Hello everyone! My name is Nemanja Bojanic, but many of you may know me as “Nic” from the YouTube channel AbsoluteMTG. I have been producing Magic: The Gathering content on the internet since 2010, and have been competitively grinding events since the introduction of the Return to Ravnica block in 2012. While I enjoy maneuvering through the complex board states of just about every format except Vintage, my main format of choice is Standard. Today, I’ll be talking about the key to dominating the Aether Revolt Standard format in light of my performance at Grand Prix (GP) Pittsburgh.

First and foremost, the deck I chose to play for GP Pittsburgh was Black–Green Constrictor aggro due to its ability to answer the attrition and speed of the Mardu Vehicles deck, while also providing a solid gameplan against the rest of the field. My day one performance broke down into: 2–0 start due to byes, 5–0 vs. BG variants, 0–1 vs. Jeskai Combo-less Control, and 1–0 vs. Mardu Vehicles. Overall, my 8–1 performance put me in 15th place at the end of the day, with a collective three games lost across all matches. Day two fared a bit worse for me, with a spread of: 1–2 vs. Mardu Vehicles, 0–1 vs. 4-Color Saheeli/Aetherworks, 1–0 vs. RUG Aetherworks, and 1–0 vs. BG Constrictor. My 11–4 record placed me in 44th place and allowed me to both cash out and earn two Pro Points for the season.

Here's the deck I played:

Black/Green Constrictor

Creatures

4 Winding Constrictor

4 Sylvan Advocate

4 Walking Ballista

3 Rishkar, Peema Renegade

2 Tireless Tracker

2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

4 Verdurous Gearhulk

Planeswalkers

1 Liliana, the Last Hope

Spells

4 Fatal Push

3 Oath of Nissa

2 Blossoming Defense

2 Grasp of Darkness

1 Ruinous Path

Lands

4 Blooming Marsh

4 Hissing Quagmire

3 Evolving Wilds

7 Swamp

6 Forest



Sideboard



1 Tireless Tracker

2 Scrapheap Scrounger

1 Liliana, the Last Hope

1 Flaying Tendrils

1 To the Slaughter

1 Ruinous Path

2 Transgress the Mind

1 Ishkanah, Grafwidow

1 Natural State

2 Lost Legacy

2 Ob Nixilis Reignited



There are quite a few things that you might notice about this list at a glance, the first being that it is very similar to Ryan Hare’s winning decklist from the very same Grand Prix. It seems as though both Ryan and I were on the same gameplan for our BG strategy: Omit cards like Grim Flayer and Glint-Sleeve Siphoner for more powerful options. Moving away from both the Delirium and Energy synergies that exist in this archetype allows us to play cards like Sylvan Advocate that function without needing to see other cards in our deck alongside it. Remarkably, one of the biggest upsides that Sylvan Advocate has outside of its late-game scaling is the fact that it does not die to the single copy of Shock that the Mardu decks will, on average, play in the mainboard.

The downside of this deck is that it is not a very simple deck to pilot and it does require some previous practice and knowledge of the format to master its intricacies. For you Hearthstone players out there, the playstyle of the deck is very similar to that of the Pirate Warrior deck post-release of “Mean Streets of Gadgetzan.” For the rest of you, the deck offers a wide decision tree of potential plays that scale in how optimal they are based on what you’re playing against. For example, you don’t want to go all-in on your Verdurous Gearhulk counter allotment on one creature when you’re playing against a deck that has the potential to play cards such as Murder or Unlicensed Disintegration that will easily kill it. However, you are sometimes able to comfortably commit all of your +1/+1 counter–producing resources on a Walking Ballista that could kill your opponent's entire board even if they threaten to kill it at any point.

The biggest synergy enabler that we have in the deck is Winding Constrictor. A turn two Constrictor into a turn three Rishkar allows you to distribute two counters on both creatures and for you to attack in for four with your snake on that turn. Placing counters on Sylvan Advocate with Rishkar allows you to be able to attack with the Advocate for the turn and then tap it in your second main phase for mana. Similarly, you can also choose to be reactive and keep your +1/+1–bearing Sylvan Advocate untapped so you can cast a Blossoming Defense in response to an opponent’s removal effect. Another vital aspect of the deck is the ease in enabling the “Revolt” clause on Fatal Push. Walking Ballista, Tireless Tracker, Evolving Wilds, and Oath of Nissa are all cards that can uniquely impact your resolution of Fatal Push to kill off one of your opponent’s important three or four–mana creatures. Tracker and Oath require a little bit more maneuvering to pull off—because you need to invest mana in cracking clues and you need to play a second Oath—but are still effective ways to trigger Revolt.



