Printable View
The life drain elf is direct hate on miracles. The twin-elf duder is awesome vs attrition based stategies and can help generating an extra body in combo turns (with heritage/birchlore). Both are uncanny with wirewood.
Like I said tho, I'm gonna run the both as 1-ofs, no more...no less.. If they suck, I'll take them out. Deck is fine in its current state, but getting awesome new toys is always exciting.
I disagree with both. The Elf is draining 1 without a board so the term "hate" is misplaced and the deck isn't "fine" in time current state if it gets mauled by a large potion of the metagame.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shagstaman
I'm not disagreeing with you, but would you care to elaborate on how exactly we are getting mauled by a large portion of the meta game? Is it mostly related to Dig Through Time? Is it because Miracles is one of the top 2 most popular decks and they have access to Terminus? Is there some kind of card effect that we need that can propel us back into the realm of tier 1 decks? I've been out of the game for a little over a year and I just want a little insight into what happened that made this deck so much less relevant than it was when I last played.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Shaman of the Pack can also be good against deck with Glacial Chasm when you don't have a deathrite shaman active
Miracles, OmniTell, Storm, Lands, Infect, etc. all mark a very good game 1 against Elves with this decks natural prey fallen a bit from grace since Khans and the printing of TC & DTT. I've talked about my take on improving game 1s a few pages before :)Quote:
Originally Posted by matty
Thank you for pointing me in the right direction. This explains the 4 Krosan Grips I've been seeing in some popular Elves players' sideboards lately. Looking through your recent forum posts I was also quite happily surprised to see that the couple play sets of Heritage Druids I have have skyrocketed in price.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
I won't give up on this deck just yet though as I have no real intentions on playing in any tournaments larger than the 8 or so people we get at my local store and this newish Grixis Delver deck seems to be the deck of choice for 60% of the field there.
Seeing Evolutionary Leap made me think of the following engine:
3 Evolutionary Leap
4 Wirewood Hivemaster
4 Dwynen's Elite
It generates tons of tokens which in turn can be turned into creatures, helping assemble the BFF team w/ multiple Symbiotes which in turn lead to a lot of cards and NO->Craterhoof FTW.
The build would look roughly like this:
14 Land
4 Cradle
1 Dryad Arbor
3 Evolutionary Leap
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
3 Natural Order
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Glimpse of Nature
3 Elvish Visionary
3 Birchlore Rangers
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
3 Deathrite Shaman
4 Green Sun's Zenith
Uhm, I need help. I can't seem to fit the Hivemasters and Dwynen's Elite in, lol. I may have stumbled on the problem...
Also, to comment further on Dwynen's Elite - you only get the token when you have at least 1 other elf on the battlefield. So that doesn't really improve the flow of things.
Looks like there is a conceptual misunderstanding if you think there is a point in paying GG to sacrifice a token just to get the next topdeck Elf which also requires the enchantment, when you already have Glimpse & Visionary & GSZ around which do the same for a much lesser cost.Quote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
No talk about the 3BB etb kill creature Elf? I slowly get the idea that NO + Hoof are indeed no longer required if we get that spoiled with new topend options
Well, Elves! does have some consistency issues when compared to anything running the blue shell. Being able to improve upon that would seem like a nice idea. But I can't make it fit. It doesn't seem better then what we're running now. It never hurts to try though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
On the other guy - lol. Just lol.
Evolutionary Leap could have some application against sweepers I suppose: in response to Terminus I reload my hand. It is a lot more reactive than Sylvan Library which it would be competing with so I don't think it will be able to crack the sideboard.
Yeah, because Elves is a deck which opts to keep 3+ mana open just to respond to termimus just to see the replacement stuck in counterbalance.Quote:
Originally Posted by QBChaz
Get ready for the Grindtasm!Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
http://mythicspoiler.com/ori/cards/giltleafwinnower.jpg
This kills: Flipped Delver, Vendillion Clique, SFM, 'Goyf, Tasigur, Bob, Young Pyromancer. Anything else?
This can't: be found by GSZ (or NO).
