2
Grid Monitor
4 Leveler
4 Boomerang
4 Concentrate
2 Lightning Greaves
4 Mana Leak
2 Parallel Thoughts
3 Shared Fate
2 Stifle
1 Tel-Jilad Stylus
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Vorrac Battlehorns
2 Words of Wind
14 Island
2 Flooded Strand
4 Lonely Sandbar
4 Seat of the Synod |
  Librarian's
Nightmare.
Description of deck by it's author
(quoted):
It's that highly undercosted creature (power and toughness at least
double the converted mana cost) in the set that comes with a bit of
baggage-a heinous, you'll-probably-lose-the-game-now comes-into-play
ability. The 10/10 (plus drawbacks) Leviathan and the 9/9 (with no
drawbacks at all) Krosan Colossus both cost mana, so removing your
library from the game seems to only save you 4 or 5 mana. Some coupon
that turns out to be.
Surprisingly, there are lots of ways to keep playing the game with an
empty library. Why, Obstinate Familiar will let you do it! So will
Abundance. But from that point on, you're just spinning your wheels.
You'll never see a new card the rest of the game (which, since you've
got a 10/10 creature out, you hope is mercifully short).
You can create a new library by shuffling cards back into it. Reminisce,
Feldon's Cane, Thran Foundry - but those rely on your having cards in
your graveyard first. You want to get Leveler out as quickly as
possible, so that becomes a less attractive plan. Tel-Jilad Stylus will
let you keep putting your permanents back into your library. Once you've
got an empty library, you could get some recursion going using a
creature with a comes-into-play ability (a good one). You'll draw it and
play it every turn! But basing a combo on the premise of an empty
library is like building a house on a quicksand lot. Verrrry squishy.
Your best bet is simply to replace your draw with something else. Any of
the Onslaught Words enchantments will take care of that for you and
still let you get a beneficial effect out of your draw step. And then we
get to the 5-mana blue enchantments. Parallel Thoughts lets you create a
sub-library of seven cards. It will help you find a Leveler in the first
place, and it will prevent you from losing via decking for a few turns
once the Leveler is out. Shared Fate is even better: It lets you "draw"
and play cards from your opponent's library while your opponent does the
same with your library... but wait... you don't have any cards in your
library! Did you see that? Leveler just transformed from a colorless
fatty into a combo lock. Your opponent won't see any new cards for the
rest of the game.
There is one more way to get around Leveler's anti-library antics, and
that's with Stifle. But that's boring.
Just in case things don't go your way Leveler-wise, a Grid Monitor will
accomplish much the same effect at half the size. You'll either win the
game with it, or it will be removed and the path will be clear for a
Leveler. (Or you'll lose, but that kinda kills the vibe we had going.) I
included a couple of pieces of Equipment (Lightning Greaves and Vorrac
Battlehorns) because we want to start attacking with our 10/10
immediately, we don't want said 10/10 bounced or Shattered, and we
certainly don't want that 10/10 to fail to deliver massive doses of
damage while being chump blocked until our library tricks collapse like
a house of... well, you know.
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