Skill Game

[VeniVidiVici]

Skill Borrower's one of those cards that I always keep in the back of my mind when looking at the spoiler for a new set, but somehow I forgot about it when AVR was released. People have tried almost every way imaginable of abusing Griselbrand, but as far as I can tell Skill Borrower's interaction with it hasn't really been explored yet. Basically, Skill Borrower + some method of putting Griselbrand on top of your library (my prototype list uses Worldly/Sylvan Tutor as they can find Borrower as well, but you could try something more convoluted like Intuition + Noxious Revival or just set it up naturally with Brainstorm/SDT/Jace) lets you draw 14 cards very cheaply in a way that's difficult to interact with. From there, you should be able to kill them pretty easily, especially since you can use any drawn Tutors/Brainstorms to set up a new creature for Borrower.

First draft:
4 Skill Borrower
3 Griselbrand
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Mogg Fanatic
1 Kuro, Pitlord

4 Worldly Tutor
3 Sylvan Tutor

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce

2 Elvish Spirit Guide
3 Lotus Petal

2 Cavern of Souls
1 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Forest

It's possible that this deck is just worse than the existing options, but there are a number of things I like about it. Thanks to Griselbrand, the deck has a built-in resilience against creature removal: you can just refill your hand and work to reestablish the combo in a turn or two. The fact that Worldly/Sylvan Tutor fit into the deck naturally as part of the combo means that you get the ability to run silver bullets in the MD/SB (e.g. Canonist/Gilded Drake/Teeg/Ooze for combo, Pridemage as removal for troublesome permanents, Sylvan Safekeeper as protection, etc.)

A few things to think about:
- Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors are great to have in a deck like this, and this deck could make excellent use of Cavern of Souls, but you probably can't play them together (not in full quantities at least) and you still need enough lands to support Brainstorm/Ponder/Tutors. Most hands with Tomb/City/Cavern as the only land are unkeepable, and we want to decrease our vulnerability to Wasteland.
- If we cut down on Tomb/City/Cavern, Counterbalance could be an interesting tool out of the SB.
- If we max out on Griselbrand, Show and Tell (and some analogous effect on a creature; is there anything better than Shifty Doppelganger?) becomes a viable SB plan. Some way to avoid Surgical Extraction would be nice, and this seems best.
- What's the correct mix of acceleration? ESG/Petal is necessary to be able to cast enough Tutors on the turn we combo off, and I want some number of Moxen and Tombs/Cities.

Any input would be much appreciated!

[Infinitium]

I'd probably drop the acceleration altogether, add white for Enlightened Tutor/Mother of Runes/Goodstuff and try to play it as a gimp U-splash Maverick with a combo option. Probably ditch the Grieselbrands as well; it's sole advantage over Kiki is the fact it can be one turn faster but then what? You're at low life, don't run a lot of disruption and unlike S&T/Reanimator you don't have a win condition in play.

[Cybey]

I'd probably add Noxious Revival.

[Malchar]

Try mimicking the manabase of the show and tell decklists. Skill borrower basically functions the exact same as show and tell (it even has the same mana cost), except that you need the Griselbrand to be on top of your library instead of in hand. The nice advantage is that the only counterable part is the worldly tutor, but you also get sylvan tutor and sensei's top/fetch to try and find a winner on top. Too bad that mwonvuli beast tracker can't search for Griselbrand or Kiki-Jiki, otherwise both parts of the combo would be uncounterable through a cavern of souls on humans. There is boggart harbinger, but it doesn't share any types with skill borrower.

Noxious revival seems like one of the best options. You can also use something like tormod's crypt on yourself to fizzle the surgical extraction.