[Deck] The EPIC Elf Survival

[bigbear102]

Again, I haven't been really happy with the Packmaster. My problem with it is that if I have a bunch of mana, I'm going to probably just go for the Entity finish.

Anyone have any thoughts on that?

Packmaster was put in because Entity was taken out. It is also a secondary NO target in case you have Progenitus in your hand. It really does not make much sense to run both, and I can understand completely why you don't like him. If you cut the Entity, then he is awesome, if not, then he's just a 5/5 dork most of the time, because you will go crazy with Entity.

I played Di's version without Entity and with NO and Packmaster at Chicago, but have been testing some other versions lately.

I really want some form of removal in this deck, and it's looking like Masticore would be the best because of Priest. Any ideas?

[Esper3k]

Packmaster was put in because Entity was taken out. It is also a secondary NO target in case you have Progenitus in your hand. It really does not make much sense to run both, and I can understand completely why you don't like him. If you cut the Entity, then he is awesome, if not, then he's just a 5/5 dork most of the time, because you will go crazy with Entity.

I played Di's version without Entity and with NO and Packmaster at Chicago, but have been testing some other versions lately.

I really want some form of removal in this deck, and it's looking like Masticore would be the best because of Priest. Any ideas?

If you're running the white splash, there's always Swords or you could run a few red removal spells since we're running Taigas anyways.

I actually think if you're going to do removal, red would probably be the best way to go anyways since if you're under a Magus, you can always pop him and reactivate your duals/fetches (if you don't have any basic forests out).

I haven't really found lack of removal to be a problem though.

For me, my experience so far is that you absolutely just die to combo :)

Even post board, combo seems to be a really rough matchup.

[mugs]

I really want some form of removal in this deck, and it's looking like Masticore would be the best because of Priest. Any ideas?

I run 3 Thornscape Battlemages main deck - Direct damage and/or Artifact removal in an easy elf friendly package - paired with Wirewood Symbiote or Quirion Ranger just make it better.

[GGoober]

So today was a little EPIC fail Elf Survival for me. I think I played fairly well, and made the right plays playing against the only blue control (Painter Servant deck) by baiting key spells and landing an Angry Progenitus in play.

My list was:
Lands
5 Forest
3 Taiga
3 Savannah
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath

Creatures
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Fyndhorn Elves
3 Quirion Ranger
4 Priest of Titania
4 Elvish Champion
4 Imperious Perfect
2 Mirror Entity
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Sylvan Messenger
1 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Squee
1 Progenitus
1 Wren's Run Packmaster
1 Anger

Win/combo condition
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Natural Order


Matchup one: Against Bryan ANT with Burning Wish (Good deck, best ANT deck against a non-blue metagame. Burning Wish makes it more resilient to moon/3sphere hate as you can wish for Shattering spree)

Game1: I joked to Bryan how I would lose the first game if he went first since Elf Survival just shits to combo. We drawed on the first die roll, then he beat the second roll by 1 point to go first.

He drew into some crap and comboed out on turn 3 with Ad Nauseam. My hand meanwhile was nutty. I played Llanowar turn 1 and Survival turn 2, pitching for anger EOT. My hand at the moment is Natural Order with 1 Land and a couple of creatures. I would have had an angry Progenitus out on Turn 3, dropping his life low for ANT, and Bryan proceeds to Duress on his Turn 3 and grab my Natural Order.

Sad face. I chained into Priests and 1 Mirror Entity but Turn 3 wasn't enough to kill him, and he went off with ANT and tendrilled me. He would have lost next turn. Most importantly, he would have lost if he didn't Duress NO since he would be too low to Ad Nauseam.

Game 2: I sided out Elvish Champions and the slower stuff and boarded in 1 Magus of the Moon, 2 Choke, 4 Thorn, (didn't acquire Teeg since I last minute decided to play this deck). I mulled down to 5 (first hand was godly good against him, but I only had 1 land, no mana elf and 2 Thorns). I decided not to risk that hand. My 5 land hand was: 2 Forest, 1 Llanowar Elf, 1 Thorn, 1 Natural Order. Great hand for a 5-land hand against him if I land Thorn on turn 2.

I went first with mana elf. Expectedly he duressed me out, and comboed off on his next turn after I land a Priest (could natural order for next turn and give him only 2 turns). Had the Thorn resolved, it would be game for him since I would buy at least 2 turns, one of which Progenitus would drop his life to 10, making it very difficult for him to go off.

Notes: I did not lose to ANT. I lost to Duress. The MU is bad, but I had a good chance, and would had won both games if not for Duress. But then again, first game Bryan got a slow turn 3 undisrupted win for ANT.

