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Get out Sages of the Anima and Sphinx of the Chimes . Discard two cards that share a name: Reveal the top twelve cards of your library and put all revealed creatures into your hand. You should then be able to repeat this 2-3 times to put all creatures in your deck into your hand. Then use the chimes with Grave-Shell Scarab to mill the rest of your library (sage replacement effect will stop you from dying). Pitch the Simian Spirit Guide s and use Wild Cantor to get blue mana to cast Laboratory Maniac . Activate the chimes one more time and choose to replace the draw with maniac ability rather than sages ability to win.


4 Ancient Ziggurat
10 Forest
5 Island
1 Swamp

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Coiling Oracle  
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Farhaven Elf
4 Ana Battlemage

4 Sages of the Anima
4 Sphinx of the Chimes
2 Grave-Shell Scarab  
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Wild Cantor
1 Laboratory Maniac


What do you think? 

Scarab seems out of place, Wild Cantor should probably be a 4-of, and you need a way to protect both your Sphinx and/or your Maniac, or else a way to win without Maniac.

Simian Spirit Guide+Conflagrate would work. Also some Pacts.


So basically, Ad Nauseam but with Sphinx instead.


4 Sphinx of the Chimes

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierach 
4 Lotus Cobra 
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Fauna Shaman
3 Mystic Snake 

4 Pact of Negation
4 Mana Leak

4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Conflagrate

4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Breeding Pool
1 Steam Vents
5 Forest
3 Island       


Fauna Shaman allows you to find Sphinx, and saves you midcombo if you're whiffing, by swapping out one of your "wrong" creatures for a pair and keeping you going. Chancellor accelerates the combo; turn 1 Cobras and Shamans are incredibly sexy.    

Strangly, I hadn't actually thought of that.  I suppose the only worries you'd have would be VS split Second ( Wipe Away , Sudden Death and Sudden Shock ).

Still, while the deck is all abut drawing itself via Sages + Sphinx, I'd worry about not having a back up plan.  Tormod's Crypt would do a fair job as shutting down your ability to Dredge.  Not hard to hit them both since you're intentionally discarding them both at the same time.

Some kind of back up plan seems like it really needs to be in place.  You could try a Sphinx beatdown, but it's not hard to see how much of a draw engine it is, so it's already going to draw removal.  You do have the 2 Scarab, but a pair of 4/4 and a bunch of 1/1s aren't something most decks will worry about.

After a second look, I also worry the deck looks a little slow.  Feels like you need a way to tutor up at least Sages.  Don't know what I'd use though.  Elvish Harbinger can do the job, and he can grab a few other targets in your deck too, while providing mana himself to help you ramp.  However, it's a slow tutor.

Nov 30, 2012 -- 9:02AM, felisdomesticus wrote:

It seems kinda slow and inconsistent.  You need a 5 cmc and a 6 cmc combo piece, you lose to removal (literally), you need 2 nonland cards that share a name to go off, and you have no dig to find your combo.

I think you're better off just playing twin. 

My version fixes most of those problems by dropping a piece, adding in dorks and a tutor, and, more recently than that post, adding in Infernal Tutor which is really sexy.