[Deck] Elves Combo

[nudon]

I've been following this thread closely since August (pg. 133 or so) and finally took the leap into legacy with Elves! in October. Before then, I was just a casual EDH player. I'm pretty aware of the bad matchups (UW CounterTop, fast combo, etc.) and wanted to gauge how to improve my deck the most without breaking the bank. My current decklist (all cards owned) is in the link below:

http://deckstats.net/deck-1823468-fc...84283e62c.html

I threw the sideboard together on a budget so there is definitely room for improvement there. Some things in the deck I'd obviously like to change are:
1. Splashing black for DRS, Cabal Therapy, and Abrupt Decay
2. Using Craterhoof Behemoth/Mirror Entity as my win-con
3. Maybe trying Natural Order (similar to LSV's list)
4. Add Scavenging Ooze to the SB to deal with reanimator

Which of these would increase the power level of my deck the most? Also, how much worse is NO when there is a lot of counter-magic in the meta? Is it worse than having a Crop Rotation countered? The 2nd rotation in my list serves as a 4th cradle currently for budget reasons. I also own an Overgrown Tomb, should I use that for now as a placeholder for Bayou? Thanks in advance. Glad to FINALLY be a part of the Elves community. :)

[trevaftw]

For those who are heavily splashing black, what do you guys think of elves of deep shadow?

[ceustice]

Has anyone tried Edric, Spymaster of Trest in Elves he seems awesome when on the aggro plan he helps keep your hand full kind of acts like another Glimpse.

[Koby]

For those who are heavily splashing black, what do you guys think of elves of deep shadow?

Can't cast Wirewood Symbiote. Not worth it even if it didn't cost life to use.

[Atikin]

For those who are heavily splashing black, what do you guys think of elves of deep shadow?

How heavy is this splash? Ive never seen a list where at least 30+ cards in the deck didnt cost a single lone G mana. I splash black for deathrite and ive never had issues making black, let alone paying a life for it.

[Lans89]

I can't find a tournament report of 1 of the latest good results (with the Craterhoof, Deathrite's and side Decay). Are there any around?

I'm interested in their sideboarding during the tournaments.. And as I've read in this thread I am not the only one!

[Atog]

I can't find a tournament report of 1 of the latest good results (with the Craterhoof, Deathrite's and side Decay). Are there any around?

I'm interested in their sideboarding during the tournaments.. And as I've read in this thread I am not the only one!

There's one:

http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...-denver-top-8/

[infant_no_1]

I played the little green men at SCG Dallas. 5-3 record landing me at 65th. Right outside the money.

For reference here is my list:
Main
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
4 Heritage Druid
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Natural Order
4 Quirion Ranger
1 Priest of Titania
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Birchlore Rangers
1 Regal Force
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Forest
2 Dryad Arbor
1 Savannah
2 Bayou
3 Windswept Heath
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Gaea’s Cradle

Side
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Natural Order
1 Elvish Archdruid
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Progenitus
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Harmonic Silver
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Scavenging Ooze

My notes are non-existant so details are suspect.

Round 1 - David G - Smallpox
Game 1 was a grind, I kept bashing in with elves, he kept casting spot removal and smallpox. Eventually he lands a Hexmage and finishes me off. Game 2 was a truncated version of game 1. I'm pretty sure I screwed up in sideboarding by not bringing in the Abrupt Decays, I seemed to have forgotten Engineered Plague was a card.
Matches 0-1, Games 0-2

Considering this was my 4th total match with this deck I refused to be discouraged. On to the next round!

