Budget ELVES!

[TheSleeper]

Hi all,

Inspired by the heroic Elf primer written by danyul (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?26248-DTB-Elves!), I wanted to craft an updated 'Budget Elves' thread. I tried searching but the last thread hasn't been updated since Lorwyn.

Backstory: My friend has convinced me to get into MODO. After looking around, it seems the cheapest 'MODO Gateway' Legacy deck would be Elves. That said, the 'optimal' version has become much more expensive than in the past, running 3-4 Cradle, 3-4 Natural order, and a bunch of fetchlands and duals. Of course I'd love to acquire these in future, but wanted some discussion on how the financially-challenged can also bask in the glory of Elvenkind.

What defines Budget Elves?

-No Natural Order
-No Gaea's Cradle
-No Duals
-No Fetches

Sure if you have the above you could slot them in and make it more powerful, but let's try to get something going assuming you didn't have any of the above.

Following some of danyul's suggestions, I put together the following working list. Happy to hear thoughts on mono-green SB tech and any other approaches (such as advice Aggro vs. Combo plan in Budget version). If anyone posts a more polished budget list I'll update it here.

Mana Elves (16)
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
1 Birchlore Rangers
4 Priest of Titania

Engine (20)
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Glimpse of Nature

Bombs (6)
1 Regal Force
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Green Sun’s Zenith

Land (18)
18 Forest

[Kayradis]

I always believed budget lists to have a price limit to work with.
What was your limit for that list? Did you just threw some numbers together?

[lavafrogg]

Up to very recently elves did not have a stable list from tourney to tourney. You can easily find lists with summonses pacts and genesis waves floating around the Internet. My favorite budget elf cards are sylvan messenger, joraga war caller and wirewood hivemaster.

The budget deck becomes super resilient to sweepers at the expense of speed...it loses a turn on average....

[danyul]

You might even want 4x Elvish Archdruid in there somewhere. I'm not sure what you would cut though.

[lavafrogg]

He already has 4 priests of Titania, which when played on turn two pretty much means a turn 3-4 win.

[lavafrogg]

My budget elves list was just updated and is getting super consistent, it is my wife's deck to play so it has slowly evolved over time without dumping too much money into it.

4 lanowar elves
4 fyndhorn elves

4 Heritage druid
4 nettle sentinel

4 priest of titania
4 quirion ranger

4 Elvish visionary
4 sylvan messenger

4 wirewood symbiote
4 green sun's zenith

4 wirewood hivemaster
2 tribal forcemage

13 forests
1 dryad arbor

The list can go either way either heritage/nettle sentinel or untapping with a priest of titania. The win cons have to be elves due to the massive draw provided by bouncing sylvan messengers and playing a hive master on turn two can quickly just win the game by itself:/

Tribal forcemage was chosen due to its ability to give insects the boost instead of just elves and is essentially is just a 5 mana elf overrun card in most cases. Jorga warcaller was used for a while but she was easily answered with removal before combat on many occasions.

That being said: the deck is budget and is super fun to play with most of the combo brokenness of the real elves deck, with out the "i win" button that are glimpse/natural order. Since the search/win condition is sylvan messanger/visionary I plan to try mirror entity in the future for the easy infinity win.

The best part is that the deck is easily under $100.

[Julian23]

Pretty sure you want Ezuri, Renegade Leader in your deck. It's much better than the Forcemage in gives you something meaningful to GSZ for on a stalled board.

[lavafrogg]

Pretty sure you want Ezuri, Renegade Leader in your deck. It's much better than the Forcemage in gives you something meaningful to GSZ for on a stalled board.

With wirewood hive masters I have been trying out the forcemage because they can pump all of the insects when I use all of my elves for mana. With symbiote I can bouncy and replay the forcemage anyways. The spot started out as a Joraga due to the 1cc helping combo before being bounced and kicked.

I think I will most likely go with a mirror entity play when it is all said and done due to the infinite combo and the interaction with the insect tokens.

[Kayradis]

-1 Hivemaster
+1 Ezuri.

