Elves of the Swarm (Budget)
Standard
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A Very Dark Sideboard —Feb. 1, 2016
I'm finding that the best sideboard cards for this deck in current Standard are black with heavy black casting costs. This has made me change up the manabase to include more Swamp while reducing the amount of Forest and cutting Sea Gate Wreckage.
This change is necessary to use Grasp of Darkness. Grasp is very good right now in Standard. Its double black cost is a steep requirement, but the value it gives you by giving any creature -4/-4 for two mana is great. Grasp doesn't have a restriction of what creature you can target with it. This is very important for a removal spell to have in current Standard because of the coming emergence of Eldrazi. Eldrazi are colorless or Devoid this makes them immune to a lot of the best low cost removal that black as to offer. Some decks such as UR Prowess are using both single color and multi-color creatures this makes using removal that you would traditionally use in this matchup like Ultimate Price just plain bad.
Before using Grasp this deck was playing a combination of Self-Inflicted Wound and Ultimate Price. Both these cards while great in specific matchups have restrictions of what they can kill which can sometimes be quite frustrating.
Since Grasp gives a creature -4/-4 until end of turn it is an excellent removal spell when you are attacking with a bunch of little Elves. Many times in many games your Elves will be blocked and killed to let other Elves get damage through. Doing this while also having access to Grasp means that your opponent probably should think twice about blocking.
Grasp doesn't just work with attacking Elves, but also blocking ones. One of the hardest things for this deck to deal with is a lot of high power attacking creatures with evasion such as Siege Rhino. Grasp now gives Elves an excellent removal spell that can shrink these attacking creatures down enough to block and trade or kill them with Elves.4 toughness creatures are a big thing right now in Standard Grasp can killl any of them.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is a great card. His main purpose in the sideboard is an excellent creature to have in the 4-color Rally matchup. His ability to exile your opponent's creatures after they die while also giving you 2/2 Zombies is bonkers.
Kalitas is not just good vs Rally, but he is also a huge roadblock for some decks to get through since he has 4 toughness and Lifelink. The 2/2 Zombies he makes seems like they wouldn't be good in an Elves deck since they aren't Elves, but they are actually really good. This deck is playing Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
. Nissa's -2 ability puts counters on all your creatures this includes any 2/2 Zombies that you have. The Zombies can also be sac to Kalitas to pump him up.
Oath of Nissa is really what allows this deck to use Kalitas since it can find and put him into your hand. Kalitas is not an Elf so Sylvan Messenger can't get him and he has a four casting cost meaning Collected Company can't put him on the battlefield.
Abzan with Siege Rhino is still the best deck in Standard. Gilt-Leaf Winnower is an excellent Elf to have in this matchup. Winnower can not only kill Rhino, but a large amount of other Abzan creatures this includes, but not limited to Den Protector, Wingmate Roc and Tasigur, the Golden Fang. Some Abzan players are now splashing blue, greedy bastards for annoying Reflector Mage and counterspells. Making Winnower even better vs Abzan.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is going to get more and more prevalent in Standard. Both Winnower and Grasp of Darkness can kill him before he gets out of hand.
Other black sideboard cards that I'm currently using include Duress and Ob Nixilis Reignited making the sideboard for this deck exceptionally dark.