Shadowlands Barbecue

With every hand you keep, you should have a plan - whether that plan is as simple as t2 ripknife t3 chacha t4 vara or t2 cauldron t3 activate cauldron to hit a power or remove your opponent's first play with an annihilate, you should have one and you should evaluate how good this hand's plan is compared to the average hand's plan. Other than that, the deck is mostly about sequencing and holding your threats for the right time - Statuary Maiden especially is a card you should often hold for later because being able to go Statuary Maiden into kill spell and immediately get value is very strong. Often, it will be correct to use your cookbook rather than run out a Statuary Maiden on t4 and sometimes it will be correct to just pass the turn, especially if you don't have a 5 drop or they aren't pressuring you - as with every midrange deck, you don't want to overextend into Harsh Rule for example. Against the variants that run Dawnwalker especially, you want them to play their Dawnwalker so that you can immediately Statuary Maiden into torch it and get rid of it permanently.

As for the market, you generally want to get Flamestoker against control - it is a required merchant into attachment removal for control decks. You can get cookbook at any point where you're out of gas and have spare mana each turn to draw cards, you get bore when you need to kill their attachments, you get jekk when you can set up tribute or need a 7/7 deadly and you get the banner when you need to hit power drops. Do not be afraid to get the banner if it sets up your hand well. Additionally, remember that you can hold merchants until they're relevant - you do not need to run one out on t3 for the sake of playing it if you don't feel like you are the aggressor in the matchup. The longer you hold a merchant, the more information you'll have when you finally get a card out of the market.

Other than that, knowing when to use removal and to hold it is very important - don't throw away removal if you don't need to use it and remember that you can use cards like torch or annihilate at instant speed to blow out tricks and get 2 for 1s.

Really, I am mainly a draft player and I would recommend that in order to learn to play a deck like this, one plays draft - draft decks tend to play a lot like this one will play (though obviously you don't need to worry about overextending into Harsh Rule there :P)