Devilish912, thanks a lot for the upvote and props.

patrickloyd, thanks for the upvote, you were the 800th upvote :) I don't play this deck at FMN, variations are for kitchen table or online play.

I'm waiting until the whole set is revealed to do a new update on Ravnica Allegiance (RNA). Which is hopefully tomorrow, lets hope that Wizards doesn't drag RNA spoilers into next week. Having Shock lands: Breeding Pool, Stomping Ground, Temple Garden and Overgrown Tomb all in Standard is going to be amazing for brewing with Elves. Here's some of my thoughts so far...

Just like in M19, in RNA we also got two rare two drop Elves and both these Elves make Grand Warlord Radha even better :) Incubation Druid and Growth-Chamber Guardian's adapt can be mana sinks with mana that's made with Rahda and other attacking Elves. I can trigger adapt at instant speed, during combat letting me attack with either to help to trigger their own adapt. Guardian is the Elf I'm most excited about because he can tutor for other copies of himself. This ability is very good, but he's also just a powerful two drop Elf who can attack as a 4/4 turn three without any other cards. His tutor ability seems great with Radha letting me chain Guardians onto the battlefield.

Incubation seems like quite a good mana Elf. Being able to make any color mana that matches a color that lands I control can make is good. With an Unclaimed Territory in my control she can make any color of mana and Territory is a pretty important land for Elves. This is not however the best thing about Incubation it's that she may be a weak mana Elf, but she can get better later on in the game with adapt. Weak creatures who can be played early game and then scale up and become an actual threat or improve their own abilities mid game are very good.

Four two drop Elves, who will all most likely be part of the base moving forward have their own built-in mana sinks:

• Guardian
• Incubation
• Clancaller
• Thorn

So far I like the looks of Gruul, Temur or Jund with possible returning to +1/+1 synergies. A strategy with counters needs an engine to give Elves counters and Rhythm of the Wild can do that. Other than the new Elves, Rhythm has the most potential to be added to this deck. Rhythm seems very good with Radha, not because it makes her better, but because it can give Elves haste which means they can generate mana when they attack the turn they're played. Both Guardian and Incubation's bonus ability for when they get a counter can happen whenever any counter is placed on them; I don't have to trigger adapt to get their bonuses. This means that a counter from riot can trigger Guardian when it ETB, giving me a 3/3 Elf who can tutor for another copy of itself. Depending on how much mana I have I can then play another Guardian and do the same thing, effectively chaining Guardians thanks to riot.

Multiple copies of Rhythm in my control can stack. If I have two copies of Rhythm on the battlefield then I can trigger riot two times, giving an Elf a counter and haste. This some what relieves the drawback that Rhythm has, it's a three drop that doesn't do anything the turn it's played. Giving Elves haste can be powerful especially with Steel Leaf Champion, but also with a strategy around Beast Whisperer. One drawback of Whisperer is all the Elves I played for the turn couldn't attack this made them too vulnerable to a board wipe (Clarion, Soot, Nova, etc.) on my opponent's turn. With hasty Elves my opponent needs a Settle. Guardian seems great with Whisperer since it can tutor for another copy of itself giving me more Elf fuel to draw. The combination of main deck Whisperer, Radha and Rhythm has potential.

Rhythm also seems busted with Prime Speaker Vannifar. Making her uncounterable and giving her haste letting me use her Pod ability the turn she's played. Vannifar is a powerful card, but I'm not sure she's what I want with Elves since I think both Radha and Whisperer are better four drops for tribal strategies with Elves. I could however be completely wrong about this, time and brewing will tell.

Another counters engine that may return is Hadana's Climb  ^Flip. Climb seems very good with the two new adapt two drop Elves especially Guardian. Climb is very good with Guardian because each time a counter is placed on Guardian I can tutor for another copy of itself. Climb can put a counter on Guardian each combat during my turn. Another way to chain Guardians. Climb is also very good because it can be a win condition when it flips into a land. Which can also then be another land that can make any color of mana which helps Incubation.

Galloping Lizrog and End-Raze Forerunners are both new possible finishers with Elves. Lizrog in combination with Rhythm; move all counters from Elves onto Lizrog and give it haste thanks to riot. Forerunners is the new pseudo Craterhoof Behemoth, seems like a good creature to ramp into with Elves.

Of course these are just my beginning thoughts of how RNA might change this deck. The cards and strategies that have stood out so far. When I get to take a full look at the entire set, begin brewing, them most likely other strategies and cards will stand out.

Can you repost the grull version with RNA?

bloodsire, thanks for your interest...

