@Waikiki: Generally, the match against Dragon Stompy (post-boarded) goes something like this (or at least, that's the hope):

1) Use Blasts and Swords to buy time.

2) If they drop Chalice, try to deal with it.

3) Get to Pernicious Deed.

4) If there's a Moon effect stopping you from playing Deed, get to Disk.

5) If there's a Needle on Disk, get to Explosives.

6) I highly doubt there would be a Needle on both Disk and Explosives (because they have to worry about Deed as well), but try to prevent that (with counter magic).

7) Slow them down. The slower the game goes, the better it is for you.

Because you could theoretically board in eleven cards (assuming you're using my board), you have to make sure you keep in enough cards to execute your primary game plan. Just be careful sideboarding. The match should be significantly easier post board because of all the powerful cards you now have access to.

@Morgan Coke: I think that a toolbox effect that goes beyond what I have now would be dangerous. Intuition (and to a larger extent, Gifts Ungiven) both come inherently packaged with the Danger of Cool Things. It's very easy to get carried away and add in cards you like that are strong in certain matchups with the reasoning, "It's fine, I'll just Intuition for it." That's putting too much strain on Intuition. On the deck itself as well. I have a good bit of versatility with my list, and I think that adding too much more would stretch it to the breaking point.

@Hanni: OK, so this is going to be a long one. I'll add the points numerically, and if it's confusing which point I'm talking about, feel free to ask for clarification.

1) What's with the disclaimer?

2) I disagree about basic Swamp. Having access to the color of my removal (and the majority of your removal) in desperate times (Back to Basics, Moon effects, etc.) is drastically important to your continued survival in that game.

3) Thoughtseize does NOT count as removal. There's no way to consider it as such. When your opponent has a Tarmogoyf in play, and you draw a Thoughtseize, that Thoughtseize does NOT destroy your opponent's Tarmogoyf. Thus, it is NOT removal. Counting it as such because you could THEORETICALLY, take it out of your opponent's hand is a logical fallacy.

4) The removal package that I play is: 4 Swords to Plowshares, 3 Pernicious Deed, 2 Engineered Explosives, 1 Vedalken Shackles. I've found this to be very efficient.

5) Your list is boggling. You only play twenty lands, which is far too few. Putting such a strain on Intuition to find Loam every single time should probably mean that you should play more Loams.

5a) You have six(!) lands that don't tap for blue, and yet you still want to achieve Counterbalance/Top as early as possible. That's going to be difficult.

5b) Shriekmaw is inefficient to recur and to play. Also, him countering Force is less relevant because of your own Forces. It's better to have a number of cards higher than zero at the four slot in order to make sure that you can counter things at the four slot that would be dangerous. Things like Fact or Fiction can get your opponent back into the game, and you want to prevent that from happening. Additionally, Mystic Enforcer can sometimes end the game quickly (especially if you're counting on Shriekmaw recursion).

5c) I've found that Counterspell is a bad draw too early. In your list, the problems would be exacerbated. With too many not blue lands, and so few lands in general, combined with the fact that you have to use Top to find lands means that you generally don't have too much mana left over. I've found the card to be better as a two-of.

5d) Wasteland is poor. In a deck where the top of your deck is as vitally important as it is to this one, milling three and skipping a draw (and a land drop) to destroy a single land is the single most inefficient thing I can think of. If you are adamant about playing something as poor as that, then Dust Bowl would actually be better. Only marginally because I think it's a poor strategy, but whatever. I can only offer my opinions.

5e) Two Krosan Grip is too few. A good Threshold draw that drops a Counterbalance (along with a Daze and a Force) will easily screw you right out of the game. You need to be able to deal with Counterbalance. It's a priority.

5f) A singleton Tombstalker is baffling. What would you bring it in against and why? Control? The deck that's guaranteed to have a large amount of removal? It can't be against Aggro decks because you won't be able to play him in time. Combo? I'll assume that's a no. He might be strong against certain Aggro/Control decks, but he's only a one-of. This boggles my mind.

5g) Eternal Witness is insanely good. I think you're missing out on a lot by not playing her.

5h) (I'm going to talk about Extirpate in your sideboard, and then save my comments for Extirpate in general for later.) I think Extirpate is a poor choice in your sideboard. Couple of reasons.

5HA1) Extirpate is poor grave hate against Ichorid.

5HA2) Your plan of bringing it in against control seems poor as well because there are better cards to be playing if you were worried about control.

5HA3) Extirpate is bad.

5HA4) Against Loam, you can't affect the creatures. That's how the deck is going to beat you. With Counterbalance, you should be able to reliably stop Life from the Loam, but you won't always reliably stop the creatures (side note here: you play fewer three drops than I do, so it might be a bigger deal for you). Extirpate deals with Loam, which is a card that you already have answers for. Instead, dealing with Terravore is extremely important. Since he's the creature who's going to be large, and able to get through the wall of Tarmogoyfs, he's the one you have to worry about. Extirpate Loam doesn't really help. Crypt on the other hand shrinks Terravore while also being stellar against Ichorid. Plus, it's not card disadvantage. Which is important.

6) I have had very little problems getting to the four colors that I need to support Etched Oracle with my manabase. Even in the face of opposing Wastelands and such. Twenty three lands is a good number. I'm adamantly opposed to twenty lands. There were a few issues when I was running the manabase at twenty one (although I could work around it), but twenty is entirely too low. Especially for a deck that wants to reliably get to three (at the minimum)

7) You said "the deck has two natural sources of topdecked green for the basic Forests", and yet, I don't see any basic Forests. What do you mean with this statement?

8) There's no need to "lessen the burden on white mana" if you have a basic Plains in the deck. Wasteland can't hit that. I'm telling you man, basic Plains is fantastic.

9) Freakish is right, what's with the pants-wetting fear over combo? Duress, Thoughtseize, Force, Counterbalance, and Counterspell is logically more than enough.

10) On the topic of Extirpate, here goes.

The card is just straight up bad. I want people to recognize that. The purpose of this forum, indeed of this "marketplace of ideas" if you will, is to help other people learn. The better ideas in this free marketplace are the ideas that should be espoused to the general public. I've found that in my extensive testing and playing of the card that it sucks donkey balls. I genuinely want other people to know how abhorrently bad the card is, and to let them know that it's a bad card.

I do it for the same reason why I'll tell anyone that playing Mountain Goat in Enchantress is poor. I feel that if I can legitimately help other people become better at Magic, then I should. Which is why it infuriates me when people stifle discussion.

For example, I grew rather upset at XSivPSI's post. Just dropping a list into a thread doesn't really engender discussion.

It's similar with Extirpate. It's like watching people talk about how effective swords are at killing people when you're using a gun. Why not introduce them to the efficiency of a gun? It's strictly better for it's intended purpose. Sure, it looks cooler, but is that really worth it? I would say no.

Additionally, the fact that Extirpate is card disadvantage is a complete beating against Control decks. You need to make sure that you can keep up with them and voluntarily throwing away cards is not the best way to do so.

I love the Control mirror and would gladly play it every single round (if I was playing It's the Fear). I've done quite a bit of testing and definitely know my stuff about it. I've even used Extirpate in many of the decks that I was testing because I originally thought the card was useful. After testing it for months and months (other people down here can attest to that), I came to the conclusion that it was fucking awful. That's months of testing against a large variety of decks. It's decent about ten percent of the time. That's an abysmally low number for a card that should be competing with some of the best cards that you have in your deck.

I can just keep going about Extirpate, but it doesn't sound like you're open to discussion on the matter. So that's fine. I'm sure sometime down the line you'll realize it. Hopefully, that day will be soon, but that's outside my control.