dsg123456789
10-16-2009, 02:20 PM
Hey guys, I'm here with a deck I've been working on. At first glance, it looks like Aggro Elves, but I've made some changes to it that fundamentally alter the way that it is played and drastically improve some matchups. This build drastically improves the Control matchup while changing the strategy for the aggro matchup. Combo still sucks, but that's life for elves. First, the decklist; then, explanations.
Lands
17 Forest
Mana Producing Creatures:
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Elves of Deep Shadow
4 Priest of Titania
Enabling Cards:
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
Engine:
4 Sylvan Messenger
4 Bloodline Shaman
4 Wolf-skull Shaman
Finishers:
4 Imperious Perfect
3 Heedless one
This deck does not usually play out like an aggro deck would, even though it has many cards typically seen in an aggressive elf deck. Whereas some players decided that elves needed haste, and so they started playing survival, I decided that elves have some amazing undercosted probabilistic card advantage sources, which (given that I am studying randomized algorithms at MIT) appeals greatly to me. The idea with this deck is to play enough resources so that your mana cannot be cut off, and then gain massive card advantage and crush your opponent.
First, the card choices:
12 elves that produce one mana and cost one mana: I decided that these are very important early on. This is an extremely mana-hungry deck, yet you only run 17 lands. Therefore, you would really like to see 2-3 one mana elves by turn 2, so that you can have 5+ mana on turn 3. I think that llanowar and fyndhorn are obvious choices, but Elves of Deep Shadow are not. Although there are times that Elves of Deep Shadow's damage and off-colorness suck, I'm usually much happier with him. He lets you get a turn 2 shaman into play through daze, and he still produces mana. These 12 cards are basically lands 18-29.
Priest of Titania: In an elf deck, this card is broken. If you resolve it, you can cast every spell you'll draw, which can be up to 4-8 spells per turn. This is one of the ways you beat control--you can overwhelm their removal with the number of elves you cast each turn and recover in a single turn from a sweeper with one of these.
Quirion Ranger: The power of this card is indisputable, but playing 4 of them is. Here's why it's important: First of all, this deck really needs a land in play so that it can play some of its mana elves and start doing things. Quirion ranger keeps your lands around through sinkhole and other land destroying/tampering spells. More importantly, however, is that he lets you do broken things with mana acceleration. For instance: T1: Mana elf. T2: Tap forest for G, Tap elf for 1, play Ranger, use its ability to untap the elf and bounce the forest, replay the forest and retap the elf for 2G, which can be used to play a shaman + 1drop, or a Perfect. This card really lets the deck accelerate. In addition, untap effects are very important, as they synergize with Imperious Perfect, Priest of Titania, and Bloodline Shaman.
Wirewood Symbiote: This is the only non-elf I run maindeck, because it serves 3 key functions: 1) It protects your key elves from removal and gives you infinite chump blockers. 2) It lets you do broken things with Sylvan Messenger, drawing 4 cards or more per turn. 3) It provides more untap effects for use with the Perfect, Priest, and Bloodline Shaman.
Sylvan Messenger: This card is great. With 39 elves in the deck, you can expect to draw 2.6 cards per Messenger. This means that you'll get 3 elves more often than you'll get 2. Resolving this frequently wins the game, as you'll be able to swamp your opponent with more threats than they can deal with.
Bloodline Shaman: This card seems like a strange choice without Top or Brainstorm; however, by playing such a high density of elves, it is very effective, being more likely than not to draw a card. Over the course of several turns, this shaman can help you dig for threats, giving you a source of recurring card advantage. Furthermore, it synergizes extremely well with Symbiote and Ranger, letting you draw several cards per turn. Finally, the fact that you pay zero mana for its ability makes it awesome, because you will have more mana available to cast what you draw.
Wolf-Skull Shaman: This is another strange choice of card, but it is your other source of recurring card advantage. Here, you get a free 2/2 creature most turns, which most decks just cannot handle. He ruins Standstill's effectiveness, since you can usually beat them because you are acquiring creatures at a arithmetic rate for free. Furthermore, he is excellent against engineered plague, since not only does he survive, but also he provides you an unaffected army. This card will win many games by letting you force a standoff which you will win from your recurring card advantage. Also, his ability works well with Bloodline Shaman, improving the probability of drawing more cards per turn (if you reveal an elf, get it with the shaman, and then draw the next card).
Imperious Perfect: Make a creature every turn and give all your dudes buffs? This is probably (ignoring the meta) the best elf lord. Furthermore, he fits into the deck very synergistically, untapping via Symbiote and Ranger and making every other creature into a real threat.