Trust us on that one ;)

[lavafrogg]

Pretty sure you want Ezuri, Renegade Leader in your deck. It's much better than the Forcemage in gives you something meaningful to GSZ for on a stalled board.

That is a general statement, if you have a symbiote on a stalled board you are never behind and I think you would just either get the messenger to crush in card advantage or the forcemage to overrun. If you don't have a symbiote it is always a safe play to just get a symbiote and chances are you will have either a visionary/messenger/forcemage/hivemaster out to just win the game with.

The list is not just elf ball and relies a lot on the insect tokens to deal tons of damage which is why I took joraga out in the first place. Many times you can get lots of mana from your elves and have lots of insects on the side, just pumping the bugs and swinging is free card advantage wise and the insect tokens get out of control really fast if you get a hivemaster early.

It is essentially like the insects are a seperate aspect of the game and at a point the other player just loses.

Doing really well with forcemage, just play 7 elves and overrun.

[Benjammn]

I'd suggest some amount of Summoner's Pacts, now that they are dirt cheap. The 7 tutors make the deck more closely to the current list and actually was the list soon after GSZ was printed. That list ran Emrakul, but Hoof works too.

[lavafrogg]

What would you cut? The sylvan messenger draw engine does not play nice with pacts, or very many non elf cards…

Cut messengers and add the pacts/regal force?

[BJeagle]

Here my "budget" elves decklist. Lets discus my SB.


12 Forest
4 Gaea's Cradle

2 Dryad Arbor
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Viridian Shaman
2 Craterhoof Behemoth

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

1 Bane of Progress
1 Worldspine Wurm
1 Natural Order
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Caller of the Claw
3 Pithing Needle





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[lavafrogg]

Here my "budget" elves decklist. Lets discus my SB.


12 Forest
4 Gaea's Cradle

2 Dryad Arbor
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Viridian Shaman
2 Craterhoof Behemoth

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

1 Bane of Progress
1 Worldspine Wurm
1 Natural Order
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Caller of the Claw
3 Pithing Needle


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What is budget about that list?

[BJeagle]

Its no dual and fetch. Going monogreen and 4 cradle. But the SB is budget...

Ooze and macabre as gravyardhate.

Thorn and Peedle agains combo.

CotC because of the increasing mass removal usage.

Wurm and NO needs no discusion.

Gone from 2 Peedle to 3 since its versitility.

Bane is most because my best friend plays a 12post/affinitydeck.

Do i need more removal?





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[lavafrogg]

Your board is just wierd not really budget... When you have the 4 of $140 card it looks like you just wanna play mono green instead of GB.

You need some enchantment removal a la krosan grip.

A progenitus would help you win removal heavy matchups.

A runic thar against combo and you play birch lore so you can cast him if you need to.

Everything else is fine.

[BadLegacyPlayer]

How is cradle a budget card? Maybe budget if your building a vintage deck. If you want to see how to build a budget legacy elf deck, check this dude out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycC_K13HU8k. He does it without cradles and fetches.

[FTW]

How is cradle a budget card? Maybe budget if your building a vintage deck. If you want to see how to build a budget legacy elf deck, check this dude out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycC_K13HU8k. He does it without cradles and fetches.

Seems good for budget. A lot of redundancy to make up for last of tutors, abusing Priest to replace Cradle, some LULZier win conditions. ESG is a great addition to make Priest not suck.

If you have more tutors available, you could probably sacrifice a little redundancy and still be more consistent:



//29 Elves:
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Heritage Druid
2 Birchlore Rangers
4 Wirewood Symbiote
3 Quirion Ranger
4 Priest of Titania
4 Elvish Visionary

//10 Engine:
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Summoner's Pact

//4 Win:
1 Regal Force
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Staff of Domination

//18 mana:
14 Forest
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Dryad Arbor


If you're in a budget meta (i.e. fewer FoW decks), I'd be tempted to go:
-7 Forest
+4 Land Grant
+1 Elvish Spirit Guide
+2 Lotus Petal

Also, I LOLLed when the guy on the video said Krosan Grip counters someone's priority.

