Think you still need both Wurmcoil and Aether Grid, just GBlast by itself isn't enough in those matchups.
I've been thinking about the board and Defense Grid seems like the weakest link right now. Guttural is a good gotcha to keep around for the blue instants, and the matchups where you want Defense Grid often you'll board in one of the enchantments anyway (normally Antiquities War), so I ended up cutting the Defense Grids, keeping Aether Grids and Wurmcoils, and still slotting in Antiquities War.
Humans/Mardu you just have to lean on GBlast + Grid + EE. I tried Orb before but it was just cute and didn't do much.
Have been running into some pretty combo-heavy weeks so Damping Spheres in SB has been great. Good vs. Amulet, Storm, opposing KCI, and splash damage against Tron to turn your 80-20 into a 90-10.
My LGS is at that point in the cycle where nobody's running the white enchantments, but there's a bunch of blue moon and Grixis players, so I wanted to bump up the Ruins. It also just works as extra wellsprings when going off, so it's never a dead card.
I think if you're running Emrakul, you have to minimize the package like that. Having said that, I'm not convinced eating up slots with it is the right move. You only really need to play around the narrow hate in games 2 and 3, and most of the time can just assume that game 1 they can't get rid of both Spellbombs. Something like Scavenging Ooze isn't good enough when you start going off.
I've had enough games where Emrakul just rots in hand and could have been an egg or Myr Retriever. During the combo turn they're functionally the same, since they're dead the moment you draw Retriever with KCI + Trawler in play. Same reason I'm not convinced you need anything besides Retriever + Spellbomb in paper. Normally Sanctum is also a pretty low opportunity cost, but bumping it up to 4 Buried Ruin along the 3 Inventors' Fair is so stupidly good and makes combo turns even more brain-dead. As in, they better have 3 Cryptics in hand to stop you.
Vs. discard + Surgical decks, I like trying to keep hands that are all air without key combo pieces. I've been mulling to heavy cantrip + Stirrings hands to play around Surgical and only going for it after they blow their load on something irrelevant. Can do things like keep up Buried Ruin mana while going off since they don't tend to race too quickly.
You're trying to plaster humans with EE anyway and they won't name Spellbomb with Meddling Mage. I agree that most games have a lot more back and forth than you would expect from a linear combo deck. There's a ton of wiggle room with this deck to just grind them out with Trawler + Spellbomb/EE until KCI shows up. Games 2 and 3 I bring in Blasts and Grids anyway, so even if Spellbomb gets blanked I can kill em with Grid loops. In other matchups with relevant disruption I think a lot of the cards I would bring in anyway happen to double as alternate wincons (Wurmcoil, Ant War, Aether Grid), even though the main reason they're coming in is just to play around hate or grind them out. Serving as a backup kill plan when they Relic both Spellbombs is just gravy.
Would just like to bring up that there are a bunch of loops that don't need Opal at all. Assuming trawler and KCI are out,
Retriever and any two 1CMC eggs
Double retriever
Extra trawler + retriever + egg + EE
I bricked a few times on Tuesday from drawing replicator where a retriever would have represented another two draws from a wellspring in the yard. It was weird cuz you're normally never bottlenecked on mana during combo turns but 5 was awkward to find when I had to go off without trawler in play yet. Still trying it for now, just seems awfully narrow. I'm almost feeling like Wurmcoil does similar things while also being a good plan B on its own, and I wouldn't play a MD Wurmcoil yet. Giving replicator benefit of doubt. Have more modern weeklies tomorrow and Friday so hopefully will get a better gauge on this.
Methinks not really in the market for a 5-drop brick that rots in my hand before I can cast KCI and doesn't do anything without Trawler. We're never bottlenecked on mana during combo turns, just cards. Retriever always acts as a copy of the best egg in your graveyard and actually has utility without Trawler before the combo turn for returning EE or whatever.
Screwing up the loops isn't an excuse to run narrower/weaker combo pieces to compensate for unfamiliarity with the deck. I'd still rather just run the best possible version of the deck. It honestly isn't that hard to remember what conditions you need to blow them up.
You can run it as your fun-of if you really want to, but you really can't afford to dilute number of cantrip eggs too much or the deck starts getting clunky and fizzles more often. It's also why I now think Whir is generally a trap after testing it for a few weeks.
Going to try 2-of The Antiquities War in every tourney next week as another way around the white enchantments, taking place of the Wurmcoils. Karn is the other option to fill that spot but I'm not made of $$$ unfortunately.
