Elfball, also known as Elves!, is a former Standard deck ported to the Extended environment. It is an aggro-combo deck. It is primarily a combo deck that relies on getting a massive amount of mana and number of elves in play as early as the second turn and then winning with something like Grapeshot, Predator Dragon, or Mirror Entity. However, it can also, at a pinch, turn into an aggro deck that wins by attacking with lots of little elves and tokens. The banning of Sensei's Divining Top helped to make Elfball viable (since the Counterbalance-Top combo is very strong against Elfball as almost every card in Elfball costs 1 or 2 mana).
It has 6 of 8 spots in the Top 8 of Pro Tour Berlin 2008, all 4 of the Top 4, and won the whole thing, so I think it's safe to say it's competitive. The only other two decks in the Top 8 were Faeries and Tezzerator.
Here are three variants that have different win conditions:
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This is the dredge of the 2008 season. It was an amazing choice for this tournament because no one was expecting it, but expect to see a lot more chalice for 1, mogg fanatics and cannonists in the ptq season. Still a really great deck, but this tourniment seemed like such a cake walk for it. I mean, most of the pros they interviewed about it spoke to how easy it was to hate if you knew about it.
At this point trying to combine the Predator Dragon and Grapeshot kill in a single build seems like a reasonable objective. Predator Dragon because it is much less of a strain to make a 20/20 flier then to reach a storm count of 19+, and Grapeshot/Brainfreeze or even Tendrils of Agony for the control decks and the mirror match.
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In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
Would Scattershot be viable as hate? If they get Essence Warden then the point is moot, but you can respond to the lethal Grapeshot/attack with it. It is also pretty costly considering the deck can combo t2/3.
Would Scattershot be viable as hate? If they get Essence Warden then the point is moot, but you can respond to the lethal Grapeshot/attack with it. It is also pretty costly considering the deck can combo t2/3.
Would Scattershot be viable as hate? If they get Essence Warden then the point is moot, but you can respond to the lethal Grapeshot/attack with it. It is also pretty costly considering the deck can combo t2/3.
you can't respond to a lethal grapeshot because it doesn't target a player.
there's better hate, because even if they combo out with creatures as a win con it doesn't always mean they've played enough spells that turn for you to kill their attacking force.
I understand that people are trying to find this decks blind spots, but shouldn't we be also discussing how to IMPROVE the deck? For instance:
1) How many Summoner's Pacts are optimal?
2) Is black the better splash color?
3) Do you run Essence Warden maindeck?
Talking about hate is really pointless if we don't know how the deck actually WORKS...
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In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
I could be blind or something, but I've been staring at the screen for half an hour and searching various threads, and I can't for the life of me figure out how LSV plays the Grapeshot.
I could be blind or something, but I've been staring at the screen for half an hour and searching various threads, and I can't for the life of me figure out how LSV plays the Grapeshot.
I was just trying it very briefly, but i do like the chord of calling. Especially with wirewood hivemaster, it puts the insects which before had no good use fetching the next part of the combo. I really like it. Can even fetch predator dragon, which is also great. So i really like having 2-3 of those MD. I also like 2-3 summoners pact, which are also really nice. I dont think grapeshot is needed MD,i prefer the dragon kill. Its definetly good to have brainfreeze/grapeshot SB thou. (both work... both need about 15-18 spells to win, grapeshot is instant kill thou).
The deck is very hateable, so i wouldnt expect it to do anywher near the domination of Berlin. However... it will DEFINETLY be one of the top decks coming up. Viridian Shaman especially with symbiot rly helps chalice etc annoyances, and most other hate has their answer as well. I do think some hate should be talked about, beecause thise deck will need a way to answer all the hate. I think it definetly needs SB artifact/enchantment removal (leyline of singularity, chalice, engineered explosives, etc), and maybe some pinpoint removal (goblin sharpshooter etc). Stuff like slice and dice will be hard to deal with thou.
Elf-Ball hasn't been worth it in standard, but seems to have done well in standard. I've never played Extended format, but since I have some of these components creeping around, I might be able to build a variant of the above decks. Cool beans.
