[Primer] Elves!

[Lemnear]

hey guys,
have you seen Arlinn Kord?
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/cards/sh...50-arlinn-kord

There we go again...

[Echelon]

There we go again...

Mamma mia.

[EEk1TwEEk]

hey guys,
have you seen Arlinn Kord?
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/cards/sh...50-arlinn-kord

Yes, we did - nice card for limited! (:

[.Ix]

Was Prague Eternal's top 8 posted anywhere?

[Careve]

In today's tournament I mulliganed to 6. One of the card was Progenitus, of course.
Luckily, my opponent landed Liliana and chose the plus ability. I couldn't have discarded it quicker enough, shuffling it into my library with BIG grin. Only to draw it on the very next turn.

So yeah, this again, twice the flavour:

[Tormod]

Epic, The Curse of Progenitus!!!

Every time I need to trim something from my SB, it's P.Genny because I know I'll end up drawing it.

[Julian23]

Chaos Elves at Bazaar of Moxen Madrid Legacy + Modern and Cube Report. It's been a while but check it out! Lots of bonus pictures! :) http://itsjulian.com/?p=1965

[Diogo37]

Chaos Elves at Bazaar of Moxen Madrid Legacy + Modern and Cube Report. It's been a while but check it out! Lots of bonus pictures! :) http://itsjulian.com/?p=1965

Thanks for this report Julian and congratz


Come on gentlemen, no more crying on the topic and we will stay on what really matters

[Lord_of_Rivendell]

Excellent report, Julian. Thanks so much for doing it.

Would you mind taking a few minutes to reflect on your Eldrazi match ups? One went well, one didn't. This is a new deck for us to face, and I'd appreciate your insights on it.

LoR

[Draconicsteel]

Hey guys, I've been following this thread for a while off and on, been playing Elves for probably at least a year and change at this point. I started on Affinity for a while, but had to find a legitimate deck once I stopped deluding myself and realized how much I couldn't compete (sadly, though I still love Affinity). Been having a blast with Elves. I've been playing the NO build, tried out the NO-less version recently. I don't know if it's because I'm more comfortable with NO, or because of the meta in my area (I live in Maryland, Miracles isn't quite as heavy here, and Lands is HUGE on the Eastern seaboard), but I decided to go back to playing NO. Though, I will say that after having played chaos elves, I'm much more comfortable with siding out NOs in certain match-ups, i.e., anything with counter magic. Also, still playing the Packmaster, because you guys are right, that card is nuts.

Anyway, thought I'd put up some tournament results from a local place from yesterday. 60 person tournament, I came in 12th. Here's my current build:

2 Dryad Arbor
1 Birchlore Rangers
2 Heritage Druid
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Nettle Sentinel
3 Quirion Ranger
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Shaman of the Pack
1 Wren's Run Packmaster
2 Craterhoof Behemoth

Spells (12)

4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Natural Order

Lands (18)

1 Wooded Foothills
2 Bayou
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Forest
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Gaea's Cradle
4 Misty Rainforest

Sideboard (15)

2 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Null Rod
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sylvan Library
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed

Round 1: Shardless 2-0

Won this round fairly easily. This match-up can be back or forth, depending on what we each draw, but I didn't have too many problems. Nothing really more to report here.

Round 2: Agro loam 0-2

Mulled to five G1 against an active Punishing Fire made me scoop pretty early. G2 he saw both Chalice and Teeg, and without either one I might have been able to get there. Still, awful match-up.

Round 3: Lands 1-2

Got him G1 because of my three Cradles. His Wastelands couldn't keep up. The other two games I lost to Molten Vortex (G2 he Decayed my Needle naming it), but they were good games. The guy piloting it is arguably one of the best Lands players in my area, so that with another bad match-up, didn't feel too bad about losing.

