Approach of the Second Sun decks get a new toy in Ixalan with Sunbird's Invocation, so here's my adaptation, inspired by Corey Burkhart's version of the deck found here: https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/the-sun-will-rise-again/
We're using
Aether Hub
and Glacial Fortress as affordable color fixing, with the important bonus that our lands will basically never enter the battlefield tapped. The extra energy tokens from Glimmer of Genius ensure that we'll always be able to treat
Aether Hub
as a tri-land.
Sunbird's Invocation combos off nicely with Approach of the Second Sun, allowing an instant win as long as there is another copy of Approach in the top seven cards of our library. Filtering and drawing with Glimmer of Genius, Supreme Will, Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin, and Hieroglyphic Illumination help make this situation more likely, as do the other cycling cards. In less ideal situations, Sunbird's Invocation at least lets us cast one of our draw spells or board wipes for free. The rest of the mainboard is full of counters and removal to keep us alive long enough to cast Approach.
Sideboard: Sweltering Suns is for "go wide" token decks, while Negate is nice for a control mirror. The Locust God acts as a backup win condition in case of emergency (for instance Lost Legacy), and generates hordes of chump blockers to slow down creature-heavy decks.
Whirler Virtuoso
performs a similar service, also acting as a convenient sink for excess energy counters. And last but not least, Authority of the Consuls is excellent for playing against Rumanap Red, since it shuts down haste and gains life.
The maybeboard has options upgrading the deck, if you aren't on a budget.
Any and all comments are welcome; I'm new to competitive brewing and I've undoubtedly made some mistakes in here. And many thanks to Variux for suggesting that I look into Approach control decks!
