Search for Tomorrow, Recross the Paths, and Cultivate all cost a net of two mana, in theory (assuming the land to hand from Cultivate can be played as your land-drop for the turn). They all have upsides that make them better than Rampant Growth, in theory. In practice, I found that having more than about 6 of these total was clunky -- I'd be on four mana with two of them in hand, really wishing that one was a simple Rampant Growth. I think Cultivate is the strongest, up to about 4 copies (seriously guys, play with 4 for a while and see if it doesn't convince you). And Recross seems like the next choice, as a back-up way to find win-cons.
The Suspend on Search seems cool; but I usually wanted to play a mana dork first turn, Sak-Elder or Cultivate turn 2, etc.
In other news, I finally tested another set against Gruul with my last test list (Fabricate, and one main-deck Ensnaring Bridge). Not so good, 4-10, for an overall record of 7-17. Gruul is both faster and much more consistent. Blockers were worth ~2 life on average (often 3, but also often trampled over or removed with a 2 damage spell), but I was still dying on turn 4 very regularly. The Bridge sometimes shut them down, but I also had some trouble emptying my hand in time. I 'spect they board in Ancient Grudge, making Bridge even more questionable after board. Pithing Needle was weak (name Ghor-Clan Rampager).
Letting some singletons in for testing, even if I'm sceptical. And 61 cards. So, wildly not optimized for winning, but pretty good for learning.
Tested 10 games against Gruul Zoo. Goldfished the Gruul first, to get the hand of it and figure out how fast it is. Very consistent turn 4: 10/10 goldfishes in fact.
In games, Belcher won 4 out of 10. One turn 4 on the play, one turn 5 on the play against a weak Gruul hand, two turn 12+ hiding behind Bridge. Lost one game when my dorky U sources got burned, stranding Fabricate; one with a Bridge but I couldn't clear my hand; one to a multi-mulligan; and the rest were just races that Gruul won.
Goldfished another 30 games. May post a more thorough write-up later, but here's the short version.
Turn 3: 1/30 = 3%
Turn 4: 11/30 = 37%
Turn 5: 10/30 = 33%
Turn 6: 5/30 = 17%
Turn 7+: 3/30 = 10%
mean: 4.9
I don't think the deck can do much better than 40 or 50% turn 4 kills, against goldfish. I'm wondering if we should back off of that as an ideal, accept turn 5, and add some Fabricatable silver bullets. Ensnaring Bridge?
Cultivate is very strong. I think 4 or 5 is the right number. Blue mana for Fabricate was not an issue. Stomping Grounds did not add as much lethality (only 1/30) as I think it should have, given the number of times I Belched with it still in the deck; though it didn't cause thin-ability issues either.
Removing Rampant Growth for Search for Tomorrow was an interesting experiment, and I do think Search is a good card. But I think I oversaturated with cards that should only cost two net, but require three and then pay you back one: hardcast Search, Cultivate +land-drop, Recross. More than once I found myself at four mana with two such cards in hand.
For those who play SSG: I haven't tried him, but he doesn't look strong. A full card for only one mana, not even green. What turn do you usually use him, and for what?
I think I'm about done goldfishing. Going to test against Gruul Zoo first -- aggressive creatures with trample and burn.
The turn 7+'s, I couldn't find Belcher. Likewise one of the 6's, that was the turn I top-decked it. The other 6 was a mull that short-Belched (with land still in the library) on turn 5 and failed to kill.
Mulligans: 6/30, mean kill = 5.2.
Double mulligans: 0/30. A bit luckier than expected.
Finding Belcher:
Charbelcher: 13/30, mean = 4.3
Fabricate: 10/30, mean = 4.9
Recross successfully: 2/30, mean = 5
Recross unsuccessful (too many lands still in the deck): 2/30.
None: 3/30.
Lack of U for Fabricate when I needed it: 0/30.
Basic land-search languishing in hand while Breeding Pool was stuck in library: 1/30. Seems like this should have happened more, maybe I just got lucky?
Paying 2 life for Breeding Pool: 7/30. Wasn't sure how aggressive to be. Often entering tapped wouldn't change my fundamental turn; or it was still in the library when I Belched.
Belching with land still in library: 13/30. Six of these were lethal (defined as 17+ damage), including five of the Turn 4 kills.
Turn 1 Lotus Bloom: 9/30, mean = 5.0.
Not sure how well it performed. Two of these I had trouble finding Belcher, bringing the mean up. The other seven all Belched on turn 4, but with land still in the library: three fatal, four not.
