Deck Primer / Description

Elves decks start with a handful of seemingly harmless 1/1 creatures... which eventually combine to bring out one huge threat (or more than one if necessary). Creatures like Elvish Mystic and Llanowar Elves can be tapped for mana; combine them with your lands, and you have tremendous mana output that you can spend on huge, destructive threats.

I've used Verdurous Gearhulk for its ability to distribute +1/+1 counters, and End-Raze Forerunners to buff your creatures for a massive stampede. You can replace them with similar large, threatening creatures, preferably with Trample and/or other abilities. Some suggested cards are:

Aggressive Mammoth
Colossal Dreadmaw
Greenwarden of Murasa
Honored Hydra
Mistcutter Hydra
Soul of the Harvest
Terra Stomper
Thorn Mammoth
Wrecking Beast
Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig

If you're not able to find a set of Elvish Mystic and Llanowar Elves, other mana-producing Elves are Druid of the Cowl, Elfhame Druid and Paradise Druid, but these cost 2 mana instead of 1. Saruli Caretaker costs 1 mana and has a similar ability, but the downside is that it relies on having another untapped creature on the battlefield. If you want to dump even more Elves onto the battlefield, consider replacing some or all of Seek the Wilds and/or Icon of Ancestry with Dwynen's Elite.

If you have any Castle Garenbrig or are willing to invest in some, I recommend replacing 2-3 Forests with them. Chord of Calling is an effective (but fairly expensive) way to dig out your big, game-ending creature. Collected Company is also a pricey card, but it's a great way to make sure you always have Elves on the battlefield To ramp up mana production, you may want to invest in a couple of Growing Rites of Itlimoc and replace an [Icon of Ancestry]] and/or a Seek the Wilds with them. Also, you can use Heraldic Banner to replace Icon of Ancestry, and Adventurous Impulse to replace Incbuation//Incongruity or Seek the Wilds.

Below is a list of other cards that you might find useful, either as big, game-ending creatures or to supplement your Elves. However, they may push the deck's price to over $50 USD:

Kalonian Hydra
Vanquisher's Banner
Voracious Hydra
Heroic Intervention
Veil of Summer
Vivien Reid
Vivien, Arkbow Ranger
Westvale Abbey

Lastly, if you'd like to build an Elves deck for Modern or Legacy (and are willing to invest in the cards),there are lots of successful deck lists to be found throughout the internet (starting with this site, mtggoldfish.com).