Whenever sideboarding you cut some number of stars, mind stone, and dead cards like EE or a single retriever
Guttural comes in vs blue counters but some slight nonbo with defense grid
Mind Stone is one of the best mana rocks since it has CMC 2, so with trawler it gets back a Star, unlike Everflowing Chalice. If you watched his coverage matches he popped it to draw a card many times during his combo turns. Otherwise it's good enough to just accelerate into KCI.
R1 vs. Grixis Control (1-1)
Feels like a pretty decent matchup.
G1 he plays a bunch on discard on my hand full of eggs, Trawlers, and Retriever. Looks like his maindeck doesn't have countermagic. Eventually draw into combo pieces off Stirrings/cantrips and kill him on turn 4.
Sideboarding: -1 Retriever, -1 Ensnaring Bridge, -1 Pyrite, -1 Bauble, +1 Pithing Needle, +2 Defense Grid, +1 Blood Moon
G2 I keep a greedy hand with Trawler, KCI, and turn 2 Blood Moon, and get punished by Inquisitions and Thoughtseizes. He counters my turn 3 KCI and has the Surgical, but no clock. He has Nihil Spellbomb, which I Needle for a while until he blows up my Needle with K. Command. We both durdle for about 30 turns while I try to kill his Jace and Liliana of the Veil with a pair of Scrap Trawlers. He keeps protecting her with K. Commands and Snapcaster chumps. We go to turns, he topdecks BBE and would kill me, but gives the round win anyway since he doesn't care. Nice guy. I know in matchups like this it's good to go for hands that hide combo pieces by keeping Stirrings and Whirs, playing around getting blown out by discard > Surgical, but I got too tempted by the turn 3 kill.
We talked a bit and I realized that I definitely should have just brought in the Wurmcoils for game 2.
R2 vs. Mono G Tron (2-0)
Seems like an awful matchup for them.
G1 he cracks Oblivion Stone on turn 3 to kill Opal, Star and I think a Wellspring, then lands Karn to try and keep me at 3 lands. I have two more lands and a KCI in hand. I drop KCI and start to combo conservatively with my sparse resources, but draw into Trawler, then into the Retriever loop.
Sideboarding: -2 EE, -1 Ensnaring, -1 Retriever, +2 Nature's Claim, +1 Pithing Needle, +1 Blood Moon
G2 I have a T1 needle for his T1 Relic of Progenitus. He does nothing for a few turns while I crack eggs into combo pieces, then blow him up.
Vs. Storm (1-2)
Pretty bad games, we both make mistakes games 1 and 2, then just braindead race game 3.
G1 he makes a slight misplay by using Gifts to find Remand, Repeal, Unsubstantiate, and Noxious Revival, in order to avoid dying. His hand had two Manamorphose in hand, but the disruption stalls me for the same number of additional draw steps he would have had as if he just dug with the two Manamorphoses right there. This gives me another turn to live after he Remands my KCI, so he just dies when I replay KCI after a Repeal by saccing extra garbage with Repeal still on the stack. We look and he had the kill within the next 2 cards. Sometimes greed is good.
Sideboarding: -1 EE (keep one in case of gobbos), -1 Pyrite, -1 Ensnaring Bridge, +2 Defense Grid, +1 Grafdigger's Cage
G2 I misplay horribly by going for a main phase Whir to grab a Mind Stone, as I'm stuck on 2 lands + Opal with KCI and Trawler in hand. Main phase'd it since he tapped out, and I wanted to be able to kill him for sure. He Gifts into combo and kills me. I wasn't used to thinking about Whir as an interactive piece. We realize he would have lost to a Whir for Nihil Spellbomb with Past in Flames on the stack.
G3 We both mulligan to 6, but his 6 kills a turn faster than mine does
God I'm so frustrated about punting game 2.
Need to get more used to playing Whir and thinking about this build's ability to interact at instant speed instead of resigning myself to main phases, like I used to with the colorless build. Seems like there's a lot of flexibility, and the ability to board more conservatively is great. Deck is plenty fast and resilient to hate. I'm pretty okay with boarding out a Whir on the draw for games 2 and 3 vs. faster decks.
