Aether Fulx

Concept

Aether Flux is a tempo deck that uses bounce and tap effects to keep the opponent from setting up an effective defense.

Game Plan

The deck aims to play cheap creatures with powerful ETB effects like bounce, blink, and tap, that help slowing down the opponent, remove blockers and gain a substantial, even though temporary, advantage on the battlefield.

The key to playing the deck is tempo. Which means, making sure opponent's game plan is slowed down, or otherwise disrupted, long enough to allow your cheap creatures to finish them off.

Essentially, you want to keep your opponents from moving past the early stage of the game, while you roll over them.

Opponent's creatures may be stronger/bigger; however, they are not going to win them the game if they are constantly bounced back to their hand or tapped/blinked and unable to attack/block, while your creatures attack unguarded...

Deck Composition

The many versions of this deck always rely heavily on cheap creatures with powerful ETB effects and only include a few non-creature spells.

I like to group the cards in this deck in four packages:

• bounce

• incapacitate

• utility

• recycle

It is important to note that some cards fit more than one package, which gives the deck extra flexibility and strength.

The bounce package

is a key enabler for the deck's game plan. Bouncing opponent's most expensive creature opens up for attacking and, by forcing them to recast it next turn, is essentially equivalent to time walking them... It is this key feature that makes the bounce package very strong and central to the deck's game plan.

The bounce package normally includes 4-8 cards like: Aether Adept, Man-o'-War, and Mist Raven.

The incapacitate package

is another fundamental piece, it allows you to either tap or blink out of existence the most powerful creature(s) the opponent has on the battlefield, while you attack freely.

Most tappers make opponent's creatures unable to block for two of your attack phases. Blinkers instead can remove blockers for just one attack phase; however, they can permanently get rid of token creatures and, in some cases, particularly annoying non-creature tokens.

The incapacitate package typically includes 4-8 cards in a combination of tappers and blinkers like: Kor Hookmaster, Subjugator Angel, Watertrap Weaver, Frost Lynx, Mistmeadow Witch, and Glimmerpoint Stag.

The utility package

rounds out the deck's creatures arsenal, while providing support for some useful abilities like card-draw, scry, life-gain, token creature generation, and even tutoring for more creatures!

The utility package normally includes 4-8 creatures in various combinations of cards like: Thraben Inspector, Lone Missionary, Glint-Sleeve Artisan, Pattern Matcher, Cloudkin Seer, Elite Guardmage, Sage's Row Savant, and Aven Riftwatcher.

The recycle package

last but not least, is probably the most important part of the deck. It provides the extra boost which is sometimes necessary to finish close games.

It allows squeezing some extra value from your creatures on the battlefield and it helps delivering the final punch. This is normally done by either blinking or bouncing your own ETB creatures by means of other creatures, or instant and sorcery spells.

The recycle package usually includes 3-6 creature that target your own permanents and 6-10 instant/sorcery cards like: Deputy of Acquittals, Whitemane Lion, Mistmeadow Witch, Glimmerpoint Stag, Essence Flux, Peel from Reality, Ghostly Flicker, and Momentary Blink.

In addition, several of the key creatures in the bounce and incapacitate packages can double down as recycle players, when you use them to target your own creatures and permanents. For this reason, cards like Man-o'-war and Mistmeadow Witch are among the most versatile and powerful in the deck..  

Conclusion

Aether Flux, due to the versatility of its cards, can play well as an all-out-aggressive tempo deck against decks that are not super fast, but it can also play a more control-ish game against aggressive decks.

Signature Cards