[Primer] Elves!

[Arianeira]

I tried out Wren's Run Packmaster and I like it against far decks when they play creatures that outclass your other Elves. Beats ground stalls which we usually lose unless we have the Symbiote bounce plan. Not sure what to cut. I just put it in as the 61st card because I couldn't figure out what to cut.

@jamie7keller
I was thinking Priest because your short Cradles to make lots of mana. I dislike Crop Rotation because if Crop Rotation gets countered that is bad news. You should definately go to the Grand Prix. It should be fun.

@PaulJordon
Some interesting side board choices in Prowess of the Fair, Wilt-Leaf Leige. I think countering the mass removal spell with Swan Song is preferable to Prowess but sounds like it might be worth trying. How have they performed for you?

@danyul
I liked Edric against creature light decks but when your running too many of your elves into creatures even if you draw cards its not as good as you would think. I ended up cutting Edric to get back to 60 cards.

@YawgnorW
I also seem to draw Progenitus quite often along with my other big creatures. 2nd Birchlore to cast Ruric Thar has been nice in this regard.

@Trevaftw
I like the blue splash for Swan song better then being all in on discard vs Miracles which floats cards on top and vs combo what they find from their ponder or brain storm. Ruric is not always good against delver because they can kill it with multiple blocks or block + Bolt depending on the board state.

@Uncletiggy
Empyrical Archangel seems like a nice option against burn since burning it for 8 would be tough and that is 8 damage that didn't hit you. What other match ups would Archngel be better then the current creatures? Progenitus is better against the mass removal decks because it is a faster clock so less turns for them to draw a mass removal. Creature heavy decks can do 8 damage to Archangel by swinging in. Storm, High Tide, Omnitell, Ruric is better. Might have to try Archangel since I face burn often online.

[Lemnear]

You're wasting your breath even trying to defend the angel at this point. Ill test on my own and see how it does. There is no sense posting or discussing it here its already got some people pretty butt hurt. This is the same reaction I got to suggesting packmaster back when the deck played mirror entity and its now relevant.

i would be careful using the Phrase "Butt hurt" pointing at others after writing such a post ;)

The european meta and the scg open series are completely different metas so a german player saying dont worry about burn is his perogative. I played burn four times in the last two opens with junk its more of a player and far more relevant to discuss then attempting to miss represent your board state with "shady" land selections or alters.

you may choose to argue with US metagame vs. EU metagame, but you can't talk about Archangel deserving a SB slot in a vacuum ignoring that Ruric is a beating versus Burn.dec too, but also is amazing versus other problematic matchups. Running both is a waste of SB space and beating 1cc Burn spells with the top-end of your manacurve (4-9cc) alone is a crazy approach. If you want to delay the clock that burn presents, you may want to test Cabal Therapy here as you can snatch several cards from their hand, delaying their clock by 2-3 turns.

So I forgot the exact text on a card that sees no play. Congrats to all of you who are perfect. Seriously you're doing a great job at life.

nope, you kept arguing for a card without knowing it's rulestext while being hinted at your lil' mistake. Being wrong about a rulestext happens to everyone; it's not a big deal. Your reaction to rant at everything from previous discussion topics to metagames to players, even slinging the Phrase "Butt hurt" without even adressing the floating question of "why play Archangel if Ruric is available?" however, is a big deal.

[Lefeux]

I played at my local store this weekend. They have a monthly Power series (winner gets a piece of power. This month was Time Walk).

The first 2 tourneys I played in, I choose BUG (went 5-5 over the 2), the next 3 were with Sneak and Show (finishing 4-8), but faced 4 Death and Taxes the last tourney, so I decided to try out Elves since I had it built. There isn't a lot of Miracles or BUG (2 to 3 of each in about 30 players) which made me think Elves! would be a good choice.

