[Deck] Elvis - Rhinestones and all

[teeth]

I placed 13th in worlds, and top 8’Ed in the legacy $500, and two other legacy tournaments with this.


Elvis

Acceleration
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Elves of Deep Shadow
4 Priest of Titania
3 Concordant Crossroads

Tricks
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote

Draw
4 Bloodline Shaman
4 Sylvan Messenger

Kill
4 Tribal Forcemage
4 Gempalm Strider

Land
4 Gaea's Cradle
7 Green Fetchlands
5 Forest
1 Bayou (optional, depends on the sideboard)

Sideboard
I have not yet found a sideboard I’m completely happy with, but, as an example:

4 Tsunami
4 Viridian Zealot
4 Planar Void
3 Cranial Extraction


How the deck plays:

Elvis is an aggro-combo deck. Elvis plays like a combo deck, in that you attempt to ignore the opponent in most situations, and kill in one large swing. The only real reason the deck is classified as "aggro-combo" is because all of your combo pieces happen to be creatures, which swing for the win. This has its ups and downs. The positives being:

- You can let go of unnecessary pieces in order to slow down aggro.

- Your pieces stick around, allowing you to "slow play" and kill in a couple short bursts.

- You keep all your pieces in play, negating discard and counters once you drop your hand.

And the negatives being:

- You are open creature hate. Creature hate is everywhere.

Actual gameplay consists of dropping your hand and drawing/accelerating in to one or more of your kill cards for the win. There are some situations where you want to try and play like an aggro deck, dropping a few threats and swinging, but most of the time the deck tries to play outright speed.


Card choices:

Llanowar/Fyndhorn Elves
These are the basic accelerants in the deck. The bread and butter. A hand starting of with one of these is probably a good one. They go through a v curve as the game progresses, being invaluable early on for their mana production, to being mediocre because they add "chump change" for mana, back to being invaluable in the end game because you need a critical mass of creatures to win.


Elves of Deep Shadow
These are the only other elves that tap for mana, making them a necessary evil. If there were another Llanowar clone in print these would be gone in a second, but since there isn’t, these get played. They’re needed for a consistent mana elf turn 1. They do have the bonus ability to make a black splash feasible, though.


Priest of Titania
The best acceleration in the deck. Once they become active they free you from nearly all mana constraints.


Concordant Crossroads
This is a very dangerous card, and if played at the wrong time against aggro, it can cost you the game. That said, against every other deck they come down without hesitation, speeding you up and giving you immunity to mass removal.


Quirion Ranger/Wirewood Symbiote
These make nearly every card in your deck reusable, giving you an actual engine. These make your deck go.


Bloodline Shaman
The slower of the two draw cards, but the more consistent, giving you a steady supply of gas. The best creature in your deck against control.


Sylvan Messenger
The more explosive draw cards in your deck, allowing you to "go off". A Goblin ringleader for elves.


Tribal Forcemage/Gempalm Strider
The kill cards in the deck, allowing you to swing for large numbers with all your combo pieces.


Match-ups:
(Note: I have no one to playtest with, so these are all from tournament experience. I do feel confident in my in my assessments though.)

Aggro
Against anything that swings with creatures you have a definite advantage. You are faster, you draw more, you can overwhelm them, and you can combo off. They do not run mass removal, so you can drop your hand without worry. I have not played a game against an aggro deck that I felt was unwinable.

Control
Landstill is the only control deck I have faced with frequency, and it has been the most difficult. That said, I believe the match-up to be around 50/50, and improvable. Through correct sideboarding and tight play, I believe this can become slightly favorable. As for other control decks, what others? Landstill is the dominant one at this point in time, and from what I’ve seen rightly so. I’ve felt threatened by no others.

Combo
Combo tends to be a coin flip, in general. You are about the same speed, and you both ignore each other. The ones that are faster then you are much less consistent, so the match-up tends to stay about even.

Discussion is very welcome, especially in regards to the sideboard. Thank you.

[Peter_Rotten]

Moved to the appropriate forum.

[Brushwagg]

Won't Staff of Domination be good here ??? 5 elves plus Priest of Titania equals you win. Although you probably want to add Consume Spirit or Fireball etc.. for the win.

[scrumdogg]

He could stay mono-green and add 1x Hurricane or Iff-Biff Efreet for the same sort of reach (since he would draw the Crossroads & attack first....). How does your deck deal with creature hate, btw? Wrath looks especially ugly for you, hasty Sharpshooter eats your face, heck any -X/-X effect is also bad (or Plague Spitter type effects...). Did you not play anyone with those options?

[NoGameShow]

True that board sweeep effects would hose this deck so I'd consider a few Caller of the Claw in your board or maindeck. It's nice at end of turn after a Wrath to make a few bears.

[bigbear102]

I played against him while playing Rabid Wombat. Humility and Wrath are both bad for him, but he killed me on turn 3. This deck does die to creature removal, but it is fast enough to not worry, or just play slowly, dropping 1-3 threats a turn and swinging, and because this deck outdraws many control decks it can do that. (As a sidenote, Wing Shards owns his combo win, being that he plays most of the elves that turn, the look on his face was priceless when I asked for a Storm count, although I didn't have the Shards :(

[MattH]

Boy, this deck is just begging for Cabal Therapy.

[EnialisLiadon]

@Therapy: yes, I agree.

@Wing Shards: playing spells AFTER the combat phase is tech.

@Board-sweepers: I'd add Wirewood Herald to the mix, so if you get wrathed with no Caller in Hand, the dead Herald gets one for you. Also, the herald has great synergy with therapy.

I'm not too fond of Forcemage and Strider. What about Timberwatch Elf?

[midnightAce]

@Wing Shards: playing spells AFTER the combat phase is tech.

That holds true most of the time, except for this deck runs 3 Concordant Crossroads, so a Wing Shard does hurt quite a bit. Same reason Wing Shard is sometimes SBed in Landstill against Goblins. Savage tech.

[psymunn]

don't suppose glimpse of nature was ever considered? or does it just stall too much?

[bigbear102]

Timberwatch elf isn't nearly as good as Forcemage or Strider. Having a lot of big tramplers is better than one, which StP will house.

This deck is crazy though, i just won on turn 4 with 1 land in play.

@Wing Shards: Winning before Humility/Wrath of God is also tech, which he had to do or else he would have lost the game.

Test the deck out before you say things that should be in there, because I said the same things until I made the deck up and tested it.

I wouldn't change anything in the maindeck, but the sideboard definately needs work, Caller is a definate house against control for this deck, and I would say he deserves 4 slots.

[teeth]

@ Staff of Domination: This is a card that is very difficult to draw into (your messenger puts it on the bottom of your library, your shaman puts it in your graveyard), and is really only useful when you would be winning anyway. The same generally goes for hurricane, or any non-elf "win" card.

@ Creature Hate: This is the reason landstill is as difficult a match-up as it is. They often have just enough disruption to slow you enough for wrath to come down. If they have anything but wrath the game is most likely yours, but it is still difficult.

@ Sharpshooter: I have never had a problem with sharpshooter. If my team gets owned by sharpshooter, either I was playing badly, or I was going to lose anyway. Sharpshooter comes online so slowly that by the time it’s active I am usually in a position to play around it.

@ Glimpse of nature: This was originally in the deck when it was more combo oriented. But I found myself holding back creatures to make it effective. The deck tries to drop a good portion of its hand by turn two, often cutting the mana to close to effectively play glimpse.

I freely admit that the sideboard sucks. One of the large problems is that this deck is very difficult to board anything out of, making excess amounts of hate for any deck pointless. In most situations four cards is the limit for boarding. Any more and the deck starts to work improperly. I had been strongly considering Cabal Therapy for the board though.

[DampingEngine]

Would Lifeline be an even better anti-sweeper card? I imagine you can cast it turn 3 most games, and it's a permanent solution to all creature hate except Disk/Vengeance (and I believe the creatures come back even if you Disk though the Lifeline dies). I'll have to test the deck myself, I guess it just depends on whether it's better to spend 5 mana once or leave 3 mana open the whole game. If Wirewood Herald was in here though, Caller would be a great combo, nice call.

[Zilla]

Can the deck support Wastelands? That in and of itself could likely keep Landstill off WW long enough for you to combo out, no?

[waSP]

Was Rofellos considered? He serves as 1/2 a Priest for the ~55 percent of the time you don't have a priest on turn 2.

Timberwatch is not the primary StP target in this deck (that would be Wirewood Symbiote, usually followed by Priest of Titania). It also gives you better game against Goblin Sharpshooters game 1.

If you actually wanted to make this a combo deck (rather than an explosive aggro deck), you could run Intruder Alarm. I don't think that's a good idea, though. It would require a bit of reconfiguring. Seeker of Skybreak over a couple of Quirion Rangers, added Timberwatch for ridiculous synergy, etc. Maybe something someone else wants to address elsewhere.

I have my own build of Elves (think better combo pieces, but slower) that I'll start a thread on when this has exhausted interest.

Good Goblins tech besides Needle and Engi. Plague is Tangle. It usually buys two turns. This assumes you wait until the last possible moment.

[Di]

I've been testing this deck recently and it's been an absolute blast to play. I've made some changes though:
-4 land
-4 Bloodline Shaman
-1 Tribal Forcemage
+2 Multani's Acolyte
+2 Viridian Zealot
+1 Concordant Crossroads
+4 Elvish Spirit Guide

-Black
+White

Reasonings:

-Bloodline Shaman was just bad for me. It's slow, and if the control isn't StP'ng it when you have nothing better to do they lose. Also weak slot vs. aggro. I don't personally like Multani's Acolyte much either, but it has great synergy with Symbiote, and also can draw a Crossroads or land.

