[Deck] Elves Combo

[danyul]

Yes! Please! I'm going to be playing at SCG Seattle this weekend so any crazy tech would be appreciated.

[theross]

If I had to play an event tomorrow, my list would be as follows:

2 Llanowar Elves
2 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Fauna Shaman
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Vengevine
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Regal Force
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Intuition

4 Gaea's Cradle
3 Tropical Island
1 Dryad Arbor
7 Green Fetchlands
3 Forest

My sideboard would have some Dismember and Mortarpod for dudes, as well as a combination of graveyard hate including a single Scavenging Ooze and Faerie Macabre, probably backed up by some copies of Relic of Progenitus. Combo hate would probably be Thorn of Amethyst, although I have entertained the idea of a double splash for Cabal Therapy out of the board. A single Bayou in the main is all it would require so it's probably fine and Cabal Therapy is worth it. I'd want some Krosan Grips as well, which brings us to the following:

2 Dismember
2 Krosan Grip
1 Mortarpod
1 Emrakul
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Faerie Macabre
4 Cabal Therapy/Thorn of Amethyst

The Emrakul comes in against decks you need to race, namely other combo decks and is especially brutal against Painter. Cut a Forest for the Bayou in the main if you want Therapies and you should be set.

[lordofthepit]

What's a recommended decklist for someone who doesn't have Gaea's Cradles, but has the other cards for this deck (including duals, fetches, Natural Order, Intuition, etc.)?

[NihilObstat]

@MrSafety: Fortunately, most people have realized that the power of Summoner's Pact and GSZ far outweigh the marginal utility of Living Wish, although many proponents of the latter have not posted in a while, so this may also be a contributing factor to the newly found consensus.

Hey guys ^^
So I haven't been posting lately because, just as the ross, I haven't played a single Legacy tournament since the first week of june, and I only like to discuss when I'm testing or I have reports to debate. No one has been making top8's either so there isn't much new to talk about, I think :)

I tested the non-living wish list, and I wasn't totally sold on it though. I find Living Wish to be incredibly strong and versatile always, but it also has some negative aspects. I would say I like both options just as much, and maybe I would see them as a meta call or style call. I'm testing other decks at the moment and don't have time to further this.

On what I was completely sold was on the 4x Gaea's / 3x Gaea's + Living wish, definitely worth it, and they can free us from Archdruid, making the deck a bit more explosive ;)

I must say though, the ross, that the utility of Wish is not "marginal" as you say, it's actually huge and powerful, but at a big sideboard-space price, maybe...

[Mr. Safety]

I was thinking that Living Wish was key to a much more consistent Emrakul availability...if you can't Glimpse-draw into it, then you really need an alternative means of being able to finish your combo.

Here is my current list:

4x Llanowar Elves
3x Fyndhorn Elves
4x Elvish Visionary
4x Quirion Ranger
3x Elvish Archdruid
1x Priest of Titania
4x Nettle Sentinel
4x Birchlore Rangers
4x Heritage Druid
4x Wirewood Symbiote
1x Elvish Spirit Guide
1x Joraga Warcaller
1x Regal Force
1x Grapeshot
4x Glimpse of Nature
4x Summoner's Pact
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Wooded Foothills
9x Forest


I know there isn't an Emrakul in there...I'm working on that! I simply have had other projects eating up my resources, both $$$-wise and trade-wise. I do have the 2nd Regal Force available to me, and I know i need at least 2x GSZ's in the list.

This is my proposed new list, and I'm looking for some help with it:

4x Llanowar Elves
3x Fyndhorn Elves
4x Elvish Visionary
4x Quirion Dryad
4x Heritage Druid
4x Nettle Sentinel
4x Birchlore Rangers
1x Elvish Spirit Guide
1x Priest of Titania
1x Elvish Archdruid
1x Joraga Warcaller
2x Regal Force
4x Summoner's Pact
2x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Glimpse of Nature
1x Emrakul
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Dryad Arbor
10x Forest


I increased the land count to 16 + 1 ESG, where I was playing 14 lands +1 ESG. I like the Dryad Arbor for some incredible acceleration turn 1 (Forest, GSZ into Dryad Arbor, Llanowar Elves. Potential for 4 mana turn 2 with another land drop!) This brings me to another card that typically doesn't see play in combo elves, but aggro lists have been using for a while: Sylvan Messenger

I know the card has been discussed ad-nauseum many times...I'm just bringing it up considering the new non-Living Wish builds as a way to potentially give you gas when needed.

[NihilObstat]

I was thinking that Living Wish was key to a much more consistent Emrakul availability...if you can't Glimpse-draw into it, then you really need an alternative means of being able to finish your combo.

I increased the land count to 16 + 1 ESG, where I was playing 14 lands +1 ESG. I like the Dryad Arbor for some incredible acceleration turn 1 (Forest, GSZ into Dryad Arbor, Llanowar Elves. Potential for 4 mana turn 2 with another land drop!) This brings me to another card that typically doesn't see play in combo elves, but aggro lists have been using for a while: Sylvan Messenger

The first reason why I say that Living Wish is super versatile is exactly that, that you indirectly have 3 or 4 Emrakuls in the deck, but then I don't see you running Wish in your list. Was that just a comment or you saying that you'll test Wish, I don't understand the post :/

The basic thing about Wish is that the Emrakul + 2nd Regal Force + 1x Gaea's Cradle + Viridian Shaman, all become the same card that you can trade for any of them, it's like a Joker. Plus it can also be Masticore and anything extra you might need in your side.


On the GSZ + Dryad thing you need to realize that Dryad Arbor has summoning sickness... very important, so what you say wouldn't work quite like that ;)


On Sylvan Messenger, aggro elves run many more elves than us, 0 tutors, and 0 glimpse of nature... Sylvan Messenger is their Glimpse of nature basically, it's a completely different approach.

[Mr. Safety]

Just making an observation/question really about Living Wish...it wasn't related to my particular list. I think you have room for GSZ or Wish...but not both. I still rely on Summoner's Pact pretty hard, as I feel it still makes the combo turn more consistent. I was looking to lean on GSZ to find the mana-lords for Emmy, of which I'm only play 2 rather than 4. Wish could take those slots, but I'd want 3 and a few more mana lords (most likely go back to 4.)

So what you're saying is that Dryad Arbor CANNOT tap for mana the turn it comes into play? Wow...bummer. I suppose I should actually RTFC, lol. Arbor is fairly worthless then...

I think I'll work on getting the Wishes, Emrakul, and a Gaea's Cradle so I can play a badass wishboard.

I hear you on the Sylvan Messenger comment...I feel the same, I just wanted an affirmation. Thanks!

[Infinitium]

On Sylvan Messenger, aggro elves run many more elves than us, 0 tutors, and 0 glimpse of nature... Sylvan Messenger is their Glimpse of nature basically, it's a completely different approach.

Eh. ~16 lands, 4 Symbiotes, 4 Glimpses and 6-8 utility spells still leaves you at some ~30 Elves, which is more than enough to support Messenger, and you only need one or two to tutor for anyhow. Granted it's nowhere near as good in lists not running the full 8 priests since they cannot reliably generate card advantage and put pressure on the opponent at the same time, and it arguably cannot draw the decs best cards, but a repeatable 3-for-1 that isn't reliant on the big mana effects is still more than enough to outattrition pretty much anything in the mid to lategame.

[Astrix]

Green sun zenith's power level is so high
It's not cuttable.
tbh either u go 4 gsz + x pact
or 4 gsz + x wishes

[Mr. Safety]

Green sun zenith's power level is so high
It's not cuttable.
tbh either u go 4 gsz + x pact
or 4 gsz + x wishes

Is this the consensus? I was planning on playing 4 Pact, and then 2-3 GSZ or 2-3 Living Wish (most likely Wish...)

[Astrix]

well u can try 2-3 pacts 4 gsz and 2 living wishes
Gsz must be 4 because :
A it costs 1 more mana than pact and dodges missteps (if u fech a 1 mana cost creature
(basically every creature:P) u get counter and die from pact trigger)
B u actually get to use the mana from the elf u bring the next turn and not have to pay the upkeep
C it gets back in the library which in many cases is important

[Godmode]

Ross, why the Intuition instead of BA? The BA plan seems to be more explosive...

[resum]

Ross, why the Intuition instead of BA? The BA plan seems to be more explosive...

I think it's because he has it maindeck, so he uses intuition which can act as a tutor for his combo pieces as well.

In the list I'm using, I have 4 GSZ, 3 pact, and 4 wish, and I'm pretty satisfied with it.

[Koby]

I think it's because he has it maindeck, so he uses intuition which can act as a tutor for his combo pieces as well.

In the list I'm using, I have 4 GSZ, 3 pact, and 4 wish, and I'm pretty satisfied with it.

Are you also playing Glimpse? If so, this seems far too many tutors and too few creatures.

[Mr. Safety]

well u can try 2-3 pacts 4 gsz and 2 living wishes
Gsz must be 4 because :
A it costs 1 more mana than pact and dodges missteps (if u fech a 1 mana cost creature
(basically every creature:P) u get counter and die from pact trigger)
B u actually get to use the mana from the elf u bring the next turn and not have to pay the upkeep
C it gets back in the library which in many cases is important

a) Misstep isn't relevant except for Glimpse of Nature...and we're not talking Glimpse. We're talking GSZ vs. Living Wish. Summoner's Pact costs 0, which doesn't even worry about Misstep. It costs 1 more mana than Pact? So? I'm confused on what you mean by that...because Pact is free during the combo turn.

b) Not sure I understand this either...I usually use the elves for mana RIGHT AWAY with Birchlore and Heritage Druid...if I pact for Elvish Archdruid or Priest of Titania, then it waits a turn...in that case GSZ is superior for dodging the upkeep of Pact. Regardless, Pact is a mid-combo piece, not a setup piece IMHO. I don't see the point of using Pact unless you're going combo...in that case, the extra mana on your upkeep is irrelivant...you can pay for it with your elves while you take your extra turn with Emrakul (or in my old list, just win on the spot with a 20+ Grapeshot)

c) Sure it gets back into library...but I'm having a hard time finding why that's important. The deck shouldn't need more than 1-2 tutors (Glimpse included) to combo out. Honestly, if I'm in the combo turn GSZ is HORRIBLE post-glimpse...because it DOESN'T TRIGGER GLIMPSE. I'd much rather draw an elf to keep the glimpse-train rolling.

This brings me to my last point: I see Summoner's Pact and Living Wish there to get your key pieces like Regal Force or Emrakul. I don't see them as setting up mana elves...the deck does that without needing tutors well enough. Seven Llanowars? Heritage, Birchlore, Quirion, Wirewood Symbiote? All of these are damn good at accelerating mana. GSZ, Pact, and Wish are for bombs, IMHO. GSZ makes your setup easier, but I don't really see why I would truly need it. If it made my Glimpse uncounterable, AWESOME! But it don't...

Hoping to get some experienced guys in here to help round out this discussion...pipe in any time Ruckus, NihilObstat, or TheRoss...

[Astrix]

A misstep is not relevant?
ok let me explain:
i pact for heritage druid
i cast heritage druid i get mental missteped
I DIE from upkeep

(or i can gsz which dodges mental misstep and even if it gets countered or they kill my creature with bolt stps perish etc etc i still live next upkeep)

B many times we fetch a priest second turn so we can play a regal force and find a glimpse that way. in that situation with gsz we can do the plan turn 3 and not pay for upkeep and go turn 4

C the resuffle thing is really usefull when u combo off and cant find emrakul so u dont get decked

pact is too risky these days.every one is playing spot removal and mental missteps.
pact is not good in the slower-more controlish meta that has evolved
thats why if i want to cut a tutor i start from pacts.tbh 4 gsz and 2-3 pacts is a good plan

[Mr. Safety]

A) you really use Summoner's Pact for Heritage Druid? Seriously? I don't think I've EVER done that.

B) I don't usually fetch a Priest with Summoner's Pact...because of spot removal. If Glimpse gets countered, I try to recur Elvish Visionary to draw into Regal or another Glimpse. If that isn't available, I go for the aggro win by attacking. *shrug* maybe that's wrong, but I usually have better options than a risky Pact. The deck has several avenues of winning, not the least of which is just play a ton of dudes, swing.

C) Why is reshuffling important? Emrakul already gives decking protection. If you get to play him, you'll probably win. If you don't, well, that sucks...lol. In reality, that argument works for 1 or 4 GSZ's.

So far, my vote goes to Living Wish.

[theross]

On the 3 tutors: I have found GSZ to be far and away the best, and would never consider playing less than 4. Given that Summoner's Pact is a 0 mana tutor, I've always opted for it over Wish, since I don't want to devote board slots to Living Wish targets. The re-shuffle on GSZ is important for 2 reasons:

1) It increases your threat density over long games. This effect is not noticeable over the first few turns, but typically we're the only deck winning that early. However, shuffling in your tutors and fetching out lands gives you slightly more gas over longer games.

2) It prevents you from decking with Glimpse when Emrakul is near the bottom of the deck. This doesn't come up directly in most games (Although it happened once to me at the GP) so the real value here comes from not having to play in fear of decking. With the full set of Zeniths, you can run out extra Glimpses knowing that you will never deck. You can also draw the majority of your deck with a Regal Force with impunity. Taking these lines aggressively allows you to combo more consistently without losing more games to poor luck.

@resum: As was stated, I use Intuition since it's more versatile in the MD, and only slightly less powerful since one may easily hard cast the Vengevine in your hand to start recurring the others.

@Astrix: You're definitely overstating the relevance of Pact's upkeep. I've won through paying for 1-2 of them on the same turn several times. Pact is certainly riskier but all that requires is more careful play.

@Mr.Safety: A) I frequently Pact for Heritage Druid. I've probably found nearly every creature in the deck at some point. Also, Misstep is clearly relevant for cards other than Glimpse of Nature, which is another reason GSZ is better than Pact or Living Wish, although this line of argument does nothing to distinguish between Pact and Wish.

B) Astrix is clearly presenting a situation where Pact is used to set up the following turn, a line of play which you rarely take. While this isn't the most common line with Pact, it is definitely possible, although it's much easier to pull off with GSZ. I would urge you to test these uncommon lines, since pigeonholing the most versatile cards in the deck is not optimal.

C) GSZ is not horrible post Glimpse. If you need to draw more cards, find a Symbiote and get some mana on the back end. (sometimes more if you're untapping a lord) The value of Glimpse is that it's always great. It helps to set up, helps continue the combo, and ends the combo by finding Regal Force. The combination of incredible power and versatility makes GSZ the best tutor option. When deciding between the other two, Pact is clearly the most powerful while Wish provides more versatility and I have clearly opted for power, since the versatility Wish provides over Pact (finding Emrakul, Cradle, and some answers to hate---Pact finds everything else) is simply not enough to compensate for the drop in power.

[catmint]

Looking forward to test your new build ross!
concerning the question what to do without 4 Cradle... Buy them.
I tested a lot (dismissing cradle for a long time), but it is as having concordant crossroads and priest of titania for 0 mana. Sure you cannot untap the cradle, but the funny thing is that in most of the times untapping a lord post glimpse is win-more and you still manage to cast your regal force as early as if you have manalords. So the cradle build is much more explosive...

Of course there are also a lot of good lists floating around without cradle, but they are more vulnerable to spot removal.

[Astrix]

@Theross
i am not overestimating pact's upkeep.I have won playing 2 pacts myself many times...
The problem is when i can not pay the upkeep (or i cannot risk due to removal or counters) and i have pact instead of GSZ in my hand: i can not use it.It's a dead card...
The argument that we dont lose from pact upkeeps often is not strong enough.
We dont lose because we dont even play pact in that situations which makes pact
a dead card.
Pact is not flexible.It does not give you options.You play it when you will win at once (and you have the availability of paying the upkeep if things go wrong or u can take the chance)
OK pact is better once u go off but tbh the problem is not to keep comboing off but to prepare setup and start comboing off.

And remember everyone we dont make a list to goldfish but to win a real match
And these days everyone and their mothers use spot removal, missteps and counters...

After these thoughts i think we should all agree 4 GSZ is a must.After that we can talk about 2-3 pacts and 2-3 wishes (for those who play wishboards)

PS Theross i think we agree generaly in our plans.only difference is that i cut 1 land and play 1 archdruid and i play 4 priests instead of vengevines MBoard.
i will post my final list so i can get ideas for a good sideboard

[Mr. Safety]

Well said TheRoss...I WILL playtest those situations, extensively! The last thing I want to do is take a flexible card and make it inflexible through poor play. What I'm trying to do is figure out: which tutors do I use? I have 4 Pacts and getting 4 GSZ or 4 Living Wish is easy enough, it's just a matter of which ones to use. I think my answer is 4 Pacts and 4 GSZ's. Now to figure out how to optimize that list...

@Astrix: I've Pact-ed for Heritage Druid a million times...why did I even SAY that? I was getting Heritage confused with Birchlore Rangers. Sorry about that!

[resum]

I'm basically playing rosses list, but instead of one regal force, one emrakul, one viridian shaman, and one other thing, i think it's land, I have 4 wishes.

[Astrix]

4 wihses are overkill
play 2-3
I have played alot with wishes and trust me wish is not an utility card.
Wish is: i find the 1 card that wins (regal-emrakul) or i find the answer to
your game( faerie maccabre-masticore etc...) and i win
Its not an utility card to bring your elves...

[NihilObstat]

If I had to play an event tomorrow, my list would be as follows:
2 Llanowar Elves
2 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Fauna Shaman
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Vengevine
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Regal Force
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Intuition

4 Gaea's Cradle
3 Tropical Island
1 Dryad Arbor
7 Green Fetchlands
3 Forest

I didn't pay much attention at your list when you posted, because I guessed it would be fine, but why don't you play a 1 turn kill? This list suffers more from massive removal (Deed, Explosives, Engineered, Wrath, Perish, Pyroclasm). So I'm assuming that against those cards you hope to have landed some Vengevines, pray for no Swords, and aggro them out.

Well, this might actually not be too crazy, because we usually tend to over-kill when we could just simply aggro out many games, and it seems logical in the current meta to just try and fit those Vengevines in even if it means taking Emmy out. Interesting... down to the test ;)

Btw: 102 pages of thread already, I'm so happy :)

[Godmode]

The original Ross's list has been destroying @ MTGO. A lot of Ross elves lists at the decks of the week... Why would you change it to VV/Intuition MD?

[theross]

@Godmode: Pardon the wordplay, but my intuition is that the metagame is currently unprepared for the Intuition--VV plan and the cards that were cut are the least essential parts to the combo, the MD Priests of Titania, Birchlore, ESG, the 2nd Regal Force, Emrakul, and the Summoner's Pacts. In my brief time playing the deck, I enjoyed the extra dimension, as well as the decreased number of sub-par draws. I found the Intuition build to be more difficult to play as assignment of role became a much more complicated and dynamic decision. Intuition gives the deck more access to Cradle for explosiveness and Glimpse for attrition, again adding to the deck's versatility. I would especially prefer this version of the deck if the rest of the metagame is expecting certain elves lists, as Vengevines can swing straight through hate like E Plague and Chalice. (Although Canonist is still a problem)

NihilObstat: This version of the deck is less reliant on actually combo-ing and much closer to a combo/aggro hybrid, although Intuition for Vengevines sometimes acts as a one card combo. Thus the Emrakul is not necessary. Vengevines in fact increase the deck's resilience to mass removal since a successful combo will result in you passing the turn with a full board and a hand of dudes to recur Vengevines enough to win. It is quite rare for a deck to draw enough Plow effects to eat all your Vengevines, so this is not much of a concern.

I've stated before that the biggest advantage to this list is the added room for sideboard cards although I may just be too stubborn to cut Buried Alive from the straight combo board. My only concern about the Vengevine list is the Mana Elf count. The draw of Mana elf-->Intuition-->recur Vengevines is incredibly strong and the build may be optimal with a few more Llanowars to help this draw. The only two cuttable slots to me are the 4th Quirion Ranger and the Fauna Shaman so that is where I would start.

[Augustas]

if this deck has a hardtime with canonist, how do you deal with a turn three batterskull followed by two turns of disruption?

[catmint]

that is a true disadvantage of the vengevine plan. Batterskull is irrelevant when comboing off, but kills the vengeinve plan. Did you consider this factor in your decision ross?

[Infinitium]

if this deck has a hardtime with canonist, how do you deal with a turn three batterskull followed by two turns of disruption?

(Multiple) Green Sun's Zenith for Viridian Shaman, recurring it with Symbiote on a on-demand basis. Running a ton of lords and just slowrolling the opponent works as well. No decks can "deal" with big early beaters backed by enough protection and disruption (hence why it's one of the more popular archetypes of the format), but Elves doesn't really suffer noticeably from the lack of removal due to the explosive finish and legion chumpblockers (again backed by Symbiote).

[theross]

I fail to see how Batterskull trumps 3-4 Vengevines and a horde of other dudes when Symbiote prevents them from gaining life. This deck still retains all the necessary combo elements and has Vengevines instead of Emrakul to either win that turn or protect yourself from mass removal.

@Augustas: I was merely noting that Canonist stopped Vengevines from recurring, but with a Viridian Shaman and 4 GSV it's not a huge problem, and also not one that is very prevalent right now given that the top combo deck is not storm based.

[danyul]

I played something similar to Ross's Vengevine/Intuition list in the SCG Seattle Legacy side event today. I tossed a couple Bayous in and have Cabal Therapies in the board as well as Extirpate and Surgical Extraction as one-ofs. I have a random Gaddock Teeg in the SB but actually playing him felt stupid since he turns off my Green Sun's Zeniths. I dunno if he will stay in the list. I went 3-1, playing against Merfolk, Dredge, Stoneforge, and Metalworker, losing in the third round to my own deck. I was playing against some slow Stoneforge thing and I just wasn't able to draw any lands for 3 straight games. I think I mulled 5 times in 3 games. But other than that hiccup, the list seems pretty good.

Scavenging Ooze is a house against Dredge but that's no surprise. And being able to Intuition for Gaea's Cradle is a nice new trick. The list feels less explosive but dropping Vengevines still wins games. I don't think I'll change the list too much for the main event in the morning. I'll post an update if I don't scrub out.

[catmint]

I fail to see how Batterskull trumps 3-4 Vengevines and a horde of other dudes when Symbiote prevents them from gaining life. This deck still retains all the necessary combo elements and has Vengevines instead of Emrakul to either win that turn or protect yourself from mass removal.


Symbiote can not stop batterskull from gaining life when blocking a vengevine. However, what I did not consider is that batterskull dies to vengevine and therefore is too slow (except for the control player manages to get to 5 mana to equip the Batterskull to something before we make enough damange).

[peteypablo]

Why not run a copy of Coiling Oracle if splashing blue for Intuition? Of course, Oracle can be bad with Cradle, but a single copy seems fine as a GSZ target. Flipping over a Cradle will win games.

