[Deck] Elves Combo

[Kich867]

@Kich867: I don't think the counter argument is very valid. Most opponents never counter wish because they assume they will counter what you fetch with it. If you're in mid combo then you can guarantee that your opponent has already spent every counter they have trying to counter glimpse or regal force. I agree that wish can be clunky at times, but pact can be clunky and dangerous especially when your trying to set up the combo.

Maybe if they're bad on game one? If you're running elves, which should be apparent when you get 17 mana to play Wish + Emrakul, under what condition would they not counter it? Pact is everything but clunky, that's why it's run over wish.

[resum]

Basically depending on matchup, whenever I board in BA/VV, I take out 3 summoning pacts( I always do this), and then normally 2 priest of titania, 1 regal force, and 1 emrakul. If you're boarding in 4 vengevines then I would take out another random non-1 drop elf, unless all your 2 drops left are visionaries, then I take out a heritage druid. I keep in the emrakul game 3 sometimes because if I smashed them with VV, they probably bring in GY hate and might overcomit to it so I can combo easier.

[Forgottenforce]

I think the point is that why would you pay 1G when you can pay 0? During the combo turn your mana production can either be just-not-enough or it blows up into all the mana you will certainly need. That extra two mana early on will very often cause your end game mana production to diverge to infinity. I know it won't grab Emrakul necessarily but the negative scenario of the probability that you don't draw into him is far compensated by the consistency and extra mana the other tutors offer.

If you want cradle then I swear by crop rotation. 3 cradle main, 2 crop rotation. Saccing cradle to find cradle is so clutch.

I really don't care about the combo turn because I almost always win regardless of having wish in my hand or not. I'm talking about those other times when you have pact and no glimpse and pact ends up dead in your hand. I do like the thought of crop rotation and admit that I haven't tested it but it sounds amazing on paper.

@Kich: Your opponent more than likely is going to counter everything before the point of reaching 17 mana, and if they do counter it you're more than likely going off so just draw out your deck and cast another one. Pact is clunky when your not going off and causes you to take risks when casted on a non combo turn.

@resum: Thanks a lot for the reply. What matches do you bring it in against?

[theross]

The Vengevine plan postboard is just another angle from which to attack, so it obviously comes in against decks where your first angle (glimpse combo) isn't effective enough. The best example is a deck like Bug-still that has a plethora of removal and counters, including Pernicious Deed but is largely unprepared to deal with recurring threat of Vengevine.

On Summoner's Pact: Since when is taking risks a necessarily bad thing? Pact is a much more mana-efficient card than Wish, and also doesn't necessitate 4+ SB slots be devoted to it. This does come with some downside of game loss risk, but this is mitigated by tight play.

[Darklingske]

I'm having problems with the VV SB plan against BUG. Maybe it is just my meta, but everyone seems to play Snapcaster + Churgical Extraction. And this little combo is really backbreaking for the VVplan. Anyone else that is having this problem?

[Koby]

I'm having problems with the VV SB plan against BUG. Maybe it is just my meta, but everyone seems to play Snapcaster + Churgical Extraction. And this little combo is really backbreaking for the VVplan. Anyone else that is having this problem?

That may cause some issues. You might have to write off this matchup as a Loss and consider a different plan or deck.

[Infinitium]

Pact is a much more mana-efficient card than Wish, and also doesn't necessitate 4+ SB slots be devoted to it. This does come with some downside of game loss risk, but this is mitigated by tight play.

No it isn't? Pact costs you 4 mana unless you're winning that turn - that is a giant liability even if you don't lose to it. Having to spend 4+ slots on Wish simulary isn't all that bad in elves since you rarely want to board more than 5-6 against any deck anyhow, exception being GY dependent decks, in whose cases cards like Faerie or Ooze can hardly be considered superflous.

On a similar note, Emrakul is a great sideboard card against milling strategies. Cradle is significantly better versus decks not running mass removal or wasteland. Hell, I used to side out my Wishes when I still ran those builds in favor of the same silver bullets they would otherwise tutor for in order to preserve combo spots in the MD.

It's true that pact is better with an active Glimpse, but having an unmolested Glimpse and mana engine to support it is already enough game over (if not that turn) that the deck gains more from being able to have game in the many, many instances of the opponent being able to disrupt the optimal turn of events.

