[Primer] Elves!

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Originally Posted by PaulJordan

I think people should stop viewing Probe as deck thinning that can sometimes help me out by telling me what my opponent has and start viewing it as a spell that can give me vital information about my opponent's hand that has a cantrip which can be burned for card selection if necessary. It isn't really useful in multiples, though it isn't necessarily bad (minor negative in that you don't know the card you'll draw and you have to pay 2 life, minor positive in that you see an extra card or two from you what you saw from the first one). I'm guessing if you play these that 2 is the 'right' number, though obviously the more therapies you play the better they get.

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This is the point where I am trying to move the discussion to. PJ is pointing out the value of Probe. This is what the discussion is about: how do you value the +EV of knowing your opponent's hand vs the -EV of reduced consistency due to increased mulligans.

What I am saying is that I think Probe is a card that benefits Elves. As long as I can make "sure" that I don't have it in my opening hand. For now, it's 0 for me, but if you guys want to try 2, I'd be happy to hear about your results. 4 seems dangerous.

Also, with the amount of Burn being played on MODO, Probe is much more of a liability than anything else.

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Originally Posted by EluThingol

Your argument assumes that the Elves player is very stupid and is casting Blood Moon when he needs an active Cradle to win, or worse, is playing it against an opponent with Lightning Bolts when he has one mana dork as his only source of G.

In that case, yeah, casting Blood Moon is nonsense. But your position just boils down to saying that Blood Moon is bad because bad players will play it badly.

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No, my argument is that you really wanna battle Miracles, a deck which ran Blood Moon itselves at times, with Bloodmoon, despite all it's Basics and their ability to sweep your Elves with a single white mana, soft-locking you under your own Blood Moon? We have the same Problem if you look at Jean-Mary's Shardless BUG and it's basics paired with Golgari Charm and Toxic Deluge. I'm certain that this approach would get mauled in a European meta.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

No, my argument is that you really wanna battle Miracles, a deck which ran Blood Moon itselves at times, with Bloodmoon, despite all it's Basics and their ability to sweep your Elves with a single white mana, soft-locking you under your own Blood Moon? We have the same Problem if you look at Jean-Mary's Shardless BUG and it's basics paired with Golgari Charm and Toxic Deluge. I'm certain that this approach would get mauled in a European meta.

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Who said anything about Blood Moon against Miracles?

It's great against Delver, xBlade, MUD, Cloudpost decks that is obviously what he was aiming for. And he might be right since I think Choke is not very good against Miracles anyway and against all other decks almost Blood Moon is better than Choke.

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Originally Posted by Quizzlemanizzle

Who said anything about Blood Moon against Miracles?

It's great against Delver, xBlade, MUD, Cloudpost decks that is obviously what he was aiming for. And he might be right since I think Choke is not very good against Miracles anyway and against all other decks almost Blood Moon is better than Choke.

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Even if we ignore the question of "which Delver or which Blade?" as some run Basics and/or can ignore Bloodmoon as long as they drop T1/2 Delver and can still Fork Bolt or Lightning Bolt your manadorks, it remains highly questionable to dedicate that much SB space for fringe Decks like MUD or 12-Post, especially under the point of view, that the primer pretty much loses to Reclamation Sage + Wirewood without splashing a color and crippling your mana.

P.S. It was YOU who mentioned Miracles in the context of Blood Moon:

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Originally Posted by Quizzlemanizzle

I don't think Blood Moon is non-sense at all, it is absolutely valid. Who cares if your fetches, duals and Cradles are blocked? When you run it you go for forests first obviously and you don't need more than that to still operate while decks like Delver are drawing dead against a resolved blood moon. It's a metagame decision clearly.

I certainly think it is 100x better than Choke which I don't even think is any good against miracles since they only really need the blue mana to deploy counterbalance and beyond that their white source for terminus is more relevant.

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Originally Posted by Quizzlemanizzle

Who said anything about Blood Moon against Miracles?

It's great against Delver, xBlade, MUD, Cloudpost decks that is obviously what he was aiming for. And he might be right since I think Choke is not very good against Miracles anyway and against all other decks almost Blood Moon is better than Choke.

