No, you're right. I thought there was a difference in the 2 approaches...but there really isn't, not funcionally. The Grapeshot win needs Glimpse a lot more though...I've read several posts here where folks have powered out a Regal Force via Living Wish with a mana-lord and drawn into Emrakul without Glimpse. I think (with my little brain) that the Emmy/wish builds don't need to rely on Glimpse as much as the storm setup does.
Then again, I AM retarded...lol.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
It does not, Living lists basically have 4 more accelerants or Win-cons, and do not rely on Glimpse at all really. It certainly is easier to win when you see Glimpse, but it's not as necessary. Living wish tutors for Regal Force many, many times. Also, playing 4 Elvish Archdruid gives yet another fast aggro win-con.
The Grapeshot + Cloudstone curio list on the other hand combos with just those 2 cards, via infinite spells.
I just finished 5th (3-1) in my local 25 player tourney with following list:
Creatures
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Priest of Titania
2 Elvish Visionary
3 Heritage Druid
2 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
1 Regal Force
3 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Arbor Elf
1 Viridian Zealot
Instants
4 Summoner's Pact
Sorceries
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Living Wish
Lands
4 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Savannah
SB
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Heritage Druid
1 Regal Force
1 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Karakas
2 Krosan Grip
1 Gleeful Sabotage
1 Dauntless Escort
1 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Orim's Chant
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
Round 1 vs. 14 y old victim with bad elf-combo/aggro 2:0
Round 2 vs. UR Stiflenought 0:2
G1: He wins dice, Mulligans and keeps 1 Land hand with Grim Lavamancer and Brainstorm. He finds his 2nd Land turn 2 and had Spell Snare for my Priest. I play archdruid next turn with glimpse, nettle and heritage in hand, but he casts Vendilion Clique for my glimpse... Lavamancer and Fire-Ice for the win.
G2: I keep a hand with 3 lands, 2 priest, 1 Fyndhorn, 1 Wish, 1 Pact. No turn 1 play for me and more tempo loss because he spell snared my titania again. The second titania is taken from me with Mind Harness, which pays easily for the upkeep and in the first turn even game him boost for his Vendilion Clique. When he plays it he let’s me keep my living wish and my pact. He spell snares the wish. I draw Regal force and decide to pact for archdruid with 3 forest, 1 Savannah, 2 Mana-elf on the board. He then made an amazing play: Wasteland my Savannah Submerge my archdruid and Fire Ice my 2 mana-elfs. I knew he had the plan to kill me with pact, because he did not take it. Had no choice though…
Btw: Submerge is next to stifle and wasteland another reason to play monogreen, because of courseSubmerge in response to fetchland is a free spot removal for Merfolk and blue.
Round 3 vs. Affinity-Stompy hybrid 2:0
G1: I win the dice, but have a slow hand, so I play turn 2 wish for Kataki, War's Wage, which made the turn 5 win really easy.
G2: He has to mulligan to 4, but starts with powder keg. I have a mediocre hand. Turn 1: Nettle, Turn 2 Wish for Wirewood, Turn 3: archdruid, Turn 4: 2 glimpse and draw into Gleeful Sabotage,
Round 4 vs. Merfolk
G1: He daze’s once but no FoW so I win Turn 4
G2: He plays with black and sides in 4 Perish, + 2 Umezawa's Jitte,. He dazes my Turn 2 archdruid and gets jitte active Turn 3 for the win.
G3: He slows me down Forcing my Archdruid but does not draw Perish or Jitte, so I win.
Conclusion: I am happy with the result and the deck worked very well.
14 Forest was a very good Manabase and I did not suffer from too many “no land” mulligan like last time. I did not miss cradle. I had it in the sideboard when I tested, but never wished for it, so I cut it.
Also interesting: I met someone who plays regularly there with combo elves. His list has 4 priest , 0 archdruid, but 4 Natural Order as alternative wincon. He claims that his combo is not much weaker (I will goldfish soon ) and that a Progenitus win's but Archdruid does not. What I liked is the sideboard option Terastodon and Empyrial Archangel to help versus difficult matchups. He finished 3rd, but told me he won already and is regularly in the Top 4. I hope that I can convince him to join the forum, so he can discuss and share his experiences.