-I wanted to add a 4th Crossroads, and chose between Forcemage and Strider. I removed Forcemage because Strider is an uncounterable effect.

-I removed 4 land for 4 ESG, and love the speed boost they have. They allow you to keep Cradle-only hands, provide beats, and allow turn 1 Crossroads+ dude. I suggest adding them.

-White gives you access to better sideboarding options, such as Absolute Law, Worship, etc, for better red matchups.

All I have to chime in for now, but good job with making a possibly viable elf deck.

[Dark Tiger]

I've been playing something similar, only I've retained the glimpses/Running foodchain
Also, im going to try wirewood hivemaster and goblin bombardment, and main decking Caller of the claw. Being able to control goblins (and sometimes fattys) and basically overcoming wrath/plauge and turning your 1/1's into 2/2's can work. I also squeezed in a zealot to help against the rampant survival/enchantment based combos that are popular. But naturalize can get around a plauge, so I'm not sure.
Red also gives you Bloodmoon for Landstill matchup.

[DampingEngine]

As someone who's tested Elves, I can say that the more creatures that are in the deck, the better it is in every way. This list has only 3 spells that aren't creatures, and the one that made top 8 at worlds had zero non-creature spells. I don't see a deck with Glimpse, Food Chain, and Goblin Bombardment in it working at all, especially since it probably won't have any search, or if it did, that would be even more non-creature spells.

[Di]

Your forget Concordant Crossroads. It's a must-have in this deck. Haste makes this deck tick.

[DampingEngine]

Your forget Concordant Crossroads. It's a must-have in this deck. Haste makes this deck tick.
Yeah, I agree that you can probably set aside 6 slots at the most for non-creature spells. I was trying Biorhythm and Coat of Arms, but using Tribal Forcemage and Gempalm Strider as the "win" cards is probably even better since they're creatures. I would have loved to try Concordant Crossroads as the only non-creature spell when I was testing. I'll be sure to try this list when I get the chance.

[Di]

6 would be even too many maindeck slots imo, as anything more than Concordant Crossroads will lead to crappier Sylvan Messengers. It's bad enough that Symbiote, ESG, and lands also don't get anything out of Messenger, and the deck will depend on them for a quicker win. I also ran Viridian Zealot in the board over Naturalize because of this, until I remembered Humility screws you.

I'm trying to figure out a solid sideboard currently, which is difficult as I don't entirely know all the deck's weaknesses yet, but here's what I have currently:

3 Caller of the Claw
3 Absolute Law
3 Choke/Winter Orb
4 Naturalize
2 Pithing Needle/Gaea's Blessing/whatever

Callers are obviously for Wrath, black removal, Deed, etc. Absolute Law solves any problem with Goblins and helps the burn matchup, Choke solves control problems, but I still love Winter Orb as a quick outlet to slow down their game while you easily build up yours, Naturalize is obvious, and the last slot os currently debatable. I'm trying to find a solid answer to Engineered Plague right now, and the best idea I have so far is Elvish Champion, which is meh, but it holds its ground I suppose. Testing's gotta be done with that, as well as work with the board.

[bigbear102]

I have been testing it quite a bit, and have to say that I have gotten several Cradle hands that just piss me off. Having no active mana sources seems to happen too much with this deck. I will try the ESG, but removing land for them won't really change the probability of drawing just a Cradle as a mana source.

[Di]

I've had Cradle hands like that too, so I dropped them down to 2. I hate getting the dead 2nd draw, not to mention they are waste bait, and if you play a deck with Wastes then you damn well know they pack some sort of removal, so you end of up mana fucked as many times Cradle may be the only land you have. Running only 2 as opposed to 3 greatly decreases the chances for dead draws, as the decrease of drawing it isn't as bad considering it isn't essential to have in play, while a Forest won't get wasted either.

[Carlos El Salvador]

I've decided to test somthing different....
-4 Bloodline Shaman, +4 Wirewood Harold. This change is in response to the fact that I wanted a way to get caller of the claw game 1, VS landstill. Harold allows this if not Swords. That makes him huge VS a wrath. I also went -1 Crossroad +1 Caller, otherwise, my list should be damn close to Di's... except mono green.

[dsg123456789]

Well, I've been playing this list, but with an all-fetch/forest manabase and -3 crossroads, +3 Elvish champion.

I have never really wished that I had crossroads, because I would either have enough gas in my hand that I could easily recover from a sweeper, or they wouldn't have a sweeper and I'd use up all my pumpers the next turn.

I think this deck is fantastic, a blast to play, and a strong contender in any metagame, simply due to its massive draw engine that outdraws almost the rest of the format.

[teeth]

Wow, this has grown since I was last online (I haven’t had internet for several weeks). I'm glad to see people actually interested in the deck.

@ Diablos, your build looks good. I think you're right on the money with the Esg’s and the fourth crossroads. But in a choice between cutting the forcemage, and cutting the strider, I'd cut the strider. The forcemage has won me several games by bouncing back to my hand via the sybiote, and I believe the synergy is stronger than the uncounterability. In regards to the bloodline shaman vs. the acolyte, I really hate them both. They have both proved to slow and weak, in my opinion. That said, I prefer the shaman, as I can swing with it without paying echo, but I really despise them both.

@ dsg123456789, I really do not recommend the champion. The effect is very weak when compared to the crossroads or the other pump spells. The champion will generally allow you to win in two big swings, whereas the other pump spells will allow you to go in one turn, and the crossroads will allow you to go nuts.

Thank you, everyone, for playing this deck. I think that with more testing (which I unfortunately haven’t been able to do lately, due to collage) this deck can be at least as strong as any other deck in the format.

[Di]

@ Diablos, your build looks good. I think you're right on the money with the Esg’s and the fourth crossroads. But in a choice between cutting the forcemage, and cutting the strider, I'd cut the strider. The forcemage has won me several games by bouncing back to my hand via the sybiote, and I believe the synergy is stronger than the uncounterability. In regards to the bloodline shaman vs. the acolyte, I really hate them both. They have both proved to slow and weak, in my opinion. That said, I prefer the shaman, as I can swing with it without paying echo, but I really despise them both.

Thanks for the compements. Point taken with the Strider vs. Forcemage argument. The environment I was used to was control-oriented, thus why I took the uncounterable one.

They both suck, yes, but Multani's Acolyte can draw Concordant Crossroads, which is reason enough to run him. Plus, despite echo, he is a 2 power creature, not 1.

As for problems with the deck, it's still the Landstill and control types kicking it around. Wrath of God is very evil. Only 4 Caller in the board sometimes isn't enough, so I've added 2 Wirewood Herald, so when they die you can fetch Caller, giving you 6. I've found this to be a solid number against control, along with a complement of 2-3 Choke/Winter Orb. monoblack decks are also a nightmare matchup for you. You can't keep anything on the table. Compost is needed for this matchup or you will lose.

[dsg123456789]

I have been testing the following listing (which I am posting to facilitate discussion on the changes I propose):
// Lands
3 [ON] Wooded Foothills
3 [ON] Windswept Heath
9 [R] Forest
2 [US] Gaea's Cradle

// Creatures
4 [AP] Sylvan Messenger
4 [IA] Fyndhorn Elves
4 [SC] Wirewood Symbiote
4 [US] Priest of Titania
4 [ON] Bloodline Shaman
4 [DK] Elves of Deep Shadow
4 [B] Llanowar Elves
4 [VI] Quirion Ranger
4 [LE] Tribal Forcemage
3 [LE] Gempalm Strider
4 [ON] Elvish Vanguard
And I have found it very, very effective at crushing a variety of decks. First of all, I have never wanted a crossroads, because there has never been a game that I would have won with it in play that I lost because I drew something else instead. The listing I posted has a variety of advantages:

1) 2 Gaea's Cradles let you retain virtual immunity to Wasteland, while still giving you that random 5 mana topdecking goodness that lets you go nuts. Obviously, Cradles are good, but opening hands with them and multiples are not quite fun.

2) By running 39 elves, your Bloodline Shamans move from a 58% chance to flip an elf to a 65% chance to flip one. I have found Bloodline Shamans to be as good as Sylvan Messengers, drawing 2-3 elves per turn with the myriad untap effects.

3) The altered balance of win conditions: I chose to add Elvish Vanguards on a whim, because I noticed them in my binder and they seemed playable. After running 3 (in place of crossroads), I discovered how busted they can be in this deck. Casting one on turn 2 and another 1 mana elf is very, very easy and common, and casting 3-5 elves per turn thereafter makes it a huge, efficient threat that can beat again and again if you hit a few turns of dead topdecking, or if you need to get those last 5-10 points in against a resolved enemy Sharpshooter. Vanguards have proven to be like Quirion Dryads, but if every spell you cast was either Fact or Fiction or made more mana. Vanguard can easily swing for 5 alone on turn 3, and continue growing 2-3 points per turn if you just use a Symbiote and a mana elf or two. Because of the power Vanguards brought to the deck, I cut one of the weakest finishers, Gempalm Strider, for the 4th vanguard (multiples of Vanguards is hot).

4) As far as the Acolyte vs. Shaman debate goes, I would think that a steady stream of uncounterable card-drawing would be better than a one-shot that grabs non-elves too. I haven't tested the Acolyte, but it would seem that the Shaman is such a bomb against control that you absolutely must run it. For instance, I doubt many landstill players would realize that it is a must-remove threat, and if you draw 2-3 more elves off of it, its mission has been accomplished and the damage has been done.

Summary:
1) 2 Cradles is enough
2) More elves
3) Vanguard=good
4) Shaman seems better

[teeth]

I think we're starting to have divergent variants of the deck. This is by no means a bad thing; I just think it needs to be noticed.

dsg123456789, looking at your build, I think you're playing the deck more as straight aggro. With a more stable mana base (2 cradles, no Esg's), and an emphasis on steady beats (vanguards, no crossroads), the deck becomes more of a beatdown deck. This changes the way the deck plays, even if it doesn’t change the list that much. I think beatdown is a very viable approach to the deck, but it changes the priorities of the deck, and why certain choices are the way they are. If this is case (If it's not let me know) I think increasing the elf count as much as possible, even at the expense of the crossroads, is quite possibly the right choice. As well as trying to make the deck swing on a medium scale more of the time (unsure how to do this). If the deck starts to shift toward that end of the spectrum I imagine that it could start to play a bit like gro-atog (the broken kind), or a good fcg build. It could be very interesting.

In regards to wrath, I still haven’t found a gameplan against it that I’m completely happy with, but the caller sounds like the best plan right now. I would actually play more heralds, and fewer callers though. Herald means one more creature put into the graveyard that turn, which benefits the caller. Also, the heralds can fetch another creature if the situation is right, or if you have the caller in hand already.

[dsg123456789]

I agree, I too did notice how our decks are beginning to diverge. I would like to find someone on MWS to playtest with from this thread, who could help me pit both varients against Goblins and Landstill (and perhaps one other upper-tier deck), so that any tangible advantages of one build over the other could be determined. Last night I was playing with 4 Crossroads and Acolytes, and I have to say, the Acolytes left me very unimpressed. Often, I did not want to pay the upkeep cost if I didn't have a Cradle or Priest in play, because it would leave me with only 2-3 mana to work with during the turn, and I found that the one-shot nature of the draw was not as good as I have found Bloodline Shamans to be. The 2-power was a boon, but not so much that I would run a card that I percieve as vastly inferior as card-drawing. Also, bouncing and replaying the Acolyte with Symbiotes was definitely underwhelming, and it would have been much better to reuse Messengers instead, even if you could not get Crossroads or Symbiotes with them.

I also noticed how ridiculously explosive crossroads makes the deck, so much so that turn 1 crossroads lets me cast my entire hand on turn 2. Really, I think that testing to determine whether a build-up of card advantage or an explosive turn is a better strategy against the top decks of the format.

[dsg123456789]

I'm sorry about the double post, but I have something new to contribute, and I think the new-ness merits a bump.

I was discussing this deck with another player at the Ravnica prerelease, and we were talking about how Concordant Crossroads is not an elf and how Elves of Deep Shadow aren't always so stellar. He suggested this:

-4 Elves of Deep Shadow
+4 Birchlore Ranger
-4 Concordant Crossroads
+4 Selesnya Guildmage

The idea behind this being that you generate a fuckton of mana and often you do not have an outlet for it, but with the Guildmage you can sink your excess mana into more creatures. Also, Birchlore Rangers, while not being quite as strong turn 1, allows you to use the Glorious Anthem ability of the Guildmage and allows you to make mana off of your dudes on a huge turn without Crossroads. I think that this setup merits new testing, because it gives you more ways to swing in with a huge team, a sink for the absurd amount of mana you can make, and it seems pretty powerful. Also, it makes the deck more conducive to a splash, should it be determined that one is needed to survive in the current meta.

[Rastadon]

I don't think Elves can abuse the Guilmage. 4 mana for a 1/1 is steep for any deck to handle, and while elves eat and crap mana, it's going to be very tough trying to abuse it. If you want a weenie strategy, I'd reccomend Wirewood Hivemaster. But don't stop playtesting, Ravnica might just add something!

Does Cabal Therapy deserve maindeck slots for those splashing black? Cabal Therapy has amazing synergy with herald. B, look at the opponent's hand. You see a WoG and humility. Sac Herald, kill off humility. Search library for your 1 copy of Bear Man, and you've just effectively countered 2 major hosers.

On the other hand, will it get flushed away by messenger? And what if you don't get Therapy? How will it be sacced? Combat damage isn't reliable enoughif you don't get therapy. Although it is very sexy to have ur opponent resolve Wrath, float mana, kill the herald, search for Bear Man, and rebound with a massive army.

[dsg123456789]

Bear Man+Herald is too narrow in the maindeck, but in the sideboard running 4 herald and 2 Caller of the Claw is probably a good choice.

Have you ever played the builds in this thread? These decks make 20+ mana a turn with no outlet, and even 5 dudes a turn or +5/+5 to everyone per turn is pretty good.

Lastly, the idea is to get the deck to be only Elves, so that Bloodline Shaman and Sylvan Messenger become INSANE card drawing. If the deck loses no power but gains additional creatures with the Subtype--Elf, then it is a step in the right direction.

[Slay]

The problem with the Guildmage is that it doesn't win early. You can't race the Wrath with it, so in most situations it's probably a win-more. Either they can't disrupt you and you get billions of mana and win, or they can disrupt you, you're stuck with only one or two mana producers, and your Guildmage is a Bear. What matchups does it improve that you aren't already favorable towards?
-Slay

[TsumiBand]

I ran a variation of this deck at the last 1.5 legal Creature Feature tourney and took 1st place. For them what don't know, Creature Feature demands at least 20 maindeck creatures that share a creature type and no off-type creatures. So in a format where Engineered Plague and Tsabo's Decree runs rampant in both main and sideboard tech, I feel this deck can still thrive.
The Guildmage was a thought that I had had. The cost of the ability seems like it would be offset by the usefulness of both abilities. Using Birchlore Rangers to produce W gives the deck yet another pump effect, and this is important because I always hated casting my lone Gempalm in the hopes that another one comes along. This guy we can cast and beat with. More importantly, though, the Saproling function adds another non-Elf creature type to the deck, and with all the variations of Gobbo hate this ability will prevent us from being creatureless should Engineered Plague hit the table. I really don't trust Wirewood Herald in a deck with no means to self-sac; if it gets StP'd nothing happens, if we get WoG'd it won't be when we have 2G open and if it gets burned out or chump blocked or something we're playing against shitty opponents. It leaves too much to the other guy and that's bad.

[Slay]

Is Birchlore Rangers seriously better than Skyshroud Elf for making white mana?
-Slay

[TsumiBand]

Not necessarily. But Birchlore is more of a Concordant Crossroads substitute as it lets you tap newly summoned Elves for mana without giving the opponent the chance to abuse haste.
Can I ask what makes Wirewood Symbiote better than Seeker of Skybreak? Does the no-tap thing make up for the fact that Shaman and Messanger will miss it entirely?

[noobslayer]

I don't have the exact list, but my one friend has been playing this list with a maindecked caller of the claw, and two or three deranged hermits. It's pretty much made him consistent on turn three and goes for a savage alpha strike. I'll try to get a hold of his list.

[Rastadon]

Tsumami: A helluva lot of reasons. Firstly, it allows you to abuse your Come Into Play abilities, like Tribal Forcemage and Messenger, which makes for some sick damage/draw.

Second, it only costs G and can be used the turn it comes out, whereas 2 mana for a card that doesn't have haste.

Thirdly, you can use it to save your elves from a WoG. This version's too impractical, as you can only bounce 1 creature, but it saves your Priest when you need it.

Also, with a Crossroads out on the field, bouncing a llanowar elves to your hand actually produces more mana than you put into it, and this strategy's used to get the precise amount of mana you want, instead of burning yourself.

While it's not an elf itself, it's kickassness can't be ignored. If it means getting flushed by Messenger, fine. It's worth it to get it in your opening hand.

Why is no one running Wirewood Lodge? If you're running Elves of Deep Shadow, the same reasoning applies. The colorless mana doesn't hurt if you only run 2, and nothing says rape like an uncounterable, 0 mana untapper.

A second question, what do you think is the ideal mana base without Fetchlands? I just don't like the concept of Stifle-able lands. Can this deck afford to use Wastelands?

Also, going along with the whole white idea, white gives us awesome tutoring in the form of Eladamri’s Call, and Altar of Bone.

[dsg123456789]

This deck really can't support colorless lands because almost every spell in the deck requires lots of green and almost no colorless. Also, this deck only runs 15 lands that can make G first turn, so it really needs to have all those sources of color. To run Wasteland would mean that you would have to cut Elves, which isn't so good.

I would just replace the Fetchlands with Forests.

Elves doesn't really need tutoring because there is no one card that is nessecary to win any one matchup. To beat Goblins, you just need a pumper (to make an unfair trade), to beat Landstill you just need to keep pounding away.

Lastly, I just remember birchlore rangers has morph, which is exceedingly relevant for two reasons. First of all, it makes the Ranger a good card against Engineered Plague, and secondly, it lets you bluff a Tribal Forcemage against an opponent after they know your deck, which allows you to force them into misplays.

And Symbiote kicks ass because it saves Elves from sweepers, lets you reuse Messengers and Forcemages, and it even untaps. The untapping is just a bonus, IMO.

