Gilded Alchemist

this deck revolves around an infinite mana combo involving aphetto alchemist, gilded lotus, and pemmin's aura. the pemmin's aura enchants the aphetto alchemist, therefore allowing you to untap the alchemist for u. with a gilded lotus in play, you can easily produce enough mana to untap the alchemist, therefore allowing you to untap the lotus again with the alchemist's ability. then you can repeat the process, but this time you have two floating mana. you can generate as much mana as you want with this combo therefore allowing a massive blaze, or as darksteel brings to us, fireball, though the deck system won't allow it into a t2 deck yet. i think the deck can remain mono blue, however, as this deck really works well with artifacts with activated abilities that can be used more than once, such as icy manipulator, soul foundry, gilded lotus (combo piece), chrome mox, isochron scpeter, the mirrodin shards (such as crystal shard), the mirrodin towers (such as tower of murmurs), and the artifact lands, to name a few. remember that with the combo in play you can activate these artifacts infinitely to aphetto alchmist's ability to untap artifacts. the choice between tower of fortunes and arcanis the omnipotent is fairly difficult, each having its own pluses and minuses. arcanis you can return to your hand, but the tower doesn't suffer from summoning sickness, therefore, once the combo goes off, you don't have to wait a turn before going as deep as you want into your library. mana burn isn't an issue an pemmin;s aura allows you to burn off any extra mana by giving the enchanted creature +1 -1 and then -1 +1 as many times consecutively as you wish. all combo decks need a method of searching and or drawing and this is no exception. trade secrets, just as in the mind's desire decks, allow you to get the cards you need to go off, especially against an unwary, card-hungry opponent who forks the spell. there are a fair amount of artifacts, so as a second search draw spell, thirst for knowledge seems a good fit, allowing you to keep what you need, and discard what you don't, such as irrelevant cards to the current situation and multiples. i originally was going to include long term plans, but the control element was not heavy enough in this deck to hope to last the extra couple of turns until you get the named card. although the instant speed is nice, thirst won over because of its dependability to actually net you the cards. you don't want your long term plans to be followed up with a plow under by an opponent. the deck's main weakness, as you can imagine, is goblins and gobling bidding. therefore the sideboard is pretty much devoted to these two matchups, although it is probably still a losing matchup, due to issues of sheer speed. this deck outright loses to almost anything unless the combo pieces all come together at the right time. i'm not saying that this deck will progress to a tier 1 or tier 2 deck, even a tier deck at all. it won't. it can be viable, however, through playtesting and effort, two things that i have not done regarding this deck. hopefully someone else can. who knows. this deck may have a chance with cards that i overlooked, a probable thing. i anyone decides to pick up this deck and play a couple games, let me know how it went by e-mailing me at mtg241@aol.com. to all potential playtesters out there, good luck. edit: black added to help against creature rushes, several win conditions were removed to make room for fabricates. Now Viridian Longbow is the only true win condition left. abandoning the decking tactic and going with direct damage only. Sideboard is completely redone thanks to the addition of black, making room for spot removal along with the board cleaners in the main deck.