[Primer] Elves!

[GiveMeYourOil]

@benjiman13
Dont know if you are trolling?
But the list/number of Decay's, you are asking for is in your own post, just look at the picture..?!

[catmint]

Julian, What do you think about 2 Decays maindeck in NO elves? And would you still keep in Sage? (if so cutting what)
Did you ever consider Nissa Vital Force over Garruk?

Sorry for asking the same question as in my last post, but the elf veterans did not really reply yet. :)

[Prdgychild]

Julian, What do you think about 2 Decays maindeck in NO elves? And would you still keep in Sage? (if so cutting what)
Did you ever consider Nissa Vital Force over Garruk?

Sorry for asking the same question as in my last post, but the elf veterans did not really reply yet. :)

You can't NO for decay. Nissa is cute but garruk better at fighting more than miracles. Been playing legacy elves for 8 years. But my names not Julian so I don't know if you will believe me.

[Prdgychild]

Has anyone seen the list with 4 NO that buttin has been playing in the mtgo leagues? Got 1st and 2nd 2 days in a row........ Seems strong with results to follow. 3 NO may be wrong?

[HSCK]

2 Nissa just top 8ed GP Chiba.

[mistercakes]

there isn't a set decklist that is best right now. it all depends on what your meta contains. it's better to understand what matchups natural order is needed and in which matchups it's bad.

pretty cool that the two nissa had made top 8. it's probably pretty strong vs miracles, which it seems there was a lot. i did like the 2nd reclamation sage out of the sb.

[Blastoderm]

2 Nissa just top 8ed GP Chiba.

On stream he used Nissa to make Cradle a creature to untap with wirewood symbiote. Was insane, he untapped it 3 times in one turn.

[catmint]

Thanks Prdgychild.
In which other matchups than miracles do you find Garruk to be a critical factor? (not useful but really important to win). I only considered the PW win in miracles and as I stated in other posts find Nissa much better. The untap cradle trick is nice - as is the fast kill - but the super sick card draw after ultimate is the most fun for me.

[Prdgychild]

Thanks Prdgychild.
In which other matchups than miracles do you find Garruk to be a critical factor? (not useful but really important to win). I only considered the PW win in miracles and as I stated in other posts find Nissa much better. The untap cradle trick is nice - as is the fast kill - but the super sick card draw after ultimate is the most fun for me.

garruk is good agasint the BUG decks and Jund Decks. Anything with little creatures to pick off, D n T also. Nissa is defenitely better at fighting miracles as these lists are showing.

[jjkbb2005]

Really interesting to see Nissa, Vital Force in the top 8; her upside in being able to instantly deal damage might be a good reason to play her over Garruk (though I am a big fan of the removal ability with Garruk). Her recursion ability also allows us to return silver bullets such as Wirewood/DRS/Rec. Sage/Ooze/Null Rod/Pithing Needle that may die to EE/Bolt/Dismember/Decay/WearTear, etc.

The other card I have been playing with is Maelstrom Pulse. Miracles and Delver rely heavily on beating down with Tokens and I feel like it provides extra reach in other matchups as well, notably Eldrazi. I cut the 4th abrupt decay for the pulse but would love to hear counter-arguments.

Lastly, Leovold is the real deal IMO and I think in a metagame full of blue being able to have access to a card that prevents card filtering (besides SDT) has huge upside. Unfortunately his mana cost is somewhat awkward as I have discussed before (though I think with x2 Caverns you can pull it off without adding a Trop). Still would love to hear other people's experiences with him as his high cost on MTGO has caused me to not pull the trigger yet.

*Sorry to butt in I didn't realize other people were already discussing the Nissa v. Garruk argument

[Julian23]

Just saw this on my Faceook feed. Apparently Niklas Holtmann'ssElves list went 12-3; again with Leovold, but going full Chaos:



4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Wirewood Symbiot
3 Quirion ranger
3 Heritage Druid
1 Birchlore Rangers
1 Llonowar Elves
1 wren's run packmaster
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Shaman of the pack
1 Leovold
1 Reclamation sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Green's Sun zenith
4 Glimpse of nature
1 Umezawas Jitte
4 windswept heath
4 wooded foothills
4 gaea's cradle
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Forest
2 Cavern of souls
1 Pendlehaven
1 Dryad Arbor

Sideboard
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Reclamation sage
4 Cabal therapy
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Flusterstorm
1 Mindbreak Trap
2 Pithing Needle
1 Sylvan library

[Prdgychild]

Leovold and jitte are the new backbone. This list looks amazing but the 2x Nissan version looks just at good at dealing with the match ups chaos elves is set to beat. It's like Jan'slist and chaos in one shell almost. Having PW main deck may be 2017 elves

[catmint]

So one question is how much "core" of the deck can we dilute without hurting the combo/engines too much. So far I think Sage and Ooze/Jitte/Teeg are dead cards in term of Regular game plan so 2 slots seems fine. Cutting another core card might be already too much... ?