Round 4: D&T 2-1

G1 I mulled to five again, almost won, but he cast Revoker on my Quirion, and from there kept slowing me down by one turn until he landed Jitte. G2 I NO'ed turn three for an easy win. G3 was awesome - at one point he sticks a Magus of the Moat (???). I realize my only out is Shaman of the Pack. I can't remember if I found one off library or from a Green Sun, but I realized I didn't have a bouncer on board, so I NO away my Dryad Arbor for a Symbiote. He's at 20 life. I cast Shaman twice. At this point, he was able to find his Serra Avenger to supplement the Jitte he found with the SFM, he swings in and puts two counters on Jitte, passes turn. I bounce Shaman, he kills Symbiote and Reclamation Sage, ignoring my Birchlore Ranger, which was my only black source at the time. But it turned out not to matter, because Library saw me both a fetch for a Bayou and a Green Sun, so I had multiple outs. Don't think I've ever NO'ed for a Symbiote before, and it felt great.

Round 5: Blue Stompy 2-1

The guy piloting this build is notorious for being awful to play Magic against, because no matter if he wins or loses, he's complaining the entire time. He gets G1 with an early Chalice, I have to mull to five (again). G2 I deal with his Jitte, which is the only thing in his deck I need to worry about. The only legitimate cards he plays are Jitte and Chalice. Once I deal with his Jitte, he can't do anything. G3, he goes City of Traitors, Chalice, pass. I smile, play my Cavern and my Quirion Ranger, and he proceeds to complain for probably around five minutes about how I've seen Cavern every single game, and trying to figure out his next game plan. I'm pretty sure he only kept the hand because of turn one Chalice, so that felt really good. Later in the game I play a Null Rod and he tries to tell me that Elves never plays that card. Meanwhile, I'm not sure if I've seen a build that doesn't play one in the side . . . but anyway, I ignore the Back to Basics he plays and destroy him. His creatures, without Jitte, are essentially nothing more than limited cards. Not sure why he thinks the deck is good.

Round 6: Eldrazi 2-1

This was nice, because this was the first I've played this match-up. G1 he's on the play, no idea what I'm playing against, he plays turn one Chalice and goes on to win fairly easily from there. G2, no early Chalice, he gets a Thought-Knot Seer on board at one point, sees two NOs in my hand, and probably at that point realizes that he can't win. I take that game without too many problems. G3 he has a slow Chalice into a Trinisphere, I'm able to destroy two Chalices, ignore the Trinisphere, and land a Packmaster, which promptly doesn't care about his 6/6 Endless One. I win the game without casting another card and swarm him with deathtouch wolves. I think this match-up is fine for us, if we can get past Chalice (Cavern helps a ton here), his creatures really aren't impressive. We can bounce-block all day, and they're just vanilla dudes at that point. Games two and three, I never felt particularly out of control of the game.

So, there's that. It was good day, I felt comfortable with my build, and I felt like I played well (for once). I think I might switch out on Llanowar for a second Birchlore Rangers. I'm also sort of missing Pendelhaven, which I had dropped for one of the Caverns. Is going down to 7 fetches worth putting Pendelhaven back in? Is Pendelhaven really that necessary in the NO build? I like the card a lot, but Cavern is too good right now not to play.

[MrBurp]

Hi guys,

Have done some more testing with Chaos Elves. At this time I've only lost 2 matches, both of which I was trying out an alternative sideboarding strategy (that completely failed me). At this point I'm still positive against every deck I've tested against (these includes Miracles and Reanimator). The list feels really strong.

I'm going to play in the Belgian Legacy Cup Trials tomorrow in Brussels. The only cards I'm missing from Julian's list are 1 Bayou (which I can borrow) and 1 Karakas (which I can't borrow), and I'm running a 2nd Birchlore Ranger over the 2nd Llanowar Elves (of which I feel the 2nd Llanowar Elves should always be a Fyndhorn Elves or Elvish Mystic if you wanna run 2). I'm planning of running Bojuka Bog in the Karakas spot. How do you guys feel about this change? Anyone with a better suggestion (that isn't Karakas)?

