thanks for giving the deck a try. It is certainly a deck that performs better over time as the pilot gets used to the various possibilities the deck offers during the games. It is certainly not the most straightforward deck to play but I believe it is much more interesting then a simple burn to the face deck. If you are interested in Pauper I highly recommend pdcmagic.com.
Good luck in the queues!

@NoxNoctis: I like your second decklist – it is much more focused and even more aggressive then your first one. How are you doing in the queues with it? Generally discard is good against storm as sometimes one missing card can ruin the game plan.

The losses were to a red/blue control/burn deck and to a very aggressive aggro red deck with lots of burn. The biggest problem with the mimic is it’s extremely vulnerable to burn before it becomes a 4/4. However my opponent spent several burn spells to take it out in 7/7 form on more than one occasion which was a very good sign.

There was a close win in there which was brilliant, dropped a hag, hit with the mimic (with edge) taking the opponent down to 8, then next turn played blind hunter, swung with the mimic for game. He’d just played an 8/8 with annihilator so it was very fortuitous as I didn’t have that much life to lose!

Do you have a link to that top performing pauper deck?

4x Duress
2x Consume Spirit (not sure about that card…)

I changed my original deck though (the one I emailed in) to this which works better but still has issues. I’d say I win about 9/10 games in the “casual play” area.

I’m definitely going to be looking more into mixing in another color though and I like some of these others cards suggested especially nightsky mimic.

Anyways the revised version of my original deck is this, thoughts?:

4x Carnophage
4x Vampire Lacerator
4x Guul Draz Vampire
4x Skittering Skirge
4x Blind Creeper

4x Sign in Blood
2x Soul Reap
4x Dark Ritual
4x Geth’s Verdict
2x Vampire Link

4x Piranha Marsh
14x Swamp

Sideboard:

4x Augur of Skulls
3x Dash Hopes
2x Distress
2x Doom Blade
4x Talara’s Bane

(A lot of those sideboard cards are supposed to be anti-storm deck which was causing me grief but the sideboard is still pretty terrible…)

Anyways basically I put in geth’s verdict and piranha marsh to help with getting my guul draz vampires the 3/2+evade even faster and vampire link to deal with nasty big green or artifact creatures… or if I need to plunk it on one of my own (usually skittering skirge) to get a bit of extra life back. So I like that card because it can be both offense/defense.

I realize I have even fewer lands now but honestly in practice it hasn’t been an issue. I’m almost never “mana screwed” because 3/5 of my creature cards only require one mana and the rest only 2, and I got rid of the more expensive sorceries.

Anyways I’m going to be trying to meld the white elements in with the above deck and see what happens. Suggestions welcome on the above deck though!

thanks

@Phroggie: As indicated in the intro I am not necessarily trying to be creative but rather use the submitted requirement and budget to find and tune existing deck ideas or even established concepts the beginner often isn’t even aware of. In this case the decklist is close to well tested Pauper tournament decks that performed very well in the past. While the metagame is constantly changing and archetypes are gaining and losing popularity I am trying to get power and flexibility into the build.

@Manhandle: I agree that the deck is fun to play due to the nice interaction between the singles and the possibility to handle nearly all threats. Crypt Rats are a nice sideboard card but if you are handling a smaller budget not really a must have.

Thanks for the comments!