[Primer] Elves!

[Togores]

Why you dont play tegg again? Playing another stapash is too bad? I think that vs storm and omnitell is good card. Also vs miracles.

[Julian23]

Why you dont play tegg again? Playing another stapash is too bad? I think that vs storm and omnitell is good card. Also vs miracles.

I actually recently started looking into Teeg again. Miracles not playing Karakas anymore helps a lot. He's still not as good as he looks vs Storm, let alone SneakShow but he does some work while splash-damaging Treasure Cruise.

[jamie7keller]

I don't run teeg at the moment, but if I decided to splash white for any reason, I think he would be an easy tag along.

Those who have tested white, I assume savanna is the play, rather then karakas, right? I've seen a fees use board karakas, but I would prefer to be able to fetch all my colors. I don't have either land so I'm unlikely to splash white anytime soon, but I like staying up to date on my options and on what is working for you all.

[Shagstaman]

the karakas wasn't to play teeg...it was an out to show and tell, reanimator, and dark depths.

[Togores]

Also karakas usualy It came allong with crop rotation I think.

[jamie7keller]

Right, I knew show and tell was one of the main reasons for karakas. But if you have white cards it does double duty. If I had a bunch of white cards sideboard for some reason, then I could see running karakas as your primary white source. I wouldn't trust it but that's why I'm asking to see if I am wrong.

[starfox444]

3 Quirion Ranger

This was another quirk of the list interesting to me. It has never occurred to me to touch the sacred quirion ranger numbers. Is there a well thought out reason to slaughtering this sacred cow? My guess is that quirion ranger is only good with other mana producers in play, which is currently already a struggle with forked bolt becoming the removal spell of choice.

Instead in this list, there is 1 llanowar variant (no birchlore) and a full 4 heritage druid!

[Lord_of_Rivendell]

I'm thinking of dusting off Ezuri. With all the direct damage out there these days, I wonder if it would give us a little more flexibility.

[Echelon]

I'm thinking of dusting off Ezuri. With all the direct damage out there these days, I wonder if it would give us a little more flexibility.

Meh, too mana intensive.

[chewemy]

Hi guys,

I've a small legacy event in 3 weeks, i'll play elves. It's the deck i prefer and have the more experienced compare to Reanimator and Sneak Attack.

I didn't play test enough with the sideboard and don't know what others players will play.

Deck :

Spells	Lands
4 Quirion Ranger 4Wirewood Symbiote 4 Nettle Sentinel 3 Heritage Druid 2 Birchlore Rangers 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Elvish Visionary 1 Reclamation Sage 2 Craterhoof Behemoth 4 Glimpse of Nature 4 Green Sun's Zenith 4 Natural Order	2 Dryad Arbor 1 Pendelhaven 2 Forest 2Bayou 9 Fetches 4 Gaea's Cradle

So for an unknown meta with 20 players (more or less), what do you put in the sideboard :

1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
2-3 Thoughtseize
2-3 Cabal Therapy
1 Progenitus
1 Scavenging ooze
3-4 Abrupt Decay
0-1 Sylvan Library
0-2 Krosian Grip
0-2 Choke
?

Thanks

[Julian23]

The more unknown a metagame is, the better generally strong cards such as Sylvan Library and Progenitus become. Definitely recommended.

[jamie7keller]

^^^
What Julian said.

I will also promote the cards that are most versatile: abrupt decay, pithing needle, and discard.

I strongly prefer cabal therapy to thought seize, but in a small event you can expect more fringe decks with unknown cards, so I would give the edge to thought seize.

[Julian23]

This might sound arrogant but if I'm really up against a "deck" that could make me want Thoughtseize over Therapy because its cards are so random, I consider myself heavily favored in the first place. So I really don't think what jamie said is an actual consideration for sideboard building.

[jamie7keller]

Julian would know better then me. I just mean that however you split the therapy and the thought seize, (my understanding is that there is a general consensus for some of each and to usually have more therapy, but that opinions differ), you definitely want some, and I would learn exta hard to therapy if I know the meta and lean away if I didnt.