Heedless One: This is a creature I've just started testing, and so far, I really like it. You usually want to see one mid-late game, as it usually can break any standoff. You might be sitting around, each player with a large turn of creatures, but no one getting through for any damage. Heedless One frequently comes in as a 5/5 or 6/6, and usually is an 8/8 or bigger when I untap and swing. Trample is really effective, as he cannot be chump blocked. Finally, he lets you race evasion creatures, since he's frequently as big as the combo-control decks' combo-fatties (dark depths or progenitus) taking into consideration the 8+ power of other elves you have in play. This is the least synergistic card in the deck, but I added it because it is a cheaper and/or better stalemate breaker than other cards I tested (tribal forcemage and gempalm strider).
Cards that didn't make this list:
Elvish Archdruid: Although this deck craves mana, when you have 3 mana available, you usually want to be casting winning creatures, not mana producers. He's not as good as Priest or Perfect, and the in-between role just isn't that useful in practice. I board him in vs. Plague.
Nonelves: This deck wins using the Shaman card advantage engine. This requires about 40 elves in the deck, or else it's not at all effective. With 40 elves; however, this card advantage engine actually works, and it is much better than most other engines, since it doesn't require specific helper cards, is synergistic with 12 other cards in the deck (Ranger + Symbiote + the other Shaman), and is good in multiples. Thus, the nonelf must be amazing for it to be included.
Other Lords: First of all, the draw engine is so powerful that you'll usually be able to see 2 lords, as I'll nearly always see half my deck during a game. In addition, these aren't as synergistic with the other cards in the deck, in the sense that they encourage you to play aggressively, where this deck wants you to play conservatively while chumping a lot and win in 1-2 big swings.
Vanquisher (the 3/3 for 1G w/ Deathtouch): Once again, this is a great aggro card that doesn't belong in a deck that plays like a control deck. I tested this card, and I never wanted to cast it because I always wanted to cast a Priest or Shaman early on, and later in the game I had 10+ mana and would prefer to see any big threat, and this just isn't big enough in this format (it trades with most of zoo's creatures and many other format staples like tarmogoyf, thoctar, and tombstalker). I usually want to chump block them and stall until I can crush them. This card can't race the evasive fatties, and it acts like crappy removal in this deck.
Wellwisher: I honestly haven't tested this card, but it seems like it might be useful in some situations, as gaining 10 life per turn would make it very difficult to outrace you. On the other hand, this deck already can stall for plenty of time, and can outrace most other decks without any problem. It is still worth looking into.
Gempalm Strider: I played with this card for several months and really like it, since it was a cantrip that could turn a seeming wall of chumps into an unexpected one-sided Wrath, or it could help you swing for the win, but the requirement that you needed to invest mana NOW to use it (rather than in previous turns) made it inferior to other permanent-based solutions.
Tribal Forcemage: I also liked this card, but I swapped him out for imperious perfect, because the Perfect fits the deck's strategy better. With the forcemage, you played him and then swung for the win. It's the same with the Perfect, except that the Perfect also lets you chump them out and build up an army (even under standstill).
Wirewood Hivemaster: This is not as good as Wolf-Skull Shaman. This card gives you 2 1/1s if you successfully cast an elf, whereas the Shaman gives you a 2/2 just for drawing it. The wolf-skull shaman can let you put a lot of pressure on a control deck even if they counter everything you cast, whereas this card doesn't help in that case. Also, he's a 1/1, which isn't as robust as the Shaman.
Elvish Visionary: This card sucks, basically. For 2 mana, you could draw a card every turn instead.
Sideboard Cards:
Thorn of Amethyst is pretty much your only defense against combo.
Krosan Grip comes in against plague and annoying artifacts.
Basically, the sideboard is pretty standard and meta-dependent.
I like to side Elvish Archdruid and Eladamri, because both are better in certain matchups, depending on the prevalence of damage-based point removal.
Interesting possibilities:
One things I'm very interested in is adding a black splash. The biggest downside to this is that it would weaken the manabase by making it vulnerable to hate in the form of Wasteland and Stifle. But there are several advantages: Firstly, it would improve the combo matchup by giving us Duress, Thoughtseize, or any other anti-combo card. Second, it would give us maindeck tribal removal, either with Eyeblight's Ending (2B Instant--Elf Destroy target nonelf creature) or Lys Alana Scarblade (2B 1/1 T,discard an elf: target creature gets -x/-x, where x is the number of elves in play). I'm not sure whether the recurring kill is as effective since it is a 1/1 and thus very vulnerable, but both of them could be used to kill all the common threats except for Progenitus (who we can outrace anyway).
