I think relying on draw effects to draw into the 8 good fog effects is better than running hysterical blindness.

There is no doubt that counters are good, but I think it is easiest to focus on building a deck that intends to either leave mana open almost all the time or almost never. A typical turn will involve casting archaeomancer + fog = 5 mana, or warden + safe passage = 8 mana.

I see that you dumped thassa's bounty - I actually considered it a good card in your previous list. It is too expensive to help with hitting crucial early land drops. The main reason it is normally a bad card is that it is sorcery speed and compares unfavorably to cards not available in our pool (Concentrate and Tidings put it to shame).

I respect the counters but I want to focus the deck on having fewer 1 to 1 answers. What I love about the fog plan is that it is very effective in stalling the game out and can afford to make big plays. Fog is pretty consistently effective against 80% of the decks out there.

Yeah, I dropped Hysterical Blindness after my initial testing of the non-mill version of the deck. I similarly found that the deck didn't really need it, and it was by far the least powerful "Fog" effect we can run.

In regards to Thassa's Bounty, I am right there with you for the most part. The card actually worked quite well in the deck. The main reason I made the swap to Inspiration was because in swapping over to the non-mill Win-Cons we increase our overall CMC by a decent bit.

Basically everything the deck does outside of the Fog effects and the Draw effects is sitting at 4+ CMC (Archaeomancer/Warden, Planar Cleansing, Obelisk, Angel, Traumatic Visions). As such I made the swap from Thassa's Bounty to Inspiration mainly to reduce the likelihood of getting opening hands full of expensive cards we cant play.

The reduced Cost and Instant Speed of Inspiration both work well with the deck also. Costing 4 instead of 6 makes it easier to be able to cast on the same turn you cast a Fog effect (Bounty+Fog/Safe Passage is 7-9 mana, Inspiration+Fog/Safe Passage is 5-7 mana). The same is true of it being instant speed, allowing us to hold up mana easier to cast Fog effects, while still allowing us to draw cards should we not need to Fog that turn for whatever reason. As you mentioned, the reduced cost of Inspiration makes it a more reliable method of hitting land drops early on as well.

In regards to the counters, as I said before, they were included more as a means of protecting our own game plan than anything else. The impetus to run Counterspells wasn't to actually answer stuff (although they can occasionally be useful for that). There really isn't much of a reason to use counterspells on permanents when we have the Fog plan available, outside of a few things like say Guttersnipe/Obelisk because it circumvents our Fog defense.

The big reason IMO to run them is to protect our own game plan. The deck functions off of using Fog effects and Planar Cleansing to survive. Having PC/Fog countered can cause some serious issues. Opponent attacks, you cast Fog, they cast Negate in response....you may very well be dead right there on the spot if you don't have a second Fog effect in hand to cast, and even then, you are spending 2 Fog effects on the same turn, which can potentially mean not having a Fog effect in hand the following turn.

The same is true of Burn spells (and Skullcrack in particular). Safe Passage does a decent job of preventing damage from these spells, but isn't always available, as is true with the Life gain effects we run as well (and Skullcrack just screws us regardless either way). Having Counterspells around to help deal with these spells, as well as a few others that circumvent Fog/Safe Passage (such as Life Drain effects like Suffer) can be very helpful.

I'm making a new post for this deck because I've featured it on YouTube and I want to be able to link to it from there. The table will reflect any changes made after the recording of the deck tech.

Definitely an interesting decklist. I might try a Darksteel Ingot in place of that reprisal for my play through.

Without Reprisal, you won't be able.to answer things like Armored Ascension, Monstrous Nemesis of Mortals/Arbor Colossus, big Seraph of the Massess/Crusader of Odric, Satyr Hoplite+Furor of the Bitten on turn 2, etc. Ground Assault can't really answer everything. Sure it's the 'best in the game' but it's not a catch all spell like Flesh to Dust.

wut.. no gods willings? imagine the frustration getting chump blocked with your double-striking mace wielding 10+ power badass game winner or investing tons of mana into a guy with an amulet and having it killed by opponent reprisal

Made an account here just to write a quick message to say this deck is awesome... finally got my 100 achievement and a lot of it was thanks to this deck. Thumbs up from me.

Right now I'm playing -1 Rafiq, -1 Genesis Hydra for +1 Reprisal, +1 Stormbreath Dragon. I need to update the table. I'm glad you enjoy it so thanks to Pike for the initial idea and megabeast for calling me out on the lack of Stormbreath.

I've not played the deck, but I did get beat by it, and it looks like quite a bit of fun. It's just got a bunch of good cards. Every creature my opponent played seemed like something I really wanted to get rid of, and that's difficult to play against.