[Primer] Elves!

[Dice_Box]

Yea, well once upon a time I had no real understanding what the deck was.

[Zombie]

The more I play against Storm decks, the more I like the matchup. I think we're even favoured postboard against Storm. At the very least so after Safekeeper gets into the deck. Keeper+Teeg is pretty much "Have Infest or Perish/Virtue's Ruin or lose."

[nevilshute]

The more I play against Storm decks, the more I like the matchup. I think we're even favoured postboard against Storm. At the very least so after Safekeeper gets into the deck. Keeper+Teeg is pretty much "Have Infest or Perish/Virtue's Ruin or lose."

Question: Do you feel that Sylvan Safekeeper merits a spot in the sideboard in general, or is it only in these combo heavy times? Does it do enough in other match ups than against Storm?

[Zombie]

Question: Do you feel that Sylvan Safekeeper merits a spot in the sideboard in general, or is it only in these combo heavy times? Does it do enough in other match ups than against Storm?

ffuu, it was shroud and not protection. So Pyroclasm still works. *sadface*

I'd still play one main. It can protect key win cons like Ruric or Public Enemy #1 (Symbiote) from removal against fair decks. And if they can't disrupt Visionary+Symbiote? Say hello to all the cards and damage prevention ever.

[Dice_Box]

Safekeeper, if only he was an elf... If only he was and elf...

Also, is not self destruction for the sake of self preservation more Reds thing?

[Kayradis]

Alright.
After multiple deliberations and questioning, I'm resleeving my pet deck for another tournament. A big one here in the Maritimes (Canada).

I know Im dedicating 1 slot to Ruric Thar MD, cutting the Regal Force and replacing it with the second Hoof.

Any other ideas?

SB ideas?

Cheers!

[Dice_Box]

Can you post your list including side and let us know what you think you will face?

[Kayradis]

Meta is quite unknown at the moment.
From what I know for sure,
U/W Delver, RUG Delver, OmniHall, Affinity, ANT/TES, Food Chain Combo. Im assuming 1 or 2 reanimator, a dredge player or two, a U/W Miracle and 2 Jund. That's quite a good sample of my metagame.

At this point my list stand as :

Lands // 16
3 x Windswepth Heath
3 x Verdant Catacombs
1 x Misty Rainforest
1 x Forest
2 x Bayou
1 x Savannah
1 x Tropical Island
1 x Dryad Arbor
3 x Gaea's Cradle

Creatures // 31
4 x Deathrite Shaman
4 x Elvish Visionary
4 x Wirewood Symbiote
4 x Quirion Ranger
4 x Nettle Sentinel
4 x Heritage Druid
1 x Birchlore Ranger
1 x Viridian Shaman
1 x Llanowar Elves
1 x Priest Of Titania
1 x Fyndhorn Elves(or the new G elf druid, whatever I find foil/foreign first)
1 x Ruric Thar, The Unbowed
2 x Cratherhoof Behemoth

Spells // 12
4 x Glimpse Of Nature
3 x Natural Order
4 x Green Sun Zenith
1 x Crop Rotation

SB //
2 x Mindbreak Trap
1 x Qasali Pridemage
4 x Cabal Therapy
3 x Abrupt Decay
1 x Scavenging Ooze
1 x Natural Order
1 x Progenitus
1 x Thorn Of Amethysm
1 x Bojuka Bog
1 x Karakas

The SB is still in fluctuation.
Im debating cutting the Pridemage for something else.

[Dice_Box]

Putting the deck into Cockatrice now, it helps me see things. First thing it showed me, your sideboard is 16 cards...

Looking at it I feel like you need another Birchlore and another one drop Mana elf. I also question the point of the Tropical Island. It seams out of place.

Pridemage would be better replaced with Harmonic Sliver due to Sliver keeping priority while the effect fires off. Also with only one Crop Rotation I would not play with Bog. My personal, if not unconventional attack on graves is normally done with Loaming Shaman.

What makes you want to take out the last NO? When you side in Pro you will likely side in the NO with it.

[Kayradis]

Indeed! Just noticed as well...

Also, after multiple discussion here:
-1 Tropical Island
+1 Forest

and I would possibly cut the NO from the SB.

[Lemnear]

Meta is quite unknown at the moment.
From what I know for sure,
U/W Delver, RUG Delver, OmniHall, Affinity, ANT/TES, Food Chain Combo. Im assuming 1 or 2 reanimator, a dredge player or two, a U/W Miracle and 2 Jund. That's quite a good sample of my metagame.

At this point my list stand as :

Lands // 16
3 x Windswepth Heath
3 x Verdant Catacombs
1 x Misty Rainforest
1 x Forest
2 x Bayou
1 x Savannah
1 x Tropical Island
1 x Dryad Arbor
3 x Gaea's Cradle

Creatures // 31
4 x Deathrite Shaman
4 x Elvish Visionary
4 x Wirewood Symbiote
4 x Quirion Ranger
4 x Nettle Sentinel
4 x Heritage Druid
1 x Birchlore Ranger
1 x Viridian Shaman
1 x Llanowar Elves
1 x Priest Of Titania
1 x Fyndhorn Elves(or the new G elf druid, whatever I find foil/foreign first)
1 x Ruric Thar, The Unbowed
2 x Cratherhoof Behemoth

Spells // 12
4 x Glimpse Of Nature
3 x Natural Order
4 x Green Sun Zenith
1 x Crop Rotation

SB //
2 x Mindbreak Trap
1 x Qasali Pridemage
4 x Cabal Therapy
3 x Abrupt Decay
1 x Scavenging Ooze
1 x Natural Order
1 x Progenitus
1 x Thorn Of Amethysm
1 x Bojuka Bog
1 x Karakas

The SB is still in fluctuation.
Im debating cutting the Pridemage for something else.

