[Primer] Elves!

[Shagstaman]

Finals: 1-2 LOSS vs RGb Lands

The finals was one of the most amazing matches of Magic I ever played. The surrounding spectators were losing their minds that there wasn't video coverage of it. More in my actual article, but here's a preview: game2 I passed for about 7 turns with just 4 lands and no creatures or Planeswalkers in play. Then I killed my opponent. No, without Glimpse. Yes, it was crazy :)...

Sounds bonkers...I can imagine it!

edit: I'm dumb, GP Prague same day as GP Columbus =(

[dte]

Wha, congrats Julian!

Amazing results as usual!
I hope you'll do as well in GP Prague and will like to see your posts/articles.

I notice that you continue on the jitte and no Teeg MD, sold on on that?
And no love for even a single NO with no Teeg?

[.Ix]

I've been on a tear lately in our locals going 4-0, 2-2, 4-0, and now 3-1 for three first place finishes with some stock NO lists, except I once played Taiga and Ruric + Slaughter Games to deal with Omnitell. Still losing to the highly irritating mono black ritual reanimator strategies. I got turn 1 killed TWICE in a match, and would have died turn 2 game 2 if I didn't find a T1 Deathrite hand. I guess I'm going to have to run 3 Surgicals because we don't have playoffs after swiss here.

I have yet to try the Chaos lists, and I understand the idea behind them, but I'm worried that without some NO, the deck can't close games fast enough while disrupting random combo decks, which are pretty big around here. How do the combo matches usually go with Chaos lists?

[Nargoron]

I have yet to try the Chaos lists, and I understand the idea behind them, but I'm worried that without some NO, the deck can't close games fast enough while disrupting random combo decks, which are pretty big around here.

Same here....

[Zombie]

I have yet to try the Chaos lists, and I understand the idea behind them, but I'm worried that without some NO, the deck can't close games fast enough while disrupting random combo decks, which are pretty big around here. How do the combo matches usually go with Chaos lists?

I mean, Chaos Elves is a metagamed list. It's not a universal panacea. The combo it's built to be good against is Storm and to a lesser extent S&T. If Teeg/SotP/Karakas aren't relevant, you'll probably get more value out of NO than anything. But if a lot of that random combo is Storm, Teeg is just better than NO. Easier to get down on T2 or GSZ for during Glimpse, which is huge G1.

[Julian23]

Except for when running Ruric Thar, I've never been very interested in Natural Order vs Storm. It can sometimes win games, but more often it's a card I don't want in my opening hand.

This is the general approach I go for when playing vs ANT:

1. Get them to 12 or less life
2. Have DRS + Quirion Ranger on the board.

Everything else is just on-top as it's less reliable. Teeg gives you another great play on turn2 in the first game. Still ok in the second and third game, usually buying you at least one more turn of additional beats.

For me, the main quality of going chaos is not having Natural Order in your deck anymore. The card is ok, but I think I can win the vast majority of games without.

[.Ix]

It's actually not ANT. The combo decks I've played here lately are Reanimator, All Spells, Omnitell, and Infect. The meta is very small so I run into them a LOT.

Julian23, I definitely agree that NO is really awkward against combo G1. It's usually just too slow. I also agree that most non-combo Game 1s are just as good or better without NO. However, I have had many Game 2s where the win slipped through my fingers because I couldn't kill them fast enough after some disruption, and that's when I do have NO postboard. How do you find these matchups Game 2?

Zombie, yeah you're probably right. I don't think I'll get much value from Teeg around here. Karakas seems good but as a 1-of it doesn't seem reliable even with crop rotation. I also get paired against Miracles a lot, so I'm still interested in trying it out.

[Zombie]

It's actually not ANT. The combo decks I've played here lately are Reanimator, All Spells, Omnitell, and Infect. The meta is very small so I run into them a LOT.

Julian23, I definitely agree that NO is really awkward against combo G1. It's usually just too slow. I also agree that most non-combo Game 1s are just as good or better without NO. However, I have had many Game 2s where the win slipped through my fingers because I couldn't kill them fast enough after some disruption, and that's when I do have NO postboard. How do you find these matchups Game 2?

Zombie, yeah you're probably right. I don't think I'll get much value from Teeg around here. Karakas seems good but as a 1-of it doesn't seem reliable even with crop rotation. I also get paired against Miracles a lot, so I'm still interested in trying it out.

Against that kind of meta I'd just load up on Ooze, Jitte and a Crop Rotation for Bog or something. NO is just too slow against those kinds of things and not very good vs. Infect IMO. They'll Force it and kill you, and you have to force it because they're as fast as you are.

[Julian23]

The reason I cut NO was because it's been the most sided-out card for me by far; so no, I've never really had the experience that I wanted to kill someone "as quickly as I can".

