[Primer] Elves!

[Zombie]

I don't know why you need 7 meekstones ;P

Birchlores are not required if you a) run 2 colors only, b) are not too fond of machinegun DRS for the midgame c) don't want to run too many cards supporting the fragile Glimpse combo, d) want more cards which actually do something on their own. Hertiages require several elves in play to feed NO, GSZ or Glimpse combo mainly, but Controlling 3+ creatures can become a real problem with Terminus, Deluge and Golgari Charm. Llanowars are solid for the early game and to rebuild after a sweeper, but do we really need more than 8 T1 accelerator? I doubt that.

Personally, I chopped the Nettle/Heritage core as well as the NO/Hoof package for Crop Rotations (+ toolbox lands like Bog/Karakas against Reanimator, SneakShow and dredge which are bad matchups) and more Packmasters to play a more stable midrange gameplan as I have the impression that stomping your opponent with Hoof for lethal is not only less common with all the sweepers in the metagame but also not required against the average meat most opponents control on their side of the battlefield. The creature/spell ratio didn't change much, so I'm still able to run Glimpse as a creature-fueled Ancestral Recall

Obligatory question: List?

[Lemnear]

Obligatory question: List?

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Gaea's Cradle
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Dryad Arbor
2 Bayou
2 Forest
3 Windswept Heath
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Crop Rotation
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Vengevine
1 Reclamation Sage
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Wren's Run Packmaster

[Zombie]

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Gaea's Cradle
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Dryad Arbor
2 Bayou
2 Forest
3 Windswept Heath
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Crop Rotation
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Vengevine
1 Reclamation Sage
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Wren's Run Packmaster

Is that an intentionally 62 card maindeck?

[Lemnear]

Is that an intentionally 62 card maindeck?

Nope, sry


4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Gaea's Cradle
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Dryad Arbor
2 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Windswept Heath
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Crop Rotation
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Vengevine
1 Reclamation Sage
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Wren's Run Packmaster

[HSCK]

Nope, sry


4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Gaea's Cradle
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Dryad Arbor
2 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Windswept Heath
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Crop Rotation
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Vengevine
1 Reclamation Sage
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Wren's Run Packmaster

What kind of list is this....and I why do I have the urge to try it out?

[Julian23]

I don't really wanna discuss the list Peter posted. Just one thing: a dedicated Midrange Build wants at least 1 Cavern of Souls.

[HSCK]

Are you on Packmaster as a SB card now? How is it compared to BB? I'm also wondering if a 1-of Edric is worth it in the MD like the deck that placed in Portland.

[danyul]

I was watching that Portland elf pilot and he said that Edric helped him beat Miracles several times. You just stick Edric and one or two other bodies and draw your way out of anything. He seemed quite happy with its inclusion.

[Elfkid]

I was watching that Portland elf pilot and he said that Edric helped him beat Miracles several times. You just stick Edric and one or two other bodies and draw your way out of anything. He seemed quite happy with its inclusion.

Edric seems good in the deck, but I prefer ruric maindeck (Im playing in Europe, so the meta is lot of combo haha)

I think one guy, Ian anderson I think he played the 2 cards in the same deck

EDIT: http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14008&iddeck=103064

Here is the decklist, he was playing ruric in maindeck and edric in sideboard, but he has not mode to fetch taiga D:

[Lemnear]

I was watching that Portland elf pilot and he said that Edric helped him beat Miracles several times. You just stick Edric and one or two other bodies and draw your way out of anything. He seemed quite happy with its inclusion.

Isn't sticking 3-4 creatures the main Problem? Edric has a big targed on his head for Bolts, Plows and Decays while also requiring a color splash.

[ThePrevailer]

Hey guys, I'm the Elves player from SCG Portland. Unfortunately my job prevented me from writing a tournament report, but I'll go through what I remember about my matchups and my list.

ON EDRIC:
I had a big long thing about Edric, but my computer crashed so now you get the short version. Edric is excellent as a GSZ target at 3 mana. I added him so that I could have more threats in the midgame before I had enough mana to Zenith for Hoof. I was not disappointed. Against Miracles, you get to recoup some lost card advantage, and against Terminus he's still a live GSZ target. I instantly won a game in the Swiss v RUG when Edric stuck for one combat step and I drew 4 cards, and RUG can never recover from that. He's create against decks that want to stop your combo by mind twisting you as well.

