UBW cheater's deck

[mada7]

Forgive me if this has already been written about somewhere and I havent seen it yet. I reard rumblings at a recent legacy tournament I was at that a deck based around looking at your opponent's hand then playing cards like Meddling Mage, declaration of naught, chalice of the void and runed halo to prevent them from playing any of the cards in their hand won a major tournament somewhere. I havent seen a decklist anywhere for it so I was looking for some help to recreate it.

The core of the deck seems to be as follows (Ill leave the mana base out for now just to get a feel for what the deck is supposed to be doing as it doesnt run a high curve)

Creatures:
4x Meddling Mage

Spells:
4x Peek
4x Spy Network
4x Cabal Therapy (originally wrote down as ritual but this is the intended card)
4x Duress

Enchantment:
4x Declaration of Naught
4x Runed Halo
4x Telepathy

Artifact:
4x Chalice of the void

These numbers are obviously flexible to allow the deck more versatility. The way this is supposed to play out is as follows:

Turn 1: Look at the opponent's hand any way possible
Turn 2: Block what you believe will be their turn 2 drop with either with meddling mage or cabal ritual
Turn 3+: if you did not see a turn 3 drop in their starting hand look again and block it. just keep looking at hteir hand a blocking what you believe they want to play

Some other possibilities for the deck that I didnt include on the list:

Brainstorm/force of will/ponder- The deck runs blue so these would be distinct possibilities

Glasses of Urza - Repeatable looking at the opponent's hand for 1 mana

Pithing Needle - Shut down problematic lands and annoying abilities like the top

Daze - Help prevent the opponent from getting off to a quick start while you set up your game

Umezawa's Jitte - Helps speed up the game once you got it under control

Cranial Extraction - Youre going to know what they have in their hands at all times so you'll never miss with this but might be a bit too slow

Id really like to hear some of the ideas people have for this or if anyone has seen a similar list ot this floating around somewhere

[dirtyapes]

You can run Tidehollow Scullers or Mesmeric Fiends too. I'm pretty sure you want to run Cabal Therapy too and not Cabal Ritual.

[MTG-Fan]

I tried something like this in Standard a while back.

The problem is, with all of these proactive counterspells like Meddling Mage and Declaration of Naught, is that they will ALWAYS topdeck something that you can't deal with. And then all you have is subpar board presence to their topdecked bomb.

Maybe something like Zur's Weirding... but that's a stretch. I think it's impossible to fully lock the game down with proactive measures without dying in the process.

[Anusien]

What if they have two possible two drops? Or for that matter, what if you're on the draw?

[Roman Candle]

So, how is the idea of Spy Network/Peek plus Meddling Mage/Declaration of Naught really better than just, y'know, countering their spell?

[Media314r8]

Spy network doesn't cantrip, it's really just an absolutely awful card, and you're not even running predict to potentially make it card neutrality. Duress is strictly worse than thoughtseize here, as you really don't want them to have two creatures you can't lock out, and as your plan is to never allow them to have guys on board, the lifeloss shouldn't matter. The concept is interesting, but there are a few changes I would make. I recommend starting with:

spells: (28)
4 thoughtseize
4 spell snare (sometimes they WILL be on the play)
4 sensei's diving top
3 runed halo
4 daze
4 counterbalance
4 force of will
1 vedalkin shackles

creatures: (12)
4 meddling mage
4 tidehollow sculler
3 mesmeric fiend
1 sower of temptation

lands: (20)
4 polluted delta
4 flooded strand
4 tundra
4 underground sea
1 Scrubland (for when you want to T1 thoughtseize off this and turn two sculler/runed halo off scrub+tundra)
1 island
1 gargoyle castle
1 kor haven

SB:
3 ghostly prison
3 engineered explosives
3 trinket mage
2 pithing needle
4 blue elemental blast/hydroblast

I'm not sure about the two colorless lands, but they serve as removal and a wincondition for when your opponent's goyfs are held at bay by a runed halo, but your utility bears can't attack. They obviously have poor synergy with daze/ WW/WB/UU spells, but may be worth it. Testing may replace them with basic islands, fetches, or rav duals to skirt exirpate, and co. I think MM allways needs to be chanting removal game 1 and krosan grip game two, as a K grip on a sculler, runed halo, or counterbalance is devestating, and there is only a single 3 in the deck that your probably don't want floating for CB.

I would start there and see how it plays, it's not as 'cute' as spy network, but it should be more competitive.