[Primer] Elves!

[Elfkid]

Hello fellows!!

Last week I played a small local tournament, I played Julian decklist, and I finished 2-2...

1st round was rug delver, the first game I won with a gsz in to a packmaster but the sideboard games were horrible, I loose the second because I fetched eot a land and I died vs a delver fliped... (Yeah I'm retard ) and the last game he started with a delver+dismember+bolt and tarmo+another bolt so... 0-1

2nd round was miracles, the Phillip decklist without karakas and with 4 ponder, I loose first game because he topdecked a force of will to counter my NO, the 2nd game I won with 2 dryad beat down, and the last game I missplayed, I played a second pithing naming jtms, and he played a EE to destroy me.. 0-2

3rd round was TES, this was an fast match, I kill him t2 with a lethal hoof an game2 he played a infernal tutor for a dark ritual to kill me next turn, and I topdecked a cabal therapy 2-0

4th round was Jund, I kill him on turn 3, the 2nd game he played 2 Engineered plague and gets the punishing fire online so I died, the last game I played a t2 NO in to a worldspine wurm and.. 2-1

I'm very happy with the deck, there are things that I'm trying to understand, just to play correctly and win moar matches

About miracles, I board pithings, seizes decays and null rods and progi, an I board out a hoof, glimpses and heritages, but I think the glimpses are nice to get advantage (probably I'm nt understanding our gameplan vs miracles xD)

Regards guys!!:)

[jamie7keller]

I competed in my first Legacy Tournament. I went 1-3 (and a bye) which is really frustrating, and the worst part (or best part, depending on how you see it) is that I think all three of my losses were avoidable. I'll post a short writeup later when I have the decklist in front of me (it's a little off of standard due to budget restrictions).

The biggest takeaway though is that my efforts to get the deck down and slow down have been very effective. All three of my losses went to game three and went to time (or almost to time), with less than 10 minutes for Game 3. The only game losing mistakes I made were with <10 minutes left on the round clock, so my biggest takeaway is that the deck would have won, and I would have piloted it well enough to win, if I had kept playing the solid game I had for the first 40 minutes, and didn't let myself feel rushed (opponent's were not jerks rushing me, I mostly did that to myself)

[GerMagic]

The biggest takeaway though is that my efforts to get the deck down and slow down have been very effective. All three of my losses went to game three and went to time (or almost to time), with less than 10 minutes for Game 3. The only game losing mistakes I made were with <10 minutes left on the round clock, so my biggest takeaway is that the deck would have won, and I would have piloted it well enough to win, if I had kept playing the solid game I had for the first 40 minutes, and didn't let myself feel rushed (opponent's were not jerks rushing me, I mostly did that to myself)

Assuming your opponents didn't slowplay that would basically mean that, for some reason, you're taking too much time, thus forcing you into "fastplaymode". Aside from technical stuff (not using shortcuts, taking more time to shuffle than needed) that would mean you're playing a tad to slow.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you should rush and such, however people often do spent a lot of time on unneccesary things. An example is a friend of mine who takes literally a minute every time he activates top, even when it's just a simple EoT activation when he has 8 or 9 lands. Also "faking" can eat up your time (when you're bluffing a FoW but do it at a point where it's meaningless etc.).
Or course with Elves it's a bit different. If you're actually comfortable with going off, there's little to do there other than speeding up generally.
Sometimes you might make a missplay you could've avoided - like the ones you mentioned above when you were running low on time. The thing is getting into unintentional draw territory is a bad idea as we all know.
There's also not scooping when you should. You should try to always be aware of the roundtime. In a PT top8 it's worth playing out a game where your only shot is to topdeck both Abrupt Decays to kill both Counter Balances. In a timed round it might not be worth it, seeing as a 3% shot of winning the game is something, but it comes at the cost of maybe 5 or even 10 minutes that you might've needed to win game 3 :P





On a different matter I still can't seem to like Wordspine Wurm. I always felt like it's more or less another Progenitus, since most decks than kann kill the hydra also have Swords anyway. Though I guess there's stuff like Jund? Then again, against Jund Craterhoof can often enough get the job done too and it's not like everyones packing 4 Perish.

[MadRhetoric17]

On a different matter I still can't seem to like Wordspine Wurm. I always felt like it's more or less another Progenitus, since most decks than kann kill the hydra also have Swords anyway. Though I guess there's stuff like Jund? Then again, against Jund Craterhoof can often enough get the job done too and it's not like everyones packing 4 Perish.

To me, Worldspine is for decks that could kill hydra through toxic deluge and for Sneak and Show. I don't think it's worth a SB slot if you don't want the SnS matchup covered a little extra as deluge is usually played in decks we already have good matchups against.

