[Primer] Elves!

[Shagstaman]

The life drain elf is direct hate on miracles. The twin-elf duder is awesome vs attrition based stategies and can help generating an extra body in combo turns (with heritage/birchlore). Both are uncanny with wirewood.

Like I said tho, I'm gonna run the both as 1-ofs, no more...no less.. If they suck, I'll take them out. Deck is fine in its current state, but getting awesome new toys is always exciting.

[Lemnear]

The life drain elf is direct hate on miracles. The twin-elf duder is awesome vs attrition based stategies and can help generating an extra body in combo turns (with heritage/birchlore). Both are uncanny with wirewood.

Like I said tho, I'm gonna run the both as 1-ofs, no more...no less.. If they suck, I'll take them out. Deck is fine in its current state, but getting awesome new toys is always exciting.

I disagree with both. The Elf is draining 1 without a board so the term "hate" is misplaced and the deck isn't "fine" in time current state if it gets mauled by a large potion of the metagame.

[matty]

I disagree with both. The Elf is draining 1 without a board so the term "hate" is misplaced and the deck isn't "fine" in time current state if it gets mauled by a large potion of the metagame.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but would you care to elaborate on how exactly we are getting mauled by a large portion of the meta game? Is it mostly related to Dig Through Time? Is it because Miracles is one of the top 2 most popular decks and they have access to Terminus? Is there some kind of card effect that we need that can propel us back into the realm of tier 1 decks? I've been out of the game for a little over a year and I just want a little insight into what happened that made this deck so much less relevant than it was when I last played.

[chewemy]

Shaman of the Pack can also be good against deck with Glacial Chasm when you don't have a deathrite shaman active

[Lemnear]

I'm not disagreeing with you, but would you care to elaborate on how exactly we are getting mauled by a large portion of the meta game? Is it mostly related to Dig Through Time? Is it because Miracles is one of the top 2 most popular decks and they have access to Terminus? Is there some kind of card effect that we need that can propel us back into the realm of tier 1 decks? I've been out of the game for a little over a year and I just want a little insight into what happened that made this deck so much less relevant than it was when I last played.

Miracles, OmniTell, Storm, Lands, Infect, etc. all mark a very good game 1 against Elves with this decks natural prey fallen a bit from grace since Khans and the printing of TC & DTT. I've talked about my take on improving game 1s a few pages before :)

[matty]

Miracles, OmniTell, Storm, Lands, Infect, etc. all mark a very good game 1 against Elves with this decks natural prey fallen a bit from grace since Khans and the printing of TC & DTT. I've talked about my take on improving game 1s a few pages before :)

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction. This explains the 4 Krosan Grips I've been seeing in some popular Elves players' sideboards lately. Looking through your recent forum posts I was also quite happily surprised to see that the couple play sets of Heritage Druids I have have skyrocketed in price.

I won't give up on this deck just yet though as I have no real intentions on playing in any tournaments larger than the 8 or so people we get at my local store and this newish Grixis Delver deck seems to be the deck of choice for 60% of the field there.

[Echelon]

Seeing Evolutionary Leap made me think of the following engine:

3 Evolutionary Leap
4 Wirewood Hivemaster
4 Dwynen's Elite

It generates tons of tokens which in turn can be turned into creatures, helping assemble the BFF team w/ multiple Symbiotes which in turn lead to a lot of cards and NO->Craterhoof FTW.

The build would look roughly like this:
14 Land
4 Cradle

1 Dryad Arbor
3 Evolutionary Leap
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote

3 Natural Order
2 Craterhoof Behemoth

4 Glimpse of Nature
3 Elvish Visionary
3 Birchlore Rangers
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
3 Deathrite Shaman
4 Green Sun's Zenith

Uhm, I need help. I can't seem to fit the Hivemasters and Dwynen's Elite in, lol. I may have stumbled on the problem...

Also, to comment further on Dwynen's Elite - you only get the token when you have at least 1 other elf on the battlefield. So that doesn't really improve the flow of things.

[Lemnear]

Seeing Evolutionary Leap made me think of the following engine:

3 Evolutionary Leap
4 Wirewood Hivemaster
4 Dwynen's Elite

It generates tons of tokens which in turn can be turned into creatures, helping assemble the BFF team w/ multiple Symbiotes which in turn lead to a lot of cards and NO->Craterhoof FTW.

The build would look roughly like this:
14 Land
4 Cradle

1 Dryad Arbor
3 Evolutionary Leap
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote

3 Natural Order
2 Craterhoof Behemoth

4 Glimpse of Nature
3 Elvish Visionary
3 Birchlore Rangers
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
3 Deathrite Shaman
4 Green Sun's Zenith

Uhm, I need help. I can't seem to fit the Hivemasters and Dwynen's Elite in, lol. I may have stumbled on the problem...

Also, to comment further on Dwynen's Elite - you only get the token when you have at least 1 other elf on the battlefield. So that doesn't really improve the flow of things.

