[Deck] 5C Intuition Control

[Anusien]

(So I'm not actually sure how to refer to the deck. Everything I can think of deals with some sort of tweak on Landstill, but the latest build has no Mishra's Factories, Wastelands or Standstills so it's not really a Landstill deck. In many ways it's just a Pernicious Deed deck, and in others it's an Intuition deck. I wanted to call it Cromatstill as an evolution from Vorosh/Witch-Maw, but no Standstills. End aside)

For starters, I explore the deck a little bit in this article here: http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/16217.html. Please check it out, although some of the material will be redundant.

Dragon Stompy scares the shit out of me. I used to not respect the deck because the local players that played it weren't that good with it, or they had older builds. But it's a relevant force in the metagame, so I did some testing a few months ago and came away kind of bothered by the deck. There is an interesting tension with the card, by the way, that the decks with Wastelands that normally prey on multi-color control decks lose to Blood Moons. Dragon Stompy is actually a relevant deck against the Pernicious Deed + Counterbalance decks. You can't beat a resolved Blood Moon game 1 in almost every case. And even if you get down a basic land for removal, they just beat you with actual Blood Moon.

The first idea I had was pretty awful. I wanted to put 5C lands into VoroshStill and splash Magus of the Moon and some removal (Firespout maybe?). The idea was to simultaneously make the mana better, give yourself maindeck outs to Magus of the Moon, and get Magus of the Moon yourself as a threat in the "mirror". I showed the list to Nihil. When I woke up the next morning from the verbal beating he gave me, I cut the City of Brass but worked more actual dual lands. At the time I started to realize this strategy could not work alongside Standstill; you don't have the slots to devote to the cards you want to run in large numbers. You simply can't fight 3 Magus of the Moon and 3 Firespout into the deck and keep the Standstill engine and make the mana work. Running Intuition lets you cheat and run just a few Magus and still find them when you need them. Even if you get an early Magus, you still can't beat a Blood Moon. :(
By the way, all the work that I end up doing on Vorosh versus Blood Moon assumes you have one basic Island and nothing else. With 2 basics and 8 blue fetchlands, you basically always get 1 basic Island. You can't count on seeing something else, and in the end you'd rather have blue than the other colors turn 1 against an unknown deck anyway.
The idea I came back to was that you needed a red guy to run against Dragon Stompy. Other than Blue Elemental Blast (which makes Cunning Wish a fine if unspectactular metagame choice), there isn't any removal that you can access (so, in red, blue, green or white) that kills both Magus of the Moon and Blood Moon, and Blue Elemental Blast isn't maindeckable. And the whole point of the exercise was to get maindeck value here so you don't have your back against the wall versus such an explosive deck. So you need a guy you can easily cast under Magus of the Moon that doesn't require Magus to cast. Your only real options are cheap red guys that are big (basically, the guys Dragon Stompy plays and they play more of them!) or the HHHHH Avatars. UR is poor, GW dies too easily to StP, WR is too small, GR dies to StP, UG doesn't have evasion and might be too small (and dies to StP!); most of the avatars are pretty bad in Eternal actually. I already liked the idea of the RB Avatar and I knew he'd be easy to access in either mode with Urborg.

So from there the deck kind of built itself. The only problem was the blue count was low, so on MattH's advice I took out two Engineered Explosives (which hurt) for 3 blue spells. At the moment I'm trying out Gifts Ungiven (has the potential to be better than Intuition except for Demigods) and Collective Restraint (almost no creatures can attack through it, and certainly nobody can pay for 2). So here's the current list:

2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
1 Academy Ruins
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

4 Tarmogoyf
3 Demigod of Revenge

4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will

2 Collective Restraint
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Swords to Plowshares

3 Intuition
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Life from the Loam

Thoughts:
2 Volcanic Island is probably too many, depending on the sideboard. The manabase almost certainly needs to take the sideboard into account.

[Jak]

What if you don't play against Dragon Stompy? You plan to cast a creature who needs all of you Back and red producing lands.

[lavafrogg]

Or just the urborg which can be tutored for...

Did anyone else realize that demigod cannot be countered?

[Sanguine Voyeur]

There's an Urborg and a Life from the Loam, both of which can be tutored for. Together in fact. It doesn't seem that hard.

