Elves!!!

[Gizmo]

This is a run-off from the first thread from Isty, we basically agreed to disagree about what would work best, and after playing my version on App I`ve tweaked it up a bit.

4 Llanowar Elf
4 Quirion Elf
4 Nomadic Elf
4 Elvish Archers
4 Kavu Titan
4 Chimeric Idol
3 Elvish Champion

4 Wax/Wane
3 Giant Growth
3 Canopy Surge
3 Tangle Wire

4 Rishadan Port
4 Brushland
12 Forest

It`s hopefully a little faster than Istanbul`s version - the Quirion Sentinel is always welcome and you can drop another 2cc creature off him. Typically the game opens in one of three ways, all efficient but they are arranged here in best to worst order.

A)
Forest, Llanowar
Forest, Sentinel, a 2cc monster

B)
Forest
Forest, a 2cc monster
Forest, Sentinel, a 2cc monster

C)
Forest
Port (activate Port)
Forest, Sentinel, a 2cc monster

Elves! The deck is, as you may have noticed, a little Elf-heavy. Mainly to use the Sentinel and Champion better I have chosen marginal (but not bad) Elves over other better 2cc creatures. Just as you would choose bad Goblins over better monsters to use Goblin King. Forestwalk is very powerful against Fires.

No River Boas? It was Kavu Titan or River Boa, and I am so concentrated at 2cc monsters anyway that I wanted the flexibility to make a 5/5 trampling beast when the matchup or topdeck demanded it.

Chimeric Idol is a perfect card vs Wrath, Sorcery removal in general, Story Circles, Moats etc... Far too good and WAYYY better than any comparable 3/3 for 3cc creature.

The four Brushlands and four Nomadics mean you usually have the W for Wax/Wane when you need it. Wax/Wane gives you better flexibility against commonly played powerhouse spells like Story Circle, Teferi`s Moat, Saproling Burst, Parallax Wave, Crusade...

Canopy Surge is a good non-creature source of damage and the cheapest way of killing Air Elementals, Troublesome Spirits, and Blinding Angels. The difference between Hurricane and Surge is minimal, but in a 20-land deck I`d rather make it so that I can kill an Angel with only 4 land as opposed to gambling that I will have 5 land in play when he taps out for Angel with the added bonus of dealing extra damage for 6 land or more. Canopy Surge does 90% of what you will ever want Hurricane to do, and it does it cheaper.

Tange Wire is the latest addition, mainly here because it has synergy in the deck - using Quirion Sentinel I am already playing permanents at an accelerated rate, and I don`t really need mana in any great amounts so can afford to tap. But I am willing to lose them as I am trying to find a card that will help against Rebels, who I think will be my hardest matchup.

 

[The Magic Jackal]

You really have too much time on your hands...

 

[Gizmo]

Sshhh - don`t tell my course tutor!

 

[Mars]

And only one tutor! No WONDER you have so much time to post here so often, Gizmo!

Actually, unless he contradicts me, Gizmo will be graduating University this year and we will lose him. He will be moving to London to take up Marketing in Business, and will take it by storm, I suspect. Of all the "games" in this world, "Business" is the toughest and most frustrating yet the most rewarding to play. Will you still play Magic, Gizmo? Perhaps not. Perhaps so. I think we all hope so....

But getting back to his deck....

It has possibilities....it's just a germ, but a good one.

And I think we should playtest it before we criticize it further. Sideboard, Gizmo? Vs Fires, Rebels, Skies, Zombies?

 

[Istanbul]

You do realize that a NON-kickered Breath of Darigaaz is basically the same as a Wrath of God against this deck, with very few exceptions?

 

[Gizmo]

Yes, but then I have no intention of playing against anybody so bad as to play with Breath Of Darigaaz.
Simoon is more of a threat as it actually appears in a serious deck.
Yes, I`m weak vs mass-removal. What a shock. Good job I`m playing with approximately 5,000,000,000 creatures. I`ve been hit by mass removal, but can usually summon up another army on my turn so it`s not fatal. I drop to Teferi`s Moat if I don`t immediately play Wax/Wane. You play 4/5 damage of monsters, then sit back and watch them race your Ports, and if they succeed they also need to have drawn a second Wrath of God. A deck of red removal spells will kick my arse, but then a deck of red removal spells is terrible, I know full well how terrible because I must have lost about 60 ranking points playing mine last month.

The main worry for this deck is that it absolutely cannot ever, even slightly get close (to even a sniff of) beating Rebels. It pulls about 50/50 vs Fires, which is disappointing - but I think my Elvish Champions were hiding all evening so it should perform better. CounterWrath is a very close match, and basically I win unless they are able to play early (turn 2/3) defense spells, which they not always can past my Ports and acceleration. Skies is close, but we tweaked our Skies deck a little and now it`s pretty solid at getting the win, only real concern is if it gets screwed and you can Port away it`s Wash Out technology.