Finally, and most importantly: the key to winning with this deck is not to kill them fast (obviously, you should do this if they leave you an opening), but instead to overwhelm them in a later turn. I've played this deck and found favorable matchups against Aggro and Control. Against Aggro, you want to stall them out and them crush them when you have many, many more creatures than they do. Against control, you have a better card advantage engine and can easily recover from counterspells and removal.
Lands
17 Forest
Mana Producing Creatures:
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Elves of Deep Shadow
4 Priest of Titania
Enabling Cards:
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
Engine:
4 Sylvan Messenger
4 Bloodline Shaman
4 Wolf-skull Shaman
Finishers:
4 Imperious Perfect
3 Heedless one
This deck does not usually play out like an aggro deck would, even though it has many cards typically seen in an aggressive elf deck. Whereas some players decided that elves needed haste, and so they started playing survival, I decided that elves have some amazing undercosted probabilistic card advantage sources, which (given that I am studying randomized algorithms at MIT) appeals greatly to me. The idea with this deck is to play enough resources so that your mana cannot be cut off, and then gain massive card advantage and crush your opponent.
First, the card choices:
12 elves that produce one mana and cost one mana: I decided that these are very important early on. This is an extremely mana-hungry deck, yet you only run 17 lands. Therefore, you would really like to see 2-3 one mana elves by turn 2, so that you can have 5+ mana on turn 3. I think that llanowar and fyndhorn are obvious choices, but Elves of Deep Shadow are not. Although there are times that Elves of Deep Shadow's damage and off-colorness suck, I'm usually much happier with him. He lets you get a turn 2 shaman into play through daze, and he still produces mana. These 12 cards are basically lands 18-29.
Priest of Titania: In an elf deck, this card is broken. If you resolve it, you can cast every spell you'll draw, which can be up to 4-8 spells per turn. This is one of the ways you beat control--you can overwhelm their removal with the number of elves you cast each turn and recover in a single turn from a sweeper with one of these.
Quirion Ranger: The power of this card is indisputable, but playing 4 of them is. Here's why it's important: First of all, this deck really needs a land in play so that it can play some of its mana elves and start doing things. Quirion ranger keeps your lands around through sinkhole and other land destroying/tampering spells. More importantly, however, is that he lets you do broken things with mana acceleration. For instance: T1: Mana elf. T2: Tap forest for G, Tap elf for 1, play Ranger, use its ability to untap the elf and bounce the forest, replay the forest and retap the elf for 2G, which can be used to play a shaman + 1drop, or a Perfect. This card really lets the deck accelerate. In addition, untap effects are very important, as they synergize with Imperious Perfect, Priest of Titania, and Bloodline Shaman.
Wirewood Symbiote: This is the only non-elf I run maindeck, because it serves 3 key functions: 1) It protects your key elves from removal and gives you infinite chump blockers. 2) It lets you do broken things with Sylvan Messenger, drawing 4 cards or more per turn. 3) It provides more untap effects for use with the Perfect, Priest, and Bloodline Shaman.
Sylvan Messenger: This card is great. With 39 elves in the deck, you can expect to draw 2.6 cards per Messenger. This means that you'll get 3 elves more often than you'll get 2. Resolving this frequently wins the game, as you'll be able to swamp your opponent with more threats than they can deal with.
Bloodline Shaman: This card seems like a strange choice without Top or Brainstorm; however, by playing such a high density of elves, it is very effective, being more likely than not to draw a card. Over the course of several turns, this shaman can help you dig for threats, giving you a source of recurring card advantage. Furthermore, it synergizes extremely well with Symbiote and Ranger, letting you draw several cards per turn. Finally, the fact that you pay zero mana for its ability makes it awesome, because you will have more mana available to cast what you draw.
Wolf-Skull Shaman: This is another strange choice of card, but it is your other source of recurring card advantage. Here, you get a free 2/2 creature most turns, which most decks just cannot handle. He ruins Standstill's effectiveness, since you can usually beat them because you are acquiring creatures at a arithmetic rate for free. Furthermore, he is excellent against engineered plague, since not only does he survive, but also he provides you an unaffected army. This card will win many games by letting you force a standoff which you will win from your recurring card advantage. Also, his ability works well with Bloodline Shaman, improving the probability of drawing more cards per turn (if you reveal an elf, get it with the shaman, and then draw the next card).
Imperious Perfect: Make a creature every turn and give all your dudes buffs? This is probably (ignoring the meta) the best elf lord. Furthermore, he fits into the deck very synergistically, untapping via Symbiote and Ranger and making every other creature into a real threat.
