[Deck] Elves Combo

I have thought about putting an Archdruid among my 75, but it felt a little of "wasting" of SB space. I don't know.
(Maybe I could fit a Joraga Warcaller in it's place, since it does not "disrupt" a tight comboing).

So I thought it was better to run a Pendelhaven in place of a Forest, to have the possibility to Crop Rotate into a Pendelhaven and this way having a surprise defense.

But then, when I had the Crop Rotation in hand, I did not want to "waste" it to fetch a Pendelhaven, but wanted to hold it to get a Gaea's Cradle to try to combo.
(Or else, should I ALWAYS keep my Crop Rotation in hand, when facing Wasteland.decs, so that I can deceive his wastelanding?)

Anyway, I am following the discussions around here and I want to give a try to the Intuition-Vengevine plan (since I have never played with it, so at least I want to experiment it).

But in order to do so I need first to assemble the lacking pieces - or try to borrow it...

goblins is a bad matchup.

they immediately lose if you resolve an absolute law.

if goblins is present in the meta (it is) then you should play around 3 absolute laws.

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Originally Posted by Chrandersen

goblins is a bad matchup.

they immediately lose if you resolve an absolute law.

if goblins is present in the meta (it is) then you should play around 3 absolute laws.

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In one of my last two tournaments, I lost twice postboard against Goblins with Absolute Law on the battlefield, due to him having Krenko, Mob Boss creating a shitload of goblins. I sadly couldn't combo out in time.

Hi buddies,
I am new to Lagacy and become a fan of Elves! at first sight.

Sure I have an Elves! deck and it looks like this:

// Lands 14
4 Fetches
2 Savannah
2 Canvern of Soul
5 Forest
1 Gaea's Cradle

// well, let talk about this guy later:)
1 [FUT] Dryad Arbor

// Creatures
4 Llanowar Elves
1 Fyndhorn Elves

2 Quirion Ranger
2 Birchlore Rangers
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Heritage Druid
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Titania Priest

2 Mirror Entity
1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Regal Force
1 Eternal Witness
1 Viridian Shaman

// Spells
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Summor's Pact
1 Crop Rotation


I am still tweaking it now, and my concern is "do we really need 'Dryad Abor'? will a basic forrst be better? "
This concern comes from these facts:

1. The main purpose for 'Dryad Abor' is to enable us turn 1 'GSZ' --> 'Dryad Abor' , so we have 9 'llanowar elves' , and usually can open with '1 lander'.
2. We hate to see 'Dryad Abor' in our hand at any time.
3. yes, if we have 'Quirion Ranger' and fetch land in play, and 'Dryad abor' in our library, it can do something tricky.
but this trick doesnt benifit us a lot, it still hurts our mana base. If I also have symbiote in play, I wont choose this action.

Actually,if we open with 2 lands , we dont need 'Dryad Abor', that means we only want 'Dryad Abor' in this senario:
'we are open with one lander + we have GSZ in hand + we dont have llanowar elf/dryad abor in hand'.
And how about the possibility of the senario?

'one lander' --> combo(pick 1 from 14 lands) --> 14
'1 GSZ' --> combo(pick 1 from 4 GSZs) --> 4
'we dont have llanowar elf/dryad abor in hand' --> combo(pick 5 from other non-land/non-llanowr/non-GSZ/non-aryad cards = 60-13-5-4-1 ) --> C(37,5)
'our open hands possibliities' --> C(60,7)

So, P('1 land + 1 GSZ + we dont have llanowar elf/dryad abor in hand') = C(14,1)*C(4,1)*C(37,5)/C(60,7) = 0.063 ,
similarly, P('1 land + 2 GSZ + we dont have llanowar elf/dryad abor in hand') = C(14,1)*C(4,2)*C(37,4)/C(60,7) = 0.014 ,
and chance of '3or4 GSZ' is too samll, regard as 0:)

What a pity, we only have '0.077' chance to benefit from 'Dryad Abor'!
and the real sadness is: we have '0.117' chance to have it in our open hand ,
and even worse suppose we are on the play and now is turn 3 main phase, usaully we have drawed 5 cards (3 natural draw , 2 from 'visionary' + '' ),
now we have 20% chance to see 'Dryad Abor' in hand :(

If my calculation is correct, we suffer from 'Dryad Abor' more than we benefit from it,
So replace it with a 'Forest' or 'Birchlore Rangers' will be better?

May I have your opion?
Any comment is welcome, thank in advance :)

Even if your calculations are correct (I haven't checked them), there's still the possibility that the gain of having access to the arbor outweighs the loss of drawing it. That is, you'd have to multiply the probabilities with a gain/loss factor. I suspect that might be the case.

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Originally Posted by grizzlybears

May I have your opion?
Any comment is welcome, thank in advance :)

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Hey there! Welcome to Legacy and Welcome to Elves ;-)

I'm a long time legacy player, longer time elves player, got many tops with them, and almost all my comments here on the Source have been on this thread (haven't posted in over a year though).

There used to be a lot of discussion about Dryad Arbor, and I think that it is simply that type of decision that you have to make by yourself. The variety of targets you want to have for Zenith.

I'm personally completely against Dryad in Elves. I also play Maverick, where it is just such an amazing option always to have up the sleeve, but on this deck I find it completely unnecessary and annoying. Running between 4-6 "Llanowar" elves as is the general construction makes up for a nice chance of a first turn draw, and having the Birchlore/Nettle combo, which can also start with casting one of them first turn we are usually more than set with mana producers. The biggest problem with Dryad here is that we run such few lands, thus making it awful to draw a hand were she is our only one. Other than that I tested her for months, and I just felt so stupid too often wasting a GSZ on her.

Anyway, I really don't want to be too dense about this again. I just believe that you have to test and see what makes you feel more comfortable with your deck, knowing she is there, or knowing that she isn't. I personally think that we don't need a Dryad in our deck to teach our Elves how to use the magic of the forest to produce some mana. I think they are already born with the lesson learned ;-)

Don't forget that Dryad Arbor can also be used for further combat tricks with crop rotation. This comes in handy in any number of situations but most often when Jitte is online to save me a turn to combo. I'm not completely in love with Arbor but there have been a number of times when its been useful and its only 1 slot in the deck so I keep mine.

Dryad Arbor isnt a land its a spell. So your arbor 6 spell hands would be 7 spell hands, and just as unkeepable.

Having turn 1 llanowar is the best play the deck can make. You green sun for arbor ALOT. Its more than worth the slot.

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Originally Posted by Anselm

Even if your calculations are correct (I haven't checked them), there's still the possibility that the gain of having access to the arbor outweighs the loss of drawing it. That is, you'd have to multiply the probabilities with a gain/loss factor. I suspect that might be the case.

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Yes you are right,
I also need to messure the 'gain/loss factor' which can only be figured out by tons of duels :)

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Originally Posted by NihilObstat

Hey there! Welcome to Legacy and Welcome to Elves ;-)

I'm a long time legacy player, longer time elves player, got many tops with them, and almost all my comments here on the Source have been on this thread (haven't posted in over a year though).

There used to be a lot of discussion about Dryad Arbor, and I think that it is simply that type of decision that you have to make by yourself. The variety of targets you want to have for Zenith.

I'm personally completely against Dryad in Elves. I also play Maverick, where it is just such an amazing option always to have up the sleeve, but on this deck I find it completely unnecessary and annoying. Running between 4-6 "Llanowar" elves as is the general construction makes up for a nice chance of a first turn draw, and having the Birchlore/Nettle combo, which can also start with casting one of them first turn we are usually more than set with mana producers. The biggest problem with Dryad here is that we run such few lands, thus making it awful to draw a hand were she is our only one. Other than that I tested her for months, and I just felt so stupid too often wasting a GSZ on her.

Anyway, I really don't want to be too dense about this again. I just believe that you have to test and see what makes you feel more comfortable with your deck, knowing she is there, or knowing that she isn't. I personally think that we don't need a Dryad in our deck to teach our Elves how to use the magic of the forest to produce some mana. I think they are already born with the lesson learned ;-)

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Thank your reply , you let me know that at least I am not alone~

Wow , 142 pages of Elves! discuss , a priceless treasure to me , I need time to digest ^_^

´Sup guys! Ive been playing elves for quite a while now, thought I´d post my current list for some input (Let´s see if you can find the win condition. :P):

CREATURES (30)
3 Llanowar Elves
3 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Priest of Titania
1 Regal Force
2 Birchlore Rangers
1 Yeva, Nature’s Herald
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Scavenging Ooze

SORCERIES (10)
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
2 Primal Command
4 Glimpse of Nature

INSTANTS (4)
4 Summoner’s Pact

LANDS (16)
10 Forest
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Gaea’s Cradle

The caverns are a concession to miracles, and they improve the matchup a ton. If your meta is full of goblins, maverick and D&T, you might want to go down to 2 or 3 though. If you play nothing but combo, optimal speed is found by cutting: -1 Yeva -1 Ooze and adding: +1 Quirion +1 Birchlore.

