While I haven't played this in a while, I can answer some of your questions. Focusing on the Summoner's Pact version because those are the lists you linked and the one I'm familiar with. Foreshadowing to the shorthand question, that's Pact Spanish Inquisition, or PSI.
Arbor - Can be found with either Land Grant or Pact to give you a free creature to sac to Culling the Weak. Even the Belcher kills typically involve storming off and drawing a ton of cards, so it's relatively uncommon to have it left in the library when you actually go for the kill. I got stuck with Bayou as a potential hit more often than Arbor.
Skyshroud Cutter - Personal preference. I never ran it but it's a decent choice for free creature. Again, you're looking for something you can find with Pact to Cull. Makes Tendrils kills more difficult, which is why I wasn't a fan.
DRS - It's there to give you a black card on Mox off of Pact. PSI used to run Odious Trow for that purpose, so DRS was actually a nice upgrade. Very, very rarely it gives you some extra mana, reach, or the T1 Bayou → DRS start that tends to leave shields completely down.
Death Wish - PSI is a critical mass combo deck, even more so than other storm variants. You don't have many permanent mana sources and you're not doing any kind of serious hand sculpting prior to your combo turn. Because of that you want raw card draw much more than specific cards much of the time. Omitting lands and filtering means that most of your draws are live and you're already burning your life total hard with the draw 4s. Wish is going to be worse than a draw 4 most of the time, and wishing for one of those is going to be a prohibitive resource cost unless you were already going to win. Burning Wish might be a better consideration. I'd be very hesitant to cut a draw 4, which would be the best Wish target a large percentage of the time, and that turns me off of it a little bit.
Sideboard - Looks odd to me too. I haven't played the deck for a couple years and I'm positive my last board is out of date so I'm probably not the best source on this. I always liked sticking to the main plan as much as possible. The deck is already very capable of winning in the first turn or two, which goes under a lot of hate. Diluting your main plan too much lowers the odds of pulling that off and you're still going to have trouble with hate in the late game.
Shorthand - PSI: Pact Spanish Inquisition, the lists that you've linked; QSI: Quasi-Spanish Inquisition, plays lands, cantrips, and Meditate for more consistency and a tallmen package of 0 CMC artifact creatures for Culling. I don't know much about this variant - most of my explanation comes from looking at a couple lists; SAINT: swaps out the draw 4s for Ad Nauseam and more Belchers, again runs a tallmen package instead of a Pact package.
Competitive - I honestly wouldn't play this at a large event for two reasons. In my experience, the deck loses to itself around 20% of the time. I'd typically expect to lose at least one game through nothing my opponent did every time I took it to a 4 round weekly. Extrapolating out to something like a GP, you're probably giving up a round or two just on deck choice unless you get very lucky. It's also a quintessential Force check deck. You're fast enough to win under hate and can completely tear apart non-blue lists. You'll also get occasional hands that can't beat Force. You can minimize the impact of both of those things. You can't get rid of either of them entirely. If you do want to try it out at a larger event, I'd look into SAINT with the disclaimer that I've never actually tried that variant. I think it looks a little more consistent (if a little less fun) and is maybe a better choice for a long event.
That said, the deck is a lot of fun. It's uncommon and very flashy, so people tend to be interested in seeing it played. I could usually get a small crowd just goldfishing it. I wouldn't make it a primary deck or your only deck. I would recommend it as a fun deck to pull out from time to time when you want a flashy, high-risk, high-reward combo deck.
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So i was trying to get bolas' citadel to work. Death wish plus that possibly could be a thing. Not sure if new karn might be better though, to wish for it. I'm trying to find space for children of korlis as well to loop them in and out to get more life to play the deck out.
Also, does anyone know how bolas' citadel interacts with lotus bloom?
A, this deck doesn't really perform well enough to have a stock list. I don't think I've even seen an MTGO league 5-0 in the last year. B, the last time Manamorphose was mentioned in this thread was almost 2 years ago so I'm not sure who you're responding to.
