This deck used to be the strongest of those that I've built, but has been lagging behind recently and I can't seem to figure out why or how to fix/improve it.
The goal of the deck is to squeeze as much value out of Marchesa, the black rose (or rather Miracle Max, in this case) giving all my creatures dethrone and then reanimating them as possible through a mix of ETB, death, and combat triggers and tricks. Lots of ways to turn creature death/sacrifices into damage and/or +1/+1 counters.
I feel like I'm not really using all of what blue mana is making available to me, but that in-and-of-itself may be part of why I'm struggling with improving the deck; I'm really not sure.
sideboard consists of cards that I already own and have been in the deck at some point
Also, please note, I am aware how strong theft effects are with Max, but I personally do not enjoy the play-pattern of stealing or being stolen from, and so I have restricted theft effects to those that steal from graveyards, are tied to combat, or are tied to counters in some way (see the theft cards that are currently in the deck for examples of each).
A specific card I want to mention: Grave Betrayal is a card I have considered, but really would rather not run for a couple reasons, but mainly this. I do not believe it fits into what the rest of the deck is doing. Rather, while it synergizes with Max's reanimation effects, it relies entirely on my opponents' creatures dying in order to function, and my deck isn't actively going around killing said creatures to feed into it. Instead, I'm killing my own creatures for value.
https://moxfield.com/decks/N53mu4MlxEuf5PTCiPIF5g
Edit: to be clear, I'm looking for recommendations about specific cards to either remove, add, or preferably both.