pocari79
09-30-2013, 11:31 AM
Went to a GPT for Washington DC this past Saturday. I had been running elves for the past several events and decided to try Reid Duke's list. The only change I made was -1 Llanowar Elves, +1 Birchlore Rangers.
Round 1 - Cephalid Breakfast
Game 1: He's on the play and I see a turn one Nomad en-Kor and I'm thinking to myself, you have to be kidding me. I mulled to six and see that the best I could do was a value glimpse if I get to live past turn two. On his turn two, he plays the illusionist and starts comboing off. I make him do the combo so I get to see how he kills me and it turns out that it's a Dread Return for Angel of Glory's Rise bringing back Labortory Maniac.
Sideboard: -4 Elvish Visionary, -2 Heritage Druid, -1 Nettle Sentinel, -1 Quirion Ranger, +4 Thoughtseize, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 Natural Order, +1 Scavenging Ooze.
Game 2: My opening seven had Thoughtseize x 2, Savannah and Deathrite Shaman x 2 and two other one drops. Felt like I couldn't keep this hand as if my opponent doesn't play a fetchland, I'm dead. Mull to six and got a hand with only Cradle. Mull to five and got the same hand. Mull to four and got a fetchland, Deathrite and two other one drops. Kept the hand and I went turn one fetch into Bayou, Deathrite Shaman. On his turn, he plays a Nomad en-Kor. I manage to topdeck a land on my turn and played another one drop leaving up my Deathrite Shaman. My opponent then plays the Illusionist on his turn so he has the combo, he just needs to find a way to kill my Deathrite. The game just becomes a lot of draw go while I attack with two 1/1s leaving up Deathrite all the time. I end up casting Scavenging Ooze after a while and that was it as he couldn't get rid of two cards that hate the graveyard. Got there from a mull to four. Wohoo!
Game 3: I keep an opening seven that had Thoughtseize x 2, Abrupt Decay, some fetchlands and Deathrite keep it. I manage to discard one of his en-Kor creatures and then Abrupt Decayed the Illusionist and saw that he had nothing relevant left in hand. I was able to Green Sun's Zenith for a Scavenging Ooze a few turns later and that's all she wrote.
1-0
Round 2 - Bant Maverick
Game 1: I keep a decent hand but she was able to land a Jitte on turn two with a couple of creatures on her side. I felt like I had to Natural Order for a non-lethal Craterhoof before the Jitte got out of hand and dropped her down to seven life. Afterwards, I just kept on playing creatures on the board to try to overwhelm the Jitte counters and I barely got there with a lethal attack for five when she was at one life with a Jitte equipped on a Thalia.
Sideboard: -2 Heritage Druid, -1 Nettle Sentinel, -1 Quirion Ranger, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 Harmonic Sliver, +1 Natural Order. I'm actually not very sure about this sideboard plan as if there's an active Mother of Runes, then my removal becomes blanks so maybe the Decays should be Thoughtseizes?
Game 2: I felt like I really deserved to lose this game as I misplayed a bunch. She lands an early Ethersworn Canonist and we end up just casting our creatures for the next several turns and then here's where my misplays begin. I had around five or six creatures in play when I hardcast Craterhoof and announced my Nettle Sentinel untap trigger too late so I missed lethal damage. My Craterhoof then gets plowed and then I attack with a 7/7 Wirewood and 8/8 Sentinel and she blocks my Wirewood with three creatues who have a total toughness of 4. I announce that she takes 8 instead of 11 because for some reason I forget about trample. So I pass the turn hoping that she doesn't play another Canonist or Gaddock Teeg and she doesn't so on my next turn, I just Glimpse and try to get to nine mana to Green Sun's Zenith into another Craterhoof for lethal.
2-0
Round 3 - MUD
Game 1: I win the die roll and was able to go turn one Forest, Llanowar Elf. He sighs and plays a turn one Trinisphere. My hand happens to have another two lands and some more one drops so I'm able to make another couple one drops the next few turns while he's struggling with casting spells under his own Trinisphere since he had to kill his own City of Traitors. I end up casting a Natural Order on turn four or five and swung for lethal damage.
Sideboard: -2 Heritage Druid, -1 Nettle Sentinel, -1 Quirion Ranger, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 Harmonic Sliver, +1 Natural Order.
Game 2: I keep a hand with around three one drops, some lands and a Harmonic Sliver and just pray he doesn't cast a turn one chalice for one. He didn't do anything on turn one and on turn two played an Ensnaring Bridge. I play my one drops on my turns one and two just in case he lands a chalice on turn three and he does do that on his turn three. I decide to kill the Ensnaring Bridge on my turn, giving him one more turn before I'm able to swing for lethal with Natural Order next turn. He just plays a Grim Monolith on his next turn and then I just kill him on my turn.