This is what I ran with:

4 Gaea's Cradle
2 Forest
2 Dryad Arbor
2 Bayou
1 Taiga
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Wooded Foothills

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Wirewood Symbiote
3 Quirion Ranger
3 Heritage Druid
3 Nettle Sentinel
2 Birchlore Rangers
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Ruric Thar
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Wren's Run Packmaster
1 Priest of Titania

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


3 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Pithing Needle
1 Meekstone
1 Null Rod
2 Choke
1 NO
1 Prog

I went 1-2 in the tourney and managed to face 3 really bad match ups.

Round 1: UG Infect
Game 1 he has 1 of 2 main deck FoWs for my turn 2 NO for Ruric. Hits me for 10 poison next turn.
Game 2 he has another FoW for my turn 3 NO and hits me for 10 poison next turn.

Round 2: ANT
Game 1 he goes off turn 2.
Game 2 Cabal Therapy takes out 3 LEDs on turn 1 and his tutor turn 2.
Game 3 he Burning Wishes for Pyroclasm one turn too late (turn 2 instead of turn 1) and I run him over with Ruric.

Round 3: BUG
Game 1 I NO around Daze and he doesn't have FoW
Game 2 I can't keep more than one elf in play before I die to Delver/Goyf beats.
Game 3 by the time I have mana and creatures to NO with, I am facing down 2 Goyfs and 2 active DRS. By the end of the game I had both Hoofs, and Ruric in the graveyard and had discarded Prog twice.....

With a headache and very frustrated, I drop and go home.

Thoughts:

Never cast WRP, which seems like it would have been good against BUG.
Had problems keeping black sources in play against BUG (and any deck with Wastelands). Thoughts on a 3rd basic? Swamp perhaps?
Wilt Leaf Liege is something to consider too? I keep running into Toxic Deluge from almost anything running black, and Golgari Charm.

Kind of frustrated all around. I can't seem to string together 2 wins in a row with any deck. Not really a control player so I don't want to build Miracles. Could build some form of Deathblade, or U/R Delver or Punishing Jund again. Would really like to pilot Elves! again. I have a month until the next tourney, so I guess I will have to hit up MODO pretty hard in the mean time. Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome.


Thanks to everyone that has been contributing to the 190+ pages. I have read a lot of the information and it has helped a ton. Keep up the great work!

Cheers
Rob

[HSCK]

Know what's good against burn, delver, and storm? Ruric thar.

This, discussing Angel is a supreme waste of time and probably not for any competitive play.

I've gone with Edric, Sage, Ooze, as maindeck one of targets with Ruric and Progenitus in the board.

[danyul]

Id say the 4-8 more spells needed is better then a three turn clock in a matchup where your combo has been diluted. Also the angel stalls most board states offered by delver decks im not saying its right but I still dont understand why prog and the worm both have slots in the board. Which is the root of me posting if someone would like to comment on the question actually being asked?

Im not suggesting the angel as some super secret storm tech its primarily for burn, I was just offering up being semi relevant other places. these responses have been way out of context and generally unhelpful.

Prog and Wurm don't necessarily both have spots in most sideboards. While they both serve to add resilience vs removal heavy decks, the primary distinction is between beating fair or nonfair decks. Prog is better against fair decks. Wurm is better against decks that play Show and Tell. And can beat an Emrakul. There is also the marginal benefit of Wurm being castable from hand.

Generally speaking, when I see a Wurm in somebody's SB, I just assume they are planning to beat the SCG meta where Sneak and Show is usually a more significant player, especially at Invitationals where people just want to borrow the most powerful and mindless deck they can find.

While incredibly condescending and unnecessarily elitistly done I finally have a legitimate answer to why both are played. Ill stick to ironing out a list myself as its obvious this thread is for discussing forest selection and posting tattoo pics.

Lemnear just has a strong tone to his language. I think it's a European thing? It might just be a Lemnear thing. Anyways, people know this. He posts the same way in the Storm threads too. He is a fountain of knowledge, but his words are firm. That's probably better than some of us who try to be super duper cotton candy nice but never have anything useful to add to the conversation. :raises hand:

About the forest and tattoo stuff: this thread is fun. We joke around and talk about stupid stuff from time to time. Once you get a solid feel for playing Elves, there's not a whole lot of crazy in-depth discussion to be had (or is there?). Most of our lists share 56+ cards in the maindeck. Sure, there has been some development with utility 1-ofs recently, but other than that what's left? We joke around and then answer questions when they come up. Style, then substance, then Symbiotes. Those are the Elven priorities. /jk

I played at my local store this weekend. They have a monthly Power series (winner gets a piece of power. This month was Time Walk).

