[Deck] Elves Combo

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Originally Posted by theross

I'm not forgetting that Wish can do multiple things, just arguing that those things are largely unnecessary, and thus not worth 3-4 MD slots and 7-11 in the sideboard, which is a HUGE commitment. One of these options was the ability to find Emrakul and cast it when you have no way to viably combo but lots of mana. The rest of its versatility comes in the ability to answer various hate cards and find graveyard hate in game 1, which I've argued before is also unnecessary. I agree that a 2nd Regal Force is awesome though, which is why I've had 2 in the MD of every combo list I've posted and advocated.

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I must say I'm sorry that I didn't realize that everyone in the threat who is not running Living Wish, plays 2 Regal Force maindeck. Four months ago no one ran 2 Regal Force maindeck.
I am confused though, I don't see 2 Regal Force in your latest list.

If you play 2 Regal Force + 1 Emrakul, that makes 2 more cards than I do. Many people also run, or should run, at least 1 Viridian Shaman/Zealot if they don't have Wish. Why not play 2-3 Living Wish instead?
It's as simple as that. It's not wasted spots maindeck, it's actually recycled spots, plus a huge bonus on versatility.

You Really need to test Living Wish, do me the favor as I'm testing 4 Cradles, please ;)


On the game post: I did not tutor for Symbiote because I saw that I was going to win anyway (he had dredged nothing useful before) but in most other games against dredge, I could have died the next turn.


I am just tired of arguing here anyway. Some people are so stuck up with their list and don't want to test anything different. I think I've already shown the many situations in which Wish is superior to any other tutor, and its only down-side is wasting spots in the side (Keep it down to Emmy, Masti, Sylvok, Force, Cradle then, only 5). So if anyone is willing to test Wish go ahead, I welcome you to it, if not fair enough ;)

I did some goldfishing with Ross' list, because I wanted to proof that running 18 lands is bad. However, I was stunned to see how sick 4 Cradles are. Ross list is so far the best one of the 5 builds i goldfished (always 71 games).

The list I ran 8 lords, 4pact/4 wish

T2 started 13% finisehd sucessfully 67%
T3 started 46% finished successfully 97%
T4 started 23% finished successfully 94%
Mulligan 10%

Ross list:
T2 started 11% finisehd sucessfully 75%
T3 started 55% finished successfully 95%
T4 started 27% finished successfully 95%
Mulligan 15%

So the first time I broke clearly the 60% by turn 3 statistic and I was never over the 90% by turn 4.
There might be some variance in there but 1 thing is clear. Playing 18 lands with 4 cradle and no lords does not hurt the plan to cast regal force at all and surprisingly does not cause more fizzles.

THe list can still be tuned by cutting the MD Viridian Shaman and adding the 4th Pact. I think running MD artifact removal is good these days (equipments obv), but I would definetly put the 4th pact in there somehow.

What was more fun than goldfishing was playtesting. The big advantage that the deck has is everything ross always argued.
- It is much more resilient to spot removal, because the mana does not depend on lords.
- Using GSZ as a manelf proofed also to be a very good play in goldfishing and play testing.
- I think GSZ is (slightly) better than wish, because it frees up slots functioning as a manaelf and is therefore not that "clunky" when you see 2 in the opening hand compared to 2 living wish. Also the most important function is to setup the combo in turn 2 and for that it also beats living wish by 1 mana. Having more SB spots is also very useful!
- With 18 lands it is easy to support the vengevine plan post board, which is a bank and much better than NO Prog (which I defended in the past) :)

Vengevine is clearly the best card to have a game vs. control and discard. I was a fan of NO-Prog, because I know many "weaker" decks in my local meta, that just fold to a Prog. However times are changing and resolving a 4 mana sorvery is not that easy anymore.

So testing really changed my opinion about elves once again. I feel TheRoss build is clearly better than mine in every aspect (explosivess, resilience and backup plan). I suggest everyone should do some testing before doing crazy math over draws or theoretical discussion about Living Wish!

I've been testing TheRoss list online and the results are similar to the David Vo's list in the 1st game, in the 2nd/3rd game - BA + VV it's the way to go.

