I just got done spending the Eternal Celebration Week playing nearly every deck on this website to try and figure out what I wanted to craft to grind gold for drafts. When I say I tried every deck I mean literally every deck that has been released since Awakening, I farmed 70,000 gold in the process to give you an idea of how many games I played.
The thing I noticed the most is that your deck doesn't need to be extremely powerful or have some kind of crazy combo in it, in fact the more pieces that your deck needs to win, the less consistent it is. Acing Gauntlet is all about Consistency...putting down big threat after big threat game after game...while cards like Rolant are insanely powerful especially against the AI, you are going to lose games to the massive swarm of agro decks that the AI is going to put against you while you are trying to put together the influence that you need to play him. In fact, in my experience, the three best decks that I played were probably mono time, mono shadow, and mono justice. (Mono Shadow and Mono Time also can do some really interesting things with Evenhanded Golem.) This deck and the slight variations of it just continued to be the top performer for me though. Nearly everything else I played I would ace a run and then lose the next run in the middle.
Mono time ramps into big threats every turn that stonewall the AI and gives you time to dig into your market to get Gordov's Burden and Gnash (usually in that order unless you need to kill flyers) to start chain killing down their board. Sometimes you can just overrun them with beefy minions but the safe bet is usually to take advantage of the ability to exalt killer onto all your minions and grind them down, using the token that Gnash provides every turn. The other win condition is to just draw the extra cards (and put them into play) with Grodov's Burden's second ability until you get a 30/30 Alhed Ascending and then just swing for lethal.
This deck is not super fun to play or exciting, it is a rock, a big stable boring rock that will win you almost every gauntlet in seven wins. In fact almost every game I lost I can pinpoint a mistake that I made, including one game where my six month old daughter pushed the spacebar.
Initiate of the Sands
x4
1
Time Etchings
x4
2
Alhed Ascending
x4
2
Desert Alchemist
x3
2
Devotee of the Sands
x4
2
Trail Maker
x2
3
Auralian Merchant
x4
3
Tocas, Waystone Harvester
x4
4
Sandstorm Titan
x4
5
Ixtol, Champion of Grodov
x4
5
Moonstone Vanguard
x4
5
Worldbearer Behemoth
x4
6
Thundering Kerasaur
x3
6
Touvon, Skybreak Giant
x2
Time Sigil
x13
Amber Waystone
x4
Temple Standard
x4
Time Symbol
x4
View Deck on Shiftstoned
Seriously, though, great deck, man. Kudos to you!
4 Alhed Ascending (Set1095 #4)
4 Bazaar Trickster (Set5 #43)
4 Desert Alchemist (Set9 #46)
4 Evenhanded Golem (Set6 #237)
4 Talir's Favored (Set0 #11)
4 Temple Scribe (Set1 #502)
2 Voice of the Speaker (Set1 #78)
4 Saber-Tooth Prideleader (Set1006 #7)
4 Sandstorm Titan (Set1 #99)
4 Wasteland Broker (Set9 #214)
4 Waystone Fragment (Set7 #52)
4 Xenan Obelisk (Set1 #103)
4 Gnash, Desert Prince (Set1006 #8)
5 Time Sigil (Set1 #63)
4 Amber Coin (Set6 #46)
4 Amber Waystone (Set3 #51)
4 Emblem of Grodov (Set7 #31)
4 Broken Contract (Set1095 #21)
4 Seal of Devotion (Set6 #236)
--------------MARKET---------------
1 Vault of the Praxis (Set1 #480)
1 Grodov's Stranger (Set8 #54)
1 Passage of Eons (Set1001 #3)
1 Temple Captain (Set5 #71)
1 Thundering Kerasaur (Set4 #93)
Sand Warrior I tried and used before, I think it is mainly useful against aggro and this deck has no problems because of the multitude of small blocks and quick ramp you can throw up.
Ubsat is indeed strong but more like a personal preference from me not to use it. For it to shine you need 5T at turn 4/5/6 I think, and it always felt I had to give up too much for it.
Edit: Oh yes, and Seal of Devotion x4; skip over 2 or 3 power cards later on in the game (by playing them with warp from the top of the deck) beats not gaining influence once or twice in the beginning. I also took Ubsat out of the market (cause I had 3) and I don't regret that every time I see a single-faction legendary played silenced by the NPC.
You have 21 cards purely that are good for maximum power. That is not good when you can end up drawing 5 cards in a row that do nothing but give you max power from turn 6.
Moonestone is decent, but I still think Alhed(6/6) is better. Not sure about Touven/Kerosaur either. Touven extra ability is useless considering any extra power you have will be given to Grodov's once it comes out.
Think time deck is pretty easy to make, most are similiar, just yours needs more optimisation (esp max power)
Touvon is again about being a good blocker. The card draw is gravy when you stall out and don't have Burden out. If you have Burden out and you're sinking power into it, you're probably already winning anyway. I'm really not a fan of 6/6 Alhed. It's a fun card, but the abilities are rarely actually good in a midrange build.
The right number of mana dorks is a tough call. This build might go a bit too far, but you want a lot. You really want to play a 5 drop on turn 4 in mono time.
TLDR I stand by the ramp, I personally like these six drops, but they might not even be the best ones, the number of games you'd have to play determine optimization is a ton.
Also note, I personally like gnash in the market vs as a 3 of simply because in 90% of games you want exactly one. With eight market cards you're more likely to get your second market before you get your first gnash as a 3 of. Also, there's times where you don't have a sandstorm where you want to grab him before Gordovs if you're getting overrun.
I'm not a fan of Kerasaur because it's just a stat pile that blocks one unit. The draw ability is a hindrance about as often as it helps. You want 4 Touvon first for sure. If you want a big statpile on top of that, Xumucan is probably better. Personally, I'm running maindeck Twilight Hunt instead because I love my Worldbearer attacks (and Alhed is a Dino too).
Also, you probably know this already, but I just noticed, your deck was obviously the jumping off point/shell for mine, all credit to you, this deck is definitely the best grinder out there, we're just discussing small variations of perfection.
I'm not saying Twilight Hunt is better, I just like Worldbearer attacks a lot. I'm trying out 3 Xumucan 4 Touvon as well, and liking it so far. I haven't had it come up yet, but the tokens probably help a lot on the decay boss which is a challenge for this deck.
That said, I think time-based Xenan might be a better grinder. With the quality of fixing 2-faction decks have, your power is just as good, sometimes better because Cylix. Curtain Call is an amazing card, Send an Agent is the new hotness, and Twinned Spiteling is a better statpile.