[Deck] Elves Combo

[Koby]

For the most part, Vengevine answers those problem cards. I'm mostly concerned with the Turn 2 Stoneforge Mystic -> Jitte draw; which appears to happen every time (that is to say, this line of play is very consistent for X & Taxes decks). Needle of Wirewood Symbiote is an annoyance, but mostly Canonist EOT and Equipment is the primary need for KGrips, aside from trouble enchantments.

[k2thej]

For the most part, Vengevine answers those problem cards. I'm mostly concerned with the Turn 2 Stoneforge Mystic -> Jitte draw; which appears to happen every time (that is to say, this line of play is very consistent for X & Taxes decks). Needle of Wirewood Symbiote is an annoyance, but mostly Canonist EOT and Equipment is the primary need for KGrips, aside from trouble enchantments.

Even so, it still seems like that spot could be used against more common threats, no?

[Koby]

Ok here's the list I'm playing right now:


1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Bayou
6 Forest
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wooded Foothills

4 Fyndhorn Elves
3 Llanowar Elves
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Heritage Druid
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Elvish Archdruid
1 Priest of Titania
2 Fauna Shaman

4 Wirewood Symbiote

1 Joraga Warcaller
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Regal Force
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Summoner's Pact

Sideboard
3 Buried Alive
4 Vengevine
1 Viridian Shaman
3 Krosan Grip
3 Vexing Shusher
1 Terastodon

I'm probably going to cut down to 3 Vengevine very soon, as I've played more games with it and the 4th usually isn't necessary once you fire off Buried Alive. I'm trying out a couple of Fauna Shaman for when Glimpse doesn't show up to help setup a Priest/Ranger with Emrakul. I expect 90% of the time for Fauna Shaman to be countered/killed, but that's OK since she's plan B.

MTGO Daily Event #2152286
Round 1 - New Horizons
Game 1 - Fetch, elf go. He, land go. Fetch, Stifle'd, cast Visionary and setup for a combo turn. Goes back a few times and forth, then I stick a Glimpse and he concedes.
+3 BA +3 VV taking out some Pacts and Birchlores
Game 2 - I draw Gaea's Cradle and do stupid things with absurds amount of mana (like hard cast 3 VV).

Round 2 - Enchantress
Game 1 - Go off turn 3 off 1 land, draw all but 7 cards in my deck. :>
SB: +3 Krosan Grip +1 Terastadon -2 Pact -1 Warcaller (pfft attacking?) -1 V.Shaman
Game 2 -
Opening Hand: 2 Forest, 2 fetch, Glimpse, elf, Symbiote - I think this is keepable vs Enchantress, trying to fish out another hand with more gas might be risky if I whiff on lands... keep.
Opp: fetch, forest, accel.
Me: Draw: Fetch. Play fetch, elf.
Opp: Chrome Mox (Presence), cast Presence.
Me: Draw: Terastadon >:D, play fetch, attack for 1.
Opp: Sterling Grove, Plains, go.
Me: Draw: Visionary - start to gain Glimpse to dig for mana.
Opp: EOT, tutor for Humility, play Humility...

several turns later, Grip Humility, untap, go off, destroy Moat, Elephant Grass x2, Sigil of the Throne, attack with my deck.
Winning!

Round 3 - Doomsday - GULP! at least I win the die roll, which means he's behind half a turn.
Game 1 - starts off with Tundra into cantrips three times before going off on turn 2. *me'h*
SB: ??? I have nothing relevant.
Game 2 - Turn 1 DD for Emrakul, turn 2 Shelldock, turn 3 Emrakul for him.
Turn 1 Elves, turn 2 Lord, turn 3, double pact and attack for 6 to put him at 3. (getting Ranger + Warcaller)

I lose to double Pact trigger.

Ya, always half a turn behind. =\

Round 4 - NO Show
Game 1 - lose to Pro.
Game 2 - Turn 2 Buried Alive gets tehre
Game 3 - lose to Pro.

[lorddotm]

Isn't the 4th important for when your Buried Alive gets countered?

[Koby]

If it's getting countered, then it gets countered. They're still in the deck at that point, and a live draw. If i suspect it might not resolve, I could always bait with Glimpse :)

I think Cabal Therapy needs to be in the SB as disruption, cutting 1 VShaman, 1 Vengevine, 1 KGrip, and 1 Terastadon.

[k2thej]

If it's getting countered, then it gets countered. They're still in the deck at that point, and a live draw. If i suspect it might not resolve, I could always bait with Glimpse :)

I think Cabal Therapy needs to be in the SB as disruption, cutting 1 VShaman, 1 Vengevine, 1 KGrip, and 1 Terastadon.

I'm very interested to see how therapy works out for you. Def post results. You think therapy over thoughtseize?

[1maarten1]

What are you guys thoughts on Gleeful Sabotage vs Krosan grip?

And is it possible to do the following:
Me Gleeful Sabotage your CB, he goes E.Tutor (for CB or smthn else cmc 2) Is it possible to respond to the tutor with conspire putting the copy on top of the stack to destroy the CB before Tutor resolves?