[Gryphon]

What about the card from 8th that is six mana draw a card for ech creature you control. Deranged Hermit is also very very good.

untested cards

vitalize
slate of ancestry
overrun

Hello, and welcome to The Source! Please read the forum rules (http://mtgthesource.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=2619)---Frogboy



Edited By frogboy on 1128100281

[Alfred]

I think that this deck is absolutely begging forWirewood Lodge (http://sales.starcitygames.com/spoiler/display.php?name=&namematch=EXACT&text=untap+target+elf&oracle=1&textmatch=AND&flavor=&flavormatch=EXACT&s_all=All&c_all=All&colormatch=OR&ccl=0&ccu=99&t%5BT14%5D=Land&z_all=All&critter%5B%5D=&crittermatch=OR&pwrop=%3D&pwr=&pwrcc=&tghop=%3D&tgh=-&tghcc=-&action=Show+Results&mincost=0.00&maxcost=9999.99&minavail=0&maxavail=9999&r_all=All&g_all=All&foil=nofoil&avail=All&sort1=4&sort2=0&sort3=0&sort4=0&display=1&numpage=25&showart=1). Lodge allows you to abuse Priest of Titania as well as Bloodline Shaman. Perhaps it could be run in the deck as a 2-3 of.

[dsg123456789]

The problem with wirewood lodge is the same problem with wasteland. This deck needs G available on turn one, and since you run 13-15 lands (not counting Cradle), you often have a one land hand. If that land is a colorless one, you will have massive problems with mulliganning too often. Also, there is no reason to make more mana with Priest of Titania--it already makes almost too much mana, so that I sought out sinks for it.

[Rastadon]

Gryphon: Welcome to Teh Source!

I've been a real advocate of including non-elf cards like Living Wish and whatnot but most of the time, it'll get bottom of the deck'd by Messanger. So to abuse Messanger for all it's worth, you have to use as many elf alternatives to standard spells. (Overrun vs. Tribal Forcemage). There are exceptions to this rule like Wirewood Symbiote, but that's only because it's ass-ownage every time and it's easy to cast. But playtest with some alternative cards, you never know which non-elf card will be a game-winner.

Wirewood Lodge: The potential for this card to be rape is huge, but it's far outweighed by it's inability to produce green mana. It hurts on a number of occassions, and it's rarely useful, even if you put 2 in.

With that said, are Elves of Deep Shadow useful? I'd imagine that the Black mana can be a little hindering.

[Carlos El Salvador]

@ Elves of Deep Shadow:
They arn't particularly good, but in my testing, they act as a mana elf far often to warrent playing them as a four of. It's a crazy little man who is going to hit you a bit of your life. Plus it makes the black splash an option. Overall, the card is a weak one, but the manabase needs all the mana producers in the one slot as it can have. tapping it to produce B is often used to cast a second turn (hasted) Priest, which usually can be followed up by at least one, if not two, more elves which will spell utter damnation to your opponet.

You could run living wish if you took out some of your 'expensive' elves, because thsoe are what you'd be tutoring for anyhow. (I'd advocate -1 messanger, -1 wirewood Symboite, -1 at least 1 +2/+2 elf) This gives you access to interesting options, and ups your symboite and sylvan messanger count to seven.

[kolrael]

I played a similar deck to this awhile back, but ran a few slightly different card choices..

2 Deranged Hermit
4 Skyshroud Poacher
3 Root Maze

Basically, the Root Maze doesn't effect you in the least with your elf mana, and it entirely screws over your bad matchups, mainly Combo and control. Plus it comes down first turn, which is obviously good. As far as the Hermit goes, you poach it out, and swing for 9 with the Crossroads active. Very good times, and allows for very fast kills.

I went 4-1-1 with it, losing only to a tendrils based deck. The look of surprise of people's faces when I played elves, was worth playing the deck, let alone doing well.

-Chris

[Rastadon]

I'm not so much a fan of the Poacher/Hermit combo, seems like overkill. If you've got Crossroads out with a priest you should be able to cast Hermit straight out. But if it's working for you, I'll shut my mouth. :D

Root Maze is really nice. It does all the things that Winter Orb does with less mana. Do you find it's helpful against Gro or Stax? I've found those matchups to be unfavorable.


I can get a good 10 dmg in on Gro before they hit threshold and it's just about game there. Are Crypts good enough to delay them or is other stuff needed like Maze, or Primal Order? Heck could Tormod's crypt be replaced in the SB for Gaea's Blessing since it doubles as GY removal? What are your sideboards?

[SuckerPunch]

I wouldn't mind seeing what the current version of the deck looks like.

[tivadar]

How do you deal with combo? At least goblins can race it on occassions, and they can board in reb.

[Rastadon]

Tivadar: It really depends on the matchup.

Belcher: Don't try it unless you have a needles. They're simply too quick.

Solidarity: Not so bad bad, because you can match them in terms of speed, plus you can always Storm Seeker them as they go off.

Iggy Pop: More or less like Solidarity. Same speed just about but you can bring in Crypt to mess them up.

Salvagers/The Game: I haven't tested this matchup extensively, but from the few games I've played it's tough. The high amounts of disruption makes it nearly like a control deck, and you can't go off quickly when you're facing a salvo of Therapies, Hymms, and P Deeds. Hopefully Crypt helps out.



I can't really speak for the rest of the Elvis players, but here's my build that I've been tweaking for a while. I took this version to an 8 man appr tourney and went undefeated vs affinity and I think Angel Stompy.

Treehugger.dec

// Lands
3 [US] Gaea's Cradle
1 [LG] Pendelhaven
5 [OD] Forest (4)
4 [R] Savannah
4 [ON] Windswept Heath

// Creatures
4 [AP] Sylvan Messenger
2 [LE] Gempalm Strider
3 [LE] Tribal Forcemage
4 [7E] Llanowar Elves
4 [SC] Wirewood Symbiote
4 [VI] Quirion Ranger
4 [US] Priest of Titania
4 [IA] Fyndhorn Elves
4 [ON] Elvish Vanguard
2 [LE] Caller of the Claw
4 [ON] Wirewood Herald
4 [ON] Birchlore Rangers

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [5E] Winter Orb
SB: 3 [DS] Viridian Zealot
SB: 4 [US] Absolute Law

This is more of an offshoot of DSG's deck from a while back, with an emphasis on beatdown and resilence instead of quick wins and wild crazy shenanigans. It can still combo off on turn 4 while still putting up a great fight vs mass removal.

Some card explanations:

Herald and the Callers: Keep a herald in play, keep 3 open (very easy with symbiote/ranger and priest), and neva die to mass removal. Oh, you Wrath? Float 3, fetch caller, and Yogi eats your face. 10 damage a turn.

Birchlore Rangers: The ability to produce mana the first turn it comes out makes it a lesser Rangers/Symbiote. It allows for the card drawing/elf dumping insanity to continue longer. Plus when you're facing down targeted removal, you can bluff an educated player with these guys.

Vanguards: As previously explained, they're amazing. They singlehandedly win games they shouldn't. Fights through Pyroclasm, Flamebreak, Engineered Plague, keeps aggro decks at bay, Goblin Sharpshooter etc. From what I hear, an 8/8 for 2 mana is a good deal.

[Benie Bederios]

Iggy Pop: More or less like Solidarity. Same speed just about but you can bring in Crypt to mess them up.

You havn't played against Iggy pop, have you? Iggy pop eats Goblins alive and will eat you alive. It's alot faster( turn 1 kill about 20% of the time, almost every game ends before turn 4.) In addtion to that, they play 4 Plagues in the board, wich they fetch with Infernal Tutor, so normally they wil have 3 plagues in play quickly.

[Rastadon]

I'll admit that Iggy isn't a deck that I've played against alot, or know much about, but what you're talking about simply doesn't happen in the few games I've played against it. I've won a fair amount of games, but maybe I played against a bunch of morons. By all means, if you'd like to play me on MWS send me a pm.

[Bane of the Living]

I'll admit that Iggy isn't a deck that I've played against alot, or know much about, but what you're talking about simply doesn't happen in the few games I've played against it. I've won a fair amount of games, but maybe I played against a bunch of morons. By all means, if you'd like to play me on MWS send me a pm.

Yea IGGy really just has an amazing game against this deck and gobs. The deck just tutors for ritual or IT with Mystical Tutor and gets multiple Plagues with Intuition and IGG. It doesnt even need to kill you, just get out 4 plagues.

[sayn3ver]

anyone come up with a reasonable soultion for engineered plague???

Coat-of-arms is an idea but that sure is hell gonna work against you vs some decks...plus its expensive and "noob".

I am in the middle of building an elf deck and this is probably my largest concern...multiple plagues.

[iOWN]

anyone come up with a reasonable soultion for engineered plague???

Coat-of-arms is an idea but that sure is hell gonna work against you vs some decks...plus its expensive and "noob".

I am in the middle of building an elf deck and this is probably my largest concern...multiple plagues.

Tranquil Domain solves multiples and Elvish Champion will deal with a single Plague?

[MysticBlue]

vs combo gaea's blessing works vs brainfreeze and hardcasting it works vs IGGy kills which require certain cards in the graveyard. as for tendrils based combos... suggestions?

vs engineered plague, naturalize SB, maybe with another single Tranquility effect (destroy all enchantments) will do. 5 cards potentially of enchantment destruction, not to mention Herald+Caller, wouldn't that be sufficient?

And for people who complain that Priests of Titania produce too much mana already to warrant inclusion of Wirewood Lodge, perhaps Recycle could go some way in addressing that balance?

Imagine this situation - with a Crossroads out and Priest in play, you could quite readily cast Recycle on turn 3. With untap effects (symbiote, ranger, lodge), you untap the Priest and go crazy. You might suffer 2 or 3 damage from manaburn after putting 10 or more cards into play. You leave 3 mana open with a Herald in play and/or a Caller in hand. Opponent Wraths/Plagues. You cast Caller...

Whilst this scenario takes quite a number of cards to pull off, having gone through almost half your deck by turn 3 means that it's not as difficult as it sounds initially. Has happened to me on any number of occasions.