[mariobross]

Hello everyone,

I think now lists elf differ from each other by very few cards (excluding side) so I think the difference in the results is given by way of playing and especially by sid-in side and out of the cards !!!
Is a long time since I play this deck, now I play this list:

Creatures 32
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Birchlore Rangers
2 Dryad Arbor
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
3 Heritage Druid
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Wirewood Symbiote

Altro 11
3 Natural Order
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith

Lands 18
2 Bayou
3 Forest
4 Gaea's Cradle
1 Windswept Heath
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Colline Boscose



Sideboard: 15
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Pithing Needle
1 Null Rod
1 Choke
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1 Progenitus
1 Natural Order


I've always used as side-in, side-out this (obviously depends on the different lists, but especially the side-out is almost the same for all):

Miracles
+3 Abrupt Decay
+2 Pithing Needle
+2 Thoughtseize
+1 Natural Order
+1 Progenitus
+1 null rod
+1 choke
-3 Glimpse of Nature
-3 Heritage Druid
-2 Nettle Sentinel
-1 Craterhoof Behemoth
-1 Quirion Ranger

RUG & BUG Delver
+3 Abrupt Decay
+3 Thoughtseize
+1 Natural Order
+0/1 choke
+1 Progenitus
-2 Heritage Druid
-2 Nettle Sentinel
-1 Reclamation Sage
-1 Craterhoof Behemoth
-2 Glimpse of Nature

Jund
+2 Abrupt Decay
+1 Natural Order
+1 Progenitus
-1 Forest
-1 Heritage Druid
-1 Reclamation Sage
-1 Craterhoof Behemoth

Death and Taxes
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 null rod
+1 Progenitus
+1 Natural Order
-2 Heritage Druid
-2 Nettle Sentinel
-2 Glimpse of Nature
-1 forest


Shardless BUG
+1 Abrupt Decay
+2 Thoughtseize
+1 Natural Order
+1 Progenitus
-1 Nettle sentinel
-1 Birchlore Rangers
-1 Craterhoof Behemoth
-1 Heritage Druid
-1 Quirion / Reclamation Sage
U/W/R Delver
+3 Abrupt Decay
+3 Thoughtseize
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Null Rod
+1 Natural Order
+1 Progenitus
-2 Heritage Druid
-3 Nettle Sentinel
-2 Glimpse of Nature
-1 Craterhoof Behemoth
-2 ???

Storm
+3 Cabal Therapy
+3 Thoughtseize
+1 ruric
+1 null rod
+1 Natural Order
-3 Elvish Visionary
-1 Craterhoof Behemoth
-2 Wirewood Symbiote
-1 Nettle Sentinel
-1 Reclamation Sage
-1 ???


Elves!
+3 Cabal Therapy
+3 Thoughtseize
-1 ooze
-3 Elvish Visionary
-1 Wirewood Symbiote
-1 Reclamation Sage

Painter
+3 Abrupt Decay
-1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
+2 Thoughtseize
-2 Nettle Sentinel
+2 Pithing Needle
-1 Craterhoof Behemoth
-2 Heritage Druid
-1 Glimpse of Nature
+ 1 null rod
Sneak and Show
+3 Cabal Therapy
+3 Thoughtseize
+2 Pithing Needle
+0/1 natural order
-1 ooze
-1 quirion
-1 forest
-1 Elvish Visionary
-1 Wirewood Symbiote
-1 Heritage Druid
-1 Nettle Sentinel
-1 Reclamation Sage


do you think is good or there are improvements to be changed? I'd really like to hear the opinions of experienced players such as Julian and others who are important results with this deck, and the test that much.

I think this may aiutaree the entire community to greatly improve its performance.

[Quizzlemanizzle]

Thanks for repeating what I just said. They have 4 outs to remove Melira and instantly kill you. That's highly threatening.



You got too caught up in pointing out the obvious part that we are all well aware of. Unfortunately this made you miss the part where I said that Inkmoth Nexus is so dangerous because it kills you in a single swing after removing Melira. Glistener Elf and Blighted Agent are less threatening as both can be Abrupt Decay'ed or even chump-blocked (Elf). Just make sure not to die to the Trampling damage from Berserk, if you can afford it.


Mind that we are talking about adding a silverbullet that is ONLY applicable in a single, fringe matchup. In order to justify that the impact must be THROUGH THE ROOF. It is not.

Tsabo's Web seems decent against infect as well as some oddities like Lands.

[dte]

Tsabo's Web seems decent against infect as well as some oddities like Lands.

Tsabo's web is less good than needle against infect. Given the fact that it's way better against some decks which are not oddities, it's an easy choice to dismiss the card.

[Zombie]

The recent printings make me sad :/

[Blastoderm]

The recent printings make me sad :/

Huh? What recent printings?

[Zombie]

Huh? What recent printings?

One of our hallmark advantages has been raw draw, but now blue decks get pretty easy access to some damn busted draw spells. With little of the building rigidity we suffer from.