[Nargoron]

Against that kind of meta I'd just load up on Ooze, Jitte and a Crop Rotation for Bog or something. NO is just too slow against those kinds of things and not very good vs. Infect IMO. They'll Force it and kill you, and you have to force it because they're as fast as you are.

I played some games against sneak and show thursday and all the time it was the same:
i have to kill him as soon as possible, despite the fact, that he counter at least my "first attempt for victory turn"
so glimpses alone wasn't enough of "victory cards"

And i was surpriced how is this deck strong against distractions with discards... - hit 2x show and tell and in brainstorm is sneak attack.... so try to stop him wasn't effective. just kill him...

[Julian23]

Sneak Attack shouldn't be a deck to be concerned about. If you're building your deck specifically for a certain local meta, go ahead, but when entering a GP, SCG, MKM, BoM etc, what you should primarily care about is beating Shardless, Miracles, Delver and ANT. Maybe D&T, Lands, 4c Loam, Infect and then Sneak Show.

[Nargoron]

Sneak Attack shouldn't be a deck to be concerned about. If you're building your deck specifically for a certain local meta, go ahead, but when entering a GP, SCG, MKM, BoM etc, what you should primarily care about is beating Shardless, Miracles, Delver and ANT. Maybe D&T, Lands, 4c Loam, Infect and then Sneak Show.

That's true... but just saying, with NO i feel much more confortable and competative in this MU despite the fact its cammon deck to deal with or not...
On the other hand you mentioned "Maybe D&T, Lands, 4c Loam, Infect" thats still MU where i want to see NO in my main( at least 2 copies ).
D&T - ofc...
Lands next ooze tutor or better chance to kill faster
4c Loam - especialy when playing Chalice
Infect - for me its the similar idea as against Sneak and show => you have to kill him faster then he could kill u.. ok its not the same but the basic idea for victory is the same

[Animal]

I started building and playing a budget version of combo elves last year, now it comes to 1 year of having this deck and finally I bought the rest of Cradles and Bayous to make it a full list. I've had good results and bad results, I think my best result was 5-3 and worst yesterday's tournament with 1-4 (the 1 win was a bye).

Here is my list that I ran yesterday:

Creature (28)
1x Birchlore Rangers
2x Craterhoof Behemoth
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Elvish Visionary
4x Heritage Druid
4x Nettle Sentinel
4x Quirion Ranger
1x Reclamation Sage
4x Wirewood Symbiote

Land (20)
2x Bayou
2x Dryad Arbor
3x Forest
4x Gaea's Cradle
1x Pendelhaven
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills

Sorcery (12)
4x Glimpse of Nature
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Natural Order

Sideboard (15)
3x Abrupt Decay
2x Cabal Therapy
2x Choke
2x Null Rod
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Surgical Extraction
3x Thoughtseize
1x Wren's Run Packmaster

Matchups were the following:
0-2 vs Miracles
0-2 vs Necroting Ooze combo
0-2 vs Infect
*** bye ***
1-2 vs TES

Upon this I realized, I have no idea what to sideboard out in most of matchups. People have been talking about sideboarding out Natural Order and even creating Chaos Elves as a deck because of that. However when looking at (an outdated) sideboard guide, I realized there is no matchup where it is said that you should sideboard out all Natural Orders.

Can you please explain to me in which matchups would you sideboard out Natural Order? And in which matchups you just "thin the deck" by sideboarding out one of each cards Heritage Druid, Nettle Sentinel, Glimpse of Nature, Quirion Ranger, Birchlore Rangers, Craterhoof Behemoth, and maybe Natural Order?

I am attending GP Prague with elves and I thought I was prepared. Well clearly I am not. If you have any tips about my list, please comment on those. I think first things I will do is to fit Sylvan Library into 75, insert at least 1 Pithing Needle into sideboard (maybe in place of Null Rod), and add also Ruric Thar, the Unbowed into sideboard for pesky Infect and Storm matchups.

[Julian23]

I remember that in my earlier sb guides I usually left in NO most of the times. After a couple of years of playing the deck I changed my mind on this in a lot of matchups. When I still played NO, I used to side them out vs any kind of Delver, Miracles, Sneak Show (depending on how good/bad my sb was), even 2-3 vs Shardless BUG and all vs Infect. In the end I used to side them out in almost 80% of matches I faced so I was happy to drop them. Still, I'm not 100% comfortable to head into a GP without them as they will probably give you at least some free wins vs inexperienced players or bad decks.