[GoTreK]

Recycle isn't the way to go imho. We simply need to much cards to make it work properly. As was previously stated, we need as much elves as possible so that's another point that's not in favour of recycle.

As to Elves in general:
I think it should be the aim to make the MB as fast as possible while also optimizing it in terms of constancy - I prefer the beatdown version with Vanguard and Hermits + crossroads (because IT IS more constant than the combo oriented one, but nevertheless fast enough to race almost every other deck). Secondly we need to create a decent SB with Blessing, Wirewood Herald, Caller of the Claw, Viridian Zelots and Naturalize, maybe as well with Root maze.
- we would have positive MU against most aggro oriented decks
- we could a) race combo (root maze SB helps here) b) side in Blessing against Solidarity which is actually a bye
- we could race control as well (root maze again) and every form of mass removal is almost useless because of Herald + Caller
- vs nasty enchantments we also got Herald + Caller (Plague) or Naturalizes (Humility) and Zealots
btw I think Humility turn 4 is hardly a problem with 5-7 elves in play that's still 5-7 damage/turn

(we should conentrate on just ONE thread about elves, probably this one!)

[Eldariel]

Emerald Charm is a good answer to Plagues, Humility and company in my experience. When not answering, it accelerates your play and then takes out those Global Enchantments when need be.

[GoTreK]

I already posted the list in the other thread but, as I said, it's better to focus on one so here it's again:

// Lands
2 [US] Gaea's Cradle
14 [IA] Forest (2)

// Creatures
4 [5E] Llanowar Elves
4 [LE] Tribal Forcemage
4 [IA] Fyndhorn Elves
4 [SC] Wirewood Symbiote
4 [ON] Bloodline Shaman
4 [AP] Sylvan Messenger
4 [VI] Quirion Ranger
4 [US] Priest of Titania
4 [ON] Elvish Vanguard
4 [UL] Deranged Hermit

// Spells
4 [LG] Concordant Crossroads

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [DS] Viridian Zealot
SB: 3 [ON] Wirewood Herald
SB: 2 [LE] Caller of the Claw
SB: 1 [WL] Gaea's Blessing
SB: 4 [VI] Emerald Charm
SB: 3 [TE] Root Maze

Imho Crossroads is incredibly strong and I don't want to miss it. The speedbost is just sick! Maybe +1?
What do you guys think of Hermit? I got the impression that he is clearly better than Gempalm Strider, especially with Crossroads...
Elvish Vanguard makes you less vulnerable towards Plague (still at least ~3/3) and he grows and grows and grows! I especially like him because he is online very early and therefore control is bound to FoW him, because they can't counter every following elf.
What do you think? Discuss plz!

**list slightly updated**
-2 Boreal Druids
+1 Hermit
+1 Crossroads

[Mirrislegend]

I'd go: -2 Boreal Elf, +1 Hermit, +1 Crossroads
That change drops two cards with no particular usefulness, and adds in 2 cards that you ALWAYS want to find. Whats not to like?

[GoTreK]

Yeah I also considered Boreal Elf one of the fairly weakest cards in the deck - it was basically just Llanowar Elves 9 & 10. I'm fine with Crossroads + 1 but I don't know if Hermit deserves a 4th slot. On the other hand: Which other card would be better? So you really have a point there. Besides we can abuse Crossroads + Hermit even more.

I'll update my list above
-2 Boreal Elf
+1 Hermit
+1 Crossroads

[Goblin Snowman]

Has anyone tried splashing Black with Bayous and Elves of Deep Shadow? Theropy would be sick in Elves, and it allows more siderboard options (Planar Void, Plague, Duress)

[GoTreK]

I think the first build aimed at something like that, but only for the SB. I'm not sure what to cut for four EoDS though. We could include 2 of them + 4 Bayous along with some fetchies. That should be sufficient to support 4 Therapies in the SB. But what to cut for 2 EoDS? What do you guys think? Are there any other proposals for the MB? What about Timberwatch Elf? He's got nice synergy with all Symbiote & Ranger. But the problem is I see him in the slot of the Hermit and the Forcemage. Is he better??

Any other thoughts? I'd really apprecciate some more help to develop a competitive deck.

[Goblin Snowman]

You could cut Llanowar/Fyndhorn, if you needed to. All the black splash does is give you tools to disrupt the hell out of alot of decks, and give it some more game against Combo. I have been using Winter Orb and Root Maze in the board against Combo and Control, and it's worked out alright, but this would work better at the cost of Wasteland.

[GoTreK]

I doubt that completely cutting either of them is a good idea. We could try to replace 2 Fynhorn Elves with 2 EoDS and hope that 2 sources for B + bayous/fetchies is sufficient. But I still didn't get if you want Therapy MD. Imho it's a very good SB choice but I wouldn't play it main.

[Goblin Snowman]

Yeah, I was thinking that one of each Fyndhorn and Llanowar should be cut. I did breifly consider Thereopy mained, and the reaosn my post above is so messed up is because I'm tired. And yes, I do agree now that it belongs in the board. My Anti Combo slots look like 4 Thereopy, 2 Planar Void, 2 Duress. I felt that Chalice of the Void needed to hurt the deck more.:wink:

[sayn3ver]

I thought about running contamination in my sideboard with the chance of it coming down on turn 2...almost ensuring the W against anyone not running black. Too risky?

[GoTreK]

Actually a good approach to stop Solidarity or Rifter, but saccing creatures
every turn could hurt. I think it needs testing if that is a problem.

In the other thread was a very interesting survival version of elves! Basically we'd just replace Crossroads with Survival and add some tools. That change could provide the desperately wanted constancy and would give us the same speedboost, but only for us (Anger). With shaman + survival he should be in GY soon enough. With that change our CA would become plainly insane and we could easily recover from boardsweepers like WoG. Furthermore Caller of the Claw becomes tutorable - that's sweet, isn't it? He's not only the best answer to WoG, Disk and Vengeance:

caller owns when your blocking, just double up with your 1/1s and such to kill stuff, then overpower them with bear awesomeness
Btw being able to run a single Zealot effectively is pretty cool.

I hope Superfly posts his list in here with explanations as regards his cardchoices so that we get an overview.

[sayn3ver]

fires would be too expensive wouldnt it?

Its really hard to beat crossroads for what it does to the explosivness of this deck.

[Rastadon]

sayn3ver: Contamination's got a hefty cost. If you run Bloodlines I suppose it's okay since they draw you a new elves each turn with the help of untappers. It's totally workable if your drop it when you've got enough fuel for it, aka not turn 2. It's more of a late game bomb imo but go for it, see how it goes.

I've been trying to find solutions for Engineered Plague, and I've tried everything from Elf Replica to Elvish Champion and the best I've come up with is the maindeck Herald/Caller mix. Reactive cards like Naturalize and Emerald Charm really suck because once they get rid of Plague they've already killed 5 of your guys, and you fall behind. Elvish Champion sucks against Deadguy because all they have to do is kill him, which is VERY easy, and you're back into plagueville. I really insist that you give the Caller Herald idea a shot, it wins you games you shouldn't have won, in the face of Wrath, Pyroclasm, Plague, Mutilate, Decree of Pain, and makes for some great combat tricks.

I'd like to know what people use as their sideboards. Because of the deck's inherent desire for Elf solutions, sideboarding has never been easy. Not to mention that green doesn't have much by the way of disruption. Here's what I got.


SB: 3 [US] Absolute Law
SB: 3 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [DS] Viridian Zealot
SB: 3 [MR] Glissa Sunseeker
SB: 3 [ST] Armageddon

Since red packs endless barrages of targeted and non-targeted removal, Law is an auto include. Crypt is obvious. I'm feeling a little hesitant about Zealot because I know that there are powerful enchantments that people use, just that I don't see 'em on MWS. Still, it's my solution for Moat or Solitary Confinement should I see it. Glissa may seem a little weird but I just got tired of getting beat by Faerie Stompy's Chalices. Not to mention that First Stike on a fairly large body is nice vs aggro. Armageddon is a change from Winter Orb because some Rifter packs maindeck Disenchant, so I wanted a more permanent solution.

What do you guys have?

[sayn3ver]

Oh i already have caller and hearalds i am playing around with.

I am trying a slightly different version of this deck...when i get the decklist situated and tested alittle i'll post it, lets just say there are some extra meat left over on the table for contamination. I just think that once you get an elf or two out and get you're mojo going, dropping contamination should screw over the competition. I shall have to test it out.

[jazzykat]

Just a random thought. Has anyone considered ritual of subdual? You create a ton of mana and without colored sources the only decks you are worried about are stax. Just my thought.

[GoTreK]

I agree with Rastadon as to Plague. The best choice is absolutely Wirewood Herald + Caller, but I wonder if we should run them main. Probably 2 Heralds and 1 Caller are sufficient MB, aren't they? With Messenger and Bloodline Shaman chances are that we draw at least one of the three.

Ritual of Subdual is actually really nice and you don't have to sacc a crea each turn (contamination). However we it's risky to play it until we have out cradle, priest or either. The only way to handle it would be countering it, right? I mean, disenchant and so on can't be played with colourless mana. Are you suggest playing it MD or would you run it in the SB? I imagine running it MD (probably for roads as we cannot afford to cut any more elves) would mean less speed but on the other hand we could sort of lock the opponent. Other thoughts about subdual?

[Rastadon]

There's no real advantage that Ritual has over Contamination. Both of them do the same thing and while Ritual screws over decks that don't use black, the only DTB that uses black is Deadguy, who we have favorable matchups against anyway. Contamination's a good reason to splash black.

