It looks modern legal, though you might want to give us some details such as your budget and what you'd like your deck to do exactly. At the moment, it is a bit all over the place.
I would say that playing affinity definitely gets old in a hurry but as far as raw strength to dollars ratio given you have a lot of the money, it will probably be about as good as you get. Coco will probably eat most of your budget in the mana base, though.
Press reply and look at my coding or see it like this.
[ deck] insert cards here [ /deck]
And remove the spaces.
Anyway, you'll find yourself lacking in speed with this. Imagine your ideal scenarios and think about how long it takes you to win. Then consider how fast an aggro or burn deck will win. Chip mill in this fashion functions like a burn deck in the sense that they burn your life and you "burn" the invisible life total that is their library via mill. Ignoring matters that make your life harder like deck reshuffling eldrazi and decks that use the graveyard to win, what you're looking at is a burn deck that runs at half the speed. This is one simple dilemma of mill and why those decks that decide to mill should probably be full on control decks that use mill as a win condition. If you want to be a more aggressive miller and are playing in a modern setting (as opposed to casual), you will need to consider the comparative speed to aggro. As you have it now, your first defenses will be coming down when you're already down to 10 life.
I am now convinced that Gift of Immortality is an auto include in the deck, unless someone proves me otherwise and how Bant version is just nigh unstoppable. It actually completely locked down ANY aggro deck the minute it lands on Selfless Spirit or Kami of False Hope. They have absolutely no idea what to do at that point, and it slots in easily to even Drogskul Captain saving him for awhile too. It stops all the big aggro guys, infect, and other annoyingly fast thing and opens up more aggression since you can just sacrifice either spirit to stop sweepers or fog the board.
My deck now as follows
The interaction between the creatures are very strong already. And Gift lets them be reused over and over again. Gift on Kami creates a pseudo Worship effect that comes in a turn earlier, and difficult to get rid of for many decks. Sure it can be stopped, by using two removal spells on a single creature. but that's where I think 2 more removals in the MB may be more useful than counterspells. But I'l be testing this list.
I think the interaction is strong when it works but it falls short in 2 places. First is the same place where all auras fall short barring when being on hexproof creatures. They spot remove in response. You get 2 for 1ed. This is helped by mausoleum wanderer but it is something you still need to watch for given that bolting or pathing will still likely do its thing. The second place it falls short is speed. Tap out for it on turn 3 and you're likely to be looking at very possibly getting nailed by removal. Wait longer and it can easily be too late. Also, them using 2 removal spells to kill your creature and keep it dead is not a 2 for 1. It is a 2 for 2. You lose your creature and the gifts, investing 2 cards in it just like they invested 2 removal spells or in the case of Kami/selfless spirit, getting you to kill it yourself to then spot remove it when it comes back before gifts does also works. I believe that for some decks it is a mild annoyance. For example, it behaves well against game 1 affinity, death shadow zoo, bogles, merfolk, infect (though Kami of false hope by itself does this splendidly), and so forth. However, it isn't the brick wall it sounds like you're hyping it up to be. Now if you get them with hexproof it helps a bit more but at that point, you're at turn 4 with not much board presence. Isn't that a bit hopeful in modern? Against burn, it does little and the number of aggro decks that don't have abundant interaction at low cmc aren't that abundant. I believe that gift of immortality has merit when it works but that it often will not. The claim to lock down any aggro deck seems exaggerated. Here's some methods out of it. I include a few midrange cards too.
2 removal spells for a 2 for 2 as mentioned. (special mention to gut shot when does the job nicely)
Scavenging ooze the target in the graveyard.
Kalitas, traitor of ghet
(in affinity's case) spellskite and ghirapur aether grid
Eldrazi displacer
And most prevalently, simply plucking the target from your hand or shooting it from the field early without needing to see the gifts of immortality. For an aggro deck, Kami of false hope is a card that they want to kill almost immediately because it is a pain in the neck. Do note that the decks that I noted to have trouble with it only pertain to kami of false hope, not selfless spirit. They all have too much speed for me to want to invest a 3 mana aura on a 2 mana creature to get one hard to remove blocker. They tend to go wide enough that that isn't enough on turn 3 while being susceptible to immediate removal. Stopping sweepers is important but you only have 24 creatures, 4 of them being lords and the raw p/t to cmc ratio isn't that great. Control decks would like sweepers (though they'd do spot removal too) but aggro decks aren't exactly trying to sweep you except for affinity packing whipflare. They can just win in slugging matches. You're the attrition. They're the speed. So against aggro, I see you having 4 ideal targets for gift, not 8. If that's the case, isn't 4 gifts a bit much?
