TheInfamousBearAssassin
04-01-2005, 01:48 AM
Give me those sweet, sweet, tasty FNM AK's.
Decklist;
16x Forest
4x Wirewood Symbiote
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Fyndhorn Elves
4x Priest of Titania
1x Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
4x Wood Elves
4x Fierce Empath
4x Sylvan Messenger
4x Deranged Hermit
4x Food chain
1x Triskellion
1x Brass Herald
1x Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
2x Sundering Titan
1x Myojin of Night's Reach
1x Myojin of Infinite Rage
Sideboard:
1x Myojin of Cleansing Fire
1x Duplicant
1x Phantom Nishoba
1x Furnace Dragon
3x Sword of Fire and Ice
4x Naturalize
4x Call of the Herd
How the deck works;
Play Elves. Play out mana-Elves, accelerate into card advantage elves, use Symbiote to keep bouncing Wood Elves/Sylvan Messenger/Fierce Empath/Deranged Hermit, while producing mana by untapping Llanowars/Priests. Overwhelm them with numbers. If you get a Food Chain into play you should win.
Specifics; First turn Elves are really, really good. Most hands that don't involve all land, no land, or no spells with casting cost < 3 are keepable; although in some matchups you really have to dig for the Food Chain (usually against combo). Against Aggro you usually don't have to bother with it; it's overkill. You are faster than a lot of the combo in the format, though, sometimes even without a Food Chain. The ideal combo off of Food Chain usually involves casting both Myojin, leaving your opponent hopefully stranded (with Trisk to clean up whatever they might've dropped). Kamahl is the winner of games, smashing over chumpblockers and counteracting Wrath of God effects.
Matchups;
ATS: My record is 4-4 against this deck. Like most Survival decks, if you lose it's generally because two things happened;
a) They got a Survival into play, and
b) You didn't get a Food Chain on the board.
Of course, ATS runs tutors for a and counters for b, so it's not really favored like other Survival builds. Of the games I won, twice I comboed off and twice I got into fast fat beats with Titans and Trisk. You really really really want to play first against this deck.
It should be noted that the build I was playing against was using Masticore instead of Sharpshooter.
Eight games isn't enough to say for sure, but this matchup doesn't appear extremely favored either way, although it probably leans more towards being good for them.
Landstill: Extremely unfavorable. Counters, plus Swords, plus Disenchant, plus Wrath, plus Humility either in the side of main means you have to get extremely lucky or they have to be extremely unlucky for you to win. I would say 70-30 in their favor.
Enchantress: Most of my testing against Enchantress was done with older, pretty much worse builds, but then it was almost exactly 50-50. I would say it probably stays at least even, probably favored to you now pre-sideboard.
Goblins: Around 70-30 in your favor. Sligh doesn't have enough burn to deal with your creatures, none of the builds can usually get a Lackey through, and a Food Chain usually means you win. Deranged Hermit is nuts against Gobvantage in particular. Their only real power card is Sharpshooter. Avoid it by winning first, or get a Trisk into play, or just get too much fat for them to deal with by the time they get an active Sharpshooter going.
Nausea: Something like 48-52. Their Helm can often fuel your win. They also kill themselves a lot or fizzle out. A bit of a swingy matchup, if you're not going first, you want to mull down until you see the Chain if you can.
Solidarity: Their combo is slower, but they also have Force of Will. On the other hand, Force of Will hurts them a lot. If they have a good hand and you can't Chain off, you'll likely lose, and if you have the Chain and they can't force, you'll win. Often if they do Force you'll still win, because it hurts their speed quite a bit. I would say this is about 54-57% favorable.
Pox: Gets crushed hardcore. They don't have anywhere near the amount of creature hate they want. You can fuel out way too much mana, ignore Wastelands, and often empty hands before they can be discarded. They also have no answer to the Food Chain combo, and their kill is often too slow (also you can refill your hand too quickly for the Rack to really hurt). 70% in your favor.
The deck's greatest strength is the dual nature of it's strategies. If you remove the Food Chains the deck still can win games, which is what seperates it from most other combo in the format. While a Food Chain on the board usually gives you the game, the rest of the time it becomes a very decent aggressive card advantage and mana ramping elf deck capable of dropping large bombs turns 3-4. It's biggest weakness is the combo against control; they can usually save a Force for the first bomb and gain massive card advantage, and it's difficult to play around without the nuts draw. The best strategy against control is to side out the combo pieces for Swords, Calls, and often Naturalizes. Active Sharpshooters are also bad news, but most decks that play the card can't get it into play and active fast and reliably enough to make those matchups unfavorable.
Some notes;
Some people will point out this deck missed the contest deadline by two days. I have several counterpoints to this;
1)
Acceptable Entries:
1. The deck’s concept must be generally new and original. Something like Mosh (http://mtgthesource.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=849) (Elves and Food Chain) would be considered a fine entry
2) It's two days. Deal. The deadline was arbitrary.
3) This build differs from the original decklist by six total cards, and a complete sideboard.
4) At any rate, I, as a Moderator, will not abuse my status by editing other's posts, or at the very least I will put my new text in red so as to differentiate it from that original post's content and identify myself afterwards as most of the moderators do.