 

[Mars]

The following, from a rather long article re T2 Stompy. Elves, it's not, but worth reading, I think. From the very end of the article, Patrick writes:

It was quickly becoming clear that Stompy decks were becoming better and better. The sideboard allowed it to deal with Rebels, Replenish, Bargain, and the mirror... So what exactly happened to this powerhouse?

One thing: the leaving of Urza's Block.

Once Invasion came into the format, mono-green decks have ceased to exist. At Pro Tour: Chicago, NOT ONE mono-green deck made Day 2 of the event. I'm not even sure if any were there to begin with. The only green that appeared was in the form of Fires or G/W Fatty 'Geddon. Yes, Fires abuses most of the powerful Type II green spells (Saproling Burst, Blastoderm, Birds of Paradise, and Llanowar Elves) - but why is it that nobody plays just plain green? Maybe people are afraid that it just doesn't work as well as Fires. This is due mainly to the fact that Fires is THE format-defining deck, save U/W Control or Counter Rebel.

In one of my many evenings of boredom, I decided that this needed to change. I took a gander at all of the current Type II options to see if I could reincarnate this once-amazing decktype. What do we still have that was used previously?

Vine Dryad
Llanowar Elves
Blastoderm
Saproling Burst
River Boa
Giant Growth
Tangle Wire

Well, that looks like a good decklist already. So what takes the place of the cheap 2 power creatures for G? The only option in that respect is Skyshroud Ridgeback, unfortunately. However, cost-effective creatures are still available.

Pygmy Razorback
Grizzly Bears (or Nomadic Elf, seeing as this is mono-green)
Elvish Archers
Trained Armodon

What about creature pump? We've obviously lost Rancor, so what else is usable?

Aggressive Urge
Explosive Growth
Wild Might
Invigorate

In playtesting, I have found Aggressive Urge and Invigorate to be inferior to the others mentioned. Also, I feel Explosive Growth is better than Wild Might for a few reasons. In the early game, you pay G for +2/+2, compared to Wild Might's 1G for +1/+1. If the opponent cannot pay two, then your creature gets +5/+5. However, in the late game Wild Might is an almost useless card. Explosive Growth can give +5/+5 for 5G, regardless of whether or not your opponent has mana available; this is just a judgment call on the metagame. If you expect long games, play Explosive Growth. If Fires is popular, play Wild Might. Let's take a look at a decklist:

CREATURES (22)
4x Vine Dryad
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Blastoderm
4x River Boa
4x Trained Armodon (strictly better in this deck than Chimeric Idol or Silt
Crawler).
2x Pygmy Razorback

SPELLS (16)
4x Tangle Wire
4x Saproling Burst
4x Giant Growth
4x Explosive Growth

LAND (22)
22x Forest

SIDEBOARD (this is mine, currently)
4x Rushwood Dryad
4x Tranquillity
3x Kavu Chameleon
2x Hurricane
1x Tangle
1x Warthog (couldn't think of anything else against black)

Other sideboard options could be Rushwood Legate over Kavu Chameleon, Reverent Silence over Tranquillity, or an additional Tangle or Hurricane over the Warthog (I happen to like this guy). Other main deck options could be to play Elvish Archers over the Pygmy Razorback, or Uktabi Orangutan (against Chimeric Idol) instead of Trained Armodon.

This deck tests well against Fires - about 50/50 depending, on the Fires player's draw, and does significantly better after the sideboard. The only card that gives this deck problems is Two-Headed Dragon (which is why Hurricane is in the sideboard as well as against Blue Skies). This deck tends to lose to Counter Rebel unless an early beatdown method is used. As long as Tranquility is sided in, Teferi's Moat, CoP: Green, Saproling Burst, and Fires of Yavimaya should be able to be held at bay.

Perhaps, with the help from this article, Magic players around the world will realize what a powerful force green has been, and what it still can be. Planeshift hasn't really helped in giving us cost-effective creatures, save for Thornscape Familiar or Gaea's Herald for the sideboard. If Apocalypse doesn't help, this deck may be the only thing that keeps mono-green alive. Once Invasion Block is completed, the format will be entirely two- or three-color decks. Let's let green live once again... Before it's too late.

- Patrick Hickman

Any questions or comments, email me at patrickr35@go.com.

 

[arhar]

Call me crazy, but I don't see a Quirion Sentinel in your deck list, although you talk about it as if you're playing it. Maybe it's a typo and by Q. Elf you meant Sentinel?

 

[Mars]

Gizmo wrote THIS about Elves!! in his excellent-as-usual Star City 2/20 article:

...(T)his little beauty (is) one of my personal rogue favorites. I first encountered the basics of this deck on Apprentice, and it gave me enough of a surprise as to how good it was that the idea sat at the back of my mind and bubbled away for a bit... Until I finally got around to building up my own version.

Basically, the deck is set up to abuse Quirion Sentinel (a 2/1 for G1 who adds one mana of any color to your mana pool when he comes into play) to accelerate my deployment, and Elvish Champion (2/2, GG1, all Elves get +1/+1 and Forestwalk) to add extra muscle. There are just about enough solid Elves in Type II to make the deck viable, and with a little imagination and a splash of white spells, the ability of the weakest - Nomadic Elf - became an advantage.