The problem is that I have all the cards besides the cradle playset. I only have one and they're too fckn expensive so I'm asking you: Playing theross list, what cards should I put in to sub the 3 cradles I don't have? I've been using +2 Priest of Titania and +1 Crop rotation. Yes crop rotation it's very easy to get countered, but they have to choose between that or glimpse/important elf. I love theross list but I don't know if the +2PoT and +1crop rot are the best cards to put in for the 3 missing cradles. I would appreciate a lot your thoughts on this guys.

Went to FNM tonight, 4 rounds, this was my list:

4x Priest of Titania
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Arbor Elves
3x Elvish Archdruid
3x Heritage Druid
4x Quirion Ranger
3x Nettle Sentinel
1x Wirewood Symbiote
1x Regal Force
1x Banefire
2x Birchlore Rangers
4x Elvish Visionary

4x Living Wish
4x Green Sun's Zenith
3x Glimpse of Nature

15x Forest

SB:
1x Emrakul
1x Wirewood Symbiote
1x Elvish Champion
1x Elvish Archdruid
1x Faerie Macabre
1x Masticore
1x Heritage Druid
1x Nettle Sentinel
1x Birchlore Rangers
2x Krosan Grip
1x Viridian Zealot
1x Viridian Shaman
1x Gaea's Cradle

Round one: I got a bye
1-0

Round two: I played against some sort of blue/red burn / ping deck.
Game 1: He plays mountain, passes, I play Llanowar, pass, he plays a mountain, pass, I play a few more elves, pass, he plays a fetch and grabs an island and plays a pinger that every time he casts an instant or sorcery it untaps, turn 3 I go off.

Game 2: He burns every creature I drop for 4 turns, I manage to go off and Banefire him for lethal.
2-0

Round three: I play Dave, my roommate, who runs B/U Reanimator.
Game 1: I keep a 'nearly perfect' hand (the nearly part kills me), of one land and some dudes and a living wish--I was really just looking for the wish. He sets up for a turn 2 Iona, I don't top deck a land, so I go for the turn 2 Living Wish and it gets dazed, I scoop after Iona hits the table. I should have mulled but didn't want to risk not seeing another wish.

Game 2: Similar but better hand, first drop gets misstepped, second drop gets misstepped, ran out of elves to produce mana and no more land, went for the wish and got dazed, scoop when Iona hits the table.
2-1

Round four: I play Ezra, who runs Hive Mind (I think?).
Game 1: He mulls down to 4, he never finds what he needs, by the time he gets a Progenitus on the table, I wish for an Elvish Champion and raced him down easily.

Game 2: The first 4 turns go by, every Elf gets countered or burned, I eventually hit top-deck mode and just can't keep it up.

Game 3: Same deal, except this time he found a Grim Lavamancer as well, I couldn't keep enough creatures on the board through the burns to get out of it--I got a Symbiote on the table and tried to setup a Glimpse combo but it wasn't enough and got beat to death by Grim Lavamancer, 2 Tarmogoyf's, and a Vendillion Clique.

I never saw a Hive Mind or any particular indication he was running Hive Mind, it's just what he told me.
2-2

I was happy that it worked pretty consistently, it was sometimes frustrating that I could only produce 16 mana when I needed 17 to wish and drop emrakul which happened twice throughout the tournament. It sucks not having a fourth glimpse, I don't have access to one right now, but it only resolved once or twice, and only one of those times was it relevant to me winning (the other time it fizzled into 2 lands). Misstep really does hurt that plan.

I'd like to get more Symbiotes, but that was never really the issue, people stacking a fist full of burns and counters rocked my face. Uninhibited the deck was almost always going nuts on turn 3, GSZ into Regal Force was bossly except one game where I drew 5 land out of 7 cards.. The Banefire plan never hurt me, if I didn't see it I didn't see it, if I did see it it won me the game, Birchlore's were often pretty techy letting me pay for daze in awkward situations.

I found that Nettle Sentinels were cool, but their mana was mostly superfluous from the Heritage Druid. If I was going off I was doing just fine with Priest's and untapping them with Ranger's and Wirewood's.