Had some slight issues with using Aether Hub early to Stirrings, then having to cast Whir. Want to sneak in another land and maybe replace some of the rainbows with Yavimaya Coasts, since they're similar enough to Spires. Still not 100% sold on double Pyrite but it sure as hell beats running Emrakul and bricking when you draw it before netting 15 mana. Oddly, Citadels are also starting to feel pretty bad with Whir in hand. Mishra's Bauble is probably best off as either 4-of or 0-of, instead of as a singleton. Starting to find slots are getting real tight. Interesting to note, if you ever get a loop started, Aether Grid serves as an alternate wincon to Pyrite if both of them somehow get exiled, or if you boarded them out in the matchup for whatever reason. Will be trying this next week:
Even if the meta gets more hostile I think I'm gonna keep playing this deck since it's hella fun. Might even start running my own Damping Sphere in the SB to screw with other combo decks.
So to get to the beginning stage there needs to be 4+3+2+1 mana with 1 more mana to start the rock with a mox opal in graveyard to continue it. So at 10 mana feels like a turn 4 ish at best unlimited combo.
Also you pointed out that on the casting of the star - you then sac the myr and trawler - which brings back mox opal and myr and trawler return together. recast myr and trawler pair.
I'm wondering about Myr retriever and is this combo why we see people playing 2 Myr retrievers I used to think it was at most a 1 of. Why 2 ?
The infinite happens at any point in your combo turn where you happen to draw into the pieces; I wouldn't ever worry about getting the mana since mana usually isn't the bottleneck, but bricking on draws happens more often. You'll almost always incidentally generate more than enough mana to play a Retriever if you happen to draw it. You don't ever need every piece in your hand to start the combo, you just need to draw into it or a tutor for missing pieces in the middle of going off. Has nothing to do with costing 10 mana total since sacrificing pieces naturally gives you more mana, it just happens on whatever turn you start the combo. This is often turn 3 or 4 even if they try disrupting with discard or counters.
It means that whenever you're doing your normal combo with KCI + Trawler, if you draw into Retriever, you win right there.
If you draw into Whir, you probably have UUU floating already and win right there.
If you draw into Stirrings, and the top 5 cards of your library has a Retriever, you win.
You don't have to ever play a big Hangarback and pass the turn, or hope that you played a Sanctum already.
Double Myr Retriever does the following:
1) increases the chances you'll naturally draw into one during combo
2) have a backup if they Path to Exile one
3) Two Retrievers + Scrap Trawler is an infinite that doesn't need an Opal or EE
I could see going down to 1 Retriever, but honestly I found there's a lot more free slots in the deck after switching to Whir and moving Emrakul to the SB + removing Hangarbacks.
At worst, without a Trawler Retriever is a copy of the most relevant egg in your graveyard. You're right that it doesn't do much if your graveyard is pretty empty. The upshot is that with Trawler in play, most of the time you can find a way to go infinite after finding a Retriever. E.g. common loops are:
KCI + Trawler + Retriever + Star + Opal draws your whole deck and gives infinite mana.
KCI + Trawler + Retriever + 2 Stars/Terrarions draws your whole deck.
KCI + Trawler + 2 Retrievers + 1 Star draws your whole deck.
KCI + Trawler + 2 Retrievers + anything costing 1 or less is infinite mana.
At any point in your combo where you have either KCI + Retriever or KCI + Trawler, if you draw into either Fair or Whir, or naturally draw the missing piece, you don't even have to worry about fizzling. The deck has changed so you really don't need that much garbage on board to start going off, unlike the old Eggs deck. I like Hangarback, too, but it has some hidden costs in having CMC 0 and needing to run Sanctum to make use of it. Cutting it saves you 2-3 slots, since you also get to remove Emrakul, and makes casting colored sideboard cards easier since you get to replace Sanctums with basics/UG duals/Spires.
Engineered Explosives is like Oblivion Stone, but much cheaper and with the ability to recur easily via Trawler or Retriever. I've set EE at 2, then blown it up with a Retriever on board when I didn't have a Trawler to be able to recur it and wipe their board at the same time.
Whir is great mid-combo since most of the time it tutors for the missing piece of an infinite loop and stops you from bricking. Normally this is going to be a Retriever, sometimes an Opal or 1 CMC egg, and less often a Trawler. I never feel bad about just finding a Chromatic Star if it's the last piece needed to start the double 1CMC egg loop. Just have to get used to recognizing where you can steer the combo turn into a loop.
You don't even have to Whir for a Trawler mid-combo. I goldfished a ton and found I was comfortable tutoring a Trawler T3 at the end of their turn if I had KCI in hand.
@Thursdayisgod: I think 2 Pyrites feels really clunky. Do you ever find yourself using Whir for them? If so, would it make sense to cut it to a singleton?