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Arbor - Can be found with either Land Grant or Pact to give you a free creature to sac to Culling the Weak. Even the Belcher kills typically involve storming off and drawing a ton of cards, so it's relatively uncommon to have it left in the library when you actually go for the kill. I got stuck with Bayou as a potential hit more often than Arbor.
Skyshroud Cutter - Personal preference. I never ran it but it's a decent choice for free creature. Again, you're looking for something you can find with Pact to Cull. Makes Tendrils kills more difficult, which is why I wasn't a fan.
DRS - It's there to give you a black card on Mox off of Pact. PSI used to run Odious Trow for that purpose, so DRS was actually a nice upgrade. Very, very rarely it gives you some extra mana, reach, or the T1 Bayou → DRS start that tends to leave shields completely down.
Death Wish - PSI is a critical mass combo deck, even more so than other storm variants. You don't have many permanent mana sources and you're not doing any kind of serious hand sculpting prior to your combo turn. Because of that you want raw card draw much more than specific cards much of the time. Omitting lands and filtering means that most of your draws are live and you're already burning your life total hard with the draw 4s. Wish is going to be worse than a draw 4 most of the time, and wishing for one of those is going to be a prohibitive resource cost unless you were already going to win. Burning Wish might be a better consideration. I'd be very hesitant to cut a draw 4, which would be the best Wish target a large percentage of the time, and that turns me off of it a little bit.
Sideboard - Looks odd to me too. I haven't played the deck for a couple years and I'm positive my last board is out of date so I'm probably not the best source on this. I always liked sticking to the main plan as much as possible. The deck is already very capable of winning in the first turn or two, which goes under a lot of hate. Diluting your main plan too much lowers the odds of pulling that off and you're still going to have trouble with hate in the late game.
Shorthand - PSI: Pact Spanish Inquisition, the lists that you've linked; QSI: Quasi-Spanish Inquisition, plays lands, cantrips, and Meditate for more consistency and a tallmen package of 0 CMC artifact creatures for Culling. I don't know much about this variant - most of my explanation comes from looking at a couple lists; SAINT: swaps out the draw 4s for Ad Nauseam and more Belchers, again runs a tallmen package instead of a Pact package.
Competitive - I honestly wouldn't play this at a large event for two reasons. In my experience, the deck loses to itself around 20% of the time. I'd typically expect to lose at least one game through nothing my opponent did every time I took it to a 4 round weekly. Extrapolating out to something like a GP, you're probably giving up a round or two just on deck choice unless you get very lucky. It's also a quintessential Force check deck. You're fast enough to win under hate and can completely tear apart non-blue lists. You'll also get occasional hands that can't beat Force. You can minimize the impact of both of those things. You can't get rid of either of them entirely. If you do want to try it out at a larger event, I'd look into SAINT with the disclaimer that I've never actually tried that variant. I think it looks a little more consistent (if a little less fun) and is maybe a better choice for a long event.
That said, the deck is a lot of fun. It's uncommon and very flashy, so people tend to be interested in seeing it played. I could usually get a small crowd just goldfishing it. I wouldn't make it a primary deck or your only deck. I would recommend it as a fun deck to pull out from time to time when you want a flashy, high-risk, high-reward combo deck.
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Odious Trow
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Eternal Witness
1 Slithermuse
1 Wild Cantor
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Culling the Weak
1 Dark Petition
4 Dark Ritual
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Contract
4 death wish
4 Land Grant
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Bolas's Citadel
2 Tomb of Urami
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Lotus Bloom
So i was trying to get bolas' citadel to work. Death wish plus that possibly could be a thing. Not sure if new karn might be better though, to wish for it. I'm trying to find space for children of korlis as well to loop them in and out to get more life to play the deck out.
Also, does anyone know how bolas' citadel interacts with lotus bloom?
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
Yes, you can pay zero life to cast it.
"If you don't hit your adversaries wile they're down, they might get up again." --Whipkeeper
"Victory favors neither the righteous nor the wicked. It favors the prepared." -- Lay of the Land