Originally Posted by
nudon
After more extensive testing, I want to shed some [negative] light on mox opal. While the magic number of 16 blue cards works for pitching to FoW, mox opal isn't as consistent for 2 reasons: metalcraft requires 3 artifacts instead of 2 and grim monolith needs an initial investment of 2 mana. While there is definitely possibility for some explosive hands, it also hurts having grim monolith stuck in hand and not being able to turn on metalcraft. This problem is compounded with living wish hands in which we can't use summoner's pact to play grim monolith since we don't have 6 mana yet. Moreover, the double opal hand is absolutely atrocious (probably why belcher doesn't play it) as indicated in previous posts. This effort was not completely wasted though as I realized I really hate LED sometimes and I think it's worth exploring replacing LED entirely with grim monolith. The argument for this is that LED is dead unless we have a way to get up to 3 mana first. Grim monolith is 1 mana faster, stores chancellor mana, and ramps us if played off a chrome mox. Finally, pact of negation is live again.
I totally agree about destroying our sb and now think there's no reason to play more than these 5 lands: peat bog, hickory woodlot, cavern of souls, city of traitors, and city of brass (good catch about keeping it in hand). I know I haven't explained why I think hickory woodlot is a must yet but here's why. There are very many games where you'll have a hand with 2 living wish, ESG, SSG, lotus petal, and some other junk. The play would be to use the ESG + SSG and wish for woodlot, setting up a next turn wish -> rogue. I think we should just eshew the alternate win-con in the sb entirely because we still need to keep cabal therapy in to name StP. It might be better to have something like abrupt decay (pitches to chrome mox pretty nicely too).
Edit: Here's my latest list if anyone's curious.
4 Undercity Informer
3 Balustrade Spy
4 Living Wish
4 Narcomoeba
1 Dread Return
1 Sutured Ghoul
1 Dragon Breath
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Grim Monolith - 4 monoliths vs 3 c. ritual because it provides a lot of utility (store chancellor mana, ramp with mox, better with heavy spirit guide hand + living wish)
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Wild Cantor
3 Pact of Negation - 3 instead of 4 because double PoN in hand is not what I want to see
Sideboard
1 City of Brass
1 Peat Bog
1 Hickory Woodlot
1 Cavern of Souls
1 City of Traitors
1 Balustrade Spy
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Pact of Negation
2 Dismember - specifically to deal with DRS/hate bears
2 Nature's Claim - RiP, LotV, crypt, relic, spellbomb
The only hate this deck can't beat is faerie macabre but the sb can be tweaked according to the known meta.