Ah, Toshi... once upon a time that was the cornerstone of my Varchild's War-riders/Brand deck, but alas... anyway, I'll take this opportunity to promote one of my favorite Magic articles of all time: The Toshi Challenge
While most of this tech is irrelevant because of the color identity limitations in EDH, most of that article is irrelevant. It doesn't make it any less awesome though. Anyway, on to the more useful suggestions:
Buyback is great with a Toshi trigger. You can play a spell without buyback first, and then replay it with Toshi and opt-in on the buyback. This'll net you 1 card in your hand. You're already running Corpse Dance (though I'm not sure you were aware of this interaction), but you're not running Slaughter. Running crap cards and doing obscene things with them is what makes EDH tick, so go ahead. Another fun card mentioned in the article but that doesn't seem to be worth it in your deck: Tombstone Stairwell. Large number of Toshi triggers is large.
Another fun fact: the first part of Toshi's ability is exactly the same as the first part of my favorite general, Glissa the Traitor. I found this funny enough to build my deck around the theme of "lines of rules text".
Two random card suggestions:
-Shriveling Rot: it's like Dingus Staff, but as an instant
-Sudden Spoiling: sometimes you need a little more Fog (or more appropriate, Darkness), and playing it twice could save your bum at exactly the right moment
How do you feel about Rith as a general for a deck that isn't focused on tokens? Like zero tokens.. I need a naya general but I dislike Mayael and the legends ones are pretty lame.
Rith doesn't care about tokens, she cares about permanents. And they don't even need to be your own permanents... You could build a "permanents matter" deck (think Genesis Wave), or whatever. Random card suggestion: Utvara Hellkite. Did you know Rith is a dragon?
If anyone seems something new from this set I overlooked let me know, you can ask about reprints to since the review only covers new cards.
If I had a free spot in my deck (which I obviously haven't) I'd consider Ogre Battledriver. Actually, I'm still considering Ogre Battledriver, since haste is A Good Thing (tm). I might swap Anger or In the web of war out just to try him.
I think I wanna make this deck now down to a dire decision. Promo art or original? I that the promo is just different approach but the original is sexy and I think better. Oh yeah and has a oversized version, which I will be getting regardless (not going to lie it was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back on picking this general)
I went with the promo art, and made that a recurring theme for the deck. There are a lot of cards with alternate art that fit the deck, like Steel Hellkite and Wurmcoil Engine. It makes picking and cutting cards easier (sometimes...).
For all the complicated text on the card, all it basically says is that players can't draw cards beyond the first card during their draw step (if they do, they discard; if they can't discard, they mill). It punishes decks that play lots of draw spells and doesn't affect any other kind of deck.
And that's A Good Thing (tm). Do you have trouble against decks that aren't drawing multiple cards per turn? Probably not. And with stuff like Sylvan Library (which you aren't running btw, why not? Too slow) it's easy to get around the drawback yourself. It can break some combo's, and at worse it'll give you more tokens.
Since you're running Grave Betrayal, you should consider Karn, Silver Golem. It'll let you steal artifacts. Even without GB, it'll let you kill non-creature artifacts. A solid card, recurrable with Glissa.
I've run Warstorm Surge before and it's strong but a little slow so I ended taking it out, the damage it deals can get pretty crazy though.
You just added Academy Rector, so I think you could evaluate what enchantments you're running. I think you could run a good finisher that you can fetch with Rector. Not Warstorm Surge, but Vicious Shadows!
Legion Loyalist grants trample and first strike. It's like a mini Akroma's Memorial. I think you're right about Shared Animosity in comparison to Hellrider, but there's nothing wrong with a little redundancy
I would consider Wurmcoil Engine as a wincon. It has good synergy with Smokestack, and you are low on recurrable artifact creatures anyway. Steel Hellkite is solid as well.
Is there any reason why you're not running Disk and OStone? If you dislike sweeping your own stuff, I get great mileage out of Engineered Explosives. It's great against token decks (a major weakness for this archetype), but even then there's always some 1 or 2 CC permanent that could better be dead.
By the way, I think this is the first Glissa deck I've even seen without Thornbite Staff.
Hm, it's a nice card and there are ways to make it work, but I don't see it as good value to exchange some creatures with counters on Ulasht. Or just put it this way: there are a lot of cards I would pick over Death's Presence. Let's look at some hypothetical situations:
You have a 6/6 Ulasht and six tokens, your tokens get killed and you make Ulasht 12/12. Invest 6 mana and get 6 tokens back. In this case, I'd rather have something like Ant Queen. It's different if you have Mana Echoes in play, but then again, it's likely you're winning anyway. And in that case, I'd rather have Cloudstone Curio because that has use outside of combo's.