Overperformers: Kodama's Reach. Rampant Growth plus Lay of the Land in one card. Harrow may be a bit stronger against a goldfish, but I think I agree with ktkenshinx that it's a bad idea in a world with countermagic. Search for Tomorrow. Pretty good suspended on turn 1 or 2; just as good as Rampant Growth later (puts the land into play untapped).
Underperformers: Noble Hierarch? Sometimes I felt like I had too many dorks and not enough land-searching -- hence the large number of short-Belches. Breeding Pool? Not sure yet how badly I need the U, how hard it is to remove from library, and much two life hurts. Rampant Growth. It does what it does, it just doesn't feel as powerful (Reach) or flexible (Search for Tomorrow) as the other options. Recross the Paths. I know it needs to be in the deck for redundancy, but it just feels clunky. And my 3cc slots are getting crowded.
Overall, I think I to up the land-thinning slightly. I'm thinking:
Hey, all. I've started playing around with this deck, just goldfishing so far. I played Suicide Belcher back in its Standard days (with Chrome Mox and the suicidal black tutors, but no 1cc Lay variants), and it was one of my favorite decks....
Lotus Bloom seems like the best way to go off on turn 4. Mishra's Bauble and Wanderer's Twig are extra Stirrings target. (Actually, I started with a 3rd Bloom and Bauble and 4th Rampant Growth instead of the Kodama's/Harrow; but quickly decided I didn't have enough land thinning).
Ok, that build was not too bad if you want to stay mono-green, but I wasn't finding Belcher reliably enough. Recross is, at best, very slow; and Stirrings was fun, and didn't usually whiff completely, and sometimes found Lotus Bloom on turn one (sometimes the correct play, sometimes not); but still, not a reliable way to find Belcher.
Stirrings, Bauble and Twig have left the deck; Arbor Elf converted to Noble Hierarch for U mana; Search for Tomorrow is getting an audition. So far, it's goldfishing fairly well. Main concerns are:
Finding Belcher, still.
Getting enough lands out the deck. I can fire Belcher on turn 4 fairly often, but often there's still a land or two left. Possible solutions: add more Kodama's Reach (I find this to be a strong card, though the 3-slot is getting crowded); or convert a Forest to a Stomping Grounds.
Getting the Breeding Pool out of the deck. Only Safewright and sometimes Recross can find it. Possible solutions: remove it. Between Birds, Hierarch, Utopia Sprawl and Bloom I've got 14 other sources of U (though some are fragile, and top-decked Bloom doesn't count). Manamorphose is a possibility too. Or, add more ways to find it e.g. replace Rampant Growth with Sylvan Scrying.
Depends on the color intensity of your spells. Br Zombies needs red sources, but also needs every land to produce B for Messenger. Guildgate does that. If your spells are all single colored mana, or maybe double at 4+ cmc, then the drawback of Wilds is much less.
Thinning isn't completely negligible, especially for decks that plan to go long. The old arguement was about off-color fetches, purely for the thinning. There the cost was 1 life, and the conclusion was that it wasn't worth it. Decks that wanted to go long couldn't afford to spend life, and decks that could afford the life weren't going long enough to see the benefit. With Wilds, the cost (inflexibility, relative to 'Gates) varies depending on your color intensity, but it's often pretty low. For UW control, I find the balance between Gate and Wilds is pretty close; probably favoring Gate if I'm running Dissipate, otherwise Wilds.
Also, Wilds allows m10/Innistrad duals to enter untapped, though in a 2 color deck that almost always happens anyway. Back-of-envelope suggests using Guildgates could make early game m10s enter tapped about 2% more often than with Wilds.
I've wondered, as a thought experiment, at what casting cost a vanilla 1,000,000/1,000,000 would actually see play. I suspect it would be unplayable at 6 mana. At 5 it might be interesting.
"Viability testing" and rough shaping go together, and take a lot more than an hour. Usually the core of a deck is pretty obvious -- some set of interacting cards that seem potentially powerful enough, attacking from in a way that the metagame is currently ill-prepared for. Then there will be a number of spaces for support cards that interact well with the core and/or generically good cards to answer my opponents. I'll test the cards that interact well with my gameplan first, because that's where I have the least understanding of how good they are. The ultimate example is a combo deck, which I'll tune quite extensively by goldfishing. The opposite example is a control deck which does nothing but thwart my opponents' plans, and needs to be built specifically for the metagame.
