I don't really see how this has the potential to be a competitive vintage deck, as it lacks basic elements, and the structure is too inefficent by nature. If you disagree, metalworker, pm a mod and we'll move it back, but for now I think you'll get better responses in the casual forum.
I understand the reasons for Pact. The necessity for force, however, outweighs them. It is fine to include pacts, but you must include four forces first, if you have sufficient blue cards. The speed of the format and intensity of the early game just demands this, as you aren't necessarily going to be the one trying to combo off.
Gush is alright, but if you move to a more black heavy frame, then you won't reliably have the islands as early. Gush also is useless for at least the first 2 turns. In this sense, even something Street Wraith seems preferable.
With thoughcast, I doubt that you will have 4 artifacts in play at most time. For instance, if you want to cast it turn one for U, that means you need four artifacts in your hand, and a land, and the thoughtcast, which statistically is not likely. Even then, cast wants you to play artifact mana early to power it out, while the deck's structure lends itself towards reserving these elements.
Regarding the whole MoM/Gyser thing:
The MoM/Academy requires two restricted cards to both be in play, one of which having a giant "drain me" sticker attached to its forhead. And even then, that doesn't win the game, it just makes a lot of non-storm mana, and only with a bunch of artifacts, etc; what I'm tyring to impress is that it is not a reliable plan, and there a lot of contingencies, many of which other decks have specific solutions to. I mean, if they cast Chalice @ 0 you're in a boatload of trouble, as you now have a ton of unneccessay cards.
Hell, I'm not even sold on Academy in the deck. Relying on artifacts is a bad idea in general for combo; other decks are specificly targeting these cards (moxen that is), and to increase reliance on these is not neccessarilly cohesive towards a beneficial deck structure.
Gyser has uses outside of this very unreliable combo, sure, but not very good uses; and uses that could be easily outclassed by other cards in function.
This combo, in addition to the painter one, is the danger of cool things. Just because they sometimes work and won you the game doesn't mean you can rely on them. Basic statistical annalysis will show you how unreliable the combo really is.
Grim Monolith is a bad, null rod vulnerable, cabal ritual that can never be a black lotus (which ritual is half the time). It generates +1 colorelss mana, and +1 storm, which is not good enough when given alternatives. That is, its a negative card advnatge gain for a very, very minimal tempo gain. There are multitudenous ways to generate mana. We must be extreemy discriminating among them. For instance, if you really want -1 card for +1 mana, something like a spirit guide would probably be more cohesive because they circumvent stax elements to cast rebuild/etc. It just isn't up to par.
I suggest walk for a few reasons, and I understand that it is weaker than you might take, but essentially it is a free cantrip that gains you an extra land drop and is very synergistic with tinker. Worst case, its a free cycle. It also hinders your opponants development, which is convinient. Easily cutable selection, however.
Disadvatnage Tutors: You're thinking about these far too narowly. First of all, you aren'g going to be able to win turn 2 all the time, sometimes you'll need turn 3 (on average, anomoly games will go beyond this). Besides that, these tutors are synergistic with any draw effect, can be cast on your upkeep (aside imperial), etc. If you're going to win by means of storm, you will be casting draw effects half the time anyway. I would highly suggest testing these: they aren't being played almost universilly in combo for no reason.
Grim: 3 life is nothing. Grim will add a huge amount of consistancy to the deck (something along the lines of grims + ritual/lotus effects + will, with one of the later being searched for, will win you a lot of games).
Necro is too slow? Necro wins you the game. Litterally. It is very, very difficult to lose with a resolved necro, which can easily be played turn 1 by the way with the level of ritual effects in the deck. The discard is neglegent if you're smart about it. It also plays nice with disadvantage tutors ;). Test this before you knock it. How can you call this too slow and call grim monolith sufficient? How can you say that gyser as a draw spell is acceptable and this isnt?
Wesso, those things are cool, yes. They aren't good.
The fact is that wizards themed fish works pretty well cause most good fish creatures are incidentally wizards. If you want to make a competitive wizard deck, you actually should NOT use cards that make use of the wizard theme. If you want to make a competitive deck period you shouldn't build like that, you should look for the best cards and synergies.
What creatures are better than the wizards for a fish deck? I mean, you can build fish in different ways, but predominantly the strongest selections are wizards anyway. UW would be more devouted towards lions I suppose, but overall.
More on topic, I'd drop the 4 mana leaks. I still think you could also easily include trinket/servant, so keep that in mind.
