[Primer] Elves!

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Originally Posted by Echelon

There's a separate thread for this kind of junk. Please be so kind to keep these kind of posts out of this thread.

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Notice how he rebuffs and besmirches, all under the aegis of faux politeness.

That acknowledged, let me encourage you all NOT to propose card designs as a mechanism for identifying the weaknesses in the deck, in this thread. Rather, let's go to the core of what I was trying to address. What are the weaknesses in our deck?

For instance, green struggles with creature removal. The fight mechanic, while effective as a form of creature removal, doesn't, so far, fit in our deck all that well. Abrupt Decay is one card that lets us deal with some individual creature threats. We also attack the hand Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy allow us to go after creature cards before they become creatures, but, as I mentioned above, there is something unsatisfying about hand removal in this deck (not that it isn't effective).

I also wouldn't mind having another morph staple that we use, just so that we get the benefit of the opponent no knowing which threat lies under the down-facing card.

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Originally Posted by henweigh

I also wouldn't mind having another morph staple that we use, just so that we get the benefit of the opponent no knowing which threat lies under the down-facing card.

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Troll people with Tribal Forcemage :P

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Originally Posted by Lans89

Troll people with Tribal Forcemage :P

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:smile:

What are peoples' opinions about Dwynen's Elite in the Elves list that made top 8?

Hey Guys,

went 4-2 4th place on a local tournament with 22 players. My list:

3 Natural Order
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Glimpse of Nature
1 Sylvan Library

4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
3 Heritage Druid
2 Birchlore Rangers
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed

2 Dryad Arbor
2 Bayou
2 Forest
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Gaea's Cradle
2 Windswept Heath
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Pendelhaven
1 Cavern of Souls
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61

SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 3 Cabal Therapy
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Shaman of the Pack
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15

Beat Storm, Tin Fins, BUG and Loam. Lost to DnT and BURG. Yeah I totally don't know what happend there, ok i made a stupid mistake but read just read it =)

Storm 2-0
First round Deathrite kept his GY small and he did nothing and lost Round 3
Second the same.

BUG 2-0
First round he dropped Bayou Deathrite go. I didn't play any fetch because my hand was strong without it. Second round Forest 2nd Deathrite go. I thought he is on Elves, I glimsped he BS no answer and then he was dead.
Second Round SotP for the win.

Tin Fins 2-1
He was on the play, discarded my Deathrite and killed me Turn 2.
Second I kept a hand with SE he combos and I extracted his Grisel's and Ruric made the Game on Turn 3.
Third I mulled to five with a weak but playable hand. Ok maybe this was stupid but then i drawed into a SE and he made nothing.

Imperial Taxes 1-2
Im stupid to the bones I really don't want to tell you guys what happend...
Game one he had 2 swords, Turn 2 Jitte - Thalia and Sowrds for my Quirion and Symbiote -.-
Game 2 i could kill him because he only had after 6 Rounds a playset of swords but no red mana.
Game 3 was grindy as hell. Jitte and Sword online I struggled for rounds and had to NO for Sage because Behemoth was not leathel, if i hadn't forget my Library trigger I had won the game because in my 3 cards was a GSZ. So I could cast it for Sage and NO for leathel Hoof.

BURG 0-2
Don't know what happend but his Angler combined with Bolts and FoW made me some real trouble both games.

Loam 2-1
Best card was Cavern of Souls even if I could only cast one or two Elves until he wasted it. It gave me the possibility to swarm the Board with enough to control his GY and the game.

All in all Cavern felt super strong against Loam even with four Wastes in his deck. Maybe i want to try a second one, I'm not sure where I can make space for it. SotP felt surprisingly strong. Two Needles were important because there were 4 Infect. If I had known that there were 3 Storm as well I had kept the Split but it works.

See Ya

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Originally Posted by Blastoderm

What are peoples' opinions about Dwynen's Elite in the Elves list that made top 8?

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Maybe you remember, that I mentioned the Elite a lot and got some solid results with it as a 1off. I liked that someone at scg finished nicely with the same idea.

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Originally Posted by henweigh

What are the weaknesses in our deck?

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I have several thoughts on this point, beyond what has already been mentioned.

First, we can struggle with removal, whether it be direct damage or the reduction of toughness. This is especially vexing when it affects all or most of our little green men at once.

Second, we have difficulty dealing with decks like R/G Lands and (at least for me) with Imperial Painter. These decks hit at odd angles and we have few ways to interact with them--other than being faster. Being faster is certainly a good strategy, but it is not reliable. Also, discard does not necessarily slow these types of decks down much. We could use a some way to interact with some of these types of decks beyond Abrupt Decay.

Third, fast decks like Reanimator, Storm, Dredge, and the like can out race us effectively and we often have little in the way of effective interaction. We certainly have ways to affect the graveyard--Deathrite Shaman and Scavenging Ooze--which can keep Reanimator and Dredge (and even Lands above) at bay, but can often come too late, with decks that not infrequently win on turns 1 or 2.

Fourth, we can struggle with decks that cheat things into play, like OmniTell, Miracles, Goblins, Merfolk, etc Granted, we do some of this ourselves, but some of these decks (not Goblins, so much) play control strategies which slow us down while keeping their options open.

To henweigh's query, I'd like to see some ways to address these concerns on cheap, green creatures--preferably on elves.

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Originally Posted by Blastoderm

What are peoples' opinions about Dwynen's Elite in the Elves list that made top 8?