Actually I can see what you're getting at with Whir. I've been pretty frustrated in post board games from trying not to dilute too much. Whir solves it with a bunch of 1 ofs and lets you cheat a bit with some narrow cards in the main. I'm gonna go to a weekly tomorrow and just run 4 Whir on 8 rainbow lands + basics, no Sanctum no Buried Ruin. I was being too stubborn in trying to run some arbitrary "best" combination of eggs, but making some small concessions to support UUU seems okay since you free up a ton of MB slots from ditching Sanctum, Everflowing Chalice, some Spheres/Mind Stones, and Hangarback.
The more dishonest this deck gets the better.
Yeah, I don't think this deck is really in the market for a 4 drop that isn't KCI. Less of a focus on value pieces and more ways to just set up an infinite
I've been thinking about the board and Defense Grid seems like the weakest link right now. Guttural is a good gotcha to keep around for the blue instants, and the matchups where you want Defense Grid often you'll board in one of the enchantments anyway (normally Antiquities War), so I ended up cutting the Defense Grids, keeping Aether Grids and Wurmcoils, and still slotting in Antiquities War.
Humans/Mardu you just have to lean on GBlast + Grid + EE. I tried Orb before but it was just cute and didn't do much.
Have been running into some pretty combo-heavy weeks so Damping Spheres in SB has been great. Good vs. Amulet, Storm, opposing KCI, and splash damage against Tron to turn your 80-20 into a 90-10.
I've had enough games where Emrakul just rots in hand and could have been an egg or Myr Retriever. During the combo turn they're functionally the same, since they're dead the moment you draw Retriever with KCI + Trawler in play. Same reason I'm not convinced you need anything besides Retriever + Spellbomb in paper. Normally Sanctum is also a pretty low opportunity cost, but bumping it up to 4 Buried Ruin along the 3 Inventors' Fair is so stupidly good and makes combo turns even more brain-dead. As in, they better have 3 Cryptics in hand to stop you.
Vs. discard + Surgical decks, I like trying to keep hands that are all air without key combo pieces. I've been mulling to heavy cantrip + Stirrings hands to play around Surgical and only going for it after they blow their load on something irrelevant. Can do things like keep up Buried Ruin mana while going off since they don't tend to race too quickly.
You're trying to plaster humans with EE anyway and they won't name Spellbomb with Meddling Mage. I agree that most games have a lot more back and forth than you would expect from a linear combo deck. There's a ton of wiggle room with this deck to just grind them out with Trawler + Spellbomb/EE until KCI shows up. Games 2 and 3 I bring in Blasts and Grids anyway, so even if Spellbomb gets blanked I can kill em with Grid loops. In other matchups with relevant disruption I think a lot of the cards I would bring in anyway happen to double as alternate wincons (Wurmcoil, Ant War, Aether Grid), even though the main reason they're coming in is just to play around hate or grind them out. Serving as a backup kill plan when they Relic both Spellbombs is just gravy.
EDIT got ninjad
Retriever and any two 1CMC eggs
Double retriever
Extra trawler + retriever + egg + EE
I bricked a few times on Tuesday from drawing replicator where a retriever would have represented another two draws from a wellspring in the yard. It was weird cuz you're normally never bottlenecked on mana during combo turns but 5 was awkward to find when I had to go off without trawler in play yet. Still trying it for now, just seems awfully narrow. I'm almost feeling like Wurmcoil does similar things while also being a good plan B on its own, and I wouldn't play a MD Wurmcoil yet. Giving replicator benefit of doubt. Have more modern weeklies tomorrow and Friday so hopefully will get a better gauge on this.
EDIT: nvm found it on mtggoldfish
I'm gonna spend the 0.50 to pick one up and try this on Tuesday since it seems tilting and might be fun to beat them down with Plan B 2/2 army
Screwing up the loops isn't an excuse to run narrower/weaker combo pieces to compensate for unfamiliarity with the deck. I'd still rather just run the best possible version of the deck. It honestly isn't that hard to remember what conditions you need to blow them up.
You can run it as your fun-of if you really want to, but you really can't afford to dilute number of cantrip eggs too much or the deck starts getting clunky and fizzles more often. It's also why I now think Whir is generally a trap after testing it for a few weeks.
Going to try 2-of The Antiquities War in every tourney next week as another way around the white enchantments, taking place of the Wurmcoils. Karn is the other option to fill that spot but I'm not made of $$$ unfortunately.