Decklist;
16x Forest
4x Wirewood Symbiote
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Fyndhorn Elves
4x Priest of Titania
1x Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
4x Wood Elves
4x Fierce Empath
4x Sylvan Messenger
4x Deranged Hermit
4x Food chain
1x Triskellion
1x Brass Herald
1x Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
2x Sundering Titan
1x Myojin of Night's Reach
1x Myojin of Infinite Rage
Sideboard:
1x Myojin of Cleansing Fire
1x Duplicant
1x Phantom Nishoba
1x Furnace Dragon
3x Sword of Fire and Ice
4x Naturalize
4x Call of the Herd
How the deck works;
Play Elves. Play out mana-Elves, accelerate into card advantage elves, use Symbiote to keep bouncing Wood Elves/Sylvan Messenger/Fierce Empath/Deranged Hermit, while producing mana by untapping Llanowars/Priests. Overwhelm them with numbers. If you get a Food Chain into play you should win.
Specifics; First turn Elves are really, really good. Most hands that don't involve all land, no land, or no spells with casting cost < 3 are keepable; although in some matchups you really have to dig for the Food Chain (usually against combo). Against Aggro you usually don't have to bother with it; it's overkill. You are faster than a lot of the combo in the format, though, sometimes even without a Food Chain. The ideal combo off of Food Chain usually involves casting both Myojin, leaving your opponent hopefully stranded (with Trisk to clean up whatever they might've dropped). Kamahl is the winner of games, smashing over chumpblockers and counteracting Wrath of God effects.
Matchups;
ATS: My record is 4-4 against this deck. Like most Survival decks, if you lose it's generally because two things happened;
a) They got a Survival into play, and
b) You didn't get a Food Chain on the board.
Of course, ATS runs tutors for a and counters for b, so it's not really favored like other Survival builds. Of the games I won, twice I comboed off and twice I got into fast fat beats with Titans and Trisk. You really really really want to play first against this deck.
It should be noted that the build I was playing against was using Masticore instead of Sharpshooter.
Eight games isn't enough to say for sure, but this matchup doesn't appear extremely favored either way, although it probably leans more towards being good for them.
Landstill: Extremely unfavorable. Counters, plus Swords, plus Disenchant, plus Wrath, plus Humility either in the side of main means you have to get extremely lucky or they have to be extremely unlucky for you to win. I would say 70-30 in their favor.
Enchantress: Most of my testing against Enchantress was done with older, pretty much worse builds, but then it was almost exactly 50-50. I would say it probably stays at least even, probably favored to you now pre-sideboard.
Goblins: Around 70-30 in your favor. Sligh doesn't have enough burn to deal with your creatures, none of the builds can usually get a Lackey through, and a Food Chain usually means you win. Deranged Hermit is nuts against Gobvantage in particular. Their only real power card is Sharpshooter. Avoid it by winning first, or get a Trisk into play, or just get too much fat for them to deal with by the time they get an active Sharpshooter going.
Nausea: Something like 48-52. Their Helm can often fuel your win. They also kill themselves a lot or fizzle out. A bit of a swingy matchup, if you're not going first, you want to mull down until you see the Chain if you can.
Solidarity: Their combo is slower, but they also have Force of Will. On the other hand, Force of Will hurts them a lot. If they have a good hand and you can't Chain off, you'll likely lose, and if you have the Chain and they can't force, you'll win. Often if they do Force you'll still win, because it hurts their speed quite a bit. I would say this is about 54-57% favorable.
Pox: Gets crushed hardcore. They don't have anywhere near the amount of creature hate they want. You can fuel out way too much mana, ignore Wastelands, and often empty hands before they can be discarded. They also have no answer to the Food Chain combo, and their kill is often too slow (also you can refill your hand too quickly for the Rack to really hurt). 70% in your favor.
The deck's greatest strength is the dual nature of it's strategies. If you remove the Food Chains the deck still can win games, which is what seperates it from most other combo in the format. While a Food Chain on the board usually gives you the game, the rest of the time it becomes a very decent aggressive card advantage and mana ramping elf deck capable of dropping large bombs turns 3-4. It's biggest weakness is the combo against control; they can usually save a Force for the first bomb and gain massive card advantage, and it's difficult to play around without the nuts draw. The best strategy against control is to side out the combo pieces for Swords, Calls, and often Naturalizes. Active Sharpshooters are also bad news, but most decks that play the card can't get it into play and active fast and reliably enough to make those matchups unfavorable.
Some notes;
Some people will point out this deck missed the contest deadline by two days. I have several counterpoints to this;
1)
Acceptable Entries:
1. The deck’s concept must be generally new and original. Something like Mosh (http://mtgthesource.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=849) (Elves and Food Chain) would be considered a fine entry
2) It's two days. Deal. The deadline was arbitrary.
3) This build differs from the original decklist by six total cards, and a complete sideboard.
4) At any rate, I, as a Moderator, will not abuse my status by editing other's posts, or at the very least I will put my new text in red so as to differentiate it from that original post's content and identify myself afterwards as most of the moderators do.