This deck I've fine tuned from scratch over the last month or so, and it's just so much fun to play in this meta. It's one of those decks that whether I be playing against Golgari Midrange, Monored, Arclight Phoenix, Grixis/Esper/Jeskai control, Boros Angels, Djinn tempo, GW tokens, or any other funky strategies I've approached, I have fair odds of winning, dependent on my mine/my opponent's performance. I've had some of the best games of magic testing this one, and if was playing semi-professionally, I'd strongly consider running this at PTQ.
Dawn of Hope is no joke. Fountain of Renewal has been showing up in some competitive control lists, understandably. The draw engine these these paired-up create makes it take much more worth running.
The Immortal Sun is fantastic here, in that it provides a back-up draw engine, puts Palladia-Mors, the Ruiner at 7/7 (larger than Doom Whisperer, even trade with Chromium, the Mutable), Lyra Dawnbringer at 6/6 neutralizes Carnage Tyrant and the demon as well, and, often most importantly, shuts off planeswalkers, particularly Vraska, Relic Seeker and Vivien Reid in the ever-potent GB matchup, as well as Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, and a transformed Nicol Bolas in control/disinformation matchups. Huatli, Warrior Poet and possibly even Huatli, Radiant Champion could work here, but I just feel like the 5 and 4 mana slots are crowded enough as it is, and the sun is just the more sound strategy to commit to in the current climate of the Standard meta.
Adanto Vanguard I found to be the best 2-drop in most given occasions. It's synergy with Deafening Clarion, as well as it's resilience on the defensive end of many board-wipe/removal spells. The varied sources lifegain allows for me to more liberally use it's activated ability. The playset of Knight of Grace is a good sub against frustrated control players boarding in Moment of Craving, and boarding out their Ritual of Soot after getting single-handedly punked by the vanguard G1. I often find myself dropping to 24 lands and running them both, to allow for a quicker, more streamline curve when necessary.
Tocatli Honor Guard may be the real sideboard 2-drop creature to play here, as it more quite firmly cucks explore strategies, which are quite popular, at the moment, as well as slowing down monored wizard decks a bit as as well.
The thing is, I've been performing well enough against a lot of those lists anyway, so molding into a Naya Knights deck has been working for my in tests, mostly due to throwing off opponents who misboarded based on how G1 or G2 went. Decks that rely on counter-spells for removal, I'm finding, are particularly vulnerable to sideboarding in the wrong spells when you switch up the tempo so abruptly.
Anyways that's enough about this deck for now, but suggestions, comments, upvotes ect. are appreciated. Between the maybeboard, sideboard, and maindeck, I'm sure there's a better way to tweak this deck, so mad props for anyone who can help me get there.
