First there was an idea of using grenadins to power out Witching Hour.
Then came Combustion Cell.
And the deck started having so much mana and flow that the card quickly jumped from 2-off to a full playset. Stonescar Scrappers were turned into Direwood Prowlers, that you curve into on turn 4, after playing your Scraptank on turn 3. Combustion Cell allows the deck to play 4 Madness as removal. For the top-end you can play any combination of Red/Black big things you want. Gearcruncher is a must however. Witching Hour probably at this point of the deck is more a liability and less powerful than Gearcruncher or other nonsense legendaries like Venomspine, Valkyrie Harvester, or even Voprex. In the end, the deck went from a meme into a real deck so Witching Hours had to go, which gave us a better manabase as casting Kaleb on 6 is sometimes hard.
And the deck wins, surprisingly. Climbed from Diamond 3 to Masters quite easily. (especially after cutting Witching Hours and crafting 4 Gearcrunchers). Masters 6 is the best rank the deck has reached so far and hovers strongly in the top 10.
Cards tested and found bad: Sleepless Night (I never wanted to cast it as I didn't run out of cards), Stonescar Scrapper (It's a 6 mana play in the first place and being able to repeat it isn't worth having to sacrifice one additional creature compared to Direwood Prowler. Your grenadins are your ammo, love them), Witching Hour (6 influence is what kills this), Dark Wisp (You draw enough and rarely lack sac targets for your spells. It's a waste of time to play), Great-Kiln (Too many situational cards in the deck to get any real value from him)
Card to test: Valkyrie Harvester, Oblivion Spike, Toppletower (probably redundant), Miner's Musket, Venomspine Hydra
So much to test, so little shiftstone and time.
Edit: Deck is perfect now. Unless the meta changes dramatically, this version is what I'm going to run for the foreseeable future.
Edit2: Unitless decks are a pain with 8 board clears. Put in a few Sabos and Scrap Heap. Spark Hatcher > Shadowlands Guide, hands down. Sorry for doubting the little bugger. Miser Suffocate against Instigator, Kothon and Harbinger. Made a rudimentary sideboard.
Combust
x3
1
Grenadin Drone
x4
1
Sabotage
x2
1
Suffocate
x1
2
Combustion Cell
x3
2
Devour
x4
2
Quarry
x4
2
Spark Hatcher
x2
2
Vara's Favor
x2
3
Assembly Line
x4
3
Madness
x4
3
Scheme
x1
3
Scrap Heap
x1
3
Torrent of Spiders
x1
5
Scraptank
x4
6
Direwood Prowler
x4
7
Gearcruncher
x4
8
Kaleb, Uncrowned Prince
x2
Fire Sigil
x4
Shadow Sigil
x3
Amethyst Waystone
x2
Crest of Chaos
x4
Granite Waystone
x4
Seat of Chaos
x4
Stonescar Banner
x4
View Deck on Shiftstoned
1. After 2 Harsh Rule I top deck Torrent of Spiders, my opponent concedes.
2. Outvalue a chalice deck.
3. Cast Madness on opponent Makto, Sacrifice it to a 5 drop Direwood Prowler for the concession.
The deck has grown very popular; so much so that high legend is very prepared for it now.
If you end up facing many Temporal or other unitless control, add a few sabotages over combust/madness. If there's a lot of green fliers/instigators/harbinger, consider a few suffocates. Despite what people claim, the deck is modular and doesn't have anywhere near an accepted 73 card core.
Step on the gas. Aggressively Devour your tokens with Combustion Cell/Direwood. Turn 3 - Cast Assembly Line, burn a token to cast Quarry/Devour the same turn. Turn 3 - Cast Combustion Cell, eat the main-body Grenadin Drone to cast Shadowlands Guide and bring it back up. Similarly, don't feel weirded out by casting a naked Torrent of Spiders on turn 3, only to Devour it next turn; the deck is listed as combo so getting all the pieces is more important than the best case scenario of each card. Only start thinking of conserving your red tokens once you're closing in on daddy Kaleb turn to kill your opponent.
Hit their face. Sometimes you don't even need to combo. Madness everything they have that they think will block well and burn it to the grenadin gods: Opponent attacks with Bloodcaster, leaving Steward to block your Assembly Line triplets. Madness Steward and hit for 6, Devour/Combustion as you see fit.
It's a tricky deck and took me a dozen games before I started being comfortable with playing it and evaluating Scout triggers and hands to keep. Masters 50 now with the deck so keep at it!
The only change I'm going to make from my list is to make my top-end Great-Kiln Titan since he is just too ungodly strong. I tried Kaleb and at his top end he is broken in this deck. But in the average scenario, you have used your red tokens to either trade off or sacrifice for mana and in those cases, I think Titan is just much better. I could be wrong though since you play things like Madness. I'll try it and see.
I would play Great-Kiln's instead of the Claw and Voprex certainly but I find setting up even an average Kaleb (Assembly + him) fairly easy. He hits so hard out of nowhere that stealing games with him is a legitimate gameplan.
I also agree that Great-Kiln is bad in the end. It doesn't synergise with the deck's winning strategy of going wide and punching hard (or controlling and outvaluing certain decks). I also liked Claw a lot in the deck but many streamers started picking up on the deck and convinced me that the card was bad BibleThump Never give up on your dreams! 1-off premium Claw is perfect as a token-generator/removal hybrid!