[Primer] Elves!

[Lemnear]

4th Cradle is a matter of redundancy. It's not that the deck really needs to chain Cradles with Crop Rotations. Turn 1 Fetch, Turn 2 Cradle is awesome

The Devotion-land is plain aweful and it's totally off to suggest worse Elves to turn on the crappy Cradle-replacement

[PendelSteven]

To not reply and start a sub-topic:

Anyone worried about Blood Moon?

I see so many Elves-list with 9 fetches and 1 forest. Seeing that Blood Moon is red, if we keep on doing this, adding Stone Rain to those lists or something can destroy your only basicland...

Luckily we can usuaslly win on turn three, heck, in goldfishing today I turntwoed two games in a row. I always find turn 2 goldfishing awesome, since on play your opponent hasn't that much chance of disprupting you - and if they do, it's a turn three. Oh well.

So I reckon' we're to fast for Blood Moon disruption, but still. A small warning is in place, and I even recommend running at least 2 Forests, since Nic Fit / Explorer Pod. The latter is sort of on the rise as well. That's two reasons to increase your basics. I don't think you'll lose a big advantage and for that you get small advantages vs Blood Moon and Nic / Fit Explorer pod. Just do it: two Forest.

[PendelSteven]

Turn 1 Fetch, Turn 2 Cradle is awesome

Turn 1 Fetch --> Forest
Turn 2 Fetch --> Forest --> Crop Rotation --> Cradle

is in my opinion even more awesome, since it feeds your DRS and does thin out your deck two cards.

Oh and card-disadvantage? Honestly, in this deck that's not a problem at all!

[PendelSteven]

Lastly, thinking about what I have seen happen on SCG of late. Mostly the decks that are pushing cantrips to abuse Young Pyromancer. I am giving some serious thought to putting a Hoof side and Thar main.

May I suggest Glissa and Ratchet Bomb? Boom! Return Bomb... She can also bring back things like Tormod's Crypt by the way.

[Lemnear]

First, there is imo no need double and triple post.

Card-disadvantage is an issue in EVERY deck. You can't seriously ignore the fact that Cradle is uncounterable as a turn 2 play.

[PendelSteven]

First, there is imo no need double and triple post.

Card-disadvantage is an issue in EVERY deck. You can't seriously ignore the fact that Cradle is uncounterable as a turn 2 play.

Actually. I've played and seen many tourneys in which several of my/their opponents simply didn't have counterspells. I don't know if you noticed, but Legacy actually has a lot of decks that don't play blue, especially with Death & Texas on the rise. Oh, and hey. We dont'play blue. Goblins doesn't. Junk. Jund. (Maverick). Belcher. The list goes on...

And even then... If you had one counter would't you rather counter a CR, or the Glimpse, Natural Order, Wirewood Symbiote, Heritage Druid or Green Sun's Zenith? The way I see it: we have enough must-counters in our deck before an opponent will fear CR.


I'll actually will count the number of counterspells in the top 8 of SCG Legacy Open yesterday...

4 Daze
7 Force Of Will
3 Flusterstorm
(4 Red Elemental Blast Under Painter's Servant)
(4 Pyroblast Under Painter's Servant)
(3 Mindbreak Trap, in the Elvesdeck...)

And that's it. With that you ought to wonder: will they side in Flusterstorms vs Elves? Many Daze-casters actually say it doesn't help a thing vs Elves. Given example: first CR your forest, then if they daze, you can simply tap your other forest, so your CR isn't countered. Not a great use of Daze.

It gets even better if you look at 8-16:
MUD
Reanimator
4C Loam
Belcher
Sharldless BUG - adding several Forces and Flusterstorms
Sneak And Show - for another few Forces and maybe Pacts
Elves




So.



What counterspell exactly?

[Lemnear]

Depending on the boardstate I can't think of a better Spell Pierce/Daze target than Crop Rotation. 2-for-1 yourself with Crop Rotation is a backbreaker because you loose a land in addition.

[PendelSteven]

Depending on the boardstate I can't think of a better Spell Pierce/Daze target than Crop Rotation. 2-for-1 yourself with Crop Rotation is a backbreaker because you loose a land in addition.

3 Dazes, 0 Spell Pierce in the top 16. Just saying. I know you don't wanna take risks, but the chances are not that huge. And playing around Daze is a breeze anyway.

[Lemnear]

3 Dazes, 0 Spell Pierce in the top 16. Just saying. I know you don't wanna take risks, but the chances are not that huge.

What are you talking about Top 16? Who cares about a single T16 without making remarks about date/number of players/meta/etc?

[PendelSteven]

What are you talking about Top 16? Who cares about a single T16 without making remarks about date/number of players/meta/etc?

date: yesterday
players: 250+
meta: today's American meta. But hey, if you're paying $ 40 to play, you don't bring a deck you don't want to win with. Well, most of them don't.

[chinEsE girl]

Dude, PendelSteven, you really need to pay attention to what evidence you're using to support your claims. You said there were only 3 copies of daze and 0 spell pierce in the top 16 of the SCG open in Cincinnati yesterday, that number is closer to 8 and 3 (I'm counting the decks from 1st to 16th btw). Those were from 3 out of the total of 5 blue decks in the top 16 all together. Shardless BUG only plays force main, but can still side into flusterstorm if it wants to (dunno if that's something they would do against elves tbh). The other blue decks were either playing a full set of dazes (with more counter magic in the board) or playing some spell pierces (again with more countermagic in the board). What I'm trying to say is that if you ended up getting paired against one of the decks with cheap countermagic, crop rotation is a pretty big liability. It opens you up to getting blown out when you need the mana most if you play against a lot of blue decks. If the meta is similar to what Cinci was, where there is a ton of fair decks that can't favorably deny your rotations, then sure it's a pretty good plan. You can do a ton of powerful things with rotation in the deck. However, when I play the deck, there is usually a good portion of opponents who have cheap countermagic against me, so in my meta I want 4 cradles straight up. Just my 2 cents about that.

