[Primer] Elves!

disclaimer: very self-aware results oriented analysis below...

I have been playing no leovold, no elite because I don't see the point in tainting the deck with randomness when we have such a focused game plan. Here's the thing: Compared to other elves players I have been winning much more with the deck since we got these new toys. Nissa sucks (sorry!), Leovold is sick but not in our deck (chaos diff story), and elite would be a fine sb card vs a marit lage meta but I can't think of a card to cut for it.

so tl:dr, I've been winning with zero changes to my md and my results are better than those who went all crazy with the spice.

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Originally Posted by Shagstaman

so tl:dr, I've been winning with zero changes to my md and my results are better than those who went all crazy with the spice.

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There's definitely something to be said for the tight, traditional builds. I definitely notice a lack of consistency when diluting my deck with leovold & other cards that help better transition into a midrange gameplan. It makes the combo that much worse, and with the metagame seemingly skewing so BGx heavy I can understand why you're having luck with a "spiceless" list. I'm testing out some funky choices now, but as GP Vegas gets closer I wouldn't be surprised if I cut the shenanigans and move back to a more combo heavy list.

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Originally Posted by Shagstaman

disclaimer: very self-aware results oriented analysis below...

I have been playing no leovold, no elite because I don't see the point in tainting the deck with randomness when we have such a focused game plan. Here's the thing: Compared to other elves players I have been winning much more with the deck since we got these new toys. Nissa sucks (sorry!), Leovold is sick but not in our deck (chaos diff story), and elite would be a fine sb card vs a marit lage meta but I can't think of a card to cut for it...

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I have been playing with Silkweaver Elite I think that card is a very good addition to the deck. It allows us to fog a Marit Lage, a cheated-in Grisel, Chancellor, Inkmoth, and can also block an Angel off Entreat (as well as act as the 5th Visionary in the Miracles matchup). While it may not be maindeck playable IMO, (largely due to the high number of Leovold decks) its upside is very good and creates another headache for our opponents.

As for Nissa I think she is a very strong card, and simply just allows us another angle of attack. As BUG decks continue to tick up in the meta I see her upside only being higher.

Multani's Presence vs Miracles?

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Originally Posted by thewrush

Multani's Presence vs Miracles?

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Not a good card IMO. Too narrow and easily answered.

it doesn't really do anything against miracles even if you resolve it. if the main purpose is to fight against countertop, you'll just be trading your uncastable cards for more uncastable cards and lands. otherwise, so few of your creatures actually matter, that drawing a random one in place of a countered one doesnt mean much.

@Shagstaman, what does a list with 0 changes look like? I'm still putting the deck together and have been trying a lot of different configurations on Xmage, current version looks like this:

Creature (29)
2x Birchlore Rangers
2x Craterhoof Behemoth
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Elvish Visionary
3x Heritage Druid
3x Nettle Sentinel
3x Quirion Ranger
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Silkweaver Elite
4x Wirewood Symbiote
1x Wren's Run Packmaster

Land (19)
2x Bayou
2x Cavern of Souls
2x Dryad Arbor
2x Forest
4x Gaea's Cradle
1x Pendelhaven
3x Windswept Heath
3x Wooded Foothills

Planeswalker (1)
1x Nissa, Vital Force

Sorcery (11)
4x Glimpse of Nature
4x Green Sun's Zenith
3x Natural Order

Sideboard (15)
4x Abrupt Decay
3x Cabal Therapy
1x Elderscale Wurm
1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
3x Surgical Extraction
3x Thoughtseize

It's a lot closer to older iterations of the deck than I've been running lately, but still notably different from something like 4 NO in the main or 3/1 in the 75. I cut Leovold, but kept Elite, I think he's definitely real enough for a 1-of in the MD. Nissa is not as huge a deal to me and could be replaced, but at the same time, she is absolutely huge at other times, like being able to effectively tap Gaea's Cradle 3 times in a single turn in some situations.

