[Discussion] Elf Combo Decks

[DalkonCledwin]

Okay so Pro-Tour Berlin is the Pro-Tour of the Elf-Combo deck. My question is, do any of you think that the Elf-Combo decks that saw play in Extended will make their way into Legacy. My opinion is that they will not... their are far to many solutions to these decks to make them viable in my opinion:

Engineered Plague - one E-Plague makes it so that everything except the Nettle Sentinels, Wirewood Symbiot, and any big non-elf creature (and Viridian Shaman of course) happens to die. A second plague takes care of either the Wirewood Symbiot, or the Nettle Sentinels, and Viridian Shamans.

Cursed Totem - turns off all mana abilities of creatures, thus crippling the deck, and makes it so that the deck has to search for its Viridian Shamans the slow route in order to deal with the Cursed Totem.

Stifle / Trickbind - deals with grapeshot based win conditions and other storm based win conditions quite nicely.

Swords to Plowshares / Snuff Out / other GOOD creature removal - deals with Predator Dragon based win conditions quite well in most cases.

So yeah, not sure but I think I covered most of the reasons why these decks wouldn't be playable. But is there anyone who thinks there is any reason why these decks might see some play?

[raharu]

Can't you just counter the enabler (Glimpse/ Regal Force/ Tutors) or kill the Heritage Druids? I mean, when 'Goyf Sligh gets a good combo mu because of this, it's pretty... iDunno. Anyway, I might be horrendously wrong, but as I understand it the combo doesn't function without Druids or Glimpses.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Actually, the ability to double as an aggro deck could make this really strong, especially with Sylvan Messenger/Symbiote as a draw engine. It is frightfully vulnerable to removal, but that's also what Caller of the Claw is for. It's a ramped up version of Darwin's Revenge, which was semi-competitive.

I dunno. It might have potential.

[raharu]

iDunno, IBA. The agro end is just bad elves, which is just bad Goblins, etc., etc. I mean, if the combo does fold to removal on Druid (Could someone verify that?), then it doesn't have a whole lot of game, because agro always plays removal, control has removal as well, as does agro-control, so the only thing that isn't running MD removal is... other combo? Ewww... iDunno. I presume it's a question of what it's strong match-ups actually are.

[Wobbles The Goose]

I guess this thread constitutes "format discussion", but it bares noting that there is another thread in the New and Development forum already about this deck:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11264

I am particularly partial to the build running 4x Thoughseize 2x Orim's chant.

I highly recommend watching someone with experience play the deck. The builds with weird harvest are particularly hard to "pick up and play", and it's easy to dismiss off hand if you fizzle because you don't actually grab the cards you needed too.

As to it's larger viability in the format, it will probably play a persistant niche roll. It's a fairly cheap budget deck (especially mono-green builds) with a fast clock and a popular tribe. Especially if the deck doesn't receive banning in extended, expect to see players pick it up as they gather the cards for PTQ season. Combine that with the fact that it can catch a metagame unaware (see Berlin), and it has all the trappings of a popular fringe option.

I mean, people play elves at tournaments if the deck is good or not, and these elves are pretty good.

[DalkonCledwin]

I guess this thread constitutes "format discussion", but it bares noting that there is another thread in the New and Development forum already about this deck:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11264

I am particularly partial to the build running 4x Thoughseize 2x Orim's chant.

I highly recommend watching someone with experience play the deck. The builds with weird harvest are particularly hard to "pick up and play", and it's easy to dismiss off hand if you fizzle because you don't actually grab the cards you needed too.

As to it's larger viability in the format, it will probably play a persistant niche roll. It's a fairly cheap budget deck (especially mono-green builds) with a fast clock and a popular tribe. Especially if the deck doesn't receive banning in extended, expect to see players pick it up as they gather the cards for PTQ season. Combine that with the fact that it can catch a metagame unaware (see Berlin), and it has all the trappings of a popular fringe option.

I mean, people play elves at tournaments if the deck is good or not, and these elves are pretty good.

interesting, staff of domination builds really aren't the type of build I am talking about. However I will mention what I have mentioned here in that thread as well. I guess this thread can be closed... I didn't realize that that thread was actually discussion on said combo decks (I thought they were an entirely different combo deck)... oh well.

[mercenarybdu]

That Elf deck is good, all it needs are just slight edits here and there to make it a little better in winning lots of games...