To forgo NO and pursue this grindy approach and to become the midrange mess we see in other formats seems possible. We would lose our "oops I win" NO > 'Hoof factor but that is best against our good matchups anyway. It is way outside of my box for this deck. I have been playing it less than 2 years so came to it as a Natural Order deck as opposed to a Glimpse combo deck. If we begin incorporating things like this guy I think we become more like Modern Elves and including things like Ezuri. I don't think that's where I want to be with the deck.
I don't think it is good either but that would be its application. I can't imagine using it for anything else. Plus, I would be drawing to one of my three MD Sages :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Sadly no "G" Elf so no more discussion needed....the ability is "ok" because it hits a lot of legacy targets (most of them also get hit by decay), but it doesn't hit stuff like Show&Tell into Grisel/Emrakul or 20/20 Tokens etc. and we have more problems with the unfair stuff than a gofy or stoneforge etc. - afterall you invest 5 (which is a lot / and it has BB!) mana for a meaningless Body (yeah 4 Power, but 3 thoughness is the real deal here if you invest 5 Mana and speak about a Beater...), his "evasion" isn't needed most of the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by QBChaz
I would talk about it (maybe we can dismiss decay in the future) if it would be a BG (black because it "kills" stuff) Elf for 2-3 Mana to get an early (Delver) tool with upside ability (tutorable/bounce/protection etc.) compared to decay. As a 3BB card i don't see it in legacy elves, which is ok because we get some other stuff for brewing.
EDIT: Lemnear said all about Evolutionary Leap - it will not work with Elves in the current meta
Hope you are open-minded enough for kind of a new list for Legacy...
4 Gaea's Cradle
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Cavern of Souls
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Collected Company
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Heritage Druid
3 Nettle Sentinel
3 Quirion Ranger
2 Shaman of the Pack
1 Birchlore Rangers
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Wren's Run Packmaster
1 Regal Force
At the moment I'm not sure about Ezuri and Regal Force. 19 or 20 lands with or without Pendelhaven? Distribution of Dwynen's Elite and Shaman of the Pack. And so on...
But Dwynen's Elite is really better than I thought. Elite -> Cradle, Heritage Druid, Symbiot -> Value.
And so is Collected Company! To cast CoCo in opponent's turn after you untapped some dudes is like time walk, carddraw and tutor at once.
Any thoughts on this?
I dunno how to respond to "Ezuri", "Regal Force" and "Collected Company is like time walk, carddraw and tutor at once" other than with another rap...
FUCK, YES!!! Why cast NO for Craterhoof when you can cast Collected Company? And Glimpse of Nature is for pussies! Who in their right minds want to draw half their deck on turn 2/3 for 1 mana..? Lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by lemnear
Yes. Sorry to be such a dick, but when did you plan on winning the game..? And what are the upsides of your build when compared to the regular build? Try to explain why one would run that build over what we already have :smile:. Which problems of the current build does it solve, what things does it do better and so on?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lighning Bebbi
There are different reasons why Collected Company can be better than NO:Quote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
- Natural Order getting countered is much more annoying than anything else.
- You need more slots for the NO plan.
- less dead draws (Can't you remember games losing with some Orders/Behemoths in your hand?)
- multiple NOs aren't that good...
- instant speed!
-> can response to Priest/Cage and stuff
-> can be cast in your opponent's turn after untapping Elves with Ranger/Symbiot.
-> best card to comeback after Terminus, since you still can flood 4 mana.
@ Lemnear: "~time walk" -> use your manasources twice, "~carddraw" -> get two for one and "~tutor" -> search top 6
The list isn't as explosives as the regular build is for sure! But it is still explosive enough to pile increasing pressure against your opponent. You are more addicted to find your Insects for Elites and Visionary as well as for your Shaman of the Pack for the kill. But the Shaman isn't the only wincondition as you might have seen. I try to compensate Glimpse and Craterhoof with Regal Force and Ezuri. Not sure if it is correct or even necessary. But I guess I don't need the Force.Quote:
when did you plan on winning the game..? And what are the upsides of your build when compared to the regular build?
I expected some reactions like yours...
I got to say: THIS is a approach - no claim to be super overpowered yet.