Gotrek: I only run Sylvan Messangers, and I don't like the concept of relying on such a vulnerable creature, but test with 3 and see how it goes.

[Muradin]

If you splash black for sideboardcards, what do you think of playing engineered plague yourself to make your goblin matchup after boarding really favorable?

[GoTreK]

The Problem is that in our Sb there is not much place left. We absolutely need enchantment hate and some answers to combo. I played Rastadon on MWS twice with an AS build and Jitte turned out to be a real problem for elves - ok that should have been quite obvious but I haven't thought about it to be honest. An early Jitte is mostly gg.

I'm not really that afraid of gobbos, the MU should actually be even.

[sayn3ver]

yea, creature hate in sideboard doesn't seem as necessary as goods to deal with wrath of god, engineered plague, pyrocasm, etc where these esentially clear the board for us in a devistating way.

I think its better to focus on ways of beefing up our resiliencey.

The thing with something like plague is to play it early and shut them down before the even get started, especially combo, right?

[SillyMetalGAT]

I've been playing something similar, only I've retained the glimpses/Running foodchain
Also, im going to try wirewood hivemaster and goblin bombardment, and main decking Caller of the claw. Being able to control goblins (and sometimes fattys) and basically overcoming wrath/plauge and turning your 1/1's into 2/2's can work. I also squeezed in a zealot to help against the rampant survival/enchantment based combos that are popular. But naturalize can get around a plauge, so I'm not sure.
Red also gives you Bloodmoon for Landstill matchup.

You can play that card Reckless Assault in combination with Elves to get infinate mana! it works.

[quicksilver]

You can play that card Reckless Assault in combination with Elves to get infinate mana! it works.

Do you mean Aggravated Assault? I used to play that card back in elves back when onslaught first came out.

[scrumdogg]

If you're going to go black, look at what it gives you & try to maximize that.
Contamination (obvious)
Oath of Ghouls/Oversold Cemetary (not so obvious, but works with both Contamination & creature advantage, negating spot removal for the most part)
Therapy (ridiculously good in a deck full of disposable critters)
add more as you think of them....

If you're going to go white, do the same thing:
Ray of Revelation - very good at getting rid of problem enchantments & can be used twice
Shared Triumph - counter-Plague & some small measure of slowing down a Jitte, also plays nice with Champion & Caller
Jotun Grunt - not an elf admittedly, but good against combo/decks that rely on their graveyard, can shuffle back a bunch of your guys as well, and swings (unlike Crypt)
Chant/Abeyance if you're worried about combo

In mono-green you will have the new 3cc uncounterable Chalice/Plague/Jitte killer + who knows what else? Caller is already a fantastic idea & don't dismiss Champion. Champion lets you swing through anybody with a forest, pumps everybody, and can be a pretty good sorcery speed combat trick against decks with sorcery speed removal.

[Rastadon]

You can play that card Reckless Assault in combination with Elves to get infinate mana! it works.

Elves don't need to go infinite. Elves just needs to protect it's own so they can go nuts. Do you really need more than 20 mana or so to draw your entire deck, give all of 'em haste and go for the jugular?

You will most likely win if you are not disrupted. In a format with Lightning Bolt, STP, Fire/Ice, Magma Jet, Umezawa's Jitte, Pyroclasm, Engineered Plague, Vindicate, Cursed Scroll, Slice and Dice, this is a very uphill battle. That said, sideboarding becomes crucial. There are a plethora of answers for cards that disrupt yours, and there's not one to solve them all. That said, which is best for the format right now?

Absolute Law: Since Red is the most dangerous color for you, with Pyroclasm, Goblin Sharpshooter, Lightning Bolt, Fire/Ice and Flamebreak, if resolved will not only protect you from targeted removal, but from red creatures and red wrath effects, which means you can side out Caller/Herald if you have it. Very very nice, but only offers protection in the face of red threats.

Steely Resolve: No targeted removal for you! This means no STP, Lightning Bolt, Jitte, Cursed Scroll, Triskelion, or anything else that targets. Unlike Absolute Law, you aren't immune to Wrath effects, red or otherwise, and the red sweepers might come down too soon for Herald to be effective. (Earliest at turn 3). It also actually shuts down your deck slightly as well, because you cannot untap Priest of Titania with targeting.

Bubble Matrix: I have yet to try this one, but it looks interesting. Like Absolute Law it offers protection from Red sweepers, red targeted removal and creatures, but grants that to all creatures. That means that if I drop it vs Goblins and have a large Vanguard on defense they have no reason to stay defensive, since I won't be able to kill off incoming waves. It does not give me a solution to Plague or Wrath of God. Like an Absolute Law except you don't have to splash.

Discuss.

Edit: Champions I've found are only useful if there's more than one in play at a time. One is nice, but there are so many kill spells that deal with it so easily, and the 1/1 boost is irrelevant unless you double up on it. If you didn't like the fact the Forcemage has to be morphed, you won't like this. Though he has been known to work wonders in elf mirrors.

[Windux]

Diod anybody tested Null Chamber?
Against Landstill you can name Wrath of God, against Black-Decks Engineered Plague.
Against combo, you also can get time with this.

[Sharpfang]

So does anybody have any way of making B/W a more favouralbe match up.

[Rastadon]

B/W is a favorable matchup. What's Deadguy going to do, Sinkhole my first turn forest and hope I don't draw into 16 mana producing elves? There's 2 things they got against elves. An early Plague (early = turns 1 or 2) and Cursed Scroll. Late Plagues are easy, and Cursed Scroll can be blown up with artifact hate.

Null Chamber sounds cool. It doesn't sound like a solution to plague because Herald + 3 mana is just as tough to get as 4 mana, in a turn by turn basis. But I'll give it a shot, once I find something to nuke in my sideboard.

How has Winter Orb/Armageddon been working for people? I find that the matches I'd want to bring it in for (Truffle Shuffle, Rifter) are the ones where I'm dependent on my lands anyway, since they blow up my creatures all the time. So it's just as effective against my opponent as it is against me. Armageddon seems to have more appeal to it because Rifter can't disenchant it and it is effective against Solidarity.

[Djelmo]

I play elves and the Skyshroud Elf - Selesnya Guildmage works wonders against anti-mass removal and big swings.

Also, Timberwatch Elf helps against spot removal, and let's you swing big with Sylvan Messenger.

[Rastadon]

Can you please post your list?

[Rastadon]

Sorry for the double post, but this is big freakin' news.

Pendlehaven Elder 1G
Creature - Elf Shaman U
{T}: Each 1/1 creature you control gets +1/+2 until end of turn.
1/1

The lone copy of Pendlehaven in my deck has swung aggro matches in my favor and protected all my creatures. This is going to be big. Just about all elves (sylvan messanger aside) are a 1/1. This literally reads, Tap: Commence insanity. A rules question though: If I tap this, and in reponse untap it with ranger, and tap it again, will all 1/1 creatures become 2/3 or will the Elder triggers stack and make all creatures 3/5? Nevertheless, I will do testing with this.

Whilst looking through a crap rare pile, I came across a card that solves Elvis' vulnerability issues. I haven't done testing with it, but you bet I will.

Lightning Coils.

[Sharpfang]

Played in a Local Tourney (28 Players) with this Deck List

4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndron Elves
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Priest of Titiana
4 Gempalm Strider
4 Tribal Forcemage
2 Viridian Zealot
3 Elvish Champion
4 Sylvan Messenger
2 Masticore

3 C. Crossroads
3 Shared Truimph

6 Fecthes
2 Savannah
4 Gaea's Cradle
4 Forest

Sideboard

4 Abolsute Law
3 Naturalize
3 Gaea's Blessing
4 Tormod's Crypt
1 Masticore


Rd 1 play against UGw Threshold. I win in 3 due to me drawing 10 lands and 4 spells in game 1

Rd 2 play the Madness Deck that won the Championship. Smash him 2 straight turn 5 both games

Rd 3 Drew with Friend

Rd 4 Goblins with White I loss 2 straight I mulled to 4 game 2.

Rd 5 High Tide I win in 3. Game 1 I mull to 4 and had Lethal on turn 5, he combos easily. Game 2 my 3 Blessing made his comboing on turn 3 harded. Game 3 Turn 4 he couldn't combo off know that I had 3 Blessing.

I made top 8.

I have to play my friend in top 8, he's playing High Tide.
Same thing happens as Last round. I conside to him since he had a better chance to beat Goblins. He lost.

Sorry for this being all over the place. I'm typing this quickly.

[raudo]

I just can't make this deck work.

This deck needs so much an elf that would give haste to your creatures. Problems with concordant crossroads are:
- it is not an elf
- it stucks in your hand if drawing more than 1
- it could help your opponent

I tried without crossroads, but I didn't like the outcome either. Then the second problem: Elvish Spirit Guide
- this deck needs quick mana, but the card is not an Elf. It is a Spirit. I tried to replace it with Elves of Deep Shadow, Caller of the Claw, Wirewood Herald, Llanowar Sentinel and Multani's Acolyte. With no success, I often got totally mana screwed when mana elves got burned.

And then the mana base:
Land Grand and Fetchlands, maybe crop rotation, pendelhaven:
- I just don't get them work

I think there should be a bit randomness in this kind of deck, though. Maybe 1 Caller of the Claw main decked, 1 Deranged Hermit, maybe even 1 Bounty of the Hunt or similar protection spell.

