[Primer] Elves!

[Julian23]

Needle is great against Lands. You'll have to decide according to the situation whether you need to set it on Thepsian Stage or Wasteland though.

Other than that, Extracting Fire helps, but also expect them to have either Seismis Assault or Molten Vortex. With that in mind, extracting Loam, especially if you hit it early, is probably the better play.

But if you really wanna hit them hard, play Blood Elves with Moon.

[abombdiggity]

What does one sideboard versus the lands matchup? I'm going to an event this weekend where I expect a lot of lands and I can't decide if bring more surgical extractions, elderscale wurm, etc.

Judging by your location, I'll be at the same 1k as you this weekend. In this meta, I run 1 MD crop rotation, 1 SB, and a package of wasteland, bog, and Karakas. Typically I run a Null Rod- of you're that worried, run Pithing Needle in it's place. The local meta is pretty good for us in the Northeast, there are a lot of fair green decks (shardless, maverick, etc), so I'm fine with running a heavier than normal anti-lands package because so many of the matchups there will involve minimal sideboarding on our end.

[Prdgychild]

[QUOTE=abombdiggity;980742]Judging by your location, I'll be at the same 1k as you this weekend. In this meta, I run 1 MD crop rotation, 1 SB, and a package of wasteland, bog, and Karakas. Typically I run a Null Rod- of you're that worried, run Pithing Needle in it's place. The local meta is pretty good for us in the Northeast, there are a lot of fair green decks (shardless, maverick, etc), so I'm fine with running a heavier than normal anti-lands package because so many of the matchups there will involve minimal sideboarding on our end.[/QUOTE

do you jitte or WRP md?

[Lemnear]

Nissa needs just lands to win and the nissa ultimate is nothing to sneeze at.

It needs 5 out of the ~16 lands you run on the table post sweeper, while half of them are Fetchlands which thin out your land density further. The issues are at hand

[abombdiggity]

do you jitte or WRP md?

I run WRP, I think it's better in a field where there are not a lot of x/1s. If I expected there to be a lot of small creatures I would consider Jitte over WRP but Packmaster matches up better against larger threats like KotR and Eldrazi, as well as against things like golgari charm/proclaim etc. I also have had some pretty bad luck bringing in Jitte and Null Rod out of the board together against D&T- it feels bad when you draw two very potent sideboard cards that nullify each other.

[catmint]

It needs 5 out of the ~16 lands you run on the table post sweeper, while half of them are Fetchlands which thin out your land density further. The issues are at hand

What I need 5 lands? thanks for pointing that out. my testing has been positive so far but now that i realize that i need 5 ( FIVE!) lands i see the issues at hand and will stop testing further.

a little less conversation a little more action :)

[Prdgychild]

It needs 5 out of the ~16 lands you run on the table post sweeper, while half of them are Fetchlands which thin out your land density further. The issues are at hand

In theory this is spot on, in real life you are wrong. Played about 10 games vs miracles with Honma's list and what you are pouting about came up once.

[Prdgychild]

What I need 5 lands? thanks for pointing that out. my testing has been positive so far but now that i realize that i need 5 ( FIVE!) lands i see the issues at hand and will stop testing further.

a little less conversation a little more action :)

Haha! Spot. On.

[Lemnear]

In theory this is spot on, in real life you are wrong. Played about 10 games vs miracles with Honma's list and what you are pouting about came up once.

It would benefit the discussion if you would also tell how many times across these 10 games (preboard? Postboard?) you even drew/resolved Nissa and how many times she was a deciding factor, rather than a win-more for us all to discuss the weight on each side

What I need 5 lands? thanks for pointing that out. my testing has been positive so far but now that i realize that i need 5 ( FIVE!) lands i see the issues at hand and will stop testing further.

a little less conversation a little more action :)

Having to draw 30% of your lands without library Manipulation is nothing to sneeze at as a hurdle.