[theross]

Pact only costs you 4 mana once you've already accrued significant value from it, a cost that is far smaller than the initial investment of 2 mana required for Living Wish. In a deck built upon cheap spells, Pact allows explosive plays that Wish does not. Wish is also a more narrow card, since it's versatility is limited by the SB space devoted to it. This commitment of SB space is incredibly relevant, as even if you only want to bring in a few cards (I rarely bring in even 5-6, save the times Vengevine comes in) you still must devote slots to various matchups, notably dredge and other combo decks.

It's obvious that Pact is better mid-combo (although not irrelevant) but Pact is simply better in nearly every situation, because it fits the explosive nature of the deck. Living Wish for some arbitrary bullet is not a line that will single-handedly win you games, except against the linear decks where Wish is often too slow to make a difference. It is thus not worth sacrificing the speed this deck is built to exploit.

[soiber2000]

I think that there are at this moment 2 different competitive strategies for elfball :
- combo MD (Emrakul, Ezuri or mirror entity) and VV (with intuition or buried alive) SB,
- fauna/VV MD and control SB (graveyard hate, combo hate, krosan grip).

I don't think one strategy is better than the other, it depends on the metagame.

Here is the list is will play this next WE in the final Legacy France championship :

2 verdant catacombs
2 windswepth heath
2 wooded foothills
5 forets
1 savannah
1 dryad arbor
3 gaea's cradle

2 fyndhorn elves
1 llanovar elves
3 quirion ranger
2 fauna shaman
1 priest of titania
3 elvish visionary
3 Vengevine
4 nettle sentinel
4 wirewood symbiot
3 birchlore rangers
4 heritage druid
1 regal force
1 mirror entity
1 viridian shaman

4 glimpse of nature
3 chord of calling
4 green sun's zenith
1 crop rotation

SB :
2 krosan grip (D&T, maverick, painter, MUD, affinity, landstill)
1 goblin sharpshooter (D&T, maverick, peacekeeper)
1 faerie macabre (combo tendrills, reanimator, dredge, punishing fire, loam)
2 surgical extraction (TT, reanimator, dredge, punishing fire, loam
1 scavenging ooze (reanimator, dredge, TT, tempo zoo, burn, sligh, punishing fire, loam)
1 tormod's crypt (dredge, reanimator)
1 gaddock teeg (combo tendrills)
1 sylvan safekeeper (combo tendrills)
1 children of korlis (combo tendrills, dredge)
1 caller of the claw (every deck playing mass removal, in particular pernicious deed ans perish)
1 vengevine (TA, TT, tempo zoo)
2 summoner's pact (every combo deck)

Your comments are welcome!

How was the championship for you? I read you lose first match in some report.

I will play a similar list this weekend but I am planning to play a single Ezuri in addition to Mirror entity, because it is my first experience with elves, and sometimes when I combo out I find a situation where a GSZ would solve my problem but I don't have nothing to keep going or to win, and have not so much mana, so Ezuri could be a good choice.

Also, I don't know when to go for Priest of Titania because my usual targets are Symbiote, heritage, nettle and Fauna if I choose the VV plan, so Priest with summoning sickness is feeling weak.

Finally I don't have time to get all sideboard, so I was thinking to put the natural order- progenitus combo in 4 slots for those matchups where you don't want to take out VV and the combo plan is not a good choice, and then fill the other slots with graveyard hate (5), artifact hate (2), and combo (3) and the last vengevine.

Well, your advice would be very welcome. Thanks!

[Forgottenforce]

Pact only costs you 4 mana once you've already accrued significant value from it, a cost that is far smaller than the initial investment of 2 mana required for Living Wish. In a deck built upon cheap spells, Pact allows explosive plays that Wish does not. Wish is also a more narrow card, since it's versatility is limited by the SB space devoted to it. This commitment of SB space is incredibly relevant, as even if you only want to bring in a few cards (I rarely bring in even 5-6, save the times Vengevine comes in) you still must devote slots to various matchups, notably dredge and other combo decks.

It's obvious that Pact is better mid-combo (although not irrelevant) but Pact is simply better in nearly every situation, because it fits the explosive nature of the deck. Living Wish for some arbitrary bullet is not a line that will single-handedly win you games, except against the linear decks where Wish is often too slow to make a difference. It is thus not worth sacrificing the speed this deck is built to exploit.