There is also a nonzero amount of benefit in simply playing a Trop. I always fetched it early if convenient in games 2 and 3, and watch as my opponents play around potential counters or whatever they think I needed the Trop for. Sometimes a combo opponent will wait an extra turn to play around your blue mana, and sometimes that one turn is all you need.

ON MY SIDEBOARD
My SB - Core: Progenitus, Worldspine Wurm, Ruric Thar, Natural Order, 3 Abrupt Decay, 4 Cabal Therapy, Viridian Shaman (now Reclamation Sage)
My Sb - flex slots: Sylvan Library for Miracles, midrange, and discard decks, Pithing Needle for thing I want to Needle, Null Rod for Miracles, Death n Taxes, Jitte, MUD

Library was a sweet SB card, allowing me to go off against Jund after starting the turn with 0 cards in hand.

Therapy is way better than Thoughtseize if you know the Legacy metagame. In one game (in the Swiss, against Brad, who would eventually knock me out of Top 8) I hit 2 Show n Tell turn 1 followed by a Sneak Attack turn 2 off flashback.
ALTHOUGH, if you read this article very closely, you'll see that I made a misplay with Therapy. Agaisnt my SnS opponent, I Therapied turn 2 with flashback up, he Brainstormed in response, and I saw Griselbrand, Force of Will, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, mana. I flashed back for Griselbrand, when I should have named Emrakul since it would shuffle his library. I didn't see this line until Andrew Shrout and I were talking about it after the match, but it makes so much sense now that I see it, and the missplay cost me a shot at top 4.

That said, play Thoughtseize if you don't know the metagame to the point where you can recite decklists.

BRIEF TOURNAMENT REPORT
To the best of my recollection, in the Swiss I played
Jund 2-0: In game 2 I paid 20 life into Sylvan Library, and got to glimpse combo starting with 0 cards in hand.
Junk 2-0: They're pretty slow, make sure you have Decays for Teeg. He had Spirit of the Labyrinth, and I lamented not having Reclamation Sage yet. Still, he wasn't playing evasive creatures, and didn't have removal to stop all our tricks.
Sneak 'n' Show 2-0: Game 1 he playing nothing but sol lands and a lotus petal, but discards a Sneak Attack (?!) to hand size the turn before he dies. I would have just scooped. Game 2 Therapy aka Mind Twist eats him.
Omnitell 2-0: A slower Sneak 'n' Show. These decks seems SO clunky if they don't draw the nuts. Game 1 I was faster. Game 2 he sided 0 cards, and I was still faster.
RUG 2-1: I never knew how good Edric was against RUG until this match.
Shardless BUG 0-2 (the eventual winner): I couldn't beleive I lost this match. I think including this match, my overall record is like 17-2 in matches vs. various Shardless pilots. I lost basically to mana screw in both games, where he had a Jace to stop be from drawing the lands I needed. Still not quite sure how it happened, but I know I kept at least 1 single land hand because I'm not used to Shardless playing Wasteland.
Sneak 'n' Show v Gerry T 2-0: His deck pooped on him. I was talking to a friend after the match who was standing behind him, and he said he had never seen that deck draw so poorly. G2 I probably played Therapy and Needle, but I don't remember much other that I was glad to have a noninteractive MU after losing the last round.

Don't remember what the last round I played was, but I know I ID'd vs. Oops all Spells

I do remember chewing gum all day, and in addition to making me not hungry, it seemed to made each round a little more casual, where I could be less stressed and more focused on the intricacies of the deck.

I'd be happy to entertain any questions about anything.

[Zombie]

Why no Shaman maindeck? I think it's too good to not play MD, especially in the US.
Ruric in the board and generally light Storm hate is fine given you're in the US I guess.

Personally, Ian Anderson's deck looks hilarious in its brazen greed. All the extras crammed into one deck. 3 NO+Edric main, 1 NO side is probably a better configuration than 4 NO main, Edric in the side. I'd feel tempted to switch from 3 Therapy, 2 Seize, 2 Song, 1 Trap to 4 Therapy, 2-3 Song, 1-2 Surgical, but dunno.