[theross]

@peteypablo: The question should not be "why not?" but "why?" He seems better than Elvish Visionary but the U requirement makes it much more difficult to chain him with Symbiote for multiple cards per turn and given the low land count he is mostly going to just give up information when compared to Visionary. Also, flipping a Cradle when you have one in play will lose games.

[peteypablo]

In the right situation, Coiling Oracle can be better. I'm testing 4 Visionary/1 Coiling Oracle right now, I don't think I've ever sided out a Visionary so running "5" doesn't seem like a bad idea. So far, all it's done is give up information, however...so we'll see.

[Absolutflipz]

I don't like taking out Emrakul from the list.

I've played a lot of 2-mans, a daily, and a PE online lately and while I think the deck is Tier 2 after the printing of NPH...one of the main strong points of Elves is that it's a combo deck that wins the turn it goes off, which is by way of hardcasting Emrakul.

Additionally, with the rise in popularity of NO RUG and other Natural Order variants, having a hard-casted Emrakul as a win-con is huge. I played 2 matches where my out was to go off and hard-cast Emrakul, in order to not lose to a swing back from Progen.

Yes, there will be times when multiple Vengevines can race a Prog, but the opportunity cost for including 1 Emrakul is extremely low compared to what we get out of him.

I've also decided to test a list with Buried Alive/Vengevine main as a concession to all the UW going around, and I think you still have a fine chance of comboing out and hardcasting Emrakul.


The list I wanna test out is:

Creatures (29):
4x Nettle Sentinel
4x Heritage Druid
3x Llanowar Elves
2x Fyndhorn Elves
3x Quirion Ranger
4x Wirewood Symbiote
1x Viridian Shaman
3x Elvish Visionary
3x Vengevine
1x Regal Force
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Instants (3):
3x Summoner's Pact

Sorceries (11):
4x Glimpse of Nature
4x Green Sun's Zenith
3x Buried Alive

Lands (17):
4x Gaea's Cradle
2x Bayou
3x Forest
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Verdant Catacombs

SB (15):
4x Leyline of the Void
4x Cabal Therapy
1x Regal Force
1x Summoner's Pact
1x Birchlore Rangers
2x Krosan Grip
1x Vengevine
1x Mortarpod

Building with Intuition, just drop the Buried Alives and Bayous and switch some sideboard cards. I'm interested in trying out the blue configuration as well.

[theross]

@Absolutflipz: The Intuition/VV list takes the deck in a different direction, moving to an aggressive plan A that uses Intuition to fuel incredibly fast starts, much like Survival did last year. The Turn 1 Elf, Turn 2 Intuition, Turn 3 recur, Turn 4 cast the 3rd Vengevine draws are about a half turn slower than the regular combo with Emrakul, but much mroe resilient. The deck cannot afford to keep any non-essential part of the combo as a backup plan, so only the Glimpses and singleton Regal Force remain. I could see an Ezuri since that will most likely enable a single turn combo, although Vengevines do this quite well since attacking for 16 is usually lethal so this probably isn't necessary. I like the singleton Fauna Shaman in slower matchups, since he is such an incredible threat when left unchecked.

As for MD Buried Alive, I don't like MDing a card that is an absolute blank in multiples and in the Plan B. It's much easier to play 3 colors to get Intuition and Cabal Therapy.

[Absolutflipz]

I agree that Intuition is better as it's multi-functional compared to Buried Alive. I only posted that because I was literally playing it, as a friend of mine has the Intuitions at the moment.

Not sure about the sideboard options that blue offers or if it's just better to play 2 Trops, 1 Bayou, and still splash the Therapies in the board.

Every time I've played Fauna Shaman in the Vengevine builds she's been awful. She's so incredibly slow that she isn't worth it, imo. I still like having Emrakul in the deck as the strongest finish to the combo.

I'm also wondering if Edric, Spymaster of Trest fits in the Vengevine build. You're already in Gu and he goes well with Vengevine. Not sure if he's win-more or not as good as Ezuri.

[Astrix]

Guys with the rise of Hive mind i think we really need to find an answer because tbh
its a bit faster than us and we need sboard options to fight them
One answer is 4 thorn of amethyst to slow them down maybe.(tho if we dont cast it early they can use the mana from grim monolith to overcome it)
Another answer might be Gaddockk teeg?(tho they can show and tell it)
Any other suggestions?

[NihilObstat]

NihilObstat: This version of the deck is less reliant on actually combo-ing and much closer to a combo/aggro hybrid, although Intuition for Vengevines sometimes acts as a one card combo. Thus the Emrakul is not necessary. Vengevines in fact increase the deck's resilience to mass removal since a successful combo will result in you passing the turn with a full board and a hand of dudes to recur Vengevines enough to win. It is quite rare for a deck to draw enough Plow effects to eat all your Vengevines, so this is not much of a concern.

I've stated before that the biggest advantage to this list is the added room for sideboard cards although I may just be too stubborn to cut Buried Alive from the straight combo board. My only concern about the Vengevine list is the Mana Elf count. The draw of Mana elf-->Intuition-->recur Vengevines is incredibly strong and the build may be optimal with a few more Llanowars to help this draw. The only two cuttable slots to me are the 4th Quirion Ranger and the Fauna Shaman so that is where I would start.

I've tested the list, and originally I've really like it, because as I've said 99% of the games we don't actually need to resolve an Emrakul to win, but I'm facing a lot of trouble because everyone sides in gravehate against the Vengevines. So maybe I'll just take them out everytime on game 2 and put Emrakul in. What do you usually do?

On the Fauna Shaman, I find her extremely powerful if your opponent isn't packing lots removal, so easily finding 4 Vengevines.

What I'm liking the least of the list are the maindeck Intuition. Didn't help much in many games, but stayed heavily in my hand in others :/
I need to play more games though, but as I said in game 2 taking Vengevines to the grave might not be very smart, and therefore that would make 8 cards from the MD that might be counterproductive.

I think I might actually go higher on the Shamans because she's a creature + elf + lots of sinergy with the deck and take out Intuitions. Shaman also tutors for Emrakul !!!

[theross]

@NihilObstat: I haven't done much testing with the list myself and never faced any graveyard hate from opposing sideboards, but I don't believe that would be a problem unless you let them get 3+ Vengevines out of it. If an opponent must resort to bringing in narrow cards like that in the matchup, it seems simple enough to play through it. The deck is quite resilient, although as I noted earlier perhaps you need an Ezuri to help your elves break through after they deal with Vengevines.

[resum]

The best answer is birchlore rangers and crossing your fingers.

[resum]

an elves deck very near the one you suggested did very well at SCG pitt

EDIT; you being ross

[Godmode]

Here's the list from Jesus Causing, who top8'ed @ the last SCG.


MD:
3 Tropical Island
3 Forest
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Gaea's Cradle
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Vengevine
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Heritage Druid
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Wirewood Symbiote
2 Llanowar Elves
2 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Birchlore Rangers
1 Regal Force
1 Fauna Shaman
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Glimpse of Nature
3 Intuition


SB:
1 Intuition
1 Birchlore Rangers
2 Fauna Shaman
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Krosan Grip
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Eternal Witness
2 Tormod's Crypt


The deck looks very resilient despite the 2-1 lost in the QF against Aggro Zoo, wich reached the 2nd place at the event.

[NihilObstat]

Here's the list from Jesus Causing, who top8'ed @ the last SCG.

---

The deck looks very resilient despite the 2-1 lost in the QF against Aggro Zoo, wich reached the 2nd place at the event.

I'm testing the build for GP Amsterdam 2011, and it definitely is resilient and strong, pretty much the same as The Ross, and as he suggested splashing black for side.

I love the extra Fauna Shaman in the sideboard, because they let you go a little "Transformer" side with an extra Tutor, reducing the importance of Glimpse.

I don't see the point of Eternal Witness though, it's an awesome card, but I don't see against what specific type of pairing would he side her in.

Birchlore rangers are sweet ;)

Awesome placing for Elves by the way, it looks like we really can adapt to any metagame change and keep placing in SCG events. Congratulations Jesus and Riley!

[theross]

I agree that the E Witness looks out of place, as does the 4th intuition. Not sure how I feel about the 2 extra fauna shamans, although I could see matchups where intuitioning for them would be good, mainly slow control matches. The Rangers are clearly for Hive Mind, although more dedicated hate may be necessary, like Sundial of the Infinite.

The metagame seems to be getting better for Elves, as people are racing to beat Hive Mind out of the top spot. The RUG decks are an issue if they have Fire/Ice, and not having Emrakul certainly hurts there, so I like the one in the board. I'm testing mostly Extended for Philly at the moment but when the time is right hopefully I can break out the little green men again. This deck is one of the most fun I've ever played.

[Alexeezay]

I read you had problems with vengevines g2/g3 because of gravehate...but I would not board them out everytime because if you combo out, vengevines will simply be hardcast for the win. although I got 1 Ezuri MD to ensure the win (nice mana sink here), and an Emrakul in the board.

the intuition elves build interacts much more with the opponent than the pure elves combo, just be careful with your vengevines in game 2

[Harduvel]

I got 2nd in a 35 person event yesterday. I lost round one to Bant (although I think it's a good matchup in general), then proceeded to beat RUG Natural Order, RUG Natural Order, UW Stoneforge, and Zoo, and finally drew round six against UW Landstill. In the top 8 I took down Bant and GW Maverick but was finally defeated by Junk (with the 'ol Perish + Ethersworn Canonist sideboard plan). Here's my list:

4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
2 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Quirion Ranger
2 Regal Force
4 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Summoner's Pact
4 Green Sun's Zenith
5 Forest
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Gaea's Cradle
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Bayou
2 Priest of Titania
2 Birchlore Rangers
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Windswept Heath
1 Elvish Archdruid
1 Dryad Arbor
SB: 1 Mortarpod
SB: 3 Cabal Therapy
SB: 4 Vengevine
SB: 3 Thoughtseize
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze

[blind]

gg for the SCG's Top 8.

You like really your Dryad Arbor? Vs 4 Cradle? Do you have a probleme for play Cabal with 1 Bayou?

[theross]

@blind: Therapy only comes in against other combo decks which for the most part do not have wasteland so the one bayou with fetches to find it are more than enough. Additionally, Birchlore Rangers gives the necessary black mana.

[blind]

I like Cabal Vs Controle and Aggro Controle, why you don't in Cabal Vs this Mus?

I side :

-4 Glimpse -3 Visio -1 Regal Force
+4 Cabal +2 Fauna +2 K-grip

Vs Stonestill, Bant, Rock, Ubg Landstil...

I don't like extra Intuition and Witness. What is your advice for Arbor Vs 4 Cradle? I like NO + Pro in SB, it's good Vs hate grave.

[Branches]

SIGH.

post deleted 3 times now.


stupid quick reply

jesus causing here

quickly since im lazy

play 4 cradles if you have them

7 fetch
3 trop
4 cradle
1 arbor
3 forest

e.witness gives you more intuition piles and can be zenith'ed to blow your opponent out with like a symbiote or glimpse.

cabal therapy sucks.

new sb:
2 fauna
1 priest
1 v. shaman
1 sylvok rep
1 birchlore
1 ezuri
1 emrakul
1 Venser, Shaper Savant(mise card against no rug/emrakul)
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Sundial of the Infinite

no pro is soo unessecary and awful considering you have no way to discard ur progenitus unlike no rug(vend clique/brainstorm)

if they board in gy hate bring in:
emrakul
ezuri
priest
birchlore
witness
(-4 vv -1 zenith/visionary?)

and just play the good ol combo elf deck with a better tutor

i love this deck, won't put it down until next january when scg choose to support modern over legacy.

toodles~

[theross]

I like Cabal Vs Controle and Aggro Controle, why you don't in Cabal Vs this Mus?

I side :

-4 Glimpse -3 Visio -1 Regal Force
+4 Cabal +2 Fauna +2 K-grip

Vs Stonestill, Bant, Rock, Ubg Landstil...

I don't like extra Intuition and Witness. What is your advice for Arbor Vs 4 Cradle? I like NO + Pro in SB, it's good Vs hate grave.

I have brought in Therapy against Bug-still and believe it's correct but I don't like it against any of the other decks you listed. Rock won't have counterspells to contain your combo so bringing out Glimpse against them is incorrect. Bant and Stoneforge rarely have enough spells you'd like to Therapy in order to make the card useful. I've stated that I don't like extra Fauna Shamans before and I don't like Krosan Grip at all so in the SCG list I'd probably just bring in 4 Therapy against Bug-still and that's about it. I'd probably bring out an Intuition, and 3 Quirion Rangers since Glimpse and Visionary are important tools to gain card advantage and play a long game against the control decks of the format.

[Koby]

I can agree regarding discard versus :u::b: control lists, because it allows you to remove counters (MM or FoW) and sweepers (Deed and Perish). This gives ability to finally commit to the combo or aggro plan.

[1maarten1]

I got 2nd in a 35 person event yesterday. I lost round one to Bant (although I think it's a good matchup in general), then proceeded to beat RUG Natural Order, RUG Natural Order, UW Stoneforge, and Zoo, and finally drew round six against UW Landstill. In the top 8 I took down Bant and GW Maverick but was finally defeated by Junk (with the 'ol Perish + Ethersworn Canonist sideboard plan). Here's my list:

4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
2 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Quirion Ranger
2 Regal Force
4 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Summoner's Pact
4 Green Sun's Zenith
5 Forest
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Gaea's Cradle
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Bayou
2 Priest of Titania
2 Birchlore Rangers
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Windswept Heath
1 Elvish Archdruid
1 Dryad Arbor
SB: 1 Mortarpod
SB: 3 Cabal Therapy
SB: 4 Vengevine
SB: 3 Thoughtseize
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze

How did you like Vengevine without Buried Alive/Intuition?

[Shimura]

When boarding in Cabal Therapy, what should I board out?
* Playing against Combo / Control decks *

[dakkonblackblade08]

Hi ALL,

Here's my Elf Combo deck. It's still on experiment. Our metagame revolves on Hive Mind, Bant, Maverick and 'Folks. I would like to know your thoughts on this. Plus, sideboard suggestions are highly appreciated.

CREATURES
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Heritage Druid
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Wirewood Symbiote
3 Priest of Titania
1 Regal Force
1 Joraga Warcaller
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Emrakul, The Aeons Torn

SPELLS
4 Glimpse of Nature
1 Concordant Crossroads

ARTIFACTS
3 Staff of Domination

LANDS
1 Gaea's Cradle
12 Forest

what SB's should I have for our meta?

[Infinitium]

12 forests is somewhat greedy, especially with that curve. I'd cut Emrakul (which isn't really needed with Crossroads unless everyone in your meta plays Glacial Chasm MD) as well as the Staffs (they're nice and all, but with Priest + 4 Elves you should be in good shape anyhow, and they're usually too mana intensive to be of much use otherwise). Get GSZ + Arbor in there somehow if you can afford it - that gives you room to cut some of the llanowar Elves (6-7 turn 1 accelerators are usually enough with a landcount of 14-15, especially as you run 4 Quirions) and Birchlore Rangers (which frankly aren't all that outside of the Hive Mind MU).

I personally like cutting Nettle altogether to fit in more good stuff overall, especially as you run Crossroads to abuse your Priests, but that's playstyle preference. Masticore is good versus Merfolk and Maverick, as well as being one of your few outs versus Peacekeeper. Viridian Shaman is probably better than Zealot MD, and is mandatory in the SB otherwise (kills Canonist, kills Equipment, kills them again with Symbiote).

[dakkonblackblade08]

Thanks Infinitium! The feedback is much appreciated. If I need to cut Emrakul, what card should I replace it with (I was thinking of Banefire)? Staff saved a lot of times especially with the like of Trygon Predator or any other flyers. I'm planning to add 1 more priest to stabilize my mana engine. BTW, this is my SB proposal:

2-3 pithing needle
2 krosan grip/ v. shaman
3 thorn of amethyst
3-4 extirpate/ s. extractions
3-4 tormod's/ relic
1 choke (?)

for the black SB's, I am thinking of adding 4 bayou, 5 fetches..so that gives me 4 bayou, 5 fetches, 3 forests and 1 cradle.

guys, your thoughts?

[Infinitium]

Just replace it with another Elf (or Crossroads; Crossroads is pretty fucking good when you can abuse it to make some 50ish mana the same turn). You have Concordant Crossroads, Priests and Lords to go with your bazillion elves. Hasty green men tends to kill people dead with or without other win conditions, so adding any more is just overkill.

[Sigar]

Holy shit. I just played 10 games vs NO RUG on mws vs my friend, and he crushed me 10-0! This MU seems almost unwinable. Between Bolt, Fire/Ice, Lavamancer, Misstep + Jitte from the board, there is just not much you can do. My board plan was even to bring in my own Jittes, but that plan doesn't work at all. Does anybody have any ideas to beat this MU?

Btw, I have always been an advocate of Gaea's Cradle, but that card is just terrible at the moment, because of Misstep. You always wanna have 2 mana on turn two, and if they Misstep your 1-drop and Cradle is your only other land, you are pretty screwed. I know they could do that before as well with spot removal, but that didn't cause tempo loss and people were hesitant to waste removal on Llanowar, etc. It's even worse if they have Misstep + Wasteland!

[catmint]

Elves was a nice tier 1.5 - 2 deck pre Misstep. Now, there is just not much you can do.
Heavy blue control/aggro control metagame is not a lot of fun.

It won't get better with snapcaster mage recuring removal and MM....

[Lancer]

Holy shit. I just played 10 games vs NO RUG on mws vs my friend, and he crushed me 10-0! This MU seems almost unwinable. Between Bolt, Fire/Ice, Lavamancer, Misstep + Jitte from the board, there is just not much you can do. My board plan was even to bring in my own Jittes, but that plan doesn't work at all. Does anybody have any ideas to beat this MU?

Btw, I have always been an advocate of Gaea's Cradle, but that card is just terrible at the moment, because of Misstep. You always wanna have 2 mana on turn two, and if they Misstep your 1-drop and Cradle is your only other land, you are pretty screwed. I know they could do that before as well with spot removal, but that didn't cause tempo loss and people were hesitant to waste removal on Llanowar, etc. It's even worse if they have Misstep + Wasteland!

I never used Gaea's Cradle in my elf deck, although play 10 basic lands; elves can generate enough mana.

I would like to see your deck list... I'll post mine later. I have not played against NO RUG at this moment so I'm not going to pretend I know how to beat NO RUG but I would like to know the main MM target that screwed you.

:)

[overseer1234]

Holy shit. I just played 10 games vs NO RUG on mws vs my friend, and he crushed me 10-0! This MU seems almost unwinable. Between Bolt, Fire/Ice, Lavamancer, Misstep + Jitte from the board, there is just not much you can do. My board plan was even to bring in my own Jittes, but that plan doesn't work at all. Does anybody have any ideas to beat this MU?

Well, the buried alive/vengevine package should help there, (also in zenith builds well... zenith is pretty good there), and if that's out of your budget then maybe Steely Resolve could help against any deck with a lot of targeted removal (this does negate your symbiote as you can't target an elf to use the ability)

[Darklingske]

I tested a lot against NORug and found it rather easy. Except if they can go NO-Progenitus on T3. I do play an Elvish Champion MD to just run them over with unblockable guys.
About Cradle: I play 2 MD but never ever play it before there are 2 elves on the board. Your opponent will let the second creature resolve a lot of the times just because they think you don't have a second land. Then you land the cradle and they will weep. But post the list, then we can comment in a more targetted way :smile:

[Sigar]

I don't really need tips from people who say the worst MU for elves is "rather easy". Elvish Champion is not gonna change anything in that MU. About your cute little Cradle comment, they kill or counter your first creature, which shuts down Cradle and makes it bad cause you can't cast Visionary on turn 2, unless you have a 3rd land which is very rare, since you should run 19-20 lands tops! So it's not like you can hold Cradle in your hand and pretend everything is fine. You need 2 mana on turn two and Cradle doesn't support that very well, especially against NO RUG (and other Misstep decks with removal).

I already run Intuition > Vengevine, but Scavenging Ooze makes that plan a joke, since they can slow you down enough with Fire/Ice, Lavaman, Bolts, Misstep and FoW. Zenith is a fine card, but it doesn't do anything great in that MU. It's just a sweet card overall.

Sorry for being harsh, but both posts were rather useless, and I really hope Steely Resolve was a joke..

If you don't believe me, I will gladly crush you with NO RUG on mws ;D

[TheBirdMan]

I play mirror entity elves not glimpse elves but RUG is also not the most baller matchup for me either. I run 4 misstep mainboard and its been awesome so far to stop exactly what i need it to swords, bolts, lavamancers and missteps. Idk if theres room in your guys' deck but its been phenominal in mine. I also run a spellskite and a stoneforge package out of the board to compensate for getting 2/1'd with fire. I have chord of callings so I only need one.

Protip: if you are playing blue Ive tested 3 envelop in my sb for perish/firespout/show and tell/natural order/infernal tutor? and its been great too.

[Darklingske]

I don't really need tips from people who say the worst MU for elves is "rather easy". Elvish Champion is not gonna change anything in that MU. About your cute little Cradle comment, they kill or counter your first creature, which shuts down Cradle and makes it bad cause you can't cast Visionary on turn 2, unless you have a 3rd land which is very rare, since you should run 19-20 lands tops! So it's not like you can hold Cradle in your hand and pretend everything is fine. You need 2 mana on turn two and Cradle doesn't support that very well, especially against NO RUG (and other Misstep decks with removal).

I already run Intuition > Vengevine, but Scavenging Ooze makes that plan a joke, since they can slow you down enough with Fire/Ice, Lavaman, Bolts, Misstep and FoW. Zenith is a fine card, but it doesn't do anything great in that MU. It's just a sweet card overall.

Sorry for being harsh, but both posts were rather useless, and I really hope Steely Resolve was a joke..

If you don't believe me, I will gladly crush you with NO RUG on mws ;D

The worst MU for elves is BUGstill. And if you don't want any comment, then don't post or ask for advice. In the event of countering the first Elf, then yes, cradle is bad. But not every opponent will do this. Read what I wrote, before commenting like a ***.

[Sigar]

Yeye, the old "don't comment before you read my post" isn't gonna work (like it ever did). I read every single word you said, and responded to them. It's useless to talk about dream scenarios and your opponent making choices in your favor. The worst MU for Elves is not BUG if you run Vengevine + Tutor, which you should. Cards like Lavaman, Fire/Ice and Jitte are much worse than anything BUG can throw at you. I never said I don't want ANY comments.

If you want to play combo elves, you cannot run chaff like Mental Misstep. You don't want to play reactive cards or have dead draws mid-combo. Envelop is truly a sweet card, but I would never run counter magic in combo elves.

Until they ban Mental Misstep, combo elves will never be tier 1 :(

[Sigar]

Yeye, the old "don't comment before you read my post" isn't gonna work (like it ever did). I read every single word you said, and responded to them. It's useless to talk about dream scenarios and your opponent making choices in your favor. The worst MU for Elves is not BUG if you run Vengevine + Tutor, which you should. Cards like Lavaman, Fire/Ice and Jitte are much worse than anything BUG can throw at you. I never said I don't want ANY comments.