This is my core and I think it is generally agreed:

4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndron Elves
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Priest of Titiana
4 Gempalm Strider
4 Tribal Forcemage
4 Sylvan Messenger

Hmm.. I think some day I should generate a list of all possible card choices for this deck. Any new ideas?

[PunkRocker1134]

Whilst looking through a crap rare pile, I came across a card that solves Elvis' vulnerability issues. I haven't done testing with it, but you bet I will.

Lightning Coils.

Don't Caller of The Claw work much better considering it is an Elf?

Edit: to go into more detail on my statement: yes Lightnign Coil saves you from spot removal but it is much harder to find then Caller Of The Claw. Sicne Caller is an elf if they kills Herald you can find it. Plus its easier to fidn with Sylvan Messanger. Lightning Coil is much more diffcult to find. Another strike against coil is they see it comign and can remove it. Which can be a godo thing because they are usign a disenchant on that instead of Concordant Crossroads, which if it matters, I think is very much needed.

[Rastadon]

Punk: Some ways yes, some ways no. Turns 1 and two, I don't have 3 mana to spare to provide Caller backup. Plus, Callers' only good for mass removal and suck against spot removal. Coils solves both of these problems and has the added bonus of being effective AFTER a resolved plague and having amazing synergy with Gaea's Cradle and Tribal Forcemage. One trick with this deck is after you resolve Caller and get a couple of bears, if you have cradle out, you can power out a forcemage and name bears. I'm trying to test it against matchups that would normally be nightmares for me, but I can't find decent playtest partners. I'll sign up for the next mws tourney and tell how it goes.

Raudo: What I don't like about Crossroads is that it accelerates you only when you were going to win quickly without it anyway. If you get stuck with it in a hand of llanowar/fynhorn elves, it sucks. There is an elf that provides "haste" for mana called Birchlore Rangers. It sets you up big for the next turn, probably not what you're looking for. Just some food for thought: maybe crossroads in the sb?

I can't really say much about your mana troubles since I don't know what your manabase is. I wouldn't run more than 1 Pendlehaven since the ability isn't stellar and it's legendary.

[raudo]

Raudo: What I don't like about Crossroads is that it accelerates you only when you were going to win quickly without it anyway. If you get stuck with it in a hand of llanowar/fynhorn elves, it sucks. There is an elf that provides "haste" for mana called Birchlore Rangers. It sets you up big for the next turn, probably not what you're looking for. Just some food for thought: maybe crossroads in the sb?

I can't really say much about your mana troubles since I don't know what your manabase is. I wouldn't run more than 1 Pendlehaven since the ability isn't stellar and it's legendary.

Hmm.. I prefer Elves of Deep Shadow over Birchlore Rangers. I think the haste provided by concordand crossroads is needed, cause you can go off one turn earlier and don't run into wrath, humility, pernicious deed or *sigh* engineered plague.

About my mana base, I have tried without fetchlands using land grand. I have tried combinations with 4-8 fetches and 4-8 forests. 4 Gaea's Cradle is naturally must. Some prefer crop rotations which I haven't find very good. Usually I use 1 Pendelhaven.

[Rastadon]

Woah. No wonder why you're running into problems. You gotta increase your land count. If you starve yourself on lands, you rely on your creatures more as mana sources. You rely on your creatures more, the more devastating creature kill is. The more devastating creature kill is, the more baby seals are killed per day. In short, think of the baby seals.

I run about 10 forests, 4 fetches, 1 pendle and 3 cradles. I trust your judgment on the # of cradles, but you have to up the # of forests.

Punk: I wasn't suggesting it to entirely replace herald and caller, just as a sideboard option. A points you made was that you couldn't find Coils off of a messanger. True, but if I have the mana to play messanger I'm usually under the protection of Herald/Caller anyway. I don't really use my messangers for utility, Caller or Coils. As for the fact that Herald can get Caller but not Coils, I would typically side out 3 heralds for 3 Coils, so it amounts to the same amount of protection.

Coils can also be blown up by disenchant/naturalize, but white and green are slow rolling control colors, so Caller is better than coils anyway for that. Black drops hate quickly, so coils is better for those matchups.

[raudo]

Woah. No wonder why you're running into problems. You gotta increase your land count. If you starve yourself on lands, you rely on your creatures more as mana sources. You rely on your creatures more, the more devastating creature kill is. The more devastating creature kill is, the more baby seals are killed per day. In short, think of the baby seals.

I run about 10 forests, 4 fetches, 1 pendle and 3 cradles. I trust your judgment on the # of cradles, but you have to up the # of forests.


Yeah, of course I forgot to say that I have used ESGs and sometimes Land Grants.

Currently the deck is something like this:

4 Gaea's Cradle
6 Forest
1 Pendelhaven
5 Fetchland
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
(20)

4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndron Elves
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Priest of Titiana
4 Gempalm Strider
4 Tribal Forcemage
4 Sylvan Messenger
4 Bloodline Shaman
(core 36)

2 Timberwatch Elf
1 Caller of the Claw
1 Deranged Hermit
(random 4)

Concordant Crossroads dropped to SB against combo or certain mass removal

[Rastadon]

I'd swap the 4 ESG's for lands. ESG is great when you already have lands to work with and ESG lets you play something more advanced. For instance, 1st turn priest is better than 1st turn Llanowar. But if you're flat out replacing the lands with ESG's, it's gonna be bad because ESG's aren't permanent mana sources. Rely on lands more. They're the only stable thing in the deck.

[Funlicker]

Ok so I'm not the most competetive mtg player so please don't bash and hate on me. I don't usually post on forums so this probably isn't goin to be the most thought out post. This thread caught my eye because it seems that most of the elf decks here run similar to mine.

I believe that the core to this type of aggro/combo elf deck should be:
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Priest of Titania
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewod Symbiote
4 Sylvan Messenger
4 Bloodline Shaman

So with all these 4 of's we don't have alot of room to work with, but first letme explain why I think these cards should be staples. The deck needs to play out as fast as possible. This means that It needs mana accelerates, so Llanowar Elves, Fyndhorn Elves, Priest of Titania are auto includes I think we all agree. The combo itself is basically draw alot of elves, play alot of elves, swing for alot of damage. So in order to successfully complete most of the combo we need a drawing engine. I find Sylvan Messenger alone not sufficient. I believe that Bloodline Shaman is by far a better card than Sylvan Messenger and since they both have amazing synergy with wirewood symbiote they should be the basics to are draw engine. Quirion Ranger and Wirewood Symbiote are here to provide enormous amounts of mana and to enable us to repeat our drawing engine over and over.

Now I've already stated that I'm not the most competetive player. That being said it's obvious I don't go to many tournaments, or get many chances to test my decks. I also don't test on MWS. Testing my deck against my janky hometown meta isn't really goin to provide any results. So most of my deck is based off speculation. IMO it's still a very good decklist, but it isn't perfect and I'd like to fine tune it. So without further ado here is my list:

The Legend of Elves:

(the core)
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Priest of Titania
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Bloodline Shaman
4 Sylvan Messenger

(the kill)
4 Gempalm Strider
4 Tribal Forcemage

(the "should these belong or not? cards"
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Concordant Crossroads
2 Multani’s Acolyte

(the lands)
2 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Gaea’s Cradle
1 Pendelhaven
5 Forest

------
Sideboard
------
4Wirewood Herald
2 Caller of the Claw
4 Root Maze
3 Viridian Zealot (naturalize?)
2 Pithing Needle

Considerations:
Aether Vial
White splash for Swords to Plowshare and Armageddon
City of Solitude
Skyshroad Poacher

Um.. So basically I'm playing ESG over Elves of Deep Shadow because it just plays better IMO. Concordant crossroads is being debated, but remember that crossroads basically allows you to win a turn earlier. So taking out crossroads costs you a turn. Multani's Acolyte has some synergy and proved to be quite handy more than once.. I like it. I play 3 gaea's because drawing 2 might suck. The sideboard probably needs work.. blah blah blah whats new? Oh and the "considerations" column is a list of cards and ideas people have given me in the past couple weeks.

I think the problems with this type of elves is that we don't have much disruption and we aren't very resiliant vs. removal. This deck consistantly goes off turn four and can go off turn three, but is that fast enough?

Anyways I hope you like it and all.. have fun ^_^

[raudo]

This deck seems quite similar to mine, actually I may have played exactly the same deck. Multani's Acolyte is good for draw, but maybe you should really try out 1 or 2 Timberwatch Elf. Take out one crossroads or one crossroads and one acolyte to see if you like Timberwatch. He has been really good against aggros and is almost the only threat outside the combo.

[Funlicker]

Ya I'll definately try those out. I've already considered them, cause they seem like a really good answer to sharpshooter.

[BiscuitVader]

What about: Primal Forcemage
I think he would make the race against Solidarity easier.

With Wirewood Hivemaster, you make 4/4 Bugs rather than 1/1s.
Yes, its only for a turn, but still... With CC, you can swing for a bunch.

Pendelhaven Elder also seems good.
But less so.

[raudo]

Primal Forcemage definitely has good synergy with Concordant Crossroads, but I think Timberwatch is better for the same cc. I really don't find room in this deck to both Hivemasters and Primal Forcemages. Do you have playtested with PFs?

[Rastadon]

I'm willing to say pretty confidently that Primal Forcemage is not good for this deck. It only functions as a mass pump spell if you're comboing off with Crossroads. Otherwise, it has no uses. And keep in mind that you don't have to combo off with Crossroads, it's just great when you do.

Now, Timberwatch Elf I'd gladly take over that because when you're going to win it's great, and when you have a small task force of mostly irrelevant Elves. Also does something vs aggro and removal.

