[Primer] Elves!

[Yanley]

Those are pretty rough cards against Elves, especially Chalice of the Void. I'm not entirely afraid of punishing fire because if forces the opponent to not play a relevant threat (such as Dark Confidant or Tarmogoyf) while you slowly build up your board presence.

What was your hand hand against that opener?

[jamie7keller]

Those are pretty rough cards against Elves, especially Chalice of the Void. I'm not entirely afraid of punishing fire because if forces the opponent to not play a relevant threat (such as Dark Confidant or Tarmogoyf) while you slowly build up your board presence.

What was your hand hand against that opener?

I don't remember, unfortunately. green sun zenith in both. glimpose of nature and 4 one drops in the hand against chalice of the void :(

Punishing fire was just killing a guy every turn, and his board wasn't progressing fast, but he had a dark confidant down and was making (most) land drops, while I was stuck at 2-3 mana.....lack of dorks is hard, and when they start killing one dork every turn on turn 2, my mediocre hands just couldn't flood the board fast enough (I did drop 3 guys at once, but it didn't end up mattering).

[Echelon]

It happens. Same goes for the RUG-MU. Sometimes, they don't draw anything interesting after SB'ing and at other times they go T1 Lightning Bolt, T2 Delver + Forked Bolt and T4 Rough//Tumble to whipe out the 3 dudes you just dropped after already losing 3 on your first 2 turns. Shit happens, man!

[jamie7keller]

Ok, that's fine then. I accept bad beats, but these were just so bad I worried I had missed preparing for an unwinnable matchup. Glad to know it was mostly normal luck. I'll pay attention to mulligans next time, though I think I made the correct call at the time to keep.

Thanks!

[Julian23]

Streaming the Legacy Daily Event with #Elves! Join us at http://twitch.tv/itsJulian

[Tammit67]

Matchup Analysis:

Elves vs Shardless BUG

Shardless list: Ryan Layman's 9th place from SCG Somerset. He's a player local to me, congrats to him!

Elves is favored preboard, favored to even postboard

My list is same as a few pages back

How their deck works:
One for one an opponent with midrange-y catch all answers and wait for Ancestral Vision to take over a game. Very grindy. Some run more removal instead of hymns, some have tombstalker or true-name nemesis, others have a sweeper or two main. Shardless Agent prevents spell pierce or daze from being considerations.

Preboard overview:
I've found this to be pretty play/draw dependent. If they lead with a turn 1 deathrite, things start to look grim. The easiest way they win is answer our first two creatures and discard/counter the bomb we draw. Games we win are they can't answer glimpse/GSZ/NO and get hoof'd/WRP/Elvish Visionary+symbiote'd. It is going to be a grind if you cannot resolve a Natural Order fast, so what I often do is set up an engine and sit on it, saving the Natural Order as the eventual finisher if I need it.

If they are running the sweeper, things get more tense, but playing around the possibility is likely not worth while. They have to both run it and find it fairly quickly. And if you aren't playtesting against Ryan Layman, their hymns won't utterly wreck you as they find the sweeper :(

Cards they board:

Toxic Deluge
Golgari Charm
Grafdigger's Cage
Disfigure
Night of Souls' Betrayal


Boarding: -2 Nettle sentinel, -2 Heritage druid, -2 Glimpse of Nature, 1- Craterhoof behemoth || +1 Natural order, +1 Progenitus, +1 Scavenging ooze, +2 Abrupt decay +2 Thoughtseize
Reasoning: With the discard, I like my bombs so I don't cut many of them. Natural order is quite good at giving them Progenitus to deal with (Hint: they can't really). The game plan will be grind until I wear them out and can finish with ooze/WRP/NO/Deathrite or know the coast is clear with thoughtseize.

Wren's run Packmaster is kind of like Progenitus here: They aren't killing it outside of Liliana or Toxic deluge and it will take over the game. Ooze helps mitigate the real clock Goyf provides and manage deathrite, so I like it here too. I just like ooze in general.

Postboard Overview:
Buckle up boys as this one gets funky. They now have spot removal and/or sweepers to make their awkward removal from game 1 relevant. Glimpse is more of an engine than a finisher now, fire them for value. Our game plan doesn't really change (cast bomb) but what we have to play around does. GSZ has a lot riding on it, as you might need to recover from a board wipe or set up a way to hold off goyf, but if you wait too long on it you'll just get cage'd or hit with discard.

Knowing when you have to overextend into a possible sweeper and when you have kill potential already is what will make or break this matchup. If I can't win with my current board, you bet your ass I'm going to dump my hand to give myself the best possible answer.

Unless they have multiple of those sideboard cards, I think elves is still favored as we can just get off the ground very fast and we grind spectacularly. Deathrite battles are our specialty and this matchup really forces you to learn how to use the untap effects.

