Upcoming cards worthy of consideration:
Reach the Horizon: Another 4cmc 2-land ramp piece. || Potential cut: Let the Galaxy Burn? Natural Reclamation? These cards are just kinda weak.
Gladiolus Amacitia: A good effect with the amount of land ramp the deck has, but most importantly it can grab any land from the deck. Tutoring Kessig Wolf Run out of the deck gives us a way to use up all of the lands we put into play throughout the game. || Potential cut: Ignite the Future: A nice card draw option that can go crazy if we have the mana to pay for its flashback ability, but if we have that much mana open then Gladiolus fetching Kessig Wolf Run also gives us a great way to put all of that mana to use, without the card being an awkward fit in the hand.
Lifestream's Blessing: Card draw and lifegain. Lifegain is a good way for a slower deck like this to stay in the game, especially against grindier archetypes like aristocrats that aren't dealing a massive burst of damage suddenly. || Potential cut: Verdant Sun's Avatar: Cutting a consistent source of lifegain for a big burst of lifegain, as well as more cards in hand, at instant speed.
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Planned adjustments:
Cut: Into the Time Vortex: Good for grabbing two 4cmc cards, possibly getting 4 lands onto the battlefield or hitting nice synergy pieces like Gimli's Reckless Might. But at 5 mana, it tends to sit in hand because you have the mana to actually start dropping bombs at that point.
Add: Breaching Dragonstorm: It grabs one thing, but it can grab big things. For five mana you can hit the jackpot and land on a big creature, or at worst you'll just hit some ramp, which is what Into the Time Vortex would be hitting already. The deck has a small handful of dragons, so repeating the effect would be possible every now and then.
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Yet another Radha's Explosive Vegetables knockoff ft. Ruby.
Credit to Salubrious Snail for the concept. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceILMLrNCGw
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Mana:
4cmc ramp spells give the deck its tempo.
Turn 1: Land (1 mana)
Turn 2: Land, Ruby (3 mana)
Turn 4: Land, Ramp (6 mana)
Turn 5: Land (7 mana) and start playing 6-7cmc threats.
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Draw:
High average cmc and heavy land tutoring means fewer dead drops lategame, but draw is always important.
Hugs can be cascaded into, which is unfortunate.
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Threats:
These need to be removed or they will snowball if left alone.
Removal engines included here because they're effective at picking things off the field if they can stick around, but they're not as effective at removing problems that are already established on the board.
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Answers:
How to remove other players' threats.
Currently weak interaction, especially against enchantments. Could use some adjustment.
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Synergy:
Miscellaneous good stuff and creatures with one-time effects.
Cascade: Small cascades tend to grab land fetches or small utility creatures. Large cascades can grab bombs.
Wondrous Crucible: The only form of protection and recursion in the deck, other than Aurora Phoenix and Bloodbraid Challenger's self-recursion.
Additional Land Drops: Good to have but too inconsistent to consider true ramp.
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Lands:
40 lands is a safe number.
Deck is reliant on mulligans and a strong opening hand. High land count helps smooth that out.
Few utility lands. Getting those pips on turns 1 and 2 are paramount.
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Thoughts on specific cards:
+Apex Devastator/Call Forth the Tempest: Expensive (money) but the cascade on them is too perfect not to include. These are so fun to resolve.
+Gimli's Reckless Might: Haste is always useful, and fighting on attack is a great way to muscle other creatures off of the board.
+Omnath Locus of Rage: Omnath tokens can trigger Where Ancients Tread and Omnath himself can deter some board wipes if elementals dying would cause mutually assured destruction. Mana cost isn't hard to pay by the time I have 7 mana available, but fits into the curve in a way where I need to play my land drop before I can cast him on turn 4.
+Primordial Sage: Cheap (money) for a Beast Whisperer type of effect, and the mana cost isn't too high for a deck like this. Only having 4 power means it misses out on some synergies though. Still, the main draw is the draw, and that's not a bad thing.
+Rampaging Baloths: Fits into the curve nicely where I can pay 6 mana on turn 4, then do my land drop after casting him to get a landfall trigger immediately. Goes crazy if I keep casting land tutors in the mid to late game.
-Rampaging War Mammoth: Cycling to destroy artifacts can be useful, but it's limited. Not a bad creature without it. Has nice stats and the trample to make use of them. Just a bit middling in both aspects.
*Spearbreaker Behemoth: The deck's main source of protection. Needs testing.
+Stone-Seeder Hierophant: This thing makes for some silly turns when Bigger on the Inside is on the field.
-Soulfire Eruption: This is probably exciting to resolve but hasn't proven anywhere near useful enough for its mana cost. Basically just a nice impulse draw spell with some burn and possibly some removal tacked on, but it doesn't leave me with any mana to actually cast things with it, so most of it is going to waste next turn.
+Verdant Sun's Avatar: Lifegain is nice but that's all it does. Having said that, life total hitting zero is the most common way to lose the game. It can gain a lot of life.
+Zendikar Resurgent: Draw and a mana doubler attached to an enchantment. Not too expensive (mana) for a deck like this, and cheap enough (money) to be worth considering. The only downside is that the deck doesn't have enough mana sinks for it, and it probably draws a lot of attention.
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Maybeboard:
!! Susan Foreman/The Tenth Doctor: Functions similarly to Ruby, but puts me in Temur and gives me a second commander to act as a mana sink. Would let me play Maelstrom Wanderer which would also be sick. I don't watch Doctor Who though (not that Legally Distinct Riding Hood is much better).
+Bane of Progress: Not winning any prizes for originality with this one. A very nice artifact and enchantment sweeper attached to a creature, but expensive (money).
-Dragon Mage: I often find myself wanting a fresh new hand since the deck's draw is slow and usually only grabs one card at a time, especially when extra land enablers or landfall payoffs are on the board and some extra lands would be nice, or when I have enough mana to dump full hands onto the board but don't want to empty my hand out in case of a board wipe. In practice, it never feels like a good time to wheel if any other draw engines are online, and wheeling each opponent means three full hands' worth of potential answers to the deck's actual threats.
+Harmonize: Gets the job done, but it's boring. Getting draw off of a cascade can be nice, but can also cause the deck to stumble if you get card draw early on with a full hand when you wanted ramp.
+Incinerator of the Guilty: Poor man's balefire dragon. Cheap for a mythic, and its effect works well in this deck because exiling a single explosive vegetation can wipe a board of weenies, or you can exile two of them to completely wipe a board of fatties.
*Inferno Titan: Repeatable removal/burn on a decent body, and a red mana sink. Could be solid.
-Lair of the Hydra: As a mana sink it's fine, but the other mana sinks in the deck can win the game. This one, without trample or without an empty board, is basically just good for chip damage or combat trades. It comes in tapped whenever a land coming in tapped would matter, which makes the deck stumble sometimes when it shouldn't have to.
-Shefet Monitor: 4 mana to draw a card and play a land is basically a more consistent Eureka Moment. Eureka Moment isn't a very good card though. Decent body if you're just playing him but no trample makes him less worthwhile.
-Turntimber Symbiosis: Untapped MDFC means it's basically a free land slot that can also grab a creature if you topdeck it lategame, but it triggers my autism how this deck literally cannot trigger the mana value 3 or less part.
