[Deck] Elves Combo

[flrn]

From what I've understood, decklists will soon be posted here: http://belgianlegacycup.wordpress.com/

[spatulaclan]

So I have been playing various versions of aggro, combo elves for awhile. I think it’s just the satisfaction of winning on a turn 2 or 3 that’s just got me with elves. I know it’s not the strongest deck in the field but I love it and will always have it build in some sort of version. I digress I had been playing NO-combo the better part of a year I love it but I’m ready for something new. My buddy and EW built this today. Thoughts and Ideas? Comments?
Main Deck
1 Elvish Archdruid
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Triumph of the Hordes
4 Birchlore Ranger
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
4 Heritage Druids
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Priest of Titania
4 Wireword Symbiote
3 Qurion Ranger
13 Basic Forest
1 Pendelhaven
Sideboard
2 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Krosan Grip
3 Meekstone
4 Natural Order
1 Progenitus
2 Caller of the Claws

[.Ix]

That's hyper-specific. We could easily find those numbers, but I don't think that that's what everyone's asking. The question is, as I read it, is the probability boost given by including a Dryad Arbor worth the negative of actually drawing the Dryad Arbor, and that's what the statistical experiment that I set up is calculating. It assumes a normal hand, which will, on average, include at least one forest, usually two. You're just under 90% to have at least one Forest in your opener anyway, so that's not going to change the statistics all that dramatically. As for the hands where you have GSZ and a Llanowar Elf, Dryad Arbor is irrelevant unless it's in your opener, as you're going to have all of the mana that you need. If you think it's a case that's worth exploring, I invite you to run the statistics yourself, but as I said, that's such a specific situation and it's not really a question that's being asked.

It's important because the probability boost only occurs in that exact situation. If you have GSZ + 1 Elf, you'll always want to play an elf first, so the boost does not exist when an elf is in hand. This is statistically significant precisely because there is a very high chance of drawing an elf. We have to take the forest into account because the probability of drawing the Dryad Arbor also takes that into account (ie it will be terrible whether or not there is a forest).

Given that:
In a deck with 4 GSZ, 15 forest, 1 arbor, and 8 elves,

P(1 GSZ+no arbor / elves + 1 forest) = P(1 GSZ) * [1-P(elves/arbor)] * P(1 Forest)
= 0.3995 * (1-0.7002) * 0.8825
= 0.1057 or 10.57%

If this is correct, we can see that we have only a 10.57% chance to be able to use the Turn 1 GSZ for Arbor play. Risking 11.66% free time walks for 10.57% gain is not exactly what I want to be doing in any deck.

[benthetenor]

I'm definitely not disagreeing with you, and your numbers look about right. I think GSZ -> Dryad Arbor is a play that makes a lot of sense with the fewer 1-mana accelerants you run, so in decks like Maverick, it's a perfect card, but the more accelerants you run, the less of a benefit you're going to see from turning your Green Sun's Zeniths into Rampant Growths. This makes sense intuitively, since as your chance to draw a 1-mana accelerant in your opening hand approaches 100%, you're only going to see the negative side of having a Dryad Arbor in the deck. With 8 accelerants, you're already at a pretty impressive 65%. Either way you calculate it, a gain of either 13.75% or 10.57% are both too close to the 11.66% drag put on the deck to make a solid justification for it being an easy call.

[.Ix]

Exactly. It's a fairly large gamble, and it's nowhere close to an auto-include in this deck like some people are saying. Maverick gains a lot more than Elves does by running it, both in acceleration and tricks, so it makes a lot more sense to risk the 11.6% in Maverick.

[TraxDaMax]

Not to nitpick, but I think there are occassions where turn 1 GSZ into Arbor is better then playing an Elf.

Simplified:

Hand: GSZ, Heritage druid, Forest, Gaea's Cradle, Glimpse, Sentinel, llanowar.

Turn 1 forest into GSZ into Arbor (5 cards in hand)
Turn 2 draw(6 cards in hand), tap forest for glimpse(5 cards in hand), tap arbor for sentinel (draw, 5 cards in hand),play and tap Gaea's for 2 mana, playing heritage druid and llanowar, both netting a card leaving you with an untapped sentinel, llanowar and heritage druid and 4 cards in hand with an active glimpse.


Let's play out that hand the other way now.