@NihilObstat: The downside of wasting sideboard slots is huge. With the Vengevine plan taking up many slots, the necessity of some form of combo hate, and a few answers to various bullets (Humility etc) there simply isn't enough room to make wish effective even if I agreed that a wish plan was good. As for testing Living Wish anyway, I need to devote my testing time to limited, standard, and extended for Nationals and PT Philly so I most likely won't have time until the end of the Summer. Being active in nearly every competitive format, I need to divide my testing time wisely, which is why I use theoretical arguments to focus my testing and increase efficiency.

@catmint: Glad to see some more empirical evidence in support of my list. As far as the 4th pact goes, it's pretty much the only casualty of going to 60 cards. If you didn't have to fear Hive Mind, Birchlore Rangers is a clear cut for it, but each other card has a very specific purpose. Perhaps you could cut a Quirion Ranger as he is typically the weakest creature without many lords.

@Godmode: Unfortunately, there is no replacement for cradle that doesn't come with a severe drawback. I'd most likely run a single Archdruid as the extra lord for versatility, (answering E Plague is nice as well) and 2 Crop Rotations but I'd urge you to invest when you can or see if you can borrow them for any major tournament. Having 2 would be significantly better with Crop Rotation since you can chain them mid-combo but you could wait longer to acquire the last 2 and hold out for a good trade/price.

@Kich867: That list definitely doesn't look like Hive Mind to me, could've been a bluff.

Yeah, it wasn't--I saw a rather large portion of his deck over 3 games, he was playing RUG with NO-Prog.

Anyone has any experience with Elvish Skysweeper? I'm considering having it as a 1-of in the sideboard to provide a sunnable answer to decks with flying threats (ie Tombstalker) in general and Emrakul in particular.

On Elvish Skysweeper: If you have enough mana to find and use this guy, you'd almost invariably be better off getting Regal Force and answering their threat by winning the game. Narrow 1-1 answers such as this don't have a place in a combo deck.

To the ross: I'd like to see what your latest list is looking like to test it ;)

Also, I have a question. If your opponents lands a game 1 Peacekeeper or Canonist do you auto-scoop?

I am concerned about this because I see many of them in my meta and the wish helped a bit.

As far as a streamlined combo list, I wouldn't change much from my GP list. It would be within a few cards of the following:

2 Llanowar Elves
2 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Priests of Titania
1 Birchlore Rangers
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Viridian Shaman
2 Regal Force
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Summoner's Pact
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Gaea's Cradle
7 Fetches
4 Forest
2 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

SB:
4 Buried Alive
4 Vengevine
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Beast Within

Game 1 Canonist is easily dealt with using the MD Shaman, but my list does scoop to Peacekeeper game 1. However, I have never seen someone use MD Peacekeeper, since it's a terrible MD card. It's only good against Merfolk and Elves and is actively bad against a large portion of the metagame. Thus my plan against anyone running MD Peacekeepr would be to win round 1 so I don't have to play against them. Even if you get that unfortunate pairing, they shouldn't have a huge edge and it's only 1 game before you get to bring in some answer. If you're that concerned about it, a MD Mortarpod can be used over the Birchlore Rangers or even the Emrakul, moving that to the board over the 4th Vengevine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by theross

Combo list:
2 Llanowar Elves
2 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Priests of Titania
1 Birchlore Rangers
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Viridian Shaman
2 Regal Force
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Summoner's Pact
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Gaea's Cradle
7 Fetches
4 Forest
2 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

SB:
4 Buried Alive
4 Vengevine
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Beast Within

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I like the list. It seems to be very focused.

Buried Alive definitely over Intuition? Faster aggro clock?
Dryad Arbor finally gained a fix spot?

I just really don't like running 2 Regal Force in the MD. I tried it for a while and just saw too many games drawing both early on and being terrible.

I'll give it some testing. Thx ;)

Buried Alive gets the nod in the combo list for 2 reasons:

1) In this list, Vengevines are relegated to the board and BA feeds the plan more effectively than Intuition.

2) Therapy is much better than any other piece of combo hate, thus necessitating a black splash instead of a blue one.


Dryad Arbor has always had a spot in my lists, since taking one slot to gain 4 Llanowar Elves is incredible.