[shopshopshop]

If these spells start seeing play it also means that blue decks will have clunkier draws and be even more punished by the busted starts that Elves can have in the first few turns. I don't think those cards will upset Elves.

[Zombie]

If these spells start seeing play it also means that blue decks will have clunkier draws and be even more punished by the busted starts that Elves can have in the first few turns. I don't think those cards will upset Elves.

Dunno, most people testing those tend to come to the conclusion that they're the nuts. It's pretty much a rule at this point. Bryant is the first person I've seen that came away not impressed.

[dte]

We play a combo deck that can win before treasure cruse can be a thing (less threatening than a ponder into disruption/delver). And more, we play 4 DRS coupled with 8 untap effects + ScOoze and 4 GSZ. Cards that want to abuse grave in a slow way (after turn 3-4) are not that great versus elves.

What could affects elves more is which metagame shifts it could create: if BUG decks sees more play with them and less liliana/clique/TNN (they have to remove things from the top of their curve as the BS/ponder/seize are needed to feed the treasure cruise), it will still be a good MU.

It is not good in combo, so all the better. In patriot it competes with our most terrible opponent, grim. So if it replaces grim and patriot sees more play, all the better.

[Duker99]

hey guys... I see a lot of people play Sylvan Library... What match up is that for?

[Zombie]

hey guys... I see a lot of people play Sylvan Library... What match up is that for?

Grindy ones, especially grindy ones without decay. Miracles, Esperblade, RUG Delver, those kinds of matchups where you can really leverage just drawing better stuff (or in Miracles' case, using it as an incredibly bad Necropotence which still ends up being a very good card)

[MadRhetoric17]

Grindy ones, especially grindy ones without decay. Miracles, Esperblade, RUG Delver, those kinds of matchups where you can really leverage just drawing better stuff (or in Miracles' case, using it as an incredibly bad Necropotence which still ends up being a very good card)

I'll be trying Sylvan Library in my SB for the first time this weekend. Do you recommend bringing it in in all Delver matchups? Though RUG can't remove it, UWR and BUG are slower and there should be larger time frame where you can leverage the life for cards.

[phazonmutant]

We play a combo deck that can win before treasure cruse can be a thing (less threatening than a ponder into disruption/delver). And more, we play 4 DRS coupled with 8 untap effects + ScOoze and 4 GSZ. Cards that want to abuse grave in a slow way (after turn 3-4) are not that great versus elves.

What could affects elves more is which metagame shifts it could create: if BUG decks sees more play with them and less liliana/clique/TNN (they have to remove things from the top of their curve as the BS/ponder/seize are needed to feed the treasure cruise), it will still be a good MU.

It is not good in combo, so all the better. In patriot it competes with our most terrible opponent, grim. So if it replaces grim and patriot sees more play, all the better.

Agreed with this, at least preboard. I played a 6 or so game set preboard with Cruse BUG Delver against Elves, and the most use I got out of Cruise was to pitch to Force. The card will probably be much better postboard though. I often lose to Elves postboard by killing a bunch of their creatures and then dying to X/2 beats. Cruise should be much better in those grindy postboard games, but that's just based on theory. Also being another blue card to pitch to Force is very relevant since Daze is so bad and BUG has to board in a pile of non-blue removal.

[haganbmj]

Agreed with this, at least preboard. I played a 6 or so game set preboard with Cruse BUG Delver against Elves, and the most use I got out of Cruise was to pitch to Force. The card will probably be much better postboard though. I often lose to Elves postboard by killing a bunch of their creatures and then dying to X/2 beats. Cruise should be much better in those grindy postboard games, but that's just based on theory. Also being another blue card to pitch to Force is very relevant since Daze is so bad and BUG has to board in a pile of non-blue removal.

I'd like to compare it to Ancestral Visions. It takes just about as long to enable. The major difference is being able to keep the card in your hand for Force of Will and being able to better draw into the card after the first turn.
Either way, drawing three cards is only good if you're drawing into relevant stuff that you're able to use, which still doesn't seem to be a huge (mainboard) concern for Elves.

[theross]

I'll be trying Sylvan Library in my SB for the first time this weekend. Do you recommend bringing it in in all Delver matchups? Though RUG can't remove it, UWR and BUG are slower and there should be larger time frame where you can leverage the life for cards.

Please don't bring in Sylvan Library against any Delver deck. Even UWR with its heavy removal suite is ultimately a Delver deck since it plays so few threats and so many conditional counters. You can't afford to spend the life to gain cards immediately, and you don't have time to leverage the card otherwise. Sylvan comes in against midrange decks (Esper, Shardless) and Miracles. Unless Delver decks start bringing out their Delvers and playing a slower game just bring in your Decays and possibly an Ooze.

[mariobross]

In which metch-up you use Worldspine Wurm? And why?
Thanks for your help