[Primer] Elves!

[resum]

Hi everybody,

Long-time combo player here, starting to play Elves. So far I'm loving it and I'm trying to learn as much as possible by reading the primer, this thread, and watching all of Julian's videos.

I had a question about sideboarding I haven't been able to figure out (I've only ready about 50 pages of this thread though). I see that in a lot of matchups it's recommended to side out a Craterhoof. When do you want one and when do you want two? I thought that maybe 2 was when they can't stop you from putting it into play (non-counter decks), but I see that it's recommended to remove one against Miracles or Delver, so that's not it. Is it just if they don't have discard?

One more sideboarding question: To make the deck stronger against miracles, would what do you think it's better, a third Surgical Extraction, or one Krosan Grip? (already have 4 Decays).

Thanks!

The second craterhoof is strictly for NO purposes in case you draw the first. Since NO is often sided out against miracles and delver decks, the second NO comes out. Against miracles, the KGrip is the better card. Surgical is a splash hate card against them that mostly comes in just because its better than whatever you're taking out.

[supachai]

Hey guys,

I've recently started picking up this deck and I'm having some trouble in the BUG Delver matchup. They usually gunk up the board with Goyfs and Deathrites while Delver and/or TNN presents a considerable clock. I can durdle all I want with Wirewood and Visionary but I always feel scared to attack in. The combo occasionally gets them but Force and Hymn can be brutal in the early turns. I did have one game where I activated my single Deathrite 5 times in 2 turns with untap effects to steal a game. That was fun.

What's your gameplan vs them? I haven't even gotten to sideboarding but what do you guys bring in?

Thanks in advance!

[resum]

Hey guys,

I've recently started picking up this deck and I'm having some trouble in the BUG Delver matchup. They usually gunk up the board with Goyfs and Deathrites while Delver and/or TNN presents a considerable clock. I can durdle all I want with Wirewood and Visionary but I always feel scared to attack in. The combo occasionally gets them but Force and Hymn can be brutal in the early turns. I did have one game where I activated my single Deathrite 5 times in 2 turns with untap effects to steal a game. That was fun.

What's your gameplan vs them? I haven't even gotten to sideboarding but what do you guys bring in?

Thanks in advance!

Establish deathrites early, you should easily have deathrite supremacy between the untappers and gsz to get more. you need to be able to recognize when you can abuse wirewoods/quirion rangers to get chip damage in while protecting your guys. grinding with symbiote and visionary is what allows you to commit cards to flood the board or combo with glimpse/NO. If you play nissa, they basically can't beat it. they can't really do anything to your board game 1 so you should probably be able to build up a huge board and then stick a hoof. game 2 and 3 become a decent bit harder between deluge and golgari charm, but you get decay and planeswalkers to kill their delvers and counter pressure. overall, it should be one of the easier matchups. boarding for me normally goes:
Bring in:
Ooze
Decay

Take out:
All Natural order
1 Craterhoof
1 Heritage Druid

[supachai]

Establish deathrites early, you should easily have deathrite supremacy between the untappers and gsz to get more. you need to be able to recognize when you can abuse wirewoods/quirion rangers to get chip damage in while protecting your guys. grinding with symbiote and visionary is what allows you to commit cards to flood the board or combo with glimpse/NO. If you play nissa, they basically can't beat it. they can't really do anything to your board game 1 so you should probably be able to build up a huge board and then stick a hoof. game 2 and 3 become a decent bit harder between deluge and golgari charm, but you get decay and planeswalkers to kill their delvers and counter pressure. overall, it should be one of the easier matchups. boarding for me normally goes:
Bring in:
Ooze
Decay

Take out:
All Natural order
1 Craterhoof
1 Heritage Druid

Thanks, that is helpful advice. I guess it is all about the incremental advantage. I will keep practicing with that in mind then.

I want to try a Nissa in the main, thinking about cutting my miser's Llanowar Elves for it. Speaking of which, is there any sort of consensus on Llanowar? Acts as a 9th turn 1 accelerator but a pretty awful draw in the late game. Guess it's speed vs power trade off? Most list's I've seen have cut it.

[silly]

Just curious, how viable is Elves without access to Bayous? The maindeck doesn't seem to suffer too much, but you lose like half of your sideboard. Is the deck still good playing mono-green?

After a quick brainstorm session I threw together the mess below. I'd imagine that without access to black mana, the deck would need to go more "all-in" on the combo kill, in order to try and sneak in under disruption or potentially race other combo decks, so I've completely removed some of the slower cards from the main and boosted the amount of 1 drops dorks.