[Anusien]

Or just the urborg which can be tutored for...

Did anyone else realize that demigod cannot be countered?
The first one is counterable if the opponent remembers to let the trigger resolve. The next one isn't. Generally I figure Intuition->Demigod against Thresh is going to hit for 5-10. Still if you've tutored it up, you probably also have Volrath's Stronghold, which means you're hitting for 10-15 the next turn. Really, Demigod having haste is part of what makes it so ridiculous.
You don't aim to set up Demigods on turn 4 right after Intuitioning. It takes 5 sources anyway, so I don't think any deck can do that. It's more that it makes your second set of Intuitions relevant. Plus, sometimes you naturally draw one and it sure comes out of nowhere to throw a lot of math out the window when you have Urborg on the table. Aside from Demigod, only Goblins and red Survival decks play haste; I don't know that most people know how to do math with it.

If it helps, look at Demigod as a Genesis instead of a Tombstalker.


What if you don't play against Dragon Stompy? You plan to cast a creature who needs all of you Back and red producing lands.
At least you didn't count the Urborg and could have honestly missed it! Tenant_Tron in the other thread said there were 6 black producing sources, meaning he realized it was in the deck.

[lavafrogg]

Why no thoughtsieze in the deck it just seems like the swords are not nneded in that collective restraint should hold down the fort goofy should get some beats in or act as a moat and demigod should be batting clean up. To me thoughtsieze whould assure that one of your sick combos/engines resolved and was protected. It can clear out the exterpates pre intuition>demigod and can take a counterspell for the counterbalance/ insert bomb here.
I really think this has potential btw...

[Jak]

I didn't even see it. My bad. Demigod is pretty sweet so I am glad he found a deck.

[Finn]

Kevin, this is a good start for this deck. I have to give my usual take on the decks that pass through here. Have a sane manabase. Why don't you cut the white and especially the red? For Collective Restraint and Engineered Explosives? I would call it a bad reason to destroy your manabase for something you have a total of 3 cards for. You don't have a single red spell. And I'm sure you can live without STP if you have black.

sane manabase:

2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Watery Grave
1 Academy Ruins
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

It is my particular pleasure to Wasteland an Underground Sea or two against Landstill and watch the whole deck fizzle. I see no reason why your deck should be on that train.

[lavafrogg]

Unfortunately I agree completely with Finn about the manabase and Im trying to understand why this is any different from ITF with three demigods in it.
I love the demigod plan any have been lactating ever since I learned about it but what is the strenght that five colors grants... you do get to use collective restraint which is a 4cc card for the balance but propaganda does the same thing and deep anal is a 4cc card if you wanted to go that route.
Intuition control decks seem to be the rage right now though and I have been on the bandwagon since the beggining.

[Anusien]

The white is fine. If you need StP you fetch it, otherwise you don't. I'd like to run 1, but you can't afford to not have access to StP at all if Goblins wastes your Tundra; plus it's not like you really want the 3rd Island anyway. Part of the point of the deck is that the mana doesn't really get worse as you move from 3 to 4 or 5 colors, because you're cutting colorless sources for more blue sources. I also think you under-estimate how good StP is. The decks that play Wasteland are Goblins (and you'd much rather have StP there!) and some Threshold builds. Against both those decks, is the concern StP or Pernicious Deed/Tarmogoyf?
I think you missed a lot of what I was saying Finn, like how Magus of the Moon is definitely going into the sideboard? Like it's certainly hard to say without a sideboard posted (which is why I stressed the importance of balancing the mana post-board when I said a Volcanic Island was cuttable).

And honestly, get that manabase out of here. It's absolute, 100% trash. First off, there's no reason to need 5 Underground Seas. None at all; I would 100% rather have a basic land there. The only reason to consider a shockland at all is A) budget (and I own 15/16 blue duals), and B) the way Bardo used it because his deck had a rough time with Wasteland + Extirpate on Tropical Island. If you're so hard up on colors that you want the shockland, you'd be much better fitting in off-color fetchlands and non-blue basics. Plus, there's no reason to run the second Urborg in an Intuition-Loam deck to support a late-game combo anyway. And Bayou? Yuck. I mean I suppose in a build where you cut white you sometimes need turn 2 green source, turn 3 black source. The reason you run UB and UG lands, aside from supporting Counterbalance, is because none of your spells cost UB or UG. The problem with Bayou is that it produces the two off-colors you need together. In a land heavy deck, I'm skeptical of having the double off-color dual land. I think it's again laziness to not balance the fetches and just get the basic in there.