I disagree that Pact is better in nearly every situation. When you have the mana available to cast pact safely, living wish can do just about the same thing. Sure it's at an extra 2 mana and yes that can sometimes impact your whole turn. But what about those times that you have pact but not a reliable way to cast it and live through the next turn? Living wish is good in all these scenarios.

Dedicating 3-4 sb slots to living wish isn't that big of a deal at all. Keep in mind that your also saving a few slots in your md with not having to run emrakul or shaman in your 60. As for committing sb slots to battle gy decks and combo decks wish can actually strengthen your matchups vs these decks. Having 1 bojuka bog in the board with 4 wish md is very effective tech vs gy based decks.

Your argument that wish fetching an arbitrary bullet by itself does not win you games is very true. But the fact is I'm not fetching arbitrary bullets unless i'm in a pinch. I'm fetching cradle or regal force or emrakul--cards that will win you the game. And the cool thing is I can fetch these cards whenever I have 2 mana and not worry about losing the next turn if my mana production gets bolted.

[Kich867]

I disagree that Pact is better in nearly every situation. When you have the mana available to cast pact safely, living wish can do just about the same thing. Sure it's at an extra 2 mana and yes that can sometimes impact your whole turn. But what about those times that you have pact but not a reliable way to cast it and live through the next turn? Living wish is good in all these scenarios.

It's getting kind of useless to keep bringing this up, but the difference between having 4 mana available and casting pact VS living wish is on the scale of winning or losing most games. If you can produce 4 mana, I would want pact over living wish every time. Wish + Whatever you wished for is 3 mana, whereas Pact is 1. That extra 2 mana is two more elves, two more cards, and that many more untaps of nettle sentinels.

No one is telling you the living wish doesn't work, it's just that through months of experience testing the card and becoming better at playing pact, that there's just no reason for it. It's almost guaranteed to slow you down a turn and that's a hell of a lot more dangerous than having to pay 4 mana next upkeep, which is absurdly easy to do barring a random board wipe. There are nearly infinite ways of producing 4 mana in this deck even if you only hit one land drop and it's like turn 3..

And under what circumstance do your scenarios even happen? If you can pay for Pact, no, living wish doesn't do about the same thing, it does it a turn later, which is kind of the point. Your bullets VS artifacts and enchantments with a wish cost 5-6 mana, pact costs 3-4. That's the difference between doing it now or doing it next turn.

There's even been games where I combo'd off and ran out of steam before hitting 17 mana because I can't get multiples of the same thing with living wish <--- That is extremely relevant, sometimes it's not about having flexibility, it's about getting shit you actually need, and Wish can only do that once unless you wreck your mainboard for it. During a combo my targets are almost universally wirewood symbiotes. There's been plenty of games where I find one and need to fetch the rest to keep going, Wish can't do that, that's kind of a big deal.

And what decks does Living Wish even give you game against? Dredge? Reanimator? By the time you even figure out what you're playing against you're long since dead because Iona hit the table turn 2 and you're fucked before you can even cast living wish. Dredge, a faerie macabre -might- slow them down, it's no guarantee. It's a better game plan to just focus most of the sideboard towards graveyard shit because it's just about the only thing that kills us reliably (even down to Tarmogoyf's and Snapcasters).

This fear that you'll lose the game from pact is unwarranted and confusing, why would you ever pact before you cast glimpse, if glimpse resolves, you should win. This flexibility or setting up of your combo turn you think you get from living wish doesn't really happen that often because of how slow it is, if you're casting Wish just to find something, you're probably looking at a non-existent combo turn--hoping you'll top deck a glimpse. Because if you had a glimpse in hand, you'd rather have a pact with it...

At that point, you might as well just run 4 emrakuls maindeck because that's the only real reason you'd run wish, to have multiple ways to find him, but you'll find him anyways just comboing in a far more streamlined, faster, more consistent, better way. And if you lose to upkeep triggers, I dunno, find something to help you out with that, I've never lost to one, I just check my graveyard after I cast emrakul..

[bakofried]

Ross, I must ask, how often do you play Elves? Not out of any doubt, but tournament reports here are fairly low, and you presence in these boards is rather sporadic. I'd like to know if you're playing this deck in regular intervals, if you do, what are thoughts on the meta and how to combat it, and if you could put up some reports. And it'd be awesome if you could post a list.

