Ok, I had some time to order cards and see some things show up in the mail as well as dig through my collection to put things together. In that time I did see a few things I wanted to change. This change lot comes before having played the deck still but I am optimistic in sitting on some artifact abusing mana decks yet with this deck.
DECK CHANGES: - I normally try to do direct swaps but with these changes I haven't played the deck and I more of have specific reasons to cut some cards and reasons to add some cards rather than it being straight exchanges so I will change up my usual format.
CUTS:
- Academy Rector - I think rector is fine and I can poke it off with my commander but even then its sort of a problem just how much setup it is and while there are some enchants that stand out I have a lot of redundancy and felt like it was better to just have more draw instead.
- Nullmage Shepherd → I got to thinking about nullmage and realized that the setup required for it to perform just felt a little more than a lot of my other cards in the deck. I do think it can put in some good work but it also seemed a little more redundant alongside the artifact hate cards and it does a worse job of dealing with problems like tons of artifact mana especially from treasures.
- Sun Titan → I am fine with Sun Titan I just thought I was also fine just largely not really having recursion in this list for now.
- Nyxbloom Ancient → Mana is great, I just think the setup required for it to work for me is sort of high so I want to trim back a bit to things more fundamental.
- Damping Sphere → I think the tax effect is fine but then I remembered the land mana production part of this card and opted to shift this to Archon of Emeria instead. I am not looking to go real deep on hatebear / tax effects but with some tutors I think I can assess when I need this and tutor for it then.
- Angel's Grace → its more of a meta call but I am seeing a bit more commander damage with unblockable commanders and that does hurt this card. I do think this card is great but commander damage isn't stopped with this card.
- Swords to Plowshares → I don't know that I need the mana efficiency of swords so I am going to shift to better targeting over efficiency.
- Natural Order → With cutting Nyxbloom Ancient I just couldn't get behind keeping the order at this point.
ADDS:
- Esper Sentinel - Paired with the commander I can grow sentinel consistently enough that I think I am ok running Sentinel here.
- Deep Gnome Terramancer - I think it plays well with decks that hold up mana and need mana.
- Ohran Frostfang - It can give my commander deathtouch and gives good draw options.
- Invasion of Ikoria - Just some consistency. I feel like I have some toolbox to the deck in part because there are some unique effects here that I can't get enough of them so I went a little into toolboxing with tutors.
- Archon of Emeria - Its not that I don't have draw but I don't think I need to chain spells with this list so having at least one of this sort of card can shut down draw heavy decks sometimes.
- Comeuppance - Another defensive measure to hold up. This is a bit of a meta defense for now it seems like there has been an uptick in sending unblockable threats so I wanted to bolster defenses without just getting big blockers in.
- Chaos Warp - Generic answer. I did consider if I wanted it to be Banishment but I didn't lean into enchantments enough to run enchantresses or enchantment recursion so I guess just keep it cheap.
- Heroic Intervention - Sometimes with these defensive rattlesnake decks its just a matter of time until someone tries to turn and sideswipe you super hard. I think I have some vulnerability in my commander being removed but also being able to defend any of my permanents can be somewhat vital so I like that this card blocks most removal effects.
Well, at this point I guess the concerns I still have with this deck is that it only has a few cards to really go on the offensive with as well as its draw seeming a little low. I am hoping that the tutors get to be used on draw and
Hardened Scales as my proactive plays but I do have a few reactive silver bullets in here too.
EDIT: Deflecting Swat might be something I want. I feel like I have a lot of things that people are going to want to swat down so a free redirect seems good. It might be something that comes in if I am missing cards that were ordered as I go to testing and I will be interested to see how much I get targeted by hate given what my deck is doing.
Sylvan Safekeeper could be really good as well fitting some of the
Mother of Runes kind of setup I have as well depending on if I feel like I need more of that.