[Deck] Not quite Elves! !

[Tao]

Yet another Tomb / City based Aggro deck.

This time with Elves. The (updated, thx for the feedback) list:



// Mana
8 [8E] Forest (3)
2 [AT] Pendelhaven
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [EX] City of Traitors
4 [MR] Chrome Mox

// Creatures
4 [AT] Llanowar Elves
4 [IA] Fyndhorn Elves
4 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide

4 [LOR] Wren's Run Vanquisher
4 [AP] Sylvan Messenger
4 [UL] Deranged Hermit
2 [LOR] Wren's Run Packmaster
2 [TSP] Thelonite Hermit

// Spells
3 [LOR] Garruk Wildspeaker
3 [DS] Trinisphere
4 [LOR] Thorn of Amethyst

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [DS] Trinisphere
SB: 3 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [5E] Winter Orb
SB: 3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 3 [DIS] Indrik Stomphowler
SB: 2 [UD] Powder Keg

Deck concept:

You try to overwhelm the opponent with fast elves and your superior Mana production in the early game and later you have solid backup with elves that can produce much card advantage and the smaller elves can still carry equipment.

Instead of keeping on accelerating after Turn 1 and sometimes Turn 2 with cards like Quirion Ranger, Priest of Titania and similar that force you to overextend on the board. This deck tries to accelerate into many big threats which the opponent will have problems to deal with.


Card choices:

Acceleration:

Tomb / City: known from Faerie Stompy and pther Chalice based Aggro. They accelerate into Equipment and big guys.

Chrome Mox: I usually imprint Mana Elves into it to be one turn faster.

Llanowar / Fyndhorn Elves: Important as Turn 1 plays, they produce Mana for your big guys and can also carry equipment.

Elvish Spirit Guide: Not sure about this one, but it won me some games, so I stick to it.

Beats:

Wren Run's Vanquisher: Seriously, one of the best cards in the deck, a Watchwolf whit Deathtouch. He can attack into all creatures like Tarmogoyf, any number of Goblins and he can also block those things. A card that really helps the Elves to stabilize in the early game against Aggro and put pressure on Control.

Sylvan Messanger: Elvish Ringleader

Wren Run's Packmaster: Run 2-3 from them: They can dominate the board on their own and have nice synergy with Sylvan Messanger and Deranged Hermit (triggering them again when they die). But they suck when you play against removal and Counterspells which keep your board clean.

Deranged Hermit / Thelonite Hermit: Finisher, their tokens can carry Equipment and hopefully swarm your opponent. Thelonite can be played as a Grizzly Bear while Deranged brings the tokens without any delay.

Sword of Fire and Ice / Jitte: They upgrade your little Elves and Tokens to string creatures.

Treetop Village: Elves die to Mass Removal, Treetop Villages don't.


Disruption:

Thorn of Amethyst: I tried with Chalice and 3-Sphere first, but Thorn is the obvious inclusion in this deck as a one-sided Sphere of Resistance. But i don't know if this deck maybe just wants 4 more Elves in this slot and the Thorn in the side against Thresh and Combo.

Cards not included:

Eladamri, Lord of Leaves: Bad in here. GG is not payable, he is small and I don't care too much if my opponent can sword some of my Elves.

Skyshroud Poacher: No Elf, so he lacks synergy with the Wren Run's and the Messanger. He is also not good here because he can't attack the turn after you play it.

Priest of Titania, Quirion Ranger, Wirewood Symbiote: The deck is not trying to swarm with small creatures, but with big threats


Matchup: I didn't do too much testing yet, only against randomness on MWS, so I don't have any matchup data.

[Versus]

If Thelonite Hermit were to get Championed face down as a 2/2 would he CIP face down as well if WWP left play?

[Tao]

Unfortunately not. If you could Champion it, you would get a 1/1 creature back without tokens. But you can only Champion Elves and no morphs anyway.

[Versus]

Ah, my bad. He wouldn't even be an elf in that state.

Have you considered the Elf Lord? Forestwalk in the land of Thresh could come in handy. That's GG though I think.

[Tao]

Yes, but the trick is that I don't want to play Elves that are only good with other Elves (like Imperious Perfect, Eladamri, Elvish Champio etc.). This deck tries to play Elves that are good on their own.

[Happy Gilmore]

how bout -4 Lllanowar (or fyndhorn) and +4 Trinisphere? In that case only two elves you control have an increase in cost.

