I like playing Keen Duelist in EDH. She's Dark Confidant in a wig (he'd prefer if you called him Loretta) but for two people - except they're taking damage equal to the CMC of the other players card. This is an attempt to make a janky budget burn deck out of that.
Step Through wizardcycles to find Duelist, so they're copies 5-8 while also working with the Bob effect. Besides Bob on hormones, Calibrated Blast works as our main burn spell. As an instant we can play it on our opponents turn to dodge Force of Negation (but what the hell is that flashback cost, sheesh). Finally, Sulfuric Vortex is a reliable shock every turn, providing some inevitability.
The rest of the deck tries to pretend to be a normal deck while also presenting some chonky CMC. Waker of Waves is sorta kinda a bad Preordain, Bedeck / Bedazzle kills monkeys, channelers and flipped Delvers, Consign / Oblivion respects the Lage and can just tempo play the opponent a bit.
The most important interaction piece is Pyrokinesis as it kills most early threats and doesnt care about our crappy mana (also 6 CMC, dope). It's also the prime option to get sideboarded out though, see below.
This deck being budget, the mana base is rough. The problem with using even a slightly tuned mana base is that shock lands dont synergize with Duelist. We might very well hand the opponent the last few points of damage they need when we shock in a Blood Crypt. For the time being I settled on the MDFC dual lands with supplemental Hunt lands.
Sideboard-wise, Roiling Vortex slots in beautifully for Pyrokinesis against control.Unmask isnt cheap but it's pretty much our only option in fighting against fast combo decks. As it, Pyrokinesis and Misdirection all require different cards in hand, those should be go to options to sideboard out here. Otherwise, even if we resolve Duelist we'll get slaughtered by all these 2 for 1s. Ingot Chewer comes in against any and all artifact shenanigans, Ravenous Trap hates on graveyards, Boom / Bust on lands. Shriekmaw comes in when Pyrokinesis doesn't cut it as removal. And I guess against D&T and the like with a gorillion StP effects we just go cry in the corner.