Matchup 2: Blue/Red Painter Servant (the storeowner's first Legacy deck. Not too great, but I helped him improve it, so I know his deck inside out)

Game 1: I won the die roll, kept a hand of 1 Llanowar Elf, 1 Forest, 1 Fetch, 1 Survival, 1 Priests, 1 Quirion Ranger, 1 Natural Order. Beautiful. I played elf and passed. He ponders off Seat of Synod and passes. I played Priest baiting a FOW, he resolves. It's good against him anyway since I know how his deck works and resolving priests early is a good thing to have mana to combo out with Survival. He got some nutty draw and lands Painter and Grindstone off tomb. I topdeck Zealot. Played Survival which he FOWed, and I landed Zealot and activated with Priest + Ranger, killing Painter. I then resolved Natural Order and beat his face, although I was 1 damage short while he played another Painter and grinded me away.

Dang it

Game 2: Boarded out Elvish Champions and in goes 1 Grip, 1 Shaman, 2 Choke. I would have had more grips, but like I said, I decided to play this deck last minute.

He went first and pondered. I resolved first turn Survival off ESG and another ESG that paid for Daze. Yaay! The next few turns involving me setting up an angry army and beating him with a couple of Elves.

Game 3: Once again, I won, Natural Order was involved. This match was a little harder since he had pressure with Servant and Grindstone. I managed to get some hate and killed 2 Servants in the process:

Notes: Progenitus actually stops grindstone and be the sole card left in your library, but you'll draw into him and have another turn left to beat your opponent


Matchup 3: Monoblack aggro
Game 1: I've played against my opponent before. Dan has no chance against this deck game 1, but seriously, Duress hits me all the time on Turn 1 that I never get Natural Order + Survival. I basically beat him down with a lame T2 deck with Elvish lords.

Game 2: He boarded in Plagues. I regretted playing this deck simply because I know he played Plagues. I should have played Landstill today. Esper3k mentioned to me Plague shouldn't be a problem since you have Lords. That's true, but Dan was running an unconventional list with so much creature hate. And he has smothers against the Lords. I managed to get his life down to 10 by Elf beats. Once again he Duressed my Natural Order AND Survival on turns 1 and 2. After which he mutilates, killing my board, and lands Plague. I needed a Lord in order to play through plague, but even then, my creatures were 1/1. Viridian Zealot was a dead draw, and I never got to see Natural Order or Survival to get my way out.

Game 3: He got the nuts: Turn 1 Duress, Hymn. Taking out first Natural Order, followed by 2 lands. I had a land and elf, and next turn, he lands bob and starts the nuts. I eventually lost due to a combination of plagues and mutilates.

Notes: Black discard just sucks unless you quickly land Survival/Natural Order. In either games I played. I could not land Survival turn 1 due to no ESG. This shows how crucial Turn 1 2cc plays are, and how ESG is essential in this deck. I would never run less than 4. Overall, the deck did well, but not well in my meta full of Ritual+Discard We had: 1Eva Green, 2 Monoblack discard and ANT with Duress. 4 Decks with MD Duress oh man, in a 8-played tourney. Seriously Duress is MVP against Elf Survival if we don't land Survival. We simply become some stupid T2 Elf Aggro deck. I'm annoyed today with the MU. The deck has good potential, but the MUs I had were terrible, especially the luck I had against ANT and Black Discard. I didn't lose to the decks. I lost to Duress. I would have a fine chance otherwise.

[Esper3k]

Yeah in my testing, the matchup against Combo is really really bad game 1. Game 2, you get a little better since you have Teeg and the Thorns to bring in.

Against Eva Green, it seems to me that whoever goes first wins, so that initial die roll is so important. I can't see the matchup against Mono Black Discard is that terribly different. I was playing Dragon Stompy, which was a pretty good choice against Dan's deck since Chalice for 1 = gg.

It sounded like to me if you had had time to get together a better sideboard, you could've done better (had more Grips, Teeg). In the matchup against Mono Black Discard, Grips can be really good to get rid of Plagues, Racks, etc.

[Radiant]

As I stated before I do not like Viridian Zealot.
The only good thing about it is that it is powered up by our lords.

I now run Harmonic Sliver instead, which I really like much better.
It has a CC of 3, which gets around Counterbalance most of the time and it's not affected by Engineered Plague (set to 'Elf'), which is a huge point.

We already splash white, so why not play Harmonic Sliver instead.
Usually you would survival both only when needed so the + power Zealot gets by the lords is not that relevant, as you usually have better creatures at hand.

What makes the Sliver really better is, that it is not an Elf, so you won't need the lords to kill an Engineered Plague in play, which makes your whole gameplan very vulnerable.
And since the Sylvan Messenger got kicked from the deck or is played as a 1-off, you don't need a that high elf-count.