Thanks

[Julian23]

If you're not playing Karakas, the Crop Rotation itself isn't worth it and I'd be happy to replace it with anything cheap that also generates mana (3rd Llanowar, 4th Heritage come to mind). This also frees up another sideboard slot in which you can add anything for the matchups you wanna be better against. Note that not having access to Crop Rotation/Karakas significantly hurts your SneakShow matchup.

[chewemy]

Was Prague Eternal's top 8 posted anywhere?

Here : http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=19921

And the list of the winner :

Creatures [30] 1 Reclamation Sage 2 Birchlore Rangers 2 Craterhoof Behemoth 2 Dryad Arbor 3 Heritage Druid 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Elvish Visionary 4 Nettle Sentinel 4 Quirion Ranger 4 Wirewood Symbiote Enchantments [1] 1 Sylvan Library

Sorceries [11] 3 Natural Order 4 Glimpse of Nature 4 Green Sun's Zenith Lands [18] 1 Taiga 2 Bayou 2 Cavern of Souls 2 Forest 3 Verdant Catacombs 4 Gaea's Cradle 4 Windswept Heath

Sideboard[18] 4 Thoughtseize 3 Abrupt Decay 1 Surgical Extraction 3 Blood Moon 1 Scavenging Ooze 1 Progenitus 1 Pithing Needle 1 Gaddock Teeg

[Julian23]

In speaking of Prague Eternal, here's my 2nd place report: http://itsjulian.com/?p=2004

[MrBurp]

Hi guys,

small report from Brussels:
(I ended up playing my initial list, I was to lazy to change anything so late)

Only 16 showed up, so 4 rounds with a cut to top 8 (we all wondered why not top 4, but whatever).

R1: Enchantress
G1: I combo him around T4 or T5 for the win.
G2 & G3: despite it looking good for me in the start, he manages both games to lock up the board with Enchantments and combo me.
1 - 2 loss putting me at 0 - 1 overall

R2: Miracles
G1: Slow and grindy game in which I skoop it up (probably way to late).
G2: Time is called before the game actually gets going. Probably would have won G2 (had Teek and Thalia in play).
0 - 1 loss putting me at 0 - 2 overall

(at this point I'm pretty sure I can't get into top 8, but because it's my first legacy event I deside to play the remaining games)

R3: Reanimator
G1: Don't have a DRS to open, but manage to kill T3 pretty unoposed.
G2: He combo's me T3, didn't see a DRS despite mulligan to 6.
G3: I open with DRS (gets killed), find a 2nd copy with GSZ the following turn, and I manage to grind him down (Wirewood Symbiote, DRS and Shaman of the Pack are a good team).
2 - 1 win putting me at 1 - 2 overall

R4: Storm
G1: He opens with land and says go. I have a normal T1. When he goes land go again (I know he's on storm) I feel pretty lucky being still alive. I go for it on my turn and combo him T2.
G2: He does find his stormcards and can kill me pretty unoposed T2.
G3: T2 GSZ for Gaddock Teek makes him scoop.
2 - 1 win putting me at 2 - 2 overall

Pretty happy with the day. I was gonna be happy with one win and managed to score two. The deck felt powerfull, not so much as the player operating it The day started out with me missing a lot of triggers, but in the end I was playing at the level I know I'm able off. Overall, very fun day and looking forward to the next Legacy Event!

[mistercakes]

hey guys, i tried chaos elves list at a local last night and went 3-1

i felt pretty good with the list overall.

i only have 3 gaea's cradles currently, so i ran a crop rotation over the 4th cradle (also didn't have the garruk relentless, so i just kept the thalia in there)

loss to mono red sneak attack chalice thing (1-2)
win vs junk depths (2-1)
win vs eldrazi (2-1)
win vs uw rest in peace helm standstill deck

thoughts after playing a ~ 20 games (still pretty new with elves in general, but i've played against it enough to understand all the triggers and sequencing)

1. i never drew packmaster, no did i ever feel it was a good choice to tutor for - might this be better as ezuri? wondering if this slot has been tested with him. i feel there's many games where i'm attacking with 2-3 guys and this gives you another way to hit lethal without making up clunky draws with another behemoth. another option could be fauna shaman. has this been tested in this build as well?