It also dodges FoW thanks to conspire, but Krosan grip does that job also ofcourse. I think Gleeful Sabotage might be better in a Wirewood Hivemaster build then in the wish/emrakul build but I didnt test this.

[raudo]

I have the feeling that Lead the Stampede is the bomb in this deck. Ordered 4 foil and I will test it. What do you think?

[k2thej]

I have the feeling that Lead the Stampede is the bomb in this deck. Ordered 4 foil and I will test it. What do you think?

It is a worse sylvan messenger, which already sucks in combo, so no, it's not good.

It might be handy in Aggro Elves though. I could see a deck running it and sylvan messenger and generating some really good card advantage that way.

[catmint]

Me Gleeful Sabotage your CB, he goes E.Tutor (for CB or smthn else cmc 2) Is it possible to respond to the tutor with conspire putting the copy on top of the stack to destroy the CB before Tutor resolves?

Not sure but I don't think it works. You have to use conspire as you cast the spell, so after the spell & the copy is on the stack, he plays e. tutor in response.

[k2thej]

hi, 1st time poster but i'm the kid who top16'd the last 5k with intuition elves.

i don't understand your deck at all.
you play 1 bayou and 1 quirion ranger. do you just expect to never see wasteland at all? you do realize you CAN combo on turn 2 with ranger right?
Geez you must REALLY want a turn 1 elf with the 7 you dont actually need. And beside 7 games out of 10 quirion ranger is the exact same thing as a llanowar elf, except you can activate it even if you play it on turn 2.
2 fauna shaman? Does it actually achieve anything in your deck besides a removal target? Have you ever filtered out the 12 llanowar elves in your deck for symbiotes and sentinels? Fauna shaman is 4 or go home.
I laugh at the combination of vengevine AND vexing shusher in your board. You clearly have never vengevined a counterbalance player(probably because the deck is soo ill equipped to deal with any countermagic whatsoever and your grave engines are clearly lacking)
on that note, burried alive is literally awful. it's far from inutition because it can't get anything EXCEPT vengevine. like what happens after resolving buried alive #1? do the rest just sit in your hand as you attempt to cantrip off visionary in game 3 vs anyone with a brain?
1 Cradle? Have you READ what that card DOES? What are you afraid of opening with 2 in your hand? The upsides of the card are so high i will always register a list with 4. I won so many matches with turn 1 dork, turn 2 dork, cradle, fauna shaman it's redic.
Most of all, you chose to play black and kept literally the best card for the deck out of it, Thoughtsieze. Why even bother? Do you know how sick thoughtsieze is in the combo matchup? Especially if you just bring in cabal therapy/witnesses from the board and completely grind them out.
You choose to play a bunch of 3of's in your board without intuition why? You have fauna shaman at your disposal and you activley choose not to play silver bullet creatures like Viridan Zealot, Filth and E.Witness for a 5th glimpse??
Why on earth is there a terrastadon in your board? The only creatures you ever wanna cast/get for 7+ mana is PRO or Regal Force, because BOTH win you the game. Terrastadon SLOWS your clock down considerably for a VERY marginal effect.

Your list is so suboptimal all your results do not tell you ANYTHING VALID about the deck.
Embarassing to say the least.

Hi Dave. Welcome to the forum, please refrain from being a douche in the future.

Though you did top 16, and I have a few similar gripes with ruckus' list to you, I'd like to start by drawing attention to the fact that you clearly did not make this post to say anything productive. The phrasing of your post does one thing: attempts to make you feel good about yourself for top 16ing. Posts here are to better the deck, not to attack people's lists.

Sidenote: What happens after you resolve buried alive #1? Umm....you win?



Frankly, the intuition list occasionally squeaks by to top 16, but let me say this, the intuition build is the definition of suboptimal.

Test this MD, and tell me it isn't better. If you are not comboing turn 2 nearly half the time, you don't know how to play elves.

4 Birchlore Rangers
3 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
1 Joraga Warcaller
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
1 Regal Force
4 Wirewood Symbiote

4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Summoner's Pact

2 Bayou
5 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs

[Koby]

hi, 1st time poster but i'm still a kid

Hi "Daveslusher"

Welcome to The Source. May I suggest to be more constructive rather than ranty?

I implore you to read through the thread and read through the discussions. Many of these have already been addressed.
I'm going to assume that you're the Elves player from SCG Open @ Edison, since no other Elves deck squeeked into Top 16 since Nass and Hatch, and I'm 100% certain you're neither.

Nice deck btw, I'm glad to see you cut Nass' Brainstorms. - Why did you choose to run only 9 elves (Llanowar, Fyndhorn, Ranger), when you're griping about me running 1 Ranger (8 total with mana dorks)?

[Daveslusher]

to start off, i'm blunt. if you cant take the points i'm trying to make then so be it. Sorry for making me seem like a douchebag but the intent was to make the list better.

To start off, I'm blunt. If in four years of lurking all of your seven attempts at posting have only fueled stupid flamewars then so be it. Sorry for making me seem like a martinet but the intent is to make the site better.

