[Primer] Elves!

[trevaftw]

I think that running hate that can be tutored is always worth a think. We have open to us a toolbox, might as well make sure we fill it. This elf I feel should be a two of, one in the main, one in reserve.

Agreed. Game one he acts as viridian most of the time , typically against stoneblade decks. Then game two/three you bring in a second so when you tutor it up versus e-plague and it dies you have a backup.

[GerMagic]

Agreed. Game one he acts as viridian most of the time , typically against stoneblade decks. Then game two/three you bring in a second so when you tutor it up versus e-plague and it dies you have a backup.

I - inexperienced as I am though - didn't like Viridian Shaman main at all. Though Reclemation Sage seems a lot better. Hitting random Sylvan Libraries, potentially Counterbalance, Spirit of the Labyrinth and Moat makes him a lot more desirable, at least for me :)

[Zombie]

Main Shaman is super nice. It's a funny feeling being not that scared of Jitte while playing Elves :P

[Dice_Box]

I - inexperienced as I am though - didn't like Viridian Shaman main at all. Though Reclemation Sage seems a lot better. Hitting random Sylvan Libraries, potentially Counterbalance, Spirit of the Labyrinth and Moat makes him a lot more desirable, at least for me :)

I am guessing you have not had to deal with much in the way of Blade decks and DnT. After a while, Shaman just kind of because (for me at lest) a uncutable staple. Such a good card.

[GerMagic]

I am guessing you have not had to deal with much in the way of Blade decks and DnT. After a while, Shaman just kind of because (for me at lest) a uncutable staple. Such a good card.

Actually my main testing partner has been WB Deathblade and it felt nearly unlosable even without him? Maybe he's doing something wrong, but so far SFM has been a joke in my matches (aside from UWR Delver of course, since they kill all your stuff and counter NO :P).

Also I have always hated playing dead cards and sadly there are a lot of MUs where it's a 3 mana 2/2, or am I missing something?^^

Jitte hasn't felt threatening to me at all yet tbh, seems suuuper slow, does nothing vs. Ranger+Arbor / Wirewood + Elf. But maybe thats just luck on my side so far?^^

[Dice_Box]

With the good hands, Jitte is a non entity, but against slower hands, it can feel impossible to beat. At lest I have found that to be the case. Then there are a few other cards I really like to stop. Ensnaring Bridge is one (I sometimes lend out Painter) Vial, Mox, Crucible of Worlds. These all matter. But the one that matters most, Chalice of the Void.

I think I just described how my Meta looks right now using nothing but artefacts.

[GerMagic]

With the good hands, Jitte is a non entity, but against slower hands, it can feel impossible to beat. At lest I have found that to be the case. Then there are a few other cards I really like to stop. Ensnaring Bridge is one (I sometimes lend out Painter) Vial, Mox, Crucible of Worlds. These all matter. But the one that matters most, Chalice of the Void.

I think I just described how my Meta looks right now using nothing but artefacts.

I guess it's also (party) because of a fixed, given meta. So far I've mostly run practise games on MTGO and while I'm ignoring obvious budged/rogue brews for my notes I haven't yet faced too many serious issues. By far most of my losses simply come from stupid Griselbrands and Tendrils haha.

As for Jitte I think the deck you're facing matters a ton. As long as NO is an out you always have a potential win, even when Jitte is lying around (unless of course you have excactly one dude, only Crater as a target and you're losing the race to a Flyer with an active Jitte). I only faced american Delver once so far and their SFM is a whole different story. Jitte can easily halt us from getting boardpresence (at least a decent one), the have a lot of removal (for legacy standards at least) and most of the time NO is not an out (Spell Pierce and FoW d'uh).
Or course a T1 1-drop, T2 Jitte is often unbeatable without a turn 2 hand OR a NO for Progenitus, but I would definitely never run a specific hatecard against Jitte maindeck. And I think that's what makes me not like Viridian Shaman so far - I've simply not faced many good artefacts and most of the ones I faced were against BW(g) Deathblade without Perish/Plague in the sb, so that might play a fair role in that :P

On your comment also, while I agree that Vial, Crucible and Moxen do matter, you wouldn't play Shaman because of them and imo you will rarely GSZ him up for one of those (since it will often be too slow anyway and/or another target is better). I just don't like having a 3 mana grizzly bears in my opener if I don't know what I'm facing and so far I've already been mulliganing a lot even without maindeck Ruric Thar and Shaman.

