stevebugge

Love the deck name

Now that's a good question. Things I would consider are Mana Vault, Sol Ring, Coalition Relic, Felwar Stone, and other similar accelerators. Board clearing spells as mentioned by Razka are definitely a good plan, you won't have much defense until you get the barbs rolling, I'd add Pyroclasm to his list in case you run up against a weenie hoard. Aether Flash may add a different sort of defense, but can be a two edge sword.

Since this deck isn't exactly going budget you might as well go all in with a Khabal Ghoul or 4. Also while it's nice to have a lot of instant removal at 2 or less, the 3 CMC of Murder is worth it for the lack of targeting restrictions.

Got some new stuff in Oath of the Gatewatch and I'm considering some swapouts, I'm just not sure which ones and for what.

Actually have had it mostly built for quite a while, just short 2 of the Diamond Valleys. It does fairly well most of the time, but does get foiled by smart White players. Fortunately most of my play group are Red and/or Black aggro type players. If my meta were to change and involve more enchantment destruction adding Regrowth, Restock and the like would be necessary.

So I built this deck a few weeks back as a concept trying to leverage the Provoke mechanic with Kusari-Gama. It just hasn't performed all that well to date so I am looking for some ideas to try to improve it while staying with the core concept. Additionally I am trying to keep it pretty budget.

What? No avarice Totem?

Ok I get it, so either the persist creatures come in to play and get a +1/+1 from Anafeza eliminating the -1/-1 from persist or the -1/-1 is prevented from attaching by Melira. Are you trying to stay in a certain format or is the whole of the MTG printing open?

Enduring Renewal + Cheap/Free creatures engine is a classic. I like Enduring Renewal + Ornithopter + Ashnod's Altar (or Phyrexian Altar) to get unlimited mana. With infinite mana I can do awful things.

I must admit I'm a bit confused about just what the deck is supposed to do, I think it's supposed to revolve around putting a continuous stream of creatures in play to take advantage of Anafenza, and the deck name comes from Chord of Calling and Collected Company. Am I on the right track? If so and you're OK with going Legacy there are two creatures I'd like to introduce you to: Blinking Spirit and Spike Cannibal. Blinking Spirit will assure that you have a Non-Token Creature to cast regularly and Spike Cannibal, well it can just get rude in an environment where there are a lot of +1/+1 counters around.

With the Mana curve the way it is, I'm a bit surprised to see 21 lands, I bet you could run just fine on 16 - 18, and in fact I would not be surprised to find that later game unwanted land draws actually keep the deck from finishing off opponents.

I built a Blue - Green on a similar concept ( http://www.mtgvault.com/stevebugge/decks/poisonous-slivers/ if you want to look ) though not quite budget. I agree with the general concept of reducing the number of colors, the more colors you run the less stable your mana base will be. Gemhide Sliver helps a lot too.

Winning just to win, especially when your deck badly outclasses you opponents isn't much fun. I have a deck that wins about 98% of the time. Why? because it has cards I got in the early days of the game I'd need to take out a second mortgage to get now. (If you really want to see: http://www.mtgvault.com/stevebugge/decks/old-school-blue/ ) It's not a lot of fun to play though, prevent your opponent from doing much and beat him in to submission with Air Elemental, pretty vanilla really. The most fun about playing this is the shock value of actually playing a TIme Walk or Ancestral recall and watching your opponents jaw drop because they've never seen one in real life. That said I prefer to try to build an unexpected combo from cards most ignore, and if I can do it for a total deck cost of around $20 all the better.

And like most things, Magic goes better with beer

I've been playing for 21 years now, I enjoy all types of decks but would probably be more of a Combo player than anything. However my favorite part of the game is trying to surprise other players with new and different strategies or at least a surprising twist on a better known archetype. I'm equally comfortable playing Combo, Control, or Aggro or hybrids of the various types.

Very seriously considering swapping the Spellbinders for Quietus Spikes

Swap out the Goblin Bomb for Fiery Gambit and the price comes down substantially, the hilarity will remain at high levels

That it is

Nice call, that would help get the Succession in play a bit faster

Some interesting ideas there. I actually just rotated Captain of the Watch out, so I'm going to see how this does without him. Boros Elite is an interesting idea, and would be a great call for a strict dueler but this is a casual deck that is most frequently played in a 3 handed. I like Mentor of the Meek, definitely a possibility.