[Prdgychild]

[QUOTE=Lemnear;980775]It would benefit the discussion if you would also tell how many times across these 10 games (preboard? Postboard?) you even drew/resolved Nissa and how many times she was a deciding factor, rather than a win-more for us all to discuss the weight on each side

I won with Nissa on board 4 times and none of those times was I in a winning position BEFORE casting her. My opponet had outs for multiple of my land activations but the sheer 5/5 haste was to much and scoffed at his Jace. Not a card that makes miracles an easy mathup by any means but very much pulls you ahead when you do land it. I understand the weaknesses you have been mentioning but again, every card you add/subsitiute to elves has pros/cons over just about everything other playable card for the deck. Nissa is new and untested for the most part it seems.

[dte]

Lemnear, I think your focus on 0 creatures in play mislead you.
It is quite common to have a couple of creatures against miracle.
Preboard we have 20 lands, craddle may make more than one mana, DRS bring one, quirion alone let you cast it with four lands.

[Lemnear]

Lemnear, I think your focus on 0 creatures in play mislead you.
It is quite common to have a couple of creatures against miracle.
Preboard we have 20 lands, craddle may make more than one mana, DRS bring one, quirion alone let you cast it with four lands.

If you have/get creatures in play anyways (no matter Terminus or CounterTop), you can pressure your opponent without the need for Nissa, which is the point where I would consider her a win-more.

The recurring arguments seems to be Jace, where I have to question why an opponent should drop Jace, if you have creatures on the board which allow you to generate the mana to cast Nissa or use them to straight up attack Jace, which means again that Nissa would be a win-more.

She is also no solution if your opponent drops a Mentor or just responds with Angels. I simply dont see in which situation she is a realistic trump to any opposing strategy or deck and the cost plays a significant role.

She shares individual problems with Natural Order which you would not play either, if you face a metagame which attacks your permanents

[mistercakes]

the assumption here is that miracles will let you keep 2 creatures in play without casting terminus. this should be relatively easy to tap out to get to 5 mana. it also allows you to tap out to force them to cast a terminus and then you still have something in play after it resolves.

anyway, who cares. just have fun with the deck. if you want to play the best deck, then just play miracles.

[Lemnear]

the assumption here is that miracles will let you keep 2 creatures in play without casting terminus. this should be relatively easy to tap out to get to 5 mana. it also allows you to tap out to force them to cast a terminus and then you still have something in play after it resolves.

I think discussing those scenarios is important in the context. So what if your animated Land runs right into Entreat or if the opponent follows up with Mentor after the terminus?

[Whitefaces]

I think discussing those scenarios is important in the context. So what if your animated Land runs right into Entreat or if the opponent follows up with Mentor after the terminus?

It's pretty hard to argue for new cards when your theoretical opponent has exactly what they need every turn.

[mistercakes]

if your animated land were to run into an entreat, you will at least take a out a token, which likely would have killed you on the backswing anyway. if they are only making 1-2 tokens i'd be happy to force them to use one of their win cons (with 2 tokens your nissa even lives after killing a token). if they make 3 and you can kill one of them, then you probably have enough time to get back into the game.

if they drop a mentor after terminus, you are usually in trouble anyway unless if you can generate enough card advantage to chump all their guys. you also have the ability to ult and hopefully net 1-2 cards which might enable you to combo off. remember you can also green sun for X = 0 to draw a card with dryad arbor, might have edge case usage.

this planeswalker is definitely not the ultimate solution, but i think there's enough lines to keep it interesting enough for a while so it can be tested vs other matchups as well. it seems like most of the discussion revolves around elves vs miracles.

how much merit does this card hold vs something else like shardless or another deck where we might struggle post board? (excluding reanimator & show and tell where they just ignore us)

are there other permanents that haven't been explored that can be exploited with her 2nd ability?

[dte]

My experience against miracle is that often you have a couple of guys.
They are however not enough, and SCM/stp is as scary as terminus.
Nissa survives after terminus, here is the advantage.
Planeswalkers are really good against miracle, I won most games in which I drew Garruck V1, and Nissa is better than him in this MU. I like that garruck is a good threat in almost every MU.

@mistercakes: Planeswalkers are awful vs combo, good against almost everything else.

[Lemnear]

It's pretty hard to argue for new cards when your theoretical opponent has exactly what they need every turn.

Which really is not what I am trying to do. I just would like to see it adressed at some point, so that we are not just looking at the card in scenarios, where its a blowout like untapping Cradle with 10 creatures on the board and the full combo already going or the opponent being unable to do anything relevant in three turns before Nissa and dorks have killed him/her.

