomfall
Graveyard- Deadeye trackers
Go Wide/aggro- Yahenni, Bontu, Demon of Dark Schemes, essence extraction
Midrange- Doomfall
Lost Legacy is for Approach and for GPG (naming Angel of Invention)
Ramblings on other things I should add
We do great against creature decks. No problem there.
Our absolute worst match up is against enchantments. We just have no way to deal with them except counters and discard. Having one of your 5 drops Ixalan Binding'd is often game ending. As such, UW Cycling is very hard to beat.
Artifacts are also tricky and depending on how the meta shapes up we might want to put in some dispossess into the sideboard. I am very afraid of silent gravestone. I have not seen it on the battlefield yet but if this deck becomes a big part of the meta I think we will. Most of the good graveyard disruption is artifact based and UB has very little interaction with opponents artifacts except for bounce. One consideration is Consign//Oblivion.
Warkite Marauder looks like a cool way to deal with gods.
I don't play a ton of control in my meta but If I did I would probably add arguel's blood fast for more card draw.
Torrential Gearhulk is a trap.
Big Stupid Green Reanimation Targets (I'm looking at Carnage Tyrant) are traps.
I think Search is probably too slow and we don't need the pay off but it's a helluva card.