If you don't see any upsides, it's fine for me. But if you have any more ideas or suggestions, just let me know.
To echo Echelon's question: When do you plan to win the game? The current NO-centric Elves builds already do well against most any fair deck in the format (ie. ones where you can interact with block+bounce shenanigans in the red zone), especially if you play Packmaster/Progenitus in your 75, because those cards wreck normal boardstates like nobody's business. Beating midrange or tempo decks is not the problem, it's not something that needs to be solved.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lighning Bebbi
Elves, as a deck, has three core issues that need solving if you want to take the deck to the next level:
1. It only natively interacts on the board. If the opposing deck does bad things on the stack fast (combo) or can stop your bad things and do their own overwhelming evil things that can only really be dealt on the stack (Entreat from Miracles) you're shit out of luck.
1b. It does not compensate for this with enough speed - it's about as fast as ANT but without the maindeck disruption integrated. This is fine in fair matchups, but in combo mirrors it is very troublesome because the opponent can slow you down and you can't slow him down.
2. The core engines have immense tension with each other and with the best potential hate cards to solve problem 1. (eg. Glimpse wants creatures in hand, GSZ/NO in play, they all want you to play lots of creatures which clashes with sideboarded discard against combo and the search effects clash with Gaddock Teeg).
3. The deck is prone to suffering a bunch of splash damage from hate cards intended for things like Young Pyromancer and Death & Taxes.
Now ask yourself, does your build solve any of these issues, esp. 1 or 2? It doesn't. You still need to play a crapton of small green creatures to get anything done, and small green creatures don't generally answer Problems 1 and 2, so you still have Glimpse's issues. Furthermore, Collected Company ALSO has all the same issues as NO/GSZ do in that it's expensive and Teeg shuts it down, as well as leaving you vulnerable to hate cards like Containment Priest. The only real problem Collected Company solves is Aven Mindcensor, which is marginal at best.
Except Elves! isn't the deck that wants to wait with casting their stuff. And if your opponent is keeping the FoW in his/her hand for your NO and you try to resolve CC on his end step, why wouldn't your opponent FoW that..?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lighning Bebbi
Also, you fail to answer the question on how your build solves problems of the current build.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lighning Bebbi
What would you people think that is the best build for this gp lille?
It's a bit late to ask here, no? I mean you can just ask the players at the GP directly. Edit: in addition, I already answered that question Weeks agoQuote:
Originally Posted by elFinFas
Yeah, yeah, just go and rap already, you silly gangster.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
I have a GP to play, doodQuote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
So disappointing. Real gangstas can play and rap, dammit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
If you happen to get in a futured match, do all communication with your opponent in rap or rhyme will you? Would be funny as hell.
Good luck at the GP man!
Best of luck to everyone who will be battling through in Lille with the little green men. I am gutted not to be able to get there myself. May Titania be with you!
That said: I expect some Top 8 action! Bring it on!
Also green men, just a different tribe, I fearQuote:
Originally Posted by QBChaz
With the recent trend of talking about bad cards for the deck, I started thinking about what this deck needs to compete better.
It seems that with the popularity of miracles and omnitell, we're in a bad spot. I got bored and started daydreaming about what cards need to be printed to be able to make the cut for this deck since our 75 is so tight. I came to 2 ideas that may make the cut:
Choke on a Stick
Creature - Elf Shaman
Cost - 1G
P/T - 1/2
Islands don't untap during their controllers untap phase
Flavor text: something about the forest taking back it's land
Green Akroma
Creature - doesnt matter
Cost - doesnt matter, just green and be natural orderable
P/T - 6/6 or better
Lifelink, Protection from White or Hexproof/shroud
I feel like if something similar to those 2 cards get printed, we're in good shape. One for blue decks, and the other as a target where you need to race fair decks but it dodges path and can give you life, unless Progenitus.
Or Dig Through Time can get banned.
tl;dr: I'm just wishing on cards because im bored and want elves to be good again :(
Those'd be better if they used a construction similar to gods. Creatures when in the library so you can tutor for them, enchantments on the board when you don't have enough devotion (or something similar). Otherwise you still get f'd by Terminus.
