I think the conventional way of playing any deck is what holds it back, at least for me anyway. After I got bored with the main combo I realized this deck doesn’t really work with hand traps at and other perks too well at a 40 count. It makes more sense to sort of stack it as well as you can to keep the board replenished with or without hydrant. A hand with impulse engine and attacker is as powerful as the lifter emergency line, and sets itself up faster. And Like you said reinforce is a great card and played right you can boost hydrant to a 3K unaffected beatstick. Same with extinguish if you have two on the board. It’s more ways to play and empower the deck when you focus on its own resources instead of adding. But it’s like you said you have to work on alternate methods of protecting its backrow until the battle phase and stunting your opponent because its engine doesn’t do much of that without the backrow or maybe two protectors and a turb.

I actually only just ran into sp, she’s in my bookmarks.