Congrats on the finish. Question: I count one game lost to Pact; did you keep track of games where GSZ over Pact would have significantly hurt you for comparison?
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
That was an absolutely absurd pact kill haha. Lists with basics would not have been hit with it though. The problem with the pact/gsz argument is that the instances where someone dies to pact are very obvious, but it is much harder to point out each specific time where pact would have been better than gsz if you are looking for specific examples. It has to be a theory argument because there are too different cases to look at to ever count them all.Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin
Yes, Round 3 Game two with the active powder keg. It was very tight and I had 2 pact and was very light with cards. The glimpse would have been uselesse with 2 GSZ. I would have played 1 GSZ for Visionary and combo of next turn. He would have the chance to draw one of his many outs like chalice or perish.
Round 4 vs. MerfolkGame 3 was also very tight and I had at least 1 pact. with gsz I could have tried to combo off, but not sure if the missed card draw would hurt. He had 6 outs with Perish and Jitte.
I agree with K2, the times you loose to pact are "hard facts" but seldom. The times pact is better than GSZ are more common, but not that clear, because it is most of the time hard to say if I would have been able to get there with GSZ instead of pact.
Just for the protocol: in the game vs. stiflenought GSZ would not have made a difference. I GSZ for archdruid. He submerges archdruid, fire-ices my 2 elves and I still loose the race to his 3/1 flyer...His disruption in both games was very good and he is also a good player who always talkes about qualifying for the pro tour or something... :)
How was the symbiote and heritage in board?
Symbiote and Heritage are the most important cards when glimpsing, so I wanted to make sure I have access to them with Living Wish. Yesterday I only wished once for a symbiote in the game with the Ratchet Bomb. From my testing I can say that it plays very well. Running 4 Wish you need to make sure you can not only wish for emrakul or utility if needed, but also for cards that support your primary goal...
Just a quick tourney report for one of the smaller, weekly tourneys we have around here. I've been playing this deck off and on for a year or so. I just recently started running something close to IBA's list and I like it alot.
I don't often write these things and I didn't take notes so I apologize if it's a bit sloppy. I went 3-1.
4 rounds of swiss. No T8 cut.
R1. Elf Aggro. 2-0
I get paired against a player new to the tournament scene. He was playing the kitchen table version of elves. I win the match quickly but spend the rest of the round explaining Legacy to him and trying to show him the best way to improve his deck without spending too much money. His buddy comes over with a kitchen table version of Goblins and I help him out too. I talk to the shop owner and she tosses him some commons I picked out for him. Freebies. Very nice. And nice guys. I hope they don’t get discouraged by all these blue dual-wielding dudes.
R2. Show and Tell/Sneak Attack. 2-0
G1. I win the roll. I have no idea what he’s about to do. I go Forest, mana Elf, pass. He starts with Mox Diamond into Lotus Petal into Burning Wish and I get a little sad because I assume he’s on some kind of Tendrils combo. When he goes for Show and Tell then makes his land drop I sigh in relief. Just a little. Because I don’t think the combo deck he’s running is any nicer than Tendrils. But I might have a chance.
My turn 2 is a Priest of Titania, swing with Llanowar Elf because I had no one drop. He Show and Tells into an Emrakul and I drop a Regal Force. I’m not sure if that was the correct play. I had another Llanowar Elf in hand. But it happened. Move on. My turn. I see his foily Emrakul sitting in front of me and I start to get nervous. So this is what it feels like. I’ve never seen this guy at the shop before. What if he thinks I’m slowplaying when really, I’m terrible and have to triple count my mana to make sure I don’t fuck up? I start to play out my dudes. I don’t remember exactly what the sequence of spells was but I really wanted to win that turn. I start going off but I can only make 14 mana. I fizzle with about a dozen or so elves on the board. If I had just one more Wirewood Symbiote in the maindeck to tutor up I could have won right there. He swings with his fatty and I sac six elves. I have a GSZ in hand. This can still work. On my turn I double and triple count the mana and damage. I GSZ out an Archdruid and swing for exactly 16 (lethal!) damage, stealing the game. Turns out that turn two Llanowar poke was relevant damage. I had to take a breather after that game. That was more nerve-wracking than approaching a female. I remember now. This is why I play Magic. Not for the close, skill-testing games but because I need a reason to stay inside and avoid women. Thanks, Wizards.