If you want to play combo elves, you cannot run chaff like Mental Misstep. You don't want to play reactive cards or have dead draws mid-combo. Envelop is truly a sweet card, but I would never run counter magic in combo elves.

Until they ban Mental Misstep, combo elves will never be tier 1 :(

[TheBirdMan]

Thats fair. If anybody wants it this is the Mirror Entity elves list Ive been running.


7 Forest
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Savannah
2 Tropical Island
4 Verdant Catacombs
18 lands

4 Elvish Archdruid
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Fauna Shaman
2 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Mirror Entity
4 Priest of Titania
1 Viridian Shaman
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
32 creatures

4 Mental Misstep
2 Chord of Calling
4 Green Sun's Zenith
10 spells

Sideboard
3 Envelop
3 Krosan Grip
1 Loaming Shaman
1 Duplicant
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Batterskull
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
1 Spellskite

[Branches]

Holy shit. I just played 10 games vs NO RUG on mws vs my friend, and he crushed me 10-0! This MU seems almost unwinable. Between Bolt, Fire/Ice, Lavamancer, Misstep + Jitte from the board, there is just not much you can do. My board plan was even to bring in my own Jittes, but that plan doesn't work at all. Does anybody have any ideas to beat this MU?

Btw, I have always been an advocate of Gaea's Cradle, but that card is just terrible at the moment, because of Misstep. You always wanna have 2 mana on turn two, and if they Misstep your 1-drop and Cradle is your only other land, you are pretty screwed. I know they could do that before as well with spot removal, but that didn't cause tempo loss and people were hesitant to waste removal on Llanowar, etc. It's even worse if they have Misstep + Wasteland!

Hi, disagree on just about everything.

I've played NO RUG about 5 times now and my record is 4-1 o.o

You're on the "If they have the nuts on the play AND you kept a subpar hand AND you didnt draw land 3 AND they know what they're doing" mindset.

You have issues having 3 lands in your hand by turn 3? Here's an idea. Cut a ranger for a forest. I've been contemplating this for a while and i feel its correct.

Obviously jitte is a beating, but its literally 1-2 cards in their entire deck.

I've never had an issue with 1-2 missteps in the oponnents opening hand. 3rd one is where you start getting frustrated.

They also only have 1-2 ooze in their deck.

If you resolve inutition it will literally eat them alive.

Also remember NO RUG is 1 deck. There are 15 other decks that are viable that a good matchups.

PS: Cradle is nuts.

PSS:


The worst MU for elves is BUGstill.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAh no.

Draw vengevine.

That is all.

[Sigar]

@TheBirdMan:

Cool list, but why 2 Ezuri and 2 Mirror Entity? Wouldn't 2 more Chord of Calling be better?

[Koby]

Protip: if you are playing blue Ive tested 3 envelop in my sb for perish/firespout/show and tell/natural order/infernal tutor? and its been great too.

Spell Pierce seems much stronger in that case too. Both have an awesome surprise value, but Spell Pierce also counters Intuition, Hive Mind, Grim Monolith, StP, Mental Misstep, and Force of Will, most of the time.

If you're using Envelope to prevent a blowout past turn 6, then it hardly matters that you even have the counter - you shouldn't be playing into a sweeper regardless.

[TheBirdMan]

Its mainly for perish on turn 5-6

[Branches]

and this deck still wont be good enough *giggle*

[Astrix]

Mental misstep banned! maybe joraga warrcaller a good idea now in some
more aggro-oriented lists?

[catmint]

juhuu... elves are back from Tier 3 to tier 2! =)
I think our sucess will depend on how strong CB top will be and how many Plague, EE, Perish and Firespout will be around. Storm combo will still be an issue, so I am curious how many people bring out the LED again. :)

So basically the same issues as before MM. :) Looking forward to come back to the old discussion as soon as we show some T8 results... ?!Ross' 4 cradles, Vengevines, Living Wish, Pact, GSZ and so on?! ...:)

[Mr. Safety]

I am also looking forward to playing this deck again. Glimpse now only has to worry about Force, lol.

@Astrix: I've been playing 1x Joraga Warcaller in my list for a really long time. I play it in place of Elvish Archdruid #4. I like the aggro potential quite a bit, as the fundamental aggro turn is only a turn later than the combo turn (turn 4 typically rather than turn 3.)

[oarsman]

I think misstep returning hurts this deck. Counterbalance and ritual combo should increase in number while stoneforge and NO rug should decrease. This can only be bad for elves. I have had a ton of success playing combo elves for the past couple months, and expect that my win percentage will be lower now.

Having said that, if zoo is the biggest beneficiary of this change, then elves might end up being fine, as that is another easy matchup.

[Elvish Visionary]

I am so happy about the banning of MM it totally wrecked our deck and many more. Its going to be fun sleeving up the pointy ears again. Pre MM my board was:

4x Leyline of Lifeforce
4x Thorn of Amythst
3-4 Krosan Grip

then i would run a few other cards(meta dependent) Defense Grid, Mindbreak Trap, Masticore; open for suggestions/thoughts

FYI I do not run the Living Wish version

[Sigar]

lol? Misstep leaving hurting this deck? Come on, of course it's a good thing that a free hard counter for Glimpse and all the elves leaves the format, don't be silly. I'd rather face storm combo, than NO RUG any day of the week.

[Waikiki]

I'd rather face storm combo, than NO RUG any day of the week.

Why?

[Sigar]

Against combo you goldfish, and you are equally fast. Post-board you pretty much rape them if you play cards against them. NO RUG is living hell with fire/ice, mental misstep (cya ;) bolt, lavaman and jitte. Fire/Ice becomes a joke now that Nacatl and Lackey are cards again, and Misstep is gone, so I think Elves is back in business!

[Waikiki]

imo combo is 1 to 0.5 turns faster then you are. Goldfishing is pretty hard. Also I dont feel sideboard offers that strong of a plan against combo.

the only card I really hated was fire/ice the rest didnt really bother me.

[catmint]

Against combo you goldfish, and you are equally fast. Post-board you pretty much rape them if you play cards against them. NO RUG is living hell with fire/ice, mental misstep (cya ;) bolt, lavaman and jitte. Fire/Ice becomes a joke now that Nacatl and Lackey are cards again, and Misstep is gone, so I think Elves is back in business!

raping combo postboard... sure.
Other combo decks have much better protection in the form of discard or orim's chant, so the storm matchup is a bad one for elves!

[Sigar]

They have Duress and Chant (which counters glimpse 1 for 1). If you care about the MU, you have 8 cards in the board (4 thorn, 4 mindbreak trap).

[resum]

countertop isn't suddenly the best deck now that misstep is gone, it was driven out by team america, merfolk, and no varients as early as march of this year. against storm you basically need to have a turn 1 cabal therapy, thoughtseize, or duress because even if you keep a turn 2 hand, they might just turn 1 you.

[Koby]

imo combo is 1 to 0.5 turns faster then you are. Goldfishing is pretty hard. Also I dont feel sideboard offers that strong of a plan against combo.

the only card I really hated was fire/ice the rest didnt really bother me.

I concur with both of these statements.

Storm Combo is Elves' quicker cousin, and CBtop is the true nemesis.

Fire/Ice is merely a speed bump, while Grim Lavamancer is a pain in the ass. Zoo is also tough to beat on the draw, and rough game 2 when they start off with Canonist.

[resum]

A lot of the resiliency of the misstep era lists might want to be updated to add more explosiveness. This may include crop rotations for cradles and ESG for a faster start.

[oarsman]

If you guys are losing to zoo, then you aren't playing the deck well. It should basically be a bye. Lavamancer can usually only activate three times before they run out of ammo, and then you just run them over if they aren't already dead. After boarding your vengevines demolish them. Nobody will accept this statement I am sure, but seriously if you are losing to zoo then it is your fault, not the matchup.

As for combo decks, I have been running six discard plus teeg in the board and winning about half the time. I think that has to be good enough, because I don't see how any more of the board can be sacrificed to combo matchups.

[NihilObstat]

So, just for a change of topic. It doesn't seem like we're gonna get any Woods Creatures in the Innistrad block :-/

We'll have to make do with what we know for another 3 months then. I'm really hoping for some new crazy elves to come up!!!

[Branches]

If you guys are losing to zoo, then you aren't playing the deck well. It should basically be a bye. Lavamancer can usually only activate three times before they run out of ammo, and then you just run them over if they aren't already dead. After boarding your vengevines demolish them. Nobody will accept this statement I am sure, but seriously if you are losing to zoo then it is your fault, not the matchup.

As for combo decks, I have been running six discard plus teeg in the board and winning about half the time. I think that has to be good enough, because I don't see how any more of the board can be sacrificed to combo matchups.

ur delusional. they dont run the shitty cards that dont effect you anymore like PoP and KoTR. 2 nacatls and a goyf will kill u in 2 turns. matchups p.bad on the draw


So, just for a change of topic. It doesn't seem like we're gonna get any Woods Creatures in the Innistrad block :-/

We'll have to make do with what we know for another 3 months then. I'm really hoping for some new crazy elves to come up!!!

maro confirmed no elves in inn. hf tho

[NihilObstat]

Maro confirmed no elves in inn. hf tho

Not in the whole block??? 9 months without any new nor repinted elves? I hope that means that next year's set is all about them ^^


What are you guys feeling like with these guys now without misstep? Let's try and make some sweet tops with them!!! What say you!?!?

[dakkonblackblade08]

I tweaked my deck a bit and is now like this:

CREATURES [37]
3 birchlore rangers
4 elvish visionary
4 elvish archdruid
1 emrakul, the aeons torn
2 fyndhorn elves
4 heritage druid
3 llanowar elves
4 nettle sentinel
4 priest of titania
4 quirion ranger
4 wirewwood symbiote

ARTIFACTS [3]
3 staff of domination

SPELLS [7]
1 concordant crossroads
3 genesis wave
3 glimpse of nature

LANDS [13]
7 forest
3 misty rainforest
3 verdant catacombs

SIDEBOARDS [15]
4 krosan grip
3 pithing needle
2 relic of progenitus
3 thorn of amethyst
2 tormod's cypt
1 viridian shaman

was able to beat NO RUG, Zoo and Merfolks..i love the synergy among staff, glimpse and genesis...the deck does not really rely on glimpse though..genesis wave is my favorite card in this deck :-)..wave for 5-8 already builds up especially if you were able to wave staff, archdruid/ priest and crossroads..the built is a bit resilient to aggro in fairness :-)

[Sigar]

3 glimpse of nature


Stopped reading right there..

[NihilObstat]

3 glimpse of nature
That's as senseless as playing 3 Natural order in NO Ruck, Merfolk with 3 Lord of Atlantis or ANT with 3 LED. Sure, the decks don't rely on the 1 card, but they're just too much of a house not to play 4. It's stupid, seriously!

There is no reason why you would want to want to reduce the Glimpse count.

[Mr. Safety]

Glimpse is ridiculous, it's the most powerful card in the deck. Genesis Wave isn't even comparable, really. Genesis Wave could make sense in an aggro-elves deck as a 1-2 of, because it can be a way to clog the board FAST with lords that can get you out of Firespout range. One card is an engine that draws you whetever you need to win (Glimpse) and one puts an arbitrary amount of elves onto the table to attack FTW (Wave.) It's a totally different approach, IMHO, and Genesis Wave doesn't belong in Combo Elves. Redundancy is achieved through Regal Force drawing a ton of cards, and Green Sun's Zenith or Summoner's Pact getting Regal Force.

In my humble opinion, if you're not hard-casting Emrakul, you're doing it wrong.

[Branches]

im noticing a trend in bad ppl wanting genesis wave in the deck. lol



That's odd. I'm noticing a trend in your posts - they are generally ill-formed (and perhaps less useful than they should be). The Source requires proper grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and sentence structure. Also, spell your words correctly. Cleanup your overall posting habits, please.

Welcome to The Source!

-4eak

[Koby]

im noticing a trend in bad ppl wanting genesis wave in the deck. lol

Resist the urge. Genesis Wave accomplished nothing that the deck isn't already able to accomplish, and opens you up to being destroyed by sweepers (Wrath, Firespout, Deed, etc). Genesis Wave is better suited in an Aggro Elves list than it is in Combo Elves.

[NihilObstat]

So guys, tomorrow I've got a 300+ tournament and I haven't decided in playing Merfolk or Elves.

If I had Intuition + Vengevines I would go straight for elves, but I still got my Living Wish (Priest + Archdruid) list, and although it does great, it's nothing compared to the new tech. On the other hand, my Merfolk are complete.

What do you guys think? What would you play?

Tomorrow they ban MM which sucks for the sea guys but is awesome for the forest dudes.

[jace247]

So guys, tomorrow I've got a 300+ tournament and I haven't decided in playing Merfolk or Elves.

If I had Intuition + Vengevines I would go straight for elves, but I still got my Living Wish (Priest + Archdruid) list, and although it does great, it's nothing compared to the new tech. On the other hand, my Merfolk are complete.

What do you guys think? What would you play?

Tomorrow they ban MM which sucks for the sea guys but is awesome for the forest dudes.


I would probably go with elves it is very underrated in my opinion. Also an unanswered elf deck can go off turn 2 or 3 and then just go nuts but then again it all depends on your build and what you expect to be there. and with MMS being banned that just made this deck wayyyyy better lol.

[Branches]

So guys, tomorrow I've got a 300+ tournament and I haven't decided in playing Merfolk or Elves.

If I had Intuition + Vengevines I would go straight for elves, but I still got my Living Wish (Priest + Archdruid) list, and although it does great, it's nothing compared to the new tech. On the other hand, my Merfolk are complete.

What do you guys think? What would you play?

Tomorrow they ban MM which sucks for the sea guys but is awesome for the forest dudes.

It's literally all about your skill level with the elf deck. Tho i wouldnt play it in a lavamancer heavy metagame.

Deck is very underrated because 90% of the pilots make the deck look like a joke. *shrug*

ps: if ur playing 7-8 discard spells in ur board u should probly find room for snapcaster mage too. double ts is pretty nuts and snapcaster gives you more opp for it.

[dakkonblackblade08]

I will be joining a 80+ pax tourney next week and i was hoping you can help me choose which cards should i remove when its sideboarding time. here's my decklist

3 genesis wave
3 staff of domination
3 glimpse of nature
1 concordant crossroads

4 e archdruid
4 priest of titania
4 wirewood symbiote
4 e visionary
2 llanowar e
2 fyndhorn e
3 birchlore rangers
4 quirion ranger
4 nettle sentinel
4 heritage druid
1 emrakul, the aeons torn
1 viridian zealot

7 forest
6 fetch

sb
3 krosan grip
3 pithing needle
2 viridian shaman
3 thorn of amethyst
2 tormod's crypt
2 relic of progenitus

top decks in our meta as of September: NO Rug, Maverick, Merfolk, Hive Mind, Bant, Dredge

your input is highly appreciated since i have limited time to playtest..thanks guys!

[Neil]

I will be joining a 80+ pax tourney next week and i was hoping you can help me choose which cards should i remove when its sideboarding time. here's my decklist

3 genesis wave
3 staff of domination
3 glimpse of nature
1 concordant crossroads

4 e archdruid
4 priest of titania
4 wirewood symbiote
4 e visionary
2 llanowar e
2 fyndhorn e
3 birchlore rangers
4 quirion ranger
4 nettle sentinel
4 heritage druid
1 emrakul, the aeons torn
1 viridian zealot

7 forest
6 fetch

sb
3 krosan grip
3 pithing needle
2 viridian shaman
3 thorn of amethyst
2 tormod's crypt
2 relic of progenitus

top decks in our meta as of September: NO Rug, Maverick, Merfolk, Hive Mind, Bant, Dredge

your input is highly appreciated since i have limited time to playtest..thanks guys!

Read the previous posts.. No matter what ALWAYS run 4 glimpse of natures. what about Vexing shuhser in SB? It should help against the control decks. Also is the merfolk UB with EE and plague in SB? if it isn't don't be worried about the Merfolk match-up but if you see Underground sea game 1, put in the krosan grips. maybe even viridian for Jitte. Also Grip for hive mind deck. Griping in response to the pact trigger with hive mind really hearts your opponent. Bant has stoneforge and Jitte in it so you should SB in viridian shaman. Hope this helps.

[Koby]

The advice I give to new Elves players with regards to sideboarding:

If your opponent is playing :w: or :b: aggro/control, board into Krosan Grip.
If your opponent is playing :u: or :b: control, board into Vengevine.

[gypsy]

Read the previous posts.. No matter what ALWAYS run 4 glimpse of natures. what about Vexing shuhser in SB? It should help against the control decks. Also is the merfolk UB with EE and plague in SB? if it isn't don't be worried about the Merfolk match-up but if you see Underground sea game 1, put in the krosan grips. maybe even viridian for Jitte. Also Grip for hive mind deck. Griping in response to the pact trigger with hive mind really hearts your opponent. Bant has stoneforge and Jitte in it so you should SB in viridian shaman. Hope this helps.

grip in response to hive mind copying pact doesn't do anything really

[Kich867]

I feel that with the banning of mental misstep, vengevine is unnecessary. I've recently gone back to a more traditional list of elves that focuses on the combo / elf swarming.

//Creatures: 31
4x Llanowar Elves
3x Arbor Elf
3x Priest of Titania
2x Elvish Archdruid
3x Heritage Druid
4x Nettle Sentinel
1x Viridian Zealot
1x Joraga Warcaller
3x Quirion Ranger
2x Wirewood Symbiote
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1x Regal Force
3x Elvish Visionary

//Spells: 14
4x Glimpse of Nature
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Summoner's Pact
2x Crop Rotation

//Lands: 15
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Wirewood Lodge
1x Pendelhaven
13x Forest

//Sideboard: 15
4x Summoner's Pact
4x Elvish Champion
2x Krosan Grip
3x Relic of Progenitus
1x Viridian Shaman
1x Xantid Swarm

This build has been amazing for me so far, I don't have a lot of time to explain everything in it, it should all be pretty self explanatory, but most importantly--Wirewood Lodge and Pendelhaven (Grim lavamancer tech ftw?) are friggin awesome. The colorless of lodge has never hurt me, and it's untap effect has only strictly won me games over and over again.

[Godmode]

@Kich867 Vengevine its still very useful in a lot of matches, its a must card..



Still waiting for theross thoughts on some new deck now that MM its banned. :)

[Koby]

[

Still waitting for theross thoughts on some new deck now that MM its banned. :)

Nothing in the deck needs to change, it's fine as it is right now. The only change that happened is MM being removed which allows this deck to operate better. The problem still exists that Storm combo may make a return which poses a threat to Elves in being faster. However, I don't believe that Storm combo will be much larger than 15% of the metagame and as a result leave this deck in a good position.

[Godmode]

Nothing in the deck needs to change, it's fine as it is right now. The only change that happened is MM being removed which allows this deck to operate better. The problem still exists that Storm combo may make a return which poses a threat to Elves in being faster. However, I don't believe that Storm combo will be much larger than 15% of the metagame and as a result leave this deck in a good position.


Maybe ross' GP Providence list its the way to go. Sideboard 4 VV + 4BA + 4 Cabal Therapy looks good. But with all the SMystic based decks there is, Krosan Grip should be in there too. If the meta gets more storm combo oriented, some mindbreak traps in addition of the therapy looks good too.

[theross]

I haven't played much Legacy recently, but in the wake of MM's banning, I doubt Elves will be a good choice until the new metagame adapts to the resurgence of other combo decks. I'm expecting ANT to be a large part of the new metagame and if that's the case, Elves will not be well-positioned. However, if High Tide is the combo deck of choice for it's resiliency, we should be fine. I would definitely play a streamlined, combo focused maindeck in the new metagame, since the disruption for the deck will be down. This means a black splash for the BA/Vengevine plan along with Therapy (perhaps Thoughtseize is better, as was suggested to me in Philadelphia) for the combo matches. I'd also try and have some graveyard hate in the board, either Ooze or Loaming Shaman over the 4th Buried Alive. Reanimator is an awful matchup and although it takes a large hit with the banning of Misstep, it's still a very powerful deck. Not much changes in the MD until the new metagame develops and becomes predictable, so I'll be running the same list if I get to a Legacy event sometime soon.

To everyone looking for advice on their lists, I'll repeat myself from earlier in the thread: Play 4 Gaea's Cradle, it's insane. Even if 3 sit dead in your hand one Cradle makes more mana than 4 lands much of the time, so you still come out ahead. You do have to play 1-2 more lands on average to fit in the normal lands but this is truly the most broken card in the deck. Combo decks in Maigc's history have always keyed on broken mana engines, broken card engines, and broken tutor engines. We have Cradle and Heritage Druid for the 1st, Glimpse and Regal Force for the 2nd, and GSZ and Pact for the 3rd. Cradle is actually the most powerful of all these cards, and is thus an automatic 4 of despite it being legendary.

Lastly, a note on the SB: Krosan Grip is not a good card. Counterbalance is the only card that should prompt you to bring in Grips. I haven't run them in months and literally never cast them when I did. (<------not hyperbole)

[Koby]

I'm not sure if Buried Alive is even included in the sideboard anymore. Several folks in my meta have picked up on a list similiar to Ross'.

2 Birchlore Rangers
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Elvish Archdruid
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
1 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
3 Priest of Titania
1 Quirion Ranger
2 Regal Force
1 Viridian Shaman
4 Wirewood Symbiote

4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Summoner's Pact

3 Gaea's Cradle
2 Bayou
5 Forest
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Krosan Grip
1 Mortarpod
1 Gaddock Teeg
3 Thoughtseize
4 Vengevine

Example from 9/22 (http://mtgstats.com/Deck.aspx?DeckID=418144)
Example from 8/14 #1 (http://thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=6688&iddeck=48489)
Example from 8/14 #2 (http://thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=6688&iddeck=48485)

[Godmode]

@theross

BA+VV strategy its good for the Stoneblade matchup, but Batterskull its an anti-vengevine card. Thats why KGrip looks a good backup plan. I didnt test much, I'm just suggesting.


In a side note, I only have a couple of craddles and they're so expensive. If elves stands out in the meta, I might get the playset. Until then, I'll be using a crop rotation..

[Neil]

@theross

BA+VV strategy its good for the Stoneblade matchup, but Batterskull its an anti-vengevine card. Thats why KGrip looks a good backup plan. I didnt test much, I'm just suggesting.


In a side note, I only have a couple of craddles and they're so expensive. If elves stands out in the meta, I might get the playset. Until then, I'll be using a crop rotation..

go with a living wish build with Gaea's in the board works so well for me and I only have to have 1. On a side note I think the top 16 in starcitygames of elves drove the price of Gaea's cradle up a bit (I might be wrong but gaea's seemed steady and then all of a sudden started going up). So you might not want to wait.

