I've been testing out this deck since I saw it place in germany a month or two back. The only real new development I see is the inclusion of Mirror Entity. I also thought about taking this route, for the infinite mana trick, but after testing it just didn't seem as consistent.
Instead, I went with good ole Killer Bees. It's not infinite, but with a Priest of Titania and a Survival you can chain into twenty + mana by turn four pretty consistently. Then cast a flying hasted 20/20 for lethal. (It also takes care of Tombstalker just fine). Using Bees instead of Mirror Entity provides the advantage of not having to splash for a tertiary color, and takes up less room. I can't definitively state it's the better choice, but I think it's a comparable choice.
I do like the list more than any Elf or Survival list. Hope to see more development on it in the future.
For me personally Entity was fine because I already had white in my sideboard for anti-combo cards. Also, it isn't like you need to always use the infinate mana trick, although it's far more consistent than it's given credit for. But Mirror Entity is incredible because you can just play him and swing with a lot of big creatures instead of a single one (hence why I like him over Colossus). I've won countless games on the back of Mirror Entity alone just casting him, tapping a Priest of Titania, then swinging with a huge team. It's also great because making lots of creatures bigger at once gives you better chance at taking down Tarmogoyfs and Dreadnoughts. Yesterday I took out a Dreadnought with two elf tokens from Imperious Perfect because I had Entity with 4 lands and 2 mana elves untapped. It was sweet.Instead, I went with good ole Killer Bees. It's not infinite, but with a Priest of Titania and a Survival you can chain into twenty + mana by turn four pretty consistently. Then cast a flying hasted 20/20 for lethal. (It also takes care of Tombstalker just fine). Using Bees instead of Mirror Entity provides the advantage of not having to splash for a tertiary color, and takes up less room. I can't definitively state it's the better choice, but I think it's a comparable choice.
Killer Bees are not really good :). Try Chameleon Colossus instead, with 12 mana, he beats for 32 damage, which should be enough^^. And he's an elf, too.Originally Posted by Galroth
These are great since counterbalance is everywhere and 3cc is rarely hit off flips.
One of the few constants in nearly all my Elves lists was 4 Symbiote. It's just so ridiculous -- protects your dudes, boosts your mana, does combat tricks, recurs Messengers (and Battlemages). Why would you play any less?
SummenSaugen: well, I use Chaos Orb, Animate Artifact, and Dance of Many to make the table we're playing on my chaos orb token
SummenSaugen: then I flip it over and crush my opponent
Which battlemagi are you running?
The E.P.I.C. Syndicate: I mean, if they play a lullaby for babies they should at least play the Monster Mash when somebody dies.
Thornscape
SummenSaugen: well, I use Chaos Orb, Animate Artifact, and Dance of Many to make the table we're playing on my chaos orb token
SummenSaugen: then I flip it over and crush my opponent
In a list with Survival, you don't need the full complement as it's so easy to find. But it's funny you mention that because I started at 1 and worked my way up to 3 when I found I wanted it more and more. It'll probably stay at 3-4 though.
Also, it turns out I like Wren's Run Packmaster. It's phenomenal Engineered Plague hate. Colossus is decent too, but Packmaster is a beating against like every deck.
Hey, I don't have a lot of experience with survival elves. Normal elves however... I've been playing non-stop since september.
First off, I know this is basphemy for a lot of Elf players but how much does Wren's Run Vanquisher -really- offer you? I will immediatly admit that it's a great card against aggro, but it's a bit of an egocentric card, it doesn't offer much synergy with your allied elves.
4 Llanowar + 4 Fyndhorn Elves is likely far too much, I guess survival wil eat up some of your mana as well, and with survival you'll have less trouble with dead cards, but having an opening hand with just 1/1 mana producers isn't something elves can afford.
Eladamri is an amazing card, not only shroud -really- but forestwalk is makes your elves unblockable in 70% of the MU's in the current meta. Sure your tricks with Mirror Entity won't work, but you can always return Eladamri to hand the turn before you're going to do it. Not a small thing, you can draw it off Sylvan Messenger, that really does make the difference. I wouldn't advocate running more then 2 though.