Because the core of most broken decks is the mana. Control Slaver, Stax, Combo; they all rely heavily on having absurd amounts of fast mana, all made possible predominantly by moxen, lotus, petals, etc. In this respect, both chalice and rod slow these down signficantly.
Another thing you need to start taking into account is tempo advantage through consistency. For instance, your proposed list has 1 mana tithe, 1 mana drain, and 2 mana leak; but you aren't going to reliably draw any one of them. Rather, determine which one is the best and play a higher quantity of those. You will therefore draw them more often, and your strategy will be more cohesive, and lend itself to a stronger, more syngergistic deck in general.
Despite how good Yawgmoth's Will is, I don't think its going to perform very well in this type of deck. Will is only good because it allows a huge amount of temporary card advantage and tempo simltaneously, but you need the resourse to take advantage of it. For instance, you only have black lotus to play off of it for mana. This means you need more than 3 mana in place before hand usually to even play one card off of it, and then its just a bad regrowth. You aren't playing a broken deck, you're playing a tempo deck, and you need to take advatage of that.
What meta are you builidng this deck for? This will allow us to better build a suitable fish deck, which is what this is. Regardless of that fact, I would actually advise one of these two configurations, if you want to maintain a wizards theme:
Which is Ubw, gives you a solid curve, while maintaining power. Cursecather is good because it will serve like a force spike, except it creates positive, rather than negative, tempo and development.
Another plausible configuration would be something like:
Or something like that, maybe with some ninja in there or something.
Either way, what you want are to have cheap, effective creatures that generate tempo while applying pressure. In this manner, you will act as the control in a lot of matchups, although it won't feel like it (from a traditional standpoint).
Another element you are distinctly missing is the anti-broken supression. You aren't playing with a broken deck. As such, you must prevent such brokenness from killing you. Either Chalice of the Void or Null rod will suffice to this end.
One more consideration you could have, which stays sort of in theme with wizards, is the intagration of both a Trinket tool box (Trinket Mage with assorted cheap artifacs; specificly, top, EE, crypt) and/or the intagration of Servant/Stone combo. Keep in mind that trinket mage aids in the seravnt combo, and works well with confidant as well, but this may not be the direction you want to go in.
It's going in the right direction, but you have several decidedly weak or odd inclusions.
Going down the list:
3 Pact of Negation, 2 Force of Will. If you have the blue support for 2 force of will, you should just run 4, as it is a more objectively powerful card, being able to be used both defensively and offensively. I would recommend running 4 force first, then an auxiliary pact.
Gush isn't particularly powerful, either, keep it in mind if you want to make room for other things.
2 Fabricate, 2 Thoughtcast; these cards are just poor when compared to alternative options. Braingeyser is way too slow to be useful (It's just a bad recall at 5 mana, and its worse than concentrate at 4).
Mind Over Matter: Pretty bad a lot of the time. You have plenty of mana, usually; typically the bottleneck for this type of deck is cards, so MoM is negative conversion. Even then, its a very counterable 5 mana that doesn't really do a whole lot.
EE is inferior to bounce, as bounce can be used for both aggressive and defensive funtions, and has a wider range of targets. Grim Monolith is just too slow.
I'm not a fan of painter/stone in this shell, the tendrils combo should be perfectly suffecient, and colossus is a fine backup if you want it.
Cards you are definitly missing for some odd reason:
These are all better tutors than fabricate/etc, or just stupidly broken (Necro). The bounce serves several functions, both generating large amounts of storm, and serving defensively against various artifact strategies, particularly stax.
Furthermore, these changes will be strengthened if you shift your color focus from blue to black. Having basic swamps tends to be more beneficial anyway; you want to be able to turn one duress, etc, without vulnerizing yourself to wasteland.
First, ponder is restricted (yeah, its stupid, I know, but thats what happened).
Next, stuff like Ixidior's Will and Ancestral Vision is too slow. You probably aren't used to the pace of vintage, but the majority of games are decided within the first couple of turns. Sure, you can turn it around later, but getting a food in the door early is huge. Ancestral Visions won't even resolve half the time; remember, decks like ichorid and combo are winning turn 2-4 on average, and 4 is fairly slow, and thats with protection. Stax is just going to drop chalice at 0 or enough sphere effects to make it impossible to resolve while you're sacrificing unnecessary tempo. Similarly, will costs 3 mana, that is unacceptably slow.