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I was skeptical about DE's effectiveness in our list. How did he use Dwynen's Elite effectively? That is, how did it help to go wider in the meta. My instinct was that it wouldn't help enough, but clearly it did something.

LoR

Anybody see this sideboard?

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=95730

I have a feeling it's more a case of "better spicy than good," but with lands picking up maybe it's a good way to shore up Punishing Fire matchups and score some free postboard wins. I think I'd rather devote those slots to help Miracles, though, especially with it turning up as ~20% of the field.

I'm on Chokes right now as I've found them better than Grip. Grip is a powerful effect but requires you follow it up right away with something good in order to get ahead. Choke can lock the Miracles player right out of the game if played at the right time, imposing an enormous cost on their top activations.

Sidenote:

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Originally Posted by Valentino_Marino

3 Natural Order
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
3 Heritage Druid
2 Birchlore Rangers
2 Bayou
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Forest
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Gaea's Cradle
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Nettle Sentinel
2 Dryad Arbor
4 Wirewood Symbiote
2 Windswept Heath
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Pendelhaven
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Sylvan Library
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 3 Cabal Therapy
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Shaman of the Pack

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Try ordering your decklist e.g. creatures, then spells, then lands, or by CMC. As is it's very hard to parse what is different about it than any other stock list.

I wish The Source has some deck formatting tags, but this is what works best for me in the mean time.

Spells (29+11=40)	Lands (20)	Sideboard (15)
1 Fyndhorn Elves 2 Birchlore Rangers 3 Heritage Druid 3 Nettle Sentinel 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Quirion Ranger 4 Wirewood Symbiote 4 Elvish visionary 1 Reclamation Sage 1 Wren's Run Packmaster 2 Craterhoof Behemoth 4 Glimpse of Nature 4 Green Sun's Zenith 3 Natural Order	2 Dryad Arbor 2 Forest 2 Bayou 1 Pendelhaven 4 Verdant Catacomb 3 Wooded Foothills 2 Windswept Heath 4 Gaea's Cradle	1 Pithing Needle 2 Surgical Extraction 1 Disfigure 2 Cabal Therapy 3 Thoughtseize 1 Null Rod 1 Sylvan Library 1 Scavenging Ooze 3 Abrupt Decay

Wish I got to play more. The local weeklies have kind of dried up, so I've been limited to larger "regional" style events instead. We shall see.
I'm liking the removal of Progenitus from the board so far, and it's modified the way I sideboard in a couple matchups with Natural Order - which is interesting at least.
2 Surgical seems to be more relevant now; at least it seems like there are more matchups where I can rationalize it.
I'm not sure I understand Krosan Grip, it seems like a fourth Abrupt Decay would be more reasonable if having a fourth spell is really important - especially with Miracles bringing in all sorts of bears and Staticaster sometimes. The corner case, I guess, is stuff like Blood Moon (which isn't too difficult to play around/through), Moat, Aluren (lol), and maybe Humility or something.

Hi guys,

Quick question:

Do I get to bounce an elf with a needled symbiote even if I cannot untap a creature or does needle also prevent me from using the bounce cost ?

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Originally Posted by Ralf

Hi guys,

Quick question:

Do I get to bounce an elf with a needled symbiote even if I cannot untap a creature or does needle also prevent me from using the bounce cost ?

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It prevents you from activating the ability at all, so you can't even announce it, let alone pay costs or get an effect proposal on the stack.

So after playing in the MOCS Prelim. twice this week, this meta really isn't healthy towards Elves. Almost all the fair matchups have been hated out by Storm and the number of unfair decks being played seems to be at an all time high. Decks like Miracles, Storm, Lands, Show and Tell were all decks I played against. If anyone is playing tomorrow morning I would recommend Thorn, splashing for Gaddock Teeg or possibly adding Thar. Ooze was an allstar against both Lands, Burn (Burn seems to be the counter to all the Storm running around right now)

Best of luck to those who qualified!

100% agreed. Also, Burn is usually big in the Legacy MOCS because it gives you the best value for your dollar when coming in from the outside.

I'm currently looking at something like this for the MOCS (see below). I'm not happy about the Progenitus but it's really hard to find anything that's good enough vs Lands. In the end though, the deck is so expensive on MTGO, I might just completly ignore it. It's not like there are great options for it anyways.


http://i.imgur.com/KptDol7.jpg

What led you to cutting the MD sage and Library for the 2 Llanowars?

For this tournament? Speed. Data shows that SFM is super dead right now, so I feel a little bit safer shifting the RecSage to the sb.

That's fair. If you're expecting a lot of burn and combo Elves will be pretty good to ramp out faster wins. Looking forward to the stream.

Streaming the Legacy MOCS, the last Legacy PTQ ever, right now. Join us over at twitch.tv/itsJulian :cool:

Andrew Cuneo finished 2nd at the MOCS with Elves. Notable feature include 1 Llanowar Elves and 1 Fyndhorn Elves in the main and Elderscale Wurm in the sideboard.

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Originally Posted by Barook

Also, a new RG legend was probably leaked:

Mina and Denn :2::r::g:
Legendary Creature - Elf Ally
You may play an additional land during each of your turns.
:r::g:, Return a land you control to its owner's hand: Target creature gains trample until end of turn.
4/4

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Can bounce Cradles and just naturally enable extra Cradles and make Arbor shenaniganry smoother.

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Originally Posted by Zombie

Can bounce Cradles and just naturally enable extra Cradles and make Arbor shenaniganry smoother.

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Not sure it's worth the Red to do it though.