RE: 𝔹𝕚𝕥𝕔𝕠𝕚𝕟𝔹𝕒𝕓𝕪 𝕎𝕖𝕟𝕥 ℙ𝟚𝔼 - Deeply Dippy Bout Downtober

Hey I want to help you regain your motivation in GU and make those earnings go up again.

So I'm going to give you my opinion about this deck, having played the archetype for a while some months ago. You're free to make changes or not, of course. As long as you're having fun, everything else is fine.

You started with a solid, proven template for Guild Deception you got from GU Decks, right? But I don't think the changes you made created a better deck that will make you win more games. Guild Deception plays like a toolbox and you need to take advantage of the Guild synergies. On top of that, it's not an easy deck to pilot - you need to know what to mulligan very well and you need to know the matchups very well, too. Here are some key points that could help you tweak your card choices:

• Crooked Quartermaster is a keystone card in the deck. I don't understand why you took it out.

• Frumentarii Instigator is a great card to refill your hand and make sure you don't run out of answers.

• All the neutral cards you added are perfectly replaceable for other cards in the original deck that give you more value in that slot.

• Changing locks is not a strong card.

• Merrick is a questionable choice. It works better in Hidden Rush decks.

• The Hollow is also a questionable choice. Do yourself a favor and actually count how many games you play it and how many games you get value out of it (and it doesn't slow you down and you lose because the opponent builds a board while you play it).

• You removed Umber Arrow which makes a killer combo with the Blade Borrower. Even on its own Umber Arrow is super useful and you see it in almost every Deception deck.

It's absolutely fine to take a well-performing deck from GU Decks and make a few tweaks. Sometimes you don't have all the cards, other times you want to see the difference with a few substitutions. But those decks work as they are for a reason. Making big changes without a deep understanding of the game and the current meta more often than not will just create a weaker deck. The best strategy is usually to grab one of those top decks and understand how they are supposed to work instead of trying to change them to your liking and hoping that results in an improvement.

Currently DP&E rewards performance and shine. It does not reward experimentation. If you want to earn more $GODS, you have to win more matches. It's that simple. Regarding shine, here is a calculator by @imx.center https://gumeta.web.app/calculator . You'll see that Shadow cards make almost no difference in your earnings. If you can afford to buy Gold and Diamonds cards, you will get your investment back relatively quickly, provided you play every day. If you're not able to play regularly and stay at rank 10 or above, I don't think you should be spending money on shines, because you'll never see the return on your investment with the current DP&E rules. Having said that, I think it's OK to forge Common and Rare cards to Shadow (especially from the Core and Welcome sets), because the forging cost is not that high and you will enjoy looking at your nicer cards. But from a purely financial standpoint, the point I made before still stands.

If ultimately Guild Deception doesn't work for you, perhaps you'd do better trying out other more straightforward archetypes - Aggro War, Zoo Light, maybe Nature with the new DA cards?... Probably even a cheap Magic tempo deck will do okay and will be simpler to pilot. Take a look at this deck from AtTreyFive for example
https://gudecks.com/decks/GU_1_4_KAaKAbKAbKAfKAfKAgKAgKAqKAqMBuMBuMCxNBxNBxNCBNCBCANCANCAlCAlCAnCEkCEkCEqCEqCErCErHBSHBSIBn?godPowers=100127&creator=%3C#FFD700%3ETrey5&userId=1246278&archetype=Card%20Draw%20Magic
It's a $3.5 deck that he plays in ED / Mythic. You can also tune in to his stream https://www.twitch.tv/attreyfive, sometimes he plays this deck and you can get an idea of how it is supposed to work. You can also watch the recorded streams on his channel.

I hope this helps!