There arent many decks that will be able to answer such powerful threats that early, and since youre entire deck will be creatures, youll be able to drop threat after threat, beating down the table and winning easily
Champion has more colour intensity and a higher mana cost on the recursion in relation to its stats
Do you think your deck is optimized for cost reduction
$25 Upgrade +1/+1 Counters is a very deep archetype so there's more sweet upgrade options that I could ever hope to cover, but I selected some of my favorites: for protection I've added Bulwark Ox and Mutational Advantage, a bunch of proliferates with Metastatic Evangel and Dreamtide Whale being the two best, ramp got a massive upgrade with Astral Cornucopia / Kami of Whispered Hopes / Purestrain Genestealer / Summon: Fenrir, and so on
A- Shadow Alley Denizen Its tough to validate a 1/1 for 1 mana in a set where there are so many choices
1 Callaphe, Beloved of the Sea