I'm testing it on endstep, because most of the times i feel the original BW has some difficult to close games and lembas is significantly worse than cryogen.
It really feels like it close games easier without losing the affinity (still uses 8 artifact lands instead of 10 of the original BW, but we got giant's that gives affinity too so it's a fair trade)
Why 3 Basilisk: To gives us the permission to still uses 8 tapped lands. I see the gates lists that uses 4 Basilisks usually uses 10~12 tapped lands on minimum. BTW the draw power of Cryogen Relic helps us to find easily at least one of them
Giant's Boulder helps mana fixing for cryogen relic/baleful strix/uncolored basilisk gate, at the same time it gives affinity for the rat/dispatch. Also a good late-game removal, but i'm starting to think 2 is ok? The tapped gates are easily fixing the mana
and 1 Strix because of why not haha
Could you guys offer any insights on whether you would change anything while keeping the premise of a BW Blade deck with a blue splash?