Point 1
The argument for cutting Probes and Street Wraiths interest me. Same with cutting the Chancellors - Is there a difference between trading in your speed (for answers), and trading in "things that make your opponent slower"?
In a sense, yes - and the answer lies in interaction. Your extra speed in Street Wraiths* / Probes does not not interact with your opponent in general, which is what you want in game 2 and 3. Chancellors do interact by slowing down their game, and changing their choices (as Michael pointed out really well in the primer).
If you're fighting fast combo, my reasoning is as follows:
You want to slow them down enough for you to gain momentum (+ Chancellor of the Annex), to answer their quick, non-protected hate (+ disrupting shoal, + Fow, keep in probes as FoW and DS fodder vs Grafdigger, Surgical Extraction and SW to cycle for answers or reply to Surgical or DRS).
Here I'm thinking: what fits roles the least here. We cannot really cut dredgers, so what should we cut? If we're not cutting Street Wraith, maybe we should cut some:
- Phantasmagorians. They are great for the same reason Street Wraith is great, but doesn't give you the immediate dredge.
- Nether Shadow is important for creating tokens, but doesn't have the power Ichorid has in terms of reliability and damage. I would probably shave one or two here too.
- Flayer of the Hatebound and 1-2 Dread Returns - if you're not playing Spy and you're playing Whirlpool Rider, I would probably cut down on the Combo too. With you already destroying your own hand and either them destroying yours or playing SnT, Returning a Whirlpool Rider won't have the same impact - and vs. SnT the Ashen Rider pretty much seals the deal anyway, making the Combo abundant.
-- If you are playing Spy, I might cut it in favour of SB cards if you still have Whirlpool Rider, but if that's your only alternative: I may just cut Spy anyway and rather focus on Returning a multi-faceted card like Golgari Grave-Troll or a ditched Ashen Rider than focusing solely on that narrow Spy. Sorry, Spy!
I would love to hear thoughts, preferably (like mine) from experience, and with arguments :-).
* Keep in if you expect Surgical Extraction and/or Deathrite Shaman to respond
Point 1
17 dredgers, how does that work? 4 GGT, 4 Stinkweed Imp, 4 Golgari Thug, 4 Shambling Shell... and 1... ? That seems pretty abundant. I've noticed that I'm walking the fine line with 4 GGT, 4 SI, 4 GT and 2 SS, and for consistency 15 seems to be the perfect, perfect number.
Point 3
Michael, how does 2 Chancellor's work for you? To me, it feels a bit like running 2 Leylines (in any deck).
Point 4
Again to Hollywood,
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post842332 <-- here's the report with the PTQ GPT Legacy a New Jersey (final) video.