I was thinking of going either Mystic or Merchant DE next age. Just wanted a couple questions answered to help me make up my mind.

Would ToG recieve benefit from merchant?

Dice vs Explore in protection. It is generally considered a no - no for a DE to explore at all. Does this include in protection? Such as, would it be better to run like 40% bank and 30%mills for first round of buildings and explore one big push while using extra mana on ToG? Or would it be better to skip mills while most mana goes into dicing?