[Kich867]

@theross

BA+VV strategy its good for the Stoneblade matchup, but Batterskull its an anti-vengevine card. Thats why KGrip looks a good backup plan. I didnt test much, I'm just suggesting.


In a side note, I only have a couple of craddles and they're so expensive. If elves stands out in the meta, I might get the playset. Until then, I'll be using a crop rotation..

I'd prefer crop rotation anyways. Pendelhaven is surprisingly useful when people pull the "I'll sneak a little extra damage in because he won't want to trade an elf for this 1/1" type thing / lavamancer, mostly lavamancer. Crop Rotation with lodge can replace both an untapper and a lord, whichever you need when you need it, and it often wins me games.

In regards to K-Grip, I like it. It's really good, it's uncounterable which makes it ideal. As a general statement Theross is correct, however in my meta one of the more dominant players plays a mean mono blue control deck, without k-grip the chances of me winning is significantly lower against him. (He runs Energy Field to stall for his Oblivion Stone so he can one-sided disk you, discard and elves that blow up artifacts / enchants are all counterable, when the O-stone needs to die, it needs to die, and I want an uncounterable way to do it).

@Living Wish: Played it for like, 6 months. After switching, I'd recommend not running a living wish build. It's expensive and clunky and feels shitty. I'll try and put that in better words--when you're playing Living Wish, you never want to play it unless you have 17 mana. Because if you don't see another one you won't get emrakul. To date, I have not lost a game after resolving a summoning pact at some point, and usually during the turn I resolve it. I've never lost to pact and it's not hard at all to not die to it. When you run the wishboard, you start having to pay 3-4 mana for cards you can only afford to spend 1-2 mana on, overall, I find my elf deck leaps and bounds more consistent and powerful since switching to pact.

Summoning Trap, btw, is absurdly good vs control. Back to back traps gives you a pretty decent chance at hitting an emrakul turn 1 or 2, and if it doesn't they probably burnt their hand trying to stop it from resolving, which makes the rest of the game pretty easy.

[Oiolosse]

Gaea's Cradle is powerful but 4 of is too many in my experience. I dropped my list to 3 and added 1 crop rotation. It has been awesome. Favorite play is to sac cradle to Crop Rotation to find another cradle.

I also run 1 vitalize. It has been great when I draw into it but lame in my opening. Has anybody else tried this?

Thanks

[lord09]

@rukcus: I always thought the vengevine plan always required BA/Intuition. Do you know the reasoning behind the VVs w/o the GY enablers?

[Koby]

@rukcus: I always thought the vengevine plan always required BA/Intuition. Do you know the reasoning behind the VVs w/o the GY enablers?

BA is a dead card during the combo. The deck now runs GSZ and that's enough tutoring power to find VV when you want it. You don't force the VV, it just shows up. The plan isn't to play like Sligh, but rather be the control deck against control. They don't have the right tools (CBtop aside) to deal with all the threats this deck can generate and at the same time all our card advantage is more than control plays. Stick to keeping a good hand and riding out in the mid-late game.

[dakkonblackblade08]

grip in response to hive mind copying pact doesn't do anything really

i agree gypsy..my friend who plays bant gripped in response pact-hive mind combo was not favored by the judge..

on a sidenote, i shifted back to the stefano cendrano build http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=5958&iddeck=43202. it is more consistent although a bit slower to my genesis wave version. having four glimpse in the deck gives the deck security in terms CA.

here's my list now:

1 emrakul
4 llanowar e
4 fyndhorn e
4 e archdruid
4 priest of titania
4 e visionary
4 quirion ranger
4 heritage druid
4 nettle sentinel
4 wirwood symbiote

4 glimpse of nature
1 concordant crossroads

3 staff of domination
1 cloudstone curio
1 slate of ancestry

1 gaea's cradle
12 forest

[Godmode]

Elves deck playing vs Merfolks to qualify for the SCG INDI top8

http://www.starcitygames.com/events/20111002_indianapolis.html#Legacy

[Koby]

Chris Andersen just blew it by attempting to interact. He had the win if he took all the dmg and went off to combo.

[Branches]

Elves deck playing vs Merfolks to qualify for the SCG INDI top8

http://www.starcitygames.com/events/20111002_indianapolis.html#Legacy

hahahahaah the guy makes me wanna cry. i understand losing storm when u cant do anything but when ur playing crop rotation to get pendelhaven u know ur doing it wrong. He even drew the cradle to attempt to kill him and just chose not to go for it.

this is why nobody thinks elves is good its so sad.

[Godmode]

He didnt got much luck in the 1st and 3rd game, and the deck itself its not the best version elves has to offer IMO.

[Branches]

He didnt got much luck in the 1st and 3rd game, and the deck itself its not the best version elves has to offer IMO.

i wouldnt blame the decks consistient poor performance on the deck. just saying.

[Godmode]

Elves needs a top notch elves player in order to stand out on the meta. Like a Nicholas Malatesta or "theross" (sry, forgot ur name dude :D). I'm biased but the reason I've been playing and suporting this deck for so much its because I believe its one of the most underrated decks in legacy.

And the deck its constantly evolving and getting stronger, thats whats so cool about it. It would be awesome if a guy with the best list possible and a lot of experience made top4 in a big tournament like a SCG, a GP or something... I haven't seen anyone do that since Nick Malatesta, David Vo and "theross" who got very close to top8 in the GP Providence.


EDIT:

Heres the Elves list from Christoffer Andersen, who placed 11th @ SCG Indianapolis: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=41103

Top16: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=3&start_date=2011-10-02&end_date=2011-10-02&city=Indianapolis

What do you guys think about the list? Looks pretty good, but I prefer Emrakul's.

[theross]

After looking at the results of the SCG, it seems as though the two decks I was most fearful of outperformed everything else: ANT/TES and Reanimator. The rest of the field looked like byes though, so that's nice. I didn't get a chance to watch the Elves-Merfolk match but I've only dropped one game to Merfolk in sanctioned matches so I'm fairly confident his draws were either terrible or he was not playing well. I really don't find Elves to be too difficult, as with most combo decks it just takes some experience so you're able to accurately judge when to go off and what cards are most important in a given hand.

I'm still not sure how to deal with ANT and Reanimator, and that is probably too much for me to want to play Elves right now. Hopefully the metagame adapts with various fair decks (I particularly like the BUG lists AJ and GerryT played) as Elves preys upon these strategies.


Lastly, my name is Ross, for those that are unaware.

[Astrix]

The list that top 16ed was far from optimal in my opinion.
I believe a stronger list and top player can top 8 easily in this meta...

[catmint]

After looking at the results of the SCG, it seems as though the two decks I was most fearful of outperformed everything else: ANT/TES and Reanimator. The rest of the field looked like byes though, so that's nice. I didn't get a chance to watch the Elves-Merfolk match but I've only dropped one game to Merfolk in sanctioned matches so I'm fairly confident his draws were either terrible or he was not playing well. I really don't find Elves to be too difficult, as with most combo decks it just takes some experience so you're able to accurately judge when to go off and what cards are most important in a given hand.

I'm still not sure how to deal with ANT and Reanimator, and that is probably too much for me to want to play Elves right now. Hopefully the metagame adapts with various fair decks (I particularly like the BUG lists AJ and GerryT played) as Elves preys upon these strategies.


Lastly, my name is Ross, for those that are unaware.

I did not like AJ's/Gerrys BUG build, however I don't think elves preys upon a deck that runs heavy discard, counter and 4 deed in the SB...

[NihilObstat]

I just never get why people would play Qasali over Viridian Zealot. I can't find any reason to do it, specially if you are playing them MD where their abilities might not even be needed.

[Koby]

I just never get why people would play Qasali over Viridian Zealot. I can't find any reason to do it, specially if you are playing them MD where their abilities might not even be needed.

Engineered Plague is about the only card I can think of where the different matters. Also :1::w::g: is much easier than :2::g::g:, or rather :3::g: for QPM versus :3::g::g: for Zealot via GSZ. I dont think the different matters much in game play outside of the one extra mana.

[Branches]

I did not like AJ's/Gerrys BUG build, however I don't think elves preys upon a deck that runs heavy discard, counter and 4 deed in the SB...

have u ever played with vengevine?


I just never get why people would play Qasali over Viridian Zealot. I can't find any reason to do it, specially if you are playing them MD where their abilities might not even be needed.

E.Plague
I played sylvok replica in my last event to dodge e.plague and it ended up being relevant.

o and the minor corner case of attacking w/ vv into a 3/4 or 3/1

i like the interaction between lord, symbiote and mirror entity but..........mayb im being stubborn.

off to test.

[NihilObstat]

Right, sorry. I forgot about E.Plague. Haven't played Elves for the whole summer and it flew from my mind. I also used to play Sylvok Replica with Living Wish for the same reason.

Qasali definitely seems awesome next to GSZ since we don't need to pay W for it. Sorry about the last comment, again ;)

[Godmode]

I did not like AJ's/Gerrys BUG build, however I don't think elves preys upon a deck that runs heavy discard, counter and 4 deed in the SB...

VV + BA demolishes Team America/BUG lists

[catmint]

I agree that VV is a powerful strategy versus BUG. But if you guys say "demolish" or "prey upon" I imagine a 80:20 or 70:30 matchup. Don't think thats the case...

Most aggro-control players bring in GY hate. So first you have to resolve BA and the opponent is not allowed to have gy hate.

[catmint]

I agree that VV is a powerful strategy versus BUG. But if you guys say "demolish" or "prey upon" I imagine a 80:20 or 70:30 matchup. Don't think thats the case...

Most aggro-control players bring in GY hate. So first you have to resolve BA and the opponent is not allowed to have gy hate.

[Absolutflipz]

First, Chris Andersen is a pretty decent player with several T16/T8 finishes in the SCG Opens. So while I didn't see the full match (I saw parts of game 2 and 3), I wouldn't write off his not winning as completely attributable to bad play/poor player. He also mulled to 5 in 2/3 games.

Second, I'd like to figure out why one runs Mirror Entity over the Emrakul plan. I only have experience with Emrakul, and I'm not sure of the pros that would lead one to play Mirror Entity instead. Would be good to understand the reasoning between the two.

Third, as Catmint said...while Vengevine/Buried Alive is good against BUG, it is in no way demolishing BUG. That matchup is still pretty abysmal for elves. They have counterspells, removal (mass and targeted), and discard such that while they can't exile a Vengevine, there's definitely no guarantee that vengevines get there. And combo'ing off against the deck is extremely difficult.

Mentor of the Meek seems like a decent glimpse #5-x. Maybe a build that utilizes Chord of Calling?

[1maarten1]

Second, I'd like to figure out why one runs Mirror Entity over the Emrakul plan. I only have experience with Emrakul, and I'm not sure of the pros that would lead one to play Mirror Entity instead. Would be good to understand the reasoning between the two.

Mirror Entity allows you to go infinite, which can be very viable. Also Mirror Entity gives you a very strong option to aggro. But yes, Entity builds usually use Chord because Chord can easily tutor for it. I can see a build (pretty old school tho) with GSZ+a split of Chord/Pact Wirewood Hivemaster and Mirror Entity/ a singleton Mentor as GW build. Don't know if its better but there certainly are benefits.

[Neil]

I haven't paid much attention to a buried alive/ vengevine build but the more I think about it, the better I think it is. Could someone post a build for a deck list with Buried alive and vengevine?

[unemployer]

I usually don't use GSZ for entity build because gsz cannot fetch entity. I run 3 pact and 3 chord. I don't use hivemaster anymore. I think the build has enough elves and having nettle sentinel helps the chord.

[Godmode]

I haven't paid much attention to a buried alive/ vengevine build but the more I think about it, the better I think it is. Could someone post a build for a deck list with Buried alive and vengevine?

Here you go:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?17168-Deck-Elves-Combo/page90

[Kich867]

I've been hesitant to post this for awhile since it's currently only been tested like ~20 times in goldfishing and won't see real play until this friday..

There's 2 consistent problems I'm having with Elves right now--granted, my deck is done, the list I posted is it's final form for generic play, but I always like changing things up and seeing what's new and what I can maybe do to try and fix things.

1.) I don't like that Emrakul is colorless and virtually unfetchable outside of Living Wish + I really, really hate living wish builds. (A slew of problems I had with the deck were solved by dropping that whole concept and outside of this one, no new problems arose)

2.) I don't like that the win conditions are generally swing oriented. Falling back on the aggro plan feels terrible and like I'm playing a really, really bad aggro deck (I'm referring to the shitty aggro plan, as I'd consider a massive warcaller or emrakul a successful combo) and that's actually somewhat frequent depending on the deck your playing. Key removal / discard effects can set you back into a never-able-to-combo state. I wanted something unique to elves that wasn't some variant of "ramp into big creature(s), win."

So to try and solve these issues I wanted a new win condition that was both fetchable, relatively easy to play, and would win the game if it resolved. Gilt-Leaf Archdruid is what I'm looking at right now. It was briefly brought up by Infinitum who played one in the sideboard, but no significant discussion seemed to pop up about the card. The reason I didn't want to post it here is it's not technically elf-combo, I removed Nettle Sentinels from the deck and upped the druid count--conveniently this adds a lot of mana production to the deck. Any elf that produces mana is a druid, even ones that don't say they are because they're too old: old Llanowar Elves don't tell you, Priests of Titania don't tell you, Fyndhorn Elves don't tell you, etc, but they've all been updated as druid creatures (much like there's a surprising number of awesome Elven warriors that aren't labelled as such).

Instead of the Elf combo it focuses more on untapping mana lords / cradles etc. It reliably steals your opponent's land on turn 3 or 4 and at that point they should concede, they'll be at 0 or 1 mana for the rest of the game, they can't win with that.

The nice thing about the Archdruid here is that every turn he's out is a combo turn without having to resolve a glimpse each time, he's larger than your average elf, and he's a win condition. So he's a tutorable win condition who is also a decent beater who is also a library-playing draw engine. It conveniently also follows the common quip about if you pay 5 mana for it you should win the game (which obviously doesn't really apply to Elves, I pay 7-8 mana for Regal Force all the time and it occasionally doesn't win me the game XD).

I was moderately worried about achieving 7 untapped druids, but it's surprisingly easy to do. Not only that, he's a lot easier to just glimpse combo into naturally than Emrakul.

I'm not saying this is the direction elves should go in, just sharing where I'm exploring with the deck. Currently I really like it, I can't tell if it's any more or less consistent than my finished list, in particular it's nice not having to rely so much on Glimpse to combo off and not really needing Regal Force. He went as well, which felt weird, but in testing it's been a non-issue. As a general statement, Regal Force is cast to save / set up another combo turn, Gilt-Leaf makes every turn a combo turn, draws way more cards for you than Regal Force does if not that turn, the next turn; and wins you the game on the spot at instant speed. It's also surprisingly convenient that he works with Heritage Druid and counts towards mana lord's tapping..

I dunno, food for thought maybe. I'll let you know how it works this friday, I can see a few problems with it but they seem relevant and in line with the problem elves has in general, so at the end they don't really feel that much like problems.. Part of this idea came from the listed issues I had above with the deck, and a lot of it came with realizing that I almost never use the Heritage / Nettle combo, so much so that removing Nettle Sentinels from the deck hasn't been noticeable. I lean a lot more towards lord + untapper.

[Infinitium]

If you're going with the full 8 big mana elves Concordant Crossroads is probably the only win condition you'll need (what with it being absurdly good with just about anything). I pair it up with Ezuri nowadays (essentially a 9 mana Overrun with GSZ) along with 4 Warcallers and just swing for the kill after generating the required card and mana advantage.

Not that Archdruid isn't good - it's still the in-tribe answer to Peacekeeper and Glacial Chasm, But Emrakul + Rath's Edge is the more efficient combination to fight through damage prevention in terms of sideboard space, and having an extra unplowable mana source is pretty good overall vs the decks that side Peacekeeper should you draw it.

[Koby]

1.) I don't like that Emrakul is colorless and virtually unfetchable outside of Living Wish + I really, really hate living wish builds. (A slew of problems I had with the deck were solved by dropping that whole concept and outside of this one, no new problems arose)

Fauna Shaman is a versatile tutor, is in-tribe, and can beatdown when you need to.


2.) I don't like that the win conditions are generally swing oriented.


The few non-combat alternative that are useful are:
1) Mortarpod - once you combo, you can take infinite turns with Emrakul, not tutorable.
2) Grapeshot/Tendrils of Agony - require Birchlore Rangers, and still not tutorable.
3) Primal Command - can be used to lock the opponent out, handles many of the problems the deck faces, but still not tutorable.

[Kich867]

Fauna Shaman is a versatile tutor, is in-tribe, and can beatdown when you need to.



The few non-combat alternative that are useful are:
1) Mortarpod - once you combo, you can take infinite turns with Emrakul, not tutorable.
2) Grapeshot/Tendrils of Agony - require Birchlore Rangers, and still not tutorable.
3) Primal Command - can be used to lock the opponent out, handles many of the problems the deck faces, but still not tutorable.

Hey! Thanks for the ideas! I should have been a little more specific--Fauna Shaman can indeed tutor Emrakul, but it has summoning sickness and can't do it on the combo turn which I'm not comfortable with. At the moment I'm really liking Gilt-Leaf, it doesn't win the game necessarily, but the only thing I can think of is if the opponent already had a creature with prot green on the table. Primal Command is interesting, surprisingly good too. I may have to find spots for them in the sideboard..

[Oiolosse]

@Kich867

I play a tapping/untapping Elf version myself and it is fantastic. Concordant crossroads is great in my build because I drop just enough so that an Overrun + my elves get there. Lately I have been using Eldrazi Monument and when it sticks it's game. It's great at turning the tides when you've been put into defense after a whiffed glimpse.

Also, am I in the minority for using Biorhythm? It's amazing, instantly kills most combo. Most of the time you get there with 2-3 attacking 1/1's or control hard counters it.

Also, any Shusher fans out there? Cheap GSZ target for his impact and spanks for two.

[Kich867]

@Kich867

I play a tapping/untapping Elf version myself and it is fantastic. Concordant crossroads is great in my build because I drop just enough so that an Overrun + my elves get there. Lately I have been using Eldrazi Monument and when it sticks it's game. It's great at turning the tides when you've been put into defense after a whiffed glimpse.

Also, am I in the minority for using Biorhythm? It's amazing, instantly kills most combo. Most of the time you get there with 2-3 attacking 1/1's or control hard counters it.

Also, any Shusher fans out there? Cheap GSZ target for his impact and spanks for two.

Honestly, I'd like to try Biorhythm out again. It's surprising how easy it is to just like, randomly kill someone with 3 elves on the table. I tried it out first with a really, really bad build of Elves, but getting what, 9 mana? is absurdly easy to do with only a few elves and if it's early enough and they're playing a creature-light deck, it can end them pretty quick.

I could see my finished elves deck throwing 2 in and see what happens, I'm glad there's people trying things out like that, exploration is key.

[Godmode]

SCG Nashville Quarter Finals - Riley Curran (Elves) 0 : 2 Chris VanMeter (U/W Stoneblade)

You can watch the match later here: http://www.starcitygames.com/events/20111003_nashville.html#Legacy

Top 16 Decklists: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=3&start_date=2011-10-09&end_date=2011-10-09&city=Nashville

Riley Curran's decklist: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=41208

Maindeck:
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Priest of Titania
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
3 Fyndhorn Elves
3 Llanowar Elves
2 Mirror Entity
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Sylvan Messenger
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Gaddock Teeg

4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Chord of Calling
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull

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


Sideboard:
1 Mortarpod
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Dauntless Escort
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Krosan Grip
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize


Congratulations to Riley for making top8!



P.S: What's your take on this deck Ross? :)

[theross]

I think the combo decks were unable to beat the hate presented this weekend, and Riley managed to dodge them. This is not a strategy I think is effective in the current metagame, as this deck is built to beat decks that play fairly. (and still has no good way to fight through sweepers) I wouldn't touch this deck.

[bakofried]

You'd probably get better results just playing NO/Aggro Elves if you wanted to play that, and it's far more similar to that deck anyway. But, topic for a different place.

Kich, could you post this list?

[Kich867]

Sure, I played it and it went pretty good. I beat Bant aggro 2-0, then flashless hulk combo 2-0, and lost 1-2 to merfolk to a misplay.

I was also accidentally playing with 62 cards, no idea. Somehow a full playset of something I only wanted 2 of ended up in there and I didn't realize it until midway through and couldn't remove it.

If I'm not mistaken, since it's not on me atm, the list is this:

//Creatures: 31
4x Elvish Archdruid
4x Priest of Titania
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Arbor Elf
4x Heritage Druid
3x Gilt-Leaf Archdruid
3x Wirewood Symbiote
2x Quirion Ranger
2x Elvish Visionary
1x Joraga Warcaller
1x Viridian Zealot

//Spells: 14
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Summoner's Pact
4x Glimpse of Nature
2x Crop Rotation

//Lands: 15
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Wirewood Lodge
1x Pendelhaven
13x Forest

//Sideboard: 15
4x Summoning Trap
4x Elvish Champion
3x Relic of Progenitus
2x Krosan Grip
1x Viridian Shaman
1x Xantid Swarm

I feel like I'm missing something obvious as I can't recall if those numbers are right but, if they aren't right that's probably what I should be running.

The list runs 23 druids..uhhm. Yeah. I mean when it hits it wins, it never not won me a game when I stole their land. They either conceded or played it out being dazed and confused about what to do.

Not having Nettle Sentinels can hurt sometimes but it's largely not an issue unless you somehow have no tappable mana lord on the table and strictly must go off with the nettle combo, which in my experience, with like 6 months with the deck, has happened 5 or fewer times. When I fizzle with this deck it's because the combo fizzled and nettles wouldn't have helped me draw through those 3 lands.

I'm not convinced this list is better than my previous list if only because Emrakul ends the game when he hits and Regal Force fills your hand hard, it is however, incredibly fun.

The biggest problem with the idea of stealing their land as a win condition is what I feared it would be, but I had no idea that it would actually be relevant as often as it was. If you don't go off like turn 3 with it, then odds are they play threats, and if that threat is prot green or flies, even after you steal their land you are required to race them. This was relevant against Merfolk (I won anyways but it was close).

Also, Pendelhaven was an absolute boss. I misplayed a lot with it, but if you have pendelhaven and wirewood symbiote down, Jitte / Lavamancer can't kill anything...Merfolk beat me strictly with Jitte, but it was my fault, I lost a lot of elves I didn't have to because I wasn't thinking clearly and I had a lot of chances to remove it that I didn't take, it was bad play, and if I had to do it again, I should beat it fairly confidently.

Getting 7 untapped elves isn't necessarily difficult, but sometimes it requires waiting until next turn which can be dangerous. In the future, I'll be planning to combo off, get a critical mass of elves, and EOT pact for archdruid so they have little time to respond to it. The key is playing it right and not treating gilt-leaf like a normal elf I think.

