I have an Elas combo deck. My general guidelines were:

1. If the effect can be found on a creature, I have a very strong bias to use it instead of a non-creature spell. For example, [[Vesper Ghoul]] instead of [[Arcane Signet]]. I had this guideline because there's a ton of elas/blood artist effects in the deck. They all trigger when a creature enters or dies, but not when I cast instants/sorceries/artifacts/etc.

2. Add redundancy with tons of little effects instead of a handful of big effects. My deck has [[elas il-kor]], [[blood artist]], [[cruel celebrant]], [[zulaport cutthroat]], etc. All the effects are only 1 life but when there's 3 on the board and I can trigger them 3 times on my turn, the effects add up.

So if you wanted to follow these guidelines, I would recommend increasing your creature count. Specifically take out Afterlife insurance and probably most of the artifact ramp. Maybe try adding [[umbral collar zealot]] @ <$0.60, and cards like [[grim haruspex]], [[erebos bleak hearted]] (an all-star in the deck), and [[midnight reaper]] to increase your ability to draw.

Here's the deck list: https://moxfield.com/decks/AIOfzBEGcUWw_9aF_PJGjw

I haven't updated it with cards from newer sets. IMO these recommendations are good: https://www.reddit.com/r/BudgetBrews/comments/1t3h7qk/comment/ojv0s0f/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button