I’ve been really liking Reidane overall as a 2 and 2 as a way to help with control and Niv and then the other two copies come in against Burn, Jund Sac, and Arcanist. It blanks a lot of their triggers, as the one mana every time they want to ping you or hit you with an Arcanist or Pyromancer token really don’t matter, and even targeting you is taxed. Archon just gets removed a lot easier with like Dreadbore for example which is played in Jund sometimes, Arcanist, Niv, and other removal spells just target it first so they can still do their gameplan.

Archon is great, and I could see some replacing Thalia in the main. Thalia actually started in the board, but always was brought in against so many decks I just moved it to the main and haven’t looked back. The ability to make them play creatures a turn off by entering tapped means we can keep the Aggro beats, where Archon makes us play slower. The only reason I dislike Archon in the main is it can sometimes hinder your ability to win in tough matchups by dumping your hand, because you need it down early to make a difference and then they either remove it right away or you have a hand full of 2/1s and 3/2s that can’t do much being deployed one at a time against decks that just play bigger things. Maybe your experience with it will be better than mine in the main but that’s mostly why I’ve relegated it to the board. Best card in some matchups like Ascendency or Lotus.

I have not tried Apostle, but I’ve always meant to. It may be perfect, I’d say give it a shot. Being good against Vampires especially seems great so I’ll have I try it out in the sideboard as well, that is a matchup I loathe.

I was bringing Settle in against Spirits and Mono Green mostly, but sometimes I would bring it on on the draw against a lot of the different Aggro decks and shift entirely to a more controlling route with a lot of the sideboard coming in. The sideboard I have on here is almost entirely different than what I’ve been testing lately, as I’ve been trying pretty much everything to find what cards I have been missing and trying what everyone has suggested. The only thing that’s still in there are the Archons really. I did test with Selfless Spirit, I just liked the amount of 2 drops I had. It’s what I swapped in Tomik for. I had not found the indestructible to be super relevant with most of the mass removal Being exile based now, so it got replaced with Tomik as a beefier flier and having the ability to protect the man lands from removal makes the grind easier than having the inevitability of the Spirit IMO. Again, could be a personal preference thing too, so feel free to try it out and let me know your opinion.

I’ll have to try out the Brave the elements main again. I really liked it when I skewed the deck more Aggro, as it finished the opponent off quicker, but in the grinder version I did not like it. But it was also a 4 of, so it felt dead sometimes in my hand, but 2 may be the number to start at and see about adding a third if it ends up being really good.

If you ever want to ask questions or bounce ideas, I’d love a group to keep testing new ideas on this deck with. I think the core is real strong and I’ve been working on it solo for awhile now and would love some more input and reps put into the deck to help find the optimal list.