Hey guys, today I went to the first of the new weekly Legacy games at the LGS down the street. Why they chose Super Bowl Sunday, who knows? Anyway we went 4 rounds and here's the deck and a tiny report. I don't keep notes though so it's probably not exactly how each game happened, and some are vague. Enjoy.

The deck:

Land

2 Bayou
1 Forest
3 Cavern of Souls
4 Gaea's Cradle
1 Dryad Arbor
7 Fetch lands

Total: 18

Creatures

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Nettle Sentinel
3 Quirion Ranger
4 Heritage Druid
3 Birchlore Rangers
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
3 Reclamation Sage

Total: 30

Spells

4 Nether Void
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Glimpse of Nature

Total: 12

Sideboard

2 Thoughtseize
1 Silkweaver Elite
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Birchlore Rangers
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Shaman of the Pack
3 Natural Order
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
2 Pithing Needle
1 Gaddock Teeg

Match 1 vs Sneak and Show

G1 on T2 with a 1 CMC dude out, I try to cast Glimpse but he FoWs that so I just play a Heritage Druid, a Nettle and pass. T3 I cast Nether Void and he is shocked, saying maybe he shouldn't have countered Glimpse. I beat him down with the guys in play and I think a Cavern or just Druid allowed me to land a couple more guys and chip away. He finally gets the mana to cast a S&T into Emrakuul but by the time he could attack I had him at 2 with 3 guys in play, a Nether Void and 4 lands so I cast another Void*, passed the turn and sac'd the lands/Voids after he attacked. The 3 creatures were left and let me win game 1.

G2 - on the play T1 he went Lotus Petal, City of Traitors, Emrakuul.

G3 - T1 he went Volcanic, Petal, Petal, S&T, Emrakuul.

1-2 (0-1)

Match 2 Grixis Delver

G1 I cast some 1 CMC dudes, on his T2 he casts a Young Pyromancer and then on my T3 I cast Nether Void and beat down with combat trickery with my Elves. Heritage Druid and Cavern are great for bypassing Void.

G2 I go off with Glimpse (I cast 3 as I go off) and win the game with Craterhoof Behemoth.

2-0 (1-1)

Match 3 BUG Midrange (maybe Shardless?)

G1 I cast Nether Void on T4 I think? Thanks to Gaea's Cradle, Sentinel and Heritage Druid. He had a TNN out but I was able to do combat bouncing etc and win it with Sentinel and co.

G2 my Glimpse fizzles after maybe 3-4 draws and he had T1'd Ancestral Visions on the play so the card advantage was somewhat par. There was some serious math going on in both our heads due to attacks/bounces and DRS being on both sides of the board. I didn't cast a Void this game and he landed 2 'goyfs but was able to outmanoeuver him. We were both playing pretty tight, but he scooped after whiffing on his last draw.

2-0 (2-1)

Match 4 Pox - some weird version he created

Haha, of course I get matched with Pox. Yeesh, talk about a shit match with his manlands and creature removal - also MB Deluge.

G1 I T2 (I think) Nether Void and beat him down with my creatures thanks to Cavern.

G2 T1 He Dark Rituals into Hymn and hits both my Visionaries then T2 he Chalices on 1 and I never saw a Sage. There was some combat between us but he won it out.

G3 I cast a Quirion Ranger and pass, he goes Dark Rit, Dark Rit, Hymn (hitting my Cavern and I think Visionary) then Chalice on 1 with my grip of 2 DRS and a Birchlore I think? Dude had some sweet Hymns in these last 2 games. Anyway he lands a Dark Confidant and then Jitte. He Wastelands my Cradle and Dryad Arbor, clearing the path for his Jitte and wins.

I actually sided out the Voids for the first time here since I wanted to go the NO route and try to win asap because of his manlands and abundance of removal. Not sure this was the right call tbh. G2 and 3 of this match were the only games I removed them for and was beaten in both.

