Duress proactively strips Kaito, Bane of Nightmares, We Say Thee Nay!, or Bitter Triumph before they can control the board, which is crucial against a midrange deck full of removal and disruption. Elenda, Saint of Dusk is a resilient lifegain-synergy threat with hexproof from instants that dodges much of their instant-speed removal suite and grows quickly given how much life this deck gains. Emptiness is clunky here since their creatures like Kaito or Cecil don't always die cleanly to -1/-1 counters, and Voice of Victory's mobilize tokens die easily to their removal-dense plan, so both are trimmed for more resilient threats and disruption.