I'll build/proxy, often as a "fat" deck -- perhaps 75 cards, with the manabase scaled up appropriately and 5x of key components that I don't want to suffer too much dilution (especially combo pieces). Then solo test 8-12 games against three or four of the top decks that operate very differently e.g. aggro, control, combo, etc. spanning the colors as well. Currently my mini-gauntlet is Delver, UB control, Wolf Run ramp, and Br zombies. Edit heavily and try it again. During this stage I may swap in or out 4x of things, or even 6x of things, or always start with a copy in my opening hand, or ignore mulligans, or whatever. The point is to gain information about my deck, the value of particular cards and interactions between them, my routes to victory and my vulnerabilities.
I want to get the maindeck into roughly the correct shape -- probably 52 or so cards, and pretty good ideas about the options for the rest -- before I decide an idea isn't viable. That probably takes 6 or 10 hours of solo testing, editing, more testing, etc against the mini-gauntlet. I may work out a few boarding plans, especially if I'm going to be transforming substantially; but mostly I won't be testing sideboards yet.
That reduces the value of Gut Shot/Dismember. I've got one of each in my gauntlet Delver, and they seem fine. But the chance to re-use them is significant, or to gain access to them off a Tome Scour.
Have you tried Green Sun and decided you didn't like it? Seems like too few lords without it.... Though maybe with more 1-drop elves instead of Birds you're more rush than ramp.
Sideboard, I like Manabarbs and I think Arc Trail (I see you have 2 main, I'd want access to the other 2 from the board). Beyond that not sure.... Ancient Grudge probably. Maybe Batterskull?
Birds or emissary could go below 4, but I'm going to start with the high-mana configuration.
I'm not sure on Copperhorn. He seems incredibly good occasionally, but irrelevant much of the time. I'll start him at 3 so he gets a fair amount of facetime without having to Zenith for him, but I don't draw doubles too often (the marginal value of the second Copperhorn is often quite small).
And any deck with 4x Green Sun starts with a small toolbox.
That's 31 spells so far. Lead the Stampede? Beast Within? More 1-drop elves? More late-game threats and/or ways to make dorks more threatening? Other tutor targets?
I'm going to start playing around with burn. I think Arc Trail and Slagstorm are required. Chandra's Phoenix as the only creature; the problem with running e.g. Lavamancer is that he just dies to whatever removal they're holding, because you aren't giving them any other targets. And I want to give Chandra a serious audition; pingers usually cost 3, but she has haste, and reasonable loyalty, and threatens to become more dangerous quickly.
Higginjoe: That list isn't going to work well. It's trying to do too many things, and getting away from the core functionality. Sometimes "less than four" is the correct number for a card, but I don't think I've ever seen a deck that didn't want four of any card.
In particular, think about how you're going to use Quest. In a deck with 18 creature spells (that's being generous and counting Glint Hawks twice; in practice you'll usually be able to pick up a creature to recast, but not always), you can expect to see 5 creatures by the time you've gone through 5/18 of your deck = 16 cards, i.e. turn 10 on average. That's only the average, a large fraction of games it will take longer.
If you want to play Quest and Steel in the same deck, cut out everything that isn't a creature, except Quest, Armor, Steel, and of course lands and Opals. Play 4x of your core cards: Ornithopter, Memnite, Signal Pest. And Glint Hawk and Squadron Hawk are absolutely needed to activate Quest reliably. Then fill in with cheap artifact creatures (I like Steel Overseer and Phyrexian Revoker), or arguably Skyfisher. If you've got 29 creatures (+10 Quest/Armor/Steel +21 land/Opal), playing more like ~37 creatures (counting Hawks double), you've got a good chance of activating Quest early, if it's in your opening hand. If you must, you could probably squeeze in one or two extra spells, equipment, etc. But there's no room for burn and Silence, and you need actual creature spells, not Idol and Spellbomb.
Glint Hawk is very good. Almost always it's a 2/2 flyer for W. Occasionally more, but also occasionally less (bounce an Opal, replay it). Consider that Ornithopter's two power is contingent on having Steel in play, Hawk's is not contingent on anything. Do try to be careful against a deck with removal mana up, if you've only got one bounceable dork.
Who has some actual experience with Chimeric Mass? I'm a big fan of the Idol for it's resistance to sweepers, so I want to try Mass as well. But (a) it doesn't fly, (b) it always costs a mana to activate. Against that (a) it can be larger than 2/2 if you're a bit flooded, (b) it helps out Glint Hawk if you don't have another 0-drop (or Tezz, if you're just planning to 5/5 it).
