4-7-2025, Modernizing my Laboratory Maniac Deck

Here is my original decklist that I played with my friend back in the day, relatively soon after Maniac was invented.

Here are some critiques of version 1.0

The manabase is sub-optimal.

• I used Watery Graves because they were and still are less expensive than Underground Seas.
• At best, Skerry and Peat Bog each produce 4 mana in the first 3 turns of the game, are useless the turn they are played, and useless after their 4 mana is extracted. A card like Ancient Tomb produces 6 mana in the first 2 turns, is useful immediately and can be reused generously.

Gitaxian Probe is banned.

• I probably waited as long as I have to rebuild this deck because of the banning of Gitaxian Probe. I loved this card and it felt like the final nail in the coffin after my laboratory maniac deck had already been outdated by Thassa's Oracle.

Doomsday

• My original deck often functioned like a doomsday deck where mirror of fate could build a deck of any 7 or fewer cards after the deck was removed by paradigm shift. My deck even had 1 copy of Mystic Remora and 1 Careful Study to aid in the construction of these piles.
• Any revision will need to answer the question: Why not play doomsday?

Version 2.0

Brainstorm

Here is my work in progress as of April, 7th, 2025. (44 cards total.)

Here are some other cards that I am considering:

Combos

I want to start building a well principled deck. First off, how will we win a goldfish game and what resources will we need?

Here are a few card sequences that win the game under certain conditions. (And assuming that each of these cards was drawn and available to be played.)

Strategic Objectives (Listed from last to earliest.)

We want to draw a card. Its true that we'll need our library to be empty with Laboratory Maniac in play, but at the end of the day it is a card draw that wins the game. We can simply wait for a draw step or we can use a draw

Here are some cards that can draw us that card for free.

Here are some other effective card draw spells that have other uses.

Mana Requirements.

We want access to 2U in order to cast Laboratory Maniac, especially as a threat meant to trade with an opponent's disruption spell.

If we play Lab Maniac on the first turn, then the opponent will need to use at least one card to counter it or destroy it, else we threaten to win the game with a resolved paradigm shift on turn 2. This is mana and a card that the opponent could have otherwise used to advance their gameplan.

So we want 2U worth of mana in the first 7 cards of a shuffled deck, that means .43 mana per card in the deck or 26 mana produced across all 60 cards.

Let's add up mana sources in consideration: 4xAncient Tomb: 8 mana, 4xLotus Petal: 4 mana, 4xUnderground Sea: 4 mana, 4xDark Ritual: 8 mana, 2xWatery Grave. Together, these 18 cards produce 26 mana. Each source produces an expected 1.44 mana and we expect to see 2 mana cards in our opening hand.

Of course, we won't be able to cast Laboratory Maniac on turn 1 without access to a 0 mana artifact, like Lotus Petal. It would be even more reliable if we used 4 Chrome Mox.