I swear I'm not trying to fuel the fire, but as "the Elderscale Wurm guy" I obviously like him...and he has won me a good number of matches vs UR delver, burn, and the mirror (aka, decks that win by dealing damage but can't kill him outside of extraordinary means).
edit: I've seen a total of TWO ur delver lists playing submerge in the past month, out of countless dailies and other tournament results.. submerge is a corner case and should be considered but not too heavily.
other matchups he colds:
Bug delver (their only answers are sultai charm, lilliana, and toxic deluge...all 3 of which have fallen out of favor)
Lands (win con is a 20/20 and they have no actual kill spells in the 75...)
Jund (they could spend 4 punishing fires, but hopefully we win before that can even happen)
the card is also a 7/7 trampler, so the argument that he only "makes you not die" is faulty. He beats too.. and buying 5-10 turns while your opponent attempts to find a solution should be plenty of time to get a craterhoof online-- if not, you may be doing it wrong.
my breakdown of the alt win con fatties is as such:
ruric vs combo and delver decks
wurm vs burn decks or damage based combos (elves, dredge)
worldspine vs Snt and non-stp decks
progenitus is just good, play him.
that all being said...I 100% agree wurm is cute and probably not worth the inclusion in a highly competitive event. For hosing local metas however, he is an AMAZING trump.
I, too, am curious about who loves Ruric and why... he seems like a good fit for this GP, but I dunno if I can pull the trigger.
Just wanted to mention that Elves can kill with DRS through an Elderscale since it's lose of life and not damage. Don't scoop to another Elves player if they get him into play :)Originally Posted by Shagstaman
I've lost count of the number of times I've posted this link in this thread, but I'll go ahead and do it again.
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/f...ol_Things.html
At this point, nitpicking over your 75 isn't likely to help you at all for GP NJ. Pick a stock list and rock it. You will get more value/win percentage points by knowing this deck in and out than you will by arguing back and forth over cute 1-ofs. If you are making decklists changes this close to the event (and arguably suboptimal changes at that), I worry that you won't do very well no matter which list you play.
I don't mean to poop on your parade. But the time for theorycrafting has come and gone. You should have a solid list that you have experience with and know that thing like the back of your leafy Elven hand.
I am not impressed by anecdotal evidence showing how that cute 1-of won you a couple games that one time against that one guy at your local shop.
I don't intend to sound like a meanie. But people have been suggesting some wacky tobacky stuff in the last few pages. The stock list is very strong as it is. If you get in a bad position and lose, you should look at correcting your play before you look at correcting the list.
Elves Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/2EVsdw2
Never scoop. Evar.
(cept when elesh norn is in play...then it's OK)
I'll shaddup now, the internet is getting angry.
gl everyone at the gp.
LOL nobody is mad. I'm just trying to get this TREASURE CRUISE back on course a little bit.
Elves Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/2EVsdw2
That's because we have seen what has happened to the old Elves thread if casual & cute runs wild. I'm not willing to let this happen once more.
I have problems taking the discussion about Elderscale serious if people suggest it for Elves ignoring the DRS lifeloss or question Ruric Thars application against Burn which credits each burn Spell your opponent casts with 6 damage to the face before the Lightning Bolt/Rift Bolt/etc even resolved. For me, that and the 6/6 body make Ruric vs burn a pretty uneven race.
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Lemnear,
First off I love stock lists but I think this event is going to be soo big that a stock list won't get the job done. I do start to see where you are coming from regarding Ruric versus Elderscale. I agree and might make the change back to my original 75 and put ruric back in the main. I do have a question if I should run a taiga as a 1 of in the deck if I run him. What a lot of people don't realize is Heritage Druid doesn't do anything on her own. I like to have win conditions I can throwdown if I don't draw my combo pieces.
I have been noticing something troubling on MTGO there's been an increase in ANT/TES. How good is Null Rod if we have a more combo, and Stoneblade meta with Miracles?
I know MTGO meta and paper meta are typically behind but I do think they could be starting to catch up. We will see if any ANT/TES does well during the event. I have been told by many people Elves is very poorly positioned but I will still play the deck since I love green and beating down with fatties.
The final question I have is this: Is Progenitus worth running if there's a lot of hate for him? What matchups do you bring him in against?
Good luck to all at the GP
The bigger the event the better stock lists are. With more variance in your possible pairings you will want to focus on your own gameplan all the more, since killing them answers any possible hate card.
Metagaming is more important when the event is small and each person represents a larger share of the field.