Right now I deal with a bit of combo so have four therapies and two thought seizes. If I was going blind into a new meta, I might go 3-3 or something.

[Lord_of_Rivendell]

I suspect that this is likely to be an unpopular observation, but I would rather play with no discard. Don't mistake me; I get that discard is our only mechanism to deal with some decks and that it allows a kind of interactive flexibility that we just don't have from other sideboard options. But I am not a fan--not in our deck. There are many decks where I like them--but here, in our deck, it's like medicine I don't want to take. And it's not that I shun the splash or even the color black. There are just plenty of times when I draw them that I'm thinking "Meh, I could have used just about any other card." (And I say this knowing that there are times where they are my only outs and I'm thankful to have had one in my opening hand.)

Even with all of this carping, I've got six of the suckers in my current sideboard . . . but I don't have to like it.

[haganbmj]

I suspect that this is likely to be an unpopular observation, but I would rather play with no discard. Don't mistake me; I get that discard is our only mechanism to deal with some decks and that it allows a kind of interactive flexibility that we just don't have from other sideboard options. But I am not a fan--not in our deck. There are many decks where I like them--but here, in our deck, it's like medicine I don't want to take. And it's not that I shun the splash or even the color black. There are just plenty of times when I draw them that I'm thinking "Meh, I could have used just about any other card." (And I say this knowing that there are times where they are my only outs and I'm thankful to have had one in my opening hand.)

Even with all of this carping, I've got six of the suckers in my current sideboard . . . but I don't have to like it.

Discard is proactive though, which is great to allow me to extend my hand.
I've been running 2 Birchlore Ranger the last few months which has let me cast Discard spells more easily while still advancing my board and increasing the effectiveness of a Glimpse.

Discard isn't fantastic, but I don't know if there's a better option that can affect nearly as many situations.

[Lord_of_Rivendell]

I've been going 2 Birchlore myself, these days.

Still, I must bemoan discard. (There, I've done it again.)

[Lemnear]

Discard is proactive though, which is great to allow me to extend my hand.
I've been running 2 Birchlore Ranger the last few months which has let me cast Discard spells more easily while still advancing my board and increasing the effectiveness of a Glimpse.

Discard isn't fantastic, but I don't know if there's a better option that can affect nearly as many situations.

If you add the fact that Birchlore can create several black mana in a single turn for Multi-DRS activations, you have pretty much the reason why I ran the 4 Birchlore/4 NO Build a year ago. :)

[plowshares]

What do you guys think about running 1 crop rotation as an "explosive fifth cradle"? With all of these storm and sneak and show decks everywhere, I feel like adding in cards like crop rotation, which makes us a bit faster combo deck is not a terrible idea. I'm currently running the stock list that focuses on combo game 1, and not running utility guys main deck.

[Vandalize]

Sup guys, I'm playing the following:

4 Gaea's Cradle
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
2 Forest
2 Bayou
2 Dryad Arbor
1 Pendelhaven

4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Nettle Sentinel
3 Heritage Druid
2 Birchlore Rangers
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Craterhoof Behemmoth

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

SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 3 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Cabal Therapy
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Null Rod
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Sylvan Library
SB: 1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
SB: 1 Progenitus

I have a few questions:

1) How many discard pieces in the sideboard? I've seen that most lists run 6. I've started with 6, but dropped 1 therapy in favor of Ruric Thar, that's awesome against combo, and makes your speedy hands without discard worth keeping.

2) How necessary is Progenitus? I find myself boarding him in a lot of matchups. The only real way to stop him is Liliana and Toxic Deluge, and it's pretty much a guaranteed win if NO resolves. I usually board him when I expect red decks with Pyroclasm.

3) 3/1 Split of Decay/K.Grip. Should I go to 4 decays?

4) How many of you are playing Crop Rotation? I think getting 2-for-1 by permission really sucks, and it can outweight the benefits.

Thanks in advance.