Elf You: Top 8 at the February Jupiter Games NELC

[chinEsE girl]

It's been quite a while since my last report. I've been trying to adjust to having a job instead of being a student, and while my money situation is much better, I haven't had a ton of time for magic tournaments. I used to go to monthly events every single month at Jupiter Games, but for the last 13 months I've had to work on Saturdays so it just wasn't an option. Luckily I was able to shift departments at work, which also has made the days I work shift to Monday through Friday. This meant I could go to a Jupiter legacy event for the first time in over a year, and I was excited to play the newer version of Elves! that has become popular. I don't know who came up with natural order first, but it makes the deck an absolute monster. The deck just felt unbelievably powerful throughout the day, and although I didn't win the whole thing I felt like if I had average draws I couldn't lose. Here's the list I ran for the day

Elves!

4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Heritage Druid
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Quirion Ranger
1 Birchlore Ranger
1 Priest of Titania
1 Llanowar Elf
1 Fyndhorn Elf
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Regal Force

4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Glimpse of Nature
3 Natural Order
1 Crop Rotation

4 Wooded Foothills
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Gaea's Cradle
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Forest

Sideboard:
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Natural Order
1 Progenitus
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Mortorpod

The weird fetch configuration is because those are the 10 foil green fetches that I own, so obviously I need to play all of them :P Otherwise the list is almost exactly what Riley Curran won the Columbus SCG Open with. The only change was a 2-2 split of thoughtseize and therapy, where i wanted to be more comfortable with hitting the right card off my discard spell. Plus if you have a hand with both, you can just demolish your opponents hand and be on you merry way to winning the game. Onto the matches!

Round 1 vs Cory with Elves

Oh boy, the round 1 mirror, just what I always wanted......except not really. Game 1 I have him dead on my turn 3 pretty easily when I pass with a bunch of elves, but he actually tries to go off on his turn 2. The only problem is he sequences his plays the wrong way, going first glimpse, then heritage druid, then sentinel when he has 3 mana sources. Without another source to cast an elf, he has to stop and I easily kill him on my turn. If he had played all one mana elves first, he could have then made 3, glimpse, then go off from there, but mistakes like that will cost you. Game 2 he has a decent hand with a ton of mana and priest, but doesn't end up drawing any of his combo engines (his lack of natural order in his deck definitely cost him here). From there I just had sentinels on defense, found a decay for his priest, and then found a natural order eventually to put him out of his misery.

1-0

Round 2 vs Nick with Jund

Game 1 he starts off with a deathrite and then proceeds to waste me then lay down a dark confidant. The bob gives him a bunch of lands, allowing him to keep killing my creatures and wasting my cradles. Unfortunately for him he doesn't have anything other than deathrite to really pressure me, so eventually I find a glimpse plus creatures and hoof him. Game 2 was a little harder since I had to fight through both a jitte and a pernicious deed, but all he had for pressure was two deathrites and nothing else. So I went ahead and fetched harmonic sliver to first blow up the jitte. I then used 2 glimpses to mini combo on my turn, going up to over 8 cards in hand and moving to discard before he used the deed. It might have been right for him to have used it sooner, but it didn't really matter since I had a full hand and cradle against his nothing, so I easily won from there.

2-0

Round 3 vs Zach with Aggro Loam

When he went turn one bloodstained mire, pass, I was pretty ecstatic about the matchup, but then he went bolt my guy, confidant, next turn reveal seismic assault. Didn't really see that one coming. I was a little worried he would just assault me and I would never get creatures down, but he instead uses and engineered explosives to keep me off a few creatures, and I just combo on my turn though his assault since he only had 1 land he could chuck at a creature. Game 2 was easily the most interesting, and definitely silly game I played all day. He started the game by going land, mox diamond, chalice of the void at 1. Against my hand of mostly 1 mana spells. Well fuck me. I land a few visionaries while he gets down yet another chalice at 1. So I decide to go the aggro route and start attacking him with my 1/1 elves. When he plays gas spells like countryside crusher and sylvan library, I use a decay on each and just keep attacking with my dudes. I eventually get down a dryad arbor and the visionaries, and draw a natural order which find progenitus while he's at less than 10 life. He doesn't have perish and I kill him.

3-0

Round 4 vs Paulo with UWR Delver

He starts the match off with volc, lavamancer, go. FUCK ME. I actually try to make a game out of it, grinding my way back into it with visionaries and symbiotes and the like. The problem was that he had a removal heavy draw, and just killing creatures until he landed a delver that got me. Game 2 he also started with lavamancer, but he was a bit constrained on mana and I managed to order out a regal force which drew me a bunch and put me ahead on board. After getting him down with an attack, he couldn't attack back since I would lethal him, and I take me time to fully combo out and kill him with craterhoof. Game 3 was pretty frustrating, since I had to mull down to a pretty weak 6 and couldn't race his turn 1 delver. After he killed a few creatures and then put a jitte on it the match was over.

3-1

Round 5 vs Brian with Elves (again)

Huh, guess I get to play the mirror twice today. This match was a perfect example of why the mirror is silly. I won the die roll, and went turn 1 dork, turn 2 3 dorks, turn 3 cradle + order for hoof and you're dead. The funny thing is he also had the turn 3 natural order for lethal in hand, but I was the lucky die roll winner this time. Game 2 he mulled down to 4 and I got to keep a strong hand with priest and cradle in it, so it didn't take much to win on my third turn.