Elvish Visionary I rate extremely high, and not because I saw it in extended, as soon as Alara came out I knew it was the perfect card for elves. It's practically a mini Sylvan Messenger, the great thing though, it's cheap you can cast it early and it's a great target for Wirewood Symbiote to return to hand early on. Test them out and you'll see what I mean, it just gives this deck an extra punch.
Rofellos is a great 1-off. Yes, Priest of Titania is better, but even though Rofellos doesn't offer quite as much mana, if it nets 3 mana it's still an amazing mana producer, getting 3 shouldn't be a problem.
I diversified my mana producers by adding 2 Heritage Druids, they give you instant mana from creatures that shouldn't even be able to produce mana at all. Every creature becomes a potential llanowar elf. Works great when you landed a messenger, you can play your entire hand even without a Priest of Titania.
Good luck with the list, it looks promising. Not that much a fan of Survival as I feel like it makes an aggro deck slower, at the same time when it goes to the long game a card like survival gives you great advantage.
~
Eledamri shuts down your symbiotes and and your rangers. He's really not that great.
Si, I like cereal.
You are wrong on so many points.
First of all 8 Llanowar Elves is the perfect number. No more, no less. Because on average you want 1 in your opening hand. That is the only way to combo off on turn 3 with a Survival. Any less than 8 Llanowar Elves and you will have to combo out much later and slower.
Rofellos is not required. 0 is the correct amount. The deck already has far too many weak draws, you don't want to add more weak mana producers when you don't need it. It doesn't help the deck. You should instead be replacing it with a "threat card", not another "support card"
Elvish Visionary is terrible, way too slow for this deck, or for legacy for that matter.
Eladamri is absolute junk ever since it wasn't an elf anymore. It doesn't protect anything. If they were to use a removal spell they would just use it on your eladamri. It doesn't save anything. It's still losing 1-for-1 whether it's losing your eladamri or another elf. Either way you will be losing a card to the removal spell with or without him. It's just a 2/2 body basically that can't trade itself "1-for-1" easily. It doesn't neutralize any other card therefore it is weak. The only thing is it gives forestwalk, but IT DOES NOTHING ON ITS OWN!! it requires you to have superior board position to have any decent effect. Whenever a card is weak on its own, it is usually junk. Elvish Champion is far superior for Forestwalk in any case.
But the main thing is 8 Llanowar Elves is absolutely critical in this deck. This is not a normal Survival Deck, this is a 3rd turn Survival combo deck and you need to play a Llanowar first turn for that to happen more consistantly.
I've been tweaking this deck since 2005. I've tested hundreds of games with it. This is just from my own experience.
And to the topic starter, GRW is far less consistant than GR version with Timberwatch Elf. You don't need Mirror infinte combo. You just play it a bit differently with Priest/Messenger until you get a bunch of Timberwatches and/or quirions for trampling Messengers ftw. 40+ trample damage on average. Still 3rd turn win and still just as consistant. is a far stronger consistant plus Timberwatch is vastly underrated it is a bomb with Quirion especially, and doesn't suck up your mana like the mirror, and doesn't require white splash. I'm too lazy to explain, but I think you should test it. It's far more smooth in my opinion. Also worthy of testing is Masked Admirers, it's less consistant but can win 3rd turn also with correct searching technique.
You people are ofcourse entitled to your opinion.
First of, on Eladamri, he doesn't do anything else then Wirewood Symbiote does in terms of protection, meaning he takes away 1 removal spell before they can start killing your significant creatures. Then take in account that he offers 3 things that Wirewood Symbiote does not:
1. He gives your creatures forestwalk.
2. He's fetchable with Sylvan Messenger.
3. He's an elf so gets bonuses from lords.
4. He adds mana to Priest of Titania.
5. With lords in play, he actually isn't easily killable by burn spells, turned out to be a big plus against Goblins and GoyfSligh.
Setting up protection for the rest of your elves is totally worth the cost of not being able to untap your elves against most decks. However, if you do want to combo off, return him to hand EOT opponents turn and have fun. I doubt you would play this card if you were going for the combo win though.
