I understand if you just want to play five color, but it isn't optimal in the hatebear strategy.

Birthing pod should be in here, probably put in melira infinite or something, and survival of the fittest is probably worth it in this list if you're going to be running lots of hate.

I'd say if you want to go on the hate plan, look at hatebear style decks in as many formats as you can to have a creature toolbox to blow situations open.

This was from a quick skim, I might be able to look more into the specific choices later.

Yeah, he original plan was four colour control, basically abzan hatebears(ish) with counterspells, however it has definitely morphed into a five colour midrange deck which I think is the only direction which will work (short of combo).

My issue with using survival or pod is that they're both points, and quite substantial points at that. I don't know if it's worth cutting recall though. The card is amazing but five points is steep for one card.

Sounds sweet! if you just plan on midranging people out rather than a toolbox those aren't really necessary anyway.

There are some more value creatures you can play for midrange for sure, but the list looks sweet.

The rough part about ancestral is that it's 5 points and it isn't a tutor, or a card you tutor for (generally). It is a card that is sweet if you draw it, but there are no plans to make use of it unless it just happens to show up.

But when you get it it's so sweet, so I definitely get it. ;P.

There have been times where I have EoT Mystical Teachings for it and I think once when I did Bring to Light for it, but yeah, it's definitely a "draw into" kind of thing.

I'm thinking of long term cutting Dark Confidant (even though I love that guy so much) for other draw. This also means I'm able to run higher CMC cards without the fear of killing myself. Speaking of, I think I'm going to drop Mind Twist for Treasure Cruise as well, there are too many times where I couldn't get enough mana for twist or they only had one card in hand or it generaly just wasn't good value.

Since you play 5 colours you should consider Shard Convergence. A counter spell worthy of consideration is Rewind and a card that helps to get creatures on the field is Wild Pair.

Ravenrose: Because this is a Canadian Highlander deck, mana cost for cards is very important. 4 mana is a lot to spend on Shard Convergence which ultiamtely just fills my hand with land. At the same cost I have cards like Siege Rhino and Hero of Bladehold which very quickly can close a game out.

I used to run a counterspell package but ultimately cut it for more proactive hand hate (like Thoughtseize) as the counterspells were too slow. The problem with Rewind is that the card is a bit of a trap. The idea of it being a "free" counterspell is only true if you have a decent selections of spells that you can play with it at instant speed, otherwise it still just costs 4 mana (at the end of your opponent's turn, any unspent mana is wasted mana). Apart from that, it has a huge outlay to cast. 4 mana means that I won't be able to do anything else, so I just have to sit there with mana up and not play threats. And playing threats keeps the pressure on my opponent. Compare the idea of being able to counter one of my opponent's spells versus say playing a Bloodbraid Elf and then cascading ito addiitonal value.

Wild Pair is far too slow here. And it is then reliant on me playing creatures. Tutors like Eladamri's Call on the other hand allow me to just fetch a creature, so top decking call would guarantee a creature, but topdecking Pair means another turn before I can potentially get one. And another turn is an opening to for my opponent to make me dead. Plus 6 mana is a lot to invest in a spell that isn't game ending by itself. I would much rather in the cost bracker get something like Dragonlord Ojutai who is a lot of flying damage and provides the deck with more tempo.

I would try and cut the double pip spells in favor of 1 pip of multiple colors spells where you can. This looks like base WG, which is fine, but splashing 2 double Blue pip creatures seems hard to hit, even if they are insane. Just a thought.

Generally the double blue isn't too much of a problem - it has been an issue once or twice but on the whole the deck struggles more with generating red mana than blue. I have thought about cutting both True-Name Nemesis and Vendilion Clique in the past but they're so good. And as I upgrade the mana base of the deck they do get easier to cast.