The full Ixalan set has been revealed and I'm already brewing new decks with Elves. I've already updated Energy Elves with a new version. It's back to Golgari, two colors. This version is not final, but for the time being it gives an idea of what cards from Ixalan I'm looking at playing. Watch for a more indepth new update about Ixalan, this version, others and a very likely name change in a few days. Here's a summary of newest version.

As you all know now there's no Elves in Ixalan. Rishkar, Peema Renegade becomes the best Elf left in Standard. The best creature to pair with Rishkar is Winding Constrictor. I've once again paired these two and added another strong Elf with counter synergy, Narnam Renegade. I've decided to drop energy as a main strategy for now and in it's place reinforce the counters strategy with revolt. Servant of the Conduit is being cut for Greenwheel Liberator and Attune with Aether is cut for Unbridled Growth. There's very few Elves left in the tribe; who's left are mana Elves and Elves with revolt. I've decided to go with a more aggressive approach with Rishkar, Constrictor and these revolt Elves.

Ixalan has quite a few very good black creatures and I'm using two of them. Ruin Raider is the new Dark Confidant for aggressive strategies he's great because he triggers raid at my end step. The turn I play him I can possibly draw a card from his ability if I attacked for the turn. Because of this I'm basing the creature core on creatures who have evasion or who can benefit, get big, from counters, but they must be no more than three mana. The mana curve of this deck is now built around the idea that I'll lose life from Raider's raid, the lower the avg. cmc the better. Raider pairs very well with how big creatures can get with Constrictor and Rishkar for very little mana cost. Narnam has deathtouch which lets me attack most of the time freely with him. Kitesail Freebooter is the other new black Ixalan creature I'm playing. Freebooter is a two drop with Duress when he enters the battlefield. He also has evasion, flying, both these abilities are very good with Raider. I can protect Raider by taking my opponent's removal as well as attack with flying to trigger his raid. Flying is also nice with counters from Rishkar.

Fatal Push is still one of the best removal spells in Standard and Ixalan didn't change this because Wizards decided not to print any instant strong removal in black, that's less than four mana. Walk the Plank is Grasp of Darkness's replacement, but it's sorcery speed making it pretty bad. Push is very good and revolt makes Push even better. Revolt is not easy to trigger, but right now there's no other alternatives in just black. This deck is now using 8x no cost revolt enablers, Evolving Wilds and Growth to help with this.

Aethersphere Harvester and Aether Hub, a small energy strategy is still here. I really like Aethersphere with Raider because Raider can crew it and since Aethersphere has flying it can most of the time attack freely triggering raid. Aethersphere also uses energy to gain lifelink which is needed since Raider makes me lose life to draw a card. These two paired together are great.

Enemy colors in Standard are at a disadvantage having only fast lands as playable dual lands left, but Ixalan added a new tribal land in Unclaimed Territory. This land requires that I use a creature core with only a few different types. For each Territory I can choose which type I can use colored mana for therefore I can have a one for Elf or Pirate and one for Snake. Both Raider and Freebooter are Pirates which is nice with Territory.

My new test too see if this deck is going to work in new Standard, can I beat Ramunap Red without a nut draw? The answer to this so far is no. I can't consistently beat Ramunap Red with this latest version.

Ruin Raider is not going to work and Rampaging Ferocidon shuts down Aethersphere Harvester life gaining. Harsh Scrutiny has been very good at taking Hazoret before she can hit the battlefield, but other than Scrutiny black has been very underwhelming. Winding Constrictor is not even safe anymore because of Lightning Strike. Fatal Push is also not reliable enough as removal now in the matchup because Evolving Wilds is too slow to trigger revolt.

Some positives in the matchup are green, Ripjaw Raptor is most of the time a 2 for 1 or more and Shaper's Sanctuary has been very good to get some card advantage from all the abilities that make creatures unable to block. These two together in my control are especially good for me. Walking Ballista has been fantastic in the matchup.

The next step is back to the drawing board and adding red for Harnessed Lightning and Glorybringer.

multimedia, did you consider trying out Heartless Pillage ? I'm not sure how it fairs in standard, but Mind Rot + ramp seems to be a wonderful combination. Not as powerful as Blightning for sure, but still.

I haven't considered playing Heartless Pillage, thanks for the suggestion. Have you playtested with it? If I wanted to play it not sure if it's good enough to cut anything in the current version. What would you cut for it? Are you thinking it can compliment the other discard or replace it?

Scrutiny, Freebooter, Duress even Doomfall gives me more control over what my opponent discards. Being able to choose what my opponent discards is especially true for Scrutiny as the main reason I'm playing it because there's a lot of creature threats that are just plain hard to deal with it once they hit the battlefield.