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Thing is: We win or go even in basically all fair matchups. The big problems are combo, Miracles and to an extent Delver. Blood Moon helps against Delver and the matchups we win against, but resolving a 3-drop vs. Delver is a bit of an iffy prospect IMO, especially since it doesn't actually deal with a flipped Delver which is Enemy #1 in those matchups. Meekstone mauls Delver decks and extra copies of Abrupt Decay solve Problem #1 giving us time to use our natural resource advantage to win, plus it's just plain useful in those even matchups and against Chalice decks and other random things.

Surely it's a nice idea for crushing some predicted metagame, but overall I'd rather focus on solving actual problems to the deck. If chosen smartly to provide edge against other decks (extra Decays, Null Rod / Needle / Surgical) they can help us not lose the edge in the nonproblematic matchups as well.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

P.S. It was YOU who mentioned Miracles in the context of Blood Moon:

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Read, I said Choke is in my opinion not even good against Miracles. I never said that Blood Moon is good against Miracles!

I don't think it makes sense devoting a lot of the sideboard to the Miracles matchups since they have many avenues that suck. I have not yet seen a reliable strategy to combat Terminus.

Counterbalance - you got Decay
Top - you got Needle and or null rod
Terminus - you got nothing - you have to look at super fringe cards like City of Solitude to stop it on your turn, Silence, Orim's 'Chant all which can be countered easily by using Top if they have the lock. Or even more weird cards that can force them to shuffle maybe to stop them from setting up the Terminus long term.

There are some ways to attack Counterbalance and Top with Abrupt Decay and Pithing Needle and Null Rod. There are some ways to attack Jace with PIthing Needle and there are ways to attack Entreat/Vclique with Meekstone if you can take the initial hit.

I have not yet seen someone come up with a specific miracle hoser. Even when you consider some completely out of the box things like maybe Winter Orb, Static Orb.

If you had Meekstone, Pithing Needle and Blind Obedience printed in one artifact or enchantment you could hose them by shutting down Clique, Jace and Entreat and forcing a bounce spell.

At that point you are watering down your deck a lot and probably still have a bad matchup against them.

Maybe something like Stifle, Voidslime, Pact of Negation would even help more to somehow battle that critical Terminus or even Bind to counter the activated ability of Top to draw Terminus.

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Originally Posted by Quizzlemanizzle

Read, I said Choke is in my opinion not even good against Miracles. I never said that Blood Moon is good against Miracles!

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If that was not the intention, why bother mention?

Here's the decklists of the MOCS Season Finals that had an Elves mirror in the finals. The winner, Letto, was using the maindeck I have been advocating for the last months, with all the silver bullets in the main. Only change is -1 Birchlore +1 Elvish Mystic (a configuration I used to run before trying the 2nd Birchlore for now).

The sideboard is almost the same as well with only switching the discard spelll configuration from 4 TS to 2 TS+2 CT and -1 Decay +1 Progenitus.

Feels good to see him do well and what I heard from Olle Rade, a well-deserving winner of the Legacy MOCS :-)

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Originally Posted by PaulJordan

I think people should stop viewing Probe as deck thinning that can sometimes help me out by telling me what my opponent has and start viewing it as a spell that can give me vital information about my opponent's hand that has a cantrip which can be burned for card selection if necessary. It isn't really useful in multiples, though it isn't necessarily bad (minor negative in that you don't know the card you'll draw and you have to pay 2 life, minor positive in that you see an extra card or two from you what you saw from the first one). I'm guessing if you play these that 2 is the 'right' number, though obviously the more therapies you play the better they get.

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I think this is a very good idea to get some testing numbers down on. One of the hassles I was concerned about when I picked up the deck is that playing to ripping NO and playing to ripping glimpse is so different in terms of set up that it is often hard to know rather than estimate which line to take... I've been playing with probe in various numbers at local events with between 2-4 copies each time and it has proved very valuable.