Gruul Version:

Elves of the Warlord (RNA)

Standard* multimedia

SCORE: 1 | 40 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

I’m excited to test this deck at my next FNM, since I finally got it put together minus some sideboard stuff. Instead of Carnage Tyrant and Deathgorge Scavenger I have two more beast whisperers and another hydroid Krasis (pack openings blessed me with two! Thanks RNGesus!)

Any tips from playtesting?

How has this been working out for you lately? Do you prefer the gruul version still to what you have here?

Damn, what happened to all the coding? The deck looks so different without it!

Oops, never mind. It all shows up now. Must have been an error on my end

For an elf deck, I would have thought you would use the elf-like effect of Biomancer's Familiar over Zegana, Utopian Speaker . Familiar makes creature effects cheaper and lets you adapt Incubation Druid and Growth-Chamber Guardian multiple times, building powerful creatures, etc.

Murphy77 I've been playing Growth-Chamber Guardian and Incubation Druid in a fairly competitive standard environment. Adapting either of those elves multiple times with Biomancer's Familiar is entertaining, but if you are in a position where you have to adapt one of them again to advance your board state, you've probably lost the game. I've never found myself in a position where I've thought, "if only I could adapt my Incubation Druid again."

I was playing Zegana, Utopian Speaker in my mainboard, but she always sat in my hand as I had better options to play (disclaimer: my deck is not as +1/+1 counter focused as this deck). I ended up trading out the Zegana for one copy of Blink of an Eye .

Another consideration, this deck is already playing 16x two-drops, all of which fit the elf-tribal theme. The simplest reason for excluding the Familiar is the two-drop slot is already too crowded.

Thanks for the feedback djnewellmit. I guess that I was thinking of something along the lines of Count on Elves M, which has a heavy counter focus.

Pulled the trigger on this deck. I love the way it plays out and is pretty close to rotation proof. Hopefully M20 has Llanowar Elves in it.

I have been working with elves for a while, and like the idea of a proliferate package, however I have been testing a UGB variant of the list.

It runs Finale of Devastation and Neoform as full playsets, along with Prime Speaker Vannifar as a one-of in the list. It wants to use Neoform with Llanowar Elves or Pelt Collector to fetch an Incubation Druid with a counter on it turn three, powering out big Finale of Devastation s for our many one-ofs, or fetching Growth-Chamber Guardian with a counter, fetching another GCG immediately.

With the full set of Llanowar Elves and Incubation Druids the deck makes lots of mana, not to mention the two-of Marwyn, the Nurturer (fetchable so we don't need 3 or 4) and between the fetchable one-of Beast Whisperer , and playsets of Elvish Clancaller and Growth-Chamber Guardian the list always can use mana, and when you get enough you can x=10+ Finale of Devastation fetching a trampler like Storrev, Devkarin Lich that has 15 power for an easy win.

Have you considered this variant?

For those of us who have also been playing elves for awhile and have most of the cards listed, could you create a budget free version to work towards? I’m already dedicated to buying all the shocks as it is, since they maintain their value pretty well. I’m a big fan of elves and like to see what experienced players bring to the table with deck tech.

Chasmolinker, very nice, good luck with your deck. I too hope Llanowar Elves will be in M20, but I'm not counting on it :(

SynergyBuild, I haven't consider Sultai because I'm not playing a three color Elf deck in Standard, only one or two colors. I'm no longer investing in Standard, it's not worth the money. I'm also sick of playing Simic as this deck was Simic for many months before War of the Spark. Neoform is powerful especially since it puts a counter on the creature you tutor for which is great with Incubation/Guardian/proliferate. Thanks for the ideas, hope it works out for you.

Azmathis, I have a budget version of this deck it's Budget Elves of Ravnica; it's always less than $100 including sideboard. The budget version is different than this version because of price. Playable dual lands are not budget land options therefore the budget version is mono-green with more of an emphasis on proliferate. If you have Shocks and Checks and want to include them then I offer to help you on a different budget version.

I like it

Hey there! It's been a while since I last looked at "this" decklist)

Will there be your take on pioneer elves?)

Hey Randsome, I'm currently not playing Pioneer. There's definitely many more and much better Elves in Pioneer than in Standard. Shaman of the Pack gives Elves the tribal win condition and a reason to be Golgari. If I decide to play Pioneer then I will definitely change this deck since I've left Standard.

I don't think I will return to Standard for quite a while, if ever, because it's a damn mess, a waste of money and Theros is the next plane we're revisiting. It's one of the few planes in the multiverse that doesn't have Elves. I'm a Commander player now and I don't see that changing because Wizards is supporting Commander a ton next year which I'm very excited about.

