Hi there. I've bought an Elfball deck recently, and tested it with some great results. I'd like to hear some opinion from experts in this archtype and maybe some advices.
My list:
Lands [17]
14 Forest
2 Gaea's Cradle
1 Dryad Arbor
Spells [8]
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Glimpse of Nature
Dudes [35]
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Vengevine
4 Fauna Shaman
2 Fyndhorn Elves
2 Llanowar Elves
1 Regal Force
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Sideboard [15]
4 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Choke
3 Faerie Macabre
2 Krosan Grip
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
Some explanations:
-No Emrakul maindeck: This is a dead slot when you cannot combo, and Vengevines always get there.
-Viridian Shaman over Viridian Zealot: ETB ability, which can be abused with Symbiote.
-4 Vengevine and 4 Fauna Shaman maindeck: If Fauna Shaman lives until she can tap, you'll see that angry plants are coming with anger.
-No Natural Order/Progenitus sideboard: not really necessary in this metagame.
-Faerie Macabre/Gaddock Teeg/Phyrexian Metamorph: all fetchable with Fauna Shaman.
-Only 2 Gaea's Cradle maindeck: I've tested from 0-4 in numbers, 0 sucks, and 4 your mulligans are very common. So I've settled in 2, which seems to be a good number.
Let your Dredge 6 be: Narco, Narco, Narco, Bridge, Bridge, Dread Return
I don't recall the last time Emrakul was a dead slot when I couldn't combo--in fact, with the list I'm using now it's either: a) combo and win, b) don't combo and aggro out, c) don't combo, produce 15 mana anyways and play him from my hand / produce 18 mana and pact for empath then play him / produce 19 mana and GSZ for empath and play him.
The last tournament I went to I tied for second going 3-1, only losing to flashless hulk combo (we meet every tournament, he was super prepared for me, I had shitty draws). The number of times I could just produce 15-20 mana and go off was many. I top decked Emrakul in at least 3 or 4 of the 9 games played and was able to hard cast him every time.
Fierce Empath is absurdly good.
In regards to your deck, you should fit Summoner's Pact in there, I suppose it's not quite as useful to you if you aren't trying to find combo pieces to ramp out on mana. However, pacting for a much needed symbiote can be game changing.
I'll have to look at it again, it's something like this though:
//Creatures:
4x Heritage Druid
4x Nettle Sentinel
4x Llanowar Elves
3x Birchlore Rangers
4x Wirewood Symbiote
2x Quirion Ranger
3x Elvish Visionary
3x Priest of Titania
1x Elvish Archdruid
2x Fyndhorn Elves
1x Fierce Empath
1x Regal Force
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
//Spells:
4x Glimpse of Nature
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Summoner's Pact
//Lands:
1x Gaea's Cradle
14x Forest
mm.. that should be 60, yeah. That's my list atm. I wouldn't mind going G/W for mirror entity, but, so far I don't see a super need to.
Your lists seems to have the ability to fall heavily on the aggro plan when the combo just won't happen, which is quite often in the current metagame.
I would definitely suggest you to fit in Mirror Entity. Taking in account that he's fetchable through your Faunas and that you are running 4x Vengevines which he can pump, and has the Symbiote infinite loop, he's the best pump you could run.
You would have to run Fetchlands and Savannah or Birchlore Rangers. If you aren't a Duals fan (with Canadian unleashed all over), I would take out 1Arbor, 1Quirion and 1Visionary or Fauna to make room for 3 Birchlore.
I must say that I can't see why people run Dryad. When I tested it, I always regretted having spend Zenith on it, becausef the sorcery is such an important piece to set the combo or to find an answer that wasting it on mana acceleration just seems absurd.
Most lists don't have the ease that yours has in producing 15 mana. That's what we always mean by saying that it is a dead card, because if our lists have 15 mana floating in the pool then we've already comboed out anyway. So Emrakul becomes an win-more card, which is dead if we haven't already won.
Nihilobstat on Cockatrice. Let's play some Magic!!!
I'm finally going to be able to play again over this holiday break and I have a quick question. Is regal force optimally a one of now? Some months ago I remember him getting quite a bit of love as a 2 of because there were many times where you needed the second one. Has playtesting shown the costs outweigh the benefits of the second one?
West side
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Yeah...testing was abysmal!!
Is anybody still using a 1-shot of Joraga Warcaller in their MD? I have gotten to the point of having 4 Archdruids and 3 Priest of Titania in the deck (I have already pushed out Birchlore Rangers...they went from 4 down to 3, down to 2, then gone) and I'm running out of space considering I want to keep the 1-mana elves at a premium to make sure Glimpse does its job. The Archdruids/Priests give you an incredible amount of consistency though...I've gotten Emrakul turn 3 many times with no Glimpse.
Current List:
4x Heritage Druid
4x Nettle Sentinel
4x Llanowar Elves
3x Fyndhorn Elves
4x Quirion Ranger
4x Wirewood Symbiote
4x Elvish Archdruid
3x Priest of Titania
4x Elvish Visionary
1x Regal Force
1x Joraga Warcaller
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4x Glimpse of Nature
4x Summoner's Pact
8x Forest
1x Overgrown Tomb
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Wirewood Lodge
Sideboard:
4x Buried Alive
3x Vengevine
4x Thorn of Amethyst
2x Viridan Zealot
2x Autumn's Veil
So for discussion's sake, understanding the budget nature of my list, here are my questions:
1) What is the appropriate number of Quirion Ranger?