I'm a lot more open to the Sage though and since he will soon hit MTGO (and IRL) I'll definitely be durdling around with it. Hitting all the artefacts (especially Bridge+Equip, potentially even Belcher?) and stupid enchantments (I've faced maindeck energy field for instance, also stuff like Moat, Engineered Plague, Spirit of the Labyrinth and Sylvan Library - and I'm sure a lot more I haven't faced yet) makes me a lot more inclined to play maindeck "hate" :)

[Zombie]

And that's the thing, really. Most blade decks you'll be facing will be blue, which means your first NO is probably eating a FoW. Against those kinds of decks the grindy Symbiote+Visionary plan into inevitable Hoofing is awesome, but for that to work you absolutely need to kill Jitte, esp. because blue Blade decks play TNN.

[Yanley]

How is our matchup against UWR Delver? I fought against that deck last weekend in a top8 quarterfinals but I lost against it. Any tips on that matchup?

[Echelon]

It's tough. Every now and again you can just power through with a NO to Progenitus but that's not very often.

After SB-ing they often run 8 spotremoval, somewhere between 4 and 8 counters and a couple of board sweepers.

It's a tough match when your opponent knows how to disrupt your deck.

Viridian Shaman is often an all-star though. It eats Jittes and Batterskulls like pills.

I've been thinking about sacrificing 8 SB-slots for 3 Elvish Archdruid, an Elvish Champion (or something along those lines) and 4 Wirewood Hivemaster (or a combination of Hivemasters and Essence Wardens) for the Delver MU's and lulz in general. The plan would be to board out your NO's, GSZ's and a land and just go aggro on their ass with your 8 extra creatures while they keep the FoW's in hand waiting for the never-coming NO/GSZ to Hoof.

Does take up a lot of slots though. Oh well, I'm gonna go for it anyway. I'm curious to see if it works. At times it can be nice to throw your opponent off balance with silly stuff like that.

[GerMagic]

It's tough. Every now and again you can just power through with a NO to Progenitus but that's not very often.

After SB-ing they often run 8 spotremoval, somewhere between 4 and 8 counters and a couple of board sweepers.

It's a tough match when your opponent knows how to disrupt your deck.

Viridian Shaman is often an all-star though. It eats Jittes and Batterskulls like pills.

I've been thinking about sacrificing 8 SB-slots for 3 Elvish Archdruid, an Elvish Champion (or something along those lines) and 4 Wirewood Hivemaster (or a combination of Hivemasters and Essence Wardens) for the Delver MU's and lulz in general. The plan would be to board out your NO's, GSZ's and a land and just go aggro on their ass with your 8 extra creatures while they keep the FoW's in hand waiting for the never-coming NO/GSZ to Hoof.

Does take up a lot of slots though. Oh well, I'm gonna go for it anyway. I'm curious to see if it works. At times it can be nice to throw your opponent off balance with silly stuff like that.

Also makes their Spell Pierces a lot worse^^ seems kinda fun, though I wouldn't want to make that much space in the SB personally.

And that's the thing, really. Most blade decks you'll be facing will be blue, which means your first NO is probably eating a FoW. Against those kinds of decks the grindy Symbiote+Visionary plan into inevitable Hoofing is awesome, but for that to work you absolutely need to kill Jitte, esp. because blue Blade decks play TNN.

Yeah, in those MUs I can agree with you a lot more ^^ most Jittes I've faced so far were non-blue so NO was nearly always an out even through an active Jitte, so I didn't feel as terrified as I probably should. Anyways, I think Reclemation Sage will be online in like 2 weeks or so anyway, so I'll just keep not using Shaman until then xP
Thanks for the insight though! Since I'm new to legacy I can't test with a gaunlet like I can in modern, so a lot of my experience comes from only 2 opposing decks (Miracles and BW Deathblade).

[ventouza6969]

A few days now i am working on one Pharika, God of Affliction main and one Umezawa's Jitte side and they are awesome both cards.
The Bug MU with tons mass removals have become much easier.