Knowing when the soft wraths are coming or if a hand is weak so we can just jam NO into what otherwise looks like a devastating counterspell is important in how we sequence our disparate combo pieces. I think then the counter argument is that we, as good players, should be able to put our opponent on something and play around/into what we expect them to have. But sometimes the best we can read is a 60/40 they have this card and in those situations, perfect information for the cost of 2 life sounds like an offer well worth taking up.

So, in certain decks, I prefer to have a split of fetches to play around with weird stuff like Surgical Extraction (back from when I played Storm and RUG where threshold matters) and Pithing Needle (there were a few local 12-post players). When playing with 10 fetches in Elves, is there any reason to play with a 3-3-2-2 split over a 4-4-2 split? I know that Pithing Needle on a fetch is unlikely when there are so many better options and Surgical will probably not be boarded in against us.

Also, am I the only one who has issues with combo even with 6 or 7 discard spells? If not, how do you side vs ANT and Sneak n' Show? I have tried Gaddock Teeg and Ruric Thar. Ruric seemed fine vs most of the combo decks, but Teeg died often. Teeg was decent vs Miracles though. I was considering the blue splash for Swan Song/Flusterstorm, but Fluster isn't great vs Sneak and Swan Song is often poor vs Storm.

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Originally Posted by DredgingLoam

So, in certain decks, I prefer to have a split of fetches to play around with weird stuff like Surgical Extraction (back from when I played Storm and RUG where threshold matters) and Pithing Needle (there were a few local 12-post players). When playing with 10 fetches in Elves, is there any reason to play with a 3-3-2-2 split over a 4-4-2 split? I know that Pithing Needle on a fetch is unlikely when there are so many better options and Surgical will probably not be boarded in against us.

Also, am I the only one who has issues with combo even with 6 or 7 discard spells? If not, how do you side vs ANT and Sneak n' Show? I have tried Gaddock Teeg and Ruric Thar. Ruric seemed fine vs most of the combo decks, but Teeg died often. Teeg was decent vs Miracles though. I was considering the blue splash for Swan Song/Flusterstorm, but Fluster isn't great vs Sneak and Swan Song is often poor vs Storm.

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Aside from having more options to potentially disguise your deck as Team America or Shardless BUG, I don't think the choice of Fetchlands matter that much. At least not enough to cast surgical extraction and snatch 3 Fetches from a 20-lands manabase :)

Against combo, the match remains a race and all your discard or counters have to do is to slow your opponent down. Elves have the potential to go lethal during their first 4 turns and if you are able to force your opponent into wasting turns to cantrip into their next enabler after you discarded their S&T, it can be enough to win wih Hoof or Ruric. This fact is also the reason Mindbreak Trap was a solid addition to the SB for slowing down combo. It appears that the most urgent problems against combo appear if the pilot gets the idea that cards like Thoughtseize, Flusterstorm, Swan Song, Mindbreak Trap and the like do actually BEAT opposing combo decks, which is nowhere near the case. You need the disruption backed up with a clock and therefore keeping balanced hands, but I guess you already knew that.

Speaking of disguises, Misty=>Bayou=>DRS to impersonate BUG is not very believeable IMO. Both Delver and Shardless want to start with an Underground Sea - Delver especially because they have Daze and just typically pack more Seas so if one eats a Wasteland it's less of a drag. Shardless wants BB, so Sea or Bayou is a given, and the deck has a bunch more blue stuff it typically wants to do. But for Shardless it's a bit more believeable I guess.

Maybe Foothills=>Bayou=>DRS so as to look like Jund?

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Originally Posted by Zombie

Speaking of disguises, Misty=>Bayou=>DRS to impersonate BUG is not very believeable IMO. Both Delver and Shardless want to start with an Underground Sea - Delver especially because they have Daze and just typically pack more Seas so if one eats a Wasteland it's less of a drag. Shardless wants BB, so Sea or Bayou is a given, and the deck has a bunch more blue stuff it typically wants to do. But for Shardless it's a bit more believeable I guess.

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As a longtime BUG Delver player, I can say that I'll always opt to start with Turn 1 Shaman except in rare cases. Delver needs more setup in BUG than it does in RUG where you can just jam it and blind flip on command. Also, Shardless doesn't play Delver or Daze (can you imagine cascading into Daze?), so I don't know what you're talking about. I think if you can get value out of a disguise, then go for it. Just don't make a suboptimal play and bank on the surprise value, because that can blow up in your face.