But anyway Finn, you're taking the deck in an entirely different direction that's suited to a different thread. Part of what separates this deck from ITF or Vorosh is going to 5 colors and cutting the countermagic.


It is my particular pleasure to Wasteland an Underground Sea or two against Landstill and watch the whole deck fizzle. I see no reason why your deck should be on that train.
Depends on the deck, but I'm basically not going to expose my colors until I have to. Game 1 I basically only need black mana for Pernicious Deed so unless something went dramatically wrong, I'm not going to expose an Underground Sea to Wasteland unless I'm already putting Deed on the table. Although it would help if you gave context to your comments.

lavafrogg: The Thoughtseizes are almost definitely in the board. Maindeck they could have replaced Counterspell, which got cut. They certainly can't replace StP because you need StP. Your removal spell (previously Edict, now StP) is some of your only removal before turn 3 (Deed and EE are pricy), so you need it to just not lose occasionally.

Collective Restraint might not be worth it, but it's really exciting to me. Most Threshold decks can pay for Propaganda on a Goyf and still keep Counterbalance mana (or something) up, or even swing with two Goyfs. How many Threshold decks have more than 5 mana in play and cards in hand? If Restraint doesn't work it's because you can't wait the extra turn, but that one mana extra usually makes them pay 2 mana extra per turn!
Plus, EE at 3 is becoming a little more common, and Restraint dodges that!

[Finn]

Perhaps I am taking the deck towards Fear. That is not really intentional. But I would hate to be playing a 5-color deck that has a razor thin manabase and not be able to play certain lands out of my hand until the proper time.

On that note, I am guessing that we are both victim to the same problem from different sides. I am used to expecting that I am going to outplay my opponent on some level, as I expect you are as well. There is no way my opponent is going to get away with the manabase you have - not the way I build decks and play them. But then I probably play only a few people of your caliber. And none who are piloting their own deck. You may be used to getting away with shenanigans like that, but then you don't play me.

The manabase I gave you there is better able to fight me and the kinds of aggressive denial that I am always going to bring to the table unless the format gets out of its crazy zillion color deck mode some time soon. Because if plan A of intuition->Life from the Loam->plenty-o-land does not work, someone like me will have you. Just keep that in mind.

/end

[jazzykat]

@Anusien: Without a potential SB I think it is hard to understand the reason for all 5 colors. If you have red (lightning bolt) then do you really need swords?

My personal experience with BHWW, VoroshStill, and ITF tells me that there is no way I would ever play without StP but then again I didn't have the EOT set up a 15 pt. aerial beatdown at the end of turn either.


Simply put, throw up a side board and let's work on it.

@everyone else: Let's remember that this is not proven yet and while it seems like ITF with Demigods in it, I think the vast and insane possibilities of 5c for the SB should at least be a fun exercise.

I really want this to be the next best thing, but I have to confess I am getting a little weary of first using standstill and then counter/top to keep my opponents from playing magic. But hey, at least this way they are dead fast.

EDIT: Being 5C control and all, this reminds me in the loosest of ways of old Keeper. Is there anyway of relatively efficiently tutoring for a silver bullet without needing 3 copies of the card in the deck?

[Anusien]

Perhaps I am taking the deck towards Fear. That is not really intentional. But I would hate to be playing a 5-color deck that has a razor thin manabase and not be able to play certain lands out of my hand until the proper time.
What exactly makes the manabase razor thin? Is it the ability for the opponent to supposedly cut off a color? The advantage of having cards in multiple colors is if you only find one Underground Sea they can't cut you off StP.

[Illissius]

Have you actually tested this deck? If you have, and it works, then that makes a lot of my objections to it, which are in the form of, "that can't ever possibly fucking work", less relevant.