3-0
Round 4 - U/R Landstill
Game 1: This game was a total grind as all of my Glimpses, Natural Orders, Heritage Druid, Deathrite Shamans got countered or burned out and I end up having to beatdown with a Nettle Sentinel, two Quirion Rangers and a Wirewood Symbiote and I had to keep on bouncing and elf and then replaying it again to untap the Nettle Sentinel for more beatdown. I barely got there at the end as he almost stabilized with a Mishra's Factory on blocking duty but Wirewood Symbiote was too much for him to deal with as it kept on bouncing the elf that was blocked.
Sideboard: -2 Heritage Druid, -1 Nettle Sentinel, -1 Quirion Ranger, -1 Birchlore Ranger, +4 Thoughtseize, +1 Natural Order. I'm not sure if I should have boarded in the Progenitus as if I'm able to Natural Order it out, I'd pretty much win but it feels like the odds of resolving a Natural Order was really low.
Game 2: I kept a hand where it would be OK if my turn one Bayou, GSZ for Dryad Arbor didn't get wasted + bolted and that's exactly what he did on turn two. I keep on drawing cradles so I'm resigned to losing this game but keep on playing it out just to see how he's going to kill me.
Game 3: I know he plays with Pyroclasms, Ratchet Bombs and Engineered Explosives post board so I try to not over commit and tried to protect my lands with Quirion Ranger and elves with Wirewood Symbiote. I end up having a board of Dryad Arbor, Visionary, Quirion Ranger, Wirewood Symbiote, Forest and Cradle after grinding out his counterspells with Thoughtseize and Heritage Druids and tried a Natural Order. Surprisingly it resolves and I just Craterhoofed for the win. Felt extremely lucky that I won that one.
4-0
Round 5 - U/R Delver
Opponent was a friend and he needed planeswalker points so I conceded to him.
4-1
Top 8 - Bant Maverick (round two opponent)
Game 1: I keep a fairly decent hand with a bunch of elves but no Visionary, Glimpse, Natural Order or GSZ but I figure I would be able to draw into something. About five turns later, I still draw into more elves and she had cast a turn two Jitte and was able to get counters on the Jitte before I found my Wirewood Symbiote. *sigh*
Sideboard: -2 Heritage Druid, -1 Nettle Sentinel, -1 Quirion Ranger, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 Harmonic Sliver, +1 Natural Order.
Game 2: She again has the turn two Jitte but this time I'm able to kill it with a Harmonic Sliver before it gets out of hand. I'm able to Glimpse for value and end up drawing three straight Green Sun's and on the next turn, I cast all three Green Sun's to build up on a draw and mana engine (i get Visionary, Wirewood and Heritage). My next turn, I end up drawing my 5th GSZ so I start by Glimpsing to try to get to nine mana to GSZ for a Craterhoof and I was able to do so.
Game 3: This really was not much of a game as I mulled to five on the draw. My opening seven was 4 lands, Quirion Ranger, Natural Order and Craterhoof and I felt like there was no way I should keep that. I make more misplays this game as she lands a turn two Canonist and instead of developing my board position, I decide that I need to do Wirewood + Visionary tricks to keep on drawing into more cards to try to recover from my mulligan and I could not recover after three straight turns of doing that. She did have one turn where she attacked with both Gaddock Teeg and Canonist with an active Mom and I had two creatures to block and I had a Decay and an Harmonic in hand but no black mana to cast the decay and couldn't cast harmonic since I didn't have enough lands in play. I decide to go for the double block on the Teeg so she'd activate Mom and hope that my next turn, I draw a fetchland so I can decay the Canonist but I didn't draw the fetch so that was game. I look at my next card and of course it's a fetch.
- Kinda disappointing to end my day losing to a "fair" deck but oh well, what can you do.
- I'm not sure if the one Birchlore Ranger is worth it, I never drew it all day and also never wanted to GSZ or Natural Order for it. I feel like I want to replace it with a fourth Natural Order as I'm boarding it in all the time.
- Having two Fyndhorn Elves maindeck also felt good as I never felt bad when it got bolted since there are way more important creatures to bolt and if it didn't get bolted, it would make my turn two plays more explosive.
- The two Dryad Arbors in the maindeck also felt really good. I tried cutting one in a previous tournament and always wanted a second one since the first one gets removed pretty fast.