Yeah, we would need things that could remain on the board after a Terminus. That is partly what WR Packmaster does because it has a "leaves the battlefield" trigger. Those are really the only kind of effects that can live through Terminus.
Vengevine takes advantage of cheap creatures and bouncers. Evolutionary Leap takes advantage of cheap creatures and surplus mana. Evolutionary Leap protects Vengevine from exiling or tucking removal. Vengevine kills JtMS. Evolutionary Leap comes down T2. Vengevine trades with angel tokens. Evolutionary Leap and mana means a player would never run out of creature cards to cast with Glimpse, nor run out of creatures full stop in the face of removal. Vengevine is effectively uncounterable. Evolutionary Leap digs for Vengevine. Vengevine is tutorable off GSZ. Evolutionary Leap could really use creaures that recurs for free.
Shame about Elves not being able to run 3 separate engines, right? Right.
Well if we ever wanted to improve the Death and Taxes match-up (LOL):
http://mythicspoiler.com/ori/cards/e...htmassacre.jpg
The only problem with that is speed threat against combo, ie. you'd need to integrate disruption somehow. If that can be done somehow, it could be good.Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinitium
Evolutionary Leap is a good card in green creature synergy.dec allright. Don't even get me started on Wirewood Hivemaster. I guess it remains to be seen whether it's better than the multitude of good cards already available, but being a cheap in-colour enabler of busted shit you already want to be doing (eg flooding and protecting the board) speaks in its favour. Opposing combo is still a problem, but then again it always was. I mean consider this list:
ELVES: EVOLUTION
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacomb
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath
3 Forest
2 Bayou
1 Pendelhaven
4 Gaea's Cradle
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Quirion Ranger
4 Heritage Druid
1 Birchlore Rangers
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Wirewood Hivemaster
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Shaman of the Pack
1 Vengevine
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Evolutionary Leap
SIDEBOARD
More Vengevines, Reclamation Sages, Dwynen, Cabal Therapy, Surgical Extraction, Abrupt Decay, whatever.
Obviously the exact card ratios are of less importance. Evolutionary Leap works as a one-sided Fecundity and provides repleneshing chumpers. Pair it with the Vengevine and you have a card advantage engine that survives sweepers. With Hivemaster in play every elf you play starts repleneshing itself (with the potential of non-Glimpse elfball turns given cradle mana). Early game you threaten Glimpse -> win against noninteractive decks, and lategame fair decks will eventually be overrun by recurring card advantage. Shaman of the Pack remains pretty meh in my book but is the best win condition I can think of atm. It remains to be seen whether it can compete with the meta but given the synergies and the fact that every engine piece is a reasonably good card in its own right it does seem stronk indeed from a purely theoretical standpoint.
And how does switching NO's out for other "combo" cards improve consistency?
Near the top of this page, Zombie outlined a number of problems the Elves! deck currently has. Could you explain how your build improves on that? Or how it's better/faster/more efficient then the "Oops, I topdeck NO & win" you strip from the deck?
Evolutionary Leap suggested in Elves just shows that people do not understand the cards purpose at all and try to see similarities to Survival despite there are none except the casting and activation cost
P.S. Just for your Entertainment: I managed to lose against Elves this weekend via hilarious bad beat
That does entertain me!Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
And yeah, I know. I was just trying a friendly approach to get him to see that. You might want to do a rap on this one, though. Evolutionary Biscuits to go with the Ogre Tea?
I would agree with Echelon and Lemnear, although I do see one big advantage to Evolutionary Leap vs. Miracles. In response to Terminus, we can sac the team and fill our hand with a few guys to replay and maintain pressure. Vengevine becomes attractive under these circumstances, because we can sac it to avoid Terminus/Swords. Notice that it comes into play on casting of two creature spells, not playing them. This means we can get it into play even through Counterbalance. In this case, it actually does solve one of our two problems.Quote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
The question is how much do we lose versus the rest of the field in order to enact this plan. Is it worth potentially 4 sideboard or main deck slots?
-IM
You forget the part where you have to keep open N mana where N is the number of guys you want to save, turn after turn after turn.