Also my opinion on the new devotion land: Lemnear said it best. It's a worse cradle that needs you to run worse elves just to make it close to cradles power level. Trying to make cards like that work is not smart. If you want to make the deck as powerful as possible, play the most powerful cards. Cradle power level is several orders of magnitude higher than the new land, plus you don't have to make your deck worse just to have it function.

In fact, that statement pretty much applies to a lot of the cards people like to suggest here. My philosophy with this deck is that its a lean, mean, green mana producing, hoof smashing machine, and playing "cute" cards just makes the deck worse. Unless you have serious budgetary concerns, just run the most powerful cards or sideboard options that work well in a variety of situations. So that's means main you keep the core intact, with maybe a few adjustments to suite your play style/game plan (number of Llanowars and birchlores, exact number of lands, how many cradles and rotations, how many NO targets main) and play strong interactive sideboard cards. There's a reason why all of the well performing lists have very similar sideboards, with maybe a few alterations between them. We've reached a point where we've established something incredibly powerful, so there's no reason to start making it weaker by running a bunch of cute, single matchup application types of cards.

[Dice_Box]

Big impossible to cut on a mobile Post.

I would like to state that I was suggesting the land only for a very small group of the thread that play with a limited number of Cradles due to cost issues. Once Crop rotation was pointed out to me (I forgot about it) the topic is dead. This new land is not better that cradle or in any way it's equal. I apologise for bringing it up at all. Also our eyes are open, this land, while useful, would only be placed in a deck due to budget issues.

Will admit, I kind of want to test elves in Modern now though.

Sent from my mobile, forgive spelling and grammatical errors.

[Zombie]

I wouldn't even play it in a budget list. Basic Forests and Pendelhaven are about a million times better.

[trevaftw]

Did a whole bunch of testing against ANT tonight pre and post board. If they don't win turn 1 I feel super confidant in my ability to win the game. (It might've helped that I've learned on how to read my opponent on what to name with Cabal Therapy because of our discussions about how elves boards and thinks).

Board strategy:
-4 Wirewood
-4 Visionary
-1 Archdruid

+1 Teeg
+1 Dryad Militant
+1 Bojuka Bog
+2 Mindbreak Trap
+4 Cabal Therapy

And I have Ruric Thar and 4 NO main.

[Koby]

If they don't win turn 1....

+2 Mindbreak Trap

Something doesn't add up with what you just said.

[trevaftw]

Something doesn't add up with what you just said.

I don't always mull until I see a MBT. If I have hate and can play it (or have a way to fetch some hate) I keep the hand.

[Lemnear]

Pal, just don't run MBT ... Please take this sincere advice from a TES player. Focus on Therapy, Thalia and Thorn (Thalia>Thorn cuz it pressures in that matchup) ... Cut Bog and Militant ... run 2 Oozes instead in that spots

[Zombie]

Trap is horrible, horrible, horrible. Especially against a deck like ANT that's totally comfortable going for the long game, has tons of information from all the discard+Probe so they can just shred your hand and wait and then get rid of the Trap when they want to go off. Thalia/Thorn is so much better it's not funny because it slows down their setup AND hinders comboing out more than "has to cast Duress". Hell, it hinders the opponent from finding an answer to itself.

If you have this in vs. Storm postboard you'll be fine:
4 Therapy
2 Thorn
1 Teeg
1 Thar

I've typically cut 3 Visionary, 1 Symbiote, 1 Heritage, 1 Viridian Shaman to make room for the Therapies and Thorns. If you have Ooze/2nd Hoof main, obv. change those into Teeg/Thar. The only Storm-style deck you should consistently lose to is a Doomsday player going for Emrakul or the like, I think. And those aren't exactly common. TES is ok but unfavourable due to the sheer speed and the fact you don't usually keep hands that are good at grinding EtW's down vs. Storm. Like, it's a thing you can do and it's not that difficult, but if TES Probes you and sees that he just waits a turn or two and Tendrils's or worse, Grapeshots your ass as punishment for stupidity.

EDIT: Teeg main is godlike vs. ANT, btw. the LDV build is the only one with any outs to Teeg maindeck. Add to that NO=>Thar and just killing him (you're about as fast as he is) and you're in a good place I think.

[Lemnear]

... but if TES Probes you and sees that he just waits a turn or two and Tendrils's or worse, Grapeshots your ass as punishment for stupidity.

Now I feel dirty ... thx pal ;(

[trevaftw]

Pal, just don't run MBT ... Please take this sincere advice from a TES player. Focus on Therapy, Thalia and Thorn (Thalia>Thorn cuz it pressures in that matchup) ... Cut Bog and Militant ... run 2 Oozes instead in that spots

I see the value gained from Ooze, but I don't think it's a necessary card. People talk about bringing it in against RUG and tbqh if you're losing that match up you're not playing it right. I've never had trouble with it. With respect to Ooze and dredge it is too slow against the deck and being able to crop rotate into bojuka bog or having the ability to play dryad militant against it has been super beneficial for me. Also add in that dryad militant is great against High Tide because it makes their time spirals significantly worse because all of their spells they played before it don't get recycled. MBT also is useful here since they have easy access to bounce via cunning wish. Also, I do know that thalia/thorn aginst high tide is fairly meh since they can go off through it easily where as making them force a MBT AND pitch another card gain be a pretty big setback.

I will try testing thalia's this week against my ANT player this week, though.