Round 2 - Kaider S - BUG
Game 1 he mulled into oblivion. I think I eventually got him with the Craterhoof. Game 2 was a double mull for my opponent.
Matches 1-1 (2-2)

Round 3 - Lyall A - Tezzerator
Game 1, he leads off with Underground Sea, Tropical, Dimir Signet. I then met a turn 4 Damnation, followed by Tezz. Game 2 I barfed my hand out because I'm an idiot and am on the wrong side of Perish.
I'm pretty sure I misplayed Game 2, but I'm not sure how to play around Perish.
Matches 1-2 (2-4)

Round 4 - Michael H - Merfolk
I do not remember this one.
Matches 2-2 (4-4)

Round 5 - Ty R - Belcher
Ty is on the play & leads off with Gitaxian Probe into Street Wraith then passes turn. We both play collect the cards for a few minutes, I get Craterhoof out & do not explicitly state that the 'hoof trigger is there. I then return a forest with the Ranger, turn my guys all sideways and say "Kill you" He smugly reminds me that I did something after putting the hoof into play so I don't get the trigger. I could have called a judge and might have been able to make my case, but being an L2 myself I knew it was probably a waste of time. Plus he had 1 card in hand and I had lethal next turn.
Game 2 he dropped 2 lotus petals and 2 tinder walls in one motion, and he storms for 10 goblins. I drop a fetch, get a land and drop Nettle Sentinel. He attacks with all 10 guys, I block and kill 1 going to 10. I then proceed to attack him, cast more elves including another Nettle Sentinel. More blocks ensue putting me at 3. I then cast another Sentinel and gain some life with my DR Shaman and attack killing off the rest of his tokens. He then draws and passes back to me. I deal the killing blow. He then started to tell me how Belcher should have won and how well positioned he was for the day. I just took the slip and walked off. I've played Belcher forever and knew the guy was making mistakes left and right.
Matches 3-2 (6-4)

Round 6 - Chris R - Jund
This one went to 3 games, I won game 1 without him doing much of anything. I wasn't entirely sure what to board in, but brought in the enchantment hate just in case. Game 2 he played ALL of the Tarmogoyfs. Game 3 was a Turn 1 Plague. I cast Nettle Sentinel and DR Shaman to try to grind a few points out, but his 2nd Shaman, Lili and 2 Bloodbraid Elves all got there.
Matches 3-3 (7-6)

Round 7 - James M - Dark Times
James was extremely softspoken, I could barely him. I felt bad for asking him to repeat himself over & over. I just outraced him both games. They were uneventful for the most part.
Matches 4-3 (9-6)

Round 8 - Eric N - Goblins
Eric led off Game 1 with the typical Lackey play, meeting a Nettle Sentinel. I just made sure he never connected with the little bastard. I then manage to chain together Regal Force and Craterhoof. Game 2 he had a Warren Instigator on turn 2. Once again I played defensively sacrificing guys when I needed in order to stop the Instigator. Eventually I get the Archdruid out and my guys are are bigger than his finally. I then am able to NO into a Hoof & he concedes.
Matches 5-3 (11-6)

Not too bad for it's first real showing and factoring in that I am certain I made a few mistakes during the day. Things I would change main deck: Taking out 1 Glimpse and replacing with either the Archdruid, Progen, or Emrakul. In the sideboard I never used the mindbreak Traps, but Storm was everywhere. I'd like to put 2 more Decays in there for Engineered Plague. That card slowed me down a few times throughout the day. I'm just not sure what to do versus the board sweepers like Damnation and Perish.

Sorry if this was too long, I fell in love with this deck the week before GP Denver and just wanted to share the honeymoon tournament.

-j-

[Atikin]

Round 5 - Ty R - Belcher
Ty is on the play & leads off with Gitaxian Probe into Street Wraith then passes turn. We both play collect the cards for a few minutes, I get Craterhoof out & do not explicitly state that the 'hoof trigger is there. I then return a forest with the Ranger, turn my guys all sideways and say "Kill you" He smugly reminds me that I did something after putting the hoof into play so I don't get the trigger. I could have called a judge and might have been able to make my case, but being an L2 myself I knew it was probably a waste of time. Plus he had 1 card in hand and I had lethal next turn.

What a prick...

[Reagens]

I've been testing the NO version as well.
One question.
I feel very dependant on craterhoof (he's a gamewinner every time he lands) and was wondering if I was the only one considering of playing a second copy maindeck. Drawing him on the wrong moment (just before NO) or having it discarded is very crippling to the deck.

