The first Magic tournament with Aether Revolt in Standard happened this weekend, SCG Columbus. Golgari with Winding Constrictor won. In fact three Constrictor decks were in Top 8 making it the most surprising new deck. The standout cards were Constrictor, Verdurous Gearhulk and most of all Walking Ballista. It shut down the Felidar Guardian/Saheeli Rai combo which was poised to dominate. Both Gearhulk and Ballista have tripled in price because of this. I wouldn't be surprised if Nissa, Voice of Zendikar is next to reach $20 because of her amazing synergy with Constrictor. These huge increases don't bode well for the price of this deck because it's using all of these cards. This deck jumped $80 more in a day, haha.

I've made a big change to the deck cutting Beastcaller Savant for Sylvan Advocate. This change yet increased the price of the deck even more :( Beastcaller is amazing to help to cast both Skyrider Elf and Winding Constrictor, but he doesn't pack the punch that Advocate can with Metallic Mimic and Rishkar, Peema Renegade. I don't feel right playing Elves and not playing Advocate.

Excellent work here multimedia, I'm in for an elf deck this round, especially since I have most of these cards. Always enjoy watching the Elf evolution. I like the Sultai approach. I'll try your version soon.

I had seen a 4-color deck as doable. With Attune with Aether/Servant of the Conduit/Aether Hub/Beastcaller Savant it was almost too easy to get the colors, but the power was lacking. Now with Rishkar, Peema Renegade, the Beastcaller's limitations show a bit. There are some cards I was considering... Aetherwind Basker, Cultivator of Blades, Woodland Wanderer, Ajani's Comrade, Ajani Unyielding, and Oath of Ajani. The comrade's trample at 2 mana seems helpful. When I played the Bant Hardened Scales deck, trample was slightly better than vigilance (the Wanderer has both!) While I get your fondness for Sylvan Advocate, I may try a mix of the above cards too.

holy shit this is awesome

Hey CloudThumper it's been a while. I'm very happy with the wealth of Elves in Standard right now. There's so many that not all of them can go in a single deck. There's also tons of good/great build around cards for Elf strategies and support cards to strengthen strategies. This is exciting and a welcomed change in Standard. I playtested about 10 different Elf decks of varying color combinations with different build around cards and strategies. Golgari so far has been the best, splashing blue for Skyrider Elf brings some added fun.

Several of the best Elves this time around are expensive options with Rishkar, Peema Renegade leading in price and he will most likely go up more. Metallic Mimic is also not a budget Elf and Sylvan Advocate while more budget then the others is on the cusp. Expensive Elves is not a norm when it comes to Standard, but to get the power level of Elves to increase I guess price must also increase.

Of the Elves you mentioned I like both Ajani's Comrade and Cultivator of Blades as Elf options for budget brews. I'll most likely use both when I update Budget Energy Elves. Comrade's trample does seem very good with a +1/+1 counters strategy.

I playtested a Temur Energy version of this deck using Aetherwind Basker as the win condition. It's splashing red for Spontaneous Artist and Harnessed Lightning. Artist is great with energy because he can give Aetherwind haste for only one . Giving other Elves haste such as a huge Skyrider Elf is also nice. It's a fine version, it's fun, but I've found energy as the main and or only strategy to not be as powerful as +1/+1 counters.

If you recall the first version of Energy Elves played both Skyrider Elf and Woodland Wanderer with Servant/Sage/Attune/Hub/Lightning as the energy producers. Wanderer is a real beast, but I ultimately cut him in the version for Peema Outrider for more Elf synergy.

So I don't post here often, but I had to come and say that this may be the most well done deck I've ever seen on tappedout. I made a G/B snek deck right when I saw the AER spoilers and love it, but I have to say that I have a soft spot for elves as it was the first deck I ever played and built back in the day. Not only is this deck well done it's ridiculously explosive and I think I like it more than my G/B snek deck, so yeah just wanted to say this is awesome.

Skyrider Elf was the reason I played Bant Hardened Scales, and at the time Stubborn Denial was excellent too.