The first 2 tourneys I played in, I choose BUG (went 5-5 over the 2), the next 3 were with Sneak and Show (finishing 4-8), but faced 4 Death and Taxes the last tourney, so I decided to try out Elves since I had it built. There isn't a lot of Miracles or BUG (2 to 3 of each in about 30 players) which made me think Elves! would be a good choice.

(...)

Thoughts:

Never cast WRP, which seems like it would have been good against BUG.
Had problems keeping black sources in play against BUG (and any deck with Wastelands). Thoughts on a 3rd basic? Swamp perhaps?
Wilt Leaf Liege is something to consider too? I keep running into Toxic Deluge from almost anything running black, and Golgari Charm.

Kind of frustrated all around. I can't seem to string together 2 wins in a row with any deck. Not really a control player so I don't want to build Miracles. Could build some form of Deathblade, or U/R Delver or Punishing Jund again. Would really like to pilot Elves! again. I have a month until the next tourney, so I guess I will have to hit up MODO pretty hard in the mean time. Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome.


Thanks to everyone that has been contributing to the 190+ pages. I have read a lot of the information and it has helped a ton. Keep up the great work!

Cheers
Rob

Hey Rob,

WRP is great against BUG. And Wilt Leaf Liege is definitely an excellent SB card to consider if your meta is filled with cards like that.

Sorry to hear about your unfortunate finishes this weekend. I also played in an event this weekend (52 players, 6 rounds + top 8). I made Top 8 (yay, and WRP won me 2 matches!) but that's neither here nor there. While at the event, I watched a couple other Elves players make a ton of mistakes by missing triggers, attacks, DRS activations, untaps, etc. They probably didn't even know they were making those mistakes, but as an observer I could tell they were game-losing mistakes, even though they seemed quite insignificant at the time.

That's the primary struggle with this deck. You may know all the interactions on the surface, or be able to identify them after the fact, but in the moment it is definitely difficult to stay on top of all the triggers and possible activations that the deck presents. Without having watched you play, it's impossible to know exactly where you were struggling. Perhaps you played perfectly and just got beat by superior draws? That happens. But knowing nothing other than your finishing record, I can only suggest that you play more deliberately and try to scan your board for possible interactions at all times. If possible, have a friend watch your matches and maybe that extra set of eyes will help you catch interactions you might have missed. I hope that doesn't sound too obvious.

Keep in mind that sometimes you will have cold streaks as a player. But the difference between a winner and a loser is a winner plays until he wins. And you can't snap a losing streak if you don't play. So I'm happy to hear that you are going to stick with the deck for awhile and I wish you the best of luck! Be sure to check out Julian's stream when you can. He always posts when he goes live.

[LeoCop 90]

I don't think it is a good idea to dismiss progenitus/wurm from elves sideboard. I run both at the moment and wurm purpose is not to beat show and tell. That is an additional benefit, but wurm is just the win button against anything without swords to plowshares/terminus. When i face jund and bug i actually feel unfavoured post board if i don't have wurm because they bring in additional removal and they finally realized toxic deluge is a very good magic card. Having wurm turns the matchup around in my opinion because i know i just need to resolve natural order to win even if i don't have any other creature in play. Progenitus is still there against white decks, but it feels weaker now that council's judgement exists ... it still wins the game in most cases, but if i have to cut one of the two big beasts i would cut progenitus.

About other natural order targets, i'm considering playing realm razer since there are 2-3 lands player in my area.