29 Creatures
4 Heritage Druid
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
2 Birchlore Rangers
1 Elvish Mystic
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Craterhoof Behemoth

11 Spells
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Natural Order

20 Lands
3 Forest
8 Green Fetchlands
2 Dryad Arbor
1 Pendelhaven
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Gaea's Cradle

The main questions I have about the list are:

1. Is Deathrite Shaman still optimal without access to black mana, or should he be replaced by a generic mana dork like Llanowar Elves? He can't eat spells, but he can still eat other things and is slightly bigger, but not being able to produce mana unless there's a fetch in the graveyard seems like it could actually be a liability sometimes.
2. What should the sideboard look like? Green sideboard options I've thought about include stuff like Nissa, Rec Sage/Krosan Grip, Scavenging Ooze, and the fourth Natural Order. Other options that I can think of off the top of my head that are castable are Surgical Extraction/Faerie Macabre, Dismember, and Mindbreak Trap. Is there some combination of these that can do a functional (if bad) impression of what discard/Abrupt Decay gives us? How do we sideboard properly against our bad matchups?

Am I barking up the wrong tree trying to play this deck without being forced to buy into Bayous, or is what I have workable?

[Flutschi]

So you dont want to afford 2 bayous? or what is the reason to not go black?

deathrite and untapping him and draining is just so powerful that you should not cut black. also decays. dont go without them.

[silly]

2 Bayous is like 300+ dollars. If I like how the deck plays I'll probably buy into them over the course of a few months, but for now I just want a not terrible version of the deck that I can jam to get a feel of how the deck runs and how various matchups play.

[Emurian]

You can buy 2 shocklands for 20E as a temporary replacement, yes it hurts your life total, yes its far from ideal for the : tap DRS, quirion activation bounce, untap DRS replay land and use again. Aside of that, I rather have that downside, then not having acces to black at all.

Abrupt decay is the nuts, you are gonna cut in your own fingers if you are not running them.

Keep in mind your birchlores also help with generating black mana when needed. DRS likewise can make black, just requires you to have 2 or an untap effect if you want to use them to remove spells from the GY.

[supachai]

2 Bayous is like 300+ dollars. If I like how the deck plays I'll probably buy into them over the course of a few months, but for now I just want a not terrible version of the deck that I can jam to get a feel of how the deck runs and how various matchups play.

Keep checking ebay and there's also a couple facebook groups that sell magic cards for a bit cheaper than online vendors. I think it's called MTG Sick Deals (sorry mods if posting this kinda stuff is not allowed, feel free to delete). I picked up 2 MP for around 100 each.

[silly]

So people have convinced me that the black splash is basically necessary. Probably going to play with two copies of Overgrown Tomb as a temporary stand in while I get the hang of the deck. A few quick questions about the sideboard though:

1. What discard to run? I think most decks run 5-6 copies of discard in the board. Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy seem to be standard, but some decks run more copies of Therapy and some decks run more Thoughtseize. Which is better? Also, is there any merit to potentially playing Duress or Inquisition in these slots, or are they basically always worse?

2. Why does everybody run Surgical Extraction for graveyard hate? Is substituting Relic of Progenitus/Faerie Macabre/Tormod's Crypt/Leyline of the Void/whatever I have lying around an okay choice, or is Surgical Extraction much better in this deck than all the other options?

Also, I see that most older lists opt not to run Cavern of Souls, but there has been a shift in deckbuilding, with most new decks cutting 2 fetches for 2 copies of Cavern. Why is that the case now? Is 2 Caverns necessary, or is 1 Cavern/0 Caverns a good choice as well?

[dte]

Duress or inquisition are way worse against show and tell decks, so you really prefer seize and cabal.
Cabal is a bit better against combo, while thoughtseize is an ok card vs miracle, which is why it is more common now.

We draw quite a bit, so I would say that leyline is not an option. Relic is slow and hurts our plan (DRS drain).
What make surgical the best option though is that it has a bit of splash damage vs miracle: Extract terminus in response to the trigger of the second one, on a SCM target, to shuffle the library in response to a tap to draw activation,...
It is not great, but ok.

I would say cavern is absolutely not necessary, especially since eldrazi has almost vanished, but some may think otherwise. At the very least, it is far from being as necessary as bayou that you were pondering on buying.