You have a 6/6 Ulasht and Symbiotic Wurm. Your Wurm gets killed, so you get a 12/12 Ulasht and 6 insect tokens. This is an interesting situation if you have a sacrifice outlet, but still very situational. In this case I'd rather have Scythe of the Wretched or Nim Deathmantle.
You have a 6/6 Ulasht and one of your opponents wraths. You end up with nothing. Or worse: you have a 6/6 Ulasht, 100 tokens and one of your opponents wraths. You end up with nothing. Curio, Scythe or Deathmantle would help you recover.
So sure, it's a card with a nice effect and you can build combo's with it, but there are cheaper combo's with cards you are likely running to begin with. If you're looking for something to help you recover after a sweeper, look for Fecundity. For this amount of mana, I'd rather play Vicious Shadows. I like the card, but I think it'd always be my 101st card.
While most of this tech is irrelevant because of the color identity limitations in EDH, most of that article is irrelevant. It doesn't make it any less awesome though. Anyway, on to the more useful suggestions:
Buyback is great with a Toshi trigger. You can play a spell without buyback first, and then replay it with Toshi and opt-in on the buyback. This'll net you 1 card in your hand. You're already running Corpse Dance (though I'm not sure you were aware of this interaction), but you're not running Slaughter. Running crap cards and doing obscene things with them is what makes EDH tick, so go ahead. Another fun card mentioned in the article but that doesn't seem to be worth it in your deck: Tombstone Stairwell. Large number of Toshi triggers is large.
Another fun fact: the first part of Toshi's ability is exactly the same as the first part of my favorite general, Glissa the Traitor. I found this funny enough to build my deck around the theme of "lines of rules text".
Two random card suggestions:
-Shriveling Rot: it's like Dingus Staff, but as an instant
-Sudden Spoiling: sometimes you need a little more Fog (or more appropriate, Darkness), and playing it twice could save your bum at exactly the right moment
Have fun with the article, and with your deck!
Rith doesn't care about tokens, she cares about permanents. And they don't even need to be your own permanents... You could build a "permanents matter" deck (think Genesis Wave), or whatever. Random card suggestion: Utvara Hellkite. Did you know Rith is a dragon?
If I had a free spot in my deck (which I obviously haven't) I'd consider Ogre Battledriver. Actually, I'm still considering Ogre Battledriver, since haste is A Good Thing (tm). I might swap Anger or In the web of war out just to try him.
I went with the promo art, and made that a recurring theme for the deck. There are a lot of cards with alternate art that fit the deck, like Steel Hellkite and Wurmcoil Engine. It makes picking and cutting cards easier (sometimes...).
And that's A Good Thing (tm). Do you have trouble against decks that aren't drawing multiple cards per turn? Probably not. And with stuff like Sylvan Library (which you aren't running btw, why not? Too slow) it's easy to get around the drawback yourself. It can break some combo's, and at worse it'll give you more tokens.
It's just like Chains of Mephistopheles, and no one ever had any trouble reading that...
You could try if you can live without Swiftfoot Boots.
You just added Academy Rector, so I think you could evaluate what enchantments you're running. I think you could run a good finisher that you can fetch with Rector. Not Warstorm Surge, but Vicious Shadows!
Is there any reason why you're not running Disk and OStone? If you dislike sweeping your own stuff, I get great mileage out of Engineered Explosives. It's great against token decks (a major weakness for this archetype), but even then there's always some 1 or 2 CC permanent that could better be dead.
By the way, I think this is the first Glissa deck I've even seen without Thornbite Staff.
You have a 6/6 Ulasht and six tokens, your tokens get killed and you make Ulasht 12/12. Invest 6 mana and get 6 tokens back. In this case, I'd rather have something like Ant Queen. It's different if you have Mana Echoes in play, but then again, it's likely you're winning anyway. And in that case, I'd rather have Cloudstone Curio because that has use outside of combo's.
You have a 6/6 Ulasht and Symbiotic Wurm. Your Wurm gets killed, so you get a 12/12 Ulasht and 6 insect tokens. This is an interesting situation if you have a sacrifice outlet, but still very situational. In this case I'd rather have Scythe of the Wretched or Nim Deathmantle.
You have a 6/6 Ulasht and one of your opponents wraths. You end up with nothing. Or worse: you have a 6/6 Ulasht, 100 tokens and one of your opponents wraths. You end up with nothing. Curio, Scythe or Deathmantle would help you recover.
So sure, it's a card with a nice effect and you can build combo's with it, but there are cheaper combo's with cards you are likely running to begin with. If you're looking for something to help you recover after a sweeper, look for Fecundity. For this amount of mana, I'd rather play Vicious Shadows. I like the card, but I think it'd always be my 101st card.