I'm also thinking of dropping Crop Rotations out, I put 2 in with the idea that, essentially, they're a lord or an untapper--whichever I need at the moment--but this almost never came up. In fact, in 7 games I never saw them, and I've almost never seen them, and they've almost never been relevant, when I'm running this much mana production I don't exactly need it.

I like the sound of Primal Command however, I'll likely drop CR's out of my main list for 2x Primal Command's as a means to fetch emrakul...agh! Sorry I write so much XD!

--Aside: In the post mental misstep era, I'm greatly enjoying this deck. It still has issues that I rant about (being the only combo deck susceptible to every form of hate possible) but without mental misstep everything feels manageable...my Llanowar Elf turn 1 isn't being free-countered (god is that such a set back..), they don't have 8 free counters to glimpse, etc. After ditching the living wish build and finally getting my fourth glimpse / every possible card I could think of to interact with the deck, I'm actually having a ton of fun playing it whereas I previously played it because it was a competitive inexpensive deck. As I gain experience with it, I'm finding new tricks and maneuvers to put me a little further ahead here and there and the correct plays are feeling more obvious and clearer than they were before.

[jrich]

i played elves for a while pre misstep and now that it is banned have been looking to try and play it again.
im looking for a list that would be good against a field that is filled with stoneforge/snapcaster decks like uw, bug and junk type decks and pretty much 0 combo decks that are faster than elves

[Oiolosse]

i played elves for a while pre misstep and now that it is banned have been looking to try and play it again.
im looking for a list that would be good against a field that is filled with stoneforge/snapcaster decks like uw, bug and junk type decks and pretty much 0 combo decks that are faster than elves

nicefirstpostdude

[jrich]

nicefirstpostdude

ive posted b4 just forgot my account so i made a new one, just looking for advice on elves cause i havent played it in a while and it seems like it would do well in my local meta

[Godmode]

Grand Prix - Amsterdam

Top32 Decklists: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7050

Congratulations to Samuel Poulain, the guy who led an Elves deck to an awesome 13rd place in this high level 1878 player event!

Here's the deck list: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7050&iddeck=51155

Maindeck:

1 Dryad Arbor
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Mirror Entity
1 Regal Force
1 Viridian Shaman
2 Fyndhorn Elves
3 Elvish Visionary
3 Fauna Shaman
3 Quirion Ranger
3 Vengevine
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Wirewood Symbiote

1 Crop Rotation
3 Chord of Calling
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Glimpse of Nature

1 Savannah
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Gaea's Cradle
5 Forest


Sideboard:

1 Caller of the Claw
1 Children of Korlis
3 Faerie Macabre
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
2 Krosan Grip
1 Tormod's Crypt
3 Absolute Law


On a personal note, this list looks nasty. Has the 4 Birchlore wich allows us to go off on turn 2, has the Vengevines, has a versatile sideboard and has 1 Crop Rotation along with 3 Gaea's Cradle.
The deck looks good overall and I'm looking forward to test it.


Your thoughts on it?

[Kich867]

My thoughts are probably the same thoughts I keep thinking whenever I see an elf combo list make some high ranking. It seems to never follow what this thread is talking about and is always splashed with something.

I like the list a lot, and I'm wondering why Mirror Entity isn't the norm over Emrakul. Going infinite with Wirewood Symbiote is pretty boss, I like the look of that list a lot.

[NihilObstat]

I've tried to defend Mirror entity so many times on this thread, but people don't seem to get how Broken he is.

I LOVE the list, and it opens a few new things to debate.

-Chord of Calling over Summoner's pact?
If we are going 4x Birchlore for T2 combo, Pacts are a must to be consistant, but Chord fetches Entity and opens up Korlis (crazy against ANT), but is it really worth it?

-Why is he playing only a total of 3 Llanowars* and 3 Quirion? That looks quite weird and not explosive, specially since he only has 12 first turn mana producing lands. I'll have to test how it actually works out, but I would cut 2 Fauna & Arbor in this list for 2 Llanowars and 1 Fetchland.

I don't know, the list looks fun and innovative! Straight down to the test. How come isn't everyone debating? Everyone testing? ^^

[Godmode]

I'm still figuring out the deck a little. I'm still figuring out how to use the Fauna Shaman to her fully potential and making the right decisions with this list. I haven't played this kind of elves for a long time and I'm a little off.


p.s: where are you Ross?

[Koby]

I bet this plays very similar to how Mono green Survival/Vengevine played, only slower. It's pretty easy to switch from Beatdown to Combo (via Mirror Entity/Chord of Calling).

I still like casting Emrakul plan better however, since it guarantees victory when cast.

Compare the list with: (Intuition VV Elves by Matt Nass/Greg Hatch)

Creatures [30]
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Regal Force
2 Llanowar Elves
2 Quirion Ranger
4 Arbor Elf
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Vengevine
4 Wirewood Symbiote


Instants [8]
4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition

Sorceries [4]
4 Glimpse of Nature

Lands [18]
1 Forest
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Gaea's Cradle
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical Island

[theross]

The first thing I notice is that he only has 3 Green Sun's Zenith, which can't be right. I also don't like the MD Vengevine plan right now, as speed is the only way you can win the ANT and Reanimator match-ups. Fauna Shaman is painfully slow and often just eats a lightning bolt/plow, putting you down 1 mana. Chord similarly seems very inefficient compared to Pact, but I guess he wants to hit non-green bullets post-sideboard. Mirror Entity is miles better than Emrakul in his list since he runs a white splash, and Entity isn't a dead draw.

I will never agree with less than 4 Gaea's Cradle. If you want to run a Crop Rotation as a fifth copy I could get behind that, but Cradle is far and away the best card in the deck. Even if you draw all 4, you're still better off than if you'd have drawn 4 forests since you'll often be making more than 4 with the single Cradle in play. With the number of Wastelands in the format I'd prefer running more, since having the backup after they use their land drop to waste your first one is backbreaking.

Overall I dislike this list a lot, and that's without mentioning the awkward number of Llanowars. (a virtual 6 with Zenith) The draws with a turn 1 mana dork are much better than those without it, especially considering his list wants to curve into Vengevine or turn 2 Zenith for Shaman to start the chain. He seems to have positioned the deck awkwardly between the two plans, selecting some slots to move towards the combo shell (notably the 4 MD Birchlore Rangers which I guess also help to cast Mirror Entity) and others to move towards a Vengevine aggro shell. (Chord of Calling over Pact, 3 MD Fauna Shaman) I also dislike his sideboard, as it's just a bunch of bullets, although he seems to have correctly recognized that the SB should just focus on the Combo and GY match-ups, since most of the others are byes. I'd probably add some answer to Grim Lavamancer, as RUG decks seem to be on the rise with Delver of Secrets giving them an upgrade on Nimble Mongoose.

[Godmode]

The thing that amazes me is that this guy made 13rd place in a 1878 players GP with the meta full of ANT, GW, UW Stoneforge, UB Snapcaster Control, Reanimator, Team America, etc. It's amazing that he made 13rd with most of the decks beeing tough a matchup for elves..

[Koby]

The thing that amazes me is that this guy made 13rd place in a 1878 players GP with the meta full of ANT, GW, UW Stoneforge, UB Snapcaster Control, Reanimator, Team America, etc. It's amazing that he made 13rd with most of the decks beeing tough a matchup for elves..

Out of those matchups, I'd only be worried about ANT and Reanimator. Mid-range decks have a hard time beating Glimpse of Nature, and even harder time beating Vengevine. I'm not surprised he did well, except for dodging many combo matchups.

[Infinitium]

It kinda irks me how he didn't just play Burrenton Forge-Tender instead of Absolute Law in the SB. Not a huge fan of the deck, albeit mixing VengeVival with the Glimpse plan is kinda cool in itself.

[Trentemoller]

I knocked him out of contention in the 15th round because I nutdrawed him two games in a row. He won 2-1 vs almost the same list as I played, earlier in the tournament (the three of us all ended up top16, I had 2 Firespouts to board in while Erwin had 0) but I went turn 2 Emrakul with FoW backup on the play game 1 and game 2 he mulled to 6 and I went turn 3 Emrakul with double FoW backup while he had 1 land and Quirion Ranger. It felt kind of bad to not have a real game since he was a very nice opponent to play against :) I'm glad he won his last round and hope to see him in Honolulu! :D

[samman1]

I knocked him out of contention in the 15th round because I nutdrawed him two games in a row. He won 2-1 vs almost the same list as I played, earlier in the tournament (the three of us all ended up top16, I had 2 Firespouts to board in while Erwin had 0) but I went turn 2 Emrakul with FoW backup on the play game 1 and game 2 he mulled to 6 and I went turn 3 Emrakul with double FoW backup while he had 1 land and Quirion Ranger. It felt kind of bad to not have a real game since he was a very nice opponent to play against :) I'm glad he won his last round and hope to see him in Honolulu! :D

Hello Jon! I am Samuel Poulain.
I have been very pleased to play against you (although you had a indecent luck!!!).
Unfortunatly, I won't go to Honolulu because I only play legacy. I hope I see you next year in the BOM or in the Ovinogeddon.

[samman1]

The thing that amazes me is that this guy made 13rd place in a 1878 players GP with the meta full of ANT, GW, UW Stoneforge, UB Snapcaster Control, Reanimator, Team America, etc. It's amazing that he made 13rd with most of the decks beeing tough a matchup for elves..

UW stoneforge, bant (aggro, mystical, NO), UB snapcaster control, TA, team Portugal, Merfolk, zoo are good MU for me.
I have never lost against those MU since the ban of mental misstep.

ANT is tough (of course), reanimator is a bad MU but I have some efficient answers post SB.
Tempo thres is also a difficult MU, Tempo zoo is an awfull MU.

During the last 5 tournaments, I lost against :
- Maverick (twice),
- burn (once),
- UBW esperblade (once),
- Sneak show (once),
- painter (once)
- punishing big zoo (once).

The most important thing is that I don't play my deck like a normal elfball. I don't try to win with combo glimpse : I try to be patient, to control opponent's threats, then find a kill. I lost power and explosivity and I gained thoughness.
With that strategy, chord of calling >> pact, vengevine>> hivemaster.

However, I think my MD is very efficient, but my SB needs some modifications (exit : 3 absolute law, 2 faerie macabre, in : the fourth vengevine, 2 surgical extraction, 2 summoner's pact).

[Ajsmirnov]

The thing that amazes me is that this guy made 13rd place in a 1878 players GP with the meta full of ANT, GW, UW Stoneforge, UB Snapcaster Control, Reanimator, Team America, etc. It's amazing that he made 13rd with most of the decks beeing tough a matchup for elves..

I played agains him and lost(uwr stoneblade). He is a dangerous topdecker, rly. Always 3 Glimpse, Postboard always 2x Natural Order and so on.

[samman1]

I played agains him and lost(uwr stoneblade). He is a dangerous topdecker, rly. Always 3 Glimpse, Postboard always 2x Natural Order and so on.

I guess you talk about the wrong person : I have not played against UWr stoneblade (which is not a good MU for me). I think you played against Olivier Pamart (pseudo : Blind) who is 20 years old, I am 37.

[blind]

I didn't play Vs Uwr Stoneblade :

My GP is :

Urg Tempo Delver 1-0
Burn 2-0
AnT 3-0
AnT 3-1
Team Portugal 4-1
Maverick 5-1
Bant 6-1
Dredge 6-2
ElfBall (full combo) 6-3

[Ajsmirnov]

Yes, should wrong person. I played against Thomas Drapala[FRA], he finished 62.

[samman1]

Yes, should wrong person. I played against Thomas Drapala[FRA], he finished 62.

I am Samuel Poulain.
I made :
R1 : 1 bye
R2 : aggro-white stompy 2/1
R3 : Mystic bant 2/0
R4 : maverick 0/2
R5 : zoo 2/0
R6 : aggro bant 2/0
R7 : UB aggro control 2/1
R8 : team america 2/0
R9 : elfball 2/0 (in a mirror match, Mirror entity>> Emrakul :tongue: )
R10 : painter 1/2 (mulligan 4 on the 3rd :frown:)
R11 : UW cawblade 2/0
R12 : sneak show 2/1
R13 : ANT 2/1 (very lucky on the 3rd, my only faerie macabre made me won)
R14 : merfolk U 2/0
R15 : sneak show 0/2 (Trentemoller crushed me very kindly !! :smile: Unfortunately, he did not make TOP8)
R16 : Tempo thresold 2/1

13/0/3

[Godmode]

@samman1


The most important thing is that I don't play my deck like a normal elfball. I don't try to win with combo glimpse : I try to be patient, to control opponent's threats, then find a kill. I lost power and explosivity and I gained thoughness.
With that strategy, chord of calling >> pact, vengevine>> hivemaster.

However, I think my MD is very efficient, but my SB needs some modifications (exit : 3 absolute law, 2 faerie macabre, in : the fourth vengevine, 2 surgical extraction, 2 summoner's pact).

I knew this deck had a difrent playstyle, that's why I was having some trouble figuring out how to play it at its maximum potential (i.e: how /and when to use fauna shaman because it's kind of a slow and vunerable strategy, wich strategy go to from the beggining because this deck misses some explosiveness for resilience so you cant go off as smoothly as a normal elfball)

And what is Goblin Sharpshooter for? Is is for the mirror?

Do you only take off the Venvegines against fast passed MU like storm combo decks?

I would really appreciate if you could help me on this. And congrats again for the awesome finish and I hope you crush the competition at BoM!

[samman1]

@samman1



I knew this deck had a difrent playstyle, that's why I was having some trouble figuring out how to play it at its maximum potential (i.e: how /and when to use fauna shaman because it's kind of a slow strategy, wich strategy go to from the beggining because this deck misses some explosiveness for resilience so you cant go off as smoothly as a normal elfball)

And what is Goblin Sharpshooter for? Is is for the mirror?

Do you only take off the Venvegines against fast passed MU like storm combo decks?

I would really appreciate if you could help me on this. And congrats again for the awesome finish and I hope you crush the competition at BoM!

Fauna shaman has several interests :
always : can fetch key creatures (symbiot, nettle, heritage druid, mirror entity, regal force), can "produce" vengevines : with quirion ranger and symbiot, I can put 3 VV in the battlefield in the same turn, can be "sacrificied" to force opponent to play counters or anti creature spells.
Post SB : If I play against reanimator and I have active fauna and my opponent has no creature in play, I am almost sure to win (3 faerie macabre), if I have several creatures on the battlefield and an active fauna, I can fetch caller of the claw in response to a mass removal, ...

I love to play like that :
chord of calling and vengevine in hand, end of opponent's turn, I play chord to put fauna in play. During my turn, tricks with fauna to put 2 ou 3 vengevines in play.
When you have 2 VV, at least 1 elve and symbiot, the aggro mode is very often easy (there a several exceptions : exalted clique, terravore, sword of feast and famine...). I can resist 3 ou 4 turn, then find a kill FTW.

Goblin sharpshooter is the answer of :
- exalted vendillion clique,
- 1/1 goblin tokens,
- aven mindcensor (with my 6 fetchlands and 9 tutors, this card hurts me a lot),
- peacekeeper (I saw some decks packing 4 peacekeepers in SB),
- mother of runes (I can untap it in resp of mother's effect),
- ethersworn canonist,
- random creatures (porcelain legionnaire for instance),
- mirror match.

I side out 3 VV with combo tendrills decks, reanimator, dredge. With painter, I only side out 2 VV.

I play this deck in a control way : my priority is very often to put symbiot in play because it gives card advantage and protection. Playing soon combo glimpse is an opportunity (sometimes a necessity), not an purpose. My purpose is very often to control the board and force my opponent to play all of its control card. Then I can play kills for the win.

[Godmode]

@samman1

So you're main goal is to get the synergy of Mirror + Symbiote + Heritage + Sentinel going and then go off with the glimpse or regal force. If your oponent has a very interactive deck like team america or another heavy control deck, you go the fauna shaman / vengevine route. Right?

[Waikiki]

How do you feel about playing 61 cards or is the decklist incorrect?

[samman1]

@samman1

So you're main goal is to get the synergy of Mirror + Symbiote + Heritage + Sentinel going and then go off with the glimpse or regal force. If your oponent has a very interactive deck like team america or another heavy control deck, you go the fauna shaman / vengevine route. Right?

There is no answer, it is always a problem of opportunity. I have some threats :
- combo glimpse,
- mirror cradle,
- infinite mana combo,
- aggro vengevine (without fauna),
- fauna/vengevine trick (with quirion ranger and symbiot).

I choose the solution between the possible solutions, the pressure on the board and the control cards I think my opponent has in hands.
If you play against heavy control, fauna/VV is of course a good solution. It also depends on the tempo : hardcasting VV turn 3 is a good play, even if i have fauna in hand (it depends on my feeling of the situation).

[samman1]

How do you feel about playing 61 cards or is the decklist incorrect?

You are right : playing a 61 cards deck seems weird. If you find a card to leave in my MD, I would be very happy to talk with you about it. I spent hours to reduce my MD and I have failed.

I play this version since 3 months and it works very well. Every deck can be improved and I want to improve my version.
For the MD, I would like to introduce a 1 slot titania.

My SB is not optimal : 3 non fetchable slots for absolute law for instance.
I have chosen absolute law for punishing fire.deck, tempo thres, tempo zoo and burn/sligh decks. There must be a better solution. I precise that burrenton forge trender (I love that card) cannot be a solution by itself (not efficient enough against tempo thres, tempo zoo, punishing fire.deck that are bad MU).

If some people like my list and want to test it, I would be pleased to share our ideas, analysis, results and improvements.

[1maarten1]

Nice to see you French guys join the thread! Now I can maybe stop trying translating your forums :P!

Blind, what list did you play? The fast combo list with Gytaxian Probe on legacy-france? Or something else? Im thinking about making a pure combo list, maybe with Gytaxian Probe, not sure about that yet. But I have yet to decide on my win-con. Emrakul, Entity with Chords, or Ezuri with Pacts.. You guys have ideas about that?

[lord09]

Congrats on the finish samman1.

Just one question, what's the rationale behind the single Crop Rotation?

[samman1]

Nice to see you French guys join the thread! Now I can maybe stop trying translating your forums :P!

Blind, what list did you play? The fast combo list with Gytaxian Probe on legacy-france? Or something else? Im thinking about making a pure combo list, maybe with Gytaxian Probe, not sure about that yet. But I have yet to decide on my win-con. Emrakul, Entity with Chords, or Ezuri with Pacts.. You guys have ideas about that?

I think Emrakul is not the best kill, because it is often a bad topdeck while mirror entity and Ezuri are often good topdecks. Entity can be tutorised by chord, Ezuri can be tutorised by any tutor. That makes a strong différence.

Emrakul has the advantage of being a very efficient kill, with its time walk effect. But during the GP, I resisted this kill in a mirror match then win.:smile:

Between Ezuri and mirror, Ezuri gives the opportunity to play monoG. If you play titania MD, GSZ x 4 can be a very good kill.

I prefere mirror because of the unlimited mana combo, that can turn a glimpse fizzle into a kill .

[samman1]

Nice to see you French guys join the thread! Now I can maybe stop trying translating your forums :P!

Blind, what list did you play? The fast combo list with Gytaxian Probe on legacy-france? Or something else? Im thinking about making a pure combo list, maybe with Gytaxian Probe, not sure about that yet. But I have yet to decide on my win-con. Emrakul, Entity with Chords, or Ezuri with Pacts.. You guys have ideas about that?

I think Emrakul is not the best kill, because it is often a bad topdeck while mirror entity and Ezuri are often good topdecks. Entity can be tutorised by chord, Ezuri can be tutorised by any tutor. That makes a strong différence.

Emrakul has the advantage of being a very efficient kill, with its time walk effect. But during the GP, I resisted this kill in a mirror match then win.:smile:

Between Ezuri and mirror, Ezuri gives the opportunity to play monoG. If you play titania MD, GSZ x 4 can be a very good kill.

I prefere mirror because of the unlimited mana combo, that can turn a glimpse fizzle into a kill .

[samman1]

Congrats on the finish samman1.

Just one question, what's the rationale behind the single Crop Rotation?

Thanks.

The uses of crop rotation :
1 - turn a forest into cradle,
2 - turn a tapped cradle into an untapped cradle,
3 - crop+chord is a kill : end of opponent's turn, crop on forest->cradle, chord@3 -> mirror entity. Alpha strike during your turn.
4 - against dredge, fetchland+crop remove bridge from below : in response to bridge from below's trigger ability, fetchland->dryad arbord, crop on dryad arbor,
5 - crop can turn a forest into a savannah (to cast mirror, gaddock or children of korlis).

[blind]

Blind, what list did you play? The fast combo list with Gytaxian Probe on legacy-france? Or something else?

My decklist for Amsterdam :

1 Dryad Arbor
4 Gaea's Cradle
12 Forest
1 Joraga Warcaller
1 Regal Force
1 Viridian Shaman
2 Fyndhorn Elves
2 Llanowar Elves
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Vengevine
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
SB: 1 Progenitus
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 3 Dismember
SB: 4 Natural Order
SB: 4 Faerie Macabre

I am very happy with this decklist. Combo/Réa is very bad Match-up but other decks are good/so good Mus. ;)

I lost only Vs Combo in GP (Ant, Dredge and ElfBall).

[NihilObstat]

Hello Samuel and Olivier! Welcome to The Source it's great to have you here!!!

I would actually have many questions on your MD that come instantly to mind when seeing your list Samuel (Llanowars, Quirions, Visionaries with 3 copies), but since you are packing 3 Fauna-Vengevine & Birchlores, well, there's just so many cards we can play in a deck.

So I'll just make one question. If you say, that you are sacrificing explosiveness for resilience shouldn't you be able to cut 1 Birchlore to have 60 cards. I just can't play 61 cards! What do you think?

Although on your Side I'd really want some insight.
Was Safekeeper of any use? How often do you need Caller? Korlis seems to have potential, when do you use him, good results? Could you post an updated side when you figure one out? I'll test your list as much as I can, but I'm quite busy lately :-/




SB: 1 Progenitus
SB: 4 Natural Order

I have never played NO-Prog elves. What do you usually side out in your list for it?

[samman1]

Hello Samuel and Olivier! Welcome to The Source it's great to have you here!!!

I would actually have many questions on your MD that come instantly to mind when seeing your list Samuel (Llanowars, Quirions, Visionaries with 3 copies), but since you are packing 3 Fauna-Vengevine & Birchlores, well, there's just so many cards we can play in a deck.

So I'll just make one question. If you say, that you are sacrificing explosiveness for resilience shouldn't you be able to cut 1 Birchlore to have 60 cards. I just can't play 61 cards! What do you think?

Although on your Side I'd really want some insight.
Was Safekeeper of any use? How often do you need Caller? Korlis seems to have potential, when do you use him, good results? Could you post an updated side when you figure one out? I'll test your list as much as I can, but I'm quite busy lately :-/
I have never played NO-Prog elves. What do you usually side out in your list for it?