Surrounding the cheap creature base was a standard support of the usual Type II suspects - Wax/Wane and Chimeric Idol, plus a little added bonus in the form of Canopy Surge for Blinding Angels and Skies decks (and Birds of Paradise), and Tangle Wire returns to the fray as a synergetic support spell.

4x Llanowar Elf
4x Elvish Archers
4x Nomadic Elf
4x Quirion Sentinel
4x Kavu Titan
4x Chimeric Idol
3x Elvish Champion
4x Wax/Wane
3x Seal Of Strength
3x Canopy Surge
3x Tangle Wire
4x Rishadan Port
4x Brushland
12x Forest

I was only going to briefly mention this deck and not really highlight it, but it continues to impress me and win matchups I would have said it was going to lose - like CounterRebels and the Perish matches - so I think it merits a little more analysis.

First, this deck is able to produce a very rapid clock,and more importantly this clock comes down on the early turns, giving counterspell decks a hard time as they struggle to cope with the early rush of spells. Oftentimes against CounterWrath builds I have five damage on the table before they lay a second Island, and I simply serve those damage while waiting for them to Wrath, often forcing them to Wrath on turns four AND five to survive - and the Canopy Surges are very strong against anybody who figures their Angels will hold you back.

When you play this deck it reminds you of the fastest Sligh and Suicide decks, from the time before Masques and Invasion castrated beatdown players - and as such, it is extremely powerful in the current metagame of slower decks, most of which simply cannot get their defences to function in time under a Tangle Wire.

A few single card choice explanations:

Kavu Titan - It was preferred over River Boa (the natural 2cc choice) because this deck is SO full of 2/2 creatures already - and although the deck really wanted a Grizzly Bear in eight out of ten games, it also served the deck very nicely to have the option to occasionally produce something a little larger when the matchup or situation called for it. Also, the deck is very good against the decks you need Islandwalk for, and a Kavu Titan is just as good as River Boa at taking down errant Blastoderms.

Canopy Surge - better than Hurricane because they have nothing you want to Surge away with a toughness greater than four, and besides with only 20 land in the deck you don't want to be waiting to see five or six mana before you can effectively Hurricane. The card is almost never dead, either taking out BoPs, Rishadan Airships, or Defiants Falcons for 1G, or Blinding Angels and Troublesome Spirits for 3G, and it can always do four to the skull of your opponent - a very useful direct damage source in many matches.

Seal of Strength - Although in MY Humble Opinion this is strictly inferior to Giant Growth or Wild Might, the fact that this deck has very few first turn drops meant that the tempo advantage you gain by playing Seal over Growth far outweighs the disadvantages.

This deck is actually very strong indeed, and just as rogue. It beats the snot out of Fires with Forestwalk and Wax/Wane, and is pretty much too damn focused to lose to the slow U/W decks or Skies. It's only true weakness is that the deck goes about 0% against Rebel Bears - it simply doesn't have a prayer in the rebels matchup, as it relies on evasion to beat other weenies, and it has none to get past Rebels. If you don't expect many Rebels decks in your metagame, then this deck is a bit of a powerhouse - but if you do, then I would leave it in the 'almost but not quite' folder for further reference. But keep it in mind when the metagame shifts - if Rebels ever go out of fashion, this deck is likely to be worth using.

No concrete sideboard for this deck as yet, but it would almost certainly include Rushwood Legates, and then you have to decide if you are going to concede the Rebels match completely and run against the possible mass removal threat of Perish and Earthquake (Saproling Burst would be very good here), or try to sideboard the Rebels (although I don't know what would be good - do you?). Remember that you can splash white into your sideboard, which might well be handy for Light Of Day and its ilk.

Possible sideboard:
4x Rushwood Legate
1x Tangle Wire
1x Elvish Champion
1x Canopy Surge
2x Aura Mutation
4x Saproling Burst
2x Kavu Chameleon

 

[Mars]

If you're going to lose to Rebels, I see no reason not to tick them off along the way. Consider....

With all of evil white's artifact/enchantment hate cards, and considering that you already have 10 targets for those cards (3 Seal of Strength (nice tune, BTW), 3 Tangle Wire, 4 Idols), why not just overwhelm them that way by adding 4 Cursed Totems? I am pretty sure this nullifies the turn-me-into-creature ability of Chimeric Idol, but if played very carefully (like draw out a Disenchant on the Totem rather than the Idol), it might be workable. Totem will hurt Llanowar Elves too, but again be careful when you play it.

I have NO idea what to take out of the sideboard for Totem or even what to substitute out of the main deck after sideboarding, primarily because I'm lazy today and haven't thought about it too much, and also because the maindeck looks pretty tight (as are ALL of Gizmo's creations, refreshingly), but as usual I/we am/are open to suggestions.