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Originally Posted by ESG

As a longtime BUG Delver player, I can say that I'll always opt to start with Turn 1 Shaman except in rare cases. Delver needs more setup in BUG than it does in RUG where you can just jam it and blind flip on command. Also, Shardless doesn't play Delver or Daze (can you imagine cascading into Daze?), so I don't know what you're talking about. I think if you can get value out of a disguise, then go for it. Just don't make a suboptimal play and bank on the surprise value, because that can blow up in your face.

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I like to start with DRS when playing BUG Delver too. I was more pointing at the land used to do it. I'd rather not go Misty=>Bayou=>DRS if at all possible. That was the thing about believeability. Not DRS, DRS is believeable. DRS off Bayou instead of UG Sea is not.

You could run a U Sea to support the Swan Song-board. It would be funny to add Mystic Remora to that mix. Just drop a dude every turn and Cradle'll let you keep it for quite some time.

The only downside is it won't let you cast anything other then DRS and some sideboard cards (ignoring Elvish Visionary here). Effectively you'd be playing with one less land. I don't think it'd be worth it though.

While the mystic remora idea has done merit, the underground sea plan does not. IMO. You have 20 lands and 6 already don't support G turn 1. Adding another is moving into some scary territory.

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Originally Posted by PaulJordan

While the mystic remora idea has done merit, the underground sea plan does not. IMO. You have 20 lands and 6 already don't support G turn 1. Adding another is moving into some scary territory.

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The Thunderdome isn't for the faint of heart! You could also cut another card (perhaps a Nettle Sentinel or Heritage Druid) to support the extra land. Until recent I went as far as running 12, but decided to go back up to 13 b/c of too many mulligans and since last weekend I'm even back to running 14. Theoretically I still say 12 is possible, but admittedly I don't have the balls to do it. To anyone reading this: I didn't write this to reopen the landcount-discussion, I just wanted to mention it, that's all.

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Originally Posted by Julian23

Here's the decklists of the MOCS Season Finals that had an Elves mirror in the finals. The winner, Letto, was using the maindeck I have been advocating for the last months, with all the silver bullets in the main. Only change is -1 Birchlore +1 Elvish Mystic (a configuration I used to run before trying the 2nd Birchlore for now).

The sideboard is almost the same as well with only switching the discard spelll configuration from 4 TS to 2 TS+2 CT and -1 Decay +1 Progenitus.

Feels good to see him do well and what I heard from Olle Rade, a well-deserving winner of the Legacy MOCS :-)

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I really have to thank you Julian. You actually had a pretty big part in my MOCS win. Ive only been playing legacy for a short while and without reading your posts here and watching your stream once in a while Id never been able to pick up the deck as fast.

It really is a powerful and quite consistant deck thats much harder to hate out then I think people think. I won through a lot of sideboard cards and quite a few terminuses and as long as you dont overcommit youre fine against most things. I even won a game in the finals from 4 cards with no lands, though I obviosly got really lucky there!

Again. Thanks a lot Julian!

My maindeck worked out really well though I can absolutely see the 2nd ranger over the mystic. I never had much use of the packmaster this time, but I have been in the past. I also dont really see the point of running more druids or nettles so I think Im gonna stick with it like it is.

In the sideboard the needle/null rod package was excellent. I really feel like its the best way to battle miracles (though I obv ont take credit for it). I played 3 miracles decks in the MOCS and I lost when they had an early top and I didnt have an answer and won every game were I got a needle or rod or they didnt get the top. That card is what the matchup is all about.

I really like to have the Progenitus in my board. Sure its a card thats mostly good in youre already favorable matchups, but the impact is huge and I think its worth a slot.

The split between Therapy and Thoughtseize is not really anything I put much thought into. I used to run 3/3, then 3/2 and now 2/2.

*blushes* :smile:

Congratulations to your win! Olle went crazy about your 4-card-no-land win in the finals. I'm really happy for you :smile: