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Hey, sounds fun! Thanks for sharing your tech. I like the ability to grow a spellskite really big with wild defiance also; very cool. Mimic vat is a card that never really got serious consideration but I think is really bonkers. I am not sure why it never really took off.

I said I would post my own deck to get us started and haven't yet, so I appreciate you jumping in and getting the ball rolling.

As a limited player I have always liked the interraction between removal that is on permanents that triggers when those permanents come into play. I especially like cards like Journey to Nowhere and Oblivion Ring because you can keep the other permanent from coming back if you return the enchantment to your hand with the first ability on the stack.

I brewed up a Saving Grasp deck that uses grasp, cloudshift, restoration angel, blade splicer, fiend hunter, zealous conscripts and a few copies of snapcaster mage, mana leak and ponder to round the deck out. It's a lot of fun to play a grasp with Fiend Hunter's ability on the stack to deal with something permanently and then do the same thing next turn. Peel from Reality is another card that gets a lot of mileage in this build as it can tempo them and let you reload your stuff. A simple cloudshift to untap a restoration angel or two and then flash a fiend hunter that has a more tempting target is a nice cascade that makes combat difficult for them. Also, the zombie deck has a tough time killing you when Geralf's Messenger never comes back and neither does gravecrawler. Blood Artist is awfully bad when nothing actually dies. A slayer of the wicked out of the board makes their life even less pleasant. If the game goes long enough for you to cloudshift or grasp zealous conscripts you can really mess them up. I had a lot of fun with the deck, and naturally it can't beat Delver so I don't play it. Ah well. It was fun brewing it up, anyway.

I don't think I did anything improper by writing my article as I did. I also don't think that by sheer virtue of his having made an explanation of himself that my condemnation of him is rendered moot. I want to allow him the opportunity to defend himself in my article as a courtesy and because I think my readers will find it compelling to hear his side. That does not mean I wrote my article in haste, should have conducted a more thorough "investigation" or waited around for him to deign to grant me an interview before I made a judgment. Just because he has an explanation does not mean he didn't cheat and I don't think for a second waiting for his explanation would have "made [my] writing …. easier"

I do appreciate the feedback, and it's nice to hear from someone who was not as quick to condemn as was everyone else. I made a judgment call to not wait to break the story and I don't regret it, but I have an appreciation for your ability to make a more informed decision in the matter.

Keep the comments coming, I really appreciate seeing my articles spark a civil debate in the comments.

"Then I used polluted delta and looked on in horror as the bottom card of my deck stuck to the play mat as it had done about five times that tournament. Then I scooped it into my hand untapped my lands and played the batterskull post combat. I remember uttering some comment like “Oh my God I’m going to be the next bertoncini”."

He clearly states he KNEW there was a problem with board/game state. he should have called a judge (there's one right there) if he already presented a shuffled deck, or scooped the card and shuffled it in if he hadn't presented without any issue, after all he knew it wasn't going to be the land. I've even seen some people pick up half their deck and search for the land then pick up the rest to shuffle, there's nothing wrong, as long as you're presenting a proper board state (a shuffled deck at the end of the effect. instead, he decided to scoop it up and then had the balls to play the card into a win. That's cheating, that's inexcusable and i don't care about anything else he wrote, he admitted it and now deserves a significant ban from WotC. i commend SCG for their dilligence, but it should have been handled earlier. As a result Durward got a free win that i don't think he should have.