I know that birchlore has been cutted in several decks in USA. I don't agree. I prefere birchlore than llanovar (may be I am the only one who think that but never mind!).
It is true that llanovar turn 1 is the best play. But Birchlore is more useful after turn 2 because with birchlore, you can begin a combo glimpse. Without birchlore or heritage druid, it is very risky.

Safekeeper is with gaddock teeg my lock against combo tendrills. I have 9 tutors, so I am able to play this lock on turn 3.

I will post very soon my next version of the deck. I will play it in the final tournament of france legacy championship (in 3 weeks). All suggestions and proposals will be welcome.

[samman1]

Here is my proposal for my next list

2 verdant catacombs
2 windswepth heath
2 wooded foothills
5 forets
1 savannah
1 dryad arbor
3 gaea's cradle

2 fyndhorn elves
1 llanovar elves
3 quirion ranger
2 fauna shaman
2 priest of titania
3 elvish visionary
3 Vengevine
4 nettle sentinel
4 wirewood symbiot
4 birchlore rangers
4 heritage druid
1 regal force
1 mirror entity
1 viridian shaman

4 glimpse of nature
3 chord of calling
3 green sun's zenith

SB :
2 krosan grip
1 goblin sharpshooter
1 faerie macabre
2 surgical extraction
1 scavenging ooze
1 tormod's crypt
1 gaddock teeg
1 sylvan safekeeper
1 children of korlis
1 caller of the claw
1 vengevine
2 summoner's pact

I'd like some comments and proposals on that list.

[NihilObstat]

Surgical extraction seems to have a wider ranger of utility-versatility but it's not as good against Reanimate, since they can counter it, as Faerie, right? Don't you think we should fear Reanimate the most, and focus on it? Although Extraction is simply purely AWESOME.

[samman1]

Surgical extraction seems to have a wider ranger of utility-versatility but it's not as good against Reanimate, since they can counter it, as Faerie, right? Don't you think we should fear Reanimate the most, and focus on it? Although Extraction is simply purely AWESOME.

i agree 100% your point of view. surgical vs faerie macabre, it is more versatility, worst MU vs reanimate.

I think that with the french meta (with mystic bant, TA, team portugal, TT) reanimate is not the best choice. I am not sure about this point but it is my hypothesis to build my new version.

[1maarten1]

Surgical extraction seems to have a wider ranger of utility-versatility but it's not as good against Reanimate, since they can counter it, as Faerie, right? Don't you think we should fear Reanimate the most, and focus on it? Although Extraction is simply purely AWESOME.

Extraction can also be pretty cool against a Extraction from your opponent! Lets say they Extract your Heritage Druid. In response you extract your own druid, then ''fail'' to find any in your hand and library after which his will fizzle because the druid in your grave is removed.

[Infinitium]

I'd like some comments and proposals on that list.

I think that running fetches and duals seem extremely risky what with decks packing wasteland & stifle seeing an upswing at the moment; with as few lands as elves run it just doesn't cope well with land destruction, especially as everyone and their mother will sideboard more mass/removal postside.

Whilst the white splash can be useful for sideboard material, the Mirror Entity maindeck seem overkill (since if you've got Glimpse+PoT+Wirewood+Tutor (for Elvish Visionary) you typically just win anyhow, and there aren't any infinite life combos seeing play atm. I personally think that there's enough good options in green that the white splash is not worth it, but if you do I'd use Burrenton Forge-Tender for Firespout/Dredge/Random. In the same vein, without the splash Birchlore Rangers looks.. meh.

Running Dryad Arbor with anything less than 4 GSZ seems like a waste. In fact, anything less than 4 GSZ is probably suboptimal since it's just that much better than the alternatives. Also why less than 4 Visionaries? Pair it up with Symbiote and you've got one of the best card advantage engines in the game, and it's still extremely solid on its own.

[samman1]

I think that running fetches and duals seem extremely risky what with decks packing wasteland & stifle seeing an upswing at the moment; with as few lands as elves run it just doesn't cope well with land destruction, especially as everyone and their mother will sideboard more mass/removal postside.

Whilst the white splash can be useful for sideboard material, the Mirror Entity maindeck seem overkill (since if you've got Glimpse+PoT+Wirewood+Tutor (for Elvish Visionary) you typically just win anyhow, and there aren't any infinite life combos seeing play atm. I personally think that there's enough good options in green that the white splash is not worth it, but if you do I'd use Burrenton Forge-Tender for Firespout/Dredge/Random. In the same vein, without the splash Birchlore Rangers looks.. meh.

Running Dryad Arbor with anything less than 4 GSZ seems like a waste. In fact, anything less than 4 GSZ is probably suboptimal since it's just that much better than the alternatives. Also why less than 4 Visionaries? Pair it up with Symbiote and you've got one of the best card advantage engines in the game, and it's still extremely solid on its own.

Thank for your comments.

I have tested many configurations of land repartition. This land manabase (6 fetches, 1 savannah, 5 forest and 3 cradle) associated with my creature manabase (including a compulsory set of birchlore) gives consistance and regularity. Birchlore is a very useful creature, especially during the early game and when you want to put 3 vengevine in play. You can begin a glimpse combo with birchlore and nettle until you play heritage druid FTW. You won't do that with llanovar.
It is true that with fetchlands, stifle can be a problem. During the GP, three opponents played stifle MD, 1 of them stifled my fetchland T1. In an another round, I had to play once fetchland go with a killturn3 hand. But I won both games.
Mirror entity is imho the best kill for elfball : efficient kill, excellent topdeck, chord compatible, almost a kill with cradle or active titania.

I only play 3 GSZ because I have other very efficient tutors : fauna shaman and chord of calling. It is true that chord of calling is not as efficient as pact for combo glimpse. Same for fauna. Those 5 cards change everything : I prepare each of my turn during opponent's turn. Opponents have a lot of difficulty to anticipate all the tricks that can be played as instants.
Ex.: Your opponent has destroyed your symbiot, he plays, equip jitte and attacks. You block his creature with a visio, tap 4 creatures to play chord@1, put symbiot into the battlefield then bounce your elf. Your opponent lost 1 or 2 turns playing that. Elfball nothing. I have a good MU with cawblade and mystic bant.
Visionary is an awesome card, but it is also the case of titania or fauna shaman. My main targets for GSZ are symbiot, nettle, fauna, regal force, then visionnaire. As you wrote, symbio/visio is powerful. I only play GSZ->visionary when I have symbiot or during combo glimpse. The rest of the time, I have better things to play.

burrenton is a very good card in case of :
- volcanic fallout, firespout, pyroclasm, firestorm (dredge decks), pyrokiness, pyrostatic pillar . But few people play firespout nowadays in Europe. I play caller of the claw in case of mass removal. There are more people playing tempo thres, tempo zoo and punishing fire.deck or simply lavamancer.deck. those MU are quite bad for me and BFT won't change the situation. A 4 th Vengevine seems interesting.

[Koby]

Extraction can also be pretty cool against a Extraction from your opponent! Lets say they Extract your Heritage Druid. In response you extract your own druid, then ''fail'' to find any in your hand and library after which his will fizzle because the druid in your grave is removed.

Running Emrakul would also allow you to avoid this.
(Via Fauna Shaman: Discard creature, find Emrakul. Untap somehow, Discard Emrakul, *shuffle*, find Heritage Druid)

[Namida]

Running Emrakul would also allow you to avoid this.
(Via Fauna Shaman: Discard creature, find Emrakul. Untap somehow, Discard Emrakul, *shuffle*, find Heritage Druid)

While this is true, which one is more practical: Having one card in your hand and the two life to cast it, or having all of the cards and/or permanents necessary to discard an Emrakul with Surgical Extraction on the stack?

[samman1]

Running Emrakul would also allow you to avoid this.
(Via Fauna Shaman: Discard creature, find Emrakul. Untap somehow, Discard Emrakul, *shuffle*, find Heritage Druid)

I used to play that tricks while playing survival VV elves : it costs only GG. With fauna, it is an heavy tricks. I Prefere fetching mirror, regal force or symbiot because of the tempo.

That is the reason why I don't splash red to play anger (titania with haste is of course awesome).

[unicoerner]

What for are the children of Korlis?
I test the chords of calling. This build seems much slower, but more resilient and has good alternative plans. Perhaps Archdruid over Priest or atleast on Druid

[1maarten1]

What for are the children of Korlis?

For the combo match. You go chord for it, then in response to the last lethal copy of tendrils of agony, you sac it to gain back like 18 life so you only take 2 from their entire storm chain.

[tsabo_tavoc]

You are right : playing a 61 cards deck seems weird. If you find a card to leave in my MD, I would be very happy to talk with you about it. I spent hours to reduce my MD and I have failed.

I play this version since 3 months and it works very well. Every deck can be improved and I want to improve my version.
For the MD, I would like to introduce a 1 slot titania.

My SB is not optimal : 3 non fetchable slots for absolute law for instance.
I have chosen absolute law for punishing fire.deck, tempo thres, tempo zoo and burn/sligh decks. There must be a better solution. I precise that burrenton forge trender (I love that card) cannot be a solution by itself (not efficient enough against tempo thres, tempo zoo, punishing fire.deck that are bad MU).

If some people like my list and want to test it, I would be pleased to share our ideas, analysis, results and improvements.

Congrats on your GP finish!

Would you consider Steely Resolve? It does not prevent dmg from Firespout, but good against StP, Dismember, which are more prevalent.

BtW, what is Team Portugal?

[Koby]

Would you consider Steely Resolve?

It nerfs Wirewood Symbiote and Quirion Ranger shenanigans. It's better in Aggro Elves list than combo.

[samman1]

It nerfs Wirewood Symbiote and Quirion Ranger shenanigans. It's better in Aggro Elves list than combo.

+1

Team portugal is an evolution of team america with snapcaster mage (Tiago Chan is portuguese) : waste and stifle less, 1 or 2 liliana of the Veil, 3 jace, 2 clique, 4 SCM, deed, snare and pierce MD.

[NihilObstat]

Been testing the list and the greatest point I've seen in it so far is that it overpowers other lists in one important aspect: versatility.

Some lists go full Glimpse Emrakul combo, with only 1 Wincon (+ a very, very weak 1/1s aggro option)
Others go Glimpse + Vengevines ( Combo plan + a strong Aggro plan )
And others go Glimpse + Entity ( Combo--Aggro mix )
But this list has a whole of 3 Wincons ( Glimpse + Entity + Vengevine ), and depending on the situation/hand/pairing maybe one's more powerful or achievable than the other and it's easy to shift from one another.

The only thinh I'm still not sold into is playing Chord of Calling. I played the deck in a 30 players tournament yesterday, and I just lost too many games for being short on mana from Chord. The Instant factor changed the balance of quite a few games, but I felt that paying the extra mana was overall not worth this tech.

Anyway, after testing this I don't feel like going back to Summoner's (it feels too good tutoring for setting up the combo for next turn or going aggro), and Living Wish fucks the sideboard up, which I really enjoyed having yesterday by finally dropping Wish.

I would not play Elves with less than 6 tutors so I'm in a bit of a dilemma.



I'll make a brief Tournie summary from yesterday:

Round 1 - Affinity (1-2)
Game 1 - He starts hitting for 8 flying on turn 2, and tutoring up Umezawa's Jitte. I zenith into Viridian --- Cranial. After a lot of crazy shenanigans with Viridian Shaman + Symbiote, I have the board controlled and I'm going to kill him next turn. Cast shaman twice, destroying land and Mox opal leaving him with only colorless mana (At 2 life I didn't want to risk Galvanic Blast). He topdecks Plating and kills me with "flying" Signal Pest...
Game 2 - Combo turn 2 or 3.
Game 3 - Mulligan to 6, and keep a turn 2 combo hand with Dryad as my only land. He Dispatches it and I don't draw land again.

Round 2 - Elves combo (0-2)
Game 1- I know he plays Elves, and I start and think the turn 3 combo hand I keep will be good enough. It's not, he finishes me turn 2 thanks with Summoner's pact.
Game 2- I keep again a turn 3 hand which didn't work due to shitty drawing. He wins again thanks to Summoner's Pact being extremely helpful for the combo.
I would have won both games had my Chords been Summoners.

Round 3 - (2-0) I easily beat a guy named Bye. He really wasn't any good at all...

Round 4 - Burn (2-0)
I don't know you guy, but I always find burn very easy. If they bolt our guy they can't win, if they don't bolt them we win. Anyway, Burrenton and my singleton Absolute Law save me from a Volcanic Fallout on game 2.

Round 5 - Reanimate (1-2)
Game 1- The first game is always a tough one, specially against turn 2 Elesh Norn.
Game 2- He mulligans to 6 and keeps a hand with control but no combo pieces. After some turn I resolve a Glimpse and land some pointy ears, 2 Tormod's and a Qasali waiting to respond to Animate Dead. He lands Null Rod, but is not able to combo before I aggro him out.
Game 3- I keep a fast hand without any grave hate. Glimpse goes with Fow and he resurrects Iona on turn 4. I try to convince him to play Iona on White and not Green because I have Savannah untapped and Path to Exile in hand. He doesn't believe me so I scoop since I actually don't have any removal ^^

I think I could have done better, specially in the first game and really loved the list and all the strengths it has. I'm just not 100% sold on Chord yet, but everything else is great.

Would you guys keep a turn 2-3 hand against Reanimate or would you mull into grave-hate? Btw, my Tormod's should have been Faerie Macabre, didn't find any :/
I did run Extraction, but never saw it.

[samman1]

Been testing the list and the greatest point I've seen in it so far is that it overpowers other lists in one important aspect: versatility.

Some lists go full Glimpse Emrakul combo, with only 1 Wincon (+ a very, very weak 1/1s aggro option)
Others go Glimpse + Vengevines ( Combo plan + a strong Aggro plan )
And others go Glimpse + Entity ( Combo--Aggro mix )
But this list has a whole of 3 Wincons ( Glimpse + Entity + Vengevine ), and depending on the situation/hand/pairing maybe one's more powerful or achievable than the other and it's easy to shift from one another.

The only thinh I'm still not sold into is playing Chord of Calling. I played the deck in a 30 players tournament yesterday, and I just lost too many games for being short on mana from Chord. The Instant factor changed the balance of quite a few games, but I felt that paying the extra mana was overall not worth this tech.

Anyway, after testing this I don't feel like going back to Summoner's (it feels too good tutoring for setting up the combo for next turn or going aggro), and Living Wish fucks the sideboard up, which I really enjoyed having yesterday by finally dropping Wish.

I would not play Elves with less than 6 tutors so I'm in a bit of a dilemma.



I'll make a brief Tournie summary from yesterday:

Round 1 - Affinity (1-2)
Game 1 - He starts hitting for 8 flying on turn 2, and tutoring up Umezawa's Jitte. I zenith into Viridian --- Cranial. After a lot of crazy shenanigans with Viridian Shaman + Symbiote, I have the board controlled and I'm going to kill him next turn. Cast shaman twice, destroying land and Mox opal leaving him with only colorless mana (At 2 life I didn't want to risk Galvanic Blast). He topdecks Plating and kills me with "flying" Signal Pest...
Game 2 - Combo turn 2 or 3.
Game 3 - Mulligan to 6, and keep a turn 2 combo hand with Dryad as my only land. He Dispatches it and I don't draw land again.

Round 2 - Elves combo (0-2)
Game 1- I know he plays Elves, and I start and think the turn 3 combo hand I keep will be good enough. It's not, he finishes me turn 2 thanks with Summoner's pact.
Game 2- I keep again a turn 3 hand which didn't work due to shitty drawing. He wins again thanks to Summoner's Pact being extremely helpful for the combo.
I would have won both games had my Chords been Summoners.

Round 3 - (2-0) I easily beat a guy named Bye. He really wasn't any good at all...

Round 4 - Burn (2-0)
I don't know you guy, but I always find burn very easy. If they bolt our guy they can't win, if they don't bolt them we win. Anyway, Burrenton and my singleton Absolute Law save me from a Volcanic Fallout on game 2.

Round 5 - Reanimate (1-2)
Game 1- The first game is always a tough one, specially against turn 2 Elesh Norn.
Game 2- He mulligans to 6 and keeps a hand with control but no combo pieces. After some turn I resolve a Glimpse and land some pointy ears, 2 Tormod's and a Qasali waiting to respond to Animate Dead. He lands Null Rod, but is not able to combo before I aggro him out.
Game 3- I keep a fast hand without any grave hate. Glimpse goes with Fow and he resurrects Iona on turn 4. I try to convince him to play Iona on White and not Green because I have Savannah untapped and Path to Exile in hand. He doesn't believe me so I scoop since I actually don't have any removal ^^

I think I could have done better, specially in the first game and really loved the list and all the strengths it has. I'm just not 100% sold on Chord yet, but everything else is great.

Would you guys keep a turn 2-3 hand against Reanimate or would you mull into grave-hate? Btw, my Tormod's should have been Faerie Macabre, didn't find any :/
I did run Extraction, but never saw it.

What is your list, particularly the SB?

Your MU in the tournament :
Affinity: 60/40 for elfball. It is a matter of luck more than a matter of skill. Your opponent has been more lucky than you (topdeck cranial plating).
Mirror elfball : in a mirror, of course pact>>chord. Bad MU for you although mirror entity can make the difference.
Reanimate : bad MU (30/70). It is hard to find the solutions T2 or T 3. My strategy is all dedicated to graveyard hate (activated fauna means the possibility of fetching faerie macabre, ooze + cradle is an hardlock).

You say that you should have played pact rather than chord. In this metagame, I agree.
Chord is very efficient when you play in an aggro-control metagame. It wasn't the case in your tournament.

[Godmode]

I've been testing with samman1 Gran Prix list with a just a single Priest of Titania instead of a Fauna Shaman and it's great. Priest has a great synergy with Symbiote, Mirror, Quirion. It helps to generate a lot of mana with Symbiote and Quirion, allows us to go for the Alpha Strike with Mirror and can go infinite mana with the Mirror + Symbiote synergy. It's definitely a game changer wich can be used as a surprise with the Chord of Calling and go off on your turn.

[samman1]

I've been testing with samman1 Gran Prix list with a just a single Priest of Titania instead of a Fauna Shaman and it's great. Priest has a great synergy with Symbiote, Mirror, Quirion. It helps to generate a lot of mana with Symbiote and Quirion, allows us to go for the Alpha Strike with Mirror and can go infinite mana with the Mirror + Symbiote synergy. It's definitely a game changer wich can be used as a surprise with the Chord of Calling and go off on your turn.

I agree 100%, titania is very powerful in this list, in particular when played with chord during end of opponent's turn.
I don't know how to integrate it :
- out 1 crop, in 1 titania,
- out 1 fauna, 1 titania,
- out 1 crop, 1 fauna, in 2 titania.

[Godmode]

I agree 100%, titania is very powerful in this list, in particular when played with chord during end of opponent's turn.
I don't know how to integrate it :
- out 1 crop, in 1 titania,
- out 1 fauna, 1 titania,
- out 1 crop, 1 fauna, in 2 titania.

Yeah I think 3 Fauna is too much honestly, because most of the time you wanna fetch it with the Chord and surprise your oponent going off with vengevine or another creature-fetch based strategy. BUT I'm still on the fence wich 2 it's the best: 2 Fauna and 1 Titania or 2 Titania and 1 Fauna. Titania its a game changer and can turn the game around in your favor easily, but so does Fauna and Fauna can be more versatile and usefull in a aggro-control meta. It might get to that, might be a matter of meta. And on a personal note, I think 2 Fauna + 2 Titania might be too much or unecessary occupied slots.
That beeing said, I dont see the reason to take off the Crop, I mean, it helps so much and I dont think a Titania could replace this card because they're 2 quite diferent cards and it has a nice element of surprise like Chord. Some people see it as the weakest card in the maindeck, but it saved my ass sometimes already so Im sold..

[Elvish Visionary]

Hi everybody, I would first like to thank everyone for helping evolve this deck as a whole over the past few years, and more recently i should say weeks.

Thanks to the new members of our forum for bringing some fresh ideas to the build. As we all know this is a powerful build and has some real potential, the more we work on it and tweek ideas and share thoughts the more this deck will evolve into a top tier strategy or atleast extremely powerful.

I have a much different approach to this build then what i have seen more recently, not taking anything away from anyone's build but i feel i have one of the faster versions of the deck. (I am interested in thoughts)

Sideboard strategy is key with this deck, i feel evolving the post board games will ultimately lead to the success of this deck, we can steal game 1 against alot of decks, but after the board, out builds are easy to hose.

SOOO here is my deck i have been using recently


4 Llanowar Elves
2 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Priest of Titania
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Wirewood Symbiote
3 Elvish Visionary
1 Regal Force
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Elvish Archdruid
1 Joraga Warcaller
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Dryad Arbor

1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Summoner's Pact
2 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Glimpse of Nature

3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Gaea's Cradle
7 Forest


I have had several versions of a side board, typically 4 Thorn of Amythst, 4 Leyline of Lifeforce, then targeted hate, Tormod's Crypt, Krosan Grip, scavaging Ooze

Right now I have decided to go HEAVY combo main board and morph into a more of a traditional or "classic" elf build, my SB looks like this:

4 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Green Sun Zenith
1 Vexing Susher
1 Eternal Witness
1 Elvish Champion
1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Eladamri, Lord or Leaves
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Krosan Grip

Typically i board out the birchlore rangers and Tendrils, as that is the most "Flimsy" part of my combo but can end up in some AWESOME wins, and tremendous speed as you can perform "MINI" combos.

Well i wanted to share my build and get some feedback, someone PLEASE try it, by god....its fast

[samman1]

Hi everybody, I would first like to thank everyone for helping evolve this deck as a whole over the past few years, and more recently i should say weeks.

Thanks to the new members of our forum for bringing some fresh ideas to the build. As we all know this is a powerful build and has some real potential, the more we work on it and tweek ideas and share thoughts the more this deck will evolve into a top tier strategy or atleast extremely powerful.

I have a much different approach to this build then what i have seen more recently, not taking anything away from anyone's build but i feel i have one of the faster versions of the deck. (I am interested in thoughts)

Sideboard strategy is key with this deck, i feel evolving the post board games will ultimately lead to the success of this deck, we can steal game 1 against alot of decks, but after the board, out builds are easy to hose.

SOOO here is my deck i have been using recently


4 Llanowar Elves
2 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Priest of Titania
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Wirewood Symbiote
3 Elvish Visionary
1 Regal Force
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Elvish Archdruid
1 Joraga Warcaller
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Dryad Arbor

1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Summoner's Pact
2 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Glimpse of Nature

3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Gaea's Cradle
7 Forest


I have had several versions of a side board, typically 4 Thorn of Amythst, 4 Leyline of Lifeforce, then targeted hate, Tormod's Crypt, Krosan Grip, scavaging Ooze

Right now I have decided to go HEAVY combo main board and morph into a more of a traditional or "classic" elf build, my SB looks like this:

4 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Green Sun Zenith
1 Vexing Susher
1 Eternal Witness
1 Elvish Champion
1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Eladamri, Lord or Leaves
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Krosan Grip

Typically i board out the birchlore rangers and Tendrils, as that is the most "Flimsy" part of my combo but can end up in some AWESOME wins, and tremendous speed as you can perform "MINI" combos.