Looks like there is a conceptual misunderstanding if you think there is a point in paying GG to sacrifice a token just to get the next topdeck Elf which also requires the enchantment, when you already have Glimpse & Visionary & GSZ around which do the same for a much lesser cost.

No talk about the 3BB etb kill creature Elf? I slowly get the idea that NO + Hoof are indeed no longer required if we get that spoiled with new topend options

[Echelon]

Looks like there is a conceptual misunderstanding if you think there is a point in paying GG to sacrifice a token just to get the next topdeck Elf which also requires the enchantment, when you already have Glimpse & Visionary & GSZ around which do the same for a much lesser cost.

No talk about the 3BB etb kill creature Elf? I slowly get the idea that NO + Hoof are indeed no longer required if we get that spoiled with new topend options

Well, Elves! does have some consistency issues when compared to anything running the blue shell. Being able to improve upon that would seem like a nice idea. But I can't make it fit. It doesn't seem better then what we're running now. It never hurts to try though.

On the other guy - lol. Just lol.

[QBChaz]

Evolutionary Leap could have some application against sweepers I suppose: in response to Terminus I reload my hand. It is a lot more reactive than Sylvan Library which it would be competing with so I don't think it will be able to crack the sideboard.

[Lemnear]

Evolutionary Leap could have some application against sweepers I suppose: in response to Terminus I reload my hand. It is a lot more reactive than Sylvan Library which it would be competing with so I don't think it will be able to crack the sideboard.

Yeah, because Elves is a deck which opts to keep 3+ mana open just to respond to termimus just to see the replacement stuck in counterbalance.

[QBChaz]

No talk about the 3BB etb kill creature Elf? I slowly get the idea that NO + Hoof are indeed no longer required if we get that spoiled with new topend options

Get ready for the Grindtasm!



This kills: Flipped Delver, Vendillion Clique, SFM, 'Goyf, Tasigur, Bob, Young Pyromancer. Anything else?

This can't: be found by GSZ (or NO).

To forgo NO and pursue this grindy approach and to become the midrange mess we see in other formats seems possible. We would lose our "oops I win" NO > 'Hoof factor but that is best against our good matchups anyway. It is way outside of my box for this deck. I have been playing it less than 2 years so came to it as a Natural Order deck as opposed to a Glimpse combo deck. If we begin incorporating things like this guy I think we become more like Modern Elves and including things like Ezuri. I don't think that's where I want to be with the deck.

[QBChaz]

Yeah, because Elves is a deck which opts to keep 3+ mana open just to respond to termimus just to see the replacement stuck in counterbalance.

I don't think it is good either but that would be its application. I can't imagine using it for anything else. Plus, I would be drawing to one of my three MD Sages :)

[MD.Ghost]

Get ready for the Grindtasm!



This kills: Flipped Delver, Vendillion Clique, SFM, 'Goyf, Tasigur, Bob, Young Pyromancer. Anything else?

This can't: be found by GSZ (or NO).

To forgo NO and pursue this grindy approach and to become the midrange mess we see in other formats seems possible. We would lose our "oops I win" NO > 'Hoof factor but that is best against our good matchups anyway. It is way outside of my box for this deck. I have been playing it less than 2 years so came to it as a Natural Order deck as opposed to a Glimpse combo deck. If we begin incorporating things like this guy I think we become more like Modern Elves and including things like Ezuri. I don't think that's where I want to be with the deck.

Sadly no "G" Elf so no more discussion needed....the ability is "ok" because it hits a lot of legacy targets (most of them also get hit by decay), but it doesn't hit stuff like Show&Tell into Grisel/Emrakul or 20/20 Tokens etc. and we have more problems with the unfair stuff than a gofy or stoneforge etc. - afterall you invest 5 (which is a lot / and it has BB!) mana for a meaningless Body (yeah 4 Power, but 3 thoughness is the real deal here if you invest 5 Mana and speak about a Beater...), his "evasion" isn't needed most of the time.

I would talk about it (maybe we can dismiss decay in the future) if it would be a BG (black because it "kills" stuff) Elf for 2-3 Mana to get an early (Delver) tool with upside ability (tutorable/bounce/protection etc.) compared to decay. As a 3BB card i don't see it in legacy elves, which is ok because we get some other stuff for brewing.

EDIT: Lemnear said all about Evolutionary Leap - it will not work with Elves in the current meta

[Lighning Bebbi]

Hope you are open-minded enough for kind of a new list for Legacy...

4 Gaea's Cradle
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Cavern of Souls
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Collected Company

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Heritage Druid
3 Nettle Sentinel
3 Quirion Ranger
2 Shaman of the Pack
1 Birchlore Rangers
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Wren's Run Packmaster
1 Regal Force

At the moment I'm not sure about Ezuri and Regal Force. 19 or 20 lands with or without Pendelhaven? Distribution of Dwynen's Elite and Shaman of the Pack. And so on...

But Dwynen's Elite is really better than I thought. Elite -> Cradle, Heritage Druid, Symbiot -> Value.
And so is Collected Company! To cast CoCo in opponent's turn after you untapped some dudes is like time walk, carddraw and tutor at once.