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Decks
Commander
Ezuri, Renegade Leader (Aggro/Combo - Favorite) Skullbriar, the Walking Grave (Sac and Grave hijinks) Azusa, Lost but Seeking (Landfall hijinks) Kaalia of the Vast (Heavily modded)
Would Scattershot be viable as hate? If they get Essence Warden then the point is moot, but you can respond to the lethal Grapeshot/attack with it. It is also pretty costly considering the deck can combo t2/3.
No, but Brain Freeze is. They are forced to draw from Glimpse of Nature, so just count the spells played, and when they reach the magic number, kill them with the two mana instant.
another reason im excited for this deck is the core of the deck is relatively cheap. there may be a huge burst in price for glimpse, summoner's pact etc... buts till the core deck is all commons/uncommons. the only real expensive bits atm are various lands (nonessential, forests work pretty fine in this deck) and also they just run good SB cards (thoughtseize). But the deck works fine budgetized.
EDIT: Considering overnight Glimpses went from about 30 cents each to about 10 dollars each... this deck may be harder to budgetize. i think u just need to try and work around the glimpses, hope you have 1-2 in your deck at least if ur goin budgeet, replace the rest with regal force (is possible to accelerate into, but nothing like glimpse)
I think a main deck should run 4 pacts because it's the best against other elves. They are however one of the cards you would often side out for jitte when you have to turn into a beatdown strategy.
I think it's nowhere near as good as Leyline of the Void was against Dredge, most notably because multiple blue leylines at the start of the game is an atrociously bad play.
If you want to have an edge against elves play Chalice of the Void and be content.
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In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
I've goldfished the deck ~250 times over the weekend and tested ~30 games against All-In Red postboard (with 7 instant boardsweepers + Pyrostatic Pillar)
First of (and maybe most important): The Deck DOES NOT combo on turn 2 as often as people on this forum seem to think!! I've played nearly 300 games with it and managed to go off on turn 2 in less then 10 of them!! (But maybe that's because I used Chord of Calling; haven't tested Weird Harvest yet but it's said to be faster)
Most of the time I've killed on turn 3-4
I don't know how often people on this forum think it can happen, but I've been goldfishing turn 2 kills a bit more often than you (something like 25-30 times out of ~300ish games). I'd call it a little less than 10%. Still, it's not exactly common, but don't be surprised when it happens.
3.) I mainly tested the Dragon as kill condition but I wasn't always confident with him (played a few games vs affinity and they crushed me because they could jump-block with Ornithopter...it's also very difficult to kill the opponent if you draw the dragon!)
I know that sometimes when you're trying to go off, you have to use every resource you have for quite a while until you finally roll into that gamestate where "you clearly have it." However, once you get that far into the combo (where you're just going through a few final motions or digging for a Chord), casting the Dragon is really easy. If you have a Heritage Druid and a Birchlore Rangers in play, you just have to tap 9 Elves to cast him (the same amount you would tap to convoke Chord, though you can also use insects and Symbiotes there).
And Ornithopters also shouldn't present much of a problem at that point. Toward the end of your combo when you have essentially limitless resources (as long as you don't deck yourself), you should pretty easily be able to cast Viridian Shaman multiple times thanks to Symbiotes. I guess since you aren't playing the maindeck Shaman, you can't do that on game 1. I prefer the 1 Shaman maindeck anyway. Blinkmoth Nexus, however, seems like more of a problem.
It almost seems like you should just be able to play a beatdown strategy against Affinity. Just get a Viridian Shaman ASAP and replay it as many times as possible every turn (off Symbiotes). Nail Plating first so they can't kill you out of nowhere, and block with random dudes / insects. It seems like they wouldn't be able to stay in the game that way. I'll have to test that.
I really like Burrenton Forge-Tinder too, for all the reasons you described. It's a really solid sideboard decision.
I've goldfished the deck ~250 times over the weekend and tested ~30 games against All-In Red postboard (with 7 instant boardsweepers + Pyrostatic Pillar)
First of (and maybe most important): The Deck DOES NOT combo on turn 2 as often as people on this forum seem to think!! I've played nearly 300 games with it and managed to go off on turn 2 in less then 10 of them!! (But maybe that's because I used Chord of Calling; haven't tested Weird Harvest yet but it's said to be faster) Most of the time I've killed on turn 3-4
Go watch the videos of the Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Finals of PT Berlin. They talk about the difference between the elf decks and one of the main ones is the fact that LSV’s deck is faster than the rest of the fields and has a good possibility of going off T2. Also, watch the video of LSV talking about his deck on youtube. He talks about how they knew about the other elf decks but instead of using cards like Essence Warden they decided to just make the combo faster.
