Hello folks and welcome back to all things Aether Revolt! Have you had a good time getting to know the cards and powerhouses? With the set now released and getting cracked worldwide, what are the cards you are drawn to?

Now it’s time to actually build some decks, right?

I have a few more decks today that inspired me. All of these came from the prelease, and were ideas I had based on playing that weekend, with what worked. So I have a few synergies for you below, and some decks to really use them!

Let’s start with a deck I’m building right now!

Do you remember Gurmag Angler? It was a junk card for a while — just an expensive 5/5 with a cost reduction ability. But it eventually saw so much play in the right shells that people were calling it one of the best creatures from its set.

Could Aether Revolt have a few Gurmag Anglers?

Standard Improvise ? Aether Revolt Standard | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (15)
• 2 Herald of Anguish
• 3 Bastion Inventor
• 4 Gearseeker Serpent
• 4 Wind-Kin Raiders
• 2 Ornithopter

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Tezzeret the Schemer

• Enchantments (3)
• 3 Tezzeret's Touch

• Artifacts (16)
• 2 Metalspinner's Puzzleknot
• 2 Prophetic Prism
• 4 Cogworker's Puzzleknot
• 4 Inventor's Goggles
• 4 Servo Schematic

• Lands (24)
• 6 Island
• 6 Swamp
• 2 Inventors' Fair
• 3 Choked Estuary
• 3 Sunken Hollow
• 4 Spire of Industry

Buy This Deck

You want to drop the Inventor's Goggles on turn one. Go land and Goggles. Yay for one artifact! Then on turn two you drop one of your eight artifact + Servo token cards. That means on turn three, you’ll have three lands and three artifacts. Now what?

Play Wind-Kin Raiders for 3 mana and tap the triad of artifacts to improvise it out. It’s a 4/3 flyer for now-3 mana, and that’s a pretty good deal, right? Right! Now a 4/3 is a 5 turn clock but is vulnerable to a lot of Standard removal like Harnessed Lightning and Yahenni's Expertise. So that’s not great. But luckily you have that previously-janky Goggles on turn one. Because guess what Wind-Kin Raiders says on its type line? Yup! Artificer. That’s a free equip for your troubles. Well now it’s a 5/5 flyer, much more durable, and one turn faster.

Now that you’ve got that ideal core, what do you do in turn four? You have a lot of powerful options:

A few notes. The big creatures in this deck avoid the issue of Fatal Push. You could run some disruption of your own, with some counters or removal instead of the cards above. You might want White mana to sacrifice the Cogworker's Puzzleknot for another Servo token in case of need, so we have it from the four Spires, the Tezzeret the Schemers, and two Prisms. This deck can fuel out a ton of creatures of size very quickly. And maybe a fast vehicle that can normally tap for improvise, but can be crewed by a beater that was newly minted would make sense.

One card I’ve not played around with is Paradox Engine. It’ a 5-drop that can play weirdly. You can tap your artifacts, and Paradox Engine for improvise, and then untap them with the Engine’s trigger. I don’t know if that works here. It’s just a 5-drop, and by that time, you’ve likely burned out a bunch of beaters, but I wanted to put it on your radar just in case. Could we run Sly Requisitioner? You could get it turn three, and it’s an Artificer as well, and start making Servos as folks kill your artifacts (or as you sacrifice them for various effects). What about Underhanded Designs? Barricade Breaker? Battle at the Bridge? Fatal Push? Disallow? Metalwork Colossus? Noxious Gearhulk? Whir of Invention? Contraband Kingpin? Clue makers like Confirm Suspicions or Ongoing Investigation?

You could splash Red for Maverick Thopterist, Pia Nalaar, or Reckless Fireweaver.

Well, you get the idea!

I like improvise, so next, let’s find a fun non-Standard way to abuse it . . . 

Creatively Indomitable ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (16)
• 1 Barricade Breaker
• 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
• 1 Emrakul, the Promised End
• 1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
• 1 Metalwork Colossus
• 1 Myr Battlesphere
• 1 Thopter Assembly
• 1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
• 1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
• 2 Hangarback Walker
• 2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
• 3 Goblin Welder

• Instants (1)
• 1 Comet Storm

• Sorceries (5)
• 2 Rolling Earthquake
• 3 Indomitable Creativity

• Artifacts (14)
• 1 Ichor Wellspring
• 1 Mycosynth Wellspring
• 1 Sol Ring
• 2 Coldsteel Heart
• 2 Scroll Rack
• 3 Inspiring Statuary
• 4 Servo Schematic