Yet it is beatable just by using your smarts....

[Giles]

Personally I think it is a fine deck to surprize people with. The elf deck is not a deck you should put in your heavy rotation.

[Omega]

In my opinion, i will not modify any of my decks to fight elfs. Counter, Counterbalance, and even removals are all cards that should be able to stop this elf combo deck. Once stopped, it is a normal aggro deck, and normal aggro loses to Tarmogoyfs

I do agree though, that there might be something that we can do about it. I think Discard/Chant is a good move ahead. You might consider more cards like imperous prefect/elvish champion just to make your army bigger

Robert

[TrialByFire]

Counterbalance/Top pretty much takes it out of the equation. Its pretty hard to beat that.

[emidln]

From seeing this deck on MWS I've noticed that storm combo decks a lot of wins simply by virtue of playing Orim's Chant. I've found that when the elf deck tries for a turn 2, they often can't pay for pact if you chant them in response. (obviously the solution is to not play pact if you can't pay for it vs chant decks) but the rest of the games weren't close at all. It was always elves killing itself or dying to Tendrils. Considering I've been playing a very slow build of Tendrils combo, that makes me wonder if the deck is viable. It has the same problem with CB and Chalice as storm combo, loses the combo mirror, and happens to be slower than storm combo against the rest of the format (leaving more time for stuff like removal to come online).

[raharu]

From seeing this deck on MWS I've noticed that storm combo decks a lot of wins simply by virtue of playing Orim's Chant. I've found that when the elf deck tries for a turn 2, they often can't pay for pact if you chant them in response. (obviously the solution is to not play pact if you can't pay for it vs chant decks) but the rest of the games weren't close at all. It was always elves killing itself or dying to Tendrils. Considering I've been playing a very slow build of Tendrils combo, that makes me wonder if the deck is viable. It has the same problem with CB and Chalice as storm combo, loses the combo mirror, and happens to be slower than storm combo against the rest of the format (leaving more time for stuff like removal to come online).
That's kinda exactly what I thought.

[badjuju]

I think that elves is viable, but by no means top tier, not in this state.

Engineered Plague isn't as common as it was back in Goblin's hay day. This can easily be turned into elves advantage. I don't plan on seeing E-Plague at all unless it was in a very concentrated metagame. But then I wouldn't be playing elves every week. Cursed Totem is something seen even less often. However, if both come back in force then this deck is dead.

Stifle effects are always problematic to combo. Sure it answers Grapeshot, but if your deck runs any disruption at all, it will definitely draw into it and be able to cast it via Birchlore Rangers.

StP/Snuff Out/Removal etc is always a problem. What I've realized is that removing creatures while going off is usually no more than a hinderance. The deck is amazingly resilient. As for answering a Predator Dragon, just don't be stupid while playing the deck. Wait till they tap out and respond with a Chord. If you're running disruption, use it. If they've got one white open, just keep dropping elves and not let them have a shot at targeted removal on your win condition.

The appeal of this deck is the fact that it can turn aggro. I am an advocate of the version running Wirewood Hivemasters because they deck doesn't need enablers to win (ie. Glimpse of Nature and Regal Force). It may be a "bad" aggro deck, but 10+ power of 1/1s and 2/2s on turn 2 is still nothing to scoff at. Note that the version also runs Chord of Calling, which dodges Counterbalance, and finds an answer right away.

The combo matchup is always, always a tossup, and greatly dependent on both the elves variant and the storm variant. If the elf deck is running Thoughtseize and Orim's Chant, couldn't the same be said about ruining storm combo's day? The elf deck can turn 2 and averages turn 3 with a decent hand. Even if it fizzles, the deck will oftentimes have enough creatures to put you on a 2 or 3 turn clock. Post board options include Thorn of Amethyst for starters.

Edit: Forgot to add that yes, this deck folds to heavy removal. Yes, this deck sucks against stuff like Stax and Aggro Loam. And yes, this deck can just die if it doesn't get decent hands. I'm not trying to defend a pet deck here, I'm trying to defend a deck that is definitely stronger than most people dismiss it for.