Well i wanted to share my build and get some feedback, someone PLEASE try it, by god....its fast

I have some comments on your MD :
- your list can make turn 3 kill easily (if titania or archdruid are played turn 2),
- you've got 3 kills MD : emrakul, tendrils and joraga. Tendrils needs combo glimpse, and if you succeed in combo glimpse, you will be able to win with Emrakul. I don't think tendrils is a good choice. If you fetch joraga with GSZ, you need to bounce it with symbiot to cast it with +1/+1 counters.

SB :
You don't play anti-mass removal slot (caller of the claw, burrenton forge trender). Ezuri is not an answer to perish.
What is eternal witness for?
When do you side in GSZ?
You don't play gaddock teeg. With your tutors, it should be very useful,
Why playing vexing shusher? It is easy to force opponent to use its counter spells. One exception : CB/top. Are there many CB/top decks in your metagame?

[NihilObstat]

What is your list, particularly the SB?

Maindeck:
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Fyndhorn Elves
2 Llanowar Elves
1 Priest of Titania
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Regal Force
4 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Mirror Entity
1 Ezuri, renegade leader

1 Crop Rotation
3 Chord of Calling
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Glimpse of Nature

1 Savannah
6 Fetchland
1 Gaea's Cradle
5 Forest


Sideboard:
3 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Burrenton Forge-tender
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Masticore
2 Krosan Grip
1 Surgical extraction
4 Tormod's Crypt
1 Absolute Law


I tried to adapt the list to my meta-game which is very Combo and Aggro heavy with some Team America and Canadian (currently) always making top8. So I decided Vengevines to be too slow, and I brought in 4x of Elves instead for being more explosive and less recursive.
All I regret from the MD is not having more Gaea's Cradles. Unfortunately I just wasn't lucky drawing, and I made mulligans almost every game.
In my games and probably metagame, Entity alone or next to Ezuri look like enormous Aggro options by themselves, so maybe I'll just try to fit Vengevine in the side if there's room... Vines are easy to fit anyway, if need be, taking out 1 of each elf.

On the other hand I'm not too happy with the sideboard. Tormods should have definitely been Faerie + Extraction and singleton random Law should also be grave hate.

I'm overall very happy with the list, and maybe if I had had more Cradles Chords would have been a lot more useful, so I'll try to buy some soon.

[Godmode]

Do you think the player' playstyle it's the most important factor to use a deck and be successful with it?

Im asking this because Ross and Samuel, 2 diferent players with 2 diferent elves deck with diferent win conditions, with 2 diferent playstyles, but with one thing in common, they're both very good elves players who placed pretty high in the GPs they attended this year. I would like to know your thoughts on this.

thanks guys

[samman1]

Do you think the player' playstyle it's the most important factor to use a deck and be successful with it?

Im asking this because Ross and Samuel, 2 diferent players with 2 diferent elves deck with diferent win conditions, with 2 diferent playstyles, but with one thing in common, they're both very good elves players who placed pretty high in the GPs they attended this year. I would like to know your thoughts on this.

thanks guys

What is Ross's list?

A decklist is of course very important but the play style is even more important.
I have two important points to focus on :
- I try to adapt my plays to opponent's rythm. If he plays fast, I try to follow him playing as fast as possible. If he plays slowly, I try to make card advantage then kill with backup. Killing as fast as possible is not my purpose (exception : against combo decks).
- I prepare all my SB tables before each tournament. Between 2 games, I try to concentrate, I don't spend much time to think about my sideboard changes.

[Godmode]

What is Ross's list?

Ross Merriam's list (alias: theross - it's the 6th post):

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?17168-Deck-Elves-Combo/page90

After the GP he wrote a lot of insightful and helpful stuff wich you can find if you follow his comments including his report.

Hes a great guy, he posts here sometimes and allways tries to be helpful. I believe he was 1 win away from the Top8 at GP Providence early this year. At the very end of this page you can find a report of that Round 15:

Brian Eleyet (Hive Five) vs. Ross Merriam (Elves)

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gppro11/day2



By the way if ur there Ross, how do you think your exact list from the GP Prov would do in this meta?

[samman1]

Ross Merriam's list (alias: theross - it's the 6th post):

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?17168-Deck-Elves-Combo/page90

After the GP he wrote a lot of insightful and helpful stuff wich you can find if you follow his comments including his report.

Hes a great guy, he posts here sometimes and allways tries to be helpful. I believe he was 1 win away from the Top8 at GP Providence early this year. At the very end of this page you can find a report of that Round 15:

Brian Eleyet (Hive Five) vs. Ross Merriam (Elves)

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gppro11/day2

By the way if ur there Ross, how do you think your exact list from the GP Prov would do in this meta?


This list is very interesting, its MD is dedicated to combo (glimpse or casting regal force).
It is true that it is very different from my version which MD is more aggro (fauna/VV) and control (chord of calling).
His SB is much more aggro (VV, buried alive) and control (4 cabal therapy) than mine.

[Godmode]

Ross' deck its probably the most explosive elves version but not the most resilient (note: mental misstep just had bursted into the meta so obviously ross knew how to play around it). Although in game 2/3, siding in BA+VV makes all the diference, changes the playstyle, adds consistency and its quite easy to get those 3 VV in the Gy, I guess that is what makes the deck so powerful - its brutal plan B sideboard. Realistically, in your 3rd round you could easily have the vengevine army hitting the board and when that happens, its game over.

[Mr. Safety]

This is my current list, I'd like some (constructive) criticism of it:

Creatures
4x Birchlore Rangers
3x Fyndhorn Elves
4x Heritage Druid
4x Nettle Sentinel
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Quirion Ranger
4x Elvish Visionary
4x Wirewood Symbiote
3x Elvish Archdruid
1x Priest of Titania
1x Joraga Warcaller
1x Regal Force

Combo
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4x Summoner's Pact
4x Glimpse of Nature

Mana
1x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Misty Rainforest
7x Forest


I am seriously considering the Vengevine/Buried Alive sideboard plan. I have some Overgrown Tombs I could put into my lands. While it's no Bayou, it does the trick considering my budget.

My biggest questions/concerns are these:

1) Will the lack of Green Sun's Zenith be too detrimental to the deck's success?

2) Is Fauna Shaman any good in an elves setup? I know she is slow, but she provides mana (with Birchlore/Heritage) and can tutor up key pieces (multiple Sentinels, Regal Force, and Emrakul by pitching an unneeded Llanowar/Birchlore/random elf)

I have 3 Shamans...I have zero GSZ's. I don't think it would be hard to get a hold of the 3 GSZ's I would need though, they only go for around $8 a piece.

Thanks in advance for the feedback!

EDIT: Decklist was messed up...had 7 Visionary's and no Archdruids.

[Godmode]

@Mr. Safety

Green Sun's Zenith and Gaea's Cradle are the top level, they're truly game changers. If you play in a daily basis or casual I would definitely get those because it makes the deck so much fun, but if you're playing 2 or 3 times a month with your buddy and ur low on money its not that big of a deal I guess. Just test them online and see the difference..

On a personal note, as for Emrakul vs Mirror, I dont know. As you can see, you can play a more combo based elves and play with Emrakul wich is game over when it hits the table, but so is Mirror and Mirror can be more versatile (infinite mana/untaps/storm) and with Mirror you can probably play a more control oriented playstyle.
I suggest you to take a look at page 108 (posted by me, its not the first list its the sencond wich says Grand Prix - Amsterdam) and see the list of Samuel Poulain (samman1) who made 13rd place in the GP Amsterdam (1800ish players) and take a look at page 90 and see Ross' list (theross) who was 1 win away from top8 in GP Providence. Take a look of those 2 lists and read the coments from Samuel and Ross, youll get some insightful information.

Take a look at this if you wanna know Mirror Entity's tweeks and play it to its maximum potential - post by Ellistann: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?17168-[Deck]-Elves-Combo&p=476046&viewfull=1#post476046

On fauna, I think it doesnt make much sense if you're not playing vengevines along with them and on Joraga Warcaller seems to be an overkill or unnecessary.

Go read Ross' and Samuel's report and posts on the pages I told u.. you will get a fresh prespective on elves playstyles.

[Darklingske]

@ Mr Safety; Your list has 7 visionary. But I can't see what you are missing (except GSZ). Maybe you could try to fit Elvish Archdruid in the remaining 3 slots. It makes you a bit faster and better in the case you have to go medieval on their ***.

[samman1]

@Mr safety :
Your deck strategy is close to Ross's : MD dedicated to combo and BA/vengevine in SB for an aggro plan in G2 and G3.
I have a comment : you play 1 titania and your only tutors are pact. If you need titania, fetching it with pact is not often a good solution, especially if titania is countered or destroyed. GSZ is much more efficient if you want to use titania.

Ross uses 4 cradle and 4 GSZ (if he wants to fetch Titania) to boost its manabase. You don't have the equivalent in your deck.
I think GSZ is almost compulsory in elfball decks because it is useful everytime, when you need to defend (symbiot), prepare combo (heritage, nettle), making CA with symbiot (visio) or put regal force on the battlefield.

[the Thin White Duke]

I think this was addressed a while ago (briefly perhaps) but what about Genesis Wave?
I play on a more "casual" level with this deck and I have 2 or 3 G Waves and Crossroads. Is the card too much of a liability at a more competitive level?

[Darklingske]

Genesis wave is a "win-more" card. On a competitive level, you don't want cards that are rather useless until it is time to combo out.

[Kich867]

It's late right now, so I'll do it tomorrow afternoon, but I played in a 36 player 6 round tournament with my elf list from pages back.

I have most of it written down and I remember the matches that I don't have down, so I'll repost my list and go through the games. I placed 13th (almost made top 8, had I won my game I would have been in)

To make a long story short, elves fell short where standard elf combo lists fall short. Without some sort of splash / means to go infinite or some back up plan that isn't actually elves, the generic combo concept is extremely easily disrupted by the more powerful mid-range control decks of legacy these days.

P.S. Snapcaster mage can go fucking die.

[theross]

@Godmode:

On the importance of playstyle: I don't think the success of elves in these two instances is primarily due to playstyle, but rather two people finding elves at a time when it's very good against the prevailing metagame. I was worried initially after MMs banning that many would flock back to faster combo decks, and they did. However, Snapcaster Mage decks have now flooded the metagame with enough combo hate to keep them down, much in the same way MM did before Providence. Elves has enough tempo from the plethora of cheap drops to handle MM (I played through, rather than around this card in Providence which the deck is quite capable of doing, especially since very few of my opponents didn't know the matchup) and Snapcaster Mage and thus it was more important that other combo decks were pushed out of the metagame. Obviously the two lists are very different and that reflects our two playstyles to some extent, but the core cards in each deck are unchanged, and it is that core that wins most games.

On how my list from Providence would perform now: Right now I think Samuel's list is better since it favors the Vengevine plan. These new RUG decks, especially those with Counterbalance should be difficult to combo against so the added resiliency the VV plan gives in the MD is advantageous. I still think my list will perform well for the next few weeks, but as CB comes back stronger (which I believe it will) I think a shift towards VVs main will become necessary. I think I would move towards a Gw build with Mirror Entity (Emrakul as a dead draw is awful when you are grinding them with Vengevines) and a Qasali Pridemage main to deal with CB. Although I did like Intuition when playing with VVs main, so perhaps that is better. I definitely dislike having 4 Fauna Shamans main, as I found that card to be far too slow even for the aggro plan. I would only play 1 as a tutor target if I knew I was safe to start chaining VVs.


@Samman1: I'm glad you were able to immediately recognize that my deck was meant to be on a streamlined combo plan, which was my intention. I have tried lists with MD VV and as noted above, used Intuition in those builds to some success. I found it interesting that your only losses were to other combo decks. In Providence, I was 2-2 against Combo (1-1 against Hive Mind, 0-1 against Sneaky Show, 1-0 against ANT) and 8-1 against everything else (0-1 against PV with BUGStill, where a misplay on my part turned a draw into a loss game 3 after I bricked on creatures game 2 for 6 turns with 3 VVs in the graveyard) I'm becoming so disillusioned in the combo matchups that I think it may be higher EV to just ignore them.

[Godmode]

I was messing around with some cards and found a couple of Winter Orbs. Do you think that Winter Orb + Gaea's Cradle can be a viable lockdown? Looks nasty, but I haven't tested it tho... just wondering about it.

[Oiolosse]

I was messing around with some cards and found a couple of Winter Orbs. Do you think that Winter Orb + Gaea's Cradle can be a viable lockdown? Looks nasty, but I haven't tested it tho... just wondering about it.

I have always been a fan of lockdown/prison decks and with all of the mana producers + cradle I'm sure Winter Orb would be very one-sided here but you need to ask yourself in which matchups you would need it. As a combo deck you never really intend to pass the turn so I think it's win-more most of the time. However, if your build is more bent toward aggro then it may be a great addition especially considering mid-range can blow Elves out.

[resum]

An elves list with a MD very near rosses list top8ed the SCG open in las vegas today. With the abundance of RUG tempo decks, I'm going to start running a blue splash for intuition and vengevines md. Intuition because it can also work as a general tutor that helps me go off against non blue "fair" decks and it can even get me cabal therapies in the combo matchups that haven't killed me yet.

[Kich867]

So as I mentioned before, this is my little mini-tourney report. 36 players. Overall, I blame my list more than anything, I felt that overall I played very well, there was only one game where a tragic misplay on my part didn't cost me the game but it sure as shit didn't help (saw a legendary land in my hand, for some reason just assumed it was pendelhaven, got seriously land screwed and awkwardly creature screwed for like 5 turns and lost).

List:

//Creatures:
2x Elvish Archdruid
3x Priest of Titania
4x Heritage Druid
3x Nettle Sentinel
4x Llanowar Elves
2x Fyndhorn Elves
3x Birchlore Rangers
1x Viridian Zealot
1x Regal Force
1x Emrakul, the Aeon's Torn
3x Elvish Visionary
2x Quirion Ranger
2x Wirewood Symbiote

//Spells:
4x Glimpse of Nature
3x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Summoner's Pact
2x Crop Rotation

//Lands:
1x Wirewood Lodge
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Pendelhaven
12x Forest

//Sideboard:
4x Elvish Champion
3x Summoning Trap
3x Relic of Progenitus
2x Krosan Grip
1x Viridian Shaman
2x Xantid Swarm


This build has been treating me alright for awhile, but I truly feel that a mono-green elves list can't cut it. I think a BA/VV sideboard or Mirror Entity build is better as they offer either a way to go infinite or a way around mass removal / counters. A reasoning on the shortage of untappers btw: I wanted 6 of them in the deck and I wanted to really test out thoroughly how well Crop Rotation works as untappers 5 and 6. They also served as lords 6-7, in theory, having one card that flexibly operates as either an untapper or a lord, whichever you need at the time, -should- be awesome. But it's not. I almost never saw them and the times they did I usually had either a cradle or lodge in my hand anyways.

So, obviously, optimizations can be made to make the deck far, far better.

Round 1- Goblins
Game 1: He goes rishadan port, vial. I pin him on goblins and feel pretty good. I drop a llanowar elf and pass. He sets vial to 1, drops another vial. Weird. I play more stuff, pass. Turn 3, he does nothing and passes, I combo off and win.
Game 2: He goes lackey, pass. I play llanowar, pass. He swings, I block and kill. He drops another lackey, I play a birchlore ranger, he swings I block and kill. I combo off turn 5 after he's stuck on one land after hastily wasting pendelhaven.
2-0
1-0-0

Round 2- Team America
Game 1: Most of what I play gets countered, what doesn't gets killed. I end up in a situation where I have summoner's pact and emrakul in my hand, I have 4 creatures on the board with 2 lords. If I survive this turn, I pact for Ranger, play it, pump 15 mana and hardcast emrakul for the win. Hymn to tourach.
Game 2: Refer to top of post. I mull to six and keep a shakey hand, not wanting to go to 5 against a deck that could potentially hymn me on turn 2 and there's not much I can do about it. I get him down to 2 life, but he stabilizes the board with 2 bobs and jace, brainstorming and putting 2 lands on top each turn effectively drawing ~3 cards a turn for free. Riptide Laboratory and Snapcaster Mage doubling all of his creature removal is too much.
0-2
1-1-0

Round 3- Reanimator
Game 1: This overall just felt terrible. He keeps his opening 7 and ends up not being able to do anything for some reason.
Game 2: He mulled to 4 and lost.
2-0
2-1-0

Round 4- U/W Stoneblade
Game 1: He gets a clique out and ends up stalling me on just a few creatures. He eventually won but I should have just raced him I would have beaten him as he had nothing coming. He clutch drew into the exact set of counters he needed 3 turns in a row and I wasted a lot of time trying to set up a combo turn.
Game 2: Again, trying to establish the combo rather than just swinging him out over the course of turns loses me the game. He was an experienced elf player and we spoke a lot about my deck afterwards. I learned a few things that I'm going to implement into my list. Overall, my list is very much my own and I liked it that way because I enjoy exploring possibilities, but honestly, I'd rather just win now..so, yeah.
0-2
2-2-0

Round 5- Affinity
Game 1: He plays a bunch of stuff, I play stuff, sit back and do a little calculating. I drop Joraga Warcaller kicked 4 times, swing for 15, next turn swing for overkill.
Game 2: My deck is faster, so I win.
2-0
3-2-0

Round 6- Reanimator
Game 1: Reanimator does what it's supposed to and Iona's on turn 2.
Game 2: I mull twice to try and find my graveyard hate, don't want to drop to 4 cards so I keep it, once again Iona on turn 2.
3-3-0


Had that last round been something else, I am fairly certain that had I beaten him I would have been in the top 8 =(.

I will almost certainly be going into a G/W elves list with mirror entity. It offers too much flexibility and resiliency. Vengevines by and large would win most match ups I feel are difficult to do otherwise. Plus, I'll probably build G/W Maverick at the same time so the savannah's will be useful :tongue:.

[Sempra]

Im confused with alot of the lists posted here, i hope you can help me out and make me understand why some cards i see as musts are not played.

Cradle. Some only play 0 or 1 or 2 ?? what are u thinking?. Cradle is the most broken card in the intire list, cradle is the reason to play combo elves. Cradle is legacy's Tolarian Academy. So i dont play 4 no, i play 7! 4 Cradle and 3 Living wish.
Any arguments to playing 0 cradle? or less then 4?

Priest of Titania. Im still splitted with her, the priest always pulls removal. I quess thats a good thing, but this does slow you down. but if you get to untap with Priest in play you win, end of story. For that reason im playing her. But the negatives, she does nothing when you are comboing of and is drawing into her, then she is just a 2cc vanilla elf. any thoughts?



32
1 Quirion Ranger
3 Birchlore Rangers
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Priest of Titania
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Regal Force
4 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Mirror Entity
14
3 Chord of Calling
4 Green Sun Zenith
4 Glimpse of Nature
3 Living Wish
14
1 Savannah
4 Windswepth Heath
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Gaea's Cradle
4 Forest
//
1 Mirror Entity
1 Artifact/Enchantment Removal
1 Ezuri, renegade leader
1 Priest of Titania
1 Caller of the Claw
1 Eternal Witness
1 Emrakul
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Savannah
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Ethersworn Cannonist
1 Burrenton Forge-tender

Sidebord wish targets needs alot of work. Im not sure what to cut, and what is essential.

[Godmode]

Harrison Beach made it to the 3rd/4th place at StarCityGames Las Vegas with a similar list to Ross' . Streamlined combo MD and BA+VV SB.

Semifinals MATCH REPORT: http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/semifinals_harrison_beach_vs_c.html

Harrison Beach (Elves) 1:2 Christopher Atashian (RUG)

Top16 Decklists: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=3&start_date=2011-11-06&end_date=2011-11-06&event_ID=20

Harrison Beach's list: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=42144

MD:
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Priest of Titania
1 Elvish Archdruid
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Birchlore Rangers
2 Quirion Ranger
2 Regal Force
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Wirewood Symbiote

3 Summoner's Pact
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith

3 Forest
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Gaea's Cradle

SB:
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Vengevine
3 Absolute Law
3 Krosan Grip
3 Buried Alive

[samman1]

I think that there are at this moment 2 different competitive strategies for elfball :
- combo MD (Emrakul, Ezuri or mirror entity) and VV (with intuition or buried alive) SB,
- fauna/VV MD and control SB (graveyard hate, combo hate, krosan grip).

I don't think one strategy is better than the other, it depends on the metagame.

Here is the list is will play this next WE in the final Legacy France championship :

2 verdant catacombs
2 windswepth heath
2 wooded foothills
5 forets
1 savannah
1 dryad arbor
3 gaea's cradle

2 fyndhorn elves
1 llanovar elves
3 quirion ranger
2 fauna shaman
1 priest of titania
3 elvish visionary
3 Vengevine
4 nettle sentinel
4 wirewood symbiot
3 birchlore rangers
4 heritage druid
1 regal force
1 mirror entity
1 viridian shaman

4 glimpse of nature
3 chord of calling
4 green sun's zenith
1 crop rotation

SB :
2 krosan grip (D&T, maverick, painter, MUD, affinity, landstill)
1 goblin sharpshooter (D&T, maverick, peacekeeper)
1 faerie macabre (combo tendrills, reanimator, dredge, punishing fire, loam)
2 surgical extraction (TT, reanimator, dredge, punishing fire, loam
1 scavenging ooze (reanimator, dredge, TT, tempo zoo, burn, sligh, punishing fire, loam)
1 tormod's crypt (dredge, reanimator)
1 gaddock teeg (combo tendrills)
1 sylvan safekeeper (combo tendrills)
1 children of korlis (combo tendrills, dredge)
1 caller of the claw (every deck playing mass removal, in particular pernicious deed ans perish)
1 vengevine (TA, TT, tempo zoo)
2 summoner's pact (every combo deck)

Your comments are welcome!

[Mr. Safety]

@ Mr Safety; Your list has 7 visionary. But I can't see what you are missing (except GSZ). Maybe you could try to fit Elvish Archdruid in the remaining 3 slots. It makes you a bit faster and better in the case you have to go medieval on their ***.


Yeah, I messed up the list. The extra 3 Visionary's are supposed to be Archrduids.

I may go with Living Wish, not because it's better, but because it allows for Gaea's Cradle fetching in the sideboard. It also allows for other fetch targets in the sideboard, allowing me to make space for the Wishes.

I don't think I'd be comfortable with 4 Gaea's Cradle...it just seems too risky to draw 2 in your opening hand. I would support 2 in the maindeck, and one wish-able in the sideboard.