One little idea worth noting for the sideboard perhaps... Animation Module. In a deck with 4 Rishkar, Peema Renegades, 4 Metallic Mimics, and 4 Winding Constrictors, it could be useful. If one of your Mimics is set to 'servo', taking a turn to use your mana and your creatures with counters (Rishkar's ability) to pay the Animation costs, you will end up with lots of 2/2 or 3/3 Servos (if there is a Winding Constrictor around). The new servos can judiciously block. Obviously, doing it again the following turn would lead to mayhem, when the servos you created last turn pay for the new ones (Rishkar again). Maybe Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, arrives next turn to immediately pump and swing the team. Could be useful for a go wide strategy against other counters, fabricate tokens, and/or energy decks. It's only right that an Elf deck should include a convoluted combo, even if it is with Servos...

The Module can just make 1/1 servos with random extra mana periodically for Nissa to pump up, and then Constrictor does her thing, and you have some 3/3s for cheap and useful future counter/Rishkar activity.

CthulhusNo1FavCultist, thanks a lot.

reyv6925, wow that's a huge compliment thanks.

CloudThumper, great suggestion and explanation of Animation Module, thanks. I'll add one to the sideboard.

Some big changes happened recently with the biggest being the manabase. I want to thank djnewellmit for the idea of using Attune with Aether. In his version of this deck AER Aether Elves he's using 20x lands and 3x Attune. I've decided on 20x lands and 4x Attune. I feel Attune is a 4 of or none type of card since It's best turn one. Attune and newly added main deck Aethersphere Harvester add a lot to the energy strategy of this deck. They combine very well with Winding Constrictor to meet all my energy needs.

Pro Tour Aether Revolt has shown us that the Saheeli Rai combo is not as formidable as it appeared it would be. Both Golgari Constrictor and Mardu Vehicles dominated the Pro Tour and shut Saheeli down. I've adjusted the main deck removal spell cutting Grasp of Darkness for Fatal Push. Push is much better in just about all matchups other than Saheeli especially Mardu Vehicles and Constrictor matchups. Since it's only to cast makes a huge difference in speed and ability to have a removal spell to use when I really need it in the early game.

I've cut Nissa, Voice of Zendikar for Aethersphere Harvester. I haven't been impressed with Nissa. She's great when the Snake is on the battlefield before I use her -2 ability, but without the Snake she's pretty lackluster. Walking Ballista, Heart of Kiran and Harvester is also very good at killing Nissa before I can get much value from her. In control matchups is where Nissa shines because she's a Planeswalker who I can potentially get into play early. Haverster fills this need while also being a resilient threat at my opponent and Planewalkers. Harvester is very good in both Vehicles and Constrictor matchups where as Nissa is not.

The sideboard has been updated. Here's the current sideboard and some explanations of the changes:

1. 4x Metallic Rebuke
2. 3x Narnam Renegade
3. 2x Aethersphere Harvester
4. 2x Tireless Tracker
5. 1x Heroic Intervention
6. 1x Nissa, Vital Force
7. 1x Noxious Gearhulk
8. 1x Walking Ballista

I still need answers to the Saheeli combo, but I feel safe putting most of them in the sideboard. Walking Ballista is the best answer to the combo, 3x of it remain in the main with one more in the sideboard, but including other cards that have synergy with Ballista as well as able to stop the combo are beneficial. Metallic Rebuke is my additional answer to the combo because it can counter both of Saheeli and Felidar Guardian as well as Torrential Gearhulk who's honestly just as much of a problem as the combo in control matchups. In matchups where I want Rebuke improvise is powered by 12+ artifacts: 4x Walking Ballista, 4x Metallic Mimic, 4x Aethersphere Harvester, 1-2x Verdurous Gearhulk and 2x Tireless Tracker who makes clues which are artifacts making it most of the time at least a Mana Leak. It's the single that's great for a hard counter most of the time. 4x Rebuke are being used because I need it to stop the combo by turn four. Having access to 4x Ballista and 4x Rebuke I feel gives me some extra security to stop the combo.

Narnam Renegade is in the sideboard because he's an Elf with deathtouch who's good in Constrictor matchups. He needs to be dealt with before my opponent can start pounding me with creatures with +1/+1 counters. Being able to trade a one drop Elf for any large creature with lots of counters on it is nice.

Tireless Tracker adds additional ways to draw in matchups where I want it. Clues add to improvise for Rebuke.

