[Primer] Elves!

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Originally Posted by Zombie

GSZ=>Militant is too slow against LED Dredge.

If Dredge is a concern, I'd still rather play a Crypt or two. It's active from T1, the crucial period when DRS is helpless, doesn't die to Firestorm and can stop the whole dredging process cold before it bears fruit. Militant can hose DRS, but does nothing to Bridge+Dredgers and dies unceremoniously to Firestorm while being a relatively large mana investment. A simple Crypt on the board forces them to solve the Crypt while we can focus on building a board for a killing blow or go to town with DRS/Ooze.

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I disagree. The Militant tends to do the trick for me often enough, especially when on the play. Though I do have stupid luck dodging Firestorm.

I don't quite fear the Bridge plus dredgers, a Dread Returned Elesh Norn is my biggest fear (and has cost me quite a number of games). Besides, if your opponent Firestorms your Militant, he also blows up any Bridges he might have in his/her graveyard at that time so that solves that.

I do like Crypts, but I don't like having to hope I get one in my opening hand. You have a much bigger chance of having the Militant or a GSZ in your opener than you have of having that Crypt in your opener. Also, hosing the graveyard isn't quite an insta-win vs. any form of Dredge. It buys time and gets rid of Elesh Norn, but that is all it does.

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Originally Posted by Echelon

I disagree. The Militant tends to do the trick for me often enough, especially when on the play. Though I do have stupid luck dodging Firestorm.

I don't quite fear the Bridge plus dredgers, a Dread Returned Elesh Norn is my biggest fear (and has cost me quite a number of games). Besides, if your opponent Firestorms your Militant, he also blows up any Bridges he might have in his/her graveyard at that time so that solves that.

I do like Crypts, but I don't like having to hope I get one in my opening hand. You have a much bigger chance of having the Militant or a GSZ in your opener than you have of having that Crypt in your opener. Also, hosing the graveyard isn't quite an insta-win vs. any form of Dredge. It buys time and gets rid of Elesh Norn, but that is all it does.

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I don't have stupid luck dodging Firestorm, so there's that. Yeah, there's more chance to have GSZ in hand I agree. Problem is, Militant can't nuke what is already there, and can't nuke bridges and creatures that go there. One Return snuck under and it's done. You can't underestimate that their standard removal kills it easy, either. Crypt requires them to force a crack by playing a threat or they need to have a different answer, which decreases their consistency. Their consistency in getting explosive starts and Firestorm => explosive start is what's doing me in, at least.

Didn't say Crypt won, said it buys time for us to win because they have to answer it first somehow while we can spend mana on developing our board instead of trying to contain their development with Deathrites and Oozes.

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Originally Posted by Zombie

Problem is, Militant can't nuke what is already there, and can't nuke bridges and creatures that go there. One Return snuck under and it's done.

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Yup, you're absolutely right. Often you do get them when they don't know you're playing the Militant, but if it gets to game 3 (and your opponent has even the tiniest idea of what they're doing) they'll try to dump that DR in the GY as soon as possible. Heck, I even had an opponent holding a Golgari Grave-Troll so he could discard his DR instead, lol.

Don't forget we still have 4 DRS to potentially deal with DR/Elesh Norn though. They don't get to reanimate it T2 every time.

I agree with your points on the Crypt but am torn between the Crypt's speed and our abilitie to consistently actually have the necessary hate when needed.

In terms of speed and removing what's already in opponent's GY, isn't Faerie Macabre a viable choice?

It has the same problems Tormod's Crypt has. The only upside is that it can't be Daze'd/FoW'd.

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Originally Posted by resmaster

In terms of speed and removing what's already in opponent's GY, isn't Faerie Macabre a viable choice?

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Not really. It's good against single important cards in the yard, but Dredge doesn't work like that, they put so much stuff in there it's not funny. Like, Breakthrough => dredge 30 much stuff.

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Originally Posted by Zombie

Not really. It's good against single important cards in the yard, but Dredge doesn't work like that, they put so much stuff in there it's not funny. Like, Breakthrough => dredge 30 much stuff.

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Lol it's dredge 24 at best and far more likely to be dredge 20. Still, it's 1/3rd of a deck. Lol.

Changing topics, how worried should we be about containment priest? I do not look forward to when I have to do a blind natural order and they flash that in response.

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Originally Posted by jamie7keller

Changing topics, how worried should we be about containment priest? I do not look forward to when I have to do a blind natural order and they flash that in response.

