Originally Posted by
Whitefaces
Elves can be tricky, they attack us from a couple of different angles and both deserve respect. I'll be honest and say I don't actually know if there is or what the consensus of sideboarding vs us is, I've had players board out Natural Orders, or bring in discard like Cabal Therapy and Thoughtseize to clear the way for them.
Their plans are either; clear the way for NO and Hoof us, or grind us with Visionary and Symbiote shenanigans etc usually. Nissa, Vital Force is fairly common too and can be tough to beat.
I change up the countermagic suite when boarding, but it changes based on the play/draw more than any other matchup. Their pivotal turn is usually three, sometimes four, so in respects to that I cut all Counterspells on the draw and keep all Force of Will, on the play I'll keep Counterspell and go down to two Force of Will. I generally bring in all copies of Flusterstorm, if you have three then you could probably shave a Counterspell on the play too, not 100% on this though. Although CS is technically live on their turn three, there's a good chance we need some more pieces of interaction, or cantrip to find Terminus, CS itself etc. It's not reliable enough to have naturally on turn two imo.
Predict is very good in the matchup, it can try to combat their grindy plan, but most importantly it's an instant speed way to draw a Terminus. It's not a cantrip as the poster above said, it's a CA tool with synergies in the deck. As a rule of thumb if I'm not siding out Terminus I won't side out Predict either, exceptions are something like Lake of the Dead Reanimator decks with Grave Titan I guess, there are some oddballs out there.
Shaving a Jace is good, he's great in the matchup but really as a followup to Terminus. He doesn't die often, so the two copies should be enough. As a general gameplan I'm trying to not die (heh) in the early turns, then curve into turn five with a Terminus into Jace. It sounds like wonderland, but with all our cantrips and them having to respect Terminus from us, it's not that hard to set up. It's an idea to play for at least, rather than just 'try to answer everything they do'.
I wouldn't board in CJ, it's slow and clunky, really the only good targets are Nissa and potentially Choke or Gaddock Teeg. Teeg is pretty uncommon as it hoses them a lot too, and Choke I sometimes hedge G2 by bringing in a Disenchant, depends how I feel. Priest and CB are great, good to board in, SV is fine. Bit slow, but it's a wrath vs the creature deck.
Regarding boarding out a land, I don't do it in this matchup. While they don't punish our mana at all, we can't afford to be using cantrips on hitting land drops generally imo, we need to dig for answers. I know some other players like to take out one though.
So I guess with your build, assuming you have at least two Flusters in the sb, I'd go something like.
OTP:
-2 FoW
-1 Jace
-1 CJ
-1 CS (it's fine otp as I said above, but I think the other options you have are better)
+2 Fluster
+1 Priest
+1 CB
+1 SV
OTD:
-1 Jace
-1 CJ
-2 CS
+2 Fluster (would also be bringing in a third otd if available
+1 Priest
+1 SV
There's a slight imbalance since you want the CB too, but maybe it's the card to not board in here. I'm not sure actually. Anyway, that's my thoughts on the MU, I'll get around to updating the google doc with Elves and some other matchups soon hopefully! Hope this helped.
