Quote Originally Posted by Barook View Post
It dies horribly to artifact hate, though.

A potential sequence could be:
T1: Land, Vial
T2: Land, Mindcrank
T3: Land, vial in Guildmage, keep mana open just in case anything happens or provoke action with a free spell like Gut Shot

The main question is the rest of the shell. Brainstorm and counters should be good, vialed in Snapcasters (or Baleful Strix) could be interesting as well.

Actually, while thinking about it - what about a B/U Storm shell with Rituals and stuff + Brain Freeze? You would need 6-7 storm (depending on fetchland use) + one activation to go lethal. Mindcrank doesn't sound too hot with Abrupt Decay around. You could even include Nivmagus Elemental.

Edit: Quick question: Does the Priest trigger once or multiple times if the gets e.g. blocked by three creatures without first strike?
This combo is absolutely playable - its comparable to the Painter/Stone combo, except better in a very important way: Emrakul in their deck won't stop the mill. Painter Stone costs 1 & 2, then 3 to activate. This combo costs 2 and 2 and 3 to activate. The Guildmage (like Painter) can be fetched via Imperial Recruiter if someone wanted to go UBR and he pitches to Force. He is a Wizard, so he could be fetched via Vedalken Æthermage or could be played in some Wizard/tribal deck (which could easily support 3 colors via Cavern of Souls and you can still Patron Wizard for that tribal synergy).

Besides that, I imagine it could see play in a UBw deck with Stoneforge. Equipment would certainly make the 2/2 body more relevant and allows for an obvious combo with Sword of Body & Mind.

Also, Gifts enables this combo in a pile of Volrath's Stronghold, Academy Ruins, Guildmage, Mindcrank. It's slow and vulnerable to graveyard hate, but could be decent.