4-1

Round 6 vs JC with Junk

The first game he started with deathrite off of snowcovered basic forest, which I matched (off a standard basic forest). His next couple turns involved playing swords on some of my creatures and wasting some of my nonbasics. Eventually he played a confidant and I used the window to combo him out with hoof. Game 2 was very similar, with deathrite plus removal trying to keep my deck at bay. He only had so many removal spells though, and when he went to play tarmogoyf, I went cradle, add 6, sac my dryad arbor to get hoof and attack for 40 something.

5-1

Round 7 vs Bert with BUG Delver

We're both locks at this point for top 8, so we just draw and wish each other luck in the elimination rounds.

5-1-1

Quarters vs Paulo, again, with UWR delver

Game 1 he once again has freaking lavamancer, on the play no less (since he was the higher seed going into top 8). However, he whiffs on land for several turns and can only kill a few creatures and force one spell. I eventually assemble a critical mass of elves and get there. However, games 2 and 3 are easily the worst mulligans I ever had to do in a match. Both games I had to mull down to 4 cards before I saw a single land. I am confidant that either my 7 or 6 cards hands either game would have gotten there if I had a land instead of a random card. However, as it was I saw about 45~ cards between the two games and only 1 lands the whole time, so just like that I'm knocked out of the tournament.

5-1-2

So my impression of the deck is obviously positive. During the swiss all my match wins were 2-0, and while a few games were close most of them were just blowouts. And I'm not even super good at piloting the deck yet. I'm just mildly competent at the moment. Once I start to master the deck, I feel like its going to do some serious damage at some other legacy events in the future. For those people who and interested in the deck, I highly recommend it. The inclusion of natural order and craterhoof make the deck super consistent at killing on turn 3/4, and the deck is still set up super well to grind out opponents with countermagic. It still has the weakness of being soft vs other combo decks, but the sideboard can help and I am fine playing something that can win as fast as other combo decks in the room. I'm not sure what the best way to set up the sideboard is, but I at least feel like the maindeck is very good right now. I might take out a deathrite or two for some llanowars since drawing multiple deathrites was pretty bad, but otherwise every card was quite good. I can't wait to play with this deck more in the future.

Thanks for reading.



Eric English, aka chinEsE_girl


Edit: forgot the one crop rotation in the main and the motorpod in the side

[Tammit67]

Congrats, it was good to see you at events again

[andrebonotto]

Congrats on your performance.

But isn't your SB missing a card? (Or did I misscount it?)

I am trying to get 1x Natural Order; 2x Bayou and the playset of Cabal Therapys to assemble this version of the deck. It looks very powerfull now

[chinEsE girl]

Congrats on your performance.

But isn't your SB missing a card? (Or did I misscount it?)

I am trying to get 1x Natural Order; 2x Bayou and the playset of Cabal Therapys to assemble this version of the deck. It looks very powerfull now

You are correct, I had forgotten about the one mortorpod in the sideboard

[Michael Keller]

Well done on your performance, Eric. It will be a pleasure to see you around the Jupiter circuit again.

[andrebonotto]

You are correct, I had forgotten about the one mortorpod in the sideboard

Okay, thanks.

Let me take this opportunity to ask you some questions on this last card - Mortarpod:

1) How good is he at Elves' sideboard?

2) In which situations is it used? (To fight against what?)

3) How is he better than the other available answers for the same problems he solves?

4) How does one play it "correctly"?

5) Any other wise words on this card?


I'm sorry about the plenty of questions, but I keep seeing this card at some lists, but never figured it out exactly what is the "deal" with it...

[Jankwolf]

Congrats on the finish! So glad I I didn't go against you...not too sure how the manaless MU is against elves. Though it was it was awkward playing with Mr.Hollywood looking over my shoulder during one of the rounds. Again though, awesome finish.

[chinEsE girl]

Okay, thanks.

Let me take this opportunity to ask you some questions on this last card - Mortarpod:

1) How good is he at Elves' sideboard?

2) In which situations is it used? (To fight against what?)

3) How is he better than the other available answers for the same problems he solves?

4) How does one play it "correctly"?

5) Any other wise words on this card?


I'm sorry about the plenty of questions, but I keep seeing this card at some lists, but never figured it out exactly what is the "deal" with it...

First and foremost I think of it as an answer to grim lavamancer. That card can straight up wreck you with additional support. The one deck I lost to (UWR delver) had three in his deck, and it played a big part in the games he won. When you have mortorpod, you get to answer the first lavamancer and have a card that deals with every other one they play. It can also kill unflipped delvers, as well as being great in any tribal matchup, especially the mirror. If you somehow can't use death rite shamans to kill your opponent, mortorpod can also do the trick.

Playing it correctly isn't too hard either. As soon as your opponent plays something you need to stop, pod comes down and nukes it. In the mirror, you get to slam it down and keep them off any important creature. You could play another decay in the sideboard instead since they answer similar things, and decay has more range. However, it's not repeatable, so I'm going to be still running a pod for the foreseeable future.

[Lans89]

And with Mortarpod you can combo out and win trough cards like Moat