~NC

Sidenote: What happens after you resolve buried alive #1? Umm....you win?

the point im trying to make is if they have a way to dealing with vengevine with say a crypt or 2 blockers, 1 with an active jitte, what do the other buried alives do for you? every card in your deck needs to be live in control matchups.

As for the list you presented me, i did some digging with elves before the 5k and i found matt nass' list to just be better against the format. Yes potency is very nice but sometimes they have all the answers and you need to attack then from a different angle(counterbalance, 4c landstill etc.)

It's still the same elf combo deck, you just give yourself outs to a bunch of game breaking spells(CB, Show+Tell, EE) by having all the answers(Vengevine destroys any form of counterbalance lock, You can fauna shaman for regal force in response to show and tell and draw like 5 cards, and 1/3 of your deck is now immune to EEon1)

Nice deck btw, I'm glad to see you cut Nass' Brainstorms. - Why did you choose to run only 9 elves (Llanowar, Fyndhorn, Ranger), when you're griping about me running 1 Ranger (8 total with mana dorks)?

im griping about the 1 ranger because its your best llanowar elf effect.
not to mention if you play a llanowar elf on turn 1 and a ranger on turn 2 you can almost always combo.

[k2thej]

It's still the same elf combo deck, you just give yourself outs to a bunch of game breaking spells(CB, Show+Tell, EE) by having all the answers(Vengevine destroys any form of counterbalance lock, You can fauna shaman for regal force in response to show and tell and draw like 5 cards, and 1/3 of your deck is now immune to EEon1)

It's not the same elf combo deck when I run 29 one drop creatures AND 4 summoner's pact and you run 21 creatures and no pact. This difference is huge. This translates to 33 one drops when comboing vs 21. Not to mention leaving out the cradles means 4 more non dead mid-combo draws for my build. Your combo speed and consistency is just too low. It is a classic case of deck ADD.

[kyller83]

did you stop running the wish package k2thej?

[k2thej]

did you stop running the wish package k2thej?

In the interest of addressing more threats I've been testing a non-wish build as well. Still testing, but I like the idea of vv in the board.

[Koby]

@ Wish package:

When I was playing I noticed how awful it is to have to draw Emrakul when you're combing off. There was one game where I had to draw my deck to draw the emrakul, then discard it to prevent decking myself at the end of the turn. Being able to Wish for it (and 3 Wishes are more common than 1 Emrakul) makes the game progress faster, but it's pretty much academic at that point.

I like the utility that Wish adds (like being able to get Cradle when we otherwise don't run any), but it only works in the highly-dedicated Combo lists. It becomes worse when boarding into VV, as you lose out on a lot of sideboard room.

[lep]

In SCG:DC I played against someone who was playing a standard build as far as I could tell but it ran Vengevine and Mirror Entity. It worked pretty well for him. But I have some questions for the experts...

Is there a concensus about running Vengevine main? With or without Fauna Shaman? I like the Vengevine package but Shaman seems too slow.

Mirror Entity? Seems like a solid pick with the massive amount of mana that can be generated and it can be supported on a sole Savannah with Birchlore support.

7 the magic number with fetches? Gaea's Cradle also seems to be under debate.

[k2thej]

In SCG:DC I played against someone who was playing a standard build as far as I could tell but it ran Vengevine and Mirror Entity. It worked pretty well for him. But I have some questions for the experts...

Is there a concensus about running Vengevine main? With or without Fauna Shaman? I like the Vengevine package but Shaman seems too slow.

Mirror Entity? Seems like a solid pick with the massive amount of mana that can be generated and it can be supported on a sole Savannah with Birchlore support.

7 the magic number with fetches? Gaea's Cradle also seems to be under debate.

Shaman is absolutely too slow main. Because of that, Vengevine in the board is the better option. Your combo consistency goes way up.

Mirror entity is really not good. It is essentially a wincon. If you play the deck right, you should never need more mana. the only non wincon advantage is the combo with symbiote during an active glimpse, and even then curio would be better. It's not good.

I don't run cradle. I think in order to make cradle useful you need to have multiples or multiple crop rotations, and like I said, you shouldn't need the mana. I can see why the intuition build would benefit from it a lot, but that build is much slower. You don't need cradle, you do need one drops, and the spots used for cradle/crop rotation would almost always be better off as one drops.

[lep]

Shaman is absolutely too slow main. Because of that, Vengevine in the board is the better option. Your combo consistency goes way up.

Mirror entity is really not good. It is essentially a wincon. If you play the deck right, you should never need more mana. the only non wincon advantage is the combo with symbiote during an active glimpse, and even then curio would be better. It's not good.

I don't run cradle. I think in order to make cradle useful you need to have multiples or multiple crop rotations, and like I said, you shouldn't need the mana. I can see why the intuition build would benefit from it a lot, but that build is much slower. You don't need cradle, you do need one drops, and the spots used for cradle/crop rotation would almost always be better off as one drops.

So your primary plan is to drop an Emrakul after a ton of elves then turning them sideways in your free turn?