As for Rofellos, the right amount of mana producers for my deck is 12. As I determined 8 Llanowar/Fyndhorn as not ideal - and tested it with 8 for a long time, always the same conclusion - I decided that I really don't need that many 1/1 vanilla mana producers. Rofellos might be a strictly inferior version of Priest of Titania, he's still the second best mana producing elf in Legacy, I'd pick him over the 8th Llanowar Elves any day.
As for Elvish Visionary, since when is any form of card advantage not fit for legacy? When mana is in excess, which should happen with 3 cradles, 4 Priest of Titania and in my case Heritage Druid the only limiting factor is cards available. An Elf that gets all the benefits from the lords and cantrips as well is exactly what a deck that has mana in excess needs.
Our differences in views most likely has more to do with that I feel like the combo in this deck is far too fragile in the format and that more often then not you will need to take the aggro route instead. As I said, I play my own version of Aggro elves, from my expience, opposing decks aren't going to give you anything. Any significant creature will be destroyed asap, especially a Priest of Titania or Wirewood Symbiote are going to receive a counter or a removal spell and if they don't you're probably playing against combo and will probably lose the next turn. So really, the only way to win as far as I'm concerned is either by protecting your significant creatures or by getting card advantage over them.
In addition; I think if you want to play combo, you're likely better off with a true combo deck instead. And while having the combo around doesnt hurt much as it requires a small card investment, designing the rest of your deck around it seems to me like a bad idea in the legacy format.
See, that was basically my point. You may as well just replace Eladamri WITH a significant creature to begin with. Then instead of protecting a significant creature you would instead have 2 significant creatures instead. Eladamri was only good when it was errertad to an elf. Because then it would make many cards in the opponents deck useless, therefore virtual card advantage. However it is no longer an elf, and does little on its own because itself is an outlet for the opponents removal cards. Therefore it is weak. It is in fact a card disadvantage because a) it can't trade itself for another card easily being a 2/2; fails to neutralize at least 1 oppent's card b) Doesn't threaten to win on it's own; relies on other cards to be usefull. It is very close to being a card disadvantage just by playing it.
With lords in play, if they can't burn Eladamri, then it would be hard to kill any other card you could have played rather than Eladamri to begin with. That's a moot point. Wren's Run Vanquisher is superior to Eladamri, just to provide an example of something better than him. It easily neutralizes a card on its own, and is bigger.Then take in account that he offers 3 things that Wirewood Symbiote does not:
1. He gives your creatures forestwalk.
2. He's fetchable with Sylvan Messenger.
3. He's an elf so gets bonuses from lords.
4. He adds mana to Priest of Titania.
5. With lords in play, he actually isn't easily killable by burn spells, turned out to be a big plus against Goblins and GoyfSligh.
Rofellos is weak... it doesn't even fit into the gameplan of the deck. You want to play a mana producer on turn 1. You need 8 Llanowar Elves Mathematically to achieve that on average. Any less than that and the consistancy of that gameplan drops significantly. The correct amount of mana producers is not 12. The correct amount is always as minimal as necessary according to the gameplan. there's already a huge imbalance of "support cards" (ie lands, mana producers) and "theat cards" (cards that win) in this deck. The average sucessful legacy deck has around 20 or less "support cards" most of which are lands. This type of elf deck can easy have more than 30. a "threat card" is a card that can either "trade 1 for 1" or threaten to win on its own. Rofellos is a support card. Adding more UNNECESSARY mana production like rofellos is only going to weaken the deck. It's a good card, BUT NOT NECESSARY. Whenever you can cut a support card for a threat card it should be done. therefore Rofellos should be cut. the only reason llanowar Elves is in this deck is because the gameplan is to drop a mana-producer on turn 1 so that you can hope for 3 mana on turn 2. If the gameplan didn't need llanowar Elves it would be cut for a threat card too, but it does. Nothing in the deck should be revolving around Survival anyhow, it should fit in just because it happens to work. Playing 8 llanowar Elves has little to do with supporting the survival combo, it just so happens that it does. The deck needs first turn acceleration and thats the main reason there is 8.Setting up protection for the rest of your elves is totally worth the cost of not being able to untap your elves against most decks. However, if you do want to combo off, return him to hand EOT opponents turn and have fun. I doubt you would play this card if you were going for the combo win though.
