Treasure Hunt is getting close to a solid lock. It draws a ton of cards, it keeps the mana flowing, and Halimar Depths solves alot of problems. If I didn't play Treasure Hunt, I'd be playing something like See Beyond, or Gitaxian Probe to try and fill this area. The deck really needs card drawing, and spells that cost less than three mana, and this fits both of those.
This fills 7 "slots" in the deck, or 28 cards. I don't see myself playing any of these as less than a 4-of, due to the nature of Ascension, and because all of them are pretty solid cards to begin with. If any of them "really" cost more than 3, or were super-slow, I might consider going to a 2 or 3-of (Ex: Foresee, Call to Mind, etc), but none of these qualify.
The deck really really needs at least 22 lands. I'm inclined to play 24 just because of the 4x nature of it, and it feels okay. Treasure Hunt likes lands. Getting to 6 (to play two 3-drops) is important, and playing a land every turn for the first 4-5 turns is important as well. Recent testing has shown that I've been a bit blue-screwed, so I probably have to add more Islands than I had previously, but that's up in the air.
I'd only go to 23 land instead of 24, to add another solid 1-of.
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So, lets talk 4-ofs.
We need at least one 4-of to fill in the 8th "slot" in the deck. Having 4 of a particular spell is important due to the nature of the deck. I often fully charge, or get the first counter to proliferate, off one of my non-3cc spells, like Preordain or Treasure Hunt. This would need to fill that area as well, because the deck needs a ton of consistancy to do well.
The card has to have certaion qualities to work well in the deck.
1) It has to be card drawing, or damage. Utility spells are fine, but utility spells:
A) Have a hard time being cast in a general situation. You won't always have a target to Into the Roil, or Shatter, or Mana Leak. Not being able to cast your spell means you can't charge PA, or get into a clearly game-winning situation.
B) Clog up the opening hand, may be dead in a matchup. Drawing 2xShatter (when I only had 2x Shatter in the deck) was horrible against a deck with no artifacts.
Card drawing is amazing because the more of it you have, the easier it is to charge up the PA. Damage is good, because it allows you to deal with creatures, and double as your win condition.
2) The card has to have an option to be cast for less than three mana.
A) The deck already has 12 3-drops, and probably a couple more 3+ drops in the utility spells.
B) The deck needs to be able to do some things on turn 1-2, and a second thing to do on turn 4-5 when combined with one of the many 3-drops.
C) It can have a kicker cost to pump it up above 3, but it must be castable for 0, 1, 2 mana.
3) The card must be an instant or sorcery.
A) It has to work well with the Ascension. (Pre and Post-Ascending)
B) Planeswalkers are powerful, but for example, a Jace Beleren draws you 3 cards for 3 mana, but a See Beyond draws you 1-2 cards, for 2 mana, and draws you 4 for two mana once you're Ascended.
C) Artifacts are nifty, but they are also more vulnerable.
D) Creatures are good, but better out of the sideboard, to totally blank your opponents main-deck answers.
Card Drawing:
The best options that fit all of these categories are:
Gitaxian Probe
See Beyond
The options that fit two of those requirements are:
Into the Roil (2.5, whatever)
Steady Progress (Proliferate is good)
Card drawing is some of the best stuff you can draw off the top post-ascension, and some of the best ways to charge up and find your Ascension.
Gitaxian Probe is awesome because it costs 0 mana. Mana is very tight when you have so many 3's, and when you have so many things you can draw, and so many spells to cast. Gitaxian Probe is bad, because it isn't really awesome in your opening hand (you can't know what it is that you'll draw), and is fairly low-impact. It doesn't find PA very well (only look at 1 new card), and isn't amazing at finding action once ascended, so those are things that limit it. But costing 0 is a phenominal advantage.
See Beyond works well with Treasure Hunt, because you are much more likely to have an extra land to shuffle away when you draw so many extra cards (lands) with TH. It is also pretty okay if you happen to have a bad one-of for that matchup. See Beyond works terribly with Scry (Preordain, Foresee), but with 1x Foresee, that might not be a huge problem.
The other options are okay, but I like ITR alot more as a 1-of, than a 4-of. Drawing one in your opening hand is almost a mulligan, which you can't really afford in this deck. Having 4 of them makes that even more likely.
Burn:
The same general requirements apply to the burn section. Also:
1) The damage has to be able to go to their head.
There's nothing worse than sitting on Pyroclasms when their board is empty. Best case, you're going to 1:1 them with the spell, and you have to be okay drawing 2-3 of this spell during the course of a general game.
2) It helps if it is an instant.
Being able to hold up mana means they may play around the counters that aren't even in the deck. You can't get <3cc card drawing as an instant, but you can definately get burn in that category.
3) Two damage is really the minimum.
Alot of the threats have two damage, and part of being able to go to the head means that it has to go to the head in a credible way.
4) Being able to multi-target, or have multiple functionality helps alot as a general slot.
Dealing with creature swarms
Getting in some incidental damage to the player helps bring them down to the area of being able to one-turn-kill them.
The biggest contenders here are:
Burst Lightning
Arc Trail
Searing Blaze
Searing Blaze would be the only double-colored mana spell in the deck. It combos well with Scalding Tarn to function as an instant. It does the most total damage of any option here, for the least cost (6, 2). It is also the only spell in here with a targetting requirement (they have to have a creature). It is clearly better at killing one creature than any of the other options here. It combos to kill high-toughness creatures better than any other option. It kills planeswalkers pretty well.
It is the highest varience option. It is the most powerful option. It is the hardest option to cast.
Arc Trail is pretty good against creature decks, and is never dead (can always target self). It's the most general, least objectionable option here. The incidental damage from this is pretty marginal, and being a sorcery isn't exactly great.
Burst Lightning is a card I used to play with. It's an instant, and it has some reasonable face-targetting options.
Searing Blaze is really backbreaking when it works. It is superior to any of the other options here, presuming that you can cast it for the full value. It is just the hardest card to cast for full value.
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