After playing around a bit with counters, grafting and proliferate, I want to make a more competitive deck based around these themes. I'm still new at this so any advice would be greatly appreciated.
The basic idea is to keep the number of counters constantly increasing until they get out of hand. In the early game this is achieved through Thrummingbird (hopefully pumped up by using grafting), but eventually Inexorable Tide and Contagion Engine become the main proliferation methods. Even
Tezzeret's Gambit
and
Fuel for the Cause
, a draw card and counterspell respectively, help increase the number of counters whilst covering their primary functions.
Every other creature also covers a niche. Servant of the Scale keeps the mana curve low, serves well in the early game and can be a sacrificial lamb for the late game. Aquastrand Spider ensures that reach is readily available. Plaxcaster Frogling protects creatures from damaging instants and other similar threats. Herald of Secret Streams helps the deck break through strong blockers, if required.
Finally, Everflowing Chalice helps fund Plaxcaster Frogling, Contagion Engine and
Titan Forge
, the latter of which will steadily produce strong beatsticks if not dealt with quickly. These tokens have great synergy with grafting and Herald of Secret Streams, but they're still very useful in their own right.
However, there are a couple of problems that I've identified after playing some games. Firstly, the deck takes some time to build up and get protection so is very susceptible to decks with a lot of cheap removals. Secondly, the deck itself has nothing in the way of removals. Unless
Fuel for the Cause
counters the right card it is very easy to be crushed by a surprise combo. I'm unsure how to rectify these problems in any meaningful way without fundamentally changing the deck. Again, any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for reading!