"5 Color Kastle"
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Wall of Roots
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Living Death
4 Intuition
3 Tradewind Rider
3 Armageddon
3 Maro
3 Fallen Angel
3 Spike Feeder
3 Firestorm
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Underground River
2 Undiscovered Paradise
11 Forest

Sideboard: (Landry-Manning-Magid)
3 Lobotomy
3 Pyroblast
3 Tranquil Domain
3 Man-o-War
3 Uktabi Orangutan

Sideboard: (Kastle-Bush)
4 Pyroblast
4 Uktabi Orangutan
3 Emerald Charm
3 Cloudchaser Eagle
1 Spike Feeder

Looking back at the deck, some cards seem counterproductive, such as the
Armageddons/High CC cards, and the Firestorm/Maro^_^ but the intent was to
create a duality to the deck, an ability to operate on more than one level.
Truly a versatile deck, it had no problems with weenie hordes, except the
up-and-coming WW/Armor decks, but that's what the Man O' War was for in the
SB. Overall, I believe Landry's sideboard was the stronger one, especially
with the presence of Intuition, it allowed more options. With the
introduction of Exodus, the deck took a drastic turn, and in so doing,
became one of the most powerful incarnations of the Recursion Strategy. The
addition of Survival of the Fittest, an in-color graveyard filling, tutoring
MACHINE, and to a lesser extent at first, Recurring Nightmare, which allowed
copious abuse of the 187 critters, helped change the deck into a more
controllish version, that wasn't so dependent on Living Death to win. Here's
Brian Seldon's World Championship version...

2 Nekrataal
1 Thrull Surgeon
1 Spirit of the Night
1 Man-o'-War
1 Tradewind Rider
1 Cloudchaser Eagle
1 Orcish Settler
1 Verdant Force
1 Spike Weaver
2 Spike Feeder
2 Uktabi Orangutan
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Wall of Roots
2 Firestorm
2 Lobotomy
4 Recurring Nightmare
2 Scroll Rack
4 Survival of the Fittest
3 City of Brass
8 Forest
1 Gemstone Mine
2 Karplusan Forest
2 Reflecting Pool
1 Swamp
2 Underground River
2 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Volrath's Stronghold

Sideboard:
4 Boil
2 Dread of Night
3 Emerald Charm
1 Hall of Gemstones
1 Staunch Defenders
2 Phyrexian Furnace
2 Pyroblast

This, my friends, was one solid deck. The lack of Living Death was due to the lesser amount of weenie decks, so it was geared more towards beating combo decks (back when turn 3 kills were sooooooooo rare) and control decks. This deck type in general, slaughters control decks, sligh, and many weenie decks, the only problem was with Hatred decks, very rare due to the strong presence of Red, and White Weenie. This version featured quality search engines, such as Scroll Rack/Survival, enough threats to give a Control deck fits, Orcish Settlers is a beating against mono-blue, and enough defense to survive most initial onslaughts. The sideboard was tuned for the mirror match, white weenie, and bloom, the Death deck's main enemies.

With the introduction of Urza's Saga, in a slightly subdued tone, because of the predominance of the Tolarian outbreak, an infinite combo snuck onto the scene, utilizing Priest of Gix, Peregrine Drake, and/or Great Whale, with Recurring Nightmare to just flat out win in one turn. After a little while, WotC put a stop to that nonsense and the Death deck seemed to quietly fade away, or hibernate if you will, with the onslaught of Combo Winter. Urza's Legacy, besides presenting the Jar deck, also provided Death with the critters it needed to become a Tier 1 deck, even without the presence of Recurring Nightmare (oh the irony!). Get-YOU! Slinger, Avalanche Rider, Bone Shredder, and even Radiant's Dragoons, helped pave the way for a deck that could provide all the answers to anything in the game. The only thing that kept a Death deck from total supremacy, was a slight inconsistency, until of course, folks discovered the lowly Yavimaya Granger.

One of the main problems for any deck which required lots of mana to operate (i.e. Death/Control) was the large presence of Quick kills and Wildfire, along with other efficient Land-Destruction spells. The Yavimaya Granger allows for a tutorable (with Survival) way to jumpstart the Land Race, shaving precious turns off the Death decks time to set up for the win. The addition of 6th edition rules/card choices to the mix also helped solidify the deck, with the removal of most graveyard elimination, and the addition of Vampiric Tutor, a very useful card indeed, and Uktabi Orangutan, a way to deal with scrolls, that can be recurred, and searched for. Although, the addition of 6th edition timing rules, and the Stack, made Deathing a complex task, as counterspells become more powerful. One of the early tricks was if a Death goes off, you sacrifice all your critters, whether by removing Spike Tokens, or feeding them to the Angel who Fell from Grace, now that is risky because an opponent can wait for you to do this, then counter the Living Death.

