The only thing I would change would be the lands. I would take out Llanowar Wastes and add 1x Swamp and 3x Overgrown Tomb.

love elves +1

Lead the Stampede elves is really good in metas with a lot of removal in the maindeck. If you have a meta of Jund, Grixis, Abzan, and Skred, then the Lead the Stampede version is far better.

I'm personally a fan of using the faster version, the one you are currently running. You get a lot more game against all decks other than the ones I've listed, and even then you can protect yourself from sweepers using Burrenton Forge-Tender

Your maindeck looks solid, so I'd probably look to your sideboard. I'd recommend cutting the Melira, Sylvok Outcast. Infect isn't a bad match-up since we can gum up the ground. Instead, look into adding a Naturalize effect. Your list is weak to Ensnaring Bridge and Ghostly Prison effects.

lemmingllama- Is 3 Reclamation Sages not enough in the 75?

@GeminiSpartanX I completely missed the copies of Reclamation Sage in the sideboard. I feel a bit silly now.

Still, I'm personally not a fan of the Melira, Sylvok Outcast plan. Another card to maybe consider sideboarding as a good Chord/Company target is Aven Mindcensor. It seems like Scapeshift and Nahiri, the Harbinger decks are on the rise, so you could attempt to cripple their paths to victory. The fact it flies can also be relevant.

lemmingllama- Now there's a suggestion I can get behind! There is a guy who runs BTL Scapeshift at my lgs, and him searching up Anger of the Gods is always what deters me from playing aggressive decks like this. I'll need to find a copy of Aven Mindcensor for sure!

Definitely add Duress and maybe sideboard other cards like it. A board wipe such as Damnation or Terminus would destroy you.

One of the failings I always see in elf decks is a blatan lack of spot removal which is just so key even in an aggro strategy. I would recommend running 4 Abrupt Decay in the mainboard at the very least but perhaps thinking about adding in 2 Maelstrom Pulse (likely to the sideboard). In a meta of turn 3 and 4 infinite combos it is hard to run aggro only against such a looming and quick paced threat.

Which looming threat do you have in mind ArchFline? Elves IS supposed to be one of the better agro decks and win by turn 3-4. It takes away from that strategy if I dilute the deck with clunky removal.

I'm not sure that Abrupt Decay can be considered "clunky" but as a rule-of-thumb one should never construct a deck based on if your doing well as rarely in a competitive enviornment will you always have the advantage thus the inclusion of atleast 1 form of removal to answer threats your opponents play. But the choice is yours as full aggro is much more fun.

I'd disagree on having Abrupt Decay in the 75. I've played plenty of Elves and never found I needed the effect. Anything that Decay can hit that wrecks us can be hit by Reclamation Sage, and Rec Sage is just better for plan no. 1 (combo kill with Ezuri/Shaman)

As far as the rest of the deck goes, I do prefer going the balls to the walls aggro plan rather than the Duskwatch Recruiter  ^Flip deck or the Messenger/Lead focused deck you linked, playing the grind with Elves pre-board rarely feels good. I do slightly question the Elvish Champion in the maindeck though. Is it to give Forestwalk against other green decks? In the mirror I can see it being worth it, but in the Jund-style matchups if you need the forestwalk I've found that you're not winning the game with it either. I just don't see many situations where you search for it over an Elvish Archdruid. With grindy decks back in force, I like a copy of Sylvan Messenger or maybe Eternal Witness in the main, as a good source of Chordable-CA.

That being said, post board (when there are more Pyroclasm effects running around, I love having access to Lead the Stampede. I generally don't leave home without my 3x Lead the Stampede in the sideboard.

I'm less of a fan of Chameleon Colossus, because, while it's great against GB/x decks and Grixis, it lines up poorly against the Jeskai Nahiri decks and stuff like BTL Scapeshift (which you previously said you ran into). I prefer to have my SB cards be as flexible as possible since I find myself running out of space a lot. But again, if you've got a lot of GBx/Grixis, the Colossus could be worth the spot.

As far as the rest of the board, I'm not sure that much aggro hate is required. 3x Kitchen Finks and the 2 Essence Wardens seem slightly like overkill, when Burn and Zoo variants aren't hugely difficult matchups. But if your meta is overrun with them, I can see it being something worth considering. I'm also unsure about Spellskite, since it's worse Burn hate than Finks/Warden, and if it's there for something like Boggles I've never really had issue with that matchup.

Apologies for the wall of text, especially since most of it is me saying "I don't like this unless X then I do like this.", but those are just my initial thoughts on the deck as it is.

I really do appreciate your input awphutt, that 'wall of text' is exactly what I was hoping to see lol!

