You could swap the Snapcaster Magees for Mission Briefing and up the Ancestral Vision count for more drawing action. (Mission Briefing would allow you to flashback Ancestral Vision, while not paying mana). Otherwise a very cool deck :)

QKey you may have gotten the briefing + vision combo from this article on it which unfortunately requires As Foretold to be out for that to work. Though thanks for the mention of it (making me search for that article). I unfortunately wasn't an active player during amonkhet so I lack many of the staples from then (outside of when kaladesh/amonkhet rotated and I bought playsets of the lands when they were dirt cheap, or when i ended up opening a few of the event decks in a target mystery cube). But if I ever get past this small wall of modern cards I need for this deck I might try out an As Foretold version (I'd also have to buy the rest of the visions).

I might also try out the mainboard rip version if I get more cryptics (or at least feel more open to trying it out, extracting tron lands is pretty good vs tron in most of my testing so far, might even trade the Peek and an opt for some Thought Scour action that oddly has some advantages in several matchups, or be a psudo shuffle away bad brainstorms) yeah next step is definitely getting cryptics.

I'd try for that 4th Snapcaster Mage if you're going to be running 4x Terminus

The deck looks a little unfocussed at the moment, which is understandable if you’re missing pieces - but some cards look like they’re just jammed in here without too much care.

If you’re looking for possible directions to take this, i’ve seen someone at our local doing very well with the Narset, Parter of Veils alongside Day's Undoing - could be a path to head down that’d easily make up for the lack of playsets of particular cards, while also letting you find those 1-ofs and key pieces much easier.

yeah am kinda trying out the various new stuff, the Day's Undoing is a strong interaction for a heavier narset deck but on it's own it's kind of weaker or outright unplayable vs many decks in the format (randomly just thought of Vision Skeins with narset)

It's more likely the deck would rather have some hieroglyphs than a couple of these wincons, but most of these are just wincons wearing different faces that makes extraction a little weaker vs me. Maybe modern horizon's will print a really sweet cycling card (dreams of a phyrexian 1 cycle cost).

Though honestly I haven't been able to see what the local meta I'm nearby is looking like atm, maybe surgical isn't as popular as it has been.

You can do better than Glimmer of Genius , in the least I would suggest Tamiyo's Epiphany

Goofydat that was the maybeboard and long before they printed Fact or Fiction into modern (where you always just get to draw at least 2-4 cards or that one card you really need), but Tamiyo's Epiphany is only playable in a tournament for limited due to it's sorcery speed (though in your approach deck I guess digging 6 deep is really good) so it's actively competing with Jace, the Mind Sculptor in terms of when I'd want to play it (in modern I usually want to hold up mana for Cryptic Command and can only afford to play at sorcery speed if the opponent is in topdeck mode or I'm in topdeck mode and need any play to live). So for this deck at the power level need to be able to face 8/8's on turn 2 Glimmer of Genius being instant would put it higher in power than epiphany.

I would rather run a basic land then Lonely Sandbar. Also if you're going to spend this much money on a deck, I think you should run more Hallowed Fountains.

Goofydat have you looked at the landbase for w/u control, they frequently run a low number of shocks so they're both have a higher life total and better handle Blood Moon .

the sandbar could easily be a basic, but most of the time it's a cantrip that I can use under a thalia or chalice that sometimes can be used as a land. if I had to choose I'd probably run another spell over it instead of the 25th land.

As for the cost of the deck, this is honestly just a slow buildup over the years of playing, the SFM's were bought 2 apiece from the event decks at 30 per deck, the jace was bought from a larger collection where I essentially bought him for 20, I played a ton of magic during rtr and probably won a good 12 boxes worth of packs from events at that time. really the only money I sunk into this was for two of the cryptics during a sale (they were something like 17 each) and the Flooded Strand s back when they rotated from standard (I think they were about 13 each back then).

Essentially for any eternal format if there's a deck you want to build and you lack the money for it, just slowly build it up, I was trying to build this deck back in 2010 (and technically am still working on it)

Here is a link to a kind of memey version of Stoneblade. :)