Hey, Idoneity, fair enough and grain of salt taken; I'm just happy for the engagement and thought exercise(s)!

I think you and I have fairly similar deckbuilding philosophies; and for that reason I think I'd agree that Fertile Ground is definitely not optimal, it is sweet Anikthea tech though. And I think we’d both also agree that it's also not just stand alone card value, but also deck synergy that factors into deckbuilding choices; especially for EDH.

Between Ajani's Chosen and Archon of Sun's Grace, I'd definitely agree that the archon is stronger. But, it seems like I value these cards much higher than you for this specific deck/build. Oftentimes I see Ajani's Chosen and Archon of Sun's Grace almost like backup/adjacent commanders to Anikthea. They're additional token generators that reward me for playing into the themes of the build, and offer an avenue to close out games either after my graveyard is wiped and/or before I get good targets in my graveyard for Anikthea's ability. They can and will get out of hand without Anikthea needing to be played, and can force opponents to need removal before I even utilize my commander; which can then be followed up by falling right back into the main gameplan with Anikthea. Sure, by themselves and without the context of the decklist, they aren't going to be doing much; but when they offer additional value for a majority of the plays being made with this list, I think they become a lot stronger of effects/includes.

I have similar opinions regarding Mirkwood Bats, Grim Guardian, and Bastion of Remembrance. Outside of pure game-ending combo packages, and B4+ decklists, I typically consider cards that I categorize as ‘Finishers’ as the cards that will win the game if you have already gotten your gameplan going. They're not cards that are supposed to end the game just by themselves, in my opinion, but more-so win the game once I’m already doing a lot, by capitalizing off of my deckbuilding choices. To that end, I would argue that adding the drain/ping effects like Mirkwood Bats and Grim Guardian are actually raising the power cap, relative to a more alpha strike-based gameplan, especially since they ping when my enchantment tokens ETB; which is why I started to transition them into the list. Unfortunately Bastion of Remembrance is probably the weakest option since it triggers off creatures dying. But the fact that it's an enchantment, that also provides a token body on the side, has kept it in the list up till now. Ideally I'd have a much bigger suite of on-theme ETB drain effects; I'm just waiting for them to be printed! I'm trying to maximize the value I can get from the tokens produced by Anikthea ASAP; especially since exiling your own enchantments to make token copies is a fragile strategy. The pinger effects guarantee some sort of payoff that's headed towards winning the game without having to worry about attacks.

Palantir of Orthanc... I know I should cut it for something more on-theme, I do love this card though lol… If I were to cut it, I'd want to replace it with another piece of card advantage; this deck can be really resource hungry. Similar thoughts for Mindwrack Harpy: I'd want to replace it with a different piece of on-theme card advantage if anything. I actually really like Mindwrack Harpy and sure, relative to something like Rhystic StudyGC or Esper Sentinel it's lower power; but it also puts in consistent work, especially in B3. I particularly like it because it typically offers card advantage during the same turn that it's played, and in my local meta having creatures with flying to block has been invaluable. I'm also a bit biased because I very rarely have had to worry about Mindwrack Harpy giving my playgroup card advantage as well, because up until recently I've primarily been the only one capitalizing off of my graveyard; and there is a good number of decks in my playgroup that care about topdeck manipulation so milling everyone has been almost all upside for me (we will see what the future holds since graveyard synergies are starting to become more common in my meta). In my experience Mindwrack Harpy has also gotten a disproportionate amount of removal thrown at it in my playgroup, so it also acts as a lightning rod to draw removal away from key pieces.

I think I'm going to hold off on adding Familiar Ground to the formal decklist right this second, but I am going to swap it in for Flowering of the White Tree and do a bunch of playtesting in the meantime! Thank you again for taking the time and energy to check out the decklist and offer your insight, I appreciate it!

I would love to slot back in Familiar Ground, Idoneity, it's just hard to find room! You're right, it has such a cool niche with Anikthea, Hand of Erebos's abilities; it's just also nowhere near as good if she's not also on the battlefield.

If I were to re-add Familiar Ground, do you have any suggestions for cuts? Overlord of the Balemurk and Ripples of Undeath had fairly easy options to swap with, but I'm less sure with Familiar Ground.

The only two that start to come to my mind are Flowering of the White Tree and Boon of the Spirit Realm. But I think I'm more partial to both of those cards, because they have a solid floor and they also have the potential to scale pretty crazily if I can make multiple token copies of them; whereas Familiar Ground does not, and doesn't synergize with as many other parts of the deck. That being said, this is just where my current build for this commander has shaken out and I think there's a lot of wiggle room to build with different cards for Anikthea; and Familiar Ground is definitely a solid include whenever she's the commander!

Idoneity, hi, thank you! I appreciate your suggestions and that you checked out the list!

Ripples of Undeath is great! It’s been in most of the different builds of Anikthea that I’ve tinkered with and is arguably just better Cemetery Tampering; I’ve wanted to slot it back into this list for a bit now. I think my main card advantage flex spots that I’d consider swapping would be: Palantir of Orthanc (even though I love this card), Commune with the Gods (flavor win), and Grisly Salvage (instant speed goodness). But, these cards are all in this list over Ripples of Undeath primarily because they offer card advantage immediately, rather than having to wait until the beginning of my next precombat mainphase... This deck’s gameplans are already inherently fragile and easily interacted with, so I wanted to reduce the number of plays that could end up just doing nothing; such as Ripples of Undeath getting blown up before I get any card advantage out of it (which had happened multiple times!). Interestingly enough, Cemetery Tampering has taken way less heat and oftentimes only gets removed when an enchantment-inclusive boardwipe gets used; so it ended up making the cut over Ripples of Undeath. That being said, I’m thinking it may just be time to swap out Cemetery Tampering for Ripples of Undeath because the flexibility of grabbing any non-enchantments milled is pretty invaluable for this deck.

Somehow I don’t think I’ve considered Overlord of the Balemurk for this build yet! It’s definitely an interesting option, but I do have some mixed feelings; primarily because I’m assuming that most of the time It’ll either be a reanimation target for Anikthea, or get cast for it’s Impending 5 cost which I’m not super jazzed about (because it takes forever to come online, only mills 4 once in the meantime, and recurs creatures to hand rather than the battlefield). Similar to Ripples of Undeath, my potential swap candidates would be listed above. I think I’m going to have to just rip off the bandaid and remove the flavor option in Commune with the Gods; at least for now because I think you’re on to something, and I want to playtest with Overlord of the Balemurk!

Spelunking is a fun option, I just don’t think it’s the right fit for this build of Anikthea though. Sure, it replaces itself when cast or nets a card if reanimated, but that’s kinda where it falls off for this build. I’m only running 6 lands that have to ETB tapped, so the last ability is not as helpful as it could be. To be fair, I’m able to play with whatever lands I want since my playgroup proxies, and I think Spelunking would feel much more synergistic and strong in a deck with more tapped lands (especially MDFC lands, which I’ve been lazy about finding space for). Any further synergy Spelunking has with the rest of the deck is solely based on the fact that it’s an enchantment, so I would primarily be looking critically at the main effect it provides (card advantage) relative to similar cards in my list for potential cards to swap it with; and ultimately I think I’d much rather swap in either Ripples of Undeath or Overlord of the Balemurk first!

Regardless, thank you again for your time and suggestions, I’m always happy to have new cards to mull over and consider for this deck!