Specifically: You have 14 sources which are capable of producing either black or red mana. Unless you happen to draw the Urborg, you are not ever, ever, ever going to hardcast a Demigod. And a game plan which consists of either "draw the one Urborg" or "draw and resolve 2 out of 4 copies of Intuition/Gifts, while not dying" doesn't sound solid to me. When you Intuition, if it's not for a specific card to save your ass, it should be for something that will win the game, not to set up a potential second Intuition to maybe win the game, if the game gets that far.

If Dragon Stompy is such a huge presence in the metagame that you're forced to take such heroic measures as running three cards in your maindeck which you're almost never going to be able to cast in a timely manner unless your opponent obliges you by casting a Blood Moon, play a different deck. If it's not such a huge presence, then move the anti-Moon plan to the sideboard, where it's not going to clog your hand with useless cards against any other deck.

If you really, really just want to play a deck with Demigod of Revenge in it (and I can understand this), play a deck which is either base black, base red, or XBR (X=U/W/G) with at most a couple of lands which don't produce either black or red in it (one of them being Volrath's Stronghold, because it's just too awesome with Demigods). (Alternately, a deck in any other color(s) which is hell-bent on finding Urborg in every game, but I doubt this'll work.)

Otherwise:

- Engineered Explosives in a 5C deck is hot.

- Collective Restraint is hot. It's too bad that also fitting Wastelock into a five color deck is not easily done.

- If you run at least three copies of Engineered Explosives, you can Intuition for it under a Blood Moon and blow it up if you have a basic Island and one other basic land of any other color.

[Anusien]

I disagree. Wasteland has always been the worst part of these sorts of decks, I feel. If you have Loam or Standstill or whatever going, you have far more exciting things to do than Wasteland. Especially Loam takes so much mana to get going that I'm often reluctant to trade a land drop for a stone rain. There are situations where it's powerful (against another three+ color control deck that doesn't have their own Loam/Crucible) but most of the time I'd rather do exciting things like manipulate the top three cards of my library and play Tarmogoyfs. The cases where I just like having Wasteland is where A) I'm beating down with Tarmogoyfs and have at least three blue sources, and B) I need to maintain man land advantage under a Standstill. Especially with so many juicy targets like this deck, I can't imagine going for Wasteland until I've gotten at least Volrath's Stronghold onto the table.

Yeah, I know about EE + two basics. The problem is that you can almost always guarantee you have the first basic, but the second one is a crapshoot. Your fetchlands won't always get there; it's seriously something like 10% of games where you have two basic lands.

I actually had a UB deck with multiple copies of Urborg (2 is still multiple!) that was just dedicated to getting Demigod onto the table. It was a complete failure. I don't think in Legacy that Demigod is powerful enough to be a plan A. It requires 5 land drops to do something impressive, and they all have to produce black. A lot of times I'd EOT turn 3 set up Demigod, have counters up on turn 4 and they Wasteland me and I don't draw the 5th land again and lose because I'm not playing Goyf. Goyf is better in the early and midgame.

I'm actually torn on the Demigods. They're clearly hot when they win you the game, but I think 3 is a bit much. The deck actually wants about 2.5 Demigods; it would really just lose to never see one in its opening hand. You need 3 for the combo to work; Intuition + Stronghold to set up 10 points of damage if you go for 2 is far too much work compared to just setting up three of them. The other alternative is to add cards, and that dilutes the ratio of lands, Counterbalances and such, and I'm reluctant to do that.


If Dragon Stompy is such a huge presence in the metagame that you're forced to take such heroic measures as running three cards in your maindeck which you're almost never going to be able to cast in a timely manner unless your opponent obliges you by casting a Blood Moon, play a different deck. If it's not such a huge presence, then move the anti-Moon plan to the sideboard, where it's not going to clog your hand with useless cards against any other deck.
I think I under-played the Demigod plan a bit much, because it's kind of nice to have. You have all these situations with Tarmogoyf facing off a bunch of creatures. You know the ground stalls where neither side can profitably attack because they'd either have to go all-in and lose to a removal spell or get attacked back for far more than they did? Like 2 Tarmogoyfs versus 1 Tarmogoyf? Demigod is at its best in those sorts of situations because it flies, and it has haste. It also has some incredible power to beat through Counterbalance. In testing previous Intuition Loam control decks (pre-ITF) I found that a lot of times you could set up Intuition but had no profitable targets to break a Counterbalance. You basically had to get EE, EE, Academy Ruins and hope they don't have a Stifle or a counter. Here they need both to beat the Demigod plan.