Pharika, God of Affliction:
->fetch through Zenith and order
->trigger the glimpse on the stack
->grave hate
->provides food for the order
->Indestructible (f@@@ decay)
Overturn the game all time

Umezawa's jitte is umezawa's jitte.

[carlitines]

Changing combo elves into aggro elves?? The problem is that you need all your sideboard.... so say goodbye to cabal, decays, thoughtseize, swang song etc, I think its less competitive, no?

[Echelon]

Changing combo elves into aggro elves?? The problem is that you need all your sideboard.... so say goodbye to cabal, decays, thoughtseize, swang song etc, I think its less competitive, no?

It's a different approach. Rather then turning into a bad BG control-ish deck with some elvish shenanigans I'm curious to see if I can ignore the disruption the opponent brings and keeps in.

That leaves us with 7 slots to battle combo & graveyards.

[Julian23]

A few days now i am working on one Pharika, God of Affliction main and one Umezawa's Jitte side and they are awesome both cards.
The Bug MU with tons mass removals have become much easier.

Pharika, God of Affliction:
->fetch through Zenith and order
->trigger the glimpse on the stack
->grave hate
->provides food for the order
->Indestructible (f@@@ decay)
Overturn the game all time

Umezawa's jitte is umezawa's jitte.

[ventouza6969]

Hi julian i'm the greek guy i met you at the grand prix Paris if you remember....

->Packmaster needs 3G and champion than pharika
->With zenith it needs one more mana
->with order it needs two creatures (one champion & one sac)
->doesn't have indestructible
->it needs 2G one more mana than pharika
->If packmaster leaves play the token don't have anymore deathtouch
but
->it's a 5/5 creature asap
->it doesn't need creatures in graveyard to product tokens
->it doesn't need black to its ability
->The tokens are 2/2 than pharika's

The thing is which card does each player feel comfortable with...
because of the pharika's static ability (indestructible) i feel better than packmaster

[Julian23]

because of the pharika's static ability (indestructible) i feel better than packmaster

No offense, but this is probably the least relevant of all the abilities when comparing the two.

The most important upside is that it's an Elf and dominates the board. Pharika's impact on the board is almost zero because in those long and grindy games, which are the reason you want WRP in the first place, Pharika will hardly ever be a creature. Being an Elf helps a lot with activating it's ability with Heritage Druid AND saving it with Wirewood Symbiote. Also cute tricks like allowing for instant-speed Virdian Shamans etc. but that's just cute stuff. Another big point, Pharika is also harder to activate than WRP and produces less valueable tokens. To me, except for costing 1 less mana, there's is literally no upside at all for running Pharika.

I definitely remember you by the way! You wanted me to sign your cards but we didn't have a good pen ready at the time! Hope you had an awesome time in Paris!

[Echelon]

Yup. Packmaster can't be Bolted or Abrupt Decay'd so the only common spotremoval able to kill it is StP, which also doesn't care about Paprika's indestructible. At least the Packmaster returns your creature to you when it goes, well, anywhere.

It is also said that the Packmaster giggles whenever it gets Terminus'd in the face.

[ventouza6969]

I definitely remember you by the way! You wanted me to sign your cards but we didn't have a good pen ready at the time! Hope you had an awesome time in Paris!

I had. i looked for you on Sunday with a pen in my hand but i couldn't find you maybe at the next gp.

Pharika will hardly ever be a creature.

Thats good for us no one mass removal are able to kill Pharika but i'll give a try with packmaster main

Another thing
I want to try main Scattershot Archer or Skyshroud Archer and Scryb Ranger.
Scryb Ranger for two reasons to increase the untap abilities which has inpact on Scattershot Archer or Skyshroud Archer and has flash and pro blue

But in the late game Elvish Skysweeper is better than Scattershot Archer or Skyshroud Archer
What do you think?

[Echelon]

Skysweeper is too mana intensive. And concerning Scryb Ranger - why not just play Quirion Ranger? It can get countered, Bolted, Abrupt Decay'd and StP'd by the opponent playing Delver the same as the Scryb Ranger can, but for one less mana. Also, Scryb Ranger really needs to turn into an elf. If it were one, I'd run at least a 3/1 split.