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The Suspend on Search seems cool; but I usually wanted to play a mana dork first turn, Sak-Elder or Cultivate turn 2, etc.
In other news, I finally tested another set against Gruul with my last test list (Fabricate, and one main-deck Ensnaring Bridge). Not so good, 4-10, for an overall record of 7-17. Gruul is both faster and much more consistent. Blockers were worth ~2 life on average (often 3, but also often trampled over or removed with a 2 damage spell), but I was still dying on turn 4 very regularly. The Bridge sometimes shut them down, but I also had some trouble emptying my hand in time. I 'spect they board in Ancient Grudge, making Bridge even more questionable after board. Pithing Needle was weak (name Ghor-Clan Rampager).
1 Stomping ground
4 Chancellor of the tangle
1 Lotus bloom
1 Simian spirit guide
4 Lay of the land
4 Caravan vigil
4 Safewright quest
2 Search for tomorrow
4 Utopia sprawl
4 Birds of paradise
2 Noble hierarch
2 Rampant growth
1 Wall of roots
1 Sylvan ranger
4 Cultivate
4 Fabricate
2 Recross the paths
1 Pithing needle
1 Ensnaring bridge
Letting some singletons in for testing, even if I'm sceptical. And 61 cards. So, wildly not optimized for winning, but pretty good for learning.
Tested 10 games against Gruul Zoo. Goldfished the Gruul first, to get the hand of it and figure out how fast it is. Very consistent turn 4: 10/10 goldfishes in fact.
In games, Belcher won 4 out of 10. One turn 4 on the play, one turn 5 on the play against a weak Gruul hand, two turn 12+ hiding behind Bridge. Lost one game when my dorky U sources got burned, stranding Fabricate; one with a Bridge but I couldn't clear my hand; one to a multi-mulligan; and the rest were just races that Gruul won.
Turn 3: 1/30 = 3%
Turn 4: 11/30 = 37%
Turn 5: 10/30 = 33%
Turn 6: 5/30 = 17%
Turn 7+: 3/30 = 10%
mean: 4.9
I don't think the deck can do much better than 40 or 50% turn 4 kills, against goldfish. I'm wondering if we should back off of that as an ideal, accept turn 5, and add some Fabricatable silver bullets. Ensnaring Bridge?
Cultivate is very strong. I think 4 or 5 is the right number. Blue mana for Fabricate was not an issue. Stomping Grounds did not add as much lethality (only 1/30) as I think it should have, given the number of times I Belched with it still in the deck; though it didn't cause thin-ability issues either.
Removing Rampant Growth for Search for Tomorrow was an interesting experiment, and I do think Search is a good card. But I think I oversaturated with cards that should only cost two net, but require three and then pay you back one: hardcast Search, Cultivate +land-drop, Recross. More than once I found myself at four mana with two such cards in hand.
For those who play SSG: I haven't tried him, but he doesn't look strong. A full card for only one mana, not even green. What turn do you usually use him, and for what?
I think I'm about done goldfishing. Going to test against Gruul Zoo first -- aggressive creatures with trample and burn.
Turn 4: 11/30 = 37%
Turn 5: 13/30 = 43%
Turn 6: 2/30 = 7%
Turn 7+: 4/30 = 13%
Mean = 5.0
The turn 7+'s, I couldn't find Belcher. Likewise one of the 6's, that was the turn I top-decked it. The other 6 was a mull that short-Belched (with land still in the library) on turn 5 and failed to kill.
Mulligans: 6/30, mean kill = 5.2.
Double mulligans: 0/30. A bit luckier than expected.
Finding Belcher:
Charbelcher: 13/30, mean = 4.3
Fabricate: 10/30, mean = 4.9
Recross successfully: 2/30, mean = 5
Recross unsuccessful (too many lands still in the deck): 2/30.
None: 3/30.
Lack of U for Fabricate when I needed it: 0/30.
Basic land-search languishing in hand while Breeding Pool was stuck in library: 1/30. Seems like this should have happened more, maybe I just got lucky?
Paying 2 life for Breeding Pool: 7/30. Wasn't sure how aggressive to be. Often entering tapped wouldn't change my fundamental turn; or it was still in the library when I Belched.
Belching with land still in library: 13/30. Six of these were lethal (defined as 17+ damage), including five of the Turn 4 kills.
Turn 1 Lotus Bloom: 9/30, mean = 5.0.
Not sure how well it performed. Two of these I had trouble finding Belcher, bringing the mean up. The other seven all Belched on turn 4, but with land still in the library: three fatal, four not.