Cut Llanowar, Priest, Fyndhorn, Ruric, Crop Rotation and Tropical to add 1 NO, 1 Cradle, 1 Dryad Aebor and 3 Birchlore Ranger and you pretty much Running my Test-Maindeck.

Birchlores are a Million times better than Llanowar and Fyndhorn, especially for Early Glimpse chains, Ruric Thar hardcast and machine gun DRS'

[phazonmutant]

Something that came up in the TES thread, how do you guys usually play the storm matchup? If you have a mana dork and a Therapy, do you blind Therapy on one? Does your answer change if you have the natural-drawn Teeg or a GSZ in hand? Finally, does it matter if the storm deck is ANT / TES / High Tide?

[Koby]

Something that came up in the TES thread, how do you guys usually play the storm matchup? If you have a mana dork and a Therapy, do you blind Therapy on one? Does your answer change if you have the natural-drawn Teeg or a GSZ in hand? Finally, does it matter if the storm deck is ANT / TES / High Tide?

Vs TES, Elves have the least amount of time. Key cards are both Infernal Tutor and Burning Wish. Leading with Therapy is the best play.

Vs ANT, Elves has a little more time, but can still randomly die on turn 2. Key card is Infernal Tutor. Leading with Therapy is still the best play.

Vs. High Tide, Elves have the most amount of time. Leading with some form of aggro (Nettle Sentinel, DRS) is the best turn 1 play, followed by Cabal Therapy / flashback.

In each of these, it's best to resolve Cabal Therapy and its flashback before the opposing combo deck's fundamental turn (TES: 1 or 2; ANT: 2, High Tide: 3)

Therapy is generally supplemental with Teeg/GSZ plan but Therapy buys the most amount of time to land hate bears and resistors.

[chinEsE girl]

For me, the desicion between dork or discard is pretty situational for combo matchups, but it's easy to hash out. It comes down to weather your opponent can go off next turn or if your plan is teeg or some other hate piece. So lets say I'm on the play. I'd almost always lead with a mana dork turn 1. The widely played combo decks have a low turn 1 percentage, so you can afford to develop your mana first and then launch a therapy. Against stuff like belcher you'd always just therapy but I think that's obvious enough. If I was on the draw I'd therapy first, then play out my guys. Storm combo can easily go off turn 2, and the show and tell decks can have sol lands or lotus petal to also go off turn 2, so I'd rather not risk just being dead to those kinds of draws.

This general game plan could change a bit if Teeg is involved, usually via GSZ. If I had GSZ in hand and had to choose between discard and setting up a second turn GSZ for 2, on the draw, I'd probably use discard first to either stop the combo or stop their anti-teeg plan, then get out the advisor. On the play you can just mana dork -> teeg -> therapy and you should be able to protect your teeg and start applying the beats.

Basically the way I play these matchups is to play my discard the turn before they have their first likely turn to go off. This usually means turn 2, so I generally save my therepies for right before that turn.

[igri_is_a_bk]

Vs TES, Elves have the least amount of time. Key cards are both Infernal Tutor and Burning Wish. Leading with Therapy is the best play.

Vs ANT, Elves has a little more time, but can still randomly die on turn 2. Key card is Infernal Tutor. Leading with Therapy is still the best play.

You don't name LED in these matches? It's easily the least replaceable card in both of their decks and enables the Tutors you posted to be good in the early turns. Especially against TES, I used to name either Tutor or Wish but I was just guessing and if they had the other one... well, fuck then.

[Koby]

You don't name LED in these matches? It's easily the least replaceable card in both of their decks and enables the Tutors you posted to be good in the early turns. Especially against TES, I used to name either Tutor or Wish but I was just guessing and if they had the other one... well, fuck then.

Their decks are still constrained by 4 Infernal Tutor and 4 LED. Brainstorm/Ponder doesn't change that math. The choke point is their tutoring ability (4-7 tutors, 8 cantrips) not their mana (4 LED 4 Lotus Petal 4 Dark Ritual 3-4 other rituals).

[Dice_Box]

Question to the floor. What is do you think is the right mix of Fetchs and Cradles? Also do you run Rotation?

[chinEsE girl]

Question to the floor. What is do you think is the right mix of Fetchs and Cradles? Also do you run Rotation?

Right now my mana base is 9 fetches, 2 forest, 2 bayou, 1 savannah, 1 arbor, 4 cradle. I used to run a 2-2 split of cradle and rotation, but with the new rules change I've moved to the full 4 cradles. I've also taken out the land tutor targets in my board so I just don't need rotation in my list anymore.

[Zombie]

IIRC, 3 Cradle 2 Bayou 1 Savannah 2 Forest 2 Arbor 7 fetch with 2 Crop Rotation. I think I'll need to fit one more fetch in there somehow.

Silly hand from yesterday (postboard vs. UBr Doomsday Tendrils):


Forest
Bayou
GSZ
Rotation

Rotation
NO
Nettle

T2 draw: NO
T3 draw: Llanowar


T1: Bayou, GSZ(Arbor)
T2: Forest, Nettle, Crop(Cradle), Crop(Cradle), NO(Arbor>Ruric)
T3: Forest, Llanowar, NO(Llano>Hoof), swing 5+11+8=24

[nudon]

1. Does the forest on t3 represent the one you played on t2 being tapped since you only list 1 basic forest drawn?
2. I think the 11 should be 9 since the base damage for ruric is 6 (+3 from trigger).
3. I personally would have sacrificed nettle on t2 instead of arbor since the only card you had remaining to untap it was NO#2. Also, there are 4 copies of nettle as opposed to 2 arbors. Chain of vapor on ruric would leave you short on mana to cast NO#2 on t3 as well.