Arbor is not a debate. You play one, no contest. Hands in any elves combo, without a turn 1 mana-guy, have to be very good in order to be kept (Matchup-dependent obv.).

100% agree with the previous poster. Dryad Arbor simply must be played in a competitive build. Ignore the times when you draw it as your only land and decide to mulligan. Sure that might be frustrating, but the same applies to Gaea's Cradle.

I am confident, and doubt many would disagree, that our win percentage is much higher in games where a t1 mana producer hits the board as opposed to games where it does not. Using the previous poster's list as an example, he has 3 Fyndhorn and 3 Llanowar. And of course he has a set of Green Sun's Zenith.

t1 mana guys with arbor in deck: 10
t1 mana guys with no arbor: 6

Why are we even talking about this?

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Originally Posted by Sack_outlet

´Sup guys! Ive been playing elves for quite a while now, thought I´d post my current list for some input (Let´s see if you can find the win condition. :P):

CREATURES (30)
3 Llanowar Elves
3 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Priest of Titania
1 Regal Force
2 Birchlore Rangers
1 Yeva, Nature’s Herald
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Scavenging Ooze

SORCERIES (10)
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
2 Primal Command
4 Glimpse of Nature

INSTANTS (4)
4 Summoner’s Pact

LANDS (16)
10 Forest
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Gaea’s Cradle

The caverns are a concession to miracles, and they improve the matchup a ton. If your meta is full of goblins, maverick and D&T, you might want to go down to 2 or 3 though. If you play nothing but combo, optimal speed is found by cutting: -1 Yeva -1 Ooze and adding: +1 Quirion +1 Birchlore.

Arbor is not a debate. You play one, no contest. Hands in any elves combo, without a turn 1 mana-guy, have to be very good in order to be kept (Matchup-dependent obv.).

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I can't find it... Are you planing to bounce all your opponents lands on top of their owners libraries? And then attack? I can't imagine that...

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Originally Posted by JanoschEausH

I can't find it... Are you planing to bounce all your opponents lands on top of their owners libraries? And then attack? I can't imagine that...

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Exactly. You cycle primal commands, gaining life and bouncing with the first one, shuffling your graveyard and bouncing with the second, life and bounce with the third etc...
I find it to be the best wincon by about a mile, since the commands add a lot of consistency to the deck, and have applications outside of winning. For example, gaining 7 and searching a dude is usually enough to beat RUG.

I dun't know... I playtested your deck and was hardly able to accumulate enough mana to cycle before i was dead in most cases.

Primal Command is just worse than Ezuri/Mirror Entity/Emrakul because the Command can't win you the game alone while Entity/Ezuri let you win very often just by attacking and pumping the team
Primal Command requires going off with Glimpse to win, the creatures can win by themselves

Anyone care to go into detail which versions do best in certain meta's, when things like summoner's pact and living wish deserve main deck slots, as well as some general side board advice on how many slot's each archtype/deck should have devoted, I can post my list if it helps but i'm currently in G/W with living wish so my board has been pretty clogged.

I'm playing Elves for a while - right now I'm running the mono green version, and I'm updating it to the GW version - but now I'm losing faith in the deck.
As many of you here said, there is the Miracle problem, and the metagame seems not to encourage to play Elves.

My question is this - Is it worth to continue to play with the deck in the present metagame, or the option for the Deck nowadays is simply not valid?

Hello everyone! I saw there were some discussions about the goblins matchup. I am a long time goblins player, but I like tribal decks and I want to start playing elves as soon as I can find the cards I need.
I'll give you some advices about the goblins matchup, hoping they can be useful.
Most goblins players run a sharpshooter main deck, and also a skirk prospector main deck. This means that the sharpshooter can land the battlefield on turn 2 if a lackey connects, or if a prospector was played on turn 1. Also, if a prospector and a sharpshooter are on the battlefield together, the sharpshooter can easily kill the elves lords or X/2 creatures.
A lot of goblins players are now splashing green for tin street hooligan main deck and krosan grip in the sideboard, so also absolute law could be answered by goblins. Someone who splashes black also play perish in sideboard. However, nowadays the most common splash is white for thalia and rest in peace.
Almost everyone has pyrokinesis in the sideboard.
But the biggest problem for elves players(unless you're running a mono-green list) is that goblins run wasteland and rishadan port.
All in all i think goblins vs elves is an even match, it really depends on the hands the players draw.

What's the latest de facto list for combo elves? I'm trying to complete my deck but I need to know which cards I'm missing.