[LeoCop 90]

Top 4'ed a 30 people local event today with julian's exact list except for minor changes in sideboard (mainly the 4th natural order and a worldspine wurm in place of the second null rod and choke).

There were 3 death and taxes and i managed to be paired against them all in the swiss so you can imagine my life was easy. I even won a game on a mull to 5 with cratherhoof in hand against taxes. I also incredibly won against all spells (his deck lost to itself).

I then won a very interesting match against a u/w stoneforge brew running nemesis, mirran crusader, and very annoying envelopes in sideboard.

I unfortunately lost the semifinals against jund, despite my super tech of worldspine wurm that i love because i have lost too many times to toxic deluge=10 killing progenitus. Game 1 i made what i feel was my only mistake in the day: i kept a 7 card hand that looked decent on paper because it had 3 lands and 4 spells, except for the fact that the spells were all the one of in the deck, namely reclamation sage, scavenging ooze, wren's run packmaster and a birchlore ranger. Even though ooze and packmaster are not bad against jund the hand didn't do anything remotely powerful enough to overcome all the discard plus removal spells. Game 2 i managed to resolve natural order into wurm = win. Game 3 i had double natural order in hand , cradle and everything i needed to slam wurm even through a thoughtseize plus removal spell, but he wiped my board with toxic deluge the turn before i could resolve natural order and i never recovered. It felt heartbreaking, but he just had the nut hand of punishing+ grove+ deluge+liliana+ lands while i mulled to 6.... all i could do to win was natural order on turn 2.

Got a scrubland for my troubles. What disappointed me is that i never had the occasion to see packmaster shine, but i am sure he is a beast and will do work in the future.

[Juice11]

I played in a fairly large tournament this weekend, and although I didn't do to well, the Packmaster was great all day. Most decks just don't know what to do against it. I think it might be a sideboard card for me though. I never really felt the need for it in any of my first games and it can be a bit clunky in the opening hand.

[AznSeal]

So right now I have a Wren's Run Packmaster and Scavenging Ooze main deck. I also run 4 DRS, 1 Llanowar, and 1 Birchlore. What is everyone's opinion on cutting either packmaster or ooze to SB to run one more mana dork (either another llanowar or birchlore)?

Also, can y'all post what SB you'd use? I live in the United States so the SCG metagame generally has more delver decks than miracles/combo like Europe. Burn also seems to be common here as well so i'm considering Ruric Thar. The 2 Surgical Extractions used to be Thoughtseize until I got dumpstered by Reanimator like 17 times in a row online.

My SB is currently:

2 Pithing Needle
1 Progenitus
2 Choke
1 Sylvan Library
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Natural Order

and my maindeck is:

Creatures: 29
1 Birchlore Ranger
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Elvish Mystic
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Heritage Druid
3 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Wren's Run Packmaster

Lands: 20
2 Bayou
2 Forest
4 Gaea's Cradle
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothill
1 Pendelhaven
2 Dryad Arbor

Sorceries: 11
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Natural Order

Opinions? Basically, how would you fine tune my 75 against an American metagame? I feel like my maindeck is a bit clunky, but Wren and Ooze is so good against a lot of fair decks. I just get dumpstered by fast combo decks, but every time I want to use Thoughtseize, i'd rather have Surgical Extraction, and vice versa. I guess I need to get better with Cabal Therapy....

[ThePrevailer]

Last night I 4-0'd a 32 person event with my list from a couple posts ago, splashing Edric for the control matchups. I beat Maverick, Miracles (off of Edric), Shardless BUG, and RUG. It seems fine for the American metagame, though admittedly I have yet to try Packmaster.