Only thing about Burrenton Forge Tender, is if Sharpshooter becomes hate... then i believe it wont work against that. (In saccing untaps sharpshooter, then blows stuff up before forge tender triggers). Still... if you can play it it is definetly a good SB card against slice and dice, pyroclasm etc, the many red board sweepers out there. I think artifact/enchantment removal is a must... since a chalice for 1 makes the deck an incredibly weak beatdown deck, and stuff like leyline of singularity shuts it off. Seal of primordium seems solid to me, some ppl at berlin ran it i believe. Against artifacts viridian shaman getting bounced with symbiot ic pretty nasty thou (rly helped against tezzerator).
Orzhov pontif luckily is pretty hard for most decks to play luckily, best in elf on elf matches because chord can fetch. Thats hate thats hard to deal with.
I dunno between wierd harvest or chord of calling. I think you want to run one of them with summoner's pact. Between them though its very hard.
I know that sometimes when you're trying to go off, you have to use every resource you have for quite a while until you finally roll into that gamestate where "you clearly have it." However, once you get that far into the combo (where you're just going through a few final motions or digging for a Chord), casting the Dragon is really easy. If you have a Heritage Druid and a Birchlore Rangers in play, you just have to tap 9 Elves to cast him (the same amount you would tap to convoke Chord, though you can also use insects and Symbiotes there).
Don't you need to tap 12 elves? You need 6 for the 6 colourless, and 6 for RRR
In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
But when do you have 12 elves untapped?? That only happens if you have (2-)3-4 nettle sentinels in play...hardcasting the dragon during a second turn kill is so damn difficult (you'd have to have the goddraw to achieve this!)
Don't get me wrong: It's possible to kill on turn 2 even if you draw the dragon but it's more difficult (because you can use the insect tokens to cast the chord!)
In such a scenario you would probably be less hesitant to play Chord of Calling for your important mana components, like Heritage Druid and Nettle Sentinel. You can easily tap insects (free creatures) and sentinels (free mana) for this,
Note also that if you have a Glimpse of Nature going you can tap Sentinels for R and use other elves for G until you get to RRR. The rest is history...
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In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
instant speed could be nice as anti forge tender if u have another piece of removal. Very situational, but sometimes itll be a standoff, you play pyroclasm, they forge tender and you can kll everything in response.
However, while its good to come up for hate that will hit elves, for this topic i think its better to go for how does elves work around the hate.
I don't see why the decks didn't play maindeck Brain Freeze as the kill con. After all it does laugh at life gain (important in mirror) and will need a lower storm count to kill than will Grapeshot. Also, it does cost the same amount of mana. That would be one of the very few things that I would change in the lists. But then again LSV did say that Grapeshot could be better vs. Fae as you might only need to wipe their board or deal some small amount of damage. But overall I see Brain Freeze as a card with much more potential and considering how many mirrors people are likely to run ito it will ultimately be the better choice. Just my thoughts.
I simple love this deck. Much more stable than Dredge and yet it still seems much more fair.
Anyway I am taken aback by Glimpse of Nature.. I mean who knew?
Now it's going to be hard as heck to find those I am going to have to go overtime this week at the card shops hoping nobody broke the news to them... yeah right.
It has 6 of 8 spots in the Top 8 of Pro Tour Berlin 2008, all 4 of the Top 4, and won the whole thing, so I think it's safe to say it's competitive. The only other two decks in the Top 8 were Faeries and Tezzerator.