Include all on-color moxen. Furthermore, include time walk. These are just necessities. And by lotus I didn't mean lotus bloom, which is awful, I meant Black Lotus.
Counterspell is bad for this type of deck. Consider elements such as stifle, duress effects (duress, thoughtseize), more cheap counters, and things like fire/ice in their place, that are easier and faster to cast. I mena, if you really want something for counterspell, mana drain is strictly better anyway, and I wouldn't suggest it for this type of deck because you can't afford to not cast things to leave counter mana open.
When I suggested those wizards, I know I suggested a variety, but stick with 3 colors tops. Any more, and you overvulnerize your mana base.
Speaking of your mana base, +6 fetchlands MINIMUM. You don't need that many basics, maybe 2 tops. You don't need that many duels, maybe 3 of any given one if you need them a lot, and you can easily go down to 2. Hell, you don't need that many lands period. You're a tempo deck, why mess around with such a disgusting amount of lands? Go to like 18 or so and see how that works. Also, ensure to include some amount of strip and waste effects for increased tempo gain.
Your sideboard is very strange, what are things like careful study for? And aether storm? You're going to be playing more creatures than any of your opponents.
Start with thinking about what decks you will need to be pepared for in your meta.
For example:
Ichorid: Pack 4 leylines and some Yixlid Jailers/Pithing Needles
Control Slaver: Try blasts, and pithing needles work as well
Combo: Discard effects, stifle effects, things like Arcane Laboratory
Fish: Stuff like Umezawa's Jitte and StP (if you're playing white, inlcude some stp main as well)
Stax: Kataki/Flux effects are tops. Spot artifact removal can also be useful (think rack and ruin, etc)
I'm gonna be honest, this deck needs a lot of work.
You need to add both consistancy and tempo to the deck. You are going to be palying against much more powerful decks that this is going to be capable of fighting on equal footing, so you need to increase both of these factors.
A good starting point would be to reassess your disruption base. Things like circular logic and dream fracture are just too slow, and things like arcane denial are card disadvantageous, which you do not want when there are spells at an equal cost that are just as effective. I would replace your disruption base starting with 4 force of will, because the card is just too good not to have a full set of, as it is a substantial tempo boost at the cost of card advantage. Similarly, I would advise the replacement of force spike with daze, as it has an increased tempo gain, and doesn't hinder your own development substantially.
Your creature base needs to be similarly reassessed. I realize things like Aeon Chronicler are cool, but you aren't going to live to turn 4 with the current configuration, and even with an optimal configuration you can't tap out main phase with more than 5 mana, as if you are, safely, you're already winning and casting it would be just win more, and even then it just cantrips. To a lesser degree, all of your wizards are poor.
What we need to do is look for powerful wizards that create tempo in play, justifying their playing, and are cheap and effective. Cards that fit into this selection off the top of my head are:
On that note, Sower of Temptation is a clear replacement for Control Magic as its a wizard as well.
From there, I would fill out the deck with tempo advantageous selections, and fill out the broken suite; that is, moxen, lotus, time walk, brainstorm, ponder, etc.
Similarly, your mana base can be more effective, between moxen/lotus for tempo, strip and waste effects for tempo, duals to enable non-blue wizards, fetches to find both duals and basic lands.
I'm not sure exactly where you want to go with this, so I'll let you propose a new list before I make further suggestions.
I'm sorry for coming of as insulting, but I'm not sure where you got to this just about skulkins? Why are you talking about them? I assumed you were talking about painter, because it was the only scarecrow mentioned in this thread, so when you were talking about them, you have to understand that it logically sounds like you are refering to servant. Even then, this argument is irrelevent.
The deck is looking better, but strip mine is restricted (that would be ridiculous if it weren't) fyi.
As per the deck itself, you now have two good cores (drain, shop), but they are conflicting. You don't have the mana base to support double blue turn 2, which is what drain expect. Furthermore, shop is a card that you also want to play as early as possible. To illustrate this conflict, think about this situation: You have an opening hand with shop and a blue source. Which do you play turn 1? If you play shop, you can play those artifacts, but now you can't play your drain until turn 3 at the earliest.
Furthermore, your shop/metalworker core is highly demanding of a large quanityt of artifacts, while your force/drain core is highly demaning of blue cards/islands. These strategies therefore conflict.
I would advise chosing one of these directions and sticking with it.