As for Rofellos, the right amount of mana producers for my deck is 12. As I determined 8 Llanowar/Fyndhorn as not ideal - and tested it with 8 for a long time, always the same conclusion - I decided that I really don't need that many 1/1 vanilla mana producers. Rofellos might be a strictly inferior version of Priest of Titania, he's still the second best mana producing elf in Legacy, I'd pick him over the 8th Llanowar Elves any day.
As for Elvish Visionary, since when is any form of card advantage not fit for legacy? When mana is in excess, which should happen with 3 cradles, 4 Priest of Titania and in my case Heritage Druid the only limiting factor is cards available. An Elf that gets all the benefits from the lords and cantrips as well is exactly what a deck that has mana in excess needs.
Our differences in views most likely has more to do with that I feel like the combo in this deck is far too fragile in the format and that more often then not you will need to take the aggro route instead. As I said, I play my own version of Aggro elves, from my expience, opposing decks aren't going to give you anything. Any significant creature will be destroyed asap, especially a Priest of Titania or Wirewood Symbiote are going to receive a counter or a removal spell and if they don't you're probably playing against combo and will probably lose the next turn. So really, the only way to win as far as I'm concerned is either by protecting your significant creatures or by getting card advantage over them.
In addition; I think if you want to play combo, you're likely better off with a true combo deck instead. And while having the combo around doesnt hurt much as it requires a small card investment, designing the rest of your deck around it seems to me like a bad idea in the legacy format.
You can't compare those two cards since they fill two different roles. Not only does symbiote act as protection for your elves. It also acts as a means to produce fact amounts of mana (which has been stated all throughout this thread) You don't need a useless card like elvish visionary when you can bounce Sylvan Messenger multiple times in a turn. Symbiote just has better card quality than Eledamri.
Si, I like cereal.
So he deserves a MD Slot?Also, it turns out I like Wren's Run Packmaster. It's phenomenal Engineered Plague hate. Colossus is decent too, but Packmaster is a beating against like every deck.
But what to cut?
Team Legal Actions.
Don't fool yourself now, the deck posted in the opening post only has 16 elves that are worthwhile of killing. And there isn't any elf you can put in there that would be worthwhile of killing just as much when compared to Priest of Titania or the Lords/Mirror. You're talking as if you got a deck full of significant creatures but that's hardly the case.
The same can be said about wirewood symbiote really. That really isn't a viable argument to not play him.a) it can't trade itself for another card easily being a 2/2; fails to neutralize at least 1 oppent's card b) Doesn't threaten to win on it's own; relies on other cards to be usefull. It is very close to being a card disadvantage just by playing it.
It's the difference between needing 2 or 3 lords in play. Considering that 2 lords is what you would draw on average that seems rather significant to me.With lords in play, if they can't burn Eladamri, then it would be hard to kill any other card you could have played rather than Eladamri to begin with.
You're not telling me anything new. The ability of mana production from Wirewood Symbiote is most definitly win more though. If you can afford to use his ability to untap one of your own creatures - and the only worthwhile creature in your deck to do that with is Priest of Titania. Then you probably already won in practice. In a real game however the Symbiote either instantly gets killed or your opponent reacts on the symbiotes ability by killing a significant creature.
Hear what you're talking about, bouncing Sylvan Messenger multiple times a turn, you do realize that if you can bounce a messenger once you've already practically won? Bouncing a visionary is a trick yo use when you're actually play against a competent deck that is making your life hard, it can put you from card disadvantage to card advantage when you're having dead draws. Exactly like Eladamri, they shine in the hard matchups instead of being win-more on the easy ones.
Ironically, without me ever seeing this topic I came to the conclusion that any more then 12 mana producers would flood my hand with them. As seen in the opening post, the same choice is made. 12 just happends to be the minimum in a 60 card elf deck with a typical curve. So as far as I'm concerned, the right amount is 12. That said, how you fill that amount in should be the second thing to tackle. If it's really the case that a turn 2 survival is absolutely essential for this deck then I'll talk no more as my experience with survival in specific is limited. However, when you're talking about the aggro side of your deck Rofellos is so much better then that last llanowar elf.Rofellos is weak... it doesn't even fit into the gameplan of the deck. You want to play a mana producer on turn 1. You need 8 Llanowar Elves Mathematically to achieve that on average. Any less than that and the consistancy of that gameplan drops significantly. The correct amount of mana producers is not 12. The correct amount is always as minimal as necessary according to the gameplan.