[yosoyez]

Hey guys! This is my first time posting here, but i wanted to do a quick tournament report for a top 8 I made for a 100 man tournament for a decently known store called MTG Deals.

maindeck is:

Creatures: 29
1 Birchlore Ranger
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Llanowar Elves
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Heritage Druid
3 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Ruric Thar

Lands: 20
2 Bayou
2 Forest
4 Gaea's Cradle
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Wooded Foothill
1 Tropical Island
2 Dryad Arbor

Sorceries: 12
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Natural Order

Sideboard:
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Swan Song
1 Progenitus
1 Worldspine Worm
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sylvan Library

Round 1: 2-1 Miracles
This guy was a pretty skilled player, but I was able to go off turn one before he could get his countertop combo online. Game two, I kept a pretty greedy hand, and he got his combo out turn 2, which made it really hard to do anything. I scooped a couple turns after that. Game 3, was a long and tedious one, but after rebuilding my board a few times, i was able to poke and DRS him to death on turn 4 of turns.

Sideboard Plan:
1 sylvan libary
1 progenitus
1 null rod
1 pithing needle
2 swan songs
3 abrupt decays

Round 2: 0-2 U/R Delver
Im not sure how you guys feel about this match up, but I felt like it was really bad for us. Being able to pick off our dudes, while making his own with young pyromancer made him out tempo me like crazy. And on top of that, he counters any of our solid threats. They always have the force...always.

sideboard plan:
1 sylvan library
1 progenitus
3 abrupt decays

round 3: 2-0 Death and taxes
This was a pretty easy match up. I got out a non lethal crater hoof early on in game one, and he blocked for a while with mother of runes up and a revoker on my heritage druid, but was finally able to get another hoof out for exactsies for 5 damage. Game 2 went pretty quickly with a turn 3 lethal hoof.

sideboard plan:
3 abrupt decays
1 null rod
1 pithing needle
1 sylvan library
1 progenitus

round 4: 2-0 Jund Lands/Dark Depths
Never having play tested this, I was a bit unclear on what was going on, but when i saw an early punishing fire, i GSZed an ooze early, and after about 2-3 turns of me eating everything that went into his graveyard, he scooped. Game 2 was a great game. Went back in forth, and i was finally able to get an ooze but he made short work of it. Have durdling for a while i eventually got out a progenitus. After attacking with Progenitus once, he was able to swing at me for 20 with the flyer, but being at 26 due to grove, I was out of reach for him to recur the punishing fire, and i took he game with the progenitus.

sideboard plan:
2 abrupt decays
pithing needle
sylvan library
progenitus

round 5: 2-0 Elves
Game one, we both had almost identical starts, but I was able to get out the combo a turn quicker which made him have to block with all his dudes. Game two i thoughtseized him a couple of times, and got the combo out around turn 4 after he mulled to five

sideboard plan:
2 thoughtseize
2 cabal therapies

round 6: 2-0 Sneak and Show
He got a slow draw game one, i was able to go off pretty early on and take it. Game two we both had slow starts. Swan song did work against a pyroclasm. but i was able to NO a worldspine worm into play. He scooped.

sideboard plan:
2 swan songs
2 thoughtseize
3 cabal therapy
1 progentius
1 pithing needle
1 worldspine worm

round 7: 2-0 Jund Depths/Dark Depths again
He turn ones tabernacle after i get out a DRS. However, a turn 4 ruric thar cornered him into doing almost nothing but using maze of ith the whole game. However, with a Gaea's cradle on board and a heritage druid out, paying the tabernacle and attacking him with 1/1's one me the game. Game 2 he gets out the turn one tabernacle again, but i get out the turn 1 pithing needle on Thespian's stage. That bought me enough time to get out an exact 15 damage hoof for the win the turn before he would have killed me. Felt good man.

This match made me top seed in the top 8.

sideboard plan:
1 progenitus
1 pithing needle
1 sylvan library

Conclusions: Very happy with the way my main board and sideboard played out. At first i was going to run the Wren's, however, last minute i switched to the ruic thar in the main and i am very happy with the decision. While Wren's is an awesome card in some match ups, in others it just takes too long to get online and Ruric at worst was a 6/6 with reach and did work against most decks.

My sideboard allstars were for sure Swan song and Sylvan library. They both were used in some clutch situations and helped me get the wins in some cornered situations. I'd definitely recommend splashing the blue and giving it a try.

my and my quarter finals opponent cut a deal and i walked away with 1 volcanic island, 1 tropical island, and 2 bayous. Which is great because he was playing miracles... which is just terrible for us.