Specifically: You have 14 sources which are capable of producing either black or red mana. Unless you happen to draw the Urborg, you are not ever, ever, ever going to hardcast a Demigod. And a game plan which consists of either "draw the one Urborg" or "draw and resolve 2 out of 4 copies of Intuition/Gifts, while not dying" doesn't sound solid to me. When you Intuition, if it's not for a specific card to save your ass, it should be for something that will win the game, not to set up a potential second Intuition to maybe win the game, if the game gets that far.
You're counting the fetchlands, which is far more generous than I would be. Yeah, the 4th USea would be nice. While we're wishing, I'd like a pony. Let's face it, Demigod is 90% uncastable without Blood Moon or Urborg. And I'm okay with that (although I'd prefer to not draw them before turn 4!). But it's not your plan A, so I think it's okay to have to set it up a little bit. I think the default first Intuition is for Loam, Urborg, Stronghold. This basically sets you up. In the cases where the first Intuition doesn't win you the game, Demigod is always trump. In the cases where the first Intuition wins the game... good, you won the game!

Re: Collective Restraint: God, I understand Gifts Rock now. And like every other deck. This thing is so sick when you resolve it.

Re: Engineered Explosives: I miss you. Call me back baby. I don't mean to hurt you, but I have to cut something.

Re: Blood Moon: Go away please. I told you, I'm just not that into you.

[Sun_Ra]

So what's the best replacement for StP if one were cutting white and red as Finn suggests? Smother?

[Anusien]

So what's the best replacement for StP if one were cutting white and red as Finn suggests? Smother?
A different deck? I mean, we're squarely back into the question of "What removal spell do I play in VoroshStill?" where the answer is some combination of Diabolic Edict, Smother, Vendetta, Ghastly Demise, Terror, Nameless Inversion, Dark Banishing, Last Gasp, Slay and Execute (I think I hit all the playable instants there). But since the deck in its current incarnation is fundamentally based around playing all five colors, I'm extremely skeptical that discussion of that sort of approach belongs here and not in ITF or Vorosh.

I'm starting to think about a sideboard; it's tricky to do since I don't know what sort of metagame to expect. I think I'd start here:
1 Raven's Crime
1 Magus of the Moon
3 Thoughtseize
3 Firespout
3 Anti-Ichorid (personal preference dictates something like 1 Yixlid Jailer 1 Tormod's Crypt 1 Planar Void)
3 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Engineered Explosives

That's probably not the right answer but I think it's a good starting place.

[jazzykat]

So has anyone besides Anusien played this deck yet. What were the results? Another more subjective question, if you were playing ITF or VoroshStill would you have probably won anyway?

My thinking is that this deck makes sure that you don't go to time in your match, like I do relatively often with ITF. Although, I am playing a lot quicker now so it is less of an issue.

[Illissius]

Wasteland has always been the worst part of these sorts of decks, I feel. If you have Loam or Standstill or whatever going, you have far more exciting things to do than Wasteland. Especially Loam takes so much mana to get going that I'm often reluctant to trade a land drop for a stone rain.

While I get the sentiment -- and despise Wasteland for existing -- I don't think I agree. Wasteland isn't always the right call, but I've won far too many games off random mana denial or Wastelock to dismiss it as "always the worst part". And you don't have to use a Wasteland just because you drew it, the thing taps for mana. The card gives you the potential to manascrew opponents at inopportune times, or to Intuition for Wastelock and win the game, all while being an organic part of your manabase. Anyways, my comment was just an offhand remark on the fact that locking your opponent under a Restraint with Wastelands would be really awesome, and wasn't entirely serious, so let's not get sidetracked further. If there's one place Wasteland does not belong, it's a five color deck with Demigods in it.


You're counting the fetchlands, which is far more generous than I would be.

