I Need Help

(As with most deck-related posts, that's a line from the song, not a direct plea. Although help is always good).

I got a few games in with Knives and, though it grates on my weirdo sensibilities, I have to admit that it's pretty likely that Rite of Passage will have to come out.

This makes me sad. Making creatures bigger via what I want to do with Wave of Reckoning really seemed like the way to go. However, I'm not doing anything else with +1 counters so there is very much a "cool" factor happening. I'm not going to give up on it just yet but it's on the chopping block.

In contrast, I knew I wanted to cut Acridian because there's no need for the echo cost and I figured 2/4 creatures come in better flavors. I did a search though and it's hard to find a replacement. Most creatures have Defender or zero power or both, or just don't quite fit. Two mana isn't much and I suppose I'm asking for a lot.

I ended up with Druid of the Cowl as my replacement, because I kept seeing a logjam of cards at the 3 mana spot. Making sure I can cast those 3 drops seems like a solid idea, as well as potentially making Wev of Reckoning castable on turn four. Yes, I am aware that Noble Hierarch would be a perfect card for this deck but that card costs $65 despite being reprinted and I'm invoking the "my money > less of my money" rule.

The next thing I did was run this through deckstats.net and that's when I noticed the mana color problems. There just isn't enough blue. But at 42% lands I don't think I need to add more, just adjust the lands I do have to represent the colors I need. Fortunately that's an easy tweak, as I can adjust both my green and white mana without much impact on their availability.

Time to see if Rite of Passage really, truly sucks here...