G2. He starts with a fetch, go. I make a mana dude, go. He Burning Wishes for a Perish and I get a little sad. I have to be extra tricky now. On my turn I have the option of doing some fancy stuff with Quirion Ranger and Heritage druid, but instead I just drop another Llanowar. I wouldn’t call it slowrolling. I was just trying to set myself up for a future turn without setting off his mental alarm to pop the Perish. On his turn he Burning Wishes again for a Firespout. Ok. A bit of overkill, but message received. On my turn I make my attempt to go off, but because I didn’t play out all the dudes I could on turn two, it became a bit sluggish in the middle. I have to count and recount my mana but thanks to a single ESG I’m able to make exactly 17 mana for the win. I’m just lucky he didn’t have any counters for my Living Wish. He tells me later that if he had untapped, he would have made Sneak Attack into a Progenitus and Emrakul.
R3. Team America, something something. 1-2
G1. One of the regulars. I know he always plays the same deck. He knows I always play the same deck. I’m not optimistic since he runs EEs and Deeds and E.Plagues out of the board. Usually we meet in the finals and split so we can both go home early. Just my luck I got him round three. But whatevs. He’s a cool guy.
I win the roll and start with a very risky hand. I know he plays slow, mean things so I want to get started as fast as I can. Also, I’ve been on a winning streak lately so I felt a bit cocky. I had no one drops so I lead with Forest, ESG, Priest of Titania, go. No Force from him. He goes fetch, go. On my turn I drop an Elvish Visionary. In response he goes fetch, Brainstorm, Daze which is fine by me. He just Wastelanded himself to end my turn. So I pay with Priest and end. He makes a land, go. I think I played some stuff into an Archdruid. He makes a Goyf. I make an Emrakul.
G2. I don’t remember the specific turn by turn plays here. I just remember this game lasting forever. I build up a few dudes and a Priest of Titania to stall his Goyf. He plays an Engineered Plague to reset me. I find an Archdruid and build up some more dudes. He makes a Pernicious Deed. He gets some Goyf beats in and resets me again by blowing Deed at CMC1 after I play a Quirion Ranger. I try to Living Wish into something useful. He has a Force. I try to GSZ. Force. I build up a few things. He plays and blows a Deed at CMC2 and then drops a Tombstalker to fly over my lonely Archdruid. So I lost that one. But not for lack of trying.
G3. I get a decent hand. His was better. He plays 2 Smother, 1 or 2 Go for the Throat, a Diabolic Edict, and a Deed to nullify all my mana lords and even my Elvish Champion when I try to go beatdown. Then he flies over with a Tombstalker. What can you do?
R4. The Gate, kinda. With some red stuff. 2-0
G1. Very nice guy. I had actually talked about the different Elf builds with him at the last tourney so he knew everything my deck could do which is fine.
I win the roll again. Because I’m super lucky or something. I make a mana dude, go. He makes a land, go. Turn two I do tricks with Quirion Ranger and Heritage druid and end up with an Archdruid and like five elves. He winces when he sees the Archdruid. He casts Hymn to Tourach on his turn two. I make an Emrakul on my turn three.
G2. He has to mull to six. I get an Archdruid out on turn two again and it’s met with another curious wince. He Hymns again. I win on turn three.
We play three or four more games post SB just for kicks after that. In each game he completely shuts me down. It turns out he winced at my Archdruids because they landed a turn before he was able to land his Engineered Plagues. In our extra games he was tossing out Thoughtseizes and Hymns and Sinkholes and Dark Rituals into Engineered Plagues. I had no chance. If only his deck had decided to work in the tournament rounds, he would have swept me easily. But he’s gracious in defeat and I head home with a couple staples for other decks.
I hope that wasn't too wordy.
Nice report! And yes, sometimes you just have to be lucky and dodge the hate (see R4) :)
Congrats Danyul! Sounded like fun racing an emrakul. :)
I am thinking about possibiliteis to keep playing elves successfully vs. blue decks with 4 FoW and 4 MM.