Overperformers:
Kodama's Reach. Rampant Growth plus Lay of the Land in one card. Harrow may be a bit stronger against a goldfish, but I think I agree with ktkenshinx that it's a bad idea in a world with countermagic.
Search for Tomorrow. Pretty good suspended on turn 1 or 2; just as good as Rampant Growth later (puts the land into play untapped).
Underperformers:
Noble Hierarch? Sometimes I felt like I had too many dorks and not enough land-searching -- hence the large number of short-Belches.
Breeding Pool? Not sure yet how badly I need the U, how hard it is to remove from library, and much two life hurts.
Rampant Growth. It does what it does, it just doesn't feel as powerful (Reach) or flexible (Search for Tomorrow) as the other options.
Recross the Paths. I know it needs to be in the deck for redundancy, but it just feels clunky. And my 3cc slots are getting crowded.
Overall, I think I to up the land-thinning slightly. I'm thinking:
1 Stomping grounds
4 Chancellor of the tangle
3 Lotus bloom
4 Lay of the land
4 Caravan vigil
4 Safewright quest
4 Birds of paradise
4 Utopia sprawl
3 Noble Hierarch
4 Search for tomorrow
5 Cultivate/Kodama's reach
3 Recross the paths
4 Fabricate
4 Goblin charbelcher
Too many Cultivates? Can I afford to give up Breeding Pool for Stomping Grounds?
First variant, mono-green with Ancient Stirrings
4 Chancellor of the tangle
2 Lotus bloom
2 Mishra's bauble
4 Lay of the land
4 Caravan vigil
4 Safewright quest
4 Ancient stirrings
2 Wanderer's twig
4 Birds of paradise
4 Utopia sprawl
2 Arbor elf
3 Rampant growth
2 Kodama's reach
1 Harrow
4 Recross the paths
4 Goblin charbelcher
Lotus Bloom seems like the best way to go off on turn 4. Mishra's Bauble and Wanderer's Twig are extra Stirrings target. (Actually, I started with a 3rd Bloom and Bauble and 4th Rampant Growth instead of the Kodama's/Harrow; but quickly decided I didn't have enough land thinning).
Ok, that build was not too bad if you want to stay mono-green, but I wasn't finding Belcher reliably enough. Recross is, at best, very slow; and Stirrings was fun, and didn't usually whiff completely, and sometimes found Lotus Bloom on turn one (sometimes the correct play, sometimes not); but still, not a reliable way to find Belcher.
Enter Fabricate:
1 Breeding pool
4 Chancellor of the tangle
3 Lotus bloom
4 Lay of the land
4 Caravan vigil
4 Safewright quest
4 Birds of paradise
4 Utopia sprawl
3 Noble Hierarch
2 Search for tomorrow
3 Rampant growth
2 Kodama's reach
1 Harrow
4 Recross the paths
4 Fabricate
Stirrings, Bauble and Twig have left the deck; Arbor Elf converted to Noble Hierarch for U mana; Search for Tomorrow is getting an audition. So far, it's goldfishing fairly well. Main concerns are:
Finding Belcher, still.
Getting enough lands out the deck. I can fire Belcher on turn 4 fairly often, but often there's still a land or two left. Possible solutions: add more Kodama's Reach (I find this to be a strong card, though the 3-slot is getting crowded); or convert a Forest to a Stomping Grounds.
Getting the Breeding Pool out of the deck. Only Safewright and sometimes Recross can find it. Possible solutions: remove it. Between Birds, Hierarch, Utopia Sprawl and Bloom I've got 14 other sources of U (though some are fragile, and top-decked Bloom doesn't count). Manamorphose is a possibility too. Or, add more ways to find it e.g. replace Rampant Growth with Sylvan Scrying.
Thinning isn't completely negligible, especially for decks that plan to go long. The old arguement was about off-color fetches, purely for the thinning. There the cost was 1 life, and the conclusion was that it wasn't worth it. Decks that wanted to go long couldn't afford to spend life, and decks that could afford the life weren't going long enough to see the benefit. With Wilds, the cost (inflexibility, relative to 'Gates) varies depending on your color intensity, but it's often pretty low. For UW control, I find the balance between Gate and Wilds is pretty close; probably favoring Gate if I'm running Dissipate, otherwise Wilds.
Also, Wilds allows m10/Innistrad duals to enter untapped, though in a 2 color deck that almost always happens anyway. Back-of-envelope suggests using Guildgates could make early game m10s enter tapped about 2% more often than with Wilds.
