Elves of the Swarm (Budget)
Standard
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Leaf Gilder —Dec. 14, 2015
Leaf Gilder is being added to this deck. Gilder is a two power, two drop mana Elf. All of these attributes are very good for this deck. The mana you get from Gilder can be used to cast any spell. Gilder is the only two drop mana Elf in Standard that doesn't have a restriction of what you can cast with mana produced by an Elf. Since Gilder has two power, if he isn't being used for mana for a turn he can be a good attacker.
In this deck it is very important to have a two drop turn two that can make mana. Beastcaller Savant is filling in this role very nicely, but he hasn't been enough.
Savant is quickly becoming one of my favorite Elves in this deck because he is an excellent chaining Elf. Since Savant has haste means you can tap him for mana the same turn he is played. This interaction works very well with other two drop Elves which includes Gilder and allows explosive early turns in the game.
Gilder adds to some very explosive early turns for this deck. One powerful line is: turn one Trapper, turn two Savant and Gilder. This line can give you 6 possible mana turn three.
The biggest problem with Collected Company and the reason this deck can't really play 4x Company main deck is because neither Beastcaller Savant or Gnarlroot Trapper can help to cast it. This means you can't ramp into a Company. Company has a 4 casting cost, this mana cost is a little too high for a 20-21 land deck to accommodate, if you can't ramp.
Gilder allows this deck to play Company. Gilder can tap for green mana that can be used to cast Company. A turn three Company is possible when using Gilder which can be very powerful. This deck can now have a possible turn three Company or Sylvan Messenger. Having the ability to play either of these great card advantage spells turn three is just a tremendous positive for this deck.
Since Gilder is a mana Elf this means you can cut back on the number of lands this deck needs. It's just better to use Elves that can make mana then run too many lands. This deck is now only using 20x lands with 12x mana Elves and 2x Nissa, Vastwood Seer Flip. This configuration so far has been very good and I have won games with only having two lands on the battlefield, but a bunch of mana Elves.