Llanowar Elves is about to be back in Standard, which unless you’ve been living under a rock (should work on that) or don’t check Twitter (reasonable), you know is a big deal. It has been since Magic 2015 that we’ve seen Elvish Mystic (Llanowar’s more multi-plane friendly cousin) on turn one. Turn-two mana acceleration was lacking for a bit since Sylvan Caryatid, until Servant of the Conduit came along. Many players assumed good mana dorks went the way of the two-mana counterspell, and was something players would have to play older formats to get their fix. But Dominaria is coming to bring hope and joy to those of us who like casting their three-drops ahead of the curve. Seeing it made me think back on how we got to this point which interestingly enough is around when I started playing Magic.
Plenty of decks have played Llanowar Elves and Birds of Paradise together in the same deck. But the first deck players think of when they think of those two together is the Mercadian Masques-Invasion Standard deck Fires. The mana acceleration turned a deck that won with 4 and 5 drops (a mid-range deck by today’s standards) into a blazing fast aggro deck. With Blastoderm having Shroud and Saproling Burst making multiple creatures it was also very difficult to disrupt. Here’s the list that Rob Dougherty played to a Semifinal finish at PT Chicago 2000:
Fires: Rob Dougherty PT Chicago 2000 Semifinals
Creatures: 19
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Blastoderm
4 River Boa
2 Jade Leech
1 Ancient HydraSpells: 18
4 Fires of Yavimaya
4 Saproling Burst
4 Chimeric Idol
4 Rhystic Lightning
2 EarthquakeLands: 23
11 Forest
4 Karplusan Forest
5 Mountain
3 Rishadan Port
Planeshift would go on to add Flametongue Kavu to the deck, really sending it over the top. While the deck would not survive Masques block rotating out of Standard, the deck made its mark and would be the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of one-drop accelerators in Standard.
Eighth Edition marked the 10th anniversary of Magic and with it a new type of promotion: Selecting Eighth Edition. Players would actually get to vote for what cards appeared in the set! With it came a caveat, though. Wizards flat out stated that Standard wasn’t big enough for two 1-drop accelerators. So players had a choice between Birds of Paradise/Vine Trellis or Llanowar Elves/Utopia Tree. With almost 70% of the vote, the objectively more powerful card, Birds of Paradise, won out. Vine Trellis would even go on to be a player during its run in Standard as well. The victory proved to be short lived, because even though Wizards reran their promotion for Ninth Edition, they made the decision to give Birds of Paradise the axe and put Llanowar Elves back in Standard. Birds of Paradise was put into Ravnica as a last hurrah for its time in Standard…sort of.
As a quick aside, for anyone that complains about Blood Moon or Ensnaring Bridge in Modern. Those were included based on player’s votes. There is no one to blame but ourselves. We could have had Dwarven Miner!
Birds of Paradise and Llanowar Elves would continue to show up together in Core Sets from 10th Edition through Magic 2012. Not much reason was given for reversing their decision within a couple years, but it also didn’t lead to any monstrosities on the level of Fires. If anything the once-bonded brothers of mana acceleration drifted off into different lives. An Extended Elves deck that Luis Scott-Vargas used to win Pro Tour Berlin 2008 was eventually ported to Standard, but its power level was nowhere close and from what I can find didn’t place in any major events. Soon after, Birds of Paradise would be featured in a deck next to what many consider to be an even better Birds of Paradise.
Mythic Conscription: Josh Utter-Leyton US Nationals 2010 Winner
Creatures: 20
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Sovereigns of Lost AlaraSpells: 15
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Mana Leak
2 Explore
2 Eldrazi ConscriptionLands: 25
4 Celestial Colonnade
5 Forest
2 Island
1 Marsh Flats
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Plains
1 Sejiri Steppe
3 Stirring Wildwood
3 Verdant Catacombs
This deck was powerful. Any creature can be a threat when you give it +10/+10, trample, and annihilator 2 essentially for free thanks to Sovereigns of Lost Alara. So why not use mana dorks and the combination of Lotus Cobra plus fetchlands to turbo out your “combo” and broken four-mana planeswalkers? Even with all this power, however, the deck was mostly kept in check by the Bloodbraid Elf-fueled menace that was Jund. After Noble Hierarch rotated out of Standard, Birds of Paradise continued to show up here and there while Llanowar Elves was nearly non-existent until their last appearance in Standard together in Magic 2012. Elvish Mystic being the only reasonable option for awhile would continue to give mana dork fans a toy to play with, but eventually he stopped being reprinted and here we are today.
Llanowar Elves is exciting! I drool at the thought of playing Jadelight Ranger on turn two. Every future three-drop in green for the next year-plus will be under the microscope of “how much better is this on turn two?” With all the talk of how great Standard is by various pros I’m pumped to see what is going to happen at the Pro Tour and how our Dominaria-native Elves will play a part of it. The most logical shell is the red-green Monsters deck that Tyler Schroeder recently won Grand Prix Memphis with. Constrictor decks are also an option but they aren’t as hungry for the mana acceleration and their two-drops are much better.
For players looking for something to tide them over until then and want something fun to play at an FNM, check this out.
Little Kid Green: I Made This 2018
Creatures: 32
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Oviya Pashiri Sage Lifecrafter
4 Rhonas the Indomitable
4 Rhonas Last Stand
4 Jadelight Ranger
4 Steel Leaf Champion
4 Resiliant Khenra
2 Rishkar, Peema Renegade
2 Ghalta, Primal HungerSpells: 8
4 Blossoming Defense
4 Mox AmberLands: 20
4 Hashep Oasis
2 Field of Ruin
14 ForestSideboard: 15
3 Thrashing Brontodon
3 Deathgorge Scavenger
1 Heroic Intervention
1 Monstrous Onslaught
2 Prowling Serpopard
2 Aethersphere Harvester
1 Arborback Stomper
2 Lifecrafter’s Bestiary
While we don’t exactly get two 1-drop accelerators, we can cheat a little bit with the combo of Oviya Pashiri and Mox Amber, also a new card from Dominaria. This may not be the most reliable Mox Amber deck but it does have the upside of no less than three options for playing a five-power creature on turn two, and Jadelight Ranger isn’t a bad failsafe. Personally I’ve been itching to make Rhonas’s Last Stand work and hopefully some mana sources that are unaffected by its drawback will do the trick!
DRAW AND GET A BEER 