[Wobbles The Goose]

From seeing this deck on MWS I've noticed that storm combo decks a lot of wins simply by virtue of playing Orim's Chant. I've found that when the elf deck tries for a turn 2, they often can't pay for pact if you chant them in response. (obviously the solution is to not play pact if you can't pay for it vs chant decks) but the rest of the games weren't close at all. It was always elves killing itself or dying to Tendrils. Considering I've been playing a very slow build of Tendrils combo, that makes me wonder if the deck is viable. It has the same problem with CB and Chalice as storm combo, loses the combo mirror, and happens to be slower than storm combo against the rest of the format (leaving more time for stuff like removal to come online).

Considering the average play skill of an opponent on MWS, the fact that the deck is deceptively hard to play, and it's extremely recent arrival in the format, I think that it would be presumptive to base any larger conclusions about the decks viability on such anecdotal evidence. That said, Yesmilord's concerns are definitely true.

Only time and tournament results are really going to resolve this.

[Artowis]

From seeing this deck on MWS

Yeah I stopped reading about there. Even on Magic Online where you actually have to plop cash down for the deck and to enter the tournaments on there, the majority of Elf-Ball players range from bad to bye. I've had people cast Summoner's Pact simply on auto-pilot assuming they could figure out what to grab and let them combo off that turn. Then when they couldn't, they would lose to it. I've had Elves players pretty much kill themselves via going off with Glimpse into Pyrostatic Pillar. And so on and so forth.

This is not an easy deck to play, it is in fact deceptively so, because the combo options seem so straight-forward due to the cheap cost of everything and having great tutors in the deck. Most people don't have the patience or the skill to just raw-dog the statistics and update their plan of action based on each Glimpse draw. Plus people will probably make the deck worse by adding dog-shit that wasn't legal in Extended in the hope of 'improving' it without understand why the deck is amazing in the first place.

Not saying the deck is the next big thing in Legacy or the hardest deck ever to play, but I'd be surprised if any Legacy players had already picked the deck up and practiced enough with it to be adept with the deck.

[emidln]

I'd be more than happy to test the matchup against anyone who thinks they are adept enough with the deck for the results to matter. I don't think that actually changes Chant/Duress wrecking the deck or storm combo being faster and more consistent.

[spirit of the wretch]

Elves was broken in Extendet, will it be broken in Legacy?
Well, Legacy has:
Force of Will to stop a fast combo finish
Swords, Snuff Out will do the same
Counterbalance to completely wreck the deck
Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Mox Diamond to power out fast Chalice, 3Sphere
Devastating Dreams, Deed bad news for a deck relying on mass creatures
Plague despite the decline of Goblins, still a decent SB card

all of these cards are popular and widely played, so I don't think the all-in combo approach is the way to go with the Elves!.dec (as you're pretty much done if you played Pact and your opponent has one of the mentiones ways to disrupt you).
I also don't see how this deck is superior (or even remotely close) to traditional strom combo decks. The backup aggro plan isn't worth the vulnerability you get from having to play dudes.

[Maveric78f]

I completely agree with Artowis. I don't consider myself as a bad player, but this deck is very hard to manipulate. 1 for 1 like FoW/Snuff Out are clearly bad against that deck. 1-shot cards like pyroclasm, DD, wrath of god or Deed are a hinder, but they are not game breaking, because you can answer with caller of the claw. Permanent hates are all artifact/enchantment, and hope fully Krosan Grip exists. A single Meddling Mage is not really a successful hate neither, because you can win with a lot of combinations.

Stifle/Trickbind are most of the time completely useless against that deck.

By the way, 3sphere is very very weak too if not played on turn 1 on the play.

[kicks_422]

By what I can interpret from somewhat limited testing, the engine itself is very strong. Nettle Sentinel and Heritage Druid really give the deck a huge boost, enough to kick Priest of Titania (which was kind of the staple for Elf combo decks) to the curb. All the tools are in place as well, with Glimpse of Nature, Summoner's Pact, and Weird Harvest (or in some versions, Chord of Calling).

The only thing missing in the deck is a great kill method. Regal Force into (hopefully) Grapeshot still seems pretty weak, even if it does mean you can swing the following turn if that gets hindered. Chord into Predator Dragon makes a creature-based combo deck even more vulnerable to removal. If a green creature comes along which says "untap all creatures you control, they gain +1/+1 and haste," this deck would be very good.

[Maveric78f]

Staff untaps all creatures, gains 1billion life and generates 1 billion mana. From that point you can run a single booster that gives trample if you wish to (Kamahl, Fist of Krosa or Tribal Forcemage). I'm not sure it's necessary though.