What do you think?

[GGoober]

@Esper3k. That was the problem: incomplete sideboard. I only had 1 grip, 4 Thorns, 1 Magus of the Moon, no Teegs. Terrible. But I'm getting myself some grips for $4 a playset and will see how it goes. Even with Teegs, ANT still seems hard since you have to ideally drop turn 1 Survival, and get Teeg online by second turn or lose slowly, unless you have Thorn backup. Thorn is the key card in winning against ANT but just 4 Thorn usually isn't enough. The discard matchup wasn't bad at all and I'm annoyed because it wasn't supposed to be a bad matchup but I was extremely unlucky with Duress hitting both key cards (NO Survival) in all 3 games against Monoblack discard. Not to mention Dan ran way too much creature removal for a typical Discard deck. I agree if I had the Grips, it would have been much better. The matchup gets bad if they kill your key creatures and discard Survival/NO, then we just become a lame T2 Elf deck. Chances are you should be luckier, and they shouldn't be that lucky, but Dan was extremely lucky with Turn 1 Ritual on all 3 plays.

I dislike Zealot, in the NO builds. And Radiant's right. Harmonic Sliver hits CB and dodges CB, Chalice@2, and avoids Plague if we don't have an online lord. Without Messenger, the Elf Synergy is no longer that important.

Think about it this way: Zealot doesn't care about synergy anyway. Why? You solely kill him to get rid of troublesome enchantment/artifacts. Harmonic Sliver actually sticks to beat, not to mention Mirror Entity converts it to an Elf and gets some Synergy. Overall, Zealot dies to CB, Plague, Stifle, and requires 4 mana. Harmonic Sliver dies to CB (less often), Stifle, and requires 3 mana. I think I'm running Harmonic Sliver instead.

[Esper3k]

You know, looking through creatures that do the "destroy target artifact or enchantment", Harmonic Sliver is looking better and better over the Zealot, especially with less focus on the Sylvan Messengers.

I'll give it a try :)

@crz87: I think Gaddock is more important to stick than Thorns against ANT. They usually just can't go off with him in play. It's possible for them to go off with a Thorn in play. However, he's harder to stick than a Thorn unless you're boarding in like 4 of him (which could be a consideration). Thorn is also more generally useful for the deck than Teeg is (Teeg shuts off Natural Order).

[sauce]

You know, looking through creatures that do the "destroy target artifact or enchantment", Harmonic Sliver is looking better and better over the Zealot, especially with less focus on the Sylvan Messengers.

I'll give it a try :)

@crz87: I think Gaddock is more important to stick than Thorns against ANT. They usually just can't go off with him in play. It's possible for them to go off with a Thorn in play. However, he's harder to stick than a Thorn unless you're boarding in like 4 of him (which could be a consideration). Thorn is also more generally useful for the deck than Teeg is (Teeg shuts off Natural Order).

good ANT decks pack Slaughter Pact + Spell Snare in the board, so hate in form of 2 drop is hard to keep on the table/to resolve.
also, most lists pack 1 rushing river main.
this is why i think black splash is stronger than white splash, black green red.

playing duress/cabal therapy mix from the board is very strong.

thoughts?

[Atwa]

good ANT decks pack Slaughter Pact + Spell Snare in the board, so hate in form of 2 drop is hard to keep on the table/to resolve.
also, most lists pack 1 rushing river main.
this is why i think black splash is stronger than white splash, black green red.

playing duress/cabal therapy mix from the board is very strong.

thoughts?

I do like the idea, however I'd rather keep my sideboard against AggroLoam, Goblins, Burn and Slight in the form of Absolute Law than cutting it for a match up so bad, you won't beat it 50% for the time even with the black splash.

A turn 1 Teeg or Thorn is too good to pass. When you want discard to make a difference, you'll need to side in at least 7 spells en even then you won't be guaranteed to swing the matchup enough to make it favorable.

I'll keep on playing with my Thorns, which are actually usefull against other decks (like burn). I won't dedicate half my board and bastardize my deck to make a lost cause a little better. I'd rather make the close matches a little better beatable.

[Esper3k]

Yeah, I like the white splash a lot especially because I like Mirror Entity maindeck and Absolute Law/Gaddock Teeg in the board.

I've just resigned myself to losing to ANT when I hit it, heh.

[sauce]

wouldnt a hurricane be just as good as mirror entity if you already can go infinite mana pretty much? so teeg is good, but i think you can play thorn of amethyst + pyrostatic pillar?

put down an elf and pyrostatic pillar them out of the game.

