[Deck] Elves Combo

[Koby]

MM counters half the deck. So what? If they counter your first elf, you're not casting NO on turn 2/3 anyway.

Hence the push towards GSZ and Living Wish to provide variance in the mana cost. The Manalord list is very capable of casting Emrakul without the aid of Glimpse.

[catmint]

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.

Who said that I evaluate casting Progenitus as game ending? Of course it does not helps versus combo, but it also does not significantly hurt it. The combo matchup is bad preboard with any elf-list. Btw: versus combo post board: how about NO for terastodon to blow off their lands while they duress you for mindbreak trap?

The zoo matchup was winnable before and a Progenitus or Empyrial Archangel help a lot!

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.

First: NO is not always dead when comboing. If you have 5 Mana it is the cheapest regal force ever!
And in some situations you can also cast NO for untapper or visionary – you can compare it to GSZ while comboing, you miss the draw and it costs 1-2 mana more…

Second: I compared the NO-Prog plan to the plan of going aggro with archdruids,… Which of the cards you named is Progenitus vulnerable to that a bunch of elves is not? If you expect a control silver bullet you can still try to go for the combo win. As shown in my goldfish this plan is not hurt significantly by having NO-Prog. Besides Prog is a faster clock which is important vs. control silver bullets. On the other thand the list is long of things that a bunch of elves are vulnerable to but progenitus is not. Common things like a simple Goyf, Jitte, KotR, Swords any targeted removal,…
Post-Board NO for Terastodon helps versus silver bulllets except for Humility of course.

Third: Vs. Perish of course the combo win is the best. However if black is a splash you can use Terastodon to blow off their black mana-sources. If woodfall primus is strong enough vs. decks that run perish has to be tested. The biggest advantage is though: you don’t have to play out your hand to cast NO, if the board is perished, you can still combo off with cards in you hand!

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. .

That’s what I felt as well before I tested it.

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.

That is a very good idea, thanks!

MM counters half the deck. So what? If they counter your first elf, you're not casting NO on turn 2/3 anyway.
Hence the push towards GSZ and Living Wish to provide variance in the mana cost. The Manalord list is very capable of casting Emrakul without the aid of Glimpse.

The problem of the 1st turn mana-elf countered is always there. Another reason I lean towards 15 forests. Competent players will know how your deck works and I doubt it will be easy to cast regal force or even Emrakul without quirion or wirewood, once MM is there. Don’t forget that decks that have 4 MM, 4 FoW often also like to run bolts, swords, grim lavamancer or fire ice. This was prime disruption so far already, even without MM!! I tested it.. hitting them with a NO is very good!

Anyway, if we already have a board full of elves and mana, it does not a big difference if we wish for the win or NO for regal force for the win. The situations that matter are the ones where we are tight and disrupted! For example:
You have no glimpse: 2 elves & 2 lands in play and the opponent has an active lavamancer or some kind of spot removal (Very common scenario!!). what would you prefer having in your hand a lord and a living wish or a simple NO?

[kicks_422]

Just throwing this out here for comments, something I ended up with after taking my old Elf Staff list and tweaking it a bit.

// Lands
12 [UNH] Forest

// Creatures
4 [M11] Llanowar Elves
1 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 [M11] Elvish Archdruid
4 [VI] Quirion Ranger
4 [SC] Wirewood Symbiote
4 [ON] Birchlore Rangers
4 [EVE] Nettle Sentinel
4 [MOR] Heritage Druid
4 [US] Priest of Titania
1 [CFX] Progenitus

// Spells
3 [CH] Concordant Crossroads
4 [CHK] Glimpse of Nature
3 [FD] Staff of Domination
4 [VI] Natural Order

So many angles of attack - Glimpse, Priest/Archdruid + Staff, Order->Prog, Emrakul ramp. It might not be better than the Living Wish / Pact versions though.

[catmint]

Just throwing this out here for comments, something I ended up with after taking my old Elf Staff list and tweaking it a bit.

// Lands
12 [UNH] Forest

// Creatures
4 [M11] Llanowar Elves
1 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 [M11] Elvish Archdruid
4 [VI] Quirion Ranger
4 [SC] Wirewood Symbiote
4 [ON] Birchlore Rangers
4 [EVE] Nettle Sentinel
4 [MOR] Heritage Druid
4 [US] Priest of Titania
1 [CFX] Progenitus

// Spells
3 [CH] Concordant Crossroads
4 [CHK] Glimpse of Nature
3 [FD] Staff of Domination
4 [VI] Natural Order

So many angles of attack - Glimpse, Priest/Archdruid + Staff, Order->Prog, Emrakul ramp. It might not be better than the Living Wish / Pact versions though.

I was also thinking about Staff of Dominiation since it reads basically like this "If you control an active archdruid or a priest and 4 more elves you win the game". I never tested how good this plays out...

The turn 3 win with Staff is only possible if we have a setup (active lord + 4 elves) that would also give us a Regal Force win. But on the other hand without an active lord Staff is pretty useless and horrible in multiples. So if at all, I would only consider to run it once.

Besides that some general comments to your list:

This is not really combo elves anymore in the sense of casting emrakul after glimpse. This won't happen that often.

I played with 12,13 & 14, forest and now I use 15. In my experience we mulligan to often or get disrupted a lot where land drops help a lot! Especially if you running NO!

you only play 4 Manaelf. That won't be enough. 6-8 is common to have consistent acceleration.

you don't need Birchlore. He is used by optimized glimpse lists like K2's to increase the Turn 2 combo percentage.

you should have Regal Force, because it is a Gamebreaker and a 2nd NO target!

concordant crossroads is questionable and running 3 probably not a good idea.

Without Visionary, pacts and Regal Force you are not able to have a win off a glimpse very often.

In general I think you have too much of a mix in there and therefore loose the primary ability to make a ton of mana an win consistently in turn 3.

[NihilObstat]

I was also thinking about Staff of Dominiation since it reads basically like this "If you control an active archdruid or a priest and 4 more elves you win the game"

An active Lord + Symbiote + Mirror entity also reads, "you win the game".
With the positive side that Entity is wishable, is a creature, is an elf, you don't need an active lord to win with him.

I actually run Entity over Emrakul, as my Wish wincon.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Entity would be great were he green. I don't personally find it appealing to splash in a very tight manabase.

Also, while I can certainly see the argument for Natural Order, I'm not sure how it requires or justifies cutting Archdruids.

[NihilObstat]

I don't personally find it appealing to splash in a very tight manabase.

Responding to you, and just so anyone can comment on it if they want. This is my current list, and it's working Wonders, no joke, amazingly stable and powerful:

2 Birchlore Rangers
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Fyndhorn elves
4 Heritage druid
4 Llanowar elves
4 Nettle sentinel
4 Priest of titania
4 Quirion ranger
1 Regal force
4 Wirewood symbiote
4 Summoner's pact
13 Forest
4 Glimpse of nature
3 Living wish

SIDE:
4 Thorn of amethyst
1 Joraga warcaller
1 Masticore
1 Mirror entity
1 Regal Force
1 Sylvok replica
1 Vexing shusher
1 Viridian shaman
2 Krosan grip
1 Gaea's cradle
1 Karakas

Explanation:
-I'm not running ESG, because the best aspect about it is landing Titania turn 1, and I didn't see it happening too frequently nor T1 or T2 making that much of a difference. I might add 1 ESG, though, for Pact.
-The only change I'd make to the MD would be adding 1 Fyndhorn or Forest, and cutting 1 Birchlore, maybe.
-Thorn of amethyst is a metacall, just as only 1 Vexing shusher is against blue. I feel that the wish list doesn't fear Blue at all, unless it is a T2 set up CounterTop or TeamAmerica.
-Mirror entity could be Emrakul. In 3 months I've never missed Emmy, but won some games exclusively thx to Mirror.
-I find myself only using Viridian shaman against Affinity which is already and auto-win so I think I'll take her out. When do you guys need her?
-Karakas is currently there for testing, but it's not a fix spot.