2) Wirewood Symbiote?
3) Are Birchlore Rangers neccessary?
4) I will be upgrading the list to add in 3x Green Sun's Zenith. What should I cut to make room?
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Rangers, I say 2. Symbiotes, 4--this is unavoidable. They are too good. IMO--Birchlore's are necessary. A 3 of is fine. They allow you to squeeze extra mana out of dudes you normally wouldn't. I rarely get turn 2 wins, but I have, and they're amazing.
Lords I found to feel consistent but in actual practice make the deck highly prone to removal moreso than it already is. Lords are easy to target, they're frequently removed and if you rely on them it's too easy to get wrecked. Aim more for birchlore rangers and heritage druids, it's more tedious, but it's easier to use them than it is a lord for mana.
I've often had games with only a gaea's cradle and a fistful of elves, pseudo-heritage nettle combo up to about 8 mana, tap cradle and hardcast emrakul from my hand. No mana lords (cradle I guess can be considered one), just tapping and untapping nettles with heritage/birchlore activations.
The more 1 mana elves you can play that further the purpose of the deck the better. The fewer lords you can play, the better (especially archdruid, he's an enormous mana sink).
I like the Archdruids for the aggro secondary win/con...I think I have to keep them in here. The swap would have to be putting in 3 Birchlores in the Priest of Titania slots. Is that what you're recommending?
Oh, and what do I cut to make room for GSZ? Summoner's Pact?
BTW, I'm working on getting the Gaea's Cradles...they can be somewhat hard to trade around for.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
How about Cabal Therapy In This deck?, Sorry If It Was Discussed Before, I used to watch list that included many, but not lately ...
Do not work as expected?
(sorry for my google-translate-english)
Without Gaea's Cradle is viable the Vengevine plan?
I use to have 3 Elvish Archdruid and 3 Priest of Titania but they were removal targets in almost games and i decide to cut them off and only left 2 Priest in MD. With Green Sun's Zenith you can search them in turn 2 if you need it. You can try -4 Elvish Archdruid --> +4 Green Sun's Zenith. (I'm from Argentina so sorry for my poor English)
I played the list under at a local 20 man tournament to a 7-1 record(counting 5 rounds + top 8):
2 Gaea's Cradle
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Forest
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bayou
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Windswept Heath
2 Priest of Titania
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Llanowar Elves
1 Elvish Archdruid
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Wirewood Symbiote
2 Quirion Ranger
2 Regal Force
2 Birchlore Rangers
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Summoner's Pact
Sideboard:
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Krosan Grip
3 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Vengevine
3 Buried Alive
1 Choke
1 Mortarpod
I like the maindeck a lot. Lords do draw spot removal and it might have been correct to go -1 priest of titania +1 quirion ranger, however they did lead to a lot of hardcast emrakulks when i was not able to combo (having my draw spells countered or just drawing emrakul instead). With 2 Regal Forces, Fierce Empath should never be necesarry, but there were loads of cases where Fierce Empath would not have been enough and i was really happy with 2 Regal Forces all day. I would want more chokes in the sb, as it is just so good against such a large porition of the metagame, but not sure what i want to cut. All the sb cards were awesome with mortarpod giving me outs to blazing archon out of dredge(as well as stopping bridges), with it, you are probably a favourite even before counting crypts. Krosan Grip never feels amazing, but there needs to be some outs to stuff like coutnerbalance. I played against dredge, mono black, storm(lost), hivemind, UW stoneforge and in the top 8 4 color counterbalance(with firespout and punishing fire), UR delver and finally storm again. Faeries macabre is probably better than crypt as Reanimator should be a harder matchup than dredge. If storm is to be a good matchup a lot more hate is needed, but that depends on your metagame. The vengevine plan is very good against counterbalance/decks with a lot of removal, but it does take up a lot of space, it is possible just playing more chokes and devoting the space for other cards would be more effecient.
Olivier Pamart made 1st @ Magic Bazaar League (Paris) 71 players
Surprising that he made 1st with such tough MUs in the top4. His SB is definitely interesting... Is NO a game-changer vs Reanimator? Haven't tested yet, but looking forward to!
Pamart's list: http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=2368
MD:
12 Forest
4 Gaea's Cradle
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Heritage Druid
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Vengevine
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Llanowar Elves
2 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Regal Force
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Joraga Warcaller
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Glimpse of Nature
SB:
3 Dismember
1 Progenitus
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Natural Order
Four Vengevines and Fauna Shamans main deck is SUCH A BEATING against those tempo decks that are having success today. Vengevine is so good. Hits hard and fast enough.
I think this approach is better in the new metagame, full of removal and counterspells. The list is far more solid, as it doesn't depend on Glimpse of Nature that much. Casting Emrakul is cute, but Quirion Ranger + Fauna Shaman + Wyrewood Symbiote is so powerful. You guys should give it a try.
Let your Dredge 6 be: Narco, Narco, Narco, Bridge, Bridge, Dread Return
Carpet of Flowers looks interesting in this Stoneblade meta, NO+Prog is definitely nasty against Punishing Maverick type decks, but 3 Ooze looks little protection vs Reanimator. I mean Elves can go off on turn 3 easily, but Iona/Elesh turn 2 is also too fast for us. Maybe NO+Prog in the Reanimator MU? They can't do shit about it and puts a 2 turn clock and looks like the only way to survive after Elesh hits the board..
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