[Atwa]

wouldnt a hurricane be just as good as mirror entity if you already can go infinite mana pretty much?

I actually played 2x Hurricane in my casual elves deck. I like it pretty much, although it get's so much better with Wellwisher, Seeker of Skybreak and Wirewood Lodge, all cards this deck doesn't play.

So teeg is good, but i think you can play thorn of amethyst + pyrostatic pillar?
put down an elf and pyrostatic pillar them out of the game.

So your plan is slowing yourself down a lot while they shape a decent hand and when ready to combo out, bounce the Pillar and win from there? Or play 5 spells, tendrils, play another 2 spells and Tendrils again? If you are playing a few elves of your own, your opponent won't even have to play 9 spells before playing Tendrils.

I'd rather play only Thorn and race them to death.

Let's all face it, combo is a matchup we are only going to win with luck. You can board in any 8 cards and you still won't make the matchup 50/50. The only thing decent to board against them are Thorns, which are also pretty decent against other decks like Burn and even Threshold and Orim's Chant (which is pretty narrow).

Plans like discard or Pillar are only going to weaken your board against matchups which are about even or slightly unfavourable. The only combo hate I am ever going to run in the side are Teeg and Thorns, and maybe in the right meta a Magus of the Moon. And I only run those because they are also usefull against other decks. Dedicating sideboard slots purely for combo is a waste of space, since it won't win you the game. Modern combo is resilient enough to win through the few cards we can board in.

I'd rather have the space to make sure I win against the rest of the field.

[Esper3k]

wouldnt a hurricane be just as good as mirror entity if you already can go infinite mana pretty much? so teeg is good, but i think you can play thorn of amethyst + pyrostatic pillar?

put down an elf and pyrostatic pillar them out of the game.

For me, sometimes I'm actually lower on life than my opponent and Mirror Entity comes down to win the game that turn. Also, without Mirror Entity, you can't actually go infinite with the Symbiote (you need Mirror Entity to make Symbiote an Elf so he can bounce himself). You can generate a bunch of mana with Priest + Ranger, definitely, though.

I've considered putting Orim's Chant in my sideboards since there's quite a bit of Dark Ritual based decks around in my meta (Ritual + Discard, ANT). I find it hilarious when they Ritual, then you Chant in response :)

[HdH_Cthulhu]

I've considered putting Orim's Chant in my sideboards since there's quite a bit of Dark Ritual based decks around in my meta (Ritual + Discard, ANT). I find it hilarious when they Ritual, then you Chant in response :)

Then you have just countered Ritual and you buyed a turn. Sure not bad, but whene you dont kill them till their next turn they could go off again. Also soon they dont even mana burn.

The best use of Chant you will get whene they bounce your Thorn/Chalice then you chant them and play your hate again. But that happens very rarly...

[Media314r8]

The best use of Chant you will get when they bounce your Thorn/Chalice then you chant them and play your hate again. But that happens very rarly...

I would say the best use of chant is when they don't duress/chant you as they only expect permanent/bears hate from a creature deck, and you can chant them when they IT (retaining priority to pop LED) that seems like a swell time to chant.

/sarcasm

I think teeg and chant are the best options the deck has against combo, which is unfortunate, but the goblins 'glass cannon' approach may be the best option.

[Elf_Ascetic]

Maybe a little late, but I'd like to adres crz87's report. In the Paintermatchup, you're going for a Progenitus. Why? With Progenitus in your deck, you CANNOT lose to grinding. I think it was more wise to bait FoW with the Order, eat his artifact with the Zealot, and play survival. With survival in play, and progenitus NOT in play, you always have one card left in your library. If he didn't draw the artifact, you could have fetched a champion or entity or something. Am I missing something, or do you have to revise your quote?

made the right plays playing against the only blue control (Painter Servant deck) by baiting key spells and landing an Angry Progenitus in play.

[Esper3k]

Yeah against ANT, I'd probably let them build up some spells before I Chant them.

@Elf_Ascetic: I agree with you on this one - against decks that win through grinding, Survival + Progenitus means you don't immediately die. However, you're unfortunately still left with no more cards to draw, so hopefully you still have enough on the board/in hand to win. What's even nicer about Progenitus is that since his ability is a replacement effect, there's no gap for them to screw with your graveyard (Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, etc.).

[georgjorge]

Survival + Progenitus means you NEVER die to decking because you can use Survival to shuffle it back every turn (you don't HAVE to fetch out a creature when you activate Survival).

[Esper3k]

Yes, I meant you don't immediately die because while you won't die to decking, you aren't going to be drawing any more cards either for the rest of the game. So, you have to win based off of what you have on board and what you have in hand. If you can't, you're probably in for a slow and painful death.