Dies to Removal

Just curious if anyone has seen/tried the Immortals of the Forge deck by Kevin Crimin?

http://www.gatheringmagic.com/kevin-cri ... the-forge/

Looks very interesting. Basically, get out some hasty creatures to smack around your opponent a little. Doesn't matter if they get killed off. Drop a Purphoros and cast Immortal Servitude for [mana]bbb2[/mana] to get all those 2 drop hasty creatures back and deal 2 damage to opp for each one. Drop Tymaret and sac those same creatures to do 2 more damage each. Admittedly, one good Slaughter Games would make life difficult. But I just love the concept.

I put this together and use it for my fun deck. It is a crack up for two-headed giant. I have made a few changes to the mana base because it was more difficult to cast Ashley than I would like. I made a few other changes that I don't remember offhand. When I get back to the house, I'll check my deck list and post it. I talked to Kevin about the changes and he said he had been going in a similar direction with it...

I played against it on Cockatrice a while ago. I remember beating it game 1 and thinking "what the hell is this," then actually seeing the point of the deck when he resolved a Servitude game 2, but he was still dead the next turn to burn + Phoenixes.

So here is what I have been playing around with:

[deck]Creatures:
1 x Underworld Cerberus
3 x Purphoros, God of the Forge
4 x Ash Zealot
3 x Tymaret, the Murder King
1 x Lotleth Troll
4 x Spike Jester
4 x Burning Tree Emissary
4 x Rakdos Shred-Freak
3 x Goblin Shortcutter

Spells:
2 x Abrupt Decay
3 x Grisly Salvage
3 x Dreadbore
4 x Immortal Servitude

Lands:
1 x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
4 x Stomping Ground
2 x Temple of Abandon
4 x Blood Crypt
2 x Rakdos Guildgate
4 x Overgrown Tomb
2 x Golgari Guildgate
2 x Swarmp

Sideboard:
1 x Abrupt Decay
1 x Grisly Salvage
3 x Golgari Charm
2 x Gruul Charm
2 x Putrefy
1 x Dreadbore
2 x Act of Treason
3 x Toil//Trouble[/deck]

I traded out 2 Golgari Guildgates for 2 Rakdos Guildgates to make the mana smoother for Ashley. I found I didn't like the Satyr Hedonist. I most commonly seemed to use him to get mana to cast
RR for Ashley which was a waste. My replacement has been Goblin Shortcutter because of the immediate effect on the board when he enters the battlefield.

I have mostly played this deck in 2-headed giant matches because of the "each opponent" clause on Purp. I have tested it against other decks and if you get your combo, you can usually wreck them pretty easily. The deck would definitely run smoother with Temples instead of Guildgates.

I have played the deck in regular duels against Rw Devotion and G/r Monsters and found it to be a pretty fair matchup preboard against both decks (say 50%) and it wrecked Esper Control, Dega Control and Mono Black the few games I played against them. I have not had a chance to play it against GW aggro, Esper Midrange, or MUD.

It is a fun deck though.