I've been thinking of including either some Trinispheres or some Arcane Laboratories to drop in against Omni-Tell players' Show and Tells, but I'm undecided about which would be better. Does anyone have any thoughts about which of the two are better? Some pros and cons of each that I've thought of:
Trinisphere
Pros
Can potentially be cast on turn 2 if you so desired (Cloudpost turn 1, Glimmerpost turn 2)
Can severely hinder an opponent that is mana-screwed
Cons
If an opponent has six mana, they can still get two spells in
Arcane Laboratory
Pros
Adds to your blue card count for use with Force of Will
If you are playing counters, their non-Emrakul cards will definitely be countered by a counter you have in hand
Cons
Omni-Tell player can get a spell in on your turn (Cunning Wish or Dig Through Time), giving them twice as many spells as a Trinisphere out when they have less than six mana
Overall, I'm thinking that Trinisphere is probably the more powerful card with possibly more applications, but if anyone has any thoughts on this I would like to hear them.
In other news, I have been playing the BoozeCube list and the funky mono-brown Japanese list (
http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=16587&iddeck=124169 for reference) at some small local weeklies and have been enjoying them a bunch. I think the lists emphasize our strengths in the fair matchups and make us even better off against anything non-combo. I also love Maze of Ith in these decks, as decks like Infect seem so much more simple than the traditional UG builds. I haven't seen much discussion at all about the Japanese lists on here, but I wish I could contact one of the pilots and ask them about some of the strange inclusions (Diamond Valley, WTF?).
As with every build that doesn't include blue, I feel like excluding blue leaves us handicapped. Show and Tell is the one thing that can threaten at least somewhat fast, and countermagic gives us a fighting chance against some of the holes in our strategy. I would never stray from UG when going to a serious tournament, as I feel that UG gives us the most complete deck for any situation. But the nonblue lists are fun and at times dominating.