Exodia Maokai That's NOT Bilgewater!!

Curious what everyone thinks of THIS as opposed to the typical Pilfered Goods combo. More specifically, using units dying to level up the Maokai as opposed to tossing cards which could effect your combo! 

If you don't know what I'm talking about, the full video for the deck is here.

My thoughts about the deck:
Requirements: Maokai leveled up, 5 dead cards in hand, 13 mana available, all 3 copies of Veteran Investigator, Splinter Soul must not be disruped, opponent must not have ways do shuffle cards back into his deck.
Those conditions are VERY HARD to fulfill.
By the time this deck can pull off that exact exodia combo, other decks should have plenty of time to end the game already.

About your question:
Against aggro, i think there is not much difference. While Veteran Investigator has a body to contest the board, giving away an extra card helps them to find finishers/lethal a few turns later. Pilfered Goods is just plain useless in this MU. Owning minions versus spells to contest the board should be pretty even.
Against combo and control, Pilfered Goods have at least a chance to disrupt/delay plays and its not dead, while Veteran Investigator is not a card we want to play outside of the combo as it  also helps our opponent to win/snowball faster.

Am i the only one who plays Maokai for his "toss + summon a minion with challenger" rather than the "destroy your opponent's deck?

I mean, yes it's cool to destroy it and win that way; but when i do it i don't try to make him draw his last 4 cards as soon as possible, i just wait.
I think you can even play an ephemeral deck with hecarim + maokai, where maokai support hecarim and provides also a 2nd win condition

Ever since Maokai and Veteran Investigator were revealed, I've been planning to construct a deck including both (along with a ton of cheap minions/tokens coupled with some Toss cards). However, as more Bilgewater cards were revealed, it felt like combining Maokai with Bilgewater Toss was the way to go.

I think I'll still try a P&Z variant, but not one that's completely focused on an Exodia combo. I'll just try to hold onto any Investigators I draw until Maoki levels up, and then I may only need to survive 2 more rounds instead of 4.

Of course, as you said, if the opponent has any way to shuffle cards back into their deck, this whole concept falls apart. But I think I'll try anyway and see how it goes.

I think that the main problem with this combo is that you are realy likely to toss one (or more) of your combo pieces while leveling up Maokai

Quote From CrDave

I think that the main problem with this combo is that you are realy likely to toss one (or more) of your combo pieces while leveling up Maokai

I think that's why the OP mentioned in their first post that the deck relies on sacrificing units instead of Toss effects. I imagine this would be an overall slower method to level Maokai, though (You'd have to rely a lot on token generation).