[Luiz_AFF]

We should have a rule somewhere in this thread where people should stop posting lists with less than 4 Abrupt Decays /s

Seriously though, we can't tell you much about your list if you don't tell us what you are trying to accomplish. Each list, especially each sideboard, is a guess and gamble as to which matchups one will face. Standard-ish Elves decklists mean nothing without context.

Sorry...
My Field is full of Miracles. This is the deck i lose more often.

[Flutschi]

full of miracles? go 2 krosan grips & 4 decays, some surgical... and ur fine.

@Thoughtseize / therapy

i do more Thoughtseize then therapy atm because therapy is harder to cast in my eyes, you need to have a much deeper knowledge of legacy. later i want to switch if im able to learn more and more but for now Thoughtseize > therapy for me.

[silly]

I would say cavern is absolutely not necessary, especially since eldrazi has almost vanished, but some may think otherwise. At the very least, it is far from being as necessary as bayou that you were pondering on buying.

If cavern isn't necessary I'm probably going to only stick with 1 Cavern instead of the standard 2. I wanted to run a copy of Pendelhaven in the deck and it feels like x2 Cavern of Souls eats into my fetchland count a little too heavily.

Keep checking ebay and there's also a couple facebook groups that sell magic cards for a bit cheaper than online vendors. I think it's called MTG Sick Deals (sorry mods if posting this kinda stuff is not allowed, feel free to delete). I picked up 2 MP for around 100 each.

How do I gain access to these facebook groups? They're all restricted and it seems like you need a secret handshake to get in.

[supachai]

I think most lists run a 3/3 split of Therapy and Thoughtseize. Therapy is super strong in this deck cause of how easy it is to flash back and the potential to nab multiple copies. Having some Thoughtseize also makes your Therapies less blind.

How do I gain access to these facebook groups? They're all restricted and it seems like you need a secret handshake to get in.

PM'd you

[silly]

Thanks for all your help guys. I went and acquired some of the missing cards I was lacking and will be jamming the list below to get used to the deck.

16 Lands
2 Forest
2 Overgrown Tomb
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Gaea's Cradle
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Pendelhaven

30 Creatures
2 Dryad Arbor
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote
3 Heritage Druid
2 Birchlore Rangers
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Reclamation Sage


14 Other
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Natural Order
2 Crop Rotation
1 Nissa, Vital Force

15 Sideboard
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Natural Order
1 Progenitus
1 Scavenging Ooze

Definite next purchases in the coming months will be to upgrade the Overgrown Tombs into Bayous and adding two more Cradles over the Crop Rotations. Let me know if this list looks good or if there's something important that I've accidentally missed out on.

[dte]

Definite next purchases in the coming months will be to upgrade the Overgrown Tombs into Bayous and adding two more Cradles over the Crop Rotations. Let me know if this list looks good or if there's something important that I've accidentally missed out on.

If you play 2x crop rotation MD you may want to make use of them: karakas, bokuja bog, wasteland.
Great cards against lands, sneak & show and reanimator, not exactly your best friends.

[Julian23]

Just finished playing in the April Legacy Challenge. Check out the VODs on my website!

[Emurian]

Let me know if this list looks good or if there's something important that I've accidentally missed out on.

The list looks pretty solid, I would exchange a nettle sentinel for another fetch or forest 3. You really want to keep your land total near 20 if possible.

When I started Elves I ran back and forth between 18-20 lands allot, in the end I settled down to 20 after having to many games with 5x elf, arbor, cradle like hands. In general, there are only 14 lands that you want to see T1.

Cut the Nissa if you feel that 19 is not enough after some testgames. She is a recent addition so I consider her more as a Fancy card rather then a Core card. Our plan A [NO] B [Glimpse] and C [beatdown!] should serve you well enough G1.

SB wise, I really would like to see a pithing needle in it somewhere, its a good ''catch all card'' [Sensei's divining top, inkmoth nexus, grindstone, sneak attack, vial, Jitte etc etc] that hits allot of core cards from certain decks that might help you buy the time you need.

I am personally not a fan of mindbreak trap. Its the first card that I removed from my SB when learning to play Elves. I personally would swap them out for pithing needles or surgical extraction.

[Doneval]

Just finished playing in the April Legacy Challenge. Check out the VODs on my website!

Awesome. I'll watch them tonight.

Could you explain a bit about why you made the tweaks to the deck for this event? Specifically, why the Progenitus on the sideboard (you haven't used one in a while I believe) and moving the Nissa to the sideboard and the Ooze main.

BTW, you inspired me to finally take the plunge and play elves. I took down a 31-person tournament yesterday playing elves for the first time!

Thanks!