false. Symbiote can neutralize a card easily. For example chump blocking a Goyf and bouncing back the elf. that's 1 for 1 given that you have an elf in play. Eladamri only protects against removal spells, it can't neutralize a card the same way Symbiote does via blocking. He's useless because it doesn't neutralize anything being a target itself to removal spells and doesn't block well neither. He's as good as a dead card unless you already have the board advantage and the opponent has a forest. Go ahead and use Eladamri, it's but it's obviously weak in many ways.
And as for Eladamri being a significant creature, it is not. There is nothing that important to protect in an Elf deck anyhow. Mirror? Priest? Lords? These are not gamebreakers the deck relies on synergies not single cards. Protecting these cards from removal spells is not necessary. Let them exchange 1-for-1 it's an even exchange. The only time a card is worth protecting is when it has a in-play value of more than 1, such as a card that can win on it's own or a card that generates big threats. Those cards have in play value of more than 1 card.. There is no 1 card winner in here that is that crucial to protect. There are tons of better options than Eladamri it's not like Elves are lacking a card pool. The card has no threat power, no defense power, and no support power. It's card value is less than 1. It is in fact a "win more" that only works when you already have the advantage.
It's the difference between needing 2 or 3 lords in play. Considering that 2 lords is what you would draw on average that seems rather significant to me.
You're not telling me anything new. The ability of mana production from Wirewood Symbiote is most definitly win more though. If you can afford to use his ability to untap one of your own creatures - and the only worthwhile creature in your deck to do that with is Priest of Titania. Then you probably already won in practice. In a real game however the Symbiote either instantly gets killed or your opponent reacts on the symbiotes ability by killing a significant creature.
Hear what you're talking about, bouncing Sylvan Messenger multiple times a turn, you do realize that if you can bounce a messenger once you've already practically won? Bouncing a visionary is a trick yo use when you're actually play against a competent deck that is making your life hard, it can put you from card disadvantage to card advantage when you're having dead draws. Exactly like Eladamri, they shine in the hard matchups instead of being win-more on the easy ones.
Ironically, without me ever seeing this topic I came to the conclusion that any more then 12 mana producers would flood my hand with them. As seen in the opening post, the same choice is made. 12 just happends to be the minimum in a 60 card elf deck with a typical curve. So as far as I'm concerned, the right amount is 12. That said, how you fill that amount in should be the second thing to tackle. If it's really the case that a turn 2 survival is absolutely essential for this deck then I'll talk no more as my experience with survival in specific is limited. However, when you're talking about the aggro side of your deck Rofellos is so much better then that last llanowar elf.
I'll end it here as I'd only be repeating myself.
Can start off by cutting those useless Squee and Wood Elves in my opinion.
Or any card that is only there because you happen to have Survivals. No deck should ever be built to revolve around 4 cards. It should be the opposite, the 4 Survivals should revolve around the deck, and just "happen" to fit in. That's maximal efficiency.
Of course Squee isn't that good by himself (well, at least he chumps...) but with Survival he just go nuts. I guess its a question of cardquality.
Like Di said i would regard it as a necessity since survival wins by its own.
AND: Cuttin a squee for a lonely packmaster is quite odd since u'll rely on survival to get him for sure...
Furthermore i don't like the idea to cut cards that stabilize my manabase like the wood dudes do.
But since it is the weakest card in the deck i 'll try it.
Team Legal Actions.
I use to run squee in the early stages of my build, but the thing is I realised is that he is not required for several good reasons.
a) If you have cards you shouldn't be fetching a Squee to begin with because with the right build and searching techniques you should be winning on that turn instead.
b) If you need cards you should just fetch a Messenger.
c) not an elf, and even if it was, I'd still not play it.
I never once needed a squee in my build, I found it to be largely redundant and unnecessary. When I had cards I would be going for the combo, not waiting for squee engine next turn. When I needed cards, Messenger was always much stronger than a Squee.
Squee is playable, it's decent card, but not required, that's all.
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