On another note, i finally finished my Bazaar of Moxen Annecy report: It's got a lot of content, pictures as well as several feature match and deck tech videos! Have fun! :-)

Check it out on my website: Bazaar of Moxen Annecy with Elves - by Julian Knab

[Diogo37]

I remember that in my earlier sb guides I usually left in NO most of the times. After a couple of years of playing the deck I changed my mind on this in a lot of matchups. When I still played NO, I used to side them out vs any kind of Delver, Miracles, Sneak Show (depending on how good/bad my sb was), even 2-3 vs Shardless BUG and all vs Infect. In the end I used to side them out in almost 80% of matches I faced so I was happy to drop them. Still, I'm not 100% comfortable to head into a GP without them as they will probably give you at least some free wins vs inexperienced players or bad decks.

On another note, i finally finished my Bazaar of Moxen Annecy report: It's got a lot of content, pictures as well as several feature match and deck tech videos! Have fun! :-)

Check it out on my website: Bazaar of Moxen Annecy with Elves - by Julian Knab

nice report and congratz again julian

[Ezuri]

Julian (and guys), what's your thought on Dwynen's Elite for Chaos Elves. And maybe a second shaman of the pack to really optimize the life drain effect?
Anyone tested the Dwynen's elite?

p.s. first post, new to forum, not english but lifetime (legacy) elf player :D

[Curby]

Welcome to the forums! I'm far from being an Elves expert, but I don't think Elite has a place. First of all, my sig. I can't think of a card I'd like to remove to fit this in. More specifically though, making vanilla 1/1s isn't that important. I know your plan is to recur it with Symbiote to make an army of tokens, but wouldn't you rather recur Visionary and draw more useful 1/1s and 2/2s along with wincons like GSZ? Also, the primary gameplan of Craterhoof beats doesn't need that many Elves to be lethal anyway.

Similarly, adding a second Shaman increases the virtual copies from 5 to 6, which is a small increase gained at the likely cost of another useful tutor target, which brings us back to my sig. Would you drop Packmaster? Ooze?

[abombdiggity]

I tested a Dwynen's Elite for a while. It's alright, it played like a fifth Elvish Visionary that always whiffed. Sure, there were games that I played it t2 with a heritage druid and it was insane and games where it was able to race young pyromancer with ease, but in the majority of situations an extra vanilla 1/1 that doesn't trigger glimpse isn't going to make a huge impact on the game. As a 1-of, you'd have to tutor for him to find him regularly, but there weren't too many occasions I found myself wanting to GSZ for him over Visionary, a matchup specific two drop like Scavenging Ooze/Teeg, or a Deathrite/Quirion Ranger to take over on a stalled board.

[Ezuri]

Thank you! You are absolutely right: another copy of the shaman isn't going to add much because we can GSZ her.
The Dwynen elite is indeed just a 1/1vanilla addition. Though the T1 druid into T2 dwynen and lots of mana sounds really appealing...
I'm currently not playing the ooze mainboard because of the fact that I don't seem to run into wanting any graveyard hate in my local meta. Besides we already have 4 DrS.
Really doubting about this last flex slot (I now just added another druid or quirion ranger). Thinking about just going with ooze or playing a 1-off knight of the reliquary or titania.

[Animal]

I remember that in my earlier sb guides I usually left in NO most of the times. After a couple of years of playing the deck I changed my mind on this in a lot of matchups. When I still played NO, I used to side them out vs any kind of Delver, Miracles, Sneak Show (depending on how good/bad my sb was), even 2-3 vs Shardless BUG and all vs Infect. In the end I used to side them out in almost 80% of matches I faced so I was happy to drop them. Still, I'm not 100% comfortable to head into a GP without them as they will probably give you at least some free wins vs inexperienced players or bad decks.

On another note, i finally finished my Bazaar of Moxen Annecy report: It's got a lot of content, pictures as well as several feature match and deck tech videos! Have fun! :-)

Check it out on my website: Bazaar of Moxen Annecy with Elves - by Julian Knab

Thanks for the tips and tournament report. I am actually thinking of going with 2 Natural Orders in main (and 0 in side) for Prague GP so that I get some extra slots for utility creatures in mainboard, like Gaddock Teeg and Scavenging Ooze. I also noted you dropped Teeg from your list, is there a reason for it? In theory it should give us edge over Miracles and Storm.

We used Wednesday to playtest (and drink beer) with our friends and in addition to Miracles, I noticed burn is also quite troublesome matchup. This is because they bolt our Deathrite Shaman asap, and their clock is very fast. I noticed there are hardly any sideboard cards against it (Cabal Therapy is the only one?), thus how do we normally beat that matchup? Just try to keep a fast turn 3 kill hand and hope to be on play? I noticed there are hardly any creatures in graveyards to eat with DRS/Ooze to gain life even if we would get one active. I am considering swapping Thoughtseizes to Duresses in my sideboard to cover also this matchup.