Furthermore, is no one paying attention to the tournament report up for elves right now?

[Koby]

Furthermore, is no one paying attention to the tournament report up for elves right now?

I stopped paying attention after I noticed 3x GSZ 3x Wirewood Symbiote.......

My thoughts on Living Wish is that the slot would better be served by Green Sun Zenith. Prior to that card, Living Wish builds made sense as a versatile tutor. But now, GSZ is served as the "non-combo turn tutor". Therefore, I believe that the strongest tutor package to be:

4 GSZ
2-3 Summoner's Pact

After these, playing Living Wish is acceptable; but never before.

The Summoner's Pact is usually boarded out against decks that Vengevine would be coming in. This is to address the removal suite/sweepers that would normally kill you on a pass-the-turn Pact play.

[bakofried]

Do you play Elves at all on a regular basis, rukcus? If you do, I'd like to see your current list. My issue with this deck (and I may face some criticism for this) is that there is nowhere close to a "core" of the deck, especially with regards to Cradle and Wish. Furthermore, placement with the deck at high-level tournaments is so sporadic, it's hard to judge whether that build was correct, if it was pilot skill, if it was simple luck, or some combination of the three.

[Godmode]

Olivier Pamart placed 1st at 57 a player event - Magic Bazaar Mensuel

Here's the list: http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=2228

MD:
12 Forest
4 Gaea's Cradle
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Quirion Ranger
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Vengevine
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Wirewood Symbiote
2 Llanowar Elves
2 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Joraga Warcaller
1 Regal Force

4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith


SB:
3 Karakas
1 Progenitus
4 Natural Order
3 Dismember
2 Krosan Grip
2 Scavenging Ooze



and here's the Finale de la Coupe de France Legacy (76 players) top8 Decklist: http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=2226

Looking forward for a report Samuel!

[Koby]

Do you play Elves at all on a regular basis, rukcus? If you do, I'd like to see your current list. My issue with this deck (and I may face some criticism for this) is that there is nowhere close to a "core" of the deck, especially with regards to Cradle and Wish. Furthermore, placement with the deck at high-level tournaments is so sporadic, it's hard to judge whether that build was correct, if it was pilot skill, if it was simple luck, or some combination of the three.

This is my list (has not changed for several months)

2 Bayou
5 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Gaea's Cradle

2 Birchlore Rangers
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
1 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel

4 Elvish Visionary
2 Priest of Titania
1 Elvish Archdruid
1 Quirion Ranger

4 Wirewood Symbiote

2 Regal Force
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Summoner's Pact

Sideboard
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Krosan Grip
2 Mortarpod
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Thoughtseize
3 Vengevine

The day that Survival is unbanned, I would make the following changes:
-4 GSZ
-2 Bayou
-1 Summoner's Pact
-1 Elvish Archdruid
-2 Birchlore Rangers
-1 Regal Force

+2 Taiga
+3 Survival of the Fittest
+1 Anger
+1 Masked Admirers
+2 Priest of Titania
+1 Elvish Spirit Guide
+1 Quirion Ranger
+1 Elvish Messenger

etc you get the point. It essentially turns into EPIC Survival Elves, and goes off everytime you untap with Survival.

[Forgottenforce]

It's getting kind of useless to keep bringing this up, but the difference between having 4 mana available and casting pact VS living wish is on the scale of winning or losing most games. If you can produce 4 mana, I would want pact over living wish every time. Wish + Whatever you wished for is 3 mana, whereas Pact is 1. That extra 2 mana is two more elves, two more cards, and that many more untaps of nettle sentinels.

No one is telling you the living wish doesn't work, it's just that through months of experience testing the card and becoming better at playing pact, that there's just no reason for it. It's almost guaranteed to slow you down a turn and that's a hell of a lot more dangerous than having to pay 4 mana next upkeep, which is absurdly easy to do barring a random board wipe. There are nearly infinite ways of producing 4 mana in this deck even if you only hit one land drop and it's like turn 3..

And under what circumstance do your scenarios even happen? If you can pay for Pact, no, living wish doesn't do about the same thing, it does it a turn later, which is kind of the point. Your bullets VS artifacts and enchantments with a wish cost 5-6 mana, pact costs 3-4. That's the difference between doing it now or doing it next turn.

There's even been games where I combo'd off and ran out of steam before hitting 17 mana because I can't get multiples of the same thing with living wish <--- That is extremely relevant, sometimes it's not about having flexibility, it's about getting shit you actually need, and Wish can only do that once unless you wreck your mainboard for it. During a combo my targets are almost universally wirewood symbiotes. There's been plenty of games where I find one and need to fetch the rest to keep going, Wish can't do that, that's kind of a big deal.

And what decks does Living Wish even give you game against? Dredge? Reanimator? By the time you even figure out what you're playing against you're long since dead because Iona hit the table turn 2 and you're fucked before you can even cast living wish. Dredge, a faerie macabre -might- slow them down, it's no guarantee. It's a better game plan to just focus most of the sideboard towards graveyard shit because it's just about the only thing that kills us reliably (even down to Tarmogoyf's and Snapcasters).

This fear that you'll lose the game from pact is unwarranted and confusing, why would you ever pact before you cast glimpse, if glimpse resolves, you should win. This flexibility or setting up of your combo turn you think you get from living wish doesn't really happen that often because of how slow it is, if you're casting Wish just to find something, you're probably looking at a non-existent combo turn--hoping you'll top deck a glimpse. Because if you had a glimpse in hand, you'd rather have a pact with it...

At that point, you might as well just run 4 emrakuls maindeck because that's the only real reason you'd run wish, to have multiple ways to find him, but you'll find him anyways just comboing in a far more streamlined, faster, more consistent, better way. And if you lose to upkeep triggers, I dunno, find something to help you out with that, I've never lost to one, I just check my graveyard after I cast emrakul..

Lots of stuff to address in this post, let me apologize ahead of time if i miss anything. This line is particular sums up the reason why i play wish over pact: "why would you ever pact before you cast glimpse, if glimpse resolves, you should win." This implies that you only really cast pact during the combo turn. So it sounds like you're saying pact is reliant on glimpse to be good. In fact most of your argument is based on pact just being better during the combo turn, but even then wish gets the job done well enough to win. You're right that when glimpse resolves, you pretty much win that's true in a deck running wish over pact as well. Wish just has the bonus of being useful every other time too.

So what happens when you just don't find a glimpse in your opening hand and you have a pact? In that situation the 4 mana next upkeep can get pretty significant so pact becomes much more risky. Wish doesnt rely on glimpse, it's good in almost all situations albeit a bit slow. Wish for cradle, ranger, regal force, or archdruid does indeed set up the combo for you and you dont have to resolve a glimpse or risk losing the game to do that.

It's pretty obvious when your facing dredge after turn 1. I've won games wishing for bog or macabre while i was on the play vs dredge and reanimate. On the draw winning g1 is harder, but possible. Game 2, i bring in 4 macabre and leave my bog in the board effectively giving me 8 cards vs dredge or reanimate that really only take up 5 slots of sb space.

[Kich867]

Lots of stuff to address in this post, let me apologize ahead of time if i miss anything. This line is particular sums up the reason why i play wish over pact: "why would you ever pact before you cast glimpse, if glimpse resolves, you should win." This implies that you only really cast pact during the combo turn. So it sounds like you're saying pact is reliant on glimpse to be good. In fact most of your argument is based on pact just being better during the combo turn, but even then wish gets the job done well enough to win. You're right that when glimpse resolves, you pretty much win that's true in a deck running wish over pact as well. Wish just has the bonus of being useful every other time too.

So what happens when you just don't find a glimpse in your opening hand and you have a pact? In that situation the 4 mana next upkeep can get pretty significant so pact becomes much more risky. Wish doesnt rely on glimpse, it's good in almost all situations albeit a bit slow. Wish for cradle, ranger, regal force, or archdruid does indeed set up the combo for you and you dont have to resolve a glimpse or risk losing the game to do that.

It's pretty obvious when your facing dredge after turn 1. I've won games wishing for bog or macabre while i was on the play vs dredge and reanimate. On the draw winning g1 is harder, but possible. Game 2, i bring in 4 macabre and leave my bog in the board effectively giving me 8 cards vs dredge or reanimate that really only take up 5 slots of sb space.

The knowledge of whether to keep a hand (sometimes due to there not being a glimpse in it) is something you get over time. If I have absolutely no business, I won't keep it, if I have no glimpse but a lot of dudes to beat with sometimes I'll keep it and just go aggro.

These "Well what if.." scenarios your throwing at Pact to try and point out how much better living wish is has been done, many pages ago, which resulted in a long period of people running wish, which was then stopped after people realized that it just slows the deck down too much.

What do you actually wish for, realistically, besides silver bullets to decks you'll probably lose against anyways game 1 that you could just sideboard in and probably beat game 2 and 3? Regal Force and Emrakul seem to be the two things you've brought up the most.

The likelihood that you could living wish for regal force and pass turn because you can produce -exactly- 7 mana and still be able to play it next turn (in the event your lord, because it's actually somewhat hard to frontload 7 mana without one / cradle, doesn't die and regal force doesn't get discarded) is low.

Furthermore, if you could produce exactly 7 mana, you could...pact for regal force and just play it this turn. Reanimator and Dredge aren't the only two decks in the format, we don't usually win slow tedious games, speed is very, very much of the essence.

They're functionally identical cards outside of being able to tutor lands and emrakul, which is almost largely irrelevant outside of Bojuka Bog, which is still a shitty way to deal with graveyards anyways.

Running 4x Cradles is better than running 4x wish for them (I believe earlier in the thread ross proved that it's statistically insignificant the amount of times you pull a cradle and no other mana producing land), and I'd honestly rather fit in a Fierce Empath or two into the maindeck and be able to pact/gsz for them when I hit that "I have 30 mana but still can't find emrakul" games.

[samman1]

Here is the list I played last WE in the French final Legacy tournament :
2 verdant catacombs
2 windswepth heath
2 wooded foothills
5 forets
1 savannah
1 dryad arbor
3 gaea's cradle

2 fyndhorn elves
1 llanovar elves
3 quirion ranger
2 fauna shaman
1 priest of titania
3 elvish visionary
3 Vengevine
4 nettle sentinel
4 wirewood symbiot
3 birchlore rangers
4 heritage druid
1 regal force
1 mirror entity
1 viridian shaman

4 glimpse of nature
3 chord of calling
4 green sun's zenith
1 crop rotation

SB :
2 krosan grip (D&T, maverick, painter, MUD, affinity, landstill)
1 goblin sharpshooter (D&T, maverick, peacekeeper)
1 faerie macabre (combo tendrills, reanimator, dredge, punishing fire, loam)
2 surgical extraction (TT, reanimator, dredge, punishing fire, loam
1 scavenging ooze (reanimator, dredge, TT, tempo zoo, burn, sligh, punishing fire, loam)
1 gaddock teeg (combo tendrills)
1 sylvan safekeeper (combo tendrills)
1 children of korlis (combo tendrills, dredge)
1 caller of the claw (every deck playing mass removal, in particular pernicious deed ans perish)
3 natural order (maverick, tempo thres, tempo Zoo)
1 Progenitus

Round 1 : berserk GRw (he will TOP8)
1st game : he wins the toss, he plays noble hierarch T1 and kavru predator T2. I play llanovar T1. Turn 2 : I play nettle, heritage druid, then cradle, quirion ranger, visionnaire, symbiot, visionnaire, symbiot, then crop rotation, GSZ@7 -> regal force -> glimpse FTW. Kill T2!!1/0
2nd game : I side in NO plan. I play NO T3. T4, I begin a glimpse combo then fizzle : I have at least 10 creatures on the battlefield (2 VV) and attack with progenitus.He has tarmogoyf and kavru on the board and 3 cards in hand. He attacks with a 5/6 tarmogoyf and I make an ugly, enormous missplay : I defend with only 2 VV (I could have defended with 4 other creatures). Double berserk on tarmogoyf FTW. 1/1
3rd game : I mulligan 4 with no lands in hand. 1/2
0/1/0

Round 2 : tempo thresold
game 1 : I mulligan 6. He controls me well but I make a combo glimpse T7 FTW. 1/0
Game 2 : I make a combo titania/symbiot/mirror T5. 2/0
1/1/0

round 3 : burn
game 1 : combo glimpse T4. 1/0
game 2 : combo glimpse T6. 2/0
2/1/0

round 4 : dredge
game 1 : He wins the toss and give me the first play (I understand he plays dredge). I mulligan 5. He doesn't have any dredge and he has to hardcast narcoamibe. He manages to make 4 tokens with cabal therapy then attack. I sacrifice an heritage druid by defending to remove his two bridge from below, then make a combo glimpse for the win. 1/0
game 2 : he decides to begin. T3 : he plays breakthrough@0 and has at least 20 cards in the graveyard (4 bridges). He flashbacks a creature to make tokens, I have 2 untapped creatures and an untapped forest. In response to bridge trigger ability and cabal therapy effect, I play crop rotation -> cradle, tap all my permanents to play chord@1 -> children of korlis -> sacrifice -> remove bridges.
two turns later, I begin a combo glimpse that fizzle rather late : I managed to put in play sharpshooter and many creatures (2 quirion ranger and 2 symbiot).
He plays dread return -> blazing archon.
At my turn, I manage to untap 5 times sharpshooter to kill blazing archon FTW. 2/0.
3/1/0

Round 5 : tempo thresold.
Game 1 : I mulligan 5. He kills my 2 first creatures with dismember (-8 life points), he plays FOW on glimpse (-1 life) and fetches 2 lands (-2 lives). I hardcast VV and easily finishes him. 1/0
Game 2 : he plays delver T1 then 2 other delvers T2, then flip the 3 delvers T3 and show me brainstorm and FOW : I concede. Brillant play! 1/1
Game 3 : I win with an aggro/VV plan. 2/1
4/1/0

I only need to win the 6th game to make TOP8.

round 6 : tempo zoo, my worst MU! What a pity!!! My opponent is Cyril Terroy, the master of this deck (20th at Amsterdam GP), he will make TOP4.

1st game : he controls me easily until I have 5 lives. I manage to put regal in play then draw 5 cards. No out for me, he finishes me with a lightning bolt and delver. 0/1
2nd game : I have 1 forest, 2 nettle, 1 heritage druid, 1 visionnaire and 2 glimpse in hand.
He played force of will when I played heritage druid. Very good choice! If he had not played that, I would have win this game with my two glimpses in hand. 0/2.
Bye Bye TOP8!
4/2/0

round 7 : tempo thresold
Game 1 : I mulligan 6, he wins the toss and play fetchland and grim lavamancer . He will blast a creature each turn then make me die slowly. 0/1
Game 2 : I make combo glimpse T4 for the win. 1/1.
Game 3 : the same as 1st game. grim T1 FTW.

He will explain me at the end of the round that he only plays 1 grim lavamancer.
4/3/0.

Conclusion : it wasn't my tournament, I mulliganed too much and have drawn very few cradle. I think I didn't deserve to win because of my 1st round missplay. I feel guilty...

[samman1]

@soiber2000
I don't think Ezuri is a good slot in my list because in 95% of the cases, I have better cards to play. Between Ezuri and mirror entity, you have to choose.

during the GP, I didn't lose my first round.
I made :
bye : win
porcelaine stompy : win
mystic bant : win
maverick : lose
zoo : win
bant : win
UB aggro control : win
team america : win
Elfball (combo Emrakul) : win
painter RU : lose
cawblade UW : win
sneak show : win
ANT : win
merfolk : win
sneak show : lose
tempo thres : win.

I played last WE a list with NO plan in SB. You have to decide when you side in this plan.
It is a difficult choice :
maverick? I don't think it is a good solution because of aven mindcensor and gaddock teeg,
tempo thres? Good choice, I think.
Tempo zoo? it is very difficult to play NO because the opponents blasts us at least 1 creature each turn.
zoo, berserk? I think it is efficient.
team america? elfball doesn't need NO to win.
Esperblade? bad choice because of perish.
Like every SB plan, it is a question on metagame.

Last point : Titania.
Last WE, this card made me win only once. And 3 times, I would have prefered playing fauna shaman. I won't play titania next tournament.


I think my list is an hybrid concept between elfball and aggro elves. The interest is to switch easily between 3 main gameplans :
combo glimpse,
combo infinite mana,
aggro VV (in particular fauna/VV tricks).
It is difficult to play this deck and very easy to make missplays!!!
But I think it is very powerful because your opponent cannot know what threats we play. VV MD is awesome.