Some takeaways from today's games:

1. Curse of Opulence is wonderful at influencing combat and helping ramp. A lot of value packed into one red mana. The card has cemented its slot in this deck.

2. While I never got to actually activate it, Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep was a fantastic option to hold up, as a 5/5 first striker can survive most fights in the early to mid game; it was nice to have the option.

3. I run too many non-basics for a two-color deck. A late-game From the Ashes neutered any chance I had at winning one of the games.

4. Drawing Words of Waste felt awful. I didn't want to skip out on the card draw for a Xantcha activation just to make everyone discard a card, and it didn't seem like a good use of 4 mana, either, even with the added loss of 2 life. I can see cutting this immediately for something more impactful.

5. I'd like to decrease my dependency on creature blockers as rattlesnakes, which will allow me to include something like Bedlam to more readily encourage combat. It improves the usefulness of Virtus the Veiled and Master of Cruelties, too.

6. Targeted unblockable repeated effects from cards like Key to the City seem like a better long-term goal for keeping Xantcha connecting each turn than to run extra targeted removal. I'd rather save that removal for the actual threats, while enabling Xantcha to continue dealing damage in other means.

7. Group damage doublers like Dictate of the Twin Gods definitely seem promising in such a world, so I'm likely to give that a try.

Finally, I need to take a hard look at how I actually intend to win. Seems simple and silly to admit, but in the late game, after casting a tutor, I didn't have the confidence in knowing what my ultimate end game needed to be. Maybe I do need to put some combos in after all...

Summary of first round of changes:

1. Out: Words of Waste, Portcullis and Bottomless Pit. In: Price of Progress, Wild Ricochet and Thrilling Encore.

2. The three cards I cut had no plan to truly benefit from them. As mentioned previously, Words of Waste felt bad to draw and I never wanted to activate it in both optimal and sub-optimal conditions. It's not a good card to draw when you're about to die. Portcullis is a semi-stax kind of card, which I originally intended to include based on the optimal situation of playing a turn 3 Xantcha into a turn 4 Portcullis, aiming to keep Xantcha as the primary threat on the table. Ultimately it just isn't impactful enough, and would be a terrible late-game draw. Finally, Bottomless Pit, meant to encourage Xantcha activations, would hurt me just as much as others.

3. The three cards I included are all reactive. My playgroup packs solid board wipes, so there's a lot of potential value to be gained from Thrilling Encore. One of the highlights of the first game I played with the deck was targeting an opponent's Expropriate with a Reverberate. With Wild Ricochet, being able to redirect an opponent's spell in the mid to late game -- and/or copying its effect -- can serve many different purposes. Finally, Price of Progress is a way to end the game, though I will definitely need to retool my mana base so I'm not killing myself in the process.