I think it's way more accurate to say 14 sources than to say 6. It's not perfectly accurate, because sometimes the fetchlands will fetch lands which don't tap for :r: or :b:, but they can, they're not blank cards.


Yeah, the 4th USea would be nice. While we're wishing, I'd like a pony.

15 sources still wouldn't be nearly enough. 14-15 sources is what you need to reliably get to two mana of a color, not five. Look at it this way: if you want to make your 5th land drop, how many lands would you play in a deck? That's how many :b: and :r: lands you need to consistently cast Demigod.


Let's face it, Demigod is 90% uncastable without Blood Moon or Urborg.

...and I see that you agree with this, so at least we're arguing from the same facts about what the conclusion should be.


And I'm okay with that (although I'd prefer to not draw them before turn 4!). But it's not your plan A, so I think it's okay to have to set it up a little bit. I think the default first Intuition is for Loam, Urborg, Stronghold. This basically sets you up. In the cases where the first Intuition doesn't win you the game, Demigod is always trump. In the cases where the first Intuition wins the game... good, you won the game!


The thing is, Loam-Urborg-Stronghold doesn't win you the game very often. It gives you a mana advantage, the ability to cast a Demigod, and the ability to recur a Tarmogoyf should you have one, but it doesn't actually do very much. Loam-Academy-Explosives might win the game; Loam-Stronghold-Shriekmaw might (especially if you also have Goyf); Loam-Wasteland-Wasteland might; and there's probably others, but Loam-Urborg-Stronghold isn't inherently game breaking.


You know the ground stalls where neither side can profitably attack because they'd either have to go all-in and lose to a removal spell or get attacked back for far more than they did? Like 2 Tarmogoyfs versus 1 Tarmogoyf? Demigod is at its best in those sorts of situations because it flies, and it has haste.

Except you can't cast it.


It also has some incredible power to beat through Counterbalance. In testing previous Intuition Loam control decks (pre-ITF) I found that a lot of times you could set up Intuition but had no profitable targets to break a Counterbalance. You basically had to get EE, EE, Academy Ruins and hope they don't have a Stifle or a counter. Here they need both to beat the Demigod plan.

This is a good point, but you need two Intuitions, and the first one with Loam and Urborg is not going to get through the Counterbalance.



What it comes down to, and I don't think you even need to respond to anything else above, is that I don't see how having three cards in your deck which are uncastable and you almost never want to draw, in exchange for being able to win the game if you draw and resolve two copies of Intuition, when you could otherwise often win the game by resolving just one, could possibly be a reasonable and worthwhile investment. For some reason, it seems that you do. Why?

[Anusien]

I'm not actually convinced that you lose the power of Intuition. You can still set up Loam-A Ruins-EE or Loam-Stronghold-Shriekmaw (if you run it) or whatever. Compared to something like ITF you basically only lose Witness in Intuition tutoring power. And if you'd like to talk about mana sinks, 2U + 2B + 1GG just to get you a card is pretty poor. If you need it it's probably fine, but I don't think it's significantly better than the Demigod plan. The fact remains that in my experience, most of the time the first Intuition does win you the game. It's obviously not the kind of thing that you run out on turn 3 and have a Berserked Tog on turn 5, but there are very few strategies that can beat the first Intuition anyway.

P.S., I think you underestimate the power of a single Demigod or the ability to Dredge more. I've killed several times with Demigod without casting Intuition first.

Edit: But even so, you could easily move the Demigods to the sideboard and there are still some things here worth considering. I think the Demigod discussion is valid, but there's more here to consider.

[Phantom]

Some random thoughts:

- As a Drgaon Stompy player I highly encourage people to pick up these 4-5 color control decks. Seriously, they are awesome.

- The problem I think I have with Demigod is that it's a 3-of, that wants to be a 1-of, that HAS to be a 3-of. I just think running three five casting cost cards that require either a 1-of land, or an unfettered Intuition, in a deck with no real draw engine. I can just see you hating every opening hand it is in, which is not a good thing.

- Collective Restraint seems cute but my problems with it are that it seems too slow to stop Goblins and EtW, and the same casting cost as Moat, which I suppose you could possibly run (though it is not blue). Basically I'm wondering what matchups this slot is working for you in.