Games we lose involve them curving out into a board wipe backed with a swift "clock": either tarmogoyf or locking us out of the game with vision providing advantage as some other creature stalls the ground.

[Absolutflipz]

I wouldn't be taking out Nettle Sentinel's against BUG. You want all the X/2 guys so you're not nearly as bad against Golgari Charms/Night's of Souls Betrayal.

Worldspine Wurm should probably be over Progenitus these days (Toxic Deluge). Shardless and BUG variants are extremely popular/successful lately.

[Julian23]

Mind that "European" aka Lejay's Shardless BUG will bring in Meddling Mages and most likely set them to Elvish Visionary or Glimpse. I usually side out my Natural Orders against Shardless BUG these days; I don't have Progenitus in the sideboard, so I'd rather try and hardcast Craterhoof Behemoth instead of NO'ing it anyways.

[resmaster]

Mind that "European" aka Lejay's Shardless BUG will bring in Meddling Mages and most likely set them to Elvish Visionary or Glimpse. I usually side out my Natural Orders against Shardless BUG these days; I don't have Progenitus in the sideboard, so I'd rather try and hardcast NO instead of NO'ing it anyways.

You mean hardcast Behemoth?

[Lemnear]

Mind that "European" aka Lejay's Shardless BUG will bring in Meddling Mages and most likely set them to Elvish Visionary or Glimpse. I usually side out my Natural Orders against Shardless BUG these days; I don't have Progenitus in the sideboard, so I'd rather try and hardcast/Zenith Packmaster instead of NO'ing it anyways.

fixed

[Tammit67]

I wouldn't be taking out Nettle Sentinel's against BUG. You want all the X/2 guys so you're not nearly as bad against Golgari Charms/Night's of Souls Betrayal.

What would you suggest taking out then?

Worldspine Wurm should probably be over Progenitus these days (Toxic Deluge). Shardless and BUG variants are extremely popular/successful lately.

I'm not convinces worldspine wurm is good. They have toxic deluge and liliana to hit progen, but they have Submerge and Jace to hit Wurm. If Progen gets a swing in, they can't deluge. So if Progen is capable, I'm not going to use the sideboard slot on something that is terrible against white decks and/or combo

I'd love to hear why Wurm is good.

[Julian23]

I'd love to hear why Wurm is good.

It isn't. Because of Miracles, I only run 3 NO maindeck, none in the side and no additional targets. Wren's Run Packmaster all the way!

[PaulJordan]

It isn't. Because of Miracles, I only run 3 NO maindeck, none in the side and no additional targets. Wren's Run Packmaster all the way!

So how many WRP are you on (main and SB)?

[MD.Ghost]

It isn't. Because of Miracles, I only run 3 NO maindeck, none in the side and no additional targets. Wren's Run Packmaster all the way!

I also run my current sideboard without progenitus & co. (easy to counter with cage, liliana etc.). The plan is way to common, everyone expect the tech.

My current side
1 null rod
1 meekstone
1 pithing needle
1 reclamation sage (1 MD)
2 abrupt decay (+ 1 meekstone vs delver & co)
4 thoughtseize
1 cabal therapy
2 thorn of amethyst
2 wilt-leaf liege (bug is eyerwhere, also best friend to WRP)

[Julian23]

Streaming the Legacy Daily Event with #Elves! Join us at http://twitch.tv/itsJulian

[dunk]

Streaming the Legacy Daily Event with #Elves! Join us at http://twitch.tv/itsJulian

Amazing. Too lazy to run Miracles in a daily myself but happily watching you slapping with Elves.

[Tammit67]

Because of Miracles, I only run 3 NO maindeck, none in the side and no additional targets. Wren's Run Packmaster all the way!

I'm not sure I'm ready to drink the Koolaid as heavily as you, but glad to hear a different approach to building the deck

[resmaster]

Streaming the Legacy Daily Event with #Elves! Join us at http://twitch.tv/itsJulian

Watching :)

One thing: I noticed you are playing the full 4 thoughtseizes instead of a split between seize and therapy. Is there a specific reason for that?

[Koke_MTG]

Hello everyone!

I started playing this deck a few months ago and now I have some doubts that I will explain below:

- Which is better for you? Play the second Reclamation Sage in the sideboard or choose other options as the 4th Abrupt Decay?

- In addition, I do not know if I should play Ooze or Wren's Run Packmaster into the maindeck. I think I'll play the other option into the sideboard.

Sry for my poor english and thanks.

[Dice_Box]

I vote Sage, GSZ, Symbiote and No make it more useful than AD in many situations.

Run or Ooze? Meta call.