Here are three variants that have different win conditions:
//Pro Tour-Berlin Champion
//Main deck: 60 cards
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Pendelhaven
9 Snow-Covered Forest
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Elves of Deep Shadow
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Eternal Witness
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Regal Force
2 Viridian Shaman
4 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Grapeshot
4 Summoner's Pact
3 Weird Harvest
1 Mycoloth
1 Nullmage Shepherd
1 Pendelhaven
2 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Thoughtseize
4 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Viridian Shaman
//Pro Tour-Berlin, Finals
//Main deck: 60 cards
10 Forest
4 Horizon Canopy
1 Pendelhaven
2 Temple Garden
4 Birchlore Rangers
1 Elvish Champion
2 Elvish Visionary
4 Essence Warden
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Predator Dragon
1 Viridian Shaman
4 Wirewood Hivemaster
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Glimpse of Nature
2 Summoner's Pact
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Fecundity
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Tar Fiend
4 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Viridian Shaman
//Pro Tour-Berlin Top 8
//Main deck: 60 cards
3 Forest
3 Gilt-Leaf Palace
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Pendelhaven
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Birchlore Rangers
3 Elvish Visionary
4 Essence Warden
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
1 Mirror Entity
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Regal Force
4 Wirewood Hivemaster
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Brain Freeze
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Chord of Calling
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Orzhov Pontiff
2 Seal of Primordium
2 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Thoughtseize
1 Viridian Shaman
Some possible general hate cards against Elfball:
* Chalice of the Void
* Darkblast
* Echoing Decay
* Echoing Truth
* Engineered Explosives
* Ethersworn Canonist
* Gaddock Teeg (against Chord of Calling)
* Goblin Sharpshooter
* Leyline of Singularity
* Mogg Fanatic
* Orzhov Pontiff
* Pyroclasm
* Pyrostatic Pillar
* Rule of Law
* Runed Halo (name Grapeshot or Predator Dragon)
* Slice and Dice
* Trinisphere
3-mana non-instant hate (Infest) and 4-mana hate (Damnation, Night of Souls' Betrayal, Wrath of God) may be rather too slow against Elfball.
Hate cards against Elfball variants that use Brain Freeze as the win condition:
* Academy Ruins
Hate cards against Elfball variants that use Predator Dragon as the win condition:
* instant spot removal (Terror, etc.)
Despite only showing up at one event so far, the deck came in more than half of the top 8. Stickied.
- Jon Finkel believes in maintaining a healthy, balanced diet. He gets all his fiber from eating Magic cards for breakfast, and all his protein from eating Magic players for lunch.
Predator Dragon because it is much less of a strain to make a 20/20 flier then to reach a storm count of 19+, and Grapeshot/Brainfreeze or even Tendrils of Agony for the control decks and the mirror match.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
EDIT: A "read the card!" was in order...
I think Slice and Dice would probably be better hate.
Pauper Cube
I cube, I play EDH, and I can't afford Legacy. The other formats can suck it.
you can't respond to a lethal grapeshot because it doesn't target a player.
there's better hate, because even if they combo out with creatures as a win con it doesn't always mean they've played enough spells that turn for you to kill their attacking force.
1) How many Summoner's Pacts are optimal?
2) Is black the better splash color?
3) Do you run Essence Warden maindeck?
Talking about hate is really pointless if we don't know how the deck actually WORKS...
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
Can someone enlighten me?
Birchlore Rangers.
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The deck is very hateable, so i wouldnt expect it to do anywher near the domination of Berlin. However... it will DEFINETLY be one of the top decks coming up. Viridian Shaman especially with symbiot rly helps chalice etc annoyances, and most other hate has their answer as well. I do think some hate should be talked about, beecause thise deck will need a way to answer all the hate. I think it definetly needs SB artifact/enchantment removal (leyline of singularity, chalice, engineered explosives, etc), and maybe some pinpoint removal (goblin sharpshooter etc). Stuff like slice and dice will be hard to deal with thou.
Thanks to Spiderboy4 of High~Light Studios!
Elf-Ball hasn't been worth it in standard, but seems to have done well in standard. I've never played Extended format, but since I have some of these components creeping around, I might be able to build a variant of the above decks. Cool beans.
Commander
Ezuri, Renegade Leader (Aggro/Combo - Favorite)
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave (Sac and Grave hijinks)
Azusa, Lost but Seeking (Landfall hijinks)
Kaalia of the Vast (Heavily modded)
Standard
Waiting for Innistrad...
Extended
Hah!
Modern
Living End Cascade (RGB)
Legacy
Burn
Vintage
None
Casual
WB Aggro-Control
Green Stompy
Pink Floyd (UWr Wall Control)
Lunch Box (Fatty ramp)
D-Bag (White Control)
Level 13 Task Mage
No, but Brain Freeze is. They are forced to draw from Glimpse of Nature, so just count the spells played, and when they reach the magic number, kill them with the two mana instant.