Any thoughts on this?

[Lemnear]

I dunno how to respond to "Ezuri", "Regal Force" and "Collected Company is like time walk, carddraw and tutor at once" other than with another rap...

[Echelon]

i dunno how to respond to "ezuri", "regal force" and "collected company is like time walk, carddraw and tutor at once" other than with another rap...

FUCK, YES!!! Why cast NO for Craterhoof when you can cast Collected Company? And Glimpse of Nature is for pussies! Who in their right minds want to draw half their deck on turn 2/3 for 1 mana..? Lol.

Any thoughts on this?

Yes. Sorry to be such a dick, but when did you plan on winning the game..? And what are the upsides of your build when compared to the regular build? Try to explain why one would run that build over what we already have . Which problems of the current build does it solve, what things does it do better and so on?

[Lighning Bebbi]

FUCK, YES!!! Why cast NO for Craterhoof when you can cast Collected Company? And Glimpse of Nature is for pussies! Who in their right minds want to draw half their deck on turn 2/3 for 1 mana..? Lol.

There are different reasons why Collected Company can be better than NO:
- Natural Order getting countered is much more annoying than anything else.
- You need more slots for the NO plan.
- less dead draws (Can't you remember games losing with some Orders/Behemoths in your hand?)
- multiple NOs aren't that good...
- instant speed!
-> can response to Priest/Cage and stuff
-> can be cast in your opponent's turn after untapping Elves with Ranger/Symbiot.
-> best card to comeback after Terminus, since you still can flood 4 mana.
@ Lemnear: "~time walk" -> use your manasources twice, "~carddraw" -> get two for one and "~tutor" -> search top 6

when did you plan on winning the game..? And what are the upsides of your build when compared to the regular build?

The list isn't as explosives as the regular build is for sure! But it is still explosive enough to pile increasing pressure against your opponent. You are more addicted to find your Insects for Elites and Visionary as well as for your Shaman of the Pack for the kill. But the Shaman isn't the only wincondition as you might have seen. I try to compensate Glimpse and Craterhoof with Regal Force and Ezuri. Not sure if it is correct or even necessary. But I guess I don't need the Force.

I expected some reactions like yours...
I got to say: THIS is a approach - no claim to be super overpowered yet.
If you don't see any upsides, it's fine for me. But if you have any more ideas or suggestions, just let me know.

[Zombie]

Any thoughts on this?

To echo Echelon's question: When do you plan to win the game? The current NO-centric Elves builds already do well against most any fair deck in the format (ie. ones where you can interact with block+bounce shenanigans in the red zone), especially if you play Packmaster/Progenitus in your 75, because those cards wreck normal boardstates like nobody's business. Beating midrange or tempo decks is not the problem, it's not something that needs to be solved.

Elves, as a deck, has three core issues that need solving if you want to take the deck to the next level:

1. It only natively interacts on the board. If the opposing deck does bad things on the stack fast (combo) or can stop your bad things and do their own overwhelming evil things that can only really be dealt on the stack (Entreat from Miracles) you're shit out of luck.

1b. It does not compensate for this with enough speed - it's about as fast as ANT but without the maindeck disruption integrated. This is fine in fair matchups, but in combo mirrors it is very troublesome because the opponent can slow you down and you can't slow him down.

2. The core engines have immense tension with each other and with the best potential hate cards to solve problem 1. (eg. Glimpse wants creatures in hand, GSZ/NO in play, they all want you to play lots of creatures which clashes with sideboarded discard against combo and the search effects clash with Gaddock Teeg).

3. The deck is prone to suffering a bunch of splash damage from hate cards intended for things like Young Pyromancer and Death & Taxes.

Now ask yourself, does your build solve any of these issues, esp. 1 or 2? It doesn't. You still need to play a crapton of small green creatures to get anything done, and small green creatures don't generally answer Problems 1 and 2, so you still have Glimpse's issues. Furthermore, Collected Company ALSO has all the same issues as NO/GSZ do in that it's expensive and Teeg shuts it down, as well as leaving you vulnerable to hate cards like Containment Priest. The only real problem Collected Company solves is Aven Mindcensor, which is marginal at best.

[Echelon]

There are different reasons why Collected Company can be better than NO:
- instant speed!
-> can response to Priest/Cage and stuff
-> can be cast in your opponent's turn after untapping Elves with Ranger/Symbiot.
-> best card to comeback after Terminus, since you still can flood 4 mana.
@ Lemnear: "~time walk" -> use your manasources twice, "~carddraw" -> get two for one and "~tutor" -> search top 6

...

I expected some reactions like yours...
I got to say: THIS is a approach - no claim to be super overpowered yet.
If you don't see any upsides, it's fine for me. But if you have any more ideas or suggestions, just let me know.

Except Elves! isn't the deck that wants to wait with casting their stuff. And if your opponent is keeping the FoW in his/her hand for your NO and you try to resolve CC on his end step, why wouldn't your opponent FoW that..?

Also, you fail to answer the question on how your build solves problems of the current build.