I see the primary problem not that glimpse is not able to resolve, but more the problem that it will be very hard to build up our board for a regal force with quirion, wirewood and heritage countered + the existing spot removal for the lords, that we already face today.
xantid swarm is a one drop so probably not the best idea. Plus easily removed...
Vexing shusher ...looks good and also helps to resolve other spells. downside: vulnerable to spot removal. Never tested but some of you made good experiences with it i think.
Did anyone ever test
Defense Grid
Playing in Turn 2 it surely makes us 1 turn slower (so does shusher), but the next 2-3 turns we should cribble the ability to counter and/or force them not to play anyhtin in their main phases.
+ Biggest advantage I think that it does not die to bolt/swords/fire-ice/lavamancer ...
+ there is also additional value in making the spot removal in our turn or the brainstorm EOT less attractive.
- Disadvantage... it can be countered. :)
- we cannot tutor so need to run 3-4 in SB to have access.
Grid seems really similar to shusher with the following downsides:
-Not a 2/2 body
-Does not activate glimpse
-Cannot tutor for it
-Can be countered
I think shusher seems a lot better
If forgot the downside that it does not draw for glimpse.
But I think his 2/2 body is his biggest disadvantage and not an advantage!!
However K2, in your list without GSZ you cannot tutor for shusher in turn 2 (which is the most important time I think).
That's why you are running 4 in SB right?
I mean it's certainly not out of the question on turn 2, but ya I def have to be a lot more cautious about it than with GSZ. Post board we can run 3 md and on in board, leaving him still able to be wished for as well.
Dan in round 4 game 1 how did you cast 5 dudes turn 2 then got hymned and still found emrakul turn 3?
I went back and tried to reconstruct my turns but, like I said, I didn't take notes so I was going by "feel" instead of actual accuracy. That was my scientific approach. I just remember game 1 feeling very easy. And I remember not fearing his Hymns.
My "like five elves" was probably four, the fifth being the Archdruid itself. And if I topdecked a Living Wish with two of the five elves being Quirion Rangers, then hitting 17 mana isn't a problem.
In the future I'll try to actually take notes before I go about writing a report. At this point my memory is so hazy that I might have been playing Affinity Caw Blade Rock and his Minions Elves for all I know.
As I already wrote I spend some thinking about how we can be successful in the future versus blue shells with 4 FoW & 4 MM. Probably the answer is … not really, but my local tourney this Wednesday brought up some surprise.
I met a guy playing combo elves with a NO Progenitus plan in the maindeck and no archdruids. My reaction was that I started to explain him why archdruid is the best card and that his combo is weakened significantly. He disagreed of course so we sat down and did some goldfishing.
First of here is his list he finished 3rd in the tourney:
(Before you click reply and start arguing that this is a different deck and so on please read what’s below the list)
Creatures
4 Priest of Titania
3 Elvish Visionary
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
1 Regal Force
3 Wirewood Symbiote
3 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Progenitus
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Instants
4 Summoner's Pact
Sorceries
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Natural Order
Lands
16 Forest
SB
4 Krosan Grip
2 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Relic of Progenitus
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Terastodon
1 Empyrial Archangel
The goldfish results (again 71 games in MWS) were surprising:
T2 started 1% finisehd sucessfully 100%
T3 started 61% finished successfully 81% - cast NO for Prog 20%
T4 started 13% finished successfully 78% - cast NO for Prog 3%
Mulligan 7%
If you compare it to the goldfishing I’ve done with the list I play currently:
T2 started 13% finisehd sucessfully 67%
T3 started 46% finished successfully 97%
T4 started 23% finished successfully 94%
Mulligan 10%
I have no explanation why Turn 2 is so low with the NO list, because it needs the same cards as in my other list to start T2 and is even more likely to draw it because heritage is not in the board. So I think this is a result of variance.What I find pretty impressive is that the combo is NOT weakened by adding NO significantly. In fact if we want to go for a turn 3 kill NO is the cheapest regal force ever. If we have to we can still play out our hand, cast NO for regal force and hope to draw the win. In some extreme combo situations I also played NO for wirewood to return a visionary, but these scenarios do not really matter. You can also see that in 96% of the cases there is either a win or a Progenitus by Turn 4. That’s what I call consistency. In terms of consistent combo finish it can of course not be as strong as my list or K2’s (which does not know what fizzling is). It is obviously a result of 16 lands and other dead or bad cards when comboing. This can be optimized for sure, however I don’t weigh that factor that strong, because many fizzle situations still lead to 10+ permanents and 10+ cards which is usually also a win.
