MTG Salvation

I'm not sure how good it will be, but there are still enough elves out there to make an elves deck.

Here are the (non infect) Elves remaining in Standard...

Carapace Forger
Copperhorn Scout
Elvish Archdruid
Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Ezuri's Archers
Ezuri's Brigade
Gladecover Scout
Glissa, The Traitor
Greenhilt Trainee
Llanowar Elves
Viridian Emissary

There are other possible main deck cards available...

Adaptive Automaton
Acidic Slime
Viridian Corrupter
Thrun, The Last Troll
Phyrexian Metamorph
Wurmcoil Engine
Solemn Simulacrum
Garruk Relentless
Garruk, Primal Hunter
Lead the Stampede
Green Sun's Zenith
Beast Within
Overrun
Rampant Growth
Swiftfoot Boots
Bonehoard
Sword of Feast and Famine
Sword of War and Peace
Sword of Body and Mind
Sylvok Lifestaff

So there are various ways to go imo.

A deck similar to the current standard, but replacing the Vengevine/Fauna shaman combo.

A Metalcraft deck using Ezuri's Brigade and Carapace Forger with other elves, Adaptive Automaton, Metamorph and/or equipment.

A BG deck using elf package, Glissa and Removal.

What do you think?

I think I'm going to go the way of BG Elves with Glissa. More of a control-ish sort of build that ramps into Ezuri's Overrun as usual. Glissa is a boss. Especially with some Spellskites. I tried the metalcraft elves but honestly I just couldn't manage to make a good elf deck with a bunch of artifact. You could make a green metalcraft deck with them, but it just doesn't leave room for the main elf core (Ezuri, Archdruid, etc) when you do.

I agree, GB seems like a better idea. Going for metalcraft will take away from the elf theme and hurt cards like Ezuri.

I was working on something like this too! Gb is defenetly the best way to go, anyone got a dexkliat yet?

We talked GB/Dark Elves over and over in the Elves thread, here's what I had going as a bare starter idea...you will instantly notice what we must replace...

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=863182

This is just a first pass sketch of where I would want to go with the deck right now. Honestly, there just are so few food elves left that it seems not quite worth it, but this is the best I can come up with.

My thoughts from Rumor forum.

Quote from Smooth Criminal

So there will be no elves in Innistrad.
But human cards are made to be abused by tribe that can generate lots of mana. And elves haven't lost their core of Ezuri+stuff.

Moreso, valakut leaves the format and rdw is greatly weakened. And green receives almost perfