I've been enjoying playing/tweaking bounce deception, so I thought I'd share my journey and deck. Most decks I enjoy don't require a ton of thinking, honestly. I play to unwind, and so old school decks like big beast nature (drop stats, make obvious trades, win game) have always appealed to me. This archetype is nothing at all like that. I actually feel like I need to practice. With that said, it is fun, so I think I'll keep at it.
Deck Code:
GU_1_2_MBaMBaMBVMBVCDDCDDIClIClMBiKDSKDSBHMMBQKCZKCZGBoGBoMBeMBeMBYMBYICyKCgGBnGBnCERCCgCCgCAJCAJ
I started with a midrange deck with tons of draw. It was decent, but it actually had too much draw combined with high mana costs. Those two just don't go well together. After trying (and failing) at a pure Mayday combo lists, I watched 
). His deck was a great middle ground. Lots of card draw, good control mechanics, but not too many expensive cards. I don't have the more expensive cards in his list, so I've been iterating on a budget version with some success:
Of course you can look me up for full match history details. These games are in solar gold, so don't get too excited, but solar gold is my home now and I'm ok with that. 馃槃
Many of the cards should be obvious as they define the archetype. Bounce cards and cards that synergize with them like Mayday, Blade Borrower, and Illusionist Outlaw.
Then we have card draw, which this deck depends on. Looters, Frumentari, and Eiko's Expedition. Expedition has a really nice synergy with Ghost Ships that Illusionist Outlaw creates. Eiko's Expedition (even un-surged) can draw two and they play directly to board.
The mana curve is designed to take full advantage of Desert Mercenary:
Bouncing 1-mana Blade Borrowers and generating echoes is game over for aggro opponents.
Decks that expect to draw through a significant % of their cards are well-served by including 1x tech cards. Whether that's control decks that draw through because they stall a lot or draw-heavy lists like card-draw magic. We're draw-heavy, and a bouncing iron-tooth goblin is solid relic removal that we can bounce. I've also included Uncanny Rogue. Also bouncable.
1x Uncanny Rogue also means that this will happen sometimes:
Unlike the combo decks I failed to play, this deck doesn't depend on this, but it's nice that it can happen. There are calls to nerf this. For example, changing Rogue to give deadly for 1 turn. I think that's probably fair, and mirrors the nerf they made to assassin's aim due to Eiko (hidden for 1 turn instead of perma-hidden). Even with only 1-turn of deadly, Mayday can do some damage. I also don't know if deadly would expire while the card is in hand. If it doesn't, then I don't know what nerf to propose.
Lastly, I decided to add in Switch Duelist. Usually seen in aggro decks, but it's a solid one-drop that can trade up and usually draws removal that costs more than 1 mana. Also when using shore leave to bounce two guild targets, she comes back down hidden again. Not bad.
Remember when I said I need more practice with this deck? This gameplay vid shows it. I make several mistakes. It's not a bad sign for a deck to be able to win even when misplayed, though. Hopefully, I get better at it. My problem is a bounce around between decks so much that I usually don't get the reps in with any single one to get good. This one is fun enough to change that.
None of the god powers are great, but flip is the least bad. It can help us out if we get a dead hand.
My starting mulligan choices are terrible! On the bright side, we come out of it with some cards we can play on turn 2. Illusionist Outlaw gives us so much value that I play him. He'll get eaten by the Lurker, but that saves us 3 face damage and the point is really the ships anyway.
I don't have great options here, so I decide to neuter the Lurker and get the 1 mana echo in hand. Maybe I can bounce it later for more value.
Hey look! A ship! A free 4/3 on turn 4 is a big deal. One option was to bounce blade borrowers, but if would have left me with unused mana. I decide to go for more ships. Again, I don't love this and maybe it was wrong. Maybe I should have taken over board control instead of giving it up for value.
First obvious mistake. Dunno why I thought I could bounce Frumentari and replay-him for more draw.
A. My hand is already near full.
B. He winds up 2 mana not 0.
C. Much better to have had the 3/4 on board!
Stupid.
Desert Mercenary is nice. I get to cheat 6 mana from the reduction.
At 6 mana I know I can surge my Expeditions. That can be helpful if they wind up grabbing the rapture dances. I add more ships to the deck and maximize my card draw. This was actually not great. With a full board, I risked wasting a bunch of ships. I'm spared this time (but not next time!).
At this point I've lost the plot entirely. My opponent's card plays + GP have confused me as to whether he's aggro/control. What he has in hand, etc. I make a poor decision and re-fill my board.
Punished. I draw 3 boats in a row but burn 2 of them! I vomited a little in my mouth. After clearing a little space, I play Eiko again. So many boats!
I need to reduce my hand size, so I go for rapture dance and goblin to clean up his relic realizing he could have bounced that blade borrower last turn.
Whelp, the midrange deck shows up with the 7 drops. Not looking good. He can kill us in 2 turns. I decide to just go in with hidden lurkers. My thought process is that my creatures on board are already dead to rapture, and if he had it in hand, he would have played it by now. So I'm all in to finish the game. If things go south, we do have Rogue to give delay to a lurker.
Top deck Mayday for lethal! Technically, we could have cleared his board with Rapture dance and sacking Marcella so we weren't dead, but lethal sounds a lot better.
It's a fun deck! With practice it can be a good deck. Not sure how it holds up at higher tiers and with more games, but the decklist isn't set in stone yet, either. For instance, I'm tempted to pull out Toast to Peace. My hand is usually pretty full. I also want to try a few games with CTI (instead of toast). It gives me more card draw and also can disrupt natural counters to this deck like Unbound Flames and Rapture Dance.