Just as a heads up, dredge is a replacement effect for any draw, not just your draw for your draw phase. Further, dredging is not a draw. So as long as they haven't drawn anything prior, they can get around spirit of the labyrinth quite well.
Let's say they have 2 cards in hand and a golgari grave troll in grave. You have spirit out and sanitarium. You activate sanitarium on their upkeep. They must draw and choose to dredge grave troll. They mill 6. Grave troll goes to hand. They must now discard and discard grave troll. Now comes draw step and the game sees that they haven't actually drawn a card yet so they may draw for turn, ending up with 3 cards. In other words, the lock with labyrinth and sanitarium actually doesn't work against dredge at all. In fact, it helps them dredge more quickly while still letting them draw for turn which they would normally miss and helps them easily discard their dredger.
Now let's say they've drawn for turn and go to main phase, same conditions otherwise. You activate sanitarium. Now their draw is skipped because it would be the second and they cannot replace with dredge as there is nothing to replace.
So if they draw first normally, then you lock dredge. If they dredge their first draw (regardless if that draw was from sanitarium or from their draw for turn), then the lock doesn't work and only helps accelerate them, letting them looter a card which dredge loves to do.
Well, that's why we discuss these things. I think declaration in stone is probably the strongest of the ones mentioned, giving you more reach. Due to lack of lord counts and lots of 1/1s, I think lingering souls feels troublesome.
I don't think it is bad to have mirror entity necessarily. To me, it is one of those cards that they kill when you have a board state or you win. I like playing cards that demand removal and the fact that you're using vial gives you more reasons to. Here's an example of how it fits nicely.
Turn 1 land, vial.
Turn 2 land, krovikan, vial in one drop.
Turn 3 mirror entity, leaving vial on 2 to vial in lord of the unreal in response if they try to shoot it. The fact that you can vial at 2 when you play mirror entity is big because lord of the unreal makes you on the verge of winning there and phantasmal image likely means you get to hit for a good amount.
When I tinkered with the idea, I ended up cutting vial, deciding that illusions didn't have enough concentration at any particular cmc. Cmc 2 sort of but we could just cast those normally and it isn't merfolk. If you tried, it'd just be much worse merfolk and worse spirits now since they have a more condensed curve with lots of plays at 2, then enough at 3 to want to move and stay there. They also have multiple spirits with flash which make their counterspells better.
I don't have the list on this computer as it was something I tinkered with back when illusions were in standard (Since, I've moved onto the spirit project which has become much easier as of late) but I can at least give you an idea of it.
I basically slowed things down a bit and added in the capacity to push the main parts of the curve to 4 and added some control elements to allow me to play 2-3 sun titan. I forget what number I ultimately settled on. Sun titan was basically my endgame play in conjunction with phantasmal images for creation of a board state that demands a wipe. So doing less on aggro, a little more on playing big things that can threaten lethal with mirror entity or fight against midrange well enough to drag it out to a point where an army of 6/6s becomes a thing.
I think that some of it shouldn't be considered in the vein of worse merfolk. For example, judge's familiar. This is not an illusion, nor is it tarmogoyf (Ie, a beater that's just so efficient that it doesn't matter that it isn't part of the tribe). The fancier you get with bells and whistles, the more you dilute the tribal bonuses. Krovikan mist and lord of the unreal get worse with every non-illusion creature you put in. Of the cards listed, I don't see any of them to be too appealing when you're effectively an aggro deck. To me, 3-4 mirror entities is a must due to the synergy and your lack of lords. If you can't threaten to scale up, you can threaten to vial in and go lethal or trade very favorably. Here's my thoughts.
Hindering light: Aren't you tapping out a lot with your creature based deck? I'm not saying counters are bad but leaving UW up for removal makes the assumption that you're ahead while playing your UU for 2 lord that can't buff each other. This doesn't stop sweepers either. Mana leak looks better if you want a counter.
The card draw: You're an aggro deck again. You aren't really wanting to waste turn 3 or 4 with getting more gas. Also, do you want to be discarding automaton (which I think isn't so good anyway) when it is one of your lords?
Monastery siege: Seems too slow. If you have a board and can increase cost to target, you're winning already, probably with just a swing.
Return to the ranks: Decide if you want to be midrange or aggro. If midrange, there's other things to look at. If aggro, probably best to not think about that.