• Lands (24)
• 18 Snow-Covered Mountain
• 2 Inventors' Fair
• 4 Great Furnace

Buy This Deck

The other major synergy in here is the Creativity. You can turn it on your own stuff, ideally cards like Servo, Myr, and Thopter tokens as well as Servo Schematic and the Wellsprings. Destroy them, and then flip over and put a lot of cards right onto the battlefield. Everything from Emrakul, the Aeons Torn to Myr Battlesphere and more are great flips. I only have 2 creatures or artifacts that are bad flips — the pair of Hangarback Walkers. But they are good enough for the deck to be here. You can also turn the Creativity and hit any really bad or egregious artifacts and creatures your opponent’s may have. It’s worth destroying a card like Spirit of the Night, Mind's Eye, or Consecrated Sphinx. What is randomly swapped out is usually worth it.

Blow stuff up, churn out some Eldrazi, and pretty much get down tonight. It seems like the perfect party.

What else intrigues me?

Take a look at Consulate Crackdown. When this cheap 5 mana enchantment hits the battlefield, all artifacts all opponents control head out until the Crackdown, Note that means it works on every artifact controlled by multiple foes with multiplayer games, Commander, and more, right? Right!

So what happens if your opponents have a lot of artifacts? Imagine if there was a permanent that would turn all of your opponent’s permanents into artifacts. Wouldn’t that be sick? Then when the Crackdown arrived, every permanent would leave, and it would be nice on impossible to dial yourself back into the fame, or to kill the Crackdown and get all of those artifacts back . . . 

Well there is such a card. Check out Mycosynth Lattice . . . 

Crack that Lattice ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (4)
• 2 Quicksmith Spy
• 2 Barricade Breaker

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Dovin Baan

• Instants (11)
• 1 Enlightened Tutor
• 2 Capsize
• 2 Desertion
• 2 Dismantling Blow
• 2 Dissipate
• 2 Whir of Invention

• Sorceries (2)
• 2 Open the Vaults

• Enchantments (8)
• 4 Consulate Crackdown
• 4 Propaganda

• Artifacts (9)
• 1 Planar Bridge
• 4 Mycosynth Lattice
• 4 Ojutai Monument

• Lands (24)
• 11 Island
• 11 Plains
• 2 Buried Ruin

Buy This Deck

Now the Lattice feels like the best friend of a lot of cards in Aether Revolt (but it’s a non-operating combo with Inspiring Statuary, so don’t head down that path). But you can see the value the Lattice brings to the Crackdown in particular here. It’s great! You have a lot of power and threat levels here to smash with. The deck above is a quick little deck I grabbed, but given the number of decks out there already with Lattices in them, the Crackdown is a huge addition. Enjoy it!

I don’t know if you have heard or not, but Aether Revolt has a bit of an artifact theme, along with its senior partner, Kaladesh. Now I’ve used a lot of artifact fun times above, with improvises and even a Mycosynth Lattice. But do you know what? We have a lot of non-artifact cards in the set too! So how about a deck without any artifacts at all?

Mono-Blue Control ? Aether Revolt Standard | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (13)
• 1 Docent of Perfection
• 2 Sphinx of the Final Word
• 3 Baral, Chief of Compliance
• 3 Thing in the Ice
• 4 Curious Homunculus

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets

• Instants (12)
• 2 Glimmer of Genius
• 2 Insidious Will
• 2 Negate
• 2 Scatter to the Winds
• 4 Disallow

• Sorceries (6)
• 1 Rise from the Tides
• 2 Ugin's Insight
• 3 Crush of Tentacles

• Enchantments (3)
• 3 Metallurgic Summonings

• Lands (24)
• 24 Island

Buy This Deck

I really like the large amount of quality counters and other control forces out there right now. I felt a fun control deck in the classic style would be cool. I know I like this Mono-Blue control shell, and I was looking at marrying it to either Black’s Yahenni's Expertise or White’s Fumigate or Planar Outburst. But I chose to stay in my Mono-Blue lane instead. You could add in some Gearhulks or something as well. Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper? Or even Red with Mercurial Geists, Pyre Hound, Thermo-Alchemist, Weaver of Lightning, and Goblin Dark-Dwellers. Trail of Evidence? I decided to go Mono-Blue leaning on Crush of Tentacles instead.

Aether Revolt seems pretty deep, with some more great cards from the fun plane of Kaladesh hitting the streets. Here are four more decks that all use a bunch of AER cards to push your table around for your next Magic night. I hope you found something in here to enjoy!