Felt really fun playing Elves!, most fun part about the deck is trying to figure out how to get Craterhoof into play and have as many untapped creatures to attack with.
Round 1 - Cephalid Breakfast
Game 1: He's on the play and I see a turn one Nomad en-Kor and I'm thinking to myself, you have to be kidding me. I mulled to six and see that the best I could do was a value glimpse if I get to live past turn two. On his turn two, he plays the illusionist and starts comboing off. I make him do the combo so I get to see how he kills me and it turns out that it's a Dread Return for Angel of Glory's Rise bringing back Labortory Maniac.
Sideboard: -4 Elvish Visionary, -2 Heritage Druid, -1 Nettle Sentinel, -1 Quirion Ranger, +4 Thoughtseize, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 Natural Order, +1 Scavenging Ooze.
Game 2: My opening seven had Thoughtseize x 2, Savannah and Deathrite Shaman x 2 and two other one drops. Felt like I couldn't keep this hand as if my opponent doesn't play a fetchland, I'm dead. Mull to six and got a hand with only Cradle. Mull to five and got the same hand. Mull to four and got a fetchland, Deathrite and two other one drops. Kept the hand and I went turn one fetch into Bayou, Deathrite Shaman. On his turn, he plays a Nomad en-Kor. I manage to topdeck a land on my turn and played another one drop leaving up my Deathrite Shaman. My opponent then plays the Illusionist on his turn so he has the combo, he just needs to find a way to kill my Deathrite. The game just becomes a lot of draw go while I attack with two 1/1s leaving up Deathrite all the time. I end up casting Scavenging Ooze after a while and that was it as he couldn't get rid of two cards that hate the graveyard. Got there from a mull to four. Wohoo!
Game 3: I keep an opening seven that had Thoughtseize x 2, Abrupt Decay, some fetchlands and Deathrite keep it. I manage to discard one of his en-Kor creatures and then Abrupt Decayed the Illusionist and saw that he had nothing relevant left in hand. I was able to Green Sun's Zenith for a Scavenging Ooze a few turns later and that's all she wrote.
1-0
Round 2 - Bant Maverick
Game 1: I keep a decent hand but she was able to land a Jitte on turn two with a couple of creatures on her side. I felt like I had to Natural Order for a non-lethal Craterhoof before the Jitte got out of hand and dropped her down to seven life. Afterwards, I just kept on playing creatures on the board to try to overwhelm the Jitte counters and I barely got there with a lethal attack for five when she was at one life with a Jitte equipped on a Thalia.
Sideboard: -2 Heritage Druid, -1 Nettle Sentinel, -1 Quirion Ranger, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 Harmonic Sliver, +1 Natural Order. I'm actually not very sure about this sideboard plan as if there's an active Mother of Runes, then my removal becomes blanks so maybe the Decays should be Thoughtseizes?
Game 2: I felt like I really deserved to lose this game as I misplayed a bunch. She lands an early Ethersworn Canonist and we end up just casting our creatures for the next several turns and then here's where my misplays begin. I had around five or six creatures in play when I hardcast Craterhoof and announced my Nettle Sentinel untap trigger too late so I missed lethal damage. My Craterhoof then gets plowed and then I attack with a 7/7 Wirewood and 8/8 Sentinel and she blocks my Wirewood with three creatues who have a total toughness of 4. I announce that she takes 8 instead of 11 because for some reason I forget about trample. So I pass the turn hoping that she doesn't play another Canonist or Gaddock Teeg and she doesn't so on my next turn, I just Glimpse and try to get to nine mana to Green Sun's Zenith into another Craterhoof for lethal.
2-0
Round 3 - MUD
Game 1: I win the die roll and was able to go turn one Forest, Llanowar Elf. He sighs and plays a turn one Trinisphere. My hand happens to have another two lands and some more one drops so I'm able to make another couple one drops the next few turns while he's struggling with casting spells under his own Trinisphere since he had to kill his own City of Traitors. I end up casting a Natural Order on turn four or five and swung for lethal damage.
Sideboard: -2 Heritage Druid, -1 Nettle Sentinel, -1 Quirion Ranger, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 Harmonic Sliver, +1 Natural Order.
Game 2: I keep a hand with around three one drops, some lands and a Harmonic Sliver and just pray he doesn't cast a turn one chalice for one. He didn't do anything on turn one and on turn two played an Ensnaring Bridge. I play my one drops on my turns one and two just in case he lands a chalice on turn three and he does do that on his turn three. I decide to kill the Ensnaring Bridge on my turn, giving him one more turn before I'm able to swing for lethal with Natural Order next turn. He just plays a Grim Monolith on his next turn and then I just kill him on my turn.
