[Deck] Elves Combo

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

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

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

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by theross

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Augustas

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by theross

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


The list I wanna test out is:

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

Instants (3):
3x Summoner's Pact

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by theross

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

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

---

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

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

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

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