Elves of the Swarm (Budget)
Standard
SCORE: 916 | 684 COMMENTS | 231305 VIEWS | IN 450 FOLDERS
Lands and Removal Changes —Nov. 21, 2015
One of the biggest problems of using Sultai colors is neither of the two fetch lands Bloodstained Mire and Flooded Strand can fetch a Forest. Both Mire and Strand can get all three colors green, black and blue, which is good, but both are very restrictive when it comes to green. This deck really needs one of its fetch lands to be able to get a forest. Using both Mire and Strand there have been games where I'm not happy with the consistency of the manabase. This deck is very green mana hungry and not having a way to fetch a forest is really a problem.
Windswept Heath is replacing Flooded Strand in this deck because it can fetch a Forest as well as a blue source, Prairie Stream. Heath can't get a black source, but the need for a fetch land that can get a forest really out ways this negative. Using both Bloodstained Mire and Windswept Heath has helped the mana inconsistencies a lot. Mire and Heath can both fetch a basic land to start the game with and dual lands after that. Having a starting hand with Mire and Heath allows much better options moving forward in the game.
The manabase now has 8x fetch lands and 10x fetchable land sources, this ratio is turning out to be very good and much more consistent than previous manabases for this deck. I have still kept the 10x possible come into play untapped black sources for Gnarlroot Trapper turn 1 while now including 17x sources of green, 12x sources of black and 11x sources of blue.
This deck was using Complete Disregard as its main deck removal spell which was mostly because of the force that is Dark Jeskai with Mantis Rider and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy Flip. Dark Jeskai is starting to lose a lot of favor in the Standard meta game thus Disregard has lost a lot of luster. Abzan with Siege Rhino and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar has now replaced Dark Jeskai as the most played deck in Standard.
Both Gideon and Dromoka's Command can make your opponent's creatures 4 or more power very fast this makes Disregard a terrible removal spell vs Abzan.
Gideon is such a powerful card that if he resolves and stays on the battlefield for many turns he can just win the game for your opponent. The biggest problem with Gideon is he makes dudes that can be blockers every turn. It is easy to just chump block him if he becomes a creature, but making creatures each turn is not so easy to overcome. This deck really needs an answer to a Gideon game 1.
Because of the prevalence of Gideon I feel Ruinous Path is a necessary evil that needs to be played in this deck. Path is replacing Complete Disregard as this deck's main deck removal spell. Path is a sorcery removal spell, this makes it really bad, but it does do two good things, it can kill a Planeswalker or unconditionally kill any creature for three mana. Both of these things are something that this deck needs.
Eldrazi Ramp decks are now very popular and all of them are playing Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Ugin on the battlefield is game over, time to scoop, for this deck. Path can kill Ugin which might just allow you to recover and win the game. This deck is playing 7x answers to Ugin in the sideboard, but nothing main deck until now. Having the ability to draw a Path game 1 vs Eldrazi Ramp decks running Ugin is turning out to be a very nice. Having a single removal spell that can kill both Ugin and/or Dragonlord Atarka is very good for this matchup.
An old favorite of mine has returned to the sideboard. Gilt-Leaf Winnower has now replaced Den Protector in the sideboard of this deck. Protector is a great card, but I've been finding it much too slow and stuck in my hand too much. Because of the overwhelming play of Abzan, Winnower once again becomes the great Rhino slayer.