MTG Salvation

This deck is mostly about lots of dudes with ETB abilities that I can either pop off multiple times due to people not paying the life fees of Athreos, or I can get back with the various recursion spells. Although the original theme was life gain / life swapping, it is more of a subtheme now but I want to keep it going. The card count is at 108 including Athreos and so I am looking to cut 9 cards.

I have been considering removing Lilly, since all she is doing is getting my swamps and people generally paint her as a large target merely because she is a Planeswalker. Additionally, I am thinking that perhaps I have too many ways to gain lifelink (even though its sort of a theme) since lifelink does not stack anymore. (Not sure when that rule came out, I have not played in some years)

Anyway the goal is to have my dudes cycle one way or the other whilst gaining life and then using the life as a resource to keep the whole thing going, or pumping my dudes for the final push. Any comments / ideas / thoughts / etc.. are welcome, Thank you!

Possible chopping block:
Souls of the Faultless - Does not seem to be doing a whole lot upon coming into play.
Proper Burial - I have a decent amount of life gain.... this one seems to be the easiest to give up.
World Queller - Good for certain control, but a bit heavy and does not ETB.
Merciless Eviction - Good for artifact hate, but I don't want to be exiling my own creatures or enchantments.
Gatekeeper of Malakir - A bit heavy on mono-black mana to be useful.
Liliana of the Dark Realms - I like the land searching, but I have to assume that I will only use her ability once or PERHAPS twice before someone kills her, worth it?

Hey, I like your choice of commander.

Looking at your deck, here are some of my initial reactions:

• Souls of the Faultless doesn't seem like it does much of anything. I think it needs to go.
• Same goes for Underworld Coinsmith. As cool as I think the card is, it has next to no impact on most games no matter how long it gets to do its thing. Especially in a game where everyone starts with 40 life.
• Children of Korlis, High Priest of Penance, Wall of Omens, Reassembling Skeleton, Vampire Nighthawk, Viscera Seer, Wall of Reverence, and Eidolon of Countless Battles are all questionable inclusions to me. The majority of them have a fairly small impact on most game states, and some of them can be played around.
• Proper Burial, Angelic Renewal, Moonlit Wake, Path of Bravery, and Cradle of Vitality are other cards that, again, have a small impact on the game.

Here are some examples of "reliable" lifegain cards, that should gain you life every turn regardless of what's going on in the game:
Bloodchief Ascension (Once it's online), Ivory Tower, Subversion, Sun Droplet (Once you take damage the first time, it'll likely have charge counters on it for the rest of the game), and Venser's Journal.

Here are some examples of "impactful" lifegain cards. They might not focus on gaining you life, but they will at lead incrementally do so, and will allow you to defend yourself/apply pressure:
Consuming Vapors, Faith's Fetters, Loxodon Warhammer, Obzedat, Ghost Council, Serra Ascendant*, Sorin Markov*, Sword of Light and Shadow, Sword of War and Peace, Trading Post, and Umezawa's Jitte
*I've seen folks frown upon these cards because they are "too powerful." Your mileage may vary.

If you're going to play "Soul Warden" type cards like Suture Priest, I recommend (for this deck,) you first play Blood Artist, Falkenrath Noble, and Auriok Champion, in that order.

There are a few cards in your deck that can be directly upgraded or preferentially "sidegraded," here's a list of those cards:

And finally, these are some cards that I personally wouldn't play. I imagine you could find something to replace them with, and would recommend you at least consider doing so:

I think the problem you're gonna bump into is that you don't really have too many game-enders, and eventually games will hit a point where the opposing player is fine with letting you re-cast Meadowboon and Auramancer because they're spending mana on big stompy things like Blightsteel Colossus and Akroma's Memorial in their weenie token EDHs, whereas the big mana drops in your setup are Ashen Rider who's never going to meet the lofty expectations I think you have for him...run more through-and-through ETB creatures, and a Conjurer's Closet to get more steady triggers, because right now you're still letting your opponent decide where and when your deck fires...sure, the decision bites, but giving it to the other guys is the reason stuff like Indulgent Tormentor stays at a dollar. A smart player is always gonna know when to let you have it and when to take the 3 life bite. Anyways, for stuff you can cut, I'd ditch;

World Queller - you have a good amount of every type of permanent so you'll almost always be dropping one of your own. Keep your Dictate of Erebos for forced sac.

Proper Burial - you have STACKS of lifegain, and more isn't going to help

Souls of the Faultless - Just overcosted lifegain, the devotion I guess is nice but I'd still get rid of it at this point.

Reassembling Skeleton - Why? He just makes the Athreos decision a shoe-in, he's 2 mana for a 1/1 that's mostly just an annoyance to the opposition.

Viscera Seer - What do you sacrifice to this guy for a scry 1? I get that sacrificing makes the Athreos thing happen but you still have to re-cast it, and nothing in here is as little as this guy. Maybe if you had tokens, but all you really have are Captain of the Watch Soldiers and Abhorrent Overlord Harpies

Captain of the Watch - You only have the one Soldier, the tokens won't trigger Athreos, it just isn't giving you much value

Sphere of Safety - This is just making your set-up more frustrating to play against, one the off-chance you see enough enchantments to make this an issue, and if you don't you spent another 5 mana for pretty minimal effect on the field.

Underworld Coinsmith - Just because you're going to have more life doesn't make this effective, there's way stronger stuff at two mana that could hit the table. Tithe Drinker would be a better drop because extort is cheaper and if you intend on recurring you should be casting quite a bit of stuff.

Swiftfoot Boots - Until you add something stompy there's no reason for this random aggro buff, I don't see what target it's meant to land on.

Fated Return - Once again, there's nothing truly vicious for you to hit with this and it's really really expensive as well.

Spirit Loop - Don't need more lifelink, although this does make lifelink trigger twice, PLEASE use the card slot for something with punch

Circle of Despair - Even if you're getting it back (maybe), you're still not getting enough for your dead creature. This is an example of holding off the opponent as opposed to presenting them with threats of your own

Ashnod's Altar - There's still no economy, you might get the extra mana, but most of the creatures cost so much more than this that it's irrelevant

Carnage Altar - Ideally, you pay 3 and toss a Children of Korlis which you get back and re-cast. Even then, that's 4 mana altogether to draw one card, plus the two to drop the creature.

Pristine Talisman - Use a colored mana rock or if you're not playing French banlist a Sol Ring, maybe a Mind Stone, but the one life is not worth the slowing down and lack of color fixing.

Vampire Hexmage - This doesn't do much unless you're used to playing against some kind of stax or infect meta or something.

There's a few more but those guys probably REALLY gotta go, as for additions, grab something that impacts the table. Obzedat, Ghost Council, Blood Baron of Vizkopa, Serra Avatar, something like that.