Heedless One: This is a creature I've just started testing, and so far, I really like it. You usually want to see one mid-late game, as it usually can break any standoff. You might be sitting around, each player with a large turn of creatures, but no one getting through for any damage. Heedless One frequently comes in as a 5/5 or 6/6, and usually is an 8/8 or bigger when I untap and swing. Trample is really effective, as he cannot be chump blocked. Finally, he lets you race evasion creatures, since he's frequently as big as the combo-control decks' combo-fatties (dark depths or progenitus) taking into consideration the 8+ power of other elves you have in play. This is the least synergistic card in the deck, but I added it because it is a cheaper and/or better stalemate breaker than other cards I tested (tribal forcemage and gempalm strider).
Cards that didn't make this list:
Elvish Archdruid: Although this deck craves mana, when you have 3 mana available, you usually want to be casting winning creatures, not mana producers. He's not as good as Priest or Perfect, and the in-between role just isn't that useful in practice. I board him in vs. Plague.
Nonelves: This deck wins using the Shaman card advantage engine. This requires about 40 elves in the deck, or else it's not at all effective. With 40 elves; however, this card advantage engine actually works, and it is much better than most other engines, since it doesn't require specific helper cards, is synergistic with 12 other cards in the deck (Ranger + Symbiote + the other Shaman), and is good in multiples. Thus, the nonelf must be amazing for it to be included.
Other Lords: First of all, the draw engine is so powerful that you'll usually be able to see 2 lords, as I'll nearly always see half my deck during a game. In addition, these aren't as synergistic with the other cards in the deck, in the sense that they encourage you to play aggressively, where this deck wants you to play conservatively while chumping a lot and win in 1-2 big swings.
Vanquisher (the 3/3 for 1G w/ Deathtouch): Once again, this is a great aggro card that doesn't belong in a deck that plays like a control deck. I tested this card, and I never wanted to cast it because I always wanted to cast a Priest or Shaman early on, and later in the game I had 10+ mana and would prefer to see any big threat, and this just isn't big enough in this format (it trades with most of zoo's creatures and many other format staples like tarmogoyf, thoctar, and tombstalker). I usually want to chump block them and stall until I can crush them. This card can't race the evasive fatties, and it acts like crappy removal in this deck.
Wellwisher: I honestly haven't tested this card, but it seems like it might be useful in some situations, as gaining 10 life per turn would make it very difficult to outrace you. On the other hand, this deck already can stall for plenty of time, and can outrace most other decks without any problem. It is still worth looking into.
Gempalm Strider: I played with this card for several months and really like it, since it was a cantrip that could turn a seeming wall of chumps into an unexpected one-sided Wrath, or it could help you swing for the win, but the requirement that you needed to invest mana NOW to use it (rather than in previous turns) made it inferior to other permanent-based solutions.
Tribal Forcemage: I also liked this card, but I swapped him out for imperious perfect, because the Perfect fits the deck's strategy better. With the forcemage, you played him and then swung for the win. It's the same with the Perfect, except that the Perfect also lets you chump them out and build up an army (even under standstill).
Wirewood Hivemaster: This is not as good as Wolf-Skull Shaman. This card gives you 2 1/1s if you successfully cast an elf, whereas the Shaman gives you a 2/2 just for drawing it. The wolf-skull shaman can let you put a lot of pressure on a control deck even if they counter everything you cast, whereas this card doesn't help in that case. Also, he's a 1/1, which isn't as robust as the Shaman.
Elvish Visionary: This card sucks, basically. For 2 mana, you could draw a card every turn instead.
Sideboard Cards:
Thorn of Amethyst is pretty much your only defense against combo.
Krosan Grip comes in against plague and annoying artifacts.
Basically, the sideboard is pretty standard and meta-dependent.
I like to side Elvish Archdruid and Eladamri, because both are better in certain matchups, depending on the prevalence of damage-based point removal.
Interesting possibilities:
One things I'm very interested in is adding a black splash. The biggest downside to this is that it would weaken the manabase by making it vulnerable to hate in the form of Wasteland and Stifle. But there are several advantages: Firstly, it would improve the combo matchup by giving us Duress, Thoughtseize, or any other anti-combo card. Second, it would give us maindeck tribal removal, either with Eyeblight's Ending (2B Instant--Elf Destroy target nonelf creature) or Lys Alana Scarblade (2B 1/1 T,discard an elf: target creature gets -x/-x, where x is the number of elves in play). I'm not sure whether the recurring kill is as effective since it is a 1/1 and thus very vulnerable, but both of them could be used to kill all the common threats except for Progenitus (who we can outrace anyway).
Finally, and most importantly: the key to winning with this deck is not to kill them fast (obviously, you should do this if they leave you an opening), but instead to overwhelm them in a later turn. I've played this deck and found favorable matchups against Aggro and Control. Against Aggro, you want to stall them out and them crush them when you have many, many more creatures than they do. Against control, you have a better card advantage engine and can easily recover from counterspells and removal.