No Excuses, Play Like a Champion
I feel the opposite is the case: the bigger and unpredictable an event is the less do specific metachoices matter compared to your overall playskill with the deck. In a event like this you can be paired against Aluren, Goblins, Zoo, Pox, MUD, Enchantress and more fringe decks and tuning your deck with hip cards to battle certain top-end strategies does not help you if you start the day with loss and battle the next 4 rounds with crazy brews instead of your aimed victims. Having a pretty Compact and allround MB paired with an adaptive mind piloting makes the difference, not the choice of a certain fatty.
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Ross what are your thoughts on Ruric Thar? I am playing a practically stock list but 3 Heritage Druid and 3 NO most likely. One of my friends told me what you and him had talked about regarding Elves. I am curious though if sometimes going off the wall can improve certain matchups. I think I am going to cut the Reclamation Sage or Ooze to the SB, but not sure since I'm seeing a lot of decks running Jitte maindeck.
I did read your article but I am curious on your thoughts regarding Ruric Thar, Progenitus, running the 4th order in the SB, and how you should be boarding against URW/BUG delver. What matchups is Progenitus good against, and what is is bad against? A lot of stoneblade variations are running Council's Judgement main now and a 2nd in the board as are Miracles.
I do respect your advice so please let me know what you think.
He answered in the article already: 4 NO is in the main because the card is Just That Good. I agree on that. Going off the wall can improve certain matchups. Thing is, everything has an opportunity cost in % lost to other decks or just overall clunkiness of our own deck. Progenitus wins against most fair matchups if you can land him and aren't on death's door. Very poor against combo. If you have Worldspine, use Worldspine against non-white fair decks. Progenitus is still great v. Blade, their outs are slim and have to be found fast.
Overall, for the current meta I think moving to more Ross-ish lists is a good idea, mainly because of the rise of fast combo and it just being a good time to be playing combo atm, which is why Storm is rearing its lovely head in the first place. The no-frills 4 NO build kills fast and consistently and if you want to run Thar, it's the ideal build to run him in.
I think I'd be on 61 cards with Ross 60+Sage, Rod+4th Decay in the SB instead of Wurm+Sage. Or maybe Ooze main, Sage side, dunno. The Sage just catches a lot of weird stuff early on, and being in the draw bracket v. Miracles is not fun :P Still, 4 Heritage+Nettle, 4 NO is a good place ATM.
I agree with you wholeheartedly but I do think its important to be prepared for the big 6 which in my opinion are Delver decks, ANT/TES, Show and Tell, Miracles, and Stoneblade variations. I think Sideboard are meant to be built to be proactive. One of the reasons I like the foreign deck builders is because they play 1 ofs to give the deck utility. I feel that you all have made some very important arguments regarding Elderscale and I didn't think it was good against Elves. I have a bye and don't desire paying another $25 to try at a 2nd so I figured it would be best to say I believe in having a chance to pull something crazy.
Part of why my lists I play in Magic are techy is because I at heart like to brew. I honestly don't plan on winning this thing, yes I'd like to Day 2 and maybe make money but I am going to have fun. Which is my weakness as a Magic player, however I also am playing a competitive deck. I like to have fun and not be bored with a deck. I think Elves can be one of those decks that if you play with it for 9 rounds it gets repetitive much like Delver. However my Sideboard I try and tweak around the big decks and things that can hit grindy ones.
I also look at MTGO as a path to what will show up at the GP. I have noticed very little submerges in the dailies at the same time I've noticed an increase in Jitte which wrecks this deck. So the plan of action in my opinion is running Sage main deck, and Ooze in the SB. Ooze counters certain strategies like Dredge, Reanimator, and Storm, but many people seem to miss it isn't good against Delver. Sure it could shrink a goyf against BUG or neuter a Snapcaster target or gain some life, but it truly does not stop Treasure Cruise which I keep getting told.
Ooze requires a lot of mana to be invested into it for Cruise to actually be hurt by it. At this rate you are better off running a white splash for Rest in Peace if you are that afraid of Cruise decks. I have played more midrange strategies like Jund, Junk, Death and Taxes. I've played combo such as Doomsday, Dragon, and I've played aggro decks like Affinity, Zoo, etc... So I feel I have a good grasp on certain decisions I make.