Opponent --> Omniscience
Opponent --> Immediately, without passing priority, ..
You --> Krosan Grip! Ha!
Opponent --> I didn't pass priori..
You --> Split second!
Opponent ---> You don't have pri...
You --> I did it in a split second! See? Speedy gonzales
Opponent --> But you can't..
You --> Interrupting cow MOOOOOOO

[lavafrogg]

Nyxthos is a good budget version of gaes cradle.

[lavafrogg]

http://azmagicplayers.tumblr.com/post/74702988497/azmagicplayers-com-2014-legacy-series-january-top-16

Budget elves took 16th... My wife!

[BJeagle]

started to play around with budget elves again an need som help.
its actually elves + leyline/chalice that the fun part...
but i cant really get it to work, i have been trying with 4 green sun and 1 edric/hoff/regal but i think it would be nice 12 lands, 8 spells and the rest creatures.

12 Forest

4 Leyline of Lifeforce
4 Chalice of the Void

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Priest of Titania
4 Edric, Spymaster of Trest

extra cards
Banefire
Craterhoof Behemoth
Regal Force
Coiling Oracle
Elvish Archdruid

[dte]

started to play around with budget elves again an need som help.
its actually elves + leyline/chalice that the fun part...

Maybe fun, but probably why

"but i cant really get it to work,"

i have been trying with 4 green sun and 1 edric/hoff/regal but i think it would be nice 12 lands, 8 spells and the rest creatures.

For sure with 4 GSZ and your 1/1/1 it would be way better (add at least dryad arbor, viridian shaman, scavenging ooze and Elvish archdruid to your one slot set too). As an alternative to glimpse, have you considered cloudstone curio? It could be a lot of fun with visionary, wirewood hivemaster & multani's acolyte.

12 Forest

4 Leyline of Lifeforce
4 Chalice of the Void
- 8 cards: you are not that afraid of counterspells, and chalice??? It turns your deck down more than any other. And even that "combo" does not work well: if you open with LL, what else than the chalice will be countered?

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Priest of Titania
4 Edric, Spymaster of Trest

Edric is legendary, and you do not have any way to make blue mana outside of birchlore, which you cannot tutor. Yisan could be fun too.

extra cards
Banefire
Craterhoof Behemoth
Regal Force
Coiling Oracle
Elvish Archdruid

[Ahtii]

my budget elves plays foodchain!

14 Forest
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndhord Elves
2 Elvish Mystic
4 Quirion ranger
4 Priest of titania
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Fierce Empath
4 Sylvan Messenger
4 Llanowar Empath
4 Food chain
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Terastodon
1 Brass Herald

Sideboard:
2 Korsan Grip
4 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Sylvan Safekeeper
2 Faerie Macabre (can be used as +1 mana with foodchain , if you are going of before opponent)
2 Mindbreak Trap

Pros: +
-Food chain basically just wins the game if opponent doesnt have instant speed answer for it.

-With quirion ranger + Elvish archdruid and Priest of Titania, the deck produces enough mana to hardcast stuff , even without food chain.

-Food chain hands are really fast! Turn 2-3 hardcast emrakul is not rare thing to happen.

-Beatdown plan is decent with Archdruid being lord.

-Really easy to play , but hard to master.

-REALLY CHEAP.

Cons: -

-Would love to have Wirewood symbiote in the deck to fight removal , but its really hard to fit in without losing a lot of consistency in my opinion. (brass herald , messenger)

-Enough fast removal can shut down this deck really badly :(

-cant really play Green sun's zenith (brass herald , messenger)

-Horrible sideboard because monogreen :(

-Well obviously its just not as consistent and strong as "real" elves lists! However I Think this is one of the stronger budget elves lists.

[BJeagle]

I play 4 GSZ, 4 ligthning greaves and a 4 enshrined memories ans my 12 spells. 4 priest 4 spirit guide and 1 eternal witness in MD. Priest+LG+EM is quite funny...