2. i felt like i wanted a 2nd dryad arbor a lot. i would probably now want to just cut the 2nd crop rotation for a 2nd dryad arbor. 3 cradles is a bit of a gamble, but i could see there will be games where cradles are your only lands in your hand (a necessary evil i suppose...when i get the 4th cradle i'm sure this slot will likely end up as the 4th cradle.)

3. also wondering about miracles matchup. i've been playing a lot of goblins online and understand that with cavern, ringleader is incredible, is it possible to try the elf version of that card in chaos elves?

thoughts? open to constructive criticism, particularly ones with experience with this build.

thanks :)
-rob

[Lord_of_Rivendell]

Can you talk more about the eldrazi match?

[mistercakes]

Can you talk more about the eldrazi match?

i don't think there's much to the match-up. they are heavily dependent on chalice, reality smasher and jitte.

in a heavy eldrazi meta I would recommend having a 2nd reclamation sage in the sb and I like bringing in cabal therapies mainly to deal with reality smasher.

bringing in 2 abrupt decay, the 2nd sage and 2 therapy is what I would gamble with.

all of the non smashers can be chumped and become much easier with the symbiote.

if they nut draw and you don't have cavern it's pretty tough, however that deck can easily get bad draws with their mana as well.

i only have the 1 match to go by, but my experience with discard Vs the smasher is what I hope for when I play rb goblins, and I've had a lot of matches with that.

[Diogo37]

hey guys, i tried chaos elves list at a local last night and went 3-1

i felt pretty good with the list overall.

i only have 3 gaea's cradles currently, so i ran a crop rotation over the 4th cradle (also didn't have the garruk relentless, so i just kept the thalia in there)

loss to mono red sneak attack chalice thing (1-2)
win vs junk depths (2-1)
win vs eldrazi (2-1)
win vs uw rest in peace helm standstill deck

thoughts after playing a ~ 20 games (still pretty new with elves in general, but i've played against it enough to understand all the triggers and sequencing)

1. i never drew packmaster, no did i ever feel it was a good choice to tutor for - might this be better as ezuri? wondering if this slot has been tested with him. i feel there's many games where i'm attacking with 2-3 guys and this gives you another way to hit lethal without making up clunky draws with another behemoth. another option could be fauna shaman. has this been tested in this build as well?

2. i felt like i wanted a 2nd dryad arbor a lot. i would probably now want to just cut the 2nd crop rotation for a 2nd dryad arbor. 3 cradles is a bit of a gamble, but i could see there will be games where cradles are your only lands in your hand (a necessary evil i suppose...when i get the 4th cradle i'm sure this slot will likely end up as the 4th cradle.)

3. also wondering about miracles matchup. i've been playing a lot of goblins online and understand that with cavern, ringleader is incredible, is it possible to try the elf version of that card in chaos elves?

thoughts? open to constructive criticism, particularly ones with experience with this build.

thanks :)
-rob

congratz

1- packmaster is sooooo good, he win vs all BUG decks and wolfs deathtouch is better then ezuri.

2- I think the opposite of that, when I play with the basic version already want to take 1 arbor.

3- the match against miracles is quiet in this version, I almost say q is favorable.
ringleader elf? pls god no
ringleader is good in gobbos because haste and vial.

[mistercakes]

congratz

1- packmaster is sooooo good, he win vs all BUG decks and wolfs deathtouch is better then ezuri.

2- I think the opposite of that, when I play with the basic version already want to take 1 arbor.

3- the match against miracles is quiet in this version, I almost say q is favorable.
ringleader elf? pls god no
ringleader is good in gobbos because haste and vial.

fair enough, i'll put some more games in as is. thanks.