- The problem I am having is that I have no feel of how the deck plays. I know you are against matchup %'s, which I can respect, but give us something. After reading the article and this thread I now know that the deck loses to Dragon Stompy and extirpate. That's about it.

[ixid]

It is interesting to see this deck, along with the earlier Vrosh deck and some other concepts I've seen, as well as this list I'll add of my own there's a definate direction of evolution. There is a top level deck here that we're heading towards.

This is my rough take:
26 lands
1 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Forest
4 Windswept Heath
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Academy Ruins
1 Volrath's Stronghold

8 Beatsticks
4 Werebear
4 Tarmogoyf

11 Tutor/draw/Liffe from the Loom
4 Brainstorm
2 Merchant Scroll
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Life from the Loam

7 Sweepers
4 Engineered Explosives
3 Nevinyrral's Disk

8 Permission
4 Daze
4 Force of Will

So. There are some clear agreements and disagreements in our thinking. We've both ditched Standstill after adding Tarmogoyf to a roughly Landstill base and developed from there. Like some other posters I'd strongly question both the 5C build - this seems unnecessarily risky and unreliable and you can easily ditch 2 colours without significant loss of function. The second question is the Demigod. It seems way too hard to cast and from my messing around with the deck concept I've really disliked any dead cards in the earlier stages of the game. The deck's aim is surely survival and then sweeping, after which a Tarmogoyf or similar gets the job done. The colour pressure of the Demigod has also lead you to drop the Mishra's Factories, something I've found to be very important at preserving your health for long enough to really get into the game.

I can see the deck evolving away from Wasteland certainly even though I still have them in the list. There are some questions to consider - is Pernicious Deed that much better than Nevinyrall's Disk? The Disk can deal with so many potential problems and overall works out cheaper a lot of the time and interacts with Academy Ruins. Ruins and Volrath's Stronghold are very powerful but sometimes it feels like the deck can get left behind attempting to recurr a Tarmogoyf vs a deck that can answer and still otherwise develop its game. Not running 4 Engineered Explosives seems crazy to me, they are so good, sweeping the one and two mana spots where you'll often hit multiple cards and then recurring with Academy Ruins. I've even considered running Solemn Simulacrum or looking for recur-worthy arti creatures, perhaps Juggernaut, that might be a seperate deck that commits more heavily to Academy Ruins.

Another question is Intuition vs Gifts Ungiven. I'm unsure having run both, I'd usually be sweeping before I needed the setup card so would have developed sufficient mana for Gifts, and with Intuition it'd often feel like I needed 2 of them to setup the end game state. Gifts needs one. Gigapede is a potential fix to this problem as it allows Intuition to set up an artifact sweeper recursion and a creature (Int for Gigapede/Life from the Loam/Academy Ruins as you'll usually have drawn a suitable sweeper). It also allows the development of your position by drawing more useful cards and discarding instead of replacing your draw as Volrath's Stronghold does. Possibly abandoning Volrath's Stronghold (it's the only reason my version even runs black and Tarmogoyf recursion is just that good) leads toward a very stable 2 colour base if the deck uses Nev's Disk over Pernicious Deed.

I really don't like Sensei's Divining Top and Counterbalance, the deck's a sweeper deck and even if it were not Counterbalance seems to miss more often than hit. This deck needs tempo-oriented tools like Daze to stay in the game initially before you sweep and set up good stuff with Intuition or Gifts. Counterbalance doesn't work towards this plan at all and feels like a tempo black hole. Sensei's Divining Top feels too slow and as it's not blue you're reducing the Force of Will support count.

[Anusien]

That deck is completely different from the one this thread is set to discuss in about 10 ways. Please post in an appropriate thread for it. No Counterbalance, no Deed, extra creatures, 2.5 colors.

[ixid]

It's the same strategic concept and direction of development but so be it.

[HSCK]

This thread is called 5C Intuition Control, your deck lacks everything in the title......

I was wondering if you ever considered maindeck Firespout instead of keeping it in the board and playing Collective SB for other match-ups. Firespout really helps with the bad matches and you can bring Restraint in to improve things like Threshold where you're closer to 50/50.

[Anusien]

You need a large number of blue cards main. Collective Restraint helps with that. There might be a better solution though.