[Zombie]

Prog and Wurm don't necessarily both have spots in most sideboards. While they both serve to add resilience vs removal heavy decks, the primary distinction is between beating fair or nonfair decks. Prog is better against fair decks. Wurm is better against decks that play Show and Tell. And can beat an Emrakul. There is also the marginal benefit of Wurm being castable from hand.

My distinction is between StP decks and non-StP decks. Wurm is wonderful against Shardless and Jund as well (better than Prog at any rate because it's Edict and Deluge proof), for example, while being pretty bad against Miracles, D&T, Patriot, random Maverick decks and the like. So Plowshares or Deluge and Show and Tell, which do you want to beat?

Lemnear just has a strong tone to his language. I think it's a European thing? It might just be a Lemnear thing. Anyways, people know this. He posts the same way in the Storm threads too. He is a fountain of knowledge, but his words are firm. That's probably better than some of us who try to be super duper cotton candy nice but never have anything useful to add to the conversation. :raises hand:

Lemnear is the official killjoy :P

[Lemnear]

Lemnear just has a strong tone to his language. I think it's a European thing? It might just be a Lemnear thing. Anyways, people know this. He posts the same way in the Storm threads too. He is a fountain of knowledge, but his words are firm. That's probably better than some of us who try to be super duper cotton candy nice but never have anything useful to add to the conversation. :raises hand:

It's really just me as you can see on Julian's always-supportive nature in this thread :)

I'm harsh on purpose (both online and IRL), once I have the impression that discussions get derailed into nonsense. You can see this as a bad way of keeping threads "on track", but never with any intent of insult. Still, if I go too far at times (spanish fiery temper), please call me out on that.

Dan, you underestimate your role in this thread


Edit: the game needs more antagonists anyways

[MadRhetoric17]

Hey guys, first time posting here. I've been playing Elves for a few months now and absolutely love the deck and will be sticking with it for a while. I won an IQ with it and will be playing at the SCG Invitational this weekend. Anyway, I just wanted to share my current build and the thoughts for my selections.

Creatures (31)
2 Birchlore Rangers
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Wren's Run Packmaster
3 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Dryad Arbor

Lands (18)
3 Forest
2 Bayou
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Gaea's Cradle

Spells (11)
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Natural Order

Sideboard
1 Meekstone
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Progenitus
1 Natural Order
1 Ruric Thar
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy


Thoughts on the build:
- I've basically cut the 1-of Llanowar/Fyndhorn/Mystic found in most decks for a second Birchlore. I was never happy with the generic mana elf and I've been very happy with the second Birchlore. I've found it very useful for early Glimpse chains that are for 3-4 cards and it allows for DRS chain-gunning, which I've found very relevant in a lot of match-ups. Also, as explained in greater detail below, it allows me to have black consistently against decks where my gameplan is getting 3 forests in play.
- I like the Packmaster and will keep him main for the time. It fills a huge whole in the deck (having a high impact play at 5-6 mana), is relevant in a large enough number of match-ups to warrant maindeck inclusion, and is HUGE in the match-ups you want him in.
- I'm running 3 forests main because my gameplan against wasteland decks is to get those three forests in play asap and never have to worry about them leaving play. I've found that against most wasteland decks (mainly Delver variants), the game favors you the longer it goes. So I just take my time, build up resources while playing around daze, and get those three forests into play. Even with all the mana this deck can generate, I still find myself wanting as much as possible to play around taxing effects (wasteland, daze, spell pierce). This is when those 3 forests are a life saver.

Questions to get opinions on:
- For those playing null rod in the side, do you automatically bring it in against Stoneforge decks as well?
- Any apparent holes in my SB strategy? I think I have most of the major decks covered but I may be missing something. I know I'm not running a dedicated anti-Sneak-and-Show card, but I just don't like the strategy hoping you have a singleton in hand at the time they resolve a Show and Tell. I think having discard with the rest of the deck streamlined for the quickest combo kill is a strategy more likely to succeed.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Looking forward to contributing more.

[Dice_Box]

Edit: the game needs more antagonists anyways

Keep the Bronie away from me...This game does not need more people like him.