EDIT: Considering overnight Glimpses went from about 30 cents each to about 10 dollars each... this deck may be harder to budgetize. i think u just need to try and work around the glimpses, hope you have 1-2 in your deck at least if ur goin budgeet, replace the rest with regal force (is possible to accelerate into, but nothing like glimpse)
Thanks to Spiderboy4 of High~Light Studios!
I think it's nowhere near as good as Leyline of the Void was against Dredge, most notably because multiple blue leylines at the start of the game is an atrociously bad play.
If you want to have an edge against elves play Chalice of the Void and be content.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
I don't know how often people on this forum think it can happen, but I've been goldfishing turn 2 kills a bit more often than you (something like 25-30 times out of ~300ish games). I'd call it a little less than 10%. Still, it's not exactly common, but don't be surprised when it happens.
I know that sometimes when you're trying to go off, you have to use every resource you have for quite a while until you finally roll into that gamestate where "you clearly have it." However, once you get that far into the combo (where you're just going through a few final motions or digging for a Chord), casting the Dragon is really easy. If you have a Heritage Druid and a Birchlore Rangers in play, you just have to tap 9 Elves to cast him (the same amount you would tap to convoke Chord, though you can also use insects and Symbiotes there).
And Ornithopters also shouldn't present much of a problem at that point. Toward the end of your combo when you have essentially limitless resources (as long as you don't deck yourself), you should pretty easily be able to cast Viridian Shaman multiple times thanks to Symbiotes. I guess since you aren't playing the maindeck Shaman, you can't do that on game 1. I prefer the 1 Shaman maindeck anyway. Blinkmoth Nexus, however, seems like more of a problem.
It almost seems like you should just be able to play a beatdown strategy against Affinity. Just get a Viridian Shaman ASAP and replay it as many times as possible every turn (off Symbiotes). Nail Plating first so they can't kill you out of nowhere, and block with random dudes / insects. It seems like they wouldn't be able to stay in the game that way. I'll have to test that.
I really like Burrenton Forge-Tinder too, for all the reasons you described. It's a really solid sideboard decision.
First of (and maybe most important): The Deck DOES NOT combo on turn 2 as often as people on this forum seem to think!! I've played nearly 300 games with it and managed to go off on turn 2 in less then 10 of them!! (But maybe that's because I used Chord of Calling; haven't tested Weird Harvest yet but it's said to be faster)
Most of the time I've killed on turn 3-4
Go watch the videos of the Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Finals of PT Berlin. They talk about the difference between the elf decks and one of the main ones is the fact that LSV’s deck is faster than the rest of the fields and has a good possibility of going off T2. Also, watch the video of LSV talking about his deck on youtube. He talks about how they knew about the other elf decks but instead of using cards like Essence Warden they decided to just make the combo faster.
Orzhov pontif luckily is pretty hard for most decks to play luckily, best in elf on elf matches because chord can fetch. Thats hate thats hard to deal with.
I dunno between wierd harvest or chord of calling. I think you want to run one of them with summoner's pact. Between them though its very hard.
Thanks to Spiderboy4 of High~Light Studios!
Don't you need to tap 12 elves? You need 6 for the 6 colourless, and 6 for RRR
GGG from Heritage Druid taps (3 elves)
RRR from Birchlore Ranger taps (6 elves)
You would only need 12 elves to hardcast Predator Dragon in a situation in which you only have a Birchlore Ranger but no Heritage Druid.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
In such a scenario you would probably be less hesitant to play Chord of Calling for your important mana components, like Heritage Druid and Nettle Sentinel. You can easily tap insects (free creatures) and sentinels (free mana) for this,
Note also that if you have a Glimpse of Nature going you can tap Sentinels for R and use other elves for G until you get to RRR. The rest is history...
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
However, while its good to come up for hate that will hit elves, for this topic i think its better to go for how does elves work around the hate.
Thanks to Spiderboy4 of High~Light Studios!
Sig by me.
Anyway I am taken aback by Glimpse of Nature.. I mean who knew?
Now it's going to be hard as heck to find those I am going to have to go overtime this week at the card shops hoping nobody broke the news to them... yeah right.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=5401186#post5401186