Guttural comes in vs blue counters but some slight nonbo with defense grid
Mind Stone is one of the best mana rocks since it has CMC 2, so with trawler it gets back a Star, unlike Everflowing Chalice. If you watched his coverage matches he popped it to draw a card many times during his combo turns. Otherwise it's good enough to just accelerate into KCI.
"Am I dead????"
4 Scrap Trawler
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Whir of Invention
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Opal
1 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Pyrite Spellbomb
2 Terrarion
4 Ichor Wellspring
2 Mind Stone
1 Prophetic Prism
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Krark-Clan Ironworks
1 Mishra's Bauble
4 Aether Hub
3 Darksteel Citadel
1 Forest
2 Inventors' Fair
2 Island
4 Spire of Industry
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Nature's Claim
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Wear // Tear
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Defense Grid
1 Blood Moon
2 Ghirapur Aether Grid
R1 vs. Grixis Control (1-1)
Feels like a pretty decent matchup.
G1 he plays a bunch on discard on my hand full of eggs, Trawlers, and Retriever. Looks like his maindeck doesn't have countermagic. Eventually draw into combo pieces off Stirrings/cantrips and kill him on turn 4.
Sideboarding: -1 Retriever, -1 Ensnaring Bridge, -1 Pyrite, -1 Bauble, +1 Pithing Needle, +2 Defense Grid, +1 Blood Moon
G2 I keep a greedy hand with Trawler, KCI, and turn 2 Blood Moon, and get punished by Inquisitions and Thoughtseizes. He counters my turn 3 KCI and has the Surgical, but no clock. He has Nihil Spellbomb, which I Needle for a while until he blows up my Needle with K. Command. We both durdle for about 30 turns while I try to kill his Jace and Liliana of the Veil with a pair of Scrap Trawlers. He keeps protecting her with K. Commands and Snapcaster chumps. We go to turns, he topdecks BBE and would kill me, but gives the round win anyway since he doesn't care. Nice guy. I know in matchups like this it's good to go for hands that hide combo pieces by keeping Stirrings and Whirs, playing around getting blown out by discard > Surgical, but I got too tempted by the turn 3 kill.
We talked a bit and I realized that I definitely should have just brought in the Wurmcoils for game 2.
R2 vs. Mono G Tron (2-0)
Seems like an awful matchup for them.
G1 he cracks Oblivion Stone on turn 3 to kill Opal, Star and I think a Wellspring, then lands Karn to try and keep me at 3 lands. I have two more lands and a KCI in hand. I drop KCI and start to combo conservatively with my sparse resources, but draw into Trawler, then into the Retriever loop.
Sideboarding: -2 EE, -1 Ensnaring, -1 Retriever, +2 Nature's Claim, +1 Pithing Needle, +1 Blood Moon
G2 I have a T1 needle for his T1 Relic of Progenitus. He does nothing for a few turns while I crack eggs into combo pieces, then blow him up.
Vs. Storm (1-2)
Pretty bad games, we both make mistakes games 1 and 2, then just braindead race game 3.
G1 he makes a slight misplay by using Gifts to find Remand, Repeal, Unsubstantiate, and Noxious Revival, in order to avoid dying. His hand had two Manamorphose in hand, but the disruption stalls me for the same number of additional draw steps he would have had as if he just dug with the two Manamorphoses right there. This gives me another turn to live after he Remands my KCI, so he just dies when I replay KCI after a Repeal by saccing extra garbage with Repeal still on the stack. We look and he had the kill within the next 2 cards. Sometimes greed is good.
Sideboarding: -1 EE (keep one in case of gobbos), -1 Pyrite, -1 Ensnaring Bridge, +2 Defense Grid, +1 Grafdigger's Cage
G2 I misplay horribly by going for a main phase Whir to grab a Mind Stone, as I'm stuck on 2 lands + Opal with KCI and Trawler in hand. Main phase'd it since he tapped out, and I wanted to be able to kill him for sure. He Gifts into combo and kills me. I wasn't used to thinking about Whir as an interactive piece. We realize he would have lost to a Whir for Nihil Spellbomb with Past in Flames on the stack.
G3 We both mulligan to 6, but his 6 kills a turn faster than mine does
God I'm so frustrated about punting game 2.