Due to you seeming to want to stick with the shared fate combo, I would be inclined to go for the blue core, as drain + islands is going to be a much more consisnat level of playing shared fate.
Also, with a blue core, the servant/grindstone combo is looking much more appealing to me. I would advise testing it at least. The combo is both more versitile and more practical, so I don't see it as an issue of creativity so much as effeciency, as it shouldn't alter the play style of the deck too much.
Regardless, that's some serious improvement, keep up the good work.
3 Flooded Strand
3 Island
3 Polluted Delta
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
// Spells
4 Accumulated Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Black Lotus
1 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
2 Intuition
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
4 Mana Drain
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Rebuild
1 Sol Ring
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Time Walk
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Mana Vault
1 Dark Ritual
1 Recoup
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Ponder
As proposed by Cody on July 14th.
Moved to casual.
Gush is alright, but if you move to a more black heavy frame, then you won't reliably have the islands as early. Gush also is useless for at least the first 2 turns. In this sense, even something Street Wraith seems preferable.
With thoughcast, I doubt that you will have 4 artifacts in play at most time. For instance, if you want to cast it turn one for U, that means you need four artifacts in your hand, and a land, and the thoughtcast, which statistically is not likely. Even then, cast wants you to play artifact mana early to power it out, while the deck's structure lends itself towards reserving these elements.
Regarding the whole MoM/Gyser thing:
The MoM/Academy requires two restricted cards to both be in play, one of which having a giant "drain me" sticker attached to its forhead. And even then, that doesn't win the game, it just makes a lot of non-storm mana, and only with a bunch of artifacts, etc; what I'm tyring to impress is that it is not a reliable plan, and there a lot of contingencies, many of which other decks have specific solutions to. I mean, if they cast Chalice @ 0 you're in a boatload of trouble, as you now have a ton of unneccessay cards.
Hell, I'm not even sold on Academy in the deck. Relying on artifacts is a bad idea in general for combo; other decks are specificly targeting these cards (moxen that is), and to increase reliance on these is not neccessarilly cohesive towards a beneficial deck structure.
Gyser has uses outside of this very unreliable combo, sure, but not very good uses; and uses that could be easily outclassed by other cards in function.
This combo, in addition to the painter one, is the danger of cool things. Just because they sometimes work and won you the game doesn't mean you can rely on them. Basic statistical annalysis will show you how unreliable the combo really is.
Grim Monolith is a bad, null rod vulnerable, cabal ritual that can never be a black lotus (which ritual is half the time). It generates +1 colorelss mana, and +1 storm, which is not good enough when given alternatives. That is, its a negative card advnatge gain for a very, very minimal tempo gain. There are multitudenous ways to generate mana. We must be extreemy discriminating among them. For instance, if you really want -1 card for +1 mana, something like a spirit guide would probably be more cohesive because they circumvent stax elements to cast rebuild/etc. It just isn't up to par.
I suggest walk for a few reasons, and I understand that it is weaker than you might take, but essentially it is a free cantrip that gains you an extra land drop and is very synergistic with tinker. Worst case, its a free cycle. It also hinders your opponants development, which is convinient. Easily cutable selection, however.
Disadvatnage Tutors: You're thinking about these far too narowly. First of all, you aren'g going to be able to win turn 2 all the time, sometimes you'll need turn 3 (on average, anomoly games will go beyond this). Besides that, these tutors are synergistic with any draw effect, can be cast on your upkeep (aside imperial), etc. If you're going to win by means of storm, you will be casting draw effects half the time anyway. I would highly suggest testing these: they aren't being played almost universilly in combo for no reason.
Grim: 3 life is nothing. Grim will add a huge amount of consistancy to the deck (something along the lines of grims + ritual/lotus effects + will, with one of the later being searched for, will win you a lot of games).
Necro is too slow? Necro wins you the game. Litterally. It is very, very difficult to lose with a resolved necro, which can easily be played turn 1 by the way with the level of ritual effects in the deck. The discard is neglegent if you're smart about it. It also plays nice with disadvantage tutors ;). Test this before you knock it. How can you call this too slow and call grim monolith sufficient? How can you say that gyser as a draw spell is acceptable and this isnt?
Hope some of that helps.
The fact is that wizards themed fish works pretty well cause most good fish creatures are incidentally wizards. If you want to make a competitive wizard deck, you actually should NOT use cards that make use of the wizard theme. If you want to make a competitive deck period you shouldn't build like that, you should look for the best cards and synergies.