The GP Top8 list by Akira Honma answers this question.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...sts-2016-11-27

The "core" of the deck can be changed quite a bit more as the 2 flex slots and still work fine. On top of Sage, Ooze and Leovold, 2 Nissa maindeck.
I am not a fan of just taking a successful list and calling it optimal, but it saves the trouble of a lot of testing to claim that Glimpse/NO gameplan is still strong enough in such a list.

I played 2 Nissa in the SB for a while now and preboarding them in a miracle heavy meta seems to be an interesting approach. I was more inclined to preboard 2 decay as I thought they are stronger against a wider variety of decks (Delver, Chalice), but I never boarded in Nissa against any other deck than miracles, but maybe my boarding plans are not optimal (@Prdgychild: also why I play Nissa strictly over Garruk as I don't use it in the matchups where you claim Garruk to be better).

Two things I would not cut for sure when playing 2 Nissa (MD or SB) and that is the 2nd Arbor and the 4th Quirion. The Nissa ultimate in the 2nd (or 3rd) turn makes quirion/arbor super sick.

Cutting to 17 lands is also something I am sceptical about as not having a 2nd land drop after the first creature gets killed/countered is how you get stuck early on and how you often lose.

[Echelon]

Cutting to 17 lands is also something I am sceptical about as not having a 2nd land drop after the first creature gets killed/countered is how you get stuck early on and how you often lose.

13 lands, not 17. Gaea's Cradle is a ritual spell, not a land (as far as deckbuilding is concerned).

[catmint]

In the scenario I talked about: first creature gets killed/countered, cradle is a 2nd land drop given you have another 1 mana creature.
Also I think cradle is so much more than a "ritual spell", but I assume you just wanted to make a dramatic point. :)

[Echelon]

Also I think cradle is so much more than a "ritual spell", but I assume you just wanted to make a dramatic point. :)

You assumed right!

[Atikin]

It's interesting to see how different the top 8 list is vs the 28th place list. A lot of people look at elves as this essentially solved deck with a few flex spots but here we have two natural order lists with a 10+ card difference between them.

For me the main takeaway from looking at both lists is that an Order/Chaos hybrid is not just a cool gimmicky idea but potentially the best variant of the deck right now. Both lists have Natural Orders + spice in the maindeck but in different quantities and varieties. Whether it be Nissa+Leovold in the main or Decay+Packmaster its a far cry from the streamlined lists we see most often packed with 4-ofs and only Sage/Ooze/Jitte in the flex spots. The quickly apparent drawback to all of this awesome spice seems to be that the mana base keeps getting sketchier and sketchier. Both lists are running a third dual land, and one of them has only 6(!) fetches. Notably however, both players only ran a single cavern which helps slightly. All of this isn't to say that a sketchier mana base is bad for the deck overall. If anything based on these results the opposite is true and the pros of having access to robust and powerful silver bullets in the main outweigh the cons of losing a couple percentage points to mana screw.

None of this is even getting into the sideboards which are again far from traditional. Would to love to hear these players talk about sideboarding, particularly the 28th place list with no thoughtseize and a city of solitude. Sideboard slots are so valuable to this deck and every card really has to fight to earn its spot.

All in all though, seeing two significantly different lists reach top 32 of a 2500 person tournament makes me an extremely happy elves player.

[Lemnear]

It's interesting to see how different the top 8 list is vs the 28th place list. A lot of people look at elves as this essentially solved deck with a few flex spots but here we have two natural order lists with a 10+ card difference between them.

Of course its a "solved" deck. There are mere 2 variants (No or no NO) like in storm. The rest are just switched flexslots for metagaming

[blind]

There are mere 2 variants (No or no NO)

Yeah but it's more Combo Vs Midrange list. :)

For PW MD, I have never test Nissa (5ccm..) but I think you can play 1 Garruck MD. (I test 1 MD and it's strong).

It's nice for Elves, I want to play again ! :p

[Julian23]

The most fun thing to do with Nissa? Untapping Gaea's Cradle with Wirewood Symbiote or Quirion Ranger ......