Wings of Velis Veil: Mirror entity does that better, being a body, win condition, and good vial target.
Hidden strings: Bells and whistles.
Disrupting shoals: How fast do you deplete your hand and how well do you refill it within your aggro strategy?
Azorius charm: Utility or another threat for your aggro deck?
Judge's familiar: Not an illusion.
Ojutai's command: You sounded more like you wanted aggressive. Ojutai's command is more midrange.
I don't really get bathe in light here. At the point that they target your creatures, the trigger to kill them already goes on the stack. On top of that, you're already playing Thalia and effectively 3 different "colored" (Adaptive automaton doesn't get benefits) creatures. I think bathe in light's use seems rather limited here. Instead, I think what I'd be looking at is more mirror entity which sets up turn 5 lethality much better while providing survivability and other bonuses. You're already not hyper aggro because you're playing aether vial which is a card that takes your turn 1 play and starts really cashing in on turns 3-5. Amazing but not hyper aggro. My preference for illusions is a midrange build rather than trying to go for high speed. As you note, merfolks do that better. For this, though, I think that you can't treat it as 12-16 lords tribe the way you can merfolk. Playing stuff like adaptive automaton isn't the way to go. Instead, I think it'd be better to beef up on mirror entity. First, when you go wide, mirror entity allows you to pull lethal damage from nowhere which is relevant with fliers and makes for absolutely massive krovikan mists. Second, mirror entity on a 0 activation infinitely saves your lord of the unreal. If you're not abusing lord of the unreal and mirror entity as much as possible, I can't help but think the deck is like a worse UW spirits given EDM.
Have you experienced issues drawing what you need consistently? When all goes well, yes you can do such by turn 4-5 but if you don't draw your bomb or if it gets shot down because your opponent has one removal spell, it is not so impressive. Though your description suggests to me that your opponents aren't that aggressive.
Anyway, if you do want to play dragon broodmother, then yes. Dragon tempest and scourge of valkas would probably be the core of what you want to do since they make broodmother do things at lower cmc rather than having to get up to 8 mana for Utvara. Thunderbreak regent is definitely the most potent reasonably costed dragon. Rather than Thromok unless you have a personal soft spot, I'd suggest increasing dragon tempests and scourge of valkas. If you're playing broodmother, stuff like that should be played en masse. Draconic roar should be the start of the removal you look at.
Part of the reason I asked about colors was also directed at finding out if you had something you liked playing in green or if it was just there to ramp because there are benefits as well to going mono red. Or possible mostly red with just a tiny, tiny splash for dragon broodmother since there's a number of "numbers of dragons matter" cards. Going red or almost mono red does provide ramping options like Nykthos and Koth. While the starts wouldn't be as explosive, the mana base would be better and the draws smoother, letting you play more board control which is better to draw into as the game goes on than ramp spells.
Looking forwards to EDM, I'd look at collective defiance which has a relatively high cmc but does everything from refilling your hand to doing high value threat removal. It doesn't sound like you have much in the threat removal department. You could be able to play dragons but if you can't draw them or if your opponent's weenie army is sitting around, then they mostly run around your big, singular dragon and watch you die behind it. Speaking of weenie armies, since you do tutor (I personally believe this to be slow for this kind of deck) one dragonlord Atarka is probably your best bet of a target to tutor for and play to help stabilize your board since it can shoot multiple threats, then come down and beat them down.
The cheekiest but not incorrect answer is "Don't play red green dragons". Dragons in general aren't really the best bombs and don't have all that much synergy or cost absurd amounts of mana at which other, cheaper bombs would have already won you the game. Ramping and super high cost stuff also runs into the dies to removal argument which is much more relevant when your cards have a much higher cmc and don't stabilize the board generally. There's also card selection issues. So assuming you do want to play RG dragons, do you know what you want the focus of it to be? Also why RG specifically? The main "reasons" to play dragons as a synergy would lie in the KTK block dragons matter cards which check for controlled or revealed dragons or ones that do things when dragons attack (though that's not as hot). So cards like foul-tongue invocation and silumgar's scorn help entice the playing of dragons but these are neither red nor green. Is there a particular dragon you'd like to focus on?
Vampire madness is BR and can really only be BR. Snipping one color really takes the bite out of it and makes it so that you probably don't care about the vampires part.
One major issue with trying to play a standard delverish deck is cantrips. What if I don't draw the creature? What if they kill it? Delver decks have a limited clock before the other guy goes over their tempo play. They solve those problems with cantrip card selection that lets them cycle through to what they need. Those spells aren't in standard right now which makes tempo pretty hard. Prowess kind of behaved like that but since rotation, that's not so pretty.