You say that burn and zoo are good matchups? Most of my SB is there based on what I've seen in the SB of top 16 elves decklists, so it's totally up for criticism. There is a BTL Scapeshift player that shows up regularly, and he's normally tough to beat. The Spellskite is there for the few infect players that sometimes show up, to back up the singleton Melira. It also helps against bogles as you said. The Elvish Champion is there just as an additional lord to pump up my guys. It could be a 3rd Ezuri, Renegade Leader if you think that would be better. I just figured the 5th lord helps the beatdown backup-plan in case they save all the removal for Ezuri/Archdruids. I know there is a budget elf list that runs 12+ lords to win via normal beatdown (as opposed to combo beatdown), but since I have the 'pricey' cards I figure I'd just run the competitive list.

Which matchups are the toughest for elves in your experience? And what do you normally side in for those?

I've found Burn and Zoo to both be fairly favourable. I run 3 Finks in the board, and them combined with the Chords/Cocos makes me not be terribly afraid of Burn, since they have trouble with just 1 and we can just go on the tiny green idiot beatdown plan. As for Zoo, they have fewer bolts for our lords/Ezuris than Burn do, so comboing off before they kill us isn't hugely difficult.

Skite is good against infect, but honestly I prefer Melira, since it only dies to Dismember and not Twisted Image, and they're generally stretched as it is dealing with Ezuris and the like. I'd honestly just go with a second Melira, I've always felt that's all that's needed for the matchup.

I personally run the 4th Visionary instead of the Champion, but it's basically a flex spot that comes down to personal preference. Not entirely sure the 3rd Ezuri is correct or incorrect, I've just always found 2 with 4 Chords to be plenty. I don't really like it mainly because when we're forced to go the fair, Lords+dudes beatdown route, it's basically like playing a really poor Merfolk deck. Elves is at it's best when doing unfair things in my experience, and the Champion doesn't really help with that.

Toughest matchups I've found are GR Tron and Control variants, especially the types that run Pyroclasm effects mainboard. My build is straight GB, and while I've run the Burrenton Forge-Tenders in it before just to Chord into, currently I don't run any. Generally, I try to slow down a bit and go to a more card advantage style deck. I side into Lead the Stampedes (which I run as a 3 of), Sylvan Messenger, and Eternal Witness, both as a 1-of. Basically, you can't afford to go all in like you do against non-sweeper decks, so you need more threats that are threatening by themselves. Forge-Tender helps, especially when you can hold up CoCo and Chord for 1, but I found a lot of the time that I'd have the choice of holding up Chord or attacking, and Time Walking yourself in order to not run into a sweeper is a sure way to lose games.

awphutt- Do you think the extra lord would help out against pyroclasm effects? It won't make much difference against Anger of the Gods from the scapeshift player, but it could give me percentage points against Pyroclasm in Tron. Idk.

Against Tron are the grindy elves/stampedes normally enough? Or do you run something in the SB specifically for that matchup? Also, have you ever played against Living End? That seems like a tough matchup as well.

Possibly. But again, there's very little reason to Chord for it over an Archdruid, and drawing it/CoCo-ing into it is corner case enough for me to not think it's worth it.

The only thing I run in the board if I'm expecting a lot of Tron is the Forge-Tender. Honestly, a lot of that matchup comes down to their draws. If it's not something like turn 3 Oblivion Stone or turn 4 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, most of their payoffs aren't good enough. At one point I had a Magus of the Moon in my board (back when Amulet Bloom was a thing), so I can imagine that coming in against Tron, the obvious issue being it dies to Pyroclasm.

As far as Living End goes, I prepared for it a decent amount in the run up to GP Melbourne because it was decent against the Eldrazi, and so I had in my sideboard a Viscera Seer, to go along with the Meliras and Finks's as extra value. It single-handedly won me game 2 and 3 of my Win and in for Day 2 at that GP. It's basically impossible for Living End to beat if you Chord for it in response to a Living End. If you're worried about that matchup, or just want the back-door combo, I'd run it for sure.

Awesome advice awphutt! I have 1 final question for you though. Which cards do you normally side out when bringing in cards from the SB? I know I could side out the Champion against non-green decks easily, but say I want to bring in the 3 finks and the essence warden against burn. Which are the best ones to cut? I've read that some lists are moving away from using the Nettle Sentinels in the MD, so would those be good ones to side out?

Generally my first preference is to side out some number of Mystics/Llanowar elves, while never going too low on them. Basically, the thought process is that in most post board games, everything tends to slow down, with haymakers being brought in and our game plan being less "Be as fast as possible" and more "Be quick and disruptive". I've even known some people to run only like 4 of the turn 1 dork in the main, just because they make the deck full of air.