After 15 rounds of competitive play, there is very little that I want to change from this list. All of the mainboard inclusions were deliberately made in understanding that GB and Mardu would likely be the most played decks in the room after the Pro Tour results showing six Vehicle decks in the Top 8. The most underwhelming cards in the sideboard were the two Scrapheap Scroungers and the additional copy of Liliana, the Last Hope. Scrounger was in the sideboard to pound through any removal that control decks would throw my way, but I would have rather had two more copies of Transgress the Mind against Control, Aetherworks, 4-Color Saheeli, and other similar decks. I included another copy of Liliana to be able to slow down the tempo of the Vehicles decks, but I would have rather had another copy of Flaying Tendrils each time I held her in my hand. Moving forward, my sideboard would look like this:

1 Tireless Tracker

2 Flaying Tendrils

1 To the Slaughter

1 Ruinous Path

4 Transgress the Mind

1 Ishkanah, Grafwidow

1 Natural State

2 Lost Legacy

2 Ob Nixilis Reignited

Sideboarding Guide

With this sideboard guide, we’ll be discussing the three most popular decks of the format: Mardu Vehicles, BG Counters (Constrictor), and Jeskai Saheeli. You can port over the methodology of sideboarding discussed in these match-ups for other decks you might encounter that require similar maneuvering.



Mardu Vehicles

-2 Tireless Tracker

-1 Rishkar, Peema Renegade

-3 Oath of Nissa

+2 Flaying Tendrils

+1 Ishkanah, Grafwidow

+1 Natural State

+1 Ruinous Path

+1 To the Slaughter



Mardu Vehicles is probably your toughest match-up only because of how powerful their board state can become once they get rolling. Tracker and Rishkar are a bit too slow so you want to shave some copies out of the maindeck, and the removal you bring in is much more powerful than the filtering from the Oaths. The way I like to look at it is that each copy of Oath becomes one of the singleton removal spells that is being brought in from the sideboard. As long as you can clear the sky of any Heart of Kirans while killing any and all Chandras and Gideons that roam your opponent’s board, you’ll easily win the match.





B/G Counters

On the Draw:

-2 Sylvan Advocate

-2 Blossoming Defense

-2 Walking Ballista

+1 [[Ishkana, Grafwidow]]

+1 Tireless Tracker

+1 Ruinous Path

+1 To the Slaughter

+2 [[Ob Nixilis, Reignited]]

On the Play:

-2 Walking Ballista

-1 Rishkar, Peema Renegade

-1 Sylvan Advocate

-1 Blossoming Defense

+1 Tireless Tracker

+1 Ruinous Path

+1 To the Slaughter

+2 [[Ob Nixilis, Reignited]]

There is a huge shift in how you want to approach the mirror match based on whether you are on the play or on the draw. While on the draw, you want to be more reactive to an opponent’s plays, keeping removal open to answer their cards one-for-one instead of just slamming dudes on the table. Why is slamming dudes on the table bad when you’re on the draw? You’re always going to be a turn behind your opponent. If an opponent slams a Winding Constrictor onto the table turn two, not killing it and playing a creature of you own will likely result in the opponent either killing the turn two–creature and attacking directly, or worse: They could reach for insane synergies on curve like Rishkar on turn three.

While you’re on the play, the role is reversed and you get to be the aggressor. Granted, either player can disrupt these roles by having perfectly timed removal—having black mana open on turn one with a Fatal Push in hand, for example—but you’re much more likely to curve into your good stuff while on the play. If you can make your board bigger than your opponent’s, you can simply win the game with an army of +1/+1 counter–bearing dudes. Most times you can easily overwhelm your opponent because a turn three Rishkar means you’ll have two extra mana to work with on your following turn.







Jeskai Saheeli

-3 Rishkar, Peema Renegade

-2 Oath of Nissa

-1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

-2 Walking Ballista

-1 Fatal Push

+1 Tireless Tracker

+1 To the Slaughter

+1 Ruinous Path

+2 Lost Legacy

+4 Transgress the Mind



If someone told me that I could choose any deck to play against for an entire tournament’s duration, the last thing you’d hear me reply back with is “Jeskai Saheeli.” Although I spent a fair amount of time playing the deck at the start of the Aether Revolt season, I despise playing against it for the same reason I have despised playing against Splinter Twin in both Standard and Modern: If you don’t have the answers when they go to combo, you lose the game because of a two-card strategy. Lost Legacy allows us to be able to play a fair game of Magic if it resolves. If our opponent utters the sweet words: “What are you naming?”, we get to rip all copies of Saheeli from their deck, leaving them with their subpar Felidars that will only punish us if we can’t beat them before they resolve numerous Gearhulks. One vital thing to remember is that your opponent does not get to know what your Lost Legacy choice is until the card resolves; asking you for your choice is an allowance of the resolution of the card.

Alternatively, if you’re holding cards in your hand that can answer the combo at instant speed, you can use Lost Legacy to name Fumigate so that your opponent can’t answer your developed board, Glimmer of Genius so they can’t find important cards, or Disallow so they don’t get to be the “fun police” during the game. Not being able to name Torrential Gearhulk is a bummer but you can win the majority of games against Control variants just by being the better player.

Wrap Up

I believe that BG Constrictor is the best deck in the format, and that the Delirium-less, Energy-less strategy is the most powerful one to be playing right now. If you want to invest your faith in any deck for competitive play and master it, use my GP Pittsburgh deck as a shell and make adjustments to your suiting. You will not be disappointed with your results if you invest the effort. Take your time and playtest the mirror match heavily because it’ll likely be the one that you’ll play against the most.

Until next time, thank you for reading and I wish you the best of luck in the rest of this season! If you need to find me, I’ll be in a cave playtesting the BG mirror for my Regional Pro Tour Qualifier at the beginning of March. You bring the snacks, I’ll bring the dice for our Constrictor board states.