This deck is great and I've recently been playing with it quite a bit!

Icy Blast is a great bomb finisher, and I find myself digging for it post-board and having it pull me out of some dire situations. Increasing the Icy Blast count will definitely help here, and it can even be an early tempo play against ramp. I've been running 1 Dig Through Time as the sole delve card with no enablers (considering moving Dakra Mystic to the main to replace Vortex Elemental; fetch lands for a splash to Thoughtseize Reclamation Sage?).

I don't find force away as useful (except maybe against heroic) and eliminating 1-drops to fit it hampers crowding the board before turning everything into sphinx-i for a big swing. It feels horrible forcing away a rabblemaster although maybe we're just conceding that matchup. To that end I like Reality Shift as a card that also works well with Thaumaturge (with the plan of flying over the manifest). I like 1 Reality Shift main and some number in the sideboard for on the draw.

To make room, I think we can shave Springleaf Drum and Illusory Angel. Gives away a little bit of explosiveness for better topdecks. This could be wrong as people learn to play around hour of need by trading aggressively (then force away becomes a better gambit). I also tend to side out Frost Walker quite readily although they are nice easy early ferocious.

Can you comment on your sideboarding plans?

I think Briber's Purse could be a good artifact to ensoul and helps against stormbreadth and the few other flyers that we want to swing through.
Also AEtherspouts in the sideboard seems like an good meta choice now with all of the devotion decks.

Thanks for this deck resource!

I'm glad someone else has been playing about with this deck, there's more testing to be done with this than I can realistically do myself so any feedback is good.

I'm actually quite happy with the new version of this deck, Force Away and Icy Blast as a play set are really good tempo plays and are quite flexible. Hour of Need isn't as good as it was since there are few actual targets for it without Vortex Elemental in the deck.

The bit I really like about Force Away is that it lets you draw a card whilst developing your board. This deck has some dead draws from mid to late game so there's no shortage of cards to dump for this ability.

I think if this deck needs a splash, black would be the way to go. Thoughtseize can take away an opponents only way to deal with an Ensouled Artifact or let you know what you need to play around, it would be a very useful addition to this deck.

If we cut Springleaf Drum and Illusory Angel the deck loses early game ramp, which is critical in a tempo deck and one of our best ferocious enablers. It also means the deck only has eight targets for Ensoul Artifact. I think cutting them would change the deck into something else, that makes more use of the hour of need combo.

The sideboard... clearly needs a lot of work and has been an afterthought whilst I'm still tweaking the maindeck.

Monastery Siege and Dig Through Time come in against decks that are trying to grind you out. This engine gives you the tools to fight mid to late game, and keeps your hands full of threats. I'm going to add M15 Jace to the sideboard as well as part of this engine that control decks will have trouble interacting with.

Omenspeaker comes in against token decks, replacing Frost Walker. It's a source of card selection, blocks token aggro well and is a good target for Hour of Need.

Polymorphous Rush and Curse of the Swine are also cards that might come in. AEtherspouts is pretty amazing, but competes with Icy Blast for the same role.