Need to get more used to playing Whir and thinking about this build's ability to interact at instant speed instead of resigning myself to main phases, like I used to with the colorless build. Seems like there's a lot of flexibility, and the ability to board more conservatively is great. Deck is plenty fast and resilient to hate. I'm pretty okay with boarding out a Whir on the draw for games 2 and 3 vs. faster decks.
Had some slight issues with using Aether Hub early to Stirrings, then having to cast Whir. Want to sneak in another land and maybe replace some of the rainbows with Yavimaya Coasts, since they're similar enough to Spires. Still not 100% sold on double Pyrite but it sure as hell beats running Emrakul and bricking when you draw it before netting 15 mana. Oddly, Citadels are also starting to feel pretty bad with Whir in hand. Mishra's Bauble is probably best off as either 4-of or 0-of, instead of as a singleton. Starting to find slots are getting real tight. Interesting to note, if you ever get a loop started, Aether Grid serves as an alternate wincon to Pyrite if both of them somehow get exiled, or if you boarded them out in the matchup for whatever reason. Will be trying this next week:
4 Scrap Trawler
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Whir of Invention
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Mishra's Bauble
4 Mox Opal
1 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Pyrite Spellbomb
2 Terrarion
4 Ichor Wellspring
2 Mind Stone
1 Prophetic Prism
4 Krark-Clan Ironworks
3 Aether Hub
3 Darksteel Citadel
1 Forest
2 Inventors' Fair
2 Island
2 Spire of Industry
4 Yavimaya Coast
2 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Nature's Claim
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Wear // Tear
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Defense Grid
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Blood Moon
2 Ghirapur Aether Grid
Even if the meta gets more hostile I think I'm gonna keep playing this deck since it's hella fun. Might even start running my own Damping Sphere in the SB to screw with other combo decks.
The infinite happens at any point in your combo turn where you happen to draw into the pieces; I wouldn't ever worry about getting the mana since mana usually isn't the bottleneck, but bricking on draws happens more often. You'll almost always incidentally generate more than enough mana to play a Retriever if you happen to draw it. You don't ever need every piece in your hand to start the combo, you just need to draw into it or a tutor for missing pieces in the middle of going off. Has nothing to do with costing 10 mana total since sacrificing pieces naturally gives you more mana, it just happens on whatever turn you start the combo. This is often turn 3 or 4 even if they try disrupting with discard or counters.
It means that whenever you're doing your normal combo with KCI + Trawler, if you draw into Retriever, you win right there.
If you draw into Whir, you probably have UUU floating already and win right there.
If you draw into Stirrings, and the top 5 cards of your library has a Retriever, you win.
You don't have to ever play a big Hangarback and pass the turn, or hope that you played a Sanctum already.
Double Myr Retriever does the following:
1) increases the chances you'll naturally draw into one during combo
2) have a backup if they Path to Exile one
3) Two Retrievers + Scrap Trawler is an infinite that doesn't need an Opal or EE
I could see going down to 1 Retriever, but honestly I found there's a lot more free slots in the deck after switching to Whir and moving Emrakul to the SB + removing Hangarbacks.
KCI + Trawler + Retriever + Star + Opal draws your whole deck and gives infinite mana.
KCI + Trawler + Retriever + 2 Stars/Terrarions draws your whole deck.
KCI + Trawler + 2 Retrievers + 1 Star draws your whole deck.
KCI + Trawler + 2 Retrievers + anything costing 1 or less is infinite mana.
At any point in your combo where you have either KCI + Retriever or KCI + Trawler, if you draw into either Fair or Whir, or naturally draw the missing piece, you don't even have to worry about fizzling. The deck has changed so you really don't need that much garbage on board to start going off, unlike the old Eggs deck. I like Hangarback, too, but it has some hidden costs in having CMC 0 and needing to run Sanctum to make use of it. Cutting it saves you 2-3 slots, since you also get to remove Emrakul, and makes casting colored sideboard cards easier since you get to replace Sanctums with basics/UG duals/Spires.
Engineered Explosives is like Oblivion Stone, but much cheaper and with the ability to recur easily via Trawler or Retriever. I've set EE at 2, then blown it up with a Retriever on board when I didn't have a Trawler to be able to recur it and wipe their board at the same time.
You don't even have to Whir for a Trawler mid-combo. I goldfished a ton and found I was comfortable tutoring a Trawler T3 at the end of their turn if I had KCI in hand.
@Thursdayisgod: I think 2 Pyrites feels really clunky. Do you ever find yourself using Whir for them? If so, would it make sense to cut it to a singleton?
The more dishonest this deck gets the better.