We need to look at good and bad scenarios and cant take requirements like the 5 mana for granted just because the deck is Elves. Its the same topic we had over at the TES thread with Wish->Petition->AdNauseam taking 9 mana for granted "because Rituals & LEDs" and straight up ignoring softcounters or manadenial. Can the 9mana playline happen and win you the game? Sure it can. Is it a totally reliable plan for the deck? Its not. An honest evaluation needs all scenarios and we cant do this if testing data gets manipulated from the start by claiming that mana shortage was only a factor once in ten matches (aka 10%), just to admit later that Nissa was effectively involved just four times within these ten matches, which means that the mana shortage scenario was actually 25% within the limited testing. We cant work that way.

[Prdgychild]

Which really is not what I am trying to do. I just would like to see it adressed at some point, so that we are not just looking at the card in scenarios, where its a blowout like untapping Cradle with 10 creatures on the board and the full combo already going or the opponent being unable to do anything relevant in three turns before Nissa and dorks have killed him/her.

We need to look at good and bad scenarios and cant take requirements like the 5 mana for granted just because the deck is Elves. Its the same topic we had over at the TES thread with Wish->Petition->AdNauseam taking 9 mana for granted "because Rituals & LEDs" and straight up ignoring softcounters or manadenial. Can the 9mana playline happen and win you the game? Sure it can. Is it a totally reliable plan for the deck? Its not. An honest evaluation needs all scenarios and we cant do this if testing data gets manipulated from the start by claiming that mana shortage was only a factor once in ten matches (aka 10%), just to admit later that Nissa was effectively involved just four times within these ten matches, which means that the mana shortage scenario was actually 25% within the limited testing. We cant work that way.

Two things, her win more aspect I get. Most times when I played her it was mid combo and I would have gotten there without her. The key is though if my hoof had been stopped or my board terminus, which happened twice, I now had a very powerful PW out to rebuild with. She has shown to be insurance for plan A failing with very little downside. Secondly, when you said " we can't work that way", no one is asking you to put Nissa in your deck and support her. If you don't like her, don't play her. All the arguments you have been making can be made to the same effect as not playing NO in the first place. No one claimed your 4 rec sages and 4 polukranos elves deck was garbage because everyone knew they weren't going to try it and would let you stumble with it to learn for yourself. With Nissa though what we have here is a very interesting take on elves that HAS shown itself to work in at least one major event where miracles was a giant percent of the meta if you look at the day 2 breakdown.

[Capt4in]

Which really is not what I am trying to do. I just would like to see it adressed at some point, so that we are not just looking at the card in scenarios, where its a blowout like untapping Cradle with 10 creatures on the board and the full combo already going or the opponent being unable to do anything relevant in three turns before Nissa and dorks have killed him/her.

We need to look at good and bad scenarios and cant take requirements like the 5 mana for granted just because the deck is Elves. Its the same topic we had over at the TES thread with Wish->Petition->AdNauseam taking 9 mana for granted "because Rituals & LEDs" and straight up ignoring softcounters or manadenial. Can the 9mana playline happen and win you the game? Sure it can. Is it a totally reliable plan for the deck? Its not. An honest evaluation needs all scenarios and we cant do this if testing data gets manipulated from the start by claiming that mana shortage was only a factor once in ten matches (aka 10%), just to admit later that Nissa was effectively involved just four times within these ten matches, which means that the mana shortage scenario was actually 25% within the limited testing. We cant work that way.

It seems to me like you're demanding that the people who play nissa justify their choices to you, or convince you to run her, which I disagree is anyone's job. Its not necessary that people in an internet forum discussing a deck reach absolute consensus on a list. Especially not one as modular and potentially toolboxy as elves.

Also, in these negative scenarios you are presenting, these are not "bad". They are unwinnable. Can you please explain what one card in a potential elves maindeck would be better than Nissa in these scenarios? (I.e. you have four lands, no creatures due to terminus, no creatures in hand to help cast nissa, and your opponent is flipping entreat?) I would put to you that this is equally a useless scenario to complain about nissa as no single card can win from that state.