Mentor almost always wins with Ulamog because it blows up Bridge.

Storage Lands know how to satisfy your needs...heck, you can even blow up your OWN bridge if you were so inclined...but that would be weird and inefficient.

Has anyone ever used Pulse of the Dross? Cause Lotus Memnite Pulse of the Dross seems just as good as blackmail or whatever except not banned.

Obviously not in this round but it seems reasonable in some vanilla formats

That's pretty much equivalent to Coercion, which I think I've seen once or twice in the past.

Blackmail has two bonuses: it can be played in non-Lotus rounds, and it can be played with The Rack, which is a much better threat than Memnite if your deck supports it.

Oh yeah...actual coercion as well as obscure cards like Pulse of the Dross.

True, the rack is good. That makes sense.

I think the better version of dross.dec is Black Lotus / Abandon Hope / Nether Spirit. Abandon Hope is legal because the deck is incapable of casting it for more than X=1. The threat the deck lands is a recurring 2/2 rather than a one-time 1/1. And in an absolute pinch (read: an opposing Leyline of Sanctity, making casting Abandon Hope impossible), you could actually hardcast the Spirit.

I'm Repulsed by this discussion

You need a better Pulse Tracker.

That goes against every Impulse I have...

Well, that's what happens when you Act on Impulse.

That may indeed have been the Death Pulse this terrible pun war needed...

I tempted, in my drunken annoyed at limited losses state, to play
Vebulid
Vebulid
Swamp
storagecreature.dec

Black Lotus

Anyways: Any deck that's faster really. Dual Mayor beats it, Dual Cathedral Inkmoth beats it, Energy Field Beats it, Dual Storage Karn or Ugin beats it. Leyline Krakas, 2 power creature beats it.

Outrace it. Deal more than 3 damage per turn on average. The Kuldotha Rebirth deck did it last round, as did recursive Sarcomancy. Mayor of Avabruck would have. If not for ForceFoilFear, I might have run City of Traitors / Mana Vault / Eater of Days last round.

You can skip your upkeeps. The funhouse mirrormatch against Gibbering Descent.dec does not favor The Rack.

The Rack being 'damage' lets you get away with Energy Field and the like, but that doesn't save you from Shrieking Affliction variants.

The Necrotic Sliver deck.

Free stuff that stays in your hand

Inkmoth Nexus/Selesnya Sanctuary/Rune of Protection: Artifacts

And in contrast to that, I'll play Swamp/Carrion Feeder/Gravecrawler

Nah man, Thesbian's Stage, City of Traitors is better...that's the basis of my fun deck! It's not vulnerable to IoK, it lets you beat Leyline/Karakas by copying Karakas and bouncing their Leyline, and it can still net you 4 mana.

The only down side is that it's two turns slower...but it also doesn't ping you to death.

Bouncing Leyline? How does that work? Karakas only bounces Legendary Creatures. Leyline makes itself Legendary, but still not a Creature.

Copying Karakas is cute and all, but a turn 3 play is suicide. Even a turn 2 play ain't great, but you could get that with any 2-mana tapped land (Peat Bog cycle, Havenwood Battleground cycle, Tinder Farm cycle) plus City.

In 3CM I've found that quite often, anything you *can* do on T1, you really shouldn't put off til T2. Discard and countermagic and 'land destruction' (even in the form of Evil Presence) just make counting on a first turn land to lead into a second turn spell to be open to too many avenues of disruption.