Just as I am doing here...
Supascrub, the main difficulty I see straight away for the deck is a lack of offence (sorry, that should probably be offense seeing as Americans can`t even spel properli).
Let me see
Creatures: 15
Reliable creatures: 3 Skittering Skirge
Everything else is conditional on what the board looks like in order to be effective. So the most immediate change I would make is to up the creature input to this deck, probably to 23/24 and then this would allow the deck to run with stuff like Hidden Horrors. The problem is finding enough quality creatures to make that viable.
Personally I like the Molting Harpy - I think it is a vastly underrated card once you reach the midgame and so I would play with Cateran Persuader to help me find them. Remember that as we will be adding Hidden Horror we can always pitch early Harpies to the Horror. Another strategy which I feel sure somebody will mention, but which I don`t personally agreee with, is using the Horror to set up an Unearth - but then you might as well just admit you`re playing `Zilla.
The Persuaders also make me want to play with Rampart Crawler as the other 1cc drop, but you can make a different version that stretches to Fallen Angel/Plaguelord at the top of the curve and then you would want Blood Pets to help you get there.
On the spot I will present to you my brand new decklist, conceived as I type:
CAND!MAN Black Beats
v1.0
Monsters (26)
3 Molting Harpy
3 Rampart Crawler
4 Cateran Persuader
3 Mindless Thug
3 Skittering Skirge
4 Hidden Horror
3 Phyrexian Negator
3 Rathi Intimidator
Spells (16)
4 Vendetta
4 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
4 Snuff Out
Land
18 Swamp
The spells are weak and there are several ways to take them. Snuffs could easily be Terror, Vicious Hunger, or Unmask even. With Rituals there is a case for Yawgmoth`s Will but I`m not convinced.
Dark Triumph is piss-poor but might have synergy given the number of monsters you can thaw out of the deck, but then so might Phyrexian Plaguelord or Fallen Angel. You could add in Twisted Experiments and Parallax Dementia if you wanted to go a more Suicide route, but I don`t recommend it. I like Tangle Wire but don`t feel it is as effective on the slow T2 as it is in the fast XT environment.
SB
1 Vampiric Tutor (add in to tutor for SB cards)
4 Planar Void (Bargain, Replenish)
4 Terror (WWeenie, Stompy, Sneak)
2 Perish (Stompy)
2 Massacre (WWeenie)
2 Masticore (mirror, Stompy, WWeenie)
Basically your deck carried too much disruption, and not enough that kills your opponent while they are disrupted. This puts aggression first - you can kill somebody by drawing nothing but creatures, but nobody has been beaten down by a hand of Duress and Tangle Wire.
[Edited by Gizmo (03-15-2000 at 05:42 AM).]