Turn 1 Forest into Llanowar Elf (5 cards in hand)
Turn 2 draw(6 cards in hand) play Gaea's (5 cards in hand), tap forest for heritage druid(4 cards in hand), tap gaea's for 2 mana and play glimpse and sentinel (draw, 3 cards in hand)
This means we have a card less, though 1 is a GSZ which means something, but not much with only 3 mana available at the moment.

Lets assume now, that the second turn "natural" draw was a deathrite shaman and we played llanowar turn 1


Turn 1 Forest into Llanowar Elf (5 cards in hand)
Turn 2 draw (6 cards in hand), play Gaea's (5 cards in hand), tap forest and play glimpse (4 cards in hand), tap llanowar and play heritage (4cards in hand), tap gaea's and play DRS and sentinel (4 cards in hand)

So, as you can see the first example nets you 4 cards whatever the draw is, while going turn 1 elf can lose you a card if your natural draw isn't an elf. Yes, you use up a GSZ, but 1 GSZ is not worth 2 random cards when glimpse is active in my opinion. Especially with only 3 mana to spend.


Hopefully this example is a bit clear. People can play whatever they want, but I'm sold on dryad arbor. ;)

[.Ix]

Very nice. I had imagined Arbor wouldn't be so bad in situations where you have a Cradle in hand. The problem with that is that it's even less probable considering most lists only run 2 Cradles, so I didn't bother. If you like to be prepared for such situations and you don't mind drawing the Arbor in the opener every 5-6 games, then it's all up to you.

[CalebD]

The list that just top eighted the vegas open is very good. Haven't tried Gitaxian Probe, but it might be a nice addition.

Regarding the Dryad Arbor conversation, the card does add another turn one mana dork, but it has a lot of other utility in this deck. A fetch can find it in the mid/late game. Quirion Dryad can bounce it every turn to turn off a Batterskull/Jitte or simply Maze of Ith an attacker.

Overall, it's a low-risk, high-reward slot. I win at least a couple games every tournament specifically due to having Arbor in my deck, and have never found the drawback of occasionally drawing it to be too much of an issue.

[HoneyT]

The list that just top eighted the vegas open is very good. Haven't tried Gitaxian Probe, but it might be a nice addition.

The list looks fine but playing only three Silvergil Adepts is wrong. Also not playing enough lands. I've played 15 land elves before and it just isn't enough. 16 is probably the minimum. I don't think the couple of probes is enough to offset that.

[Godmode]

Top8 Decklists from the Belgian Legacy Cup (86 players) ->HERE<-

Both Elves players in the Top8 made it to the Quarterfinals with the exact same decklist (same 75).

4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
2 Forest
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Pendelhaven
2 Gaea’s Cradle

2 Deathrite Shaman
2 Lllanowar Elves
2 Fyndhorn Elves
2 Birchlore Ranger
2 Quirion Ranger
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Heritage Druid
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Priest of Titania
2 Mirror Entity
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Regal Force

4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
2 Crop Rotation

SB
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Thoughtseize
1 Cabal Therapy
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Krosan Grip
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Elvish Champion
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

[Infinitium]

I don't particulary like the white splash but I have to admit the Entity/Sliver/Symbiote interaction -is- pretty slick.

[Benjammn]

I would also eat the slot and play Dryad Arbor. The times where it provides acceleration on Turn 1 far outweigh the times it hinders in the opening hand. When you really need it, and you don't include make it miserable.

I echo the sentiments with playing Combo Elves. Therapy still provides disruption and supplements Thorns against combo matchups. Abrupt Decay is a nice upgrade for Krosan Grip (ok maybe it can't beat Humility, but we're still an infinite creature deck so not a total loss). Moat is answered with Emrakul - again, no loss.

Deathrite Shaman frees up the need to run graveyard hate en masse, so that's a bonus.

Good. It wasn't just me; ever since DR Shaman got printed I've been toying with splashing black for it and Therapy. I finally am getting around to testing a list, which you can find below:

4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Llanowar Elves
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
3 Wirewood Symbiote
2 Quirion Ranger
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Priest of Titania
3 Elvish Archdruid
1 Regal Force
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

1 Summoner's Pact
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy

1 Gaea's Cradle
7 Forest
2 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest

Sideboard
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Regal Force
4 Carpet of Flowers
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Viridian Shaman
3 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Umezawa's Jitte

As you see in the SB, I've also been testing Craterhoof Behemoth and it currently resides in the MD of my mono-green build. I was running a single Joraga Warcaller to dump mana into or to Summoner's Pact for, but the Hoofmeister does the same but can be GSZ'ed and demands an immediate answer unlike Warcaller.