With blue's current standard card selection, yes you have draw but those are molasses slow. That's fine for a control deck that's durdling to victory but not a tempo deck. the time is too important. Anyway, when you choose to do something you should ask yourself why and what it gives you. Vampires and counterspells. Well, anything with counterspells that's not control should be looking at being one of two things. Cheap and efficient or having flash. Both of these things play well with counterspells. Vampires in standard right now are a bit more swarmy but some madness lets them hit the instant speed part... However, outlets are an issue. Requiring synergy diverges from the counterspell bit because the package is no longer compact. While it is a bit hard to do, perhaps grixis is the way to go. Counterspells, especially the ones in standard at the moment, are slow. They're unfit for tempo. A grixis vampire madness midrange might suit the feel you're looking for more closely.
I would say that if you don't want to be overwhelmed and just want to look at a sets, you should be looking at the standard section. Talionis is correct on this. If I were to give a couple general tips, though, they'd be these.
4 of the best, 0 of the rest.
Pick how you want to win and then make sure every card in your deck is dedicated to that goal. Focus is key to making a good deck.
I think talking about what specific problems you want to solve would be helpful. I'm not seeing where the black splash is so terribly helpful. Yes, you hand hate. Yes, you have kill spells. However, illusions are a curve up aggro deck no matter how you slice it. Without twin in the format and to a lesser importance (but still beneficial to you), bloom titan not really being such a threat either now, I don't think the mainboard spot removal is all that vital, especially when you consider that you're supposed to be the aggressor most of the time. The hand hate doesn't nab board wipes from hands and if you can outgun them, why not just do that instead? That seems to fit better with the deck concept. I don't see what black is offering that you've added that outweighs the significantly less painful white splash for mirror entity.
White also gives you path to exile as necessary for removal if you really need it, better sb tech in stony silence, and is generally easier on the mana base because 2W or 1W is way easier on you than BB. It looks to me like the black inclusion is just taping over problems and weakening the main concept of the deck. I think white lets you accomplish these goals much better while still staying on the offensive. The more you add cards that aren't punching them in the face, the less your deck will do the curve up aggro midrange thing it is supposed to do. There more non-illusion cards you end up playing, the less justified you are to be sticking with illusions at all. Might as well not play those illusion dependent creatures like lord of the unreal (which you're playing without his best friend, mirror entity) and krovikan mist.
I don't think warping wail's chances of going through the roof are too great. At the least, its eternal usage isn't so awesome. Ignoring eternal and rares, I'm looking at unnatural endurance and sadly reality hemorrhage.
I feel that if you're going to play rally, you should at least play 4 of them. Abzan ascendancy is unnecessary as is hardened scales. More evolutionary leap helps you dump for rally and thin your way to it.
Press reply and look at my coding or see it like this.
[ deck] insert cards here [ /deck]
And remove the spaces.
Anyway, you'll find yourself lacking in speed with this. Imagine your ideal scenarios and think about how long it takes you to win. Then consider how fast an aggro or burn deck will win. Chip mill in this fashion functions like a burn deck in the sense that they burn your life and you "burn" the invisible life total that is their library via mill. Ignoring matters that make your life harder like deck reshuffling eldrazi and decks that use the graveyard to win, what you're looking at is a burn deck that runs at half the speed. This is one simple dilemma of mill and why those decks that decide to mill should probably be full on control decks that use mill as a win condition. If you want to be a more aggressive miller and are playing in a modern setting (as opposed to casual), you will need to consider the comparative speed to aggro. As you have it now, your first defenses will be coming down when you're already down to 10 life.
I think the interaction is strong when it works but it falls short in 2 places. First is the same place where all auras fall short barring when being on hexproof creatures. They spot remove in response. You get 2 for 1ed. This is helped by mausoleum wanderer but it is something you still need to watch for given that bolting or pathing will still likely do its thing. The second place it falls short is speed. Tap out for it on turn 3 and you're likely to be looking at very possibly getting nailed by removal. Wait longer and it can easily be too late. Also, them using 2 removal spells to kill your creature and keep it dead is not a 2 for 1. It is a 2 for 2. You lose your creature and the gifts, investing 2 cards in it just like they invested 2 removal spells or in the case of Kami/selfless spirit, getting you to kill it yourself to then spot remove it when it comes back before gifts does also works. I believe that for some decks it is a mild annoyance. For example, it behaves well against game 1 affinity, death shadow zoo, bogles, merfolk, infect (though Kami of false hope by itself does this splendidly), and so forth. However, it isn't the brick wall it sounds like you're hyping it up to be. Now if you get them with hexproof it helps a bit more but at that point, you're at turn 4 with not much board presence. Isn't that a bit hopeful in modern? Against burn, it does little and the number of aggro decks that don't have abundant interaction at low cmc aren't that abundant. I believe that gift of immortality has merit when it works but that it often will not. The claim to lock down any aggro deck seems exaggerated. Here's some methods out of it. I include a few midrange cards too.