[Nihil Credo]

I don't like the Treetop Villages. It seems weird to take a lot of pain and card disadvantage to get a ton of mana on turns 1-2, and then throw it all away with a land that CIPT. I realize Chalice Aggro has historically hated sweepers more than anything else, but that isn't an issue here, since you have Packmaster and Messenger to get more creatures.

[Barook]

I don't like the Treetop Villages. It seems weird to take a lot of pain and card disadvantage to get a ton of mana on turns 1-2, and then throw it all away with a land that CIPT. I realize Chalice Aggro has historically hated sweepers more than anything else, but that isn't an issue here, since you have Packmaster and Messenger to get more creatures.

I agree - it seems weird to run tons of accel while running Cipt lands, at least as a 4-of.

[monkeyfeelers]

I'm in agreement with treetop being bad for such a tempo oriented strategy. Also if you are going to play elves you need to play 3sphere/2sphere/thorn main or you will just get crushed by combo and eventually blown out by thresh if they counter a few relevant spells and then have bigger dudes. I would look back at some old trinity elves lists and steal some disruption ideas from them. Also with so much mana i suggest running masticore, he machine guns the bad guys dead and swings big.

[porcupinetreeman]

It looks like a really cool deck idea. Couldn't this deck abuse Winter orb? You could get it out first or second turn against control.

just my 2 cents

[freakish777]

No Tarmogoyf?

/beating a dead horse

In all seriousness, here's some creatures for further consideration:

Elvish Ranger
Fallow Wurm/Thundering Wurm (you'd maybe want a lot more lands including Wasteland & Cycling/Horizon Canopy, Crucibles/Loams and replace the Chrome Moxes with Mox Diamonds for this one to be good though)
Loaming Shaman (for the board)

[HdH_Cthulhu]

Why not Garruk?

He will be the nuts in this deck!

Turn 1: Forest, Llanowar elf
Turn 2: Tomb, Garruck, 3/3 token
Turn 3: City = 10 MANA, play, attach 2 swords on your bear, attack

Ok thats a littl bit unreal, but i still think he is good in this deck! He cames down realy fast prduces his own guards, and could do cracy stuff with your mana. The overunabillity is also not so weak!
And Garuk + Winter Orb = GG

[Tao]

Very cool ideas.

- I still like Treetop Villages, but probably you are right that they need to be cutted. I will replace them with 2 Forests and 2 Pendelhaven.

- Trinisphere main: When I cut Treetop Villages for noncreature lands and then add 4 Trinisspheres to the deck I will have problems with getting a creature on the board. 2-3 is the maximum and they will probably replace Elvish Spirit Guide. The 1-Mana Elves are really important as mana producers so I don't want to reduce them.

- Winter Orb: Check, I will obviously run some of them in the sideboard.

- Garruk is unfortunately affected by Thorn of Amethyst and no Elf.

But I mean, wow, Garruk can do insane things here. All three abilities have awesome synergy. Beast tokens fit the decks strategy, untapping City of Traitors and Tomb can be insane and scoring an OVERRUN onto Hermit tokens and Llanowar Elves is one of the the coolest ways to kill ever. I think at least 3 of them can go into the deck. They can replace Sword of Fire and Ice and some other card.

I am not sure yet what to make of this. Maybe soome kind of version with Garruk (no Elf, so he lacks synergy) and Poacher is possible.

[Joon]

Some weeks ago I played against an Green Chalice based Aggrodeck - green has the best big creatures. Because you have neither FoW like Faerie Stompy nor EtW like Empty the Slogger that Deck tried to play several Staxx-like disruption-Slots. What I saw where

Iwamori (4 Mana 5/5 Trample O_o)
Tarmogoyf
Chalice
Trinisphere (he said that he is testing Thorn of Amethyst in this slot)
Elvish SPirit Guide
SoFaI
Jitte
Garruk
obv. City of Traitors and Ancient Tombs

Was interesting, the 8 Disruption Slots + Winter Orbs in the Side are really mean against some decks.