[Lemnear]

Keep the Bronie away from me...This game does not need more people like him.

If I ever get down that road, hit me with a chair

[ESG]

In my opinion, many people could stand to learn from Lemnear's firm words. They're certainly more useful than people babbling on about cards they misunderstand.

Now, to bring things back to strategy, how have people's results been vs. Miracles lately? Miracles has been expanding its presence in the Northwest, and it's had strong showings in the SCG Open Series for many months. How common is the deck where you play? There have been many ideas proposed in this thread (Bitterblossom, planeswalkers, Pithing Needle, Null Rod, blue splash, etc.), but, aside from Reclamation Sage and maybe Wren's Run Packmaster, I haven't seen a lot of reports on what is working well, what needs more testing, what is a dud, and what other options there are to explore.

[dte]

- Any apparent holes in my SB strategy? I think I have most of the major decks covered but I may be missing something. I know I'm not running a dedicated anti-Sneak-and-Show card, but I just don't like the strategy hoping you have a singleton in hand at the time they resolve a Show and Tell. I think having discard with the rest of the deck streamlined for the quickest combo kill is a strategy more likely to succeed.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Looking forward to contributing more.

Just to defend Wurm vs S&T: having it is not about drawing it to drop it from a resolved Show and Tell. Sure, if you have it in hand vs S&T you're happy, but it's not the reason to run it in this MU. It's mainly because if you resolve one of your 4 NOs, you win the game almost whatever they do. If you drop proge instead, you die to a following turn S&T/SA => Emrackul.
That being said, your SB is well balanced, it's not mandatory at all to run Wurm.

I'm keeping track of my Llano slot to see if I would have like a birchlore instead too. Sad that I do not have time enough to test more.

[Julian23]

I accidentally ended up with a 15 card sideboard against Miracles in today's Daily Event. I won, but it felt dirty, stupid and I was really happy I didn't get to face Sneak Show, which doesn't really exist in most of Europe at the moment.

[starfox444]

Played at GP Sydney legacy side events this weekend, coming 5th out of 81 on Friday and then 1st out of 24 on Saturday. I played against a lot of BUG decks in the swiss who I think sideboarded incorrectly after chatting with my opponents, so I had a nice time.

For reference here is my list;

Dudes

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

Spells

• 3 Natural Order
• 4 Glimpse of Nature
• 4 Green Sun's Zenith

Land

• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 1 Windswept Heath
• 2 Forest
• 2 Bayou
• 2 Dryad Arbor
• 4 Gaea's Cradle
• 1 Pendelhaven

Board

• 3 Abrupt Decay
• 3 Swan Song on Friday changed to 3 Mindbreak Trap on Saturday
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 2 Pithing Needle
• 2 Surgical Extraction
• 1 Sylvan Library
• 1 Worldspine Wurm
• 1 Progenitus

The meta I was expecting was a bit of all-in combo, some graveyard combo but no storm and near non-existent levels of burn. That means I took out my beloved null rods for surgical to overlap with miracles and reanimator. I expected sneak and show which I never had to play against but I spent the rest of the day playing against our good friends shardless BUG and esper stoneblade. I'm slowly getting less keen on progenitus but I haven't had to jam against swords to plowshares lately. Highlights of the weekend would have to be comboing off through a zealous persecution, dueling deathrite shamans with a BUG opponent leaving him tapped out with no mana to on board attack with all my creatures and finally making a total of 13 wolves in one game against a merfolk player.

Thank you very much to everyone who's contributed to this thread and especially julian for his vods from when I first picked up the deck. I picked up elves about 6 months ago and I'm now pushing for more legacy in the local area and doing well in paper but I'm just the average player on mtgo.

Now, to bring things back to strategy, how have people's results been vs. Miracles lately? Miracles has been expanding its presence in the Northwest, and it's had strong showings in the SCG Open Series for many months. How common is the deck where you play? There have been many ideas proposed in this thread (Bitterblossom, planeswalkers, Pithing Needle, Null Rod, blue splash, etc.), but, aside from Reclamation Sage and maybe Wren's Run Packmaster, I haven't seen a lot of reports on what is working well, what needs more testing, what is a dud, and what other options there are to explore.