If I was playing Pioneer then this is the budget Elves decklist I would play:

• 4x Elvish Mystic
• 4x Llanowar Elves
• 2x Gnarlroot Trapper
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 4x Dwynen's Elite
• 4x Elvish Clancaller
• 3x Wildborn Preserver
• 2x Paradise Druid
• 4x Shaman of the Pack
• 4x Steel Leaf Champion
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 2x Sylvan Messenger
• 4x Chord of Calling
• 8x Forest
• 4x Llanowar Wastes
• 4x Unclaimed Territory
• 3x Woodland Cemetery
• 1x Westvale Abbey  ^Flip

Total: $130

Hey everyone who's still interested, after almost two years I've updated the deck with a new first version for Kaldheim Standard. Elves are exciting again thanks to being a huge part of Kaldheim. Going with Golgari again because five of the better tribal Elf cards in the set are black including the new Shaman of the Pack in Skemfar Shadowsage who's now the tribal win condition for Elves.

In fact the entire main deck except for Wildborn Preserver is cards from Kaldheim which gives you an idea of how amazing this set is for Elves. Stay tuned for a new update about the new version of Elves of Kaldheim :)

Hey there, not really about the deck (which does look cool, I used to play Elves back on the Origins release and they were a ton of fun, I also remember when Llanowar Elves and Elvish Mystic were in standard and had a lot of fun with those), just wanted to know how you managed to flair up your page the way you have. The background image, the colour of the page itself, even the font. I'm somewhat new to this site but I've been enjoying my time here and would like to put a bit more effort into spicing up my posts like that. Thanks for your time, hope you're staying safe out there!

Hey, R492 thanks for your interest. I started this deck during Magic Origins Standard 6 years ago. I flair up my deck's page with CSS and use Photoshop to make the images. When you're an official member of TappedOut, you paid the $5, then you can request to have CSS activated for your account. When this happens then you can use CSS and images at your deck pages via external stylesheet which is what I'm using here or inline CSS styles which are part of the HTML code of the page.

CSS lets you do everything you want in changing the look of the page: colors, background images, custom fonts, changing the layout of the page, etc. If there's a particular area you would like me to explain more let me know.

oh that's cool! I may end up doing that then, that explains a lot. Thanks for taking the time to respond :)

Btw I noticed your sideboard contains 22 cards, is this to give other people some ideas on what they might want to bring and let them pick and choose for themselves what cards to being or do you tend to change the 15 you bring? If it's the latter than what factors determine which ones you bring when you play the deck?

Hey, you're welcome. The sideboard is just a bunch of cards that I foresee as potentially being good in the upcoming Standard meta; cards for each type of broad matchup: aggro, midrange and control. It's not specific and by no means in any form to use right now because Kaldheim doesn't enter Standard until Feb 5th.

There is a Standard meta right now and most of the decks even when Kaldheim is in Standard will stay at the top therefore I can choose some cards that are good for matchups currently. Skyway Sniper against Dimir Rogues, Oakhame Adversary against Green Food and Thorn Mammoth against Gruul Adventures. There's some Angels and Dragons that are among the best cards in Kaldheim which Sniper with deathtouch will be good against. I also think Masked Vandal could be important in Kaldheim Standard.

I completely forget that Lead the Stampede is in Standard from Ikoria. Lead is an engine with Elves to recover or go over the top. It lets me have much more freedom with nonElf creatures in the sideboard. With 32 creatures and only 22 lands I avg. about three creatures for each Lead which is great value.

Lead has replaced Canopy Tactician . Tactician four drop anthem and ramp after is not as good as of value as a three drop spell that right away can put Elves into my hand. With Lead Skemfar Shadowsage is a better four drop than Tactician. Tajuru Blightblade has replaced Blizzard Brawl for more Elves for Lead. Brawl is a good one drop fight spell for green and Snow. Ironic, it's actually very good with Blightblade's deathtouch, but I don't think I need Brawl.

I've finished the first version of the sideboard. It's not matchup specific since we don't know yet what the new Standard meta with Kaldheim will be. Right now there's something for when against aggro, midrange and control. There's some grave hate as well as some artifact/enchantment removal. I think it covers a lot of matchups and cards that Elves may have a problem with. Because of main deck Lead and Skemfar Avenger , I think Elves are well positioned against Doomskar .

Thorn Mammoth is tech for midrange matchups. Mammoth triggering when it ETB and repeatable whenever any creature I control ETB including an Elf token can wreck opponents creatures. It can fight fliers and 6/6 is higher than most of the other creatures who could give Elves trouble. There's still ramp with Jaspera Sentinel and Sculptor of Winter to help to cast a seven drop.

Toski, Bearer of Secrets is for midrange matchups, but also tech for control matchups. It's repeatable draw with an Elf swam, nice with Elves with deathtouch. Against control it's uncounterable as well as survives Doomskar. Liliana's Standard Bearer is tech against board wipes and it counts Elf tokens that die.