"Viability testing" and rough shaping go together, and take a lot more than an hour. Usually the core of a deck is pretty obvious -- some set of interacting cards that seem potentially powerful enough, attacking from in a way that the metagame is currently ill-prepared for. Then there will be a number of spaces for support cards that interact well with the core and/or generically good cards to answer my opponents. I'll test the cards that interact well with my gameplan first, because that's where I have the least understanding of how good they are. The ultimate example is a combo deck, which I'll tune quite extensively by goldfishing. The opposite example is a control deck which does nothing but thwart my opponents' plans, and needs to be built specifically for the metagame.
I'll build/proxy, often as a "fat" deck -- perhaps 75 cards, with the manabase scaled up appropriately and 5x of key components that I don't want to suffer too much dilution (especially combo pieces). Then solo test 8-12 games against three or four of the top decks that operate very differently e.g. aggro, control, combo, etc. spanning the colors as well. Currently my mini-gauntlet is Delver, UB control, Wolf Run ramp, and Br zombies. Edit heavily and try it again. During this stage I may swap in or out 4x of things, or even 6x of things, or always start with a copy in my opening hand, or ignore mulligans, or whatever. The point is to gain information about my deck, the value of particular cards and interactions between them, my routes to victory and my vulnerabilities.
I want to get the maindeck into roughly the correct shape -- probably 52 or so cards, and pretty good ideas about the options for the rest -- before I decide an idea isn't viable. That probably takes 6 or 10 hours of solo testing, editing, more testing, etc against the mini-gauntlet. I may work out a few boarding plans, especially if I'm going to be transforming substantially; but mostly I won't be testing sideboards yet.
That reduces the value of Gut Shot/Dismember. I've got one of each in my gauntlet Delver, and they seem fine. But the chance to re-use them is significant, or to gain access to them off a Tome Scour.
Sideboard, I like Manabarbs and I think Arc Trail (I see you have 2 main, I'd want access to the other 2 from the board). Beyond that not sure.... Ancient Grudge probably. Maybe Batterskull?
My thoughts:
4 Birds of paradise
4 Viridian emissary
3 Copperhorn scout
4 Elvish archdruid
4 Ezuri
1 Viridian corruptor
1 Thrun
1 Acidic slime
1 Primeval titan
3 Wolf-run
1 Inkmoth nexus
8 G/R lands
1 Mountain
10 Forests
Birds or emissary could go below 4, but I'm going to start with the high-mana configuration.
I'm not sure on Copperhorn. He seems incredibly good occasionally, but irrelevant much of the time. I'll start him at 3 so he gets a fair amount of facetime without having to Zenith for him, but I don't draw doubles too often (the marginal value of the second Copperhorn is often quite small).
And any deck with 4x Green Sun starts with a small toolbox.
That's 31 spells so far. Lead the Stampede? Beast Within? More 1-drop elves? More late-game threats and/or ways to make dorks more threatening? Other tutor targets?
4 Arc trail
4 Brimstone volley
4 Slagstorm
4 Chandra's phoenix
In particular, think about how you're going to use Quest. In a deck with 18 creature spells (that's being generous and counting Glint Hawks twice; in practice you'll usually be able to pick up a creature to recast, but not always), you can expect to see 5 creatures by the time you've gone through 5/18 of your deck = 16 cards, i.e. turn 10 on average. That's only the average, a large fraction of games it will take longer.
If you want to play Quest and Steel in the same deck, cut out everything that isn't a creature, except Quest, Armor, Steel, and of course lands and Opals. Play 4x of your core cards: Ornithopter, Memnite, Signal Pest. And Glint Hawk and Squadron Hawk are absolutely needed to activate Quest reliably. Then fill in with cheap artifact creatures (I like Steel Overseer and Phyrexian Revoker), or arguably Skyfisher. If you've got 29 creatures (+10 Quest/Armor/Steel +21 land/Opal), playing more like ~37 creatures (counting Hawks double), you've got a good chance of activating Quest early, if it's in your opening hand. If you must, you could probably squeeze in one or two extra spells, equipment, etc. But there's no room for burn and Silence, and you need actual creature spells, not Idol and Spellbomb.
Who has some actual experience with Chimeric Mass? I'm a big fan of the Idol for it's resistance to sweepers, so I want to try Mass as well. But (a) it doesn't fly, (b) it always costs a mana to activate. Against that (a) it can be larger than 2/2 if you're a bit flooded, (b) it helps out Glint Hawk if you don't have another 0-drop (or Tezz, if you're just planning to 5/5 it).