[kicks_422]

But that requires Priest of Titania.

The Grapeshot kill relies a lot on Glimpse of Nature or Regal Force to draw into it. The Predator Dragon kill gives you more tutors with Chord, but it puts you at the risk of losing to a single removal spell. Tough choice.

[emidln]

I don't honestly see how the statistics based choices made in this deck are any different from the choices I make playing Ad Nauseam, Doomsday, Solidarity, SI, or Heartbeat, Meandeck Gifts, or Grim Long. You have tutors. Figuring out the statistical best play when you have multiple paths to victory isn't actually very hard. Sure, it's more difficult than "durr, turn dudez sidewayz durr" but that doesn't make the decisions mind blowingly difficult. The key to this (elf) deck, like all decks, is understanding what classes of cards you have (mana engine, untap, card draw, etc) , what they take to play (their cost), and then being able to recognize when you need what class (the tutoring decision based on what you already have and what you probably can get from your hand/board). The bottom line is that "difficult to play" isn't a very good argument here (and I'll argue that it's true for Fetchland Tendrils, The Epic Storm, Ichorid, Threshold, Vintage SX, Meandeck Gifts, and any other deck you want to throw my way)* because there are extremely few difficult decisions in Magic the Gathering. The closest we get are when statistically there are two very strong decisions (both above 35% likely to be correct) which tends to not be the case very often in a deck that is attempting to draw cards to bring a mana engine online in order to play some random win condition. (Haven't we seen this concept before with, off the top of my head, Necro-Trix and High Tide?)

*Additionally, it's not simply that I'm claiming to be an amazing player and you should worship me (I am and you should, but that's an entirely different matter.). A merely good player with a proper understanding of how to make choices who can recgonize what he has on board, in hand, and knows his deck well enough to know what he has left can make good decisions with any deck listed with relative ease.

[Maveric78f]

It's difficult to play because it faces a lot of hate cards and because you have a solution to all of them. The difficulty is to plan your backup plans as well as you are building your win. At this point, I don't know when I overextend or when I'm not aggressive enough in my play.

The fact that you can't anticipate the cards you'll draw off a glimpse of nature is not a problem since playing glimpse of nature is never a bad play.

[Cire]

If a green creature comes along which says "untap all creatures you control, they gain +1/+1 and haste," this deck would be very good.

Why not Play Flame-Kin zealot? With Birchlore rangers you can make any mana you want...

[Maveric78f]

Because you don't have the untap effect. I never tested how many creatures we could play and keep untapped for the final kill. But, be realistic, in a tourney, your opponent will not wait that you finish comboing. He'll concede.

[emidln]

Because you don't have the untap effect. I never tested how many creatures we could play and keep untapped for the final kill. But, be realistic, in a tourney, your opponent will not wait that you finish comboing. He'll concede.

Not if he's good. You could fizzle and die to mana burn amongst other things. You could also make a mistake that makes some random card of his relevant. Especially against combo, there is little reason to concede to save 2-4 minutes. If they are taking longer, call a judge for slow play. Just because their deck has more involved decisions doesn't mean they get longer to make them.

[Maveric78f]

Comboing with elves is not a matter of 2/4 minutes. It can be easily 15/20 minutes. (40 cards to play and you're not supposed to be in an autopilot mode).

[yawg07]

Not if he's good. You could fizzle and die to mana burn amongst other things. You could also make a mistake that makes some random card of his relevant. Especially against combo, there is little reason to concede to save 2-4 minutes. If they are taking longer, call a judge for slow play. Just because their deck has more involved decisions doesn't mean they get longer to make them.

Yeah, if you are stupid and incompetent and playing Elves. You shouldn't automatically assume that the person playing elves is a terrible player.
Just because the latest builds of the deck are very new to Legacy, does NOT mean that the players are really bad.
Anyone who is decent at all with this deck knows not to over-produce your mana in the Legacy environment.
They also know when to play Pacts, when to play their elves, and more importantly, how to SB.

True, most players DO concede when they don't have an out and you are turning into a froth of green mana.
It is no different than TES or one of the 1000 variants of FT, if you are comboing, and you know what you are doing, you will win.




Also, Maverick78f, 15-20 minutes? You must play slower than me.
Tap untap tap untap tap untap ... yeah it takes a while, maybe 5-10, not 15-20.