Aethersphere Harvester is a road block for Heart of Kiran and aggro and a great source of life gain in these matchups. He pairs nicely with Skyrider Elf giving me two flying threats in the Constrictor matchups. Fliers are important in these matchups because the ground will be clogged.

how about Ajani's Comrade?

How has the deck been performing? I'm a huge elf fan too and I've gotta say, this looks a lot of fun.

Some interesting and possibly surprising changes have taken place. I've been playing this deck for about a month now. It's a good time to do a new update. Look for a strengths and weaknesses new update in the next few days.

Here's a summary of the new update:

The card that makes this deck tribal is Metallic Mimic. Unfortunately, it's the worst card in this deck. I've found Mimic to be completely lackluster compared to any other card. All cards can function by themselves except Mimic, which is a huge drawback. Mimic is only good as turn two play any time after it literally does nothing. After turn two it's just way to too slow. Mimic is the card that's stuck in my hand more than any other card because I would rather play any other card after turn two.

In a large amount of games I've played I've had the option of playing a turn two Mimic or Winding Constrictor and almost every time I'm playing Constrictor over Mimic because frankly Mimic is too fragile compared to the Snake. The one toughness of Mimic is very bad because of the presence of Walking Ballista. It can kill Mimic very easily by removing just one counter. The "Magic Christmas Land" scenario is to get both Mimic and Constrictor on the battlefield before I start playing other cards, they're the +1/+1 counters engine, but this is not realistic at all. It's very hard to keep both alive on the battlefield gaining an advantage from both at the same time. Without this scenario Mimic is just not good enough, which is a problem.

The best deck in Standard is Golgari Constrictor and if I'm cutting a main deck card every time in this matchup in this case Mimic then it doesn't belong main deck or needs to be cut. I try to keep this deck Elf tribal and the cutting of Mimic doesn't help with this, but I won't play a card that is currently bad in Standard just to keep this deck tribal. I'm still playing a lot of Elves just the tribal bonuses for Elves is now missing.

I concur on your conclusion that Metallic Mimic is the weakest performer in this deck. I haven't been playing this deck too much recently (back to my Pummeler), but I contemplated swapping in a pair of Woodland Wanderer to take advantage of our converge capability. As an added bonus, he doesn't fall as easily as Skyrider Elf to Fatal Push and he can sometimes power through a Grasp of Darkness. I am also considering mainboarding a pair of Tireless Tracker and a couple more removal like Fatal Push or Grasp of Darkness to the mainboard.

I did make several changes to my build based on your very helpful comments on AER Aether Elves. I feel like there is still some room to make more use of blue in this build - maybe mainboard a couple Metallic Rebuke?

Hey djnewellmit, our decks do fold to Fatal Push, but so do just about all decks in Standard. A double Push opening hand from our opponent is very hard to come back from. One way to get around Push is to play more 3 drops since requires some work from our opponent to first trigger revolt which is actually difficult to do. This is one of the reasons I'm a big fan of Rishkar, Peema Renegade.

I would prefer to add more 3 drops than 4 or 5 drops because I still want to keep the mana curve low. You mentioned Tireless Tracker who's a great suggestion. Tracker can be incredible I'm currently playing three in the sideboard, but I could see her being an excellent main deck addition. It's possible that I should switch Narnam Renegade and Tracker around between main and sideboard. Both are excellent in the Golgari Constrictor matchup which is the reason I'm main decking Narnam. Narnam brings some added aggression which I like since him turn one into any 2 drop into Rishkar brings the beats.

Due to the way my three color manabase is built my removal options are very limited to just Push, making Grasp of Darkness in my opinion not a viable option because of the double black in it's cost. Botanical Sanctum is the problem I could replace it with Evolving Wilds, but this slows down the deck a lot and is not what I really want when using so many 2 drops. Noxious Gearhulk and Ob Nixilis Reignited are my sideboard removal answers to big creatures that are out of the range of Push. I don't need them until later in the game where double black is completely doable, but in the early game it's not. I feel 4x Push main deck, if you have them, should be the norm.