Is this a smart plan or should i just go with GSZ? I can go either way, budget isn't an issue (unless you're talking Bayou, which is a little out of range)

[samman1]

Maindeck:
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Fyndhorn Elves
2 Llanowar Elves
1 Priest of Titania
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Regal Force
4 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Mirror Entity
1 Ezuri, renegade leader

1 Crop Rotation
3 Chord of Calling
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Glimpse of Nature

1 Savannah
6 Fetchland
1 Gaea's Cradle
5 Forest


Sideboard:
3 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Burrenton Forge-tender
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Masticore
2 Krosan Grip
1 Surgical extraction
4 Tormod's Crypt
1 Absolute Law


I tried to adapt the list to my meta-game which is very Combo and Aggro heavy with some Team America and Canadian (currently) always making top8. So I decided Vengevines to be too slow, and I brought in 4x of Elves instead for being more explosive and less recursive.
All I regret from the MD is not having more Gaea's Cradles. Unfortunately I just wasn't lucky drawing, and I made mulligans almost every game.
In my games and probably metagame, Entity alone or next to Ezuri look like enormous Aggro options by themselves, so maybe I'll just try to fit Vengevine in the side if there's room... Vines are easy to fit anyway, if need be, taking out 1 of each elf.

On the other hand I'm not too happy with the sideboard. Tormods should have definitely been Faerie + Extraction and singleton random Law should also be grave hate.

I'm overall very happy with the list, and maybe if I had had more Cradles Chords would have been a lot more useful, so I'll try to buy some soon.

I agree with you : your deck needs at least 2 more cradle (because of many reasons, especially VV and chord of calling).
I don't agree at all : vengevine is precisely the best card against TA, TT and tempo zoo.
without VV, TT >> elfball. With VV, elfball has a 55/45 MU against TT.

With my fauna/VV version, I have never lost against TA (with or without snapcaster mage) grace to VV.
VV plan is much better with cradle.
4 tormod's crypt seem too much. Have you tried scavenging ooze? It is an awesome card, very useful against dredge, reanimator, TT, tempo zoo, burn, sligh.

[GrimLavamancer]

Guys, lately I saw that the trend seems to plash the deck with either white or black for obvious spells, my question is:

Can a pure mono green version be competitive?



Creatures [37]
2 Elvish Champion
1 Joraga Warcaller
1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
3 Imperious Perfect
3 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Priest of Titania
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Regal Force

Sorceries [7]
4 Glimpse of Nature
3 Green Sun's Zenit

Enchantments [1]
1 Concordant Crossroads

Artifacts [1]
1 Staff of Domination

Lands [15]
1 Pendelhaven
14 Forest

Sideboard [15]

3 Krosan Grip
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Thorn of Amethist
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Emrakul, The Aeon's torn
2 Caller Of The Claw
1 Eladamri, Lord of leaves

This is my current list, I know it is an hybrid like list, it was inspired by a dude who went in top 8 with such list in a spanish tournament, I just fixed it a bit second my preferences.
I wonder if Summoner Pact is better than GSZ, so, could it replace the zenit? or if I shall remove some Lord for those anyway?
I am open to suggestions!

[Kich867]

I don't feel that mono green builds can be truly competitive.

Especially when they don't run both GSZ and Pact, you want 6-8 tutors. If you're running less, your list is very unoptimized.

@Grimlavamancer:
Your list needs both Pact and GSZ. It also needs at least 4 Wirewood Symbiote. ^_^. I would cut down on lords since they're expensive and counter-intuitive to the combo. That list looks more like aggro elves.

@Sempra:
I think that by now, the living wish builds have already been proven to be less effective. The wish board is clunky and drawing into living wishes when you could be drawing into pacts wrecks your combo turn consistency. The reason my list doesn't run 3-4 cradles is just a money thing.

@Samman:
I agree, and have for awhile now, that elves can only be competitive in a splash. I'm a little torn on Chord of Calling, but essentially it's an instant speed GSZ that costs 2 more to play--but with convoke or whatever that's arguably pretty easy to ignore. It's harder to utilize in the early game but, then again that's true of pact as well (albeit, pact immensely helps the combo turn).

I think I'll be building your new list very shortly.

[GrimLavamancer]

TY Kich867
So, either shift to the Aggro list, or swap out lords, correct?
May Even go on that aggro side :3

[Infinitium]

@Grim: Shameless Plug (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19802-Deck-Elven-Advantage&p=516968#post516968). I think your original list looks Ok, I'd personally cut Nettle, run with Joraga/Archdruids/Ezuri as your lord package (more beneficial for your combo turn) and run 4 Symbiotes (best card in the deck), GSZ and more Crossroads (2-3, ridiculus with Priest shenanigans).

@Kich: Please elaborate. Mono Green doesn't lose anything but storm hate compared to splash colors, and frankly Elves won't beat faster decks with more disruption consistently no matter how you cut it.

[GrimLavamancer]

@Infinitum, I thought I had a glimps of this list sometimes ago, long ago, but it was a verbal teaching, nor an actual link, thanks for pointing that list out, will give it a try, specially since I have the joraga :D

(hard times dudes, hard times where I live... so I am a bit on a budget issue...)

[samman1]

I don't feel that mono green builds can be truly competitive.

@Samman:
I agree, and have for awhile now, that elves can only be competitive in a splash. I'm a little torn on Chord of Calling, but essentially it's an instant speed GSZ that costs 2 more to play--but with convoke or whatever that's arguably pretty easy to ignore. It's harder to utilize in the early game but, then again that's true of pact as well (albeit, pact immensely helps the combo turn).

I think I'll be building your new list very shortly.

I won in february 11 a 85 players tournament (100% victories) with this list :
15 forest
1 dryad arbor
2 llanovar elves
1 fyndhorn elves
3 quirion ranger
4 nettle sentinel
4 birchlore rangers
4 heritage druid
4 wirewood symbiot
4 visionnaire elf
4 fauna shaman
4 vengevine
1 joraga warcaller
1 viridian zealot
1 priest of titania
1 regal force

4 glimpse of nature
4 green sun's zenith

SB :
2 krosan grip
2 reverent silence
2 relic of progenitus
1 magus of the moon
1 gaddock teeg
1 viridian shaman
3 natural order
1 progenitus
1 vexing shusher
1 caller of the claw

I think monoG can be competitive but I also think mirror entity is an awesome card in elfball deck that justifies W splash.


Chord of calling is not mainly used for glimpse combo : pact is much better for that.
In a metagame full of SFM, chord is very efficient (when an equipped non flying creature attacks, you block with an elf, tap four permanents to cast chord@1 -> symbiot, then bounce elf). It is useful in almost every situation of mid/end game.
With chord, the deck loses speed but gains stability.

[Kich867]

@Kich: Please elaborate. Mono Green doesn't lose anything but storm hate compared to splash colors, and frankly Elves won't beat faster decks with more disruption consistently no matter how you cut it.

I suppose I should have been more clear as Samman's list pointed out that VV is entirely usable in a maindeck monog version. In earlier posts I was more clear: standard straight combo oriented lists that don't splash a color for some kind of BAVV or ME list will not survive the mid-range aggro control lists like TA, CT, and Punishing Grove combo. They have a lot of cheap / cheap + recurring removal and enough counters to delay you long enough. If they smartly save counters for glimpse and removal for Heritage Druid's / lords, it is very difficult to go off or even mount an aggro plan without vengevines.

So my point was that, the decks that splash are far more resilient to hate and I believe to be more consistent at winning. Since people have begun to splash black or white into the deck, I find that the lists that make it the farthest are generally splashed.

Why not splash? The better elf lists are already susceptible to wasteland as it stands via 3-4 cradles and the bayou / savannah are potentially very safe with a ranger down. Splashing white lets you go infinite with a laundry list of tricks and splashing black gives you a powerful resilient to removal aggro plan.

[NihilObstat]

I agree with you : your deck needs at least 2 more cradle.
I don't agree at all : vengevine is precisely the best card against TA, TT and tempo zoo. Without VV, TT >> elfball. With VV, elfball has a 55/45 MU against TT.

With my fauna/VV version, I have never lost against TA grace to VV.
4 tormod's crypt seem too much. Have you tried scavenging ooze? It is an awesome card, very useful against dredge, reanimator, TT, tempo zoo, burn, sligh.


I already got the other 2 Cradles. Don't have much time for testing, but I could clearly see without testing that I was missing them :P

On the Scavenging point. The only reason why I didn't play it is because I don't own one, and at the moment its price is simply outrageous for a simple Vanilla Bear... oh, wait, maybe it's not Vanilla flavoured, it kinda grave dirt flavoured... hehehe. I'll try to get one, he's awesome!

On the metagame, maybe I wasn't too clear. There's only around 2 TA, and only 2 Can Tempo for 30 Players. The biggest meta here is combo. Also, what is TT? Never seen those initials before.

What you I do in such a Combo meta? And don't say, "don't play elves". I want to. Should I get 4x Surgical Extraction + Thoughtseize. Anyway, the combo is mainly Reanimate and Dredge at the moment, so maybe the Focus shouldn't be on discard, and Faerie + Surgical + Ooze ought to do the trick.

[samman1]

I already got the other 2 Cradles. Don't have much time for testing, but I could clearly see without testing that I was missing them :P

On the Scavenging point. The only reason why I didn't play it is because I don't own one, and at the moment its price is simply outrageous for a simple Vanilla Bear... oh, wait, maybe it's not Vanilla flavoured, it kinda grave dirt flavoured... hehehe. I'll try to get one, he's awesome!

On the metagame, maybe I wasn't too clear. There's only around 2 TA, and only 2 Can Tempo for 30 Players. The biggest meta here is combo. Also, what is TT? Never seen those initials before.

What you I do in such a Combo meta? And don't say, "don't play elves". I want to. Should I get 4x Surgical Extraction + Thoughtseize. Anyway, the combo is mainly Reanimate and Dredge at the moment, so maybe the Focus shouldn't be on discard, and Faerie + Surgical + Ooze ought to do the trick.

TT : UGR tempo thresold = canadian tempo

If it is a meta full of combo, the answer depends on which combo you talk about :
- reanimator, dredge : graveyard hate (I use 5 slots)
- painter, belcher : null rod, pithing needle, thorn of amethyst, krosan grip
- combo tendrills : null rod, gaddock & safekeeper, children of korlis, mindbreak trap,
- hivemind : (birchlore rangers!), caller of the claw (Emrakul), play fast!

[samman1]

I suppose I should have been more clear as Samman's list pointed out that VV is entirely usable in a maindeck monog version. In earlier posts I was more clear: standard straight combo oriented lists that don't splash a color for some kind of BAVV or ME list will not survive the mid-range aggro control lists like TA, CT, and Punishing Grove combo. They have a lot of cheap / cheap + recurring removal and enough counters to delay you long enough. If they smartly save counters for glimpse and removal for Heritage Druid's / lords, it is very difficult to go off or even mount an aggro plan without vengevines.

So my point was that, the decks that splash are far more resilient to hate and I believe to be more consistent at winning. Since people have begun to splash black or white into the deck, I find that the lists that make it the farthest are generally splashed.

Why not splash? The better elf lists are already susceptible to wasteland as it stands via 3-4 cradles and the bayou / savannah are potentially very safe with a ranger down. Splashing white lets you go infinite with a laundry list of tricks and splashing black gives you a powerful resilient to removal aggro plan.

I agree 100%.

[resum]

So i've been playing with this UGb list of elves:
2 Llanowar Elves
2 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Regal Force
3 Vengevine
1 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
1 Priest of Titania
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Glimpse of Nature
3 Intuition
4 Gaea's Cradle
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Tropical Island
2 Forest
SB: 4 Cabal Therapy
SB: 3 Duress
SB: 1 Viridian Shaman
SB: 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 1 Vengevine
SB: 5 other cards
I've been doing pretty well against thresh and team America decks with it. After sideboard against other combo decks, 1 drop into intuition for 3 cabal therapy is pretty strong if you're not dead yet. The edric is an experiment to see if it's a decent card drawing spell between regal force and elvish visionary, but it hasn't been too impressive yet for me. The emrakul is for matchups where they can't interact with your combo very well but they might have random creatures on the board stopping your VVs from killing them, and the 4th VV is for control and hymm decks. I'm not sure what my 5 other cards should be yet.

[samman1]

@resum :

you have a discard plan post SB and you only have 1 bayou to produce B and no birchlore ranger. It means that this discard plan cannot be used against decks that play wasteland.

You are not able to win the turn you succeed in combo glimpse directly because you don't have any kill MD (Ezuri, Emrakul, mirror entity, joraga warcaller). I think you should play one of them.

[theross]

I don't think I'd be comfortable with 4 Gaea's Cradle...it just seems too risky to draw 2 in your opening hand. I would support 2 in the maindeck, and one wish-able in the sideboard.


This is a misconception gained from valuing individual cards as approximately equal. Cradle is so powerful that drawing 2 of them is still better than drawing 2 forests (since Cradle adds more than 2 mana most of the time) and only slightly worse than drawing cradle-forest. Drawing multiples actually helps you play them through Wasteland as well, so the second one is often helpful. There is simply no reason to play less than 4 as long as you have them. Cradle is the most powerful mana engine this deck can run, you need to max out on them in any combo elves list. I guess 3 would be ok in a list with MD Vengevine but I doubt that is optimal.

[Mr. Safety]

This is a misconception gained from valuing individual cards as approximately equal. Cradle is so powerful that drawing 2 of them is still better than drawing 2 forests (since Cradle adds more than 2 mana most of the time) and only slightly worse than drawing cradle-forest. Drawing multiples actually helps you play them through Wasteland as well, so the second one is often helpful. There is simply no reason to play less than 4 as long as you have them. Cradle is the most powerful mana engine this deck can run, you need to max out on them in any combo elves list. I guess 3 would be ok in a list with MD Vengevine but I doubt that is optimal.

Thanks for that...summed up the argument nicely. I have *zero* Cradle's right now, but if I can trade into some, I will. They are the only pricey piece of the deck left to get. GSZ's, Vengevines, Buried Alive, and Living Wishes are all fairly affordable (by legacy standards) so I'm not worried about those.

[samman1]

This is a misconception gained from valuing individual cards as approximately equal. Cradle is so powerful that drawing 2 of them is still better than drawing 2 forests (since Cradle adds more than 2 mana most of the time) and only slightly worse than drawing cradle-forest. Drawing multiples actually helps you play them through Wasteland as well, so the second one is often helpful. There is simply no reason to play less than 4 as long as you have them. Cradle is the most powerful mana engine this deck can run, you need to max out on them in any combo elves list. I guess 3 would be ok in a list with MD Vengevine but I doubt that is optimal.
You make me doubt concerning the number of cradle. :laugh:
I really hesitate.

[Infinitium]

Just remember that Cradle makes mulliganing more awkward in a deck that's already anything but good at it. Elves are already plenty broken once they get rolling, making the stable mana source that is basic lands more relevant imo. Granted this gets more marked the higher average manacost you've got but it's still worth keeping in mind.

[Koby]

Just remember that Cradle makes mulliganing more awkward in a deck that's already anything but good at it. Elves are already plenty broken once they get rolling, making the stable mana source that is basic lands more relevant imo. Granted this gets more marked the higher average manacost you've got but it's still worth keeping in mind.

High risk, high reward. I think its a justified risk in the case of a streamlined Elves list.

[Godmode]

samman1 would you consider Magus of the Moon for your SB? I know the Cradles would be screwed, but if you use it in the right time could be very good and against some decks it could be game over for them. What do you think about it?

[Kich867]

Played at my local FNM this week, went 1-1-1 overall, but I was pleased with the games. I made one misplay that cost me a draw, but that's it, the rest of the games were played as well as the cards could have played and the hands were quite good--sometimes, you just can't win, and I was ok with that because I was happy with how I lost, not unhappy that I lost.

Round 1: Rich with U/B Control (2-0)
Game 1: I fight through some serious hate. I keep a pretty sick hand, Glimpse Heritage Birchlore GSZ Land Land Nettle. I lose the roll, he plays watery grave, I play land nettle go. He brainstorms EOT, next turn, hymn's me. It hits Heritage and Land (FFFFFFFfffffff...). It's fine, I have a GSZ, I can just go find another heritage and draw into a glimpse. Next turn, no land pull, he hymns me again, GSZ and Glimpse (FFFFFFFuuuuuuuuuu...) I persevered though and did what elves does, overwhelm. There's a lot of removal, but there's more elves, and I keep playing them and keeping him tapped out trying to stop it. A mishra's factory keeps me at bay for awhile, there's no reason to lose elves and only do minor damage. I only had 2-4 elves on the board at any given time, but I made it there, eventually I got a lord in play and could generate some mana, I bounce joraga warcaller to hand and swing for lethal next turn.

Game 2: Same deal, except this time I'm not quite so worried about it, I combo off and win through some hate on turn 5 or 6.

1-0-0

Round 2: Casey with Flashless Hulk Combo: (1-1-1)
Game 1: I combo turn 3, emrakul never comes, I draw literally every land in my deck, I bounced with all 4 symbiotes, I burnt every pact, and my hand ended up being 3 green sun zenith's and 12 lands. He combos off on his next turn and wins. My misplay was not thinking in the long term, I never bounced a visionary I just bounced whatever because I was on a strong ass roll and I had something like 40 mana when I fizzled. I don't even know if that can be legitimately considered a misplay, I had 1/3rd of my deck left and somehow all 15 lands were in play or in my hand and I just ran out of shit to do. Emrakul was 2 cards from the top, had I bounced a visionary 2-3 times instead of 1 mana dudes, I would have won.

Game 2: I side in all of my GY hate. I get one relic in play, but I fear that he can play around it by simply saccing a hulk into another hulk or something (so that if the first time the combo leaves he can do it again), so I aim to combo. The combo starts slow, but as elves do, it rolls hard. Emrakul is the second to last card in my deck, this stands as no problem however--I'm currently running off of 3 glimpses because I am frustrated I can't find Emrakul. I end up with 3 cards left in my graveyard, I play a guy, draw 3, play all 4 green sun's for 0 and plop them in the library, start my next turn, I pay 12(!!!) on my upkeep with dudes for pact triggers and swing, in response he goes to combo off on me, he tries to bait my 2 relics in play over and over, but I patiently wait for Body Double to get sacced as Hulk to find Reveillark and blow up our graveyards--with no ability to further combo he loses to a lethal swing.

Game 3: We start the game and within moments go to turns since my combo took too long and I fizzled game 1 (still a little frustrated about that, as this win would have secured me second place). He goes first, which means he also goes last IE: he gets his turn 3. Had I gotten turn 3, I would have sort of won, emrakul trigger would tie anyways. I couldn't combo turn 2 which saddens me. He combos on the 3rd turn and realizes that he accidentally sided out his win condition in a rush to try and get to game three, he sighs and sacrifices mogg fanatic to hit me for 1 and passes the turn, a sigh of relief for myself--I'll take it, but it shouldn't have gotten here.

1-0-1

Round 3: RUG Control: (1-2)
Game 1: I combo off turn 4 after ripping a glimpse off the top, I learned how you go off turn 2 and was very excited to see it in action. I started it very slow via birchlore / Nettle / Nettle, being able to only operate off of one mana. Luckily for me, I top decked like 5 one drops in a row into a third nettle and a summoning pact, realizing that this was my moment, I pacted for heritage, kept pulling cards and generated enough mana to find and play emrakul.

Game 2: I board in some aggro, I have a clear shot to win, I go for a glimpse, he counters it, I pass. Next turn, I go to tap heritages to get enough mana to play GSZ to find Regal, he stifles the trigger (WHAT!?). Next turn, finally, I drop my cradle (he has wasteland in play) and GSZ for 7. In response, he surgical extractions glimpse with lethal on the board--the likelihood that I wouldn't pull one of my remaining 3 glimpses in the 9(!) cards that I drew is low, I had to pass the turn and get swung out by delvers. ((The reason I had 8 creatures and wasn't swinging, is I had about 4 the previous turn, I went to glimpse with a stacked hand, he forced it, so I counted it out and knew I could regal for 9 if I just drop my hand and go for it but it'll take 2 turns, surgical extraction I didn't see coming, nor can I really do anything about it.))

Game 3: I board in more aggro and keep the glimpse plan on the backburner, my opening hand is Champion, Champion, Fyndhorn, Land, Land, GSZ, and Heritage. I keep the shit out of that hand. Turn 2 champion, bolts it. Turn 3 champion, bolts it. GSZ for champion, it lands! I start swinging, I get him down to 1, but he has double delvers up, he snapcasters for bolt on champion and killed something else, delvers swung for the win.

1-1-1

Overall I was super happy with how I played. I went for a way more stream lined list to the emrakul goal. Comboing, so long as glimpse resolved, was almost a given (except once, I mini glimpsed, it was obvious it wouldn't work, but it did draw 3 lands in a row which was .. I guess useful for digging through it, had I gotten a heritage I probably would have been fine). I only ran 3 lords, 4 I guess with my singleton cradle (monetary issue), and it actually felt great. Sometimes I missed arch druid's +1'ing for aggro, but as has been pointed out, relying on lords really makes you prone to removal, by relying on birchlore and heritage, they're cheap and plentiful, removal is easier to deal with by leaps and bounds, comboing is easier, winning is easier.

The games I lost happened because I couldn't win, not because I screwed up, and the one game I did lose because I screwed up was in a super obscure way..at the time, I needed the mana to keep going if I recall, and playing a 2 mana guy wasn't possible to maintain generating mana with nettle, so I think I actually had to play the one drops otherwise I would have been bouncing visionaries.

So on top of an awesome night of playing and meeting some new people, my friend and I decided to each buy a pack of revised edition (the store has them for 30$ a piece). I open it up, and to my surprise cracked a Volcanic Island from it! In a set of 121 rares, the chances of my getting a dual land are like one in every 12 packs, I was stoked.

[resum]

So I played my list at a recent legacy tournament and I was very pleased with it. Only problem was what samman1 brought up and I might want a game 1 instant kill thing like emrakul main. I'm going to try and find room for it. I only have one bayou because the matchups where I want the discard are combo ones where they normally don't have wasteland and I really want to be able to pass turn 2 with 2 forests up sometimes. I beat 2 junk decks, a burn deck, lost to a B/W stoneforge deck and then drew with my friend playing merfolk. The B/W stoneforge decks just seem like terrible matchups and I'm not sure it's worth trying to make better. I did get unlucky and he never hit vengevines off his hymms. The highlight of the day was when I burned out a junk player who had jitte and sword of body and mind out with mortarpod.

[samman1]

samman1 would you consider Magus of the Moon for your SB? I know the Cradles would be screwed, but if you use it in the right time could be very good and against some decks it could be game over for them. What do you think about it?

I have played Magus of the moon in SB 2 years ago. I used to play it via chord of calling@3. Whenever I had the opportunity to play a chord@3, I prefered fetching mirror entity for the win.
The main advantage of the card is when you play against lands.deck. This lands.deck is no longer played so I don't play magus now.