Elves of the Swarm (Budget)

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Aether Theories —Oct. 2, 2016

Aether Theorist is replacing Cultivator's Caravan. He gives me an extra energy boost while also letting me better smooth my draws; putting unneeded lands and mana Elves on the bottom of my deck. Drawing extra lands is a big problem, a majority of time making mana is not a problem, but drawing too many lands and not enough targets to ramp into play is. Mana Elves while good are only truly great in the early game. Drawing them in the mid and late game is not. Theorist has the ability to scry these mana Elves away giving me better draws.

Caravan is a fine card, one of the better Vehicles, but I've found it a little too slow, costing instead of only two mana is a big difference. It's overkill with ramp having already using Servant of the Conduit and Beastcaller Savant as my other ramp. It's possible that Caravan should replace Beastcaller, but I haven't explored this change yet. One of the nice aspects of Vehicles is their resiliency vs board wipes. A wipe kills all the possible crews, but any creature when it comes into play after a wipe can immediately crew a Vehicle. This is a good reason to want to use Vehicles with Elves because board wipes are their number one fear. Both Negate and Transgress the Mind in the sideboard are my go to cards to stop board wipes, but if they miss or I don't draw them in time having a Vehicle might be beneficial.

Theorist's ability to scry 1 each turn for only one is very underrated. I'm finding his three toughness to also be good at holding off some aggro especially early game Sylvan Advocate, Inventor's Apprentice, Speedway Fanatic, etc. Theorist makes three when he comes into play, by himself he really helps to power both Conduit and Aether Hub. Some games drawing too many Hubs can be a problem because I don't have enough energy to constantly use them for colored mana which is need for both Skyrider Elf and Woodland Wanderer's hunger for colored mana. Theorist helps with this problem. I've been taking out Live Fast in aggro matchups because I don't want to use any cards which require me to lose life. Before adding Theorist this would really hurt the ability to make energy. Theorist fills this need for energy as well as being a blocker in aggro matchups.

One of the best energy pay off cards and one I haven't really touched on is Aetherworks Marvel. It requires a lot of constant energy to be made to get the best uses out of it. It's a gamble, getting up to six is easy as a one shot deal, but losing all this energy and gaining nothing from a Marvel activation is really bad. Of course there are instances where one Marvel activation will get me the perfect card that I need to the win game, but these times are few and far between. Being able to replenish six energy every turn to continually use Marvel has huge potential.

Empyreal Voyager has the ability to make tons of energy because he has both flying and trample; getting to attack with him will most of the time give me energy. This is exactly what I want to be doing when using Marvel. Voyager is a prime target to be pumped up letting me do huge potential damage to my opponent while also gaining me as much energy at the same time.

Verdurous Gearhulk has excellent synergy with Empyreal Voyager. The best creatures for Verdurous to put counters on are ones who already have evasion. Voyager has flying and trample, putting counters on him makes him not only more powerful, but also a ridiculously good energy producer. A single Verdurous putting all four counters on a single Voyager gives Voyager six power. Aetherworks Marvel requires six energy to use it's ability. These three cards together have potential to both do a lot of damage as well as be a constant card advantage engine each turn. The first version of this deck was Temur and it used Voyager and Verdurous, but not Marvel. One of the reasons I cut Voyager at the time was because he requires other cards to make him great. He's underwhelming as a 2/3 3 drop by himself. Although, getting a nut draw of Servant of the Conduit into Voyager into Verdurous into Marvel does have potential for me to revisit using him.

Both Skyrider Elf and Woodland Wanderer as well as all the other cards with converge don't work with Aetherworks Marvel. Marvel says I may cast any card I find out of the top six without paying it's mana cost. Converge requires me to pay a mana cost, a cost of different colors of mana. If I can't pay a mana cost with the card I find with Marvel then converge does nothing. The current version of this deck is built around these converge creatures making Marvel not a good fit. To use Marvel with the current version would require significant changes to the overall strategy.