The odds of hitting both forces early is quite slim. In the top 10 cards it's about 2.5 percent, while that number increases to 6 percent when looking at 15 cards. When looking at the MD Emrakul as well, the odds of hitting 2/3 of the fatties in 10 cards is 6.5 percent, while getting all 3 drops to 0.4%. These numbers change to 13.8 and 1.3 percent when looking at 15 cards. You can mitigate these downsides with effective mulliganing, to the point where having access to a 2nd Regal force is much more relevant.

Yeah I've been playing Ross's list. The 2 MD Regal Forces are definitely useful. And the build feels much more resilient and faster and dammit, just better than the lists I was running before.

Now I gotta buy Bayous. If I ever meet you Mr. Ross guy, I'm gonna donkey punch your wallet. <3

I always like access to 2 regal forces. 1 might be discarded/countered and sometimes you just need to cast the 2nd one if the first one did not draw what you want.

Ross,

How do you feel about the 1 Elvish Spirit Guide? In both testing with the card and goldfishing/playing matches with the deck without ESG, I've never found myself in a situation where I need the ESG to keep going or to go off faster.

Do you find it worth a spot in your list?

The list I run is practically the same as your MD, with -1ESG +1 Joraga Warcaller as an alternative win-con that's also a 1cc Elf.

Incidentally, I went 3-3 at SCG Baltimore. Losing a couple matches that I very well would've won if I had won the die roll (one especially in my match vs. Reanimator). I also lost to Dredge, as I lost the die roll, had no SB hate, and his draws were t3 kills including having Firestorm in his opener of game 2.

Graveyard-based strategy seems to be creeping up more and more (Reanimator and Dredge both in t16 at the event, Aggro-Loam winning, and Ceph Breakfast appearing a decent amount as well).

I tried Edric, Spymaster of Trest as part of my Buried Alive/Vengevine package...as I thought it would go well together for drawing cards of Vengevine..but my impression after playing it was that it was just win-more. When I was able to resolve Buried Alive against UWr Landstill my opponent always just lost to the Vengevines plus random 1/1 dorks...even in a game where my opponent managed to swords/path all 3 Vines eventually. The same can be said for when I played it against BUG decks...in which Vengevine gets there even more easily as they have no swords-removal.

My SB going forward would be:
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Buried Alive
3x Vengevine
1x Mortarpod
1x Krosan Grip
3x Leyline of the Void

Hey guys I have a quick question:

What's the best way to SB against Merfolk with theross list?

I played a couple of games with +4BA +4VV and didn't even need those to win...

I'm using Ross's list as well but even when I ran other builds Merfolk was never a problem. You should be beating them up left and right. The only thing I would bring in from the SB would be the Beast Within, or Krosan Grips if you are running those, to fight their Umezawa's Jitte.

On ESG: It's certainly a consideration for cutting since I've only tutored for it a small handful of times (1-3) but I would definitely add the 4th pact before anything else.

On Graveyard Hate: This does seem to be something we should address going forward since Reanimator is an especially tough matchup. One of the reasons I played the Vengevines main in Vestal was to free some sideboard space for graveyard hate against Reanimator. I had Faerie Macabre (good with Fauna Shaman) and Seal of Removal for the matchup although I didn't need them in my one matchup against the deck. (Aggro-ed out a turn 3 Iona when he made the mistake of attacking once, his draw was awful in game 2) As far as general GY hate I would think some combination of Nihil Spellbomb and the new commander guy would be suitable.

On SB against Merfolk: With the strict combo list, I don't board anything in the matchup (although you should bluff a few cards at least) . Symbiote and the MD Shaman are enough to fight their 2-3 Jittes. I still haven't lost a tournament match to the deck.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by theross

Seal of Removal

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I'm sure that he means Ground Seal.

I really like Scavenging Ooze too. Tutorable, better than Withered Wretch. It looks freaking sweet. It might be fast enough against Dredge, but Reanimator is just way too fast... :/

I meant Seal of Removal. I was particularly worried about Reanimator, having seen it on the weekend a fair amount, so we went overboard for the matchup. It deals with every relevant card they have in the matchup, as long as you dont overextend into Elesh Norn. It can also come in against SnT decks to deal with Emrakul. Ground Seal wasn't effective as part of a package since it shuts down your other hate, so I did not play it on the 2nd day.