I'm not sure I agree with the dirrection you've taken the deck. I think Aether Vial in this deck is major mistake. Basically Aether Vial provides 3 advantages:
#1) Open's up your mana: your deck doesn't really have alot of mana sinks, you don't run Mishrahs factory, Voidmage Prodigy, or Rootwater Thief. Also it can be viewed as a mana "fixer" of sorts meaning you don't nessisarily need White mana to cast meddling mage... but you run mono-blue so you cannot take advantage of that either.
#2) Gives you uncounterable creatures: You don't really have creatures worth countering. Its not like your dropping bombshell creatures like lacky or piledriver
#3) Gives you instant speed creatures: You only have spiketail as a 3 of for instant speed useful creatures, and he is only mildly good at instant speed hes basically just another daze. again, if you were running Voidmage or Meddling Mage you can really capitolize on the instant speed advantage.
Disadvantages:
#1) It doesn't do anything on its own, and It makes you wait longer to cast your creatures.
#2) It means you are relying on it to cast your creautres after you've played chalice for 2. If they somehow stop your vail, you've locked yourself out of the game.
#3) It means you cannot run Null Rod.
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Why you need Null Rod.
To sucessfully run Back to Basics you really need to think about how your opponent is going to sidestep your b2b.
1) they are going to have or get basics
2) artifact mana
For point 1, you have the ability to stifle fetchlands that will be finding those basics. This is also why I advocate running Ghost Quarter. If you Ghost Quarter a tapped basic land, they go in and rip another basic out of thier deck and possibly play 1 more spell because of it. Now you have essentially moved one basic land from thier library into thier graveyard. If they do NOT have a basic left in the library, then congrats, you just upped your stripmine count to 5. If you encounter a deck that only runs basics, then its not like wasteland is any better than GQ. Its not like you can even tap your wasteland twice for mana! actually in that situation you have a tiny advantage to GQ because you can GQ your own basics in response to something like Strip Mine, or even Sink Hole (mono-black trick)... and efectively counter the effect because you get to search up a basic.
Onto point 2, Chalice for 0 works HALF the time to effectively stop moxen. If you play second, then chalice for 0 is rather useless. Also it lets them sit on moxen while they find their mox monkey, bounce, or maindeck artifact hate. Null Rod goes online the moment it hits the board, and shuts down moxen as well as sol ring, mana vault, grim monolith, AND other non-mana artifacts that you need to be concerned with, Triskellion, Jar, even Ravager.
As for artifact hate and bounce, that argument is a wash. Both cards get hated by the same hate, with a slight advantage going to null rod because it has a CC of 2 rather than 0. null rod is reatively save against gorilla shaman (mox monkey) because it costs
to smash rather than
. Also more decks are running repeal as an answer to chalice for 0, so a very slight advantage to null rod there as well.
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On the topic of the "Right" bounce spell.
Your bounce choices (Curfew, Repeal, Rushing River) are not good. Curfew is crap, run Unsummon at the very least, but if you want a 1 CC bouncer, Chain of Vapor is probably the most flexible.
Chain of Vapor is probably the worst spell you could choose, anyone suggesting it should READ the decklist befor they suggest it. Why on earth would you give your opponent the oppertunity to sac an otherwise worthless land (because it doesn't untap) to bounce your null rod or b2b?? moveing on.
Echoing Truth, is a staple bounce spell. No arguements outa me on this one.
Rushing River is very powerful, but can come at a steep cost. In a deck shooting for the long game, I could see it being good.
Curfew I think is the tech of the future. As Oath starts running more and more "Safe" creatures, cards like Diabolic Edict and Curfew start to shine as actual solutions to the right problems. Also if your going to run that Thalako Seer, then Curfew cantrips. The general theory being, you can always choose a "crappier" creautre than your opponent because you run an army of crappy creatures. So no matter what they return, your going to be gaining an advantage with this card.
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Final correction:
It seems the only way to play Back to Basics on turn 1 or 2 is if you draw your Lotus for turn one or draw Sapphire for turn 2. I would try to play a mana base of full moxen and run Chalice of the Void over Null Rod, that way you can still play Aether Vial.
There is NO reason to play b2b on turn 1. thats like playing Tanglewire turn 1 on the play... It won't do anything. b2b has it's power in the late game, so running full moxen to power down a b2b, and cutting null rod to do it, is takeing the deck backwards! Playing b2b on turn 3 or 4 is when it gets powerful.