[Funlicker]

I know this thread is dead, but I thought maybe some elf loves out there would like to know that: Green Anthem in PC can be a descent mono-green answer to engineered plague. Also, Pendelhaven becomes a nuisance, sometimes it stops you from comboing with quirion ranger. If you play a low land count I suggest no pendelhaven.

[Zach Tartell]

I know this thread is dead, but I thought maybe some elf loves out there would like to know that: Green Anthem in PC can be a descent mono-green answer to engineered plague. Also, Pendelhaven becomes a nuisance, sometimes it stops you from comboing with quirion ranger. If you play a low land count I suggest no pendelhaven.

Elvish champion > gaea's anthem.

[Funlicker]

It's alot ezier to remove an elvish champion, which puts you in the same boat... dead elves. If they're playing plague they probably have spot removal. I'd think anthem would buy more time for you to fetch a naturlize, or even better a viridian zealot since it doesn't get sent to the grave with messenger and it doesnt die to plague due to anthem. (of course playing zealots would be risky considering you don't have anthem in play, you wouldn't be able to destroy plague.)

[Bongo]

If you want an answer to Plague, Tranquil Domain is the way to go.

[Rastadon]

Gaea's anthem is a possibility, it's harder to remove than Elvish Champion (nothing says awful like rebuilding an army of 1/1's under the protection of Champion only to have the entire team bite the dust when STP hits champion), but don't forget that the same situation can happen with enchantment removal. THere's less enchantment removal than creature removal, but I'll go out on a limb and say the best solution to plague is a format change. Plague isn't a problem for me these days because the decks that used to pack plague don't exist anymore. I don't see B/W Confidant anymore, or Truffle Shuffle, or Rock, or any of the black control decks because combo is driving them out.

And I'll say this once and for all, there is no wide sweeping answer to plague. A first turn plague off a dark ritual is a different case to crack than a late game plague when you have multiple Priests going. I can tell you that late game plague is not a problem if you've got the Herald into Caller plan, but early game plague can only be treated by enchantment removal. Different times call for different solutions. But correct me if I'm wrong, are people still playing it? I'm not seeing it.

[Funlicker]

I'm not really seeing much engineered plague either.. I was just trying to throw out possibilities for people who do see it ^_^. Anyway.. since people actually still read this thread, maybe you guys could check my list.

Staples (imo):
4 Llanowar
4 Fyndhorn
4 Priest
4 Ranger
4 Symbiote
4 Messenger
4 Gempalm
4 Forcemage

Other goodies:
4 Bloodline Shaman (honestly, this guy helps big, he fixes bad draws creating a more consistent 4th turn)
2 Multani's Acolyte (this guy has synergy with symbiote, like a lesser messenger, he can draw up concordant crossroads too, i love him haven't found a better replacement)
4 ESG'S (duh)
4 Concordant Crossroads (duh)

6 fetch
5 forest
3 cradle

It's the best I've come up with and I've been playing it forever. I really just don't see much room for improvement, but I could be wrong. (pendelhaven recks the ranger)

I need help with a sideboard though. Some cards choices I have in mind...

Herald
Caller
Pithing Needle
Tormod's Crypt
Naturalize
Viridian Zealot
Anthem
Champion
Rootmaze
Winter Orb

Thank you.

[Rastadon]

Maindeck:
You're right about pendelhaven if you 4x it. I run 1 copy with it and I'm very happy with it. Its non-forest quality is very rarely an issue.

Why the fetches? There's no reason to run them. You're not fixing a color, and the shuffle feature has no purpose in the deck. And the deck thinning purpose is rather inconsequential.

With all those non-combat oriented creatures in the deck I'd think that if you don't get comboing quick enough Goblins are gonna beat you senseless. I think that if you cut 2 of each mass pump elf to include 2 elvish vanguard and 2 timberwatch elf you can stop them from attacking you, buying the time for you to combo off. See which ones you like.

Just a thought, since this IS a combo deck, could you use Wirewood Herald as a tutor to get your combo pieces? Or does Bloodline do this well enough?

sideboard:
I don't know much to say except that Winter Orb was best against the heavy mana decks like Rifter and Truffle Shuffle and they're long gone now.

[Funlicker]

I've ran 1 copy of pendelhaven plenty of times, and have gotten screwed with 1-3x rangers that can't abuse their ability. And for the thinning, it might be retardedly little, but the point is to draw as many elves with messenger as possible, so I'm goin to try my best.

I could try some timberwatch to stop fast aggro decks such as goblins, but I combo out 4th turn consistently so it hasn't been to much of a problem. Btw has anyone ran a list with a high chance of goin off 3rd turn?

Bloodline shaman is a combo-oriented piece in the deck. I've gotten crazy draws off her. On third turn I usually can tap her 3 times and get w/e I need and go off 4th. But most of the time I don't need to abuse here ability, cuz with all the 4ofs the deck is highly consistent. I'll try herald, but vs combo and such where herald has no sacing outlet he'll be a dead 1/1 for 1G. I really think herald should just be a board card, in which case if it's neccasary I can run them over shamans.

[Rastadon]

If you always combo out turn 4, then yeah you don't need stalling devices like Vanguard and Timberwatch.

Let me know what you decide about the sideboard. I've never been fully happy with mine. Mine as of right now is...

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [ON] Wirewood Herald
SB: 2 [LE] Caller of the Claw
SB: 3 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [MR] Glissa Sunseeker
SB: 3 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [TE] Root Maze

Everything is pretty much self explanatory, except for the Heralds and the Callers. Slow-rolling control decks are slipping out of the format, but just to be safe I have two heralds maindeck, and a herald and 2 callers in the sideboard so I can consistently go Herald into caller should they come back.

[Funlicker]

I don't run main deck heralds, but I've always been happy boarding 3 heralds and 2 callers, alot of people like to go 4-1 though. My sb is fairly similar to yours, ehh never really been happy with mine.

3 Wirewood Herald
2 Caller of the Claw
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Root Maze
3 Pithing Needle

Not sure what to add for the last 2. I was considering 2 champions vs engineered plague, considering you can draw up champions with messenger. But I don't run into alot of plagues, and If I start to I have to board 3-4 Naturalize aswell.

[Rastadon]

Pretty sure this is just a careless error, but I'm counting 14 cards for your sideboard right now, not 13.

I'm liking Champions. Their p/t boost is irrelevant because it doesn't put them out of range of removal or most of the creatures of the format, but forestwalk is nice, let me tell ya. I think Naturalize or Krosan Grip is just a nice all around answer that solves a lot of stuff.

Have you tried out Root Maze? The main reason why I wanted to try it was that it absolutely wrecks fetchlands...It'll take you tree turns to get mana from a fetchland. But you run them and Root Maze...why? And especially as a combo deck you need your mana quick.

[Funlicker]

I guess Rootmaze was a bad call, maybe I'll run winter orbs? I don't get to tweak my board much, cause I don't play to often. Anyway, my friend next door built some janky deck with removal and pyroclasms, and it totally wrecked my Elves. He'd burn my first couple llanowar's/priests/ect.. so I didn't have the mana to even think about dropping a caller in response. Heralds didn't help much either, anything I fetched up would die anyway. Any suggestions to keep it mono-green and beat clasm and early burn?

Oh and I added a single pendelhaven back in my deck, I didn't win but it and symbiote helped out a bunch vs. some burn.

[Rastadon]

Yeah...burn and burn-esque decks are an absolute nightmare. Try out Lightning Greaves. While it won't protect all of your creatures, it'll protect the really important creatures like Priest and Bloodline Shaman. That should give you the time to find caller. And haste is always great. If you want more protection you can run Steely Resolve but that shuts you off from Ranger and Symbiote.

[Cabal_chan]

Yeah...burn and burn-esque decks are an absolute nightmare. Try out Lightning Greaves. While it won't protect all of your creatures, it'll protect the really important creatures like Priest and Bloodline Shaman. That should give you the time to find caller. And haste is always great. If you want more protection you can run Steely Resolve but that shuts you off from Ranger and Symbiote.

You can try Dense Foliage. It saves your creatures from pin point removal, though not abilities, for one extra colorless. But burn and its related don't run very many permanents with abilities, do they? Or at least enough to disrupt you. Though if they picking of your creatures, all that burn is pointed at your head.

[Funlicker]

O.o I will try them both thank you.

[burkey_boy]

Sorry if I am digging up the past. But i havent really updated this in a while. I think elves have a potential, they die really easily, but they can smash for so mauch so quickly.

here is a list:

4 Bloodline Shaman
4 Borial Druid
3 Elvish Champion
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Gempalm Strider
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Priest of Titania
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Sylvan Messenger
4 Tribal Forcemage
4 Wirewood Symbiote

Lands
8 Forest
4 Gaea's Cradle
1 Pendelhaven
4 Windswept Heath

Only thing bad about it is that it dies to just about anything with mass removal.

Thoughts?

[DS2]

What are you gonna do against rifter?
put in some naturalize in SB

[Rastadon]

Burkey boy: 4 Cradles are kind of overkill don't you think? You could get away with them if you had crop rotations.

Another point. You have so much stuff you don't need. 8 +2/+2 spells, plus 3 +1/+1 elves, and 8 card drawing engines? You could easily get away with cutting some pump spells for Crop Rotations, or Concordant Crossroads, or Lightning Greaves, or Elvish Vanguard, or Timberwatch Elf, or anything you want really. And you wouldn't be sacrificing your ability to get a pump spell, because of the ridiculous redundancy you have.

And don't worry about rifter. Rifter is dead. Couldn't stop combo, so it's long gone.