2 removal spells for a 2 for 2 as mentioned. (special mention to gut shot when does the job nicely)
Scavenging ooze the target in the graveyard.
Kalitas, traitor of ghet
(in affinity's case) spellskite and ghirapur aether grid
Eldrazi displacer
And most prevalently, simply plucking the target from your hand or shooting it from the field early without needing to see the gifts of immortality. For an aggro deck, Kami of false hope is a card that they want to kill almost immediately because it is a pain in the neck. Do note that the decks that I noted to have trouble with it only pertain to kami of false hope, not selfless spirit. They all have too much speed for me to want to invest a 3 mana aura on a 2 mana creature to get one hard to remove blocker. They tend to go wide enough that that isn't enough on turn 3 while being susceptible to immediate removal. Stopping sweepers is important but you only have 24 creatures, 4 of them being lords and the raw p/t to cmc ratio isn't that great. Control decks would like sweepers (though they'd do spot removal too) but aggro decks aren't exactly trying to sweep you except for affinity packing whipflare. They can just win in slugging matches. You're the attrition. They're the speed. So against aggro, I see you having 4 ideal targets for gift, not 8. If that's the case, isn't 4 gifts a bit much?
Let's say they have 2 cards in hand and a golgari grave troll in grave. You have spirit out and sanitarium. You activate sanitarium on their upkeep. They must draw and choose to dredge grave troll. They mill 6. Grave troll goes to hand. They must now discard and discard grave troll. Now comes draw step and the game sees that they haven't actually drawn a card yet so they may draw for turn, ending up with 3 cards. In other words, the lock with labyrinth and sanitarium actually doesn't work against dredge at all. In fact, it helps them dredge more quickly while still letting them draw for turn which they would normally miss and helps them easily discard their dredger.
Now let's say they've drawn for turn and go to main phase, same conditions otherwise. You activate sanitarium. Now their draw is skipped because it would be the second and they cannot replace with dredge as there is nothing to replace.
So if they draw first normally, then you lock dredge. If they dredge their first draw (regardless if that draw was from sanitarium or from their draw for turn), then the lock doesn't work and only helps accelerate them, letting them looter a card which dredge loves to do.
I don't think it is bad to have mirror entity necessarily. To me, it is one of those cards that they kill when you have a board state or you win. I like playing cards that demand removal and the fact that you're using vial gives you more reasons to. Here's an example of how it fits nicely.
Turn 1 land, vial.
Turn 2 land, krovikan, vial in one drop.
Turn 3 mirror entity, leaving vial on 2 to vial in lord of the unreal in response if they try to shoot it. The fact that you can vial at 2 when you play mirror entity is big because lord of the unreal makes you on the verge of winning there and phantasmal image likely means you get to hit for a good amount.
When I tinkered with the idea, I ended up cutting vial, deciding that illusions didn't have enough concentration at any particular cmc. Cmc 2 sort of but we could just cast those normally and it isn't merfolk. If you tried, it'd just be much worse merfolk and worse spirits now since they have a more condensed curve with lots of plays at 2, then enough at 3 to want to move and stay there. They also have multiple spirits with flash which make their counterspells better.
I don't have the list on this computer as it was something I tinkered with back when illusions were in standard (Since, I've moved onto the spirit project which has become much easier as of late) but I can at least give you an idea of it.
I basically slowed things down a bit and added in the capacity to push the main parts of the curve to 4 and added some control elements to allow me to play 2-3 sun titan. I forget what number I ultimately settled on. Sun titan was basically my endgame play in conjunction with phantasmal images for creation of a board state that demands a wipe. So doing less on aggro, a little more on playing big things that can threaten lethal with mirror entity or fight against midrange well enough to drag it out to a point where an army of 6/6s becomes a thing.
