Aether revolt adds all the cards that Aetherflux Reservoir needed to become a top tier standard deck. Improvise being the main boon to the deck in that all your cards that are almost useless besides for Paradoxical Outcome targets can now be used as ramp/pump for Metallic Rebuke, Battle at the Bridge, and Reverse Engineer.
I have to begin by saying that Reverse Engineer has been absolutely insane in playtesting. Seriously value at it's finest. The fact that it's sorcery speed doesn't matter because reservoir decks almost always want to play spells on your own turn.
Ornithopter is a welcome addition to the deck, being more versatile that Bone Saw and Cathtar's Shield can in the 0 cmc combo piece slot. One drawback is that it does die to board wipes, but if your opponent sides in a board wipe vs reservoir either it was in their main board and is coming out game 2 or you've played your opponent before. Ornithopter is a card I still want to test a lot more but overall seems more useful especially in matchups like energy aggro when they swing without Larger Than Life.
I decided to test
Merchant's Dockhand
and was extremely surprised by how good it can be. At worst its a 1 drop that can fuel your improvise or chump. At best its a giant Anticipate, or an Anticipate every turn. Also if you have
Foundry Inspector
in play its a free spell (bonus). To summarize it's can be played in a slot that's hard to pick for and it can save your a** in long grindy matchups when you need that 1 more Paradoxical Outcome.
Metalspinner's Puzzleknot is 100% a staple of the deck. However, with access to Reverse Engineer we can afford to play only 3 copies.
Metallic Rebuke is great, although if they have the resources to pay the extra 3 mana it can be annoying. That being said I've rarely passed a turn with more than 1 mana untapped in my extensive reservoir experience unless I knew for sure that my Negate would need to block something that would lose me the game. With Dispel being the other 1 cmc counter the times that you can cast Dispel don't always work out, especially with the narrow window of only instants (Fragmentize comes to mind)
I've concluded Battle at the Bridge is much better in this deck than Fatal Push since problem creature are often bigger 2 cmc and turning on revolt is tough (we don't want to leave mana untapped just to sac a Metalspinner's Puzzleknot to trigger revolt) Again, sorcery speed isn't a major issue since you'll play spells on your turn for the most part to stack the storm count on Aetherflux Reservoir.
It's worth noting that the lifegain from Battle at the Bridge on a huge combo swing with Paradoxical Outcome can push your life over 51 more often than you'd think. I didn't think it'd be as good until I tested it.
Contraband Kingpin doesn't appear in the main board which seems strange. Kingpin can dig deep on when your playing a lot of artifacts, can scry before your puzzleknots come down, and blocks small creature while also having lifelink. The main reasoning behind only popping up in the sideboard is that Reverse Engineer simply does it better. It's not a creature but drawing 3 for UU is far better when trying to get as many combo peices and fuel the hell out of your hand. We can side out a couple of copies of Reverse Engineer for kingpin in control matchups as the opponent is often loaded up with counter magic after game 1 and they will generally have 3 cmc counterspell to counter kingpin, meaning they'd rather save it (most likely). It does die to Fatal Push but survives Harnessed Lightning so note what colors opposing control decks are playing when boarding (more on that later)
Glint-Nest Crane is a must have and never leaves the deck. It's a 2 for 1 and a 100% crucial card to make the deck consistent enough to be viable.
Foundry Inspector
is fantastic, if it doesn't get killed. This card has a bigger target on it than any other creature in the deck, at least it dodges Fatal Push without revolt. When it is in play you have more mana to play more spells and can discount to the point of free spells. Casting Paradoxical Outcome with 2 of these in play feels filthy, and you'll probably with the game right after.
SOME SIDEBOARD NOTES:
Padeem, Consul of Innovation
: Expensive but totally worth boarding in against any white deck as they almost always have Fragmentize or other artifact hate. They may have removal for Padeem and that can be a bummer but its worth tapping out to cast
Padeem, Consul of Innovation
if it survives to your next upkeep its an instant payoff and the spells you cast on that turn put your opponent behind the clock.
Not necessarily good against Black/Green decks that have instant speed creature and artifact removal at their disposal. You dont want them to cast a
Natural Obsolescence
in response to padeem at your reservoir or
Foundry Inspector
and kill Padeem on your turn.
Side in against G/W decks that are more token heavy than removal heavy, they will opt for artifact hate over
Statis Snare
and such.
Merchant's Dockhand
: Bring in for slow grindy matches, it usually is too small to bother removing unless they board wipe or have nothing better to do (unlikely)
Contraband Kingpin This card is on the fence right now, and you will want to play it against aggro decks that don't run any black because of Fatal Push
Negate: You don't want to have to cast this, but needed for planeswalker heavy decks, notably Gideons and others that have cmc greater than 4. Still 2nd tier behind Metallic Rebuke though.
Bring in an extra
Foundry Inspector
if they don't have kill spells,
OTHER NOTES:
I will probably squeeze in an extra 0cmc artifact in the sideboard after non proxy testing because its great to have a bit more storm in matchups were you 100% want to go all out as fast as you can without worrying about your opponent's actions. But I find 7 is the right number of 0cmc artifacts so you don't get hung up on drawing too many.