What creatures are better than the wizards for a fish deck? I mean, you can build fish in different ways, but predominantly the strongest selections are wizards anyway. UW would be more devouted towards lions I suppose, but overall.
More on topic, I'd drop the 4 mana leaks. I still think you could also easily include trinket/servant, so keep that in mind.
CB: Counterbalance
Another thing you need to start taking into account is tempo advantage through consistency. For instance, your proposed list has 1 mana tithe, 1 mana drain, and 2 mana leak; but you aren't going to reliably draw any one of them. Rather, determine which one is the best and play a higher quantity of those. You will therefore draw them more often, and your strategy will be more cohesive, and lend itself to a stronger, more syngergistic deck in general.
Despite how good Yawgmoth's Will is, I don't think its going to perform very well in this type of deck. Will is only good because it allows a huge amount of temporary card advantage and tempo simltaneously, but you need the resourse to take advantage of it. For instance, you only have black lotus to play off of it for mana. This means you need more than 3 mana in place before hand usually to even play one card off of it, and then its just a bad regrowth. You aren't playing a broken deck, you're playing a tempo deck, and you need to take advatage of that.
What meta are you builidng this deck for? This will allow us to better build a suitable fish deck, which is what this is. Regardless of that fact, I would actually advise one of these two configurations, if you want to maintain a wizards theme:
Which is Ubw, gives you a solid curve, while maintaining power. Cursecather is good because it will serve like a force spike, except it creates positive, rather than negative, tempo and development.
Another plausible configuration would be something like:
Or something like that, maybe with some ninja in there or something.
Either way, what you want are to have cheap, effective creatures that generate tempo while applying pressure. In this manner, you will act as the control in a lot of matchups, although it won't feel like it (from a traditional standpoint).
Another element you are distinctly missing is the anti-broken supression. You aren't playing with a broken deck. As such, you must prevent such brokenness from killing you. Either Chalice of the Void or Null rod will suffice to this end.
One more consideration you could have, which stays sort of in theme with wizards, is the intagration of both a Trinket tool box (Trinket Mage with assorted cheap artifacs; specificly, top, EE, crypt) and/or the intagration of Servant/Stone combo. Keep in mind that trinket mage aids in the seravnt combo, and works well with confidant as well, but this may not be the direction you want to go in.
Going down the list:
3 Pact of Negation, 2 Force of Will. If you have the blue support for 2 force of will, you should just run 4, as it is a more objectively powerful card, being able to be used both defensively and offensively. I would recommend running 4 force first, then an auxiliary pact.
Gush isn't particularly powerful, either, keep it in mind if you want to make room for other things.
2 Fabricate, 2 Thoughtcast; these cards are just poor when compared to alternative options. Braingeyser is way too slow to be useful (It's just a bad recall at 5 mana, and its worse than concentrate at 4).
Mind Over Matter: Pretty bad a lot of the time. You have plenty of mana, usually; typically the bottleneck for this type of deck is cards, so MoM is negative conversion. Even then, its a very counterable 5 mana that doesn't really do a whole lot.
EE is inferior to bounce, as bounce can be used for both aggressive and defensive funtions, and has a wider range of targets. Grim Monolith is just too slow.
I'm not a fan of painter/stone in this shell, the tendrils combo should be perfectly suffecient, and colossus is a fine backup if you want it.
Cards you are definitly missing for some odd reason:
These are all better tutors than fabricate/etc, or just stupidly broken (Necro). The bounce serves several functions, both generating large amounts of storm, and serving defensively against various artifact strategies, particularly stax.
Furthermore, these changes will be strengthened if you shift your color focus from blue to black. Having basic swamps tends to be more beneficial anyway; you want to be able to turn one duress, etc, without vulnerizing yourself to wasteland.
First, ponder is restricted (yeah, its stupid, I know, but thats what happened).
Next, stuff like Ixidior's Will and Ancestral Vision is too slow. You probably aren't used to the pace of vintage, but the majority of games are decided within the first couple of turns. Sure, you can turn it around later, but getting a food in the door early is huge. Ancestral Visions won't even resolve half the time; remember, decks like ichorid and combo are winning turn 2-4 on average, and 4 is fairly slow, and thats with protection. Stax is just going to drop chalice at 0 or enough sphere effects to make it impossible to resolve while you're sacrificing unnecessary tempo. Similarly, will costs 3 mana, that is unacceptably slow.
