Silver to Master with Invoke the Excavator Combo

Thanks to Sunyveil and lobiito for the list this was directly based on.
If you want to learn how the deck works check their guides, Invoke the Excavator (Master) - With explanation and Nerf pls, they are very comprehensive and useful and helped me a lot. I'll only be mentioning a few specific things beyond the basics that are different/not included in those guides already so check those out first before reading this.

Notable card choices:
-Devotee of the Sands: I figured that the best, most ignorant and grossly uninteractive hands were those that opened with Power Stone, so why not play 4 more. It slightly increases dead draws in exchange for a higher chance to ramp on turn 2, which is extremely important since that alone wins many tougher matchups. Devotee is worse than Power Stone in that it's easier to interact with but occasionally it can be useful as a chump blocker. That being said you only ever want to play it unshifted if they play a 1/2 drop that it can suitably block (or discourage the attack of) like Oni Ronin, Grenadin Drone, Blackhall Warleader, etc. Even then you often don't want to block with it anyway in fear of combat tricks. Worth mentioning that playing 4 Devotee over 4 power can lead to slightly less damage post-combo, but in my experience it never made a real difference. You still win almost 100% of the time after going off and people will often concede once they can't respond anyway.
-Common Cause: Didn't play this until the very end of the climb but it is obviously an amazing power for the deck. Credit to lobiito.
-Dissociate vs Display of Instinct: I played Display until the very end of the climb as well so I didn't test Dissociate much but both seem similarly useful. Display is used as a counterspell 80% of the time but occasionally it can kill an attacker or gain some life. It can also do a bit of extra damage to face but I've only ever used that for lethal once. Display can also be grabbed by any merchant. Dissociate shines when going off on 8 mana to protect the combo against control decks, and against disruption before going off. Dissociate is probably the better card overall but I haven't played it enough to confirm. Again credit to lobiito.
-4 Amber Waystone: The incidental life gain is way too important for this deck to play any less than 4. It's a lifesaver.
-4 Skycrag Banner over 4 Praxis Banner: To help get that second primal influence. I'm not an expert on power bases so maybe this is bad but I dunno.

How to beat the deck:
-Hand disruption: Treachery/Vara's Choice after the first merchant for Diogo, Sabotage after the second merchant for Omen, Royal Decree/Rain of Frogs after either merchant are all autowin against the deck. The most common discard option, Shakedown, usually won't disrupt the combo and will often help it with the extra nightfall draw. The only way to disrupt the combo with Shakedown is to discard the only blue merchant they have in hand before they get Celestial Omen. If they have more than 1 blue merchant it's useless.
-Market disruption: Incendiary Slagmite and Ponysnatcher. Surprisingly I ran into 0 of either of these cards during my climb but I would imagine they autowin against the deck.
-Playing aggro: Self-explanatory
-Playing lots of fliers or other evasion, especially combined with life gain: The deck relies greatly on chump blocking at the last possible moment, but it can only block a single flyer with Messenger Hawk (which sometimes comes in clutch). Life gain can give you one extra turn after the combo goes off, but alone life gain isn't enough; it doesn't matter unless you also have the evasion or burn to win through the chumpers.
-Counterspells: Dissociate/Display of Instinct makes this option not 100% reliable, but often they won't be able to hold up their own counterspell and yours will do the trick.

Gameplay tips:
-Stonescar aggro: Unfavoured matchup. Often depends on who goes first. Don't get too eager to block the Blackhall Warleader if they might have a way to kill your mana dork. Let the Warleader grow a bit, then you can chump block it once it's huge. Argenport Instigator's burn can be add up and become a big problem when chump blocking. Try to get rid of it with blocks when you can.
-Hooru control and other control variants: You will generally only lose if they can fish for a Royal Decree in time. Once they play a merchant, watch out and get your own counterspell asap.
-Note about baby Vara: Sac your Jennev Merchant. Unless you are really being rushed down, you want to stop them from gaining that extra 2 life off each Vara swing. It can make the difference between 1 and 2 turn lethal. If you're low on hp or they won't get a chance to swing with Vara before you go off, buff her.
-Generally, you are very unfavoured against aggro, very favoured against midrange (and slower aggro decks), and somewhat favoured against control.

Mulligan tips:
-The most important thing you're looking for is at least one of each influence (plus ideally a second primal), and at least two merchants; one of any type to fetch Diogo Málaga, Elonze and one primal to fetch Celestial Omen.
-A Power Stone/Devotee of the Sands (just 1) in conjunction with having most of the other pieces increases the power level of a hand dramatically. The ideal hand you should be looking for is 3 power, Power Stone, Auralian Merchant, primal merchant/smuggler, [flex spare merchant or 4th power]. This hand can win against pretty much anything.
-Consider getting greedy with the mulligan if you're going second. Going to 6 is generally bad with this deck, but going second against aggro you need a nutty hand or you will most likely lose.
-Don't be afraid to keep 2 power hands if they have all the other pieces you need. Since the deck is stuffed with power, you are very likely to draw into more. You can always get screwed, but the odds are in your favour.

Is this deck healthy for the game:
No. The matchups are extremely lopsided and games are often determined by draw/play order. The deck autoloses to many common hate cards and as such will never be truly high tier. However it smashes off-meta and other unprepared decks so hard that it is extremely cancerous. It is probably completely unplayable in a tournament setting but can dominate on ladder in the right meta. Like Talir combo before it, as much as I like playing it I wouldn't mind if it were nerfed. Although, it's so easy to hate out that it might not need it.

Post-patch:
I wrote most of this before the recent patch, but this deck was untouched. If anything it should be slightly better positioned post-patch with the hits to Praxis Pledge and Golem/Scream. Icaria decks heavy on fliers could be troublesome, but traditional Rakano midrange is usually too slow to win without a good curve and/or Bulletshaper ramp. Bartholo with buffs could be a hard counter to this deck; time will tell if he will see play.

Hope this helped, and have fun.