What is much more important is how NO plays in real life and not in a goldfish setup. Compared to Living wish or Green Sun’s Zenit it is a 1 card combo that can win many matchups on its own and we have very easy access to it in turn 3 and sometimes turn 2. That provides a lot of opportunities to vary our strategy vs. control. We can play NO (sacrificing 1 elf is not a drama) and see if they can deal with that. We keep our hand and can still go for the combo 1 or 2 turns later. Compared to the other “Plan B’s” this has the big advantage that we don’t have to play out our hand. Going aggro like K2, IBA or Mr. Safety like to do requires that you play a lot of elves + lords. Casting a regal force with wish or pact (my favorite play) requires to play out your hand so you draw the maximum number cards. Both strategies are more “all-in” and more vulnerable to hate than just casting a NO for Progenitus with 4-6 cards in hand. No doubt that Progenitus wins much more games than archdruid/elvish champion does in aggro mode and also has better defense abilities.
Another sweet thing is that Progenitus is very strong versus decks that play cards which cause us a lot of trouble and require artifact removal (canonist, chalice, trinisphere, jitte). If these cards are out and we have a progenitus it is often good game. Without it so far I needed some artifact removal or go off before jitte is active.
Also very good is that NO gives new sideboard options. Empyrial Archangel is probably the best thing we can bring up versus burn/zoo and it would be lovely to play it once pyrostatic pilllar is out. Terastodon can punish tight manabases or decks that rely on special cards and woodfall primus is a nice option to play against Perish.
Unfortunately there are also downsides to this strategy. Not having archdruid makes the deck fold to Engineered Plague and boarding in removal for a deck that (might) have plague or only plays plague and no other artifacts or enchantments is not very attractive. I therefore would adapt the deck and put at least 1 archdruid instead of 1 forest in the MD and 1-2 in the sideboard.
Concerning lands: I played a lot with 13 forest (8 fetches) +1 cradle, recently played 14 forest (8 fetches) and now this deck has 16 (in words SIXTEEN) basic forests and it still very strong in comboing. It fizzled more as you can see in the number “finished successfully”, so I definitely think this can be cut and it might be worth to add fetches to thin out the library. However, I would not go down to 14 but rather play 15. Reason is that you don’t have to be that afraid of keeping a suboptimal hand, because chances are big that you have to mull down to 4-5 for some land and take whatever is given to you. The rock solid manabase of 15 forest also helps to just have natural land drops when your dudes are killed, so you can get to the “4 mana + 1 creature + NO” setup in 1 turn without being very vulnerable to removal/MM.
Concerning Wirewood Symbiote. I know you all love him and I do as well. However if we do not rely that much on the visionary/symbiote draw engine and we do not need that many combat tricks because we have Progenitus, I think the decision to cut him down to 3 is ok. It is still very valuable when comboing, but the downside is that it sucks to have multiples when all you want is elves in turn 2-3 to cast NO or glimpse.
The issue is that progenitus can't race combo or zoo, some of our tougher match ups. A turn 3 progenitus is still only a turn 4-5 win and it wrong to evaluate goldfishes with the game ending the turn progenitus is cast.
While it's a bonus that you can NO for Regal Force, drawing either Pro or NO in the middle of the combo turn is effectively dead draws. Moreover, it does not answer the sweepers or common attack step blockers that this deck is already vulnerable to. Perish particularly, but also Moat, Humility, Ensnaring Bridge, all invalidate Progenitus.
It certainly is a good choice against some decks to bring in from the Sideboard, but Maindeck I feel as though the NO/Pro option is rather weak and dilutes the power of Combo Elves.
However, to be truly effective in this deck I think that adding Elvish Spirit Guide to help cast Natural Order to be very important, as it speeds up casting Natural Order to turn 2 with a manaelf draw. Some decks can deal with a turn 3 Progenitus. Not many can deal with a Turn 2 Progenitus.
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But without it, does the deck have enough to survive? Misstep counters Glimpse out of every colour.
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