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4 letters: YOLO

More letters: it's not any different from your opponent countering NO or GSZ. White has hatebears for millions of situations but sure not space for all of them. It's not that the priest affects your BFF and DRS' combos to draw into Craterhoof even if we asume that the Priest is fast enough to handle NO/GSZ (aka your opponent willing to leave 1W open). It's more or less a 2cmc Grafdiggers Cage.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

4 letters: YOLO

More letters: it's not any different from your opponent countering NO or GSZ. White has hatebears for millions of situations but sure not space for all of them. It's not that the priest affects your BFF and DRS' combos to draw into Craterhoof even if we asume that the Priest is fast enough to handle NO/GSZ (aka your opponent willing to leave 1W open). It's more or less a 2cmc Grafdiggers Cage.

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I see your point, but I can't completely agree. You are right that it's the same as force of will in those cases, but I count on death and taxes not having a force of will. And you are right about limited space for hatebears, but this one stops green sun, natural order, reanimate, narcomeba, ichorid, show and tell, Arthur vial, oath of Druids, sneak attack, (dryad arbor? I need a judge to confirm but I think once it's in play it blanks the arbor from being played as a land drop). They will make room for it.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

4 letters: YOLO

More letters: it's not any different from your opponent countering NO or GSZ. White has hatebears for millions of situations but sure not space for all of them. It's not that the priest affects your BFF and DRS' combos to draw into Craterhoof even if we asume that the Priest is fast enough to handle NO/GSZ (aka your opponent willing to leave 1W open). It's more or less a 2cmc Grafdiggers Cage.

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Crucial difference being that you can't Recla Sage it, which is annoying. Shouldn't be that big of a problem with 4 Decays in the board.

Streaming the Legacy Daily event with #Elves! Join us over http://twitch.tv/itsjulian.com :cool:

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Originally Posted by Zombie

Crucial difference being that you can't Recla Sage it, which is annoying. Shouldn't be that big of a problem with 4 Decays in the board.

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Not an argument imo as it also blocks your Tutors for Sage. I Ponder if D&T would want to block their own Vial. I like the idea of a hatebear against S&T/Sneak Attack/Reanimator as those decks were basically abyssmal for D&T

Glimpse still kills, if you can't NO there is always just drawing more than they can answer, playing out combat tricks and beating face. It not like we haven't done that before.

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It also strips them of Vial, slowing them down and hampering their Mana denial strategy. Doesn't seam all that problematic to me.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

Glimpse still kills, if you can't NO there is always just drawing more than they can answer, playing out combo tricks and beating face. It not like we haven't done that before.

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If the motto is "Glimpse chain still kills" you don't even bother with the Priest from the start. That's why I brought up the Grafdiggers Cage. Both cards do shit against your BFF & Glimpse draws and your natural drawn Hoof/WRP.

Neither the Priest nor Treasure Cruise deserve anything more than a shrug of your shoulders as an Elves player. Sky isn't falling.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Not an argument imo as it also blocks your Tutors for Sage. I Ponder if D&T would want to block their own Vial. I like the idea of a hatebear against S&T/Sneak Attack/Reanimator as those decks were basically abyssmal for D&T

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Um, isn't D&T known to be excellent against Sneak and Show? 3 maindeck Karakas along with Revokers is pretty huge.

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Originally Posted by MadRhetoric17

Um, isn't D&T known to be excellent against Sneak and Show? 3 maindeck Karakas along with Revokers is pretty huge.

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I've seen SneakShow players with Needles in the SB for that case, but aside the double creature sneak attack, you have a point. That however raises the question, if the Priest is even required then to battle those decks.

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It also strips them of Vial, slowing them down and hampering their Mana denial strategy. Doesn't seam all that problematic to me.

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D&T will use it just because of Elves, the match up really is that bad. And vial is too slow for Elves anyway...

The problem is that this card is good vs a lot of decks which means a lot of decks will adopt it as a sb card (Miracles, Blade variants..) which means more hate for Elves.

Welcome to the site.

Yes, this will make the deck less effective when it's on the table, but I feel like we are still strongly placed thanks to the in built redundancy.

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Originally Posted by ksmith

D&T will use it just because of Elves, the match up really is that bad. And vial is too slow for Elves anyway...

The problem is that this card is good vs a lot of decks which means a lot of decks will adopt it as a sb card (Miracles, Blade variants..) which means more hate for Elves.

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This is an interresting idea. I can totally see Priest as a SB card for decks like Blade if Griselbrand and Co. are a problem.