The Hobbit (HOB) has been praised as one of the better Universes Beyond sets because Tolkien's world fits in with traditional Magic: The Gathering themes and visual aesthetics better than the sets that have a setting steeped in the real world.

Players may, or may not, have enjoyed their time in New York City, but it seems that there has been a universal sigh of relief to get back to our roots.

Playing a Standard Elf Deck

As a set filled with traditional fantasy Creature types, like Goblins and Dwarves, The Hobbit gets us back to those roots. For me, the most intriguing of those traditional Creature types has to be the Elves.

So, I gave an Elf deck a try and:

The deck has a lot of potential!

RivendElves | Standard | Travis Hall

• Creatures (32)
• 4 Cantankerous Keepers
• 1 Druid of the Cowl
• 4 Dwynen's Elite
• 3 Elrond, Moon-Reader
• 4 Elvish Archdruid
• 2 Formidable Speaker
• 4 Llanowar Elves
• 2 Tyvar, the Pummeler
• 4 Virulent Emissary
• 4 Woodland Weavemaster

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Down in the Valley

• Lands (24)
• 14 Forest
• 1 Island
• 1 Ba Sing Se
• 4 Breeding Pool
• 4 Elven Passage

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My first version of this deck was a Golgari () build, that focused on using the strong Elf cards from Lorwyn Eclipsed (ECL) and cards like High Perfect Morcant.

It wasn't bad, but it felt like I wasn't maximizing the Elf package. I really wanted to try out Elrond, Moon-Reader, and he has proven powerful enough on his own to suggest Simic () as a better build.

It's possible there's a Sultai () version that's best but given the speed of Standard and how fast you're punished for missing a Land drop of a required color, it will warrant a lot more testing.

Early versions also focused on using some interaction spells, Requiting Hex for the Golgari version and Into the Flood Maw for the Simic. I eventually decided to go all in and make the deck as fast as possible, which meant cutting the interaction to cram as many Elves in the deck as we could fit.

With cards like Cantankerous Keepers and Woodland Weavemaster you have to look at every non-Elf card in the deck very closely, as each of them dilute the Elf count and lower the overall cohesiveness of the deck.

Card Choices

Elrond, Moon-Reader

We had this listed as the best card in the HOB set and this is a deck that really highlights that potential. Most of the Creatures in the deck have an Activated Ability that trigger Elrond's Draw Ability, and cards like Tyvar, the Pummeler and Formidable Speaker can be manipulated to ensure that Elrond triggers on both your turn and your opponent's.

You can even use Ba Sing Se to turn a Land into a Creature, tap the Creature for mana, and draw a card. On top of that, cards like Elvish Archdruid and Woodland Weavemaster can generate enough mana to make the Blink Ability on Elrond consistently available.

Down in the Valley

Down in the Valley has been fantastic in testing, and it pairs with Elven Passage so well that I've contemplated running more Fetch Lands to maximize the token making Chapters. This is just a fantastic card at every point, smoothing out your mana base, creating Elf tokens, and even pumping the team.

The fact that it also gives your Creatures Vigilance seems minor at first, but it allows for some wild attack steps, especially with mana Creatures and Tyvar, the Pummeler.

That said, there is a real cost to including this card, as it will not count as an Elf itself, to be found by cards like Cantankerous Keepers or Formidable Speaker, or to Behold an Elven Passage. I understand why they didn't give it the Kindred-Elf designation, but it would have made an already great card so much better.

Cantankerous Keepers

There wasn't an Elf player on the planet who didn't sit up and take notice the moment Cantankerous Keepers was spoiled, and it's been as good as advertised. Affinity for Elves means this rarely costs more than three mana, but even if you're paying full price, it's worth it to have this refill your hand.

And, when you find a second Keeper off the first, and you start chaining these together for one mana, you can out value any deck that's not running a board wipe.

Woodland Weavemaster

Honestly, Woodland Weavemaster was originally included just because I needed more two-drops. It didn't seem all that special at first, but it didn't take more than a couple games to see that this card is ridiculous.

If it added mana for any Creature, and not just for Elves, I dare say it would be strong enough to be banned in multiple formats. The fact that it counts any buffs, making Down in the Valley and Elvish Archdruid's buffs into additional mana, allows this to frequently provide enough mana to cast every card in your hand.

And the fact that it has Vigilance allows it to swing into battle and to be used to activate Tyvar's pump ability mid-combat. It's not uncommon to attack with this, use mana to activate Tyvar the first time, and then activate Tyvar additional times based off of the mana provided by the attacking Weavemaster, killing your opponent on the spot.

Don't sleep on this card, it's performed better than anything else in the deck.

Tyvar, the Pummeler

Tyvar, the Pummeler might be the hottest card in all of Magic right now and it seems tailor made for this deck. His tap ability is a great way to make sure you can consistently draw cards with Elrond, and his pump ability will end most games.

It's possible I should be running the full playset of Tyvar here, but I've defaulted to running a couple Formidable Speaker instead, to give the deck a bit more of a toolbox aspect.

Conclusions

I'm not wild about every Elf in the deck, but it felt like going with less than 32 Elves made the deck too diluted. Cards like Virulent Emissary and a single Druid of the Cowl were included over a card like Champions of the Perfect to lower the mana curve of the deck.

And it looks like that was by design, as there are very few one and two mana Elves printed in Standard at the moment. I will monitor every spoiler in every set in the coming year with an eye towards cheap Elves with this in mind.

Overall, Elves is an interesting threat for Standard, as it can go wide and hit hard, while doing so as fast as the best decks in the format.

That's not to say that the deck is unbeatable of course. It really does need a couple more pieces in the one-drop and/or two-drop slot, as it gets bogged down with three drops at times. Still, the power is here, and I think this has the potential to be one of the best decks in the format at some point.