Starting the description: I am a relatively new player (played a lot in the past 10 years, taking and dropping the game continuously, but consider my collection non exinstent aside from these cards and probably 95% of Meren and Trostani playable cards under 10 dollars), this to say that I'm still working on the mana base, so while it is far from perfect right now I'm more focused on the deck. Next in line are the lands, specifically the 4 Tarkir fetches in these colors (Verdant catacombs is 41 Euros, the Tarkir fetches are 11 to 17 euros, so I prefeer taking these first to add to my collection and have tutors in the deck for the shock land, also fodder for Deathrite Shaman, please stop me if I'm wrong and should get the Verdant catacombs at the price of 3 Tarkir Fetches), City of Brass and Mana Confluence for maximum color consistency, as to avoid hands with colors skewed on only one of the two colors.
Going back to the deck, it is still a beta version, and am pondering quite a few changes that I'll throw in:
Blood Artist is kinda useless, while the lifegain is nice it has too little impact in the late game.
Vindictive Lich is a placeholder for Mindslicer, and will soon be removed for the friendly hand discarding puppy.
Night Incarnate is useless as hell, and will probably be removed for a Massacre Wurm (As soon as I find someone to trade/sell me theirs).
Butcher of Malikir doesn't seem to be able to enter the battlefield at a time I could use him, and Razaketh always comes around when I already have a tutoring engine going.
Growing Rites of Itilmoc didn't have any impact on my games yet, but I'd like to keep testing with them.
Before going on what I'd like to add, a little insight on how I usually play the deck: I focus a lot on ramp early game, guilty of not playing meren as soon as I can if I can ramp a few lands before her, usually use any first tutor I get to chain either card draw or tutors (Diabolic Intent gets Eternal Witness so that they can get the other after every use, Sidisi chaining tutors when I have 5 experience counters, so on and so forth). While I tried to avoid instant win combos (Mike + Triskelion), I accidentally found something pretty close to it after adding Phyrexian Delver, for those that don't know:
While having Protean Hulk in play with a sac outlet, sacrifice Protean Hulk to get Phyrexian Delver and a Viscera Seer/Carrion Feeder (Repeatable sacrifice outlet assuming the first one wasn't), then Sac the Hulk again to get a Mikeaus, the unhallowed. Now, with a Carrion Feeder, Phyrexian Delver, Mikeaus in play, sacrifice the Delver to the Carrion Feeder to make it come back with +1/+1 through Mikeaus' effect, activate it to get back Protean Hulk, that gets sacrificed two times in succession for Kokusho first, and Grey Merchant of Asphodel + VIscera Seer/Deathrite shaman. Having at least 11 devotion to black with everything on the field, Gray Merchant drains the table for 22 (Activating two times since it comes back after being sacrificed), and assuming Meren is in play you can repeat this at the end step for 22 more damage by taking back the merchant and sacrificing it again (44 damage, 54 if needed sacrificing Kokusho).
It is kinda complex so I won't remove the combo from the deck, even though I dislike instant wins, but will probably use it only against combo oriented decks and leave the Merchant out of the equation in more casual games (Casual meaning stacking -8/-8 with Massacre Wurm instead of draining the table for 54).
Toward this end, I'd like to add a Sepulchral Primordial to the deck, probably in place of Blood artist. This way I get a manacurve of 11x 1CMC, 13x 2CMC, 19x 3CMC, 6x 4CMC, 8x 5CMC, 3x 6CMC, 4x 7CMC (With a Tooth and Nail that should be counted as 9CMC), and a single 8 CMC, which seems bearable with 34 lands and 17 cards that contribute to ramping. Other cards I find interesting are Hope of Ghirapur and Ob Nixilis, Unshackled, since they give good locks on opponents' moves, but I haven't tried them yet and wouldn't know what to remove (Probably some ramp).
Would also like some insight on wheter to add Entomb and Reanimate to the deck, they seem op as hell for one single mana, but I don't know wheter to remove redundant effects (Animate Dead and a tutor) or remove something else to have redundancy.
In short, my ideas are:
Night Incarnate ---> Massacre Wurm
Butcher of Malikir ---> Sepulchral Primordial (With so many tutors, I'd rather chain some Plaguecrafters than play a Butcher, since in my playgroup we either have a few creatures or a 1/1 Edgar Army).
Vindictive Lich ---> Mindslicer
Cards to add are: Ob Nixilis, Unshackled and Hope of Ghirapur, but would like insight on these.
Cards to definitelly add are: Entomb, Reanimate. Probably in place of Blood Artist and another card.
Thanks for taking the time of reading this, I suck at synthetizing worse than I suck at keeping money in my pocket while at a LGS.