The deck isn't common where I am and I am more experienced in the matchup than the miracles players I've played against locally, but it still feels like an uphill battle. You have to decide the axis of how you will combat them and how many cards you can afford to dedicate. This means we have to pick a way to fight them; either we fight them on mana and let them have cards which they can't leverage, we fight them on card selection, we fight them in terms of virtual card advantage or we let them have their resources and go all in on velocity.

The only way to fight them on mana is with choke which I don't think is good enough on it's own so I don't like to bother unless you also have high tide and slow grindy blue decks in your area.

We can fight them in terms of card selection by playing cards to turn off top and trying to disrupt their hand to make them spend their brainstorms badly.

Or we can play cards that make their best cards worse by playing threats that require little investment like bitter blossom and sylvan library. Surgical extraction is an ok card because it flips the entire dynamic of the matchup into one where you can walk all over the miracles player. In my case I was also expecting reanimator and oops all spells so I chose to play it.

The challenge is having your sideboard cards overlap. There are a lot of cards discussed here that are reasonably effective (most of those mentioned in your quote are powerful enough) but the problem is finding the right overlap for the meta you expect. To find that balance, the key is that you have to decide how you can afford to fight the entire tournament in the first place.

[BJeagle]

Is there anyone that have tried out Stain the Mind instead og surgical extraction against Miracle? I know that its little expensive but can also be a good answer to remove Top when they return it on to libary.?

[Lemnear]

Is there anyone that have tried out Stain the Mind instead og surgical extraction against Miracle? I know that its little expensive but can also be a good answer to remove Top when they return it on to libary.?

The problem with such options is that they require you to have several elves in play which is exactly the chokepoint in battling against Terminus and Counterbalance.

If I had the time I would test a pretty stupid approach of having several Reclamation Sages (I'm not sure at times if they aren't better than Decay in this deck as you can fetch them, they beat for two and are NO outlets. Maybe we have space to run both ... hmmmmm) in the SB as CB can rarely snatch those and without the Balance on the table, you can grind out Terminus with Glimpse and the BFF's. I'm not convinced we have to focus on Terminus rather than Counterbalance in this matchup.

[DarthObiwan]

The problem with such options is that they require you to have several elves in play which is exactly the chokepoint in battling against Terminus and Counterbalance.

If I had the time I would test a pretty stupid approach of having several Reclamation Sages (I'm not sure at times if they aren't better than Decay in this deck as you can fetch them, they beat for two and are NO outlets. Maybe we have space to run both ... hmmmmm) in the SB as CB can rarely snatch those and without the Balance on the table, you can grind out Terminus with Glimpse and the BFF's. I'm not convinced we have to focus on Terminus rather than Counterbalance in this matchup.

I'm going to try running a second Sage in my sideboard this weekend based on the last time I played at this venue. Legacy at this place tends to bring 20-30 people. Last time there were a few Counterbalance decks, a few MUD decks, a Nic Fit running main board Moat. Also a few Imperial Painter decks which I'd love to have more ways of dealing with their artifacts. Lost a close one to Painter last time due to not drawing any of my Decays.. and also them having 5 of their Pyro,Red Elemental blasts in a row. The player concentrated on countering my glimpses and then just destroying the creatures after they hit the field. Having Sage now in that situation would be most useful.

[Duker99]

Has anyone tried bring in surgical extraction against the miracles match up? I am playing in the open this weekend and trying to figure out the best sideboard strategy against miracles since I see it a lot here in New Jersey. Thanks

[Echelon]

Has anyone tried bring in surgical extraction against the miracles match up? I am playing in the open this weekend and trying to figure out the best sideboard strategy against miracles since I see it a lot here in New Jersey. Thanks

I don't think it'll be really useful. First off, they'll have to get something relevant in their graveyard before you can try to cast/resolve it and second - it's CMC = 1 and it can be countered.