Hindering light: Aren't you tapping out a lot with your creature based deck? I'm not saying counters are bad but leaving UW up for removal makes the assumption that you're ahead while playing your UU for 2 lord that can't buff each other. This doesn't stop sweepers either. Mana leak looks better if you want a counter.
The card draw: You're an aggro deck again. You aren't really wanting to waste turn 3 or 4 with getting more gas. Also, do you want to be discarding automaton (which I think isn't so good anyway) when it is one of your lords?
Monastery siege: Seems too slow. If you have a board and can increase cost to target, you're winning already, probably with just a swing.
Return to the ranks: Decide if you want to be midrange or aggro. If midrange, there's other things to look at. If aggro, probably best to not think about that.
Wings of Velis Veil: Mirror entity does that better, being a body, win condition, and good vial target.
Hidden strings: Bells and whistles.
Disrupting shoals: How fast do you deplete your hand and how well do you refill it within your aggro strategy?
Azorius charm: Utility or another threat for your aggro deck?
Judge's familiar: Not an illusion.
Ojutai's command: You sounded more like you wanted aggressive. Ojutai's command is more midrange.
Anyway, if you do want to play dragon broodmother, then yes. Dragon tempest and scourge of valkas would probably be the core of what you want to do since they make broodmother do things at lower cmc rather than having to get up to 8 mana for Utvara. Thunderbreak regent is definitely the most potent reasonably costed dragon. Rather than Thromok unless you have a personal soft spot, I'd suggest increasing dragon tempests and scourge of valkas. If you're playing broodmother, stuff like that should be played en masse. Draconic roar should be the start of the removal you look at.
Part of the reason I asked about colors was also directed at finding out if you had something you liked playing in green or if it was just there to ramp because there are benefits as well to going mono red. Or possible mostly red with just a tiny, tiny splash for dragon broodmother since there's a number of "numbers of dragons matter" cards. Going red or almost mono red does provide ramping options like Nykthos and Koth. While the starts wouldn't be as explosive, the mana base would be better and the draws smoother, letting you play more board control which is better to draw into as the game goes on than ramp spells.
Looking forwards to EDM, I'd look at collective defiance which has a relatively high cmc but does everything from refilling your hand to doing high value threat removal. It doesn't sound like you have much in the threat removal department. You could be able to play dragons but if you can't draw them or if your opponent's weenie army is sitting around, then they mostly run around your big, singular dragon and watch you die behind it. Speaking of weenie armies, since you do tutor (I personally believe this to be slow for this kind of deck) one dragonlord Atarka is probably your best bet of a target to tutor for and play to help stabilize your board since it can shoot multiple threats, then come down and beat them down.
One major issue with trying to play a standard delverish deck is cantrips. What if I don't draw the creature? What if they kill it? Delver decks have a limited clock before the other guy goes over their tempo play. They solve those problems with cantrip card selection that lets them cycle through to what they need. Those spells aren't in standard right now which makes tempo pretty hard. Prowess kind of behaved like that but since rotation, that's not so pretty.
With blue's current standard card selection, yes you have draw but those are molasses slow. That's fine for a control deck that's durdling to victory but not a tempo deck. the time is too important. Anyway, when you choose to do something you should ask yourself why and what it gives you. Vampires and counterspells. Well, anything with counterspells that's not control should be looking at being one of two things. Cheap and efficient or having flash. Both of these things play well with counterspells. Vampires in standard right now are a bit more swarmy but some madness lets them hit the instant speed part... However, outlets are an issue. Requiring synergy diverges from the counterspell bit because the package is no longer compact. While it is a bit hard to do, perhaps grixis is the way to go. Counterspells, especially the ones in standard at the moment, are slow. They're unfit for tempo. A grixis vampire madness midrange might suit the feel you're looking for more closely.
4 of the best, 0 of the rest.
Pick how you want to win and then make sure every card in your deck is dedicated to that goal. Focus is key to making a good deck.
White also gives you path to exile as necessary for removal if you really need it, better sb tech in stony silence, and is generally easier on the mana base because 2W or 1W is way easier on you than BB. It looks to me like the black inclusion is just taping over problems and weakening the main concept of the deck. I think white lets you accomplish these goals much better while still staying on the offensive. The more you add cards that aren't punching them in the face, the less your deck will do the curve up aggro midrange thing it is supposed to do. There more non-illusion cards you end up playing, the less justified you are to be sticking with illusions at all. Might as well not play those illusion dependent creatures like lord of the unreal (which you're playing without his best friend, mirror entity) and krovikan mist.
You should also consider sultai emissary.