1-2 (2-2)

The list can use some tweaking, which was sort of the point of today but it's certainly decent. I would love to add a Pendelhaven somehow (the 3 Caverns were good though), and the 3 Sages are for Miracles/Eldrazi but they could maybe be shaved down to 2 and put an AB in the MB. I kept them because of Cavern and Glimpse though, as well as being 2/1s and would probably keep them in the meta.
Why Nether Void? Natural Order is amazing at just winning games, but the prevalence of counterspells often means it's a 2-for-1. Voids are great at slowing down opponents and stopping combo decks that don't just win on T1. Ignore the sideboard though, that's just me being lazy.

I think Elves often has the advantage in grindy, combat-oriented matches, so if you enjoy them then you might want to try Nether Elves out.

Cheers

* so been thinking about this, and I'm not certain this is legal. It wouldn't have affected the outcome, as I'm pretty confident I had 3 'dead' fetch lands in my hand and could have played one of those instead. Am going to post in the Rules section to ask.

Edited for the *

That's quite the list. On the plus side the games you lost would probably be rough for any elves list.
I just can't see playing so few t1 mama-producing lands - I'm with you on cutting a rec sage, probably for that pendelhaven.

Do we play Fatal Push?
And btw I am not a fan of Wren's Run Packmaster anymore because of this card

Nether Void. Made my day. Love it

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Originally Posted by EEk1TwEEk

Do we play Fatal Push?
And btw I am not a fan of Wren's Run Packmaster anymore because of this card

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i dont think so, there's not a lot of room in the board and we don't need the tempo that fatal push provides. maybe if you're playing with some number of AD main

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Originally Posted by resum

i dont think so, there's not a lot of room in the board and we don't need the tempo that fatal push provides. maybe if you're playing with some number of AD main

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Even then, I think we'd want our spot removal flexible enough to hit some of these format's bigger threats (like Iona and some of the fatties that will gum up the ground in Angler/Tombstalker). I've previously dabbled in non-decay answers and if we're bringing in a removal spell we need it to hit as much as possible- fatal push is definitely a good, efficient card but I don't think we're in the market for what it brings to the table.

A lot of stats, some pictures and a bit of food for thought for you:

My 2016 MKM and BoM Season Analysis + Bonus Content: EU Eternal Calendar 2017

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Originally Posted by Julian23

A lot of stats, some pictures and a bit of food for thought for you:

My 2016 MKM and BoM Season Analysis + Bonus Content: EU Eternal Calendar 2017

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Nice stats, great experiences.
Let's go on and fight for elves :)

happy to report that i have everything for my deck except craddles. i so wish those werent a billion dollars each.

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Originally Posted by afifthofjack

happy to report that i have everything for my deck except craddles. i so wish those werent a billion dollars each.

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once you play with them you will realize they were worth every penny

The more I think about it, the more I really like the Nether Void idea as SB tech. It hits both combo and control MUs (admittedly inconsistent in how quickly we could get it down vs combo), so it can pretty much be swapped in for NOs vs any deck that plays blue. Has anyone spent any time seriously exploring the card and its application vs things like Miracles etc?

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Originally Posted by JermStudDog

The more I think about it, the more I really like the Nether Void idea as SB tech. It hits both combo and control MUs (admittedly inconsistent in how quickly we could get it down vs combo), so it can pretty much be swapped in for NOs vs any deck that plays blue. Has anyone spent any time seriously exploring the card and its application vs things like Miracles etc?

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That was the first time I tried it out in Elves, but I thought it was great. I also tried to keep track of a couple things such as: when would I rather it be an NO and was this a game that I didn't win where I would have with NO? I don't think that any of the games that I had lost were due to it. I do however, think you want the deck built somewhat around it MB as opposed to in the SB. Siding NO in works fine but I am not convinced that siding for Void in a regular build would give you the same success rate. 3 Caverns is awesome, and I was happy with 2+ copies of Sage. I think Hagan's suggestion of replacing 1 Sage with Pendelhaven could work, but apart from that I think it's sweet. I definitely recommend people play the deck (although maybe try online as the card is expensive as cardboard).

So maybe focus on the Chaos Elves style of build with 3-4 copies of Nether Void in the MD? I'll brew some stuff up tonight and see if I can push the idea more.