I'm not suggesting that you change the theme of this deck on tappedout since it has been elves since thoughtseize was legal, but I think if you are building this on paper, it would be better just as a BGx constrictor build with ruin raider, merfolk branchwalker, vineshaper mystic, deadeye tracker and the like. Your statement on narnam renegade makes sense on paper, but I've been testing the deck and it's been underwhelming every time I've drawn it. It's nearly impossible to trigger revolt in this deck so it is basically always a 1/2 deathtouch for 1, and a buffed typhoid rats isn't spectacular. The other 2 elves fit into the deck naturally, but 8(and 12 btw) is less than half the required tribal cards a tribal deck should have(25 is a good amount), so I feel like the deck should stp trying to be a dedicated elf deck and start abusing the powerhouses that are ripjaw+ballista and rishkar+ballista and those plus constrictor. I feel like this deck's potential is being restrained by the label it has inherited

Mardu_Charizard, thanks for your candor, but this is not the only deck I play in Standard. This just happens to the be the one I feature and write about here at Tappedout. I want to try to make this deck good that's why I playtest it always against the best decks in Standard and try to adapt it to do better. That's the fun I have with this deck, making it work well in Standard while including Elves. Is this deck going to one of the best decks in Standard? No that's not the point here. Is it going to be the best deck to play with Elves in it in Standard? Hopefully yes that's why it's here. This deck hasn't been tribal since Shaman rotated out of Standard and I've accepted this. It's definitely not a pure tribal Elf deck and hasn't been for a long time now.

You're right this deck would be much better if I dropped the Elf theme and just made a deck of the best cards, most decks would be, but where is the fun in that? I like Elves and that's why I've continued to keep up with this deck for as long as I have. Yes I could I cut the Elves for other most likely more powerful cards, but I'm not going to do that here. If I was to do that I'll just make another deck with those cards and call it something completely different.

This deck is already abusing the interactions between all those cards you mentioned, they're the reasons for this new current version. I've already playtested Raider and he's too risky in a Standard where Mono Red is dominate. Is he a powerful card? Hell yes, that's why I originally started out playtesting him. You're not giving Narnam enough credit he's a green one drop who can trade profitably with midrange creatures. He can hold back a turn one Bomat Courier on the play, etc. He requires a removal spell from my opponent otherwise they can't attack me from the ground without losing a creature of more value then him. Revolting him is a bonus here and you're right there's not a lot of ways to trigger it, but he's still a deathtouch creature to put counters on with Rishkar.

That was my original thought as to why the elves were in and I totally accept that? I myself am an advocate for having fun in standard as well (I play gpg right now) and now that you mention it I agree about this raider too. I support keeping the elves in because you have no idea how long I tried to keep mardu dragons together(i tested Akoum Hellkite!) and having a fun standard deck is always a good thing. Good luck going into this standard!

Upvote for your immense dedication

How the hell did you make all these cool scripts? The deck itself is really cool, but the atmosphere makes it even more awesome! If I could +1 more than once, I would.

EchoScorch, thanks for the upvote. This place gives me an outlet to write about Magic which I like to do!

x12721, thanks for the upvote. Your the first person to comment on the nice atmosphere here, makes me feel good, thanks a lot :).

multimedia, I can see your list morphing into all sorts of non-elves. Various creature types mixing it up. So I think you should consider embracing some evolutionary adaptation of the arcane variety...

Arcane Adaptation

In order to truly keep Elves in play, it's time for some shapeshifting magic, to get some interesting lords for them. To get you started I made a couple lists, The Elf Cats and Undead Elves. Consider the possibilities...

Bound to be lots of Elves in Dominaria.

Hey CloudThumper, I really enjoy your creative ideas with Elves. These two new ones are great, you're really thinking outside of the box. But are these decks really any different than what I'm doing here? Using Adaptation as a bridge between two or more tribes is nice, but you're never naming Elf because what's the benefit in doing so? Naming either Zombie or Cat do much more so you're not really making an tribal Elf deck, but a deck that has Elves who can then be either Cats or Zombies thanks to Adaptation. Mimic is another bridge between tribes because it can be any one tribe, but relying on Mimic as an important card in a deck is asking for trouble.

I've decided I'm done spending any time now on making this deck more Elf. I've accepted the fact that a pure tribal Elf deck is not viable without playing subpar cards. The biggest problem with these cards they're completely outclassed by other non-tribal cards with the same casting costs. The tribal synergies are not strong enough currently to play tribal over other cards. My task now for this deck is finding the best shell to put Elves into which so far is counters and energy.

Agreed. If one wanted to use Arcane Adaptation, which I was inclined to consider, Elves could provide some useful ramp and they need a lord. So I couldn't resist a little humorous exploration. The Undead version didn't seem half bad actually, so there may be a deck out there using Lord of the Accursed and Liliana's Mastery to good effect, even if it's a hodge podge of various creature types.

It's awesome that you put so much work in this deck :)

Hey sliversftw, thanks a lot for the upvote. Work on this deck has pretty much stalled. I sure hope Dominaria next year brings Elves into the limelight.

ReprintArchdruid

Elves is my favourite modern deck

I don't think this is an elf deck. There's really no reason to run them here. But it's bad ass anyways. Nice job.

FlabbyAbs, thanks for the upvote.

This deck hasn't been truely Elf tribal since first Shaman of the Pack and then Skyrider Elf rotated. I tried a few versions that were tribal for a while, but none of them can match the power level of energy and Winding Constrictor.

I'm waiting for Dominaria because Elves are in the set, lets hope this deck can once again be tribal Elves.

Nice job keeping the pace! May it slaughter the meta :D

I've always kept an eye on this deck because I play Elves in every format (except Standard) and I feel like this is the best iteration if the deck that I've seen in a long time! Bant seems to be a great combination for it right now, especially with Radiant Destiny.

Here's to Dominaria and the hope that we get some new, great Elves. :)