So the list is design to be very powerful on turn 3 and 4 and almost Always be able to win then, which isn't as good as turn 2, but it still is a super fast clock, and faster than 95% of decks in Legacy, and then Thorns come in to stop the fastest machines.
I might add Compost, because I still find monoblack, or any hard discard to be a tough matchup.

I welcome you to try the list, and see how it works for you ;)

[catmint]

Responding to you, and just so anyone can comment on it if they want. This is my current list, and it's working Wonders, no joke, amazingly stable and powerful:
...

I feel that the wish list doesn't fear Blue at all, unless it is a T2 set up CounterTop or TeamAmerica.
...

The list is pretty similar to many lists we all played and you are right it has proven to be reliable and stable. I would call it "8 lords - wish & pact", with a little uncommon configuration of manaelves/birchlore. ... Not worth discussing I think...

However, if you don't fear blue you probably did not play versus competent players. Wish is not good versus blue, because it is slow, can be spell snared and they can see it coming and are prepared.

A list like U/W landstill which is almost like monoblue control as we saw 2nd and 3rd in the last SCG Open has 4 MM, 4 Spell Snare, 3 Counterspell, 4 FoW, 3 Swords, 2 Vedalkan Shackles, 4 Repeal, 4 Standstill and of course 4 Jace... I am curious how often you resolve living wish for shusher.
The 4 shusher in the SB of K2 have a bigger chance of helping you post-board.

The sad thing is that with MM such a boring strategy is really strong now. 1 for 1 (sometimes 2 for 1) every spell, standstill and jace. Not sure how many people in my local meta are going to try to adapt such a deck, but even without the full budget version it can be very annyoing to play against it. We can always change deck but if we want to stick to our lovely green dudes, we need a better plan than wishing for shusher!

With every spell beeing countered it also does not make sense of runnig defense grid or thorn of amethyst. 4 shusher might be nice here, but can still be spot removed and makes us a turn slower. I would like to test summoning trap, because it does not make us a turn slower and we can sometimes get a regal force, emmy or progenitus if lucky and always some elf to replace what was countered.

[Koby]

In such a metagame a maindeck Shusher might be the right call too. As you can find it with Pact or GSZ, this would help the matchup in G1, where you are most vulnerable.

Choke might also be a good consideration, as it punishes monoblue moreso than other hate cards. Lastly, TSUNAMI! The Elf Advantage might be a better deck to run in this type of metagame, as we're highly dependent on a few key spells to make this deck work well. Removal of the mana engine, backed with Jace and protected by Mishra's Factory is both very obnoxious to fight through, and very demoralizing.

[NihilObstat]

A list like U/W landstill which is almost like monoblue control as we saw 2nd and 3rd in the last SCG Open has 4 MM, 4 Spell Snare, 3 Counterspell, 4 FoW, 3 Swords, 2 Vedalkan Shackles, 4 Repeal, 4 Standstill and of course 4 Jace... I am curious how often you resolve living wish for shusher.

No Daze, anymore? MM is definitely a pain in the ass, because they freely waste it on a turn 1 Llanowar, which makes our clock a lot slower. Other than FOW and MM, the cards shouldn't be a big problem. Counterspell, Shackles, Spell snare, and the rest are either too slow or inefficient against us. Spell snare countering Wish isn't a big problem, we can still combo through glimpse or pact or another Wish, and they'll need mana open anyway.

What I tend to fear about blue would be costless spells, if they've substituted Daze with MM that's just fine with me. Certainly MM hurts more, but they're still just 8 cards, which they already had (Daze+FOW).

[abel_lg]

I haven't read the last pages of this thread, and don't know if were mentioned yet, but... What about including Noxious Revival? It works fine recycling wasted Glimpses and other useful cards. Helps a lot to goldfish with an active Glimpse to recover Glimpse and re-cast it (with one should be enough but it fixes the cases in which we begin to combo out and don't finish comboing). It's mana free (or simple G) and instant speed. Little issue is that it recovers to the top of the library instead to hand, but with an active Glimpse or a Visionary it doesn't matter.

[Mr. Safety]

I haven't read the last pages of this thread, and don't know if were mentioned yet, but... What about including Noxious Revival? It works fine recycling wasted Glimpses and other useful cards. Helps a lot to goldfish with an active Glimpse to recover Glimpse and re-cast it (with one should be enough but it fixes the cases in which we begin to combo out and don't finish comboing). It's mana free (or simple G) and instant speed. Little issue is that it recovers to the top of the library instead to hand, but with an active Glimpse or a Visionary it doesn't matter.

I like the idea a lot...it would be like functionally playing 2 glimpses (if it resolves, get it back with Revival, play an elf, play your 2nd Glimpse, go go go!)

[Atikin]

I haven't read the last pages of this thread, and don't know if were mentioned yet, but... What about including Noxious Revival? It works fine recycling wasted Glimpses and other useful cards. Helps a lot to goldfish with an active Glimpse to recover Glimpse and re-cast it (with one should be enough but it fixes the cases in which we begin to combo out and don't finish comboing). It's mana free (or simple G) and instant speed. Little issue is that it recovers to the top of the library instead to hand, but with an active Glimpse or a Visionary it doesn't matter.

It doesnt do anything on it's own and requires a spell in the graveyard. It also puts it on top instead of in hand which is terrible.

[Infinitium]

Seeing as neither Reclaim nor Regrowth has ever seen play in competitive Elf lists to the best of my knowledge, I think it's pretty safe to assume that Revival won't either. Eternal Witness is probably an all around better choice if you want extra virtual Glimpses since it's easily tutored as a 1-of to retain your threat density (and even then getting Symbiote/Visionary is arguably stronger in most circumstances).

[Mr. Safety]

Sure...but I'm going to try it out anyways. I will be testing a miser's copy as card #61.

Honestly, I didn't know Reclaim existed until just now. I knew it was better than Regrowth because of it being free...but I didn't know Reclaim was even printed.

[Atikin]

Sure...but I'm going to try it out anyways. I will be testing a miser's copy as card #61.

Honestly, I didn't know Reclaim existed until just now. I knew it was better than Regrowth because of it being free...but I didn't know Reclaim was even printed.

Youre testing a 1-of card that you cant tutor for? There wont really be enough games where you draw it in order to tell if it helped or not.

[catmint]

I dont think running a card that puts something on top of our library is good. Minus card advantage and very slow!

The elve deck gets resilience due to redundancy and speed rather than protection or reuse utility cards. I tried it with eternall witness and GSZ and also a black splash for diabolic intent. These techs's don't work that great, because it is counter productive for the plan "play elves and do something great with your fast mana" ( glimpse, NO, Regal Force, Aggro or other stuff like Staff of Domination).

[Mr. Safety]

Points taken...but, with me being the bull-headed stubborn a-hole that I am, it will still be attempted.

I use Grapeshot as my win/con...and ALL the games I've been able to play a 2nd Glimpse I've won, without exception. I don't have a way to tutor Glimpse, but having another way to get it would be great. I'm also looking at the new challenge of working around Mental Misstep. Chances are good once you play a turn 1 Fyndhorn/Llanowar Elves, they've clued in that you are either playing Tribal/Combo Elves...so they will look for Glimpse of Nature to be their MM target (if they are experienced, or even just GOOD, players) It would be nice to have an instant speed way to get that Glimpse back for next turn, possibly (hopefully!) before Counterbalance shows up.

I will most likely answer my own quandry by looking at Regal Force again, lol. He's essentially Glimpse #5, and IS tutorable. Refer to line #1 of this post on why I'm still trying it, lol.

[k2thej]

Any Elves players playing GP Providence tomorrow?

[NihilObstat]

Any Elves players playing GP Providence tomorrow?

I'm sure there'll be plenty ^^ Hope they do well :)

So, playing elves after MM has proven a bit more complicated than I expected, even when I'm running a more varied CMC list. Standstill, and hard control decks have become a lot more powerful. Now they can counter our turn 1 Llanowar, when back in the time they wouldn't Daze it unless they got a super slow hand, or simply couldn't if we started...