I like your suggestion of combating Push with Woodland Wanderer there's also Peema Outrider who goes more with the Elf theme. The problem is finding room for these creatures main deck or even sideboard. Aethersphere Harvester also plays a similar role like these creatures. It doesn't die to Push without a revolt trigger and it survives Grasp. It has the added benefit of being a great way to gain life with lifelink. I'm a big fan of Harvester and after sideboard I can go up to three copies of it. I recommend you add it main deck or sideboard because getting counters on it from a Rishkar or Verdurous Gearhulk makes it even more amazing and resilent. With Mimic gone the counters strategy is now on the shoulders of both Rishkar and Verdurous. Creatures that enter the battlefield or can make their own counters with an ability are very good because they can get bonuses from Winding Constrictor without needing other cards.

One of the best things going for this deck is it's ability to keep up with other decks or overtake them with board position in gameplay. Using a very low mana curve made up of mostly 2 drops who are all powerful for their two mana costs. I've taken a different approach after cutting Mimic without it Armorcraft Judge loses a lot and has also been cut. Using Mimic with Winding Constrictor I was finding that some set-up was required before playing other cards. This took away from the aggression. Ignoring this set-up now and just focusing on playing these great 2 drops getting them on the battlefield and being aggressive with them simplifies the strategy. I've cut all main deck draw instead putting it all in the sideboard. This might be a mistake, but I've done this to keep the curve as low as possible for game one of a matchup.

It's possible that Metallic Rebuke should be playing a bigger role here like you suggest. Being able to counter a turn five Verdurous from my opponent in the Golgari Snake matchup or turn four Gideon, Ally of Zendikar in Vehicles seems very good and a huge swing in my favor. I haven't really explored the possibilities with Rebuke it's really here for the Saheeli Combo matchup and Torrential Gearhulk Control matchups.

Metallic Rebuke got worse with the cutting of Metallic Mimic because he's fine in control matchups because he's an artifact which can get into play as early as turn two. Having 8x possible turn two artifacts, 4x Mimic and 4x Walking Ballista was very good to improvise Rebuke early. Rebuke is still amazing even with Mimic gone because of it's synergy with Ballista, Aethersphere Harvester and Tireless Tracker. Although Tracker is by far the slowest of the options to get an artifact into play. Choosing to main deck Rebuke is fine option and it would for sure help to give more uses for Mimic if you're using Mimic.

Nature's Way has worked very well in my deck AER Aether Elves recently. It is not instant speed removal, but it makes for excellent creature removal with the bonus of the vigilance and trample for my creature, letting me slap down one of their creatures with a Skyrider Elf, attack them with the elf, and leave the elf up for defense on their turn. It also works great with Aethersphere Harvester since the damage dealt by Nature's Way also counts towards lifelink. I think you have the Narnam Renegade filling the similar role in your deck.

I dont know how you made the layout look like this. But amazing job! You did a rather swell job on aesthetic with the background art, colour combination and fonts. Excellent job, well done.

djnewellmit, you're totally right the cutting of Metallic Mimic makes our decks not actually tribal Elf decks now. Using Elves isn't a requirement or really a strength. They're now decks that have Elves in them purely trying to keep with the theme of using Elves. I'm still making Elves a priority for the creatures I use for the sake of the Elf theme, but only to a point. For instance I won't move away from the Elf creature core of 16x Elves because all these Elves are just very good. 4x Servant of the Conduit, 4x Skyrider Elf, 4x Rishkar, Peema Renegade and 4x Sylvan Advocate. This keeps the creature core other than Winding Constrictor as Elves.

The first version of Energy Elves I had the same problem with lack of tribal which I evidently changed it to use Stoneforge Masterwork as the Elf tribal card. Looking back that was a mistake because the deck was bad and I didn't really have fun playing it. I'm still having fun playing the Elves in this current version which is big difference than before.

Wow, I don't know about using our decks in anything bigger, more competitive, than FNM. Good luck to you if you do. I can't wait to hear some battle reports :) I would just play Golgari Snake at SCG Indy. Better more consistent manabase allowing better access to both Fatal Push and Grasp of Darkness as main deck removal.

I've never playtested with Nature's Way, but you make a compelling argument to try, thanks for the suggestion. I just don't know if I can get past the sorcery speed as well as requiring that I have a creature in play to even use it. Most cards like this are deemed unplayable because of this, but I'll give it a try. It's worth mentioning that Narnam Renegade is actually a creature removal spell in combination with Way because of his deathtouch. I thought the creature you did damage to also did damage back to your creature like fight, but I see now that it's only one sided in my favor. This makes Way, way better.