[Tao]

Updated decklist

// Mana
8 [8E] Forest (3)
2 [AT] Pendelhaven
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [EX] City of Traitors
4 [MR] Chrome Mox

// Creatures
4 [AT] Llanowar Elves
4 [IA] Fyndhorn Elves
4 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide

4 [LOR] Wren's Run Vanquisher
4 [AP] Sylvan Messenger
4 [UL] Deranged Hermit
2 [LOR] Wren's Run Packmaster
2 [TSP] Thelonite Hermit

// Spells
3 [LOR] Garruk Wildspeaker
3 [DS] Trinisphere
4 [LOR] Thorn of Amethyst

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [DS] Trinisphere
SB: 3 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [5E] Winter Orb
SB: 3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 3 [DIS] Indrik Stomphowler
SB: 2 [UD] Powder Keg


- Garruk is nothing but insane. He can come down on turn 2, accelerate one or two turns and then make Call of the Herd for the rest of the game.

- You need the Elf engine. It keeps the deck together. Wren Run's Vanquisher is fast and good against everything. Sylvan Messanger is the most important card in the deck. He is much better than Skyshroud Poacher or similar creatures, because if he gets killed instantly you don't care. So there is no room for Non-Elf creatures like Tarmogoyf, Poacher or Iwamori.

- I needed room for Garruk and the Trinispeheres so I had to cut the Equipment. You can't go below 28 Elves without making Messanger and Wren Run's suck.
Garruk is always better than Sword of Fire and Ice. I miss Jitte in the main, but Trinisphere seems like a better choice.

- The same is true for Garruk, the Hermits and the Packmaster. They re hard to deal with. Without counterspells it is not easy to trade 1-1 with them.

- SB: I play Indrik Stomphowler as Disenchant-effect. Zealot sucks against Engineered Plague and needs GGG and Krosan Grip cannot deal damage to the opponent. But there are two cards against which I really want Grip: Aluren and Humility. So it is possible that I put 2 of them back into the board.

[Maveric78f]

When I see your deck, I wonder myself "what in the metagame can hurt it the most?" :
- faster decks like combo : you have MD disruption but not enough in SB. Instead of winter orb play
- faster decks and mana-disruption like gobs : nothing relevant except jitte
- aggro-control decks with tribal solutions : pyroclasm, engineered plague, propaganda, ghostly prison, moat, humility, wrath of god : nothing relevant neither.

I met on MWS a deck playing it more control with not a tribal scope such as you but playig instead more synergic spells like plow under, ice storm and co.

[Barook]

Sylvan Messanger is the most important card in the deck.
I do like the idea of the deck, but goldfishing lead me to a different conclusion. Maybe MWS is just screwing with me, but it's very rare that I get more than 1 card from a Messenger. Is it really worth it above other potential choices like SoFI?

Oh, and Garruk is really the nuts in this deck.

[Tao]

I had the same problem. With 28 Elves you don't play much less Elves than VG plays Goblins (~ 30). But sometimes drawing a Llanowar Elf or ESG from him just didn't help.

So, yes, maybe he could be replaced with Sword or Jitte. I also don't know if this deck really needs all that acceleration. Tomb and City were good, but I am not so sure about Chrome Mox and Elvish Spirit Guide.

So far, this deck is not ready for a tournament I think. It needs more development.

[Barook]

So, yes, maybe he could be replaced with Sword or Jitte. I also don't know if this deck really needs all that acceleration. Tomb and City were good, but I am not so sure about Chrome Mox and Elvish Spirit Guide.
I don't think that cutting down the acceleration is a good idea. It gives the deck consistency.

Running Jitte or Sword is a good idea, but it's kinda hard to tell which one is better here. SoFI pumps all your little elves better, but Jitte is easier to play and can compensate the life loss from Tombs.

[adrieng]

I had an idea i dont know if it is a good one or not.
Why not spalshing red for both magus of the moon and blood moon,
what does the strength of dragon stompy.
Something like that:

4 city
4 tomb
4 taiga
4 wooded foothils
2 windswepth heath
4 forest

4 magus of the moon
3 blood moon
4 trinisphere

8 llanowar elves
4 wren's run vanquisher
4 imperious perfect
4 sylvan messenger
3 eldamri's
2 wren's run packmaster
2 thelonite ermit

I found it amazing to play both not quite elves and dragon stompy
It has more creatures and is more aggroish than dragon stompy.
And you have a draw engine with sylvan messenger.

[tsabo_tavoc]

@adrieng: the Problem is, you have no way to put 1st. turn a Moon on board without accessing to Moxes or Guides, which gives your opponent way more chances to FOW/Daze/Counterspell/Stp/Smother/Disenchant.