Thanks for reading! please reply/message if you guys have any questions/opinions.

[danyul]

Now with the new lists with WRP, what is the best 1mana dork configuration between Birchlore, Heritage and Llanowar? I thought I would just run 1 Birchlore, 4 Heritage, 0 Llanowar (I'm playing 61 cards with Ruric, Sage, 3 NO and trying the WRP out)

also: how do you feel about Meekstone atm? Just ordered a 7th foil copy yesterday :)

I think a "progressive" list would have 1 Llanowar, 3 Heritage/3 Nettle, and 2 Birchlore.

Also, Meekstone is great if Delver decks are a large part of your meta. And I would imagine they are a large part of most metas. With BUG Delver taking over the world, it seems like having one or two Meekstones in the board couldn't hurt. Although that matchup isn't too bad anyways.

Are you on Packmaster as a SB card now? How is it compared to BB? I'm also wondering if a 1-of Edric is worth it in the MD like the deck that placed in Portland.

Bitterblossom was something Zombie and Julian tried out. I'm not sure what kind of results they got but I think I recall them saying BB was a bit too slow. Packmaster feels like more of a MD card to me. I'm not sure it's worth running as a SB card at all. I was watching that Portland pilot at our local weekly last night (sorry dude, I forgot to ask your name) and he drew a metric butt-ton of cards against a Miracles pilot. It seems worth trying if you expect to see mostly control/fair decks in your area.

So right now I have a Wren's Run Packmaster and Scavenging Ooze main deck. I also run 4 DRS, 1 Llanowar, and 1 Birchlore. What is everyone's opinion on cutting either packmaster or ooze to SB to run one more mana dork (either another llanowar or birch lore)?

Just jam that extra mana dork in. 61 cards isn't a big deal anymore. Also, I'd make it a second Birchlore, but that's just me.

Also, can y'all post what SB you'd use? I live in the United States so the SCG metagame generally has more delver decks than miracles/combo like Europe. Burn also seems to be common here as well so i'm considering Ruric Thar. The 2 Surgical Extractions used to be Thoughtseize until I got dumpstered by Reanimator like 17 times in a row online.

My SB is currently:

2 Pithing Needle
1 Progenitus
2 Choke
1 Sylvan Library
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Natural Order

and my maindeck is:

Creatures: 29
1 Birchlore Ranger
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Elvish Mystic
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Heritage Druid
3 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Wren's Run Packmaster

Lands: 20
2 Bayou
2 Forest
4 Gaea's Cradle
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothill
1 Pendelhaven
2 Dryad Arbor

Sorceries: 11
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Natural Order

Opinions? Basically, how would you fine tune my 75 against an American metagame? I feel like my maindeck is a bit clunky, but Wren and Ooze is so good against a lot of fair decks. I just get dumpstered by fast combo decks, but every time I want to use Thoughtseize, i'd rather have Surgical Extraction, and vice versa. I guess I need to get better with Cabal Therapy....

It's almost impossible to recommend an "American" sideboard because the American meta varies from region to region. Your sig thingy doesn't say where you're from but you would know your meta better than I or anybody else in this thread. Your board looks fine for most things. I might drop a Choke for a Null Rod. I never leave home without at least 2 Pithing Needle/1 Null Rod. If you're having trouble vs Delver, try 1-2 Meekstones.

Your main deck looks fine. It's damn near card-for-card the same as mine. You aren't allowed to run Elvish Mystics though. You gotta go old school and rock Llanowar Elves :)

And yeah, you will get beat up on by fast combo. That's just the nature of the beast. You can try to mitigate that a bit by running a MD Ruric Thar. But if you aren't seeing fast combo often enough to warrant that, then don't worry about it. You can't beat everything all of the time. Just try to beat most of the stuff, most of the time.

[lordofthepit]

Your main deck looks fine. It's damn near card-for-card the same as mine. You aren't allowed to run Elvish Mystics though. You gotta go old school and rock Llanowar Elves :)

Beta Llanowar Elves

[theross]

Fyndhorn Elves is what real men play.