Thanks for the suggestions, followed a bunch of them (see update)! I guess the one area that I am tentative about switching is targeted pinging for universal pinging. I find in my playgroup universal pingers such as Glint-Horn Buccaneer receive a lot of hate vs. targeted pings such as the Nivs. I have been able to playtest a few times, but have not drawn into a Niv yet, so leaving in Niv-Mizzet, Parun for now until I get a feel for it. The draw/ping seems worth the cost to me. I took the Tithe out of another deck, so put that in place of Kismet or Frozen Aether. My worry with those two is that in an ideal world those get out turn 3, but otherwise, the cost is enough that others have already done the worst of their ramping by the time they are out. It might be worth playing around with though, I may be proved wrong. Huge call on the Vedalken AEthermage, I hadn't realized how many wizards were in here. Thank you!

Oh, and the decrees are sideboard right now because I can't find them available anywhere :/