3-0
Round 4 - U/R Landstill
Game 1: This game was a total grind as all of my Glimpses, Natural Orders, Heritage Druid, Deathrite Shamans got countered or burned out and I end up having to beatdown with a Nettle Sentinel, two Quirion Rangers and a Wirewood Symbiote and I had to keep on bouncing and elf and then replaying it again to untap the Nettle Sentinel for more beatdown. I barely got there at the end as he almost stabilized with a Mishra's Factory on blocking duty but Wirewood Symbiote was too much for him to deal with as it kept on bouncing the elf that was blocked.
Sideboard: -2 Heritage Druid, -1 Nettle Sentinel, -1 Quirion Ranger, -1 Birchlore Ranger, +4 Thoughtseize, +1 Natural Order. I'm not sure if I should have boarded in the Progenitus as if I'm able to Natural Order it out, I'd pretty much win but it feels like the odds of resolving a Natural Order was really low.
Game 2: I kept a hand where it would be OK if my turn one Bayou, GSZ for Dryad Arbor didn't get wasted + bolted and that's exactly what he did on turn two. I keep on drawing cradles so I'm resigned to losing this game but keep on playing it out just to see how he's going to kill me.
Game 3: I know he plays with Pyroclasms, Ratchet Bombs and Engineered Explosives post board so I try to not over commit and tried to protect my lands with Quirion Ranger and elves with Wirewood Symbiote. I end up having a board of Dryad Arbor, Visionary, Quirion Ranger, Wirewood Symbiote, Forest and Cradle after grinding out his counterspells with Thoughtseize and Heritage Druids and tried a Natural Order. Surprisingly it resolves and I just Craterhoofed for the win. Felt extremely lucky that I won that one.
4-0
Round 5 - U/R Delver
Opponent was a friend and he needed planeswalker points so I conceded to him.
4-1
Top 8 - Bant Maverick (round two opponent)
Game 1: I keep a fairly decent hand with a bunch of elves but no Visionary, Glimpse, Natural Order or GSZ but I figure I would be able to draw into something. About five turns later, I still draw into more elves and she had cast a turn two Jitte and was able to get counters on the Jitte before I found my Wirewood Symbiote. *sigh*
Sideboard: -2 Heritage Druid, -1 Nettle Sentinel, -1 Quirion Ranger, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 Harmonic Sliver, +1 Natural Order.
Game 2: She again has the turn two Jitte but this time I'm able to kill it with a Harmonic Sliver before it gets out of hand. I'm able to Glimpse for value and end up drawing three straight Green Sun's and on the next turn, I cast all three Green Sun's to build up on a draw and mana engine (i get Visionary, Wirewood and Heritage). My next turn, I end up drawing my 5th GSZ so I start by Glimpsing to try to get to nine mana to GSZ for a Craterhoof and I was able to do so.
Game 3: This really was not much of a game as I mulled to five on the draw. My opening seven was 4 lands, Quirion Ranger, Natural Order and Craterhoof and I felt like there was no way I should keep that. I make more misplays this game as she lands a turn two Canonist and instead of developing my board position, I decide that I need to do Wirewood + Visionary tricks to keep on drawing into more cards to try to recover from my mulligan and I could not recover after three straight turns of doing that. She did have one turn where she attacked with both Gaddock Teeg and Canonist with an active Mom and I had two creatures to block and I had a Decay and an Harmonic in hand but no black mana to cast the decay and couldn't cast harmonic since I didn't have enough lands in play. I decide to go for the double block on the Teeg so she'd activate Mom and hope that my next turn, I draw a fetchland so I can decay the Canonist but I didn't draw the fetch so that was game. I look at my next card and of course it's a fetch.
- Kinda disappointing to end my day losing to a "fair" deck but oh well, what can you do.
- I'm not sure if the one Birchlore Ranger is worth it, I never drew it all day and also never wanted to GSZ or Natural Order for it. I feel like I want to replace it with a fourth Natural Order as I'm boarding it in all the time.
- Having two Fyndhorn Elves maindeck also felt good as I never felt bad when it got bolted since there are way more important creatures to bolt and if it didn't get bolted, it would make my turn two plays more explosive.
- The two Dryad Arbors in the maindeck also felt really good. I tried cutting one in a previous tournament and always wanted a second one since the first one gets removed pretty fast.
Felt really fun playing Elves!, most fun part about the deck is trying to figure out how to get Craterhoof into play and have as many untapped creatures to attack with.