Cheers jmizzle7!
The easy, lazy way of modifying my deck was to add a bunch of sundials to it, so I added 6 sundials, and 2 hourglasses, and forged ahead with more testing. Not sure I liked the results. Sundial and Fire Buckler is not a combo, and seems to have damaged some of my matchups where I rely on Buckler for creature control, most notably Fire Queen. A general reduction in speed took my Obliterator matchup down from 2-5 to 0-7 (wins-losses)... I basically only win this match if I can kill him, or draw some of his protect artifacts, before Pulverizer comes down.
I went 1-1 vs Octane and 0-4 vs Divine Glory, which was very disappointing considering that beating them was the purpose of expanding the deck in the first place. Because I couldn't draw cards, my average draw with this expanded deck had lower defensive power. Octane was certainly easier to deck out, but interestingly Divine Glory wasn't; when I was calculating I made the assumption that he would draw 2 cards a turn, which is not that case if he starts his turn with 7 cards in hand, when he only draws 1.
On the plus side, I seem to have added a useful out against Hermes, who I went 2-2 against. Which such a small sample size it's hard to tell how lucky I have to be to win, but it's nice to know that if I *am* lucky, I *can* win. Sundial was the crucial card here, in two ways: By playing it turn 1, if becomes a target for his explosions; and late game, if you mindgate some Lava Destroyers, you can use Sundial to stop them from attacking into his Fire Buckler on the turn they come into play.
Overall 29 wins vs 36 losses. I had more games than before with 0 or 1 pillars in my start hand (obviously), so taking some sundials out for pillars might improve it a little; but it's doubtful that this deck is better than the 33 card build, and it's certainly slower.
I haven't given up on the idea of expanding the deck, tho, it seems I'll just have to do it more sensibly, keeping the proportion of mana generation and relevant defensive cards high. Attempting to beat Divine Glory like this may prove fruitless, but getting a high win % vs Octane via decking him out seems very achievable.