I've been sideboarding Transgress the Mind along with Metallic Rebuke to fight Four-Color Saheeli Combo (the most popular Sahelli version) it's using Elder Deep-Fiend who's a real problem, various other Aetherworks Marvel decks that are popping up with Ulamog and Temur Dynavolt Tower Control which is also becoming popular.

Ares666, thanks for the upvote and your kind words.

I made this layout with Photoshop, CSS and knowing how to change/style Bootstrap which is the HTML framework that the TappedOut site is built from. I'm actually an experienced graphic/web designer and manage other designers. I pride myself on the aesthetics of a design your praise is much appreciated, thanks.

No one has commented?!!! The art is so cool. +1

Thanks LCJ38 for the upvote.

There's actually 392 total comments since July 2015. You can click on the View Archive button right above your comment to read them.

Oh. That makes a lot more sense. :-)

In the description it says you play Metallic Mimic, but the card is not in the deck, did you leave the mimic out? I thought every tribal deck need it, if not what is the point on playing only elves?

PW_Ian_Bolas, actually in the description I say that Metallic Mimic is not a good option right now in Standard therefore I'm not using it. I cut Mimic completely quite a while ago. I haven't fully updated the Deck Strategy section it's still referencing Mimic, sorry for the confusion.

There's no pure tribal reason right now to play only Elves. The point of playing Elves is because I like to play them; Elves are the theme here. After each new set comes out I try to build the best deck I can with Elves that are in Standard. Most of the time this deck is tribal, but sometimes it isn't. Right now it's not tribal.

Multimedia - Ran a very similar version of this deck at last nights FNM. The results were outstanding went 8-1 and came in first place. I cut Rishkar, Peema Renegade, Walking Ballista, and Aethersphere Harvester Down to 3. Used 3x Metallic Mimic in their place. Substituted 2x Nissa, Voice of Zendikar for 1x Swamp and Island.

Also in main board, removed 3x Fatal Push and inserted 2x Grasp of Darkness and 1x Natural State.

4 of the matches were against Dynavolt Tower decks, and these were interesting since my first match and last match were against the same player. He was my only loss in round 1. I beat him game 1 around turn 6, he then pelted me the next two games. When we met in the finals, I beat him first game, side boarded in 3x Natural State and 1x Transgress the Mind. Turn 7 took him out with a 10/11 Sylvan Advocate

systip, sorry I've been away from this deck for a while, but I'm back now that Amonkhet is here. Great job winning FNM. Now that you've included Mimic did you find it useful at all? I've down voted the card a lot here because it's so fragile and it needs to be played turn 2 and really only turn 2.

Not playing Push is a major metagame call and I'm glad it work out for you. I started playing 4x Evolving Wilds main deck to make Push more versatile and I've liked the results.

This discussion is however all moot because I've updated this deck with Amonkhet. It's now Bant colors instead of Sultai.

multimedia I found mimic to be extremely squishy, but powerful when you can get his ability to kick off. I would hold a Winding Constrictor and a Metallic Mimic back. When I reached six mana I would play them along with a Skyrider Elf or Rishkar, Peema Renegade if Servant on the field already. Skyrider was the best bang for the buck a 5/5 flyer for two mana meant the mimic was not seen as much of a threat.

The week after came in 4th at FNM (so much creature hate that week). Extremely fun deck and Winding Constrictor with Metallic Mimic into a Rishkar, Peema Renegade, followed by Verdurous Gearhulk for 16+ next turn is just way to sweet.

The meta where I play was a lot of Dynavolt and copy cat decks. The elves can run over a dynavolt, but copy cat can give it a problem. B/G Delirium is a great fun match up. I changed the deck up a bit this weekend and been testing. Was looking for more draw, tried Rashmi but that did not work out. Now Have Liferafter Bestiary for the scry and draw ability removed Mimic. Play tested against TEMUR Dynavolt with around a 50% game 2 and 3 percentage. Game 1 was around 60% in favor of the elves.

I like the look of the new BANT deck and will give it a run in a few weeks. I have one Tamiyo, so will need to get one more, and the Amonkhet specific cards. Great Job on the deck.