Include all on-color moxen. Furthermore, include time walk. These are just necessities. And by lotus I didn't mean lotus bloom, which is awful, I meant Black Lotus.
Counterspell is bad for this type of deck. Consider elements such as stifle, duress effects (duress, thoughtseize), more cheap counters, and things like fire/ice in their place, that are easier and faster to cast. I mena, if you really want something for counterspell, mana drain is strictly better anyway, and I wouldn't suggest it for this type of deck because you can't afford to not cast things to leave counter mana open.
When I suggested those wizards, I know I suggested a variety, but stick with 3 colors tops. Any more, and you overvulnerize your mana base.
Speaking of your mana base, +6 fetchlands MINIMUM. You don't need that many basics, maybe 2 tops. You don't need that many duels, maybe 3 of any given one if you need them a lot, and you can easily go down to 2. Hell, you don't need that many lands period. You're a tempo deck, why mess around with such a disgusting amount of lands? Go to like 18 or so and see how that works. Also, ensure to include some amount of strip and waste effects for increased tempo gain.
Your sideboard is very strange, what are things like careful study for? And aether storm? You're going to be playing more creatures than any of your opponents.
Start with thinking about what decks you will need to be pepared for in your meta.
For example:
Ichorid: Pack 4 leylines and some Yixlid Jailers/Pithing Needles
Control Slaver: Try blasts, and pithing needles work as well
Combo: Discard effects, stifle effects, things like Arcane Laboratory
Fish: Stuff like Umezawa's Jitte and StP (if you're playing white, inlcude some stp main as well)
Stax: Kataki/Flux effects are tops. Spot artifact removal can also be useful (think rack and ruin, etc)
You need to add both consistancy and tempo to the deck. You are going to be palying against much more powerful decks that this is going to be capable of fighting on equal footing, so you need to increase both of these factors.
A good starting point would be to reassess your disruption base. Things like circular logic and dream fracture are just too slow, and things like arcane denial are card disadvantageous, which you do not want when there are spells at an equal cost that are just as effective. I would replace your disruption base starting with 4 force of will, because the card is just too good not to have a full set of, as it is a substantial tempo boost at the cost of card advantage. Similarly, I would advise the replacement of force spike with daze, as it has an increased tempo gain, and doesn't hinder your own development substantially.
Your creature base needs to be similarly reassessed. I realize things like Aeon Chronicler are cool, but you aren't going to live to turn 4 with the current configuration, and even with an optimal configuration you can't tap out main phase with more than 5 mana, as if you are, safely, you're already winning and casting it would be just win more, and even then it just cantrips. To a lesser degree, all of your wizards are poor.
What we need to do is look for powerful wizards that create tempo in play, justifying their playing, and are cheap and effective. Cards that fit into this selection off the top of my head are:
On that note, Sower of Temptation is a clear replacement for Control Magic as its a wizard as well.
From there, I would fill out the deck with tempo advantageous selections, and fill out the broken suite; that is, moxen, lotus, time walk, brainstorm, ponder, etc.
Similarly, your mana base can be more effective, between moxen/lotus for tempo, strip and waste effects for tempo, duals to enable non-blue wizards, fetches to find both duals and basic lands.
I'm not sure exactly where you want to go with this, so I'll let you propose a new list before I make further suggestions.
The deck is looking better, but strip mine is restricted (that would be ridiculous if it weren't) fyi.
As per the deck itself, you now have two good cores (drain, shop), but they are conflicting. You don't have the mana base to support double blue turn 2, which is what drain expect. Furthermore, shop is a card that you also want to play as early as possible. To illustrate this conflict, think about this situation: You have an opening hand with shop and a blue source. Which do you play turn 1? If you play shop, you can play those artifacts, but now you can't play your drain until turn 3 at the earliest.
Furthermore, your shop/metalworker core is highly demanding of a large quanityt of artifacts, while your force/drain core is highly demaning of blue cards/islands. These strategies therefore conflict.
I would advise chosing one of these directions and sticking with it.
Due to you seeming to want to stick with the shared fate combo, I would be inclined to go for the blue core, as drain + islands is going to be a much more consisnat level of playing shared fate.
Also, with a blue core, the servant/grindstone combo is looking much more appealing to me. I would advise testing it at least. The combo is both more versitile and more practical, so I don't see it as an issue of creativity so much as effeciency, as it shouldn't alter the play style of the deck too much.
Regardless, that's some serious improvement, keep up the good work.