[emidln]

@ yawg07

I've seen amazing players make terrible plays while comboing. At any event where I care about the prize, I'm going to make my opponent play it out if I have some time to spare. A case in point would be an opponent who doesn't seem especially adept (and is taking 20 minutes). I would take that as a prime opportunity to ask a judge to watch the progress of gameplay. I do it against players playing Tendrils combo and Brain Freeze combo and have no problem doing it to an elf player. IMO, if you can't efficiently play your deck, you have no business playing it at an event and deserve any penalities or warnings that accumulate for slow-play. 5-10 Minutes is a reasonable price to pay to make sure my opponent actually isn't making mistakes (or a chunk of that time until I can determine they're not going to make a mistake). This isn't just for Legacy players, it's a habit developed against PTQ players who tend to pick up a shiny new deck without really studying and practicing with it.



Comboing with elves is not a matter of 2/4 minutes. It can be easily 15/20 minutes. (40 cards to play and you're not supposed to be in an autopilot mode).

If it's taking you 20 minutes chances are that I'll be calling a judge and asking them to monitor the progress of the game because that is blatent slow play.

[Timmy, Power Gamer]

If it's taking you 20 minutes chances are that I'll be calling a judge and asking them to monitor the progress of the game because that is blatent slow play.

I would argue that as long as they are playing their cards and abilities at a reasonable pace, it is not slow play regardless of how long they are taking. I can imagine playing a deck like tide or elves and burning through the rest of my deck even though I am holding the game winning card already. Just because I am holding the lethal Brain Freeze, I am under no obligation to play it now as long as I am continuing to make plays in a timely fashion.

[emidln]

I would argue that as long as they are playing their cards and abilities at a reasonable pace, it is not slow play regardless of how long they are taking. I can imagine playing a deck like tide or elves and burning through the rest of my deck even though I am holding the game winning card already. Just because I am holding the lethal Brain Freeze, I am under no obligation to play it now as long as I am continuing to make plays in a timely fashion.


If you are taking 20 minutes to combo with glimpse of nature having already resolved, you are not playing your cards in a timely fashion.

[Maveric78f]

After resolving glimpse, the question is how much mana will you generate. This is not easy to save mana. Usually, if you play it correctly you should be able to save between 20 and 30 manas at the end of the combo, enabling you to untap 2/3 elves with no summoning sickness, to boost your creatures with Kamahl, and to attack for the win. But you have to play it right, in the right order or you would kill only 1 turn later, with can be problematic sometimes.

[Artowis]

If you are taking 20 minutes to combo with glimpse of nature having already resolved, you are not playing your cards in a timely fashion.

The Elf mirror in the semifinals of the PT between Thaler and Zatlkaj took about 70 minutes to finish g1. And one of them got a turn 3 kill in that game.
That said, it was an odd game in general, I just wanted to illustrate that playing in a timely fashion is very open to interpretation. I asked LSV and he said it took about 8-10 minutes on average to combo out. He never got a judge called on him if it took longer than that to kill on an opponent though.

[kicks_422]

I would assume that most of the time spent on comboing out would be on keeping track of the game state (e.g. listing down the mana, keeping track of tokens, spells played, etc) rather than on the actual play movements of tapping, untapping, etc.

[B4L4]

Instead of Kamahl, you can play 4xPriest, 4xSymbiote and 1xMirror Entity in the deck.
Priest + Symbiote + Entity is a good way to have infinite X/X creatures

_activate Entity for G (X=1), so Symbiote is now an elf
_tap Priest for +GGG
_Use Symbiote ability (bounce himself to your hand) to untap Priest,
_Play Symbiote again -G
_Pay -G for Entity (X=1)
_tap Priest for +GGG , bounce Symbiote to untap it, ect.. each time you gain +G

[Maveric78f]

why only 1*entity?

It's aggro, it's combo and it's even protection against pyroclasm effects. If I splash white, I definitely play at least 3 of them.

[B4L4]

x1 for my example, just to show that Entity is a good one-slot target for the kill after you get the combo. (which involve a list playing Priest, and at least a birchlore ranger or a chord of calling to put Entity into play).

I don't think its worth splashing white just for a kill card in a combo-version.


But if you want to splash white and play 3-4 Entity, sure it may be strong, but i think it become another deck.