With the advent of Urza's Destiny, the clock has started ticking on the Death deck, since Mercadian Masques(silly name^_^) becomes legal 1 November, and it heralds the removal of the central parts of the deck, such as Survival, Living Death, and even Wall of Blossoms. Too bad there has never been a better time for this deck to flourish, in the right environment. You knew there had to be a caveat somewhere:) The problem is, that a deck like this is designed to interact and base its operation off your opponent's actions, whereas the combo decks of the modern era (Replenish - Pandemonium - Opalescence (RPO), Enchantress, Bargain) are designed to ignore the opponent and just win in one turn, usually the 3rd-5th turn. So in order to compete in that type of environment the Death deck, with it's immense versatility, needs to be able to disrupt the opponent. The use of cards which attack the opponent's hand (Duress, Thrull Surgeon, Lobotomy) and resources(Avalanche Rider, Keldon Vandal) leads to a more aggressive, more disruptive archetype, with a slight weakening against Critter based decks. Luckily, this can be remedied by tinkering with the Critter count in the Death deck. Here's my current listing for a Death deck, and some explanations of the choices.

Critters(24):
4 Bird of Paradise (very useful early mana production, plus with the decline
of Red/Sligh, birds don't die as often turn1 ^_^)
3 Wall of Blossom (Until recently I ran with 4 of these, but now, I desire
more of a concrete card advantage, such as with 187 critters, or mana
advantage with Granger, so the Wall, a primary tool against Sligh, is not as
useful)
3 Yavimaya Granger (Absolutely amazing, especially for getting the 3rd turn
Death or Plaguelord out there)
2 Avalanche Rider (If you see a lot of control, up the number to 3 or 4, but
2 is a good number, because of the weakness against Weenie decks)
2 Get-YOU!! Slinger (Cheap effective Critterkill, also not a dead card
against combo decks like Bone Shredder is)
2 Bone Shredder (2 because my metagame includes a LOT of critter decks,
otherwise I would only play 1 of these, again a concession to metagame)
2 Spike Weaver (1 should be enough, but the other is for backup against the
many many Critter decks out there)
1 Phyrexian Plaguelord (Took me a while to start to like this guy, but my
friend Nick Hartman (ie the guy with Orggs in top 8 JSS worlds) pointed out
an outstanding fact about it, it KILLS MASTICORE!! I won't go into a
diatribe about the environment changing aspect of Masticore, suffice it to
say, it does)
1 Deranged Hermit (This is my official clock for Combo and Control decks
alike, he gives them 2 turns, with a Slinger thrown in, and also is good
against Weenie decks, this wins me an insane amount of games alone)
1 Radiant's Dragoons(If I have to cut one card, this will be it, in fact
consider him relegated to the Sideboard, only good against Weenie decks, and
I already have 2 Weavers)
1 Keldon Vandal(Amazingly good artifact removal, or just a 4/1 clock that
can tick away on an opponents skull, also able to kill the turn 2 Powder Keg
that might cause you problems^_^, built in echo makes this card perfect in
the deck too)
1 Tradewind Rider(For just the right situation which happens sometimes, plus
its a solid thread against Control and Weenie, and allows one to capitalize
on earlier disruption)
1 Masticore(This guy....what can I say, he's a wrecking ball, good for
Critter control, filling the graveyard and beating people's skulls in, he
does it all, and he's COOT! hehe)

Spells:14
4 Survival of the Fittest (still a key card, especially with the variety of
critters in the deck)
4 Duress (A tool against Control/Combo and a way to get those early
disenchant/Wildfires out of there)
3 Living Death (Because of the presence of the Vampiric Tutors, 3 is all that
are needed)
2 Vampiric Tutor (Cheap, effective Tutor, that helps you get whatever key
card you're missing, usually a Survival or an Oath, although I did Tutor for
a Forest one time and won that game:))
1 Lobotomy (Very useful surprise card against Control who just cast that
Magpie, or Combo who are about to win on you, hehe)

Land:22
8 Forest
4 Swamp
4 City of Brass
2 Karplusan Forest
1 Mountain
1 Thran Quarry
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronhold

My sideboard is constantly changing, but some cards are basic and will always be there. Here's my current sideboard:

1 Plains (for the Granger to fetch to allow me to cast.....)
1 Worship(the death knell against most critter decks)
1 Sacred Ground (Single handedly makes at least 8 cards useless in Wildfire
decks)
1 Disenchant (A Failsafe, also against bargain decks to go for the 10-point
bolt)
1 Monk Realist (cuz you can survival for him^_^)
1 Lull (Anti Hatred tech, and it cycles)
1 Arcane Laboratory (Combo decks, that's it)
1 Dread of Night (anti-WW, noone's ever thought of this card before, hehe)
2 Choke (these are gonna change, probably to Boils to present them with an
instant threat)
2 Lobotomy (To side in for dead cards-weaver, shredder-against combo decks,
and to fuel the Disruption strategy)
3 Rapid Decay (Mirror match, RPO, and Black Control mainly, and it cycles,
GOOD DEAL!)

As you can see, this is like other Death decks but unlike them also. Such is the nature of a constantly changing environment. Hope ya'll enjoyed my little foray into the world of Graveyard Recursion and feel free to tinker with my deck design, you've only got a couple more months in Standard to do it. Any comments, or questions would be appreciated.

Tamahome
a***e@o***u.net