[andrebonotto]

I've been testing the NO version as well.
One question.
I feel very dependant on craterhoof (he's a gamewinner every time he lands) and was wondering if I was the only one considering of playing a second copy maindeck. Drawing him on the wrong moment (just before NO) or having it discarded is very crippling to the deck.

Well, I don't know if it would be good increasing the number of Craterhoof Behemoths (the deck slots are tight; and the mana curve is already a little high with the Natural Orders and Regal Force)...

But maybe you could test moving your Progenitus from Sideboard to Maindeck, giving you, this way, two potential "win condition-targets" for NO (disregarding Regal Force's eventual potential as win-con.), while freeing one SB slot.

...

However, since this option still heightens your mana curve, you could, alternativelly run 1x Ezuri, Renegade Leader maindeck as a second win-con. that is not-so-hardly-tutorable with Green Sun's Zenith - or with NO, if you want to spend the same amount of mana but are willing to trade an 'useless' creature in order to not let NO be a 'dead card' on your hand.

[Lans89]

There's one:

http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...-denver-top-8/

Thanks a lot! If anyone finds more reports, please post them here :P! Sideboardings is rly a pain...

[infant_no_1]

Thanks a lot! If anyone finds more reports, please post them here :P! Sideboardings is rly a pain...

Sideboarding is a major pain. I took a lot of my sideboarding plans from this report:
http://legitmtg.com/competitive/hoof-there-it-i/

I don't think I ever brought in the 4th NO, the Cabal Therapy & Mindbreak Trap were also useless in the matchups I played. Most of my sideboarding was taking out the singletons & trimming some of the 4-ofs.

[flrn]

I like the sideboard of the Chris Anderson take on the deck from the SCG video deckcheck way more, than the Matt Nass one. Still the sideboard is a metacall. Think about, what you need in your local metagame and just put it there.

[chinEsE girl]

I just got back after top 8'ing the most recent NELC at Jupiter Games. I was playing the same 75 that Riley played at SCG Colombus, except I had a 2-2 split of therepy and thoughtseize. All I have to say right now is that the deck is actually absurd. I went 5-1-1 in the swiss, going 2-0 in all my match wins and still going 1-2 in the one that I lost, where he pretty much had turn 1 lavamancer every single game. I lost in top 8 when I mulled no land hands all the way down to 2 cards each time, and I felt that any of those 7 or 6 cards hands with a single land would of easily won. I'm going to post a report here in a little bit and go over how everything went. All I wanna say right now is that the deck felt incredible and I will definitely be playing it for the foreseeable future.


Edit: the report can be found here http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...881#post701881

[Atikin]

I just got back after top 8'ing the most recent NELC at Jupiter Games. I was playing the same 75 that Riley played at SCG Colombus, except I had a 2-2 split of therepy and thoughtseize. All I have to say right now is that the deck is actually absurd. I went 5-1-1 in the swiss, going 2-0 in all my match wins and still going 1-2 in the one that I lost, where he pretty much had turn 1 lavamancer every single game. I lost in top 8 when I mulled no land hands all the way down to 2 cards each time, and I felt that any of those 7 or 6 cards hands with a single land would of easily won. I'm going to post a report here in a little bit and go over how everything went. All I wanna say right now is that the deck felt incredible and I will definitely be playing it for the foreseeable future.

Looking forward to reading it mate!

[MD.Ghost]

@ chinEsE girl: Congrats!

My current version:

// Lands
3 Forest
2 Gaea's Cradle
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Pendelhaven
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Savannah
1 Bayou

// Creatures
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Birchlore Rangers
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Heritage Druid
3 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Qasali Pridemage
3 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Regal Force
1 Craterhoof Behemoth

// Spells
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Natural Order
1 Crop Rotation

// Sideboard
SB: 2 Abrupt Decay
SB: 4 Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
SB: 2 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 Terastodon
SB: 1 Mortarpod
SB: 1 Bojuka Bog
SB: 1 Karakas
SB: 1 Viridian Shaman

After a small tournament with some friends last thursday (I went 4-0-1 / 2:0 vs Punishing Maverick; 2:0 vs Infect; 1:1 vs UWr Miracle; 2:1 vs The Rock; 2:0 vs Affinity ) i decided to play the deck against our local berlin meta.

The local store tournament was yesterday and the deck works really well. I went 4-1-0, only lost against High Tide (vs Mon Goblin Warchief ).

Matchups:

2:1 vs Team America (Aggro)
2:0 vs BGU Madness
1:2 vs High Tide
2:1 vs Enchantress
2:1 vs UWr Miracle

Natural Order into Craterhoof is a scary efficient play. (Against Miracle i walked over his Counterbalance with Turn 3 Natural Order and 21 Damage..)

Some Details:

One Maindeck Pridemage was very good, you don´t lose against problematic enchantments (and jitte) - the safer game 1 win chance against some matchups (compared to viridian shaman).

Pendelhaven is good in grind matches (miracle etc.), because you have only one or two 1/1 dudes and every free, uncounterable pump works good, in matches were you have only small windows between sweepers.

I decided to put in my Scavenging Ooze in the Priest of Titania Slot, because i allways board Priest out (and most of the Time Ooze in) so it was a good option for a resilient maindeck answer which wins deathrite-wars and works quite well against some decks with game 1 sweepers (engineered explosives, deed, supreme verdict...).

Sideboard: I don´t like the NO-Progenitus Plan, because if you draw the monster you can´t get rid of it (unless you luckily get hit by a hymn..) It´s also only a "two turn" clock which dies to sweeper (perish, supreme, terminus) and (remember Grand Prix) Liliana... I decided to test Terastodon (kills Omnitell; Planeswalker; Moat; etc), which can also be a one Turn clock (18 damage) - sure it also dies against sweepers, but with this in mind, you can destroy some of the opponent permanents.
Maybe i cut Terastodon (it is my flex slot) and try out other resilient options (Thrun, or Garruk Wildspeaker) mainly against miracle or massiv hate some decks can bring against us.

I think Elves-Combo is a great deck in todays meta and with natural order and craterhoof it is extremly fast against other "fair" decks.

[Reagens]

I've done some (not much) tournament play with the deck and personally I sided in the 4th NO quite a lot.
There is quite a lot of BUG-control (discard+counters) and jund (discard and lots of removal) in my metagame and a resolved NO is practically always game. Most people also side out liliana PB and thus are very soft to progenitus.

[Atikin]

This deck has become really solid. Congrats to the two elves players in the top 16 of SCG Atlanta!

[Capt4in]

I played Elves combo to a top 4 split at a local 45-person event this weekend, finishing 4-0-2 in the swiss, beating 2x Jund, 2x BUG, then double-drawing into top 8 with Sneak/Show and 4c Cascade, and beating Goblins in the Quarterfinals. I played basically Riley/Chrandersen's list, with a forest in place of the Savannah and an extra Abrupt Decay and a Mortarpod (I think? Maybe the sb Dryad Arbor) in the Teeg/Pridemage slots. I personally don't think Teeg is necessary against combo (with 2 Mindbreak Traps, 4 Therapies, and a reasonable clock) nor do I think he is enough against Miracles, since he shuts off Zeniths and NO. Pridemage is fine, but I was able to fight through Plagues just fine all day, switching to the Progenitus plan postboard against black decks. I can see where you'd want Pridemage against something like Moat or Energy Field, but those are unpopular enough in my meta that I don't think they are necessary.

Didn't play very many different matchups, so don't have a lot of matchup insight other than that other Deathrite Shaman decks seem like pretty favorable matchups, as they are too slow to race you and don't have enough disruption/removal to keep you off of all 3 of Symbiote/Visionary, Glimpse combo, and Natural Order.