I just haven't been sold on how to attack Sneak and Show's plan with Elves? GP DC had a different meta but not completely off from the expected GP NJ. It was a lot of Sneak and Show, Delver, Jund, Miracles and TES/ANT. I expect this meta to be a little different based on various factors, but I do see the meta being Delver, ANT/TES, Miracles, D&T, Elves, Stoneblade variations, a smattering of combo like Sneak and Show, Reanimator. I think anyone assuming their won't be ANT/TES is completely wrong. Those decks are very good against the stock UR delver lists.
I would never play 61 cards in a high level magic event. Explain your reasoning for the 4th Decay and why you'd cut Wurm? Also when you do draw 2 NO's it feels shitty, but I've noticed people are playing 4 of in the main. Worldspine Wurm seems only good against Sneak and Show because its essentially 11 to cast and if you get that stuck in your opener you will feel awful. I might consider the 4th decay since Golgari Charm seems less necessary than just not overextending to Miracles.
If Storm is much more than 5% of the field I'd be surprised. I would not expect to play against it more than once, with a decent chance of dodging it completely.
The danger you get into when you go into an event trying to be explicitly prepared for everything is that you can prepare in several ways. The easiest way to be prepared for a wide swath of decks is to be proactive as possible. At the individual level (Matchup x or matchup y) you don't have slots that are dedicated to fight those decks but holistically, you deck is best prepared because it just kills them. That's why I avoid frills, especially when cards like Green Sun's Zenith make them so tempting.
How many times are you casting a Natural Order where Craterhoof or Progenitus aren't the best target? I'd argue it's very few, and not enough to warrant playing additional targets. The idea that you can get down Ruric Thar in a relevant time frame against Storm is ambitious to say the least. Post-board you tear their hand apart with discard in an ideal scenario, and then after attacking with an elf or two for a couple turns, a Natural Order for Hoof is probably lethal, so why put this awkward 6 drop in your deck?
I'm using Ruric Thar as an example here for an entire range of cards where this logic holds. After playing the deck for long enough, you'll run into games where not having Thar cost you a match or maybe worse, but it's much harder to spot the games where having that extra elf made the difference and trust me when I say that variable is significant.
The other class of cards that falls under this umbrella of desiring to feel prepared is reactive answers. I try very hard to not bring in Abrupt Decay. I don't bring in Pithing Needle against Death and Taxes even though they have plenty of activated abilities to name. I hate Thoughtseize against Stifle/Wasteland Delver even if they have something like Rough/Tumble. There are games when those cards will pull a lot of weight, but most often they will just trade 1 for 1, and that is something that is only good for you when your opponent is investing the mana to do so, at which point you can punish them for losing tempo. When you are forcing the issue, you're the one losing tempo, and it will be that much easier for them to contain your board. When they kill your elf you'll be much happier to have an elf in your hand than a Pithing Needle for their Vial.
Just kill them.
No Excuses, Play Like a Champion
That got me to hype level 11.
JUST KILL THEM.
DO YOU SMELLLLELELELELELELEL WHAT THE ROSS. IS. COOKING.
Elves Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/2EVsdw2
Spoken like a combo player. <3
So I read the article and I guess iv been doing it wrong when it comes to boarding. Against blue decks I usually side in 5 discard spells along with a few decays if I expect cages, and from what I'm reading from the article and this forum in general you should only be siding in 5 or so at max if any. So what cases warrant more/less boarded cards then the others? I read the "boarding guidelines" post but im still having trouble. I guess what I'm asking is what's everyone's boarding ideology for the top tier?
The only matchups where you should sideboard heavily are ones where your basic gameplan is invalidated and needs to change. This pretty much amounts to Miracles and combo. Otherwise you try to side relatively lightly to keep your main plan strong.
For example vs. Miracles look at the Blastoderm post at the top that I quoted. Or vs. spell-based combo you side out Visionary/Symbiote and bring in discard.
But vs. Delver/Midrange just shaving singletons here and there for some Decays and adjustment of NO targets is typically enough. We need to kill fliers and stuff that makes our broken stuff not work, the synergies and broken cards are very much capable of handling anything else.
EDIT: This applies to proactive engine decks in general - the same stuff is true for Storm and High Tide, too. They just want to do their thing, and their thing is broken. So you board in the minimum to keep your engine of brokenness chugging along and a couple extinguishers to put out fires if they happen. You CAN play Elves as a midrange deck, board pretty heavily and do well. The deck can do it and it's good. But just like Cruise killed normal midrange and got Storm players drooling because they see prey, I think we should do the same. With this deck, much of that isn't altering builds, but rather just your own playstyle and boarding decisions. Be combo. It'll pay off in this meta.
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