[Ertai87]

Just built this deck. Copied my list from the one from SCG Vegas last weekend. I was toying around with it on Cockatrice and solitairing it by myself, and I realized that I would often flip my deck on the table and then have to wait a turn to win the game because I couldn't attack through their blockers or whatnot. I know previous lists of Elves from a while back played Concordant Crossroads; is there a particular reason that card fell out of favor?

[Darklingske]

Biggest question concerning your question is: Wich turn did you combo? Normally they shouldn't have more then 2 blockers and once you start comboing, you can generate infinite mana and thus infinite large attackers. Just make sure that the creatures that were on the BF in the start of your turn can untap and attack.
Crossroads is not necessary at all. It is clunky since it gives your opponent also immediate use out of his/her creatures.

[Koby]

Play Emrakul. You wont be disappointed.

Im playing Elves for the Legacy portion of the SCG Invitational. Even with the amount of Engineered Plague in the room, Abrupt Decay fixes that nicely. Ive noticed it really tricky to board into too many spells without diluting the power of the combo turn.

[Koby]

I don't particulary like the white splash but I have to admit the Entity/Sliver/Symbiote interaction -is- pretty slick.

As opposed to Symbiote and Viridian Shaman? I tried Mirror Entity after Rory's prrformance at SCG vegas in testing and it seemed harder to get working than required. Im going to file Entity as "User preference".

[Ertai87]

Biggest question concerning your question is: Wich turn did you combo? Normally they shouldn't have more then 2 blockers and once you start comboing, you can generate infinite mana and thus infinite large attackers. Just make sure that the creatures that were on the BF in the start of your turn can untap and attack.
Crossroads is not necessary at all. It is clunky since it gives your opponent also immediate use out of his/her creatures.

What I tend to find is that I start going off around turn 3 when playing solitaire or around turn 4-5 when my opponent has interaction. Bolting the turn 1 Elf really hurts, I've found. Particularly against RUG/BUG Delver, I've found that they can put down enough speed bumps and generate enough tempo so that I'm at a low life total with maybe 4-5 attackers and they have 3-4 blockers when I start comboing off, meaning I basically have to Mirror for 20 to kill them (and then I still have to have more attackers than they have blockers, which is not always doable). I've found that Mirroring for 20 basically requires going infinite, which the deck is not always able to do, while Mirroring for 8-10 is perfectly reasonable assuming I can't go infinite but tends to require Crossroads to close the game.

Now, clearly, Crossroads is very all-in, I definitely know that. I'd play it less as an advantage engine (because in terms of getting advantage from that effect this deck is probably the worst deck in the format) and more as an "oops, you're dead" play, similar to the way Dream Halls works. I'm also only running it as a 1-of to dig for mid-combo, so I don't expect too many awkward draws because of it.

[TraxDaMax]

Just built this deck. Copied my list from the one from SCG Vegas last weekend. I was toying around with it on Cockatrice and solitairing it by myself, and I realized that I would often flip my deck on the table and then have to wait a turn to win the game because I couldn't attack through their blockers or whatnot. I know previous lists of Elves from a while back played Concordant Crossroads; is there a particular reason that card fell out of favor?

Play Mortarpod. You'll never have this problem again. Just flip your deck, make inifinite mana, and sac the team to win.
I have pulled my butt out of impossible situations this way more then a dozen of times, where if I hadn't had it I'd lose. Emrakul would have worked too usually, but Emrakul does so little if you draw it before you can combo, while Mortarpod is a control's nightmare and also cleans up bad guys like lavamancer and sharpshooter.

[Ertai87]

Play Mortarpod. You'll never have this problem again. Just flip your deck, make inifinite mana, and sac the team to win.
I have pulled my butt out of impossible situations this way more then a dozen of times, where if I hadn't had it I'd lose. Emrakul would have worked too usually, but Emrakul does so little if you draw it before you can combo, while Mortarpod is a control's nightmare and also cleans up bad guys like lavamancer and sharpshooter.

That seems reasonable, actually. Has anyone else tried this before?

[syfilisx]

Caleb Dunward played one maindeck while ago, you can read his article about that build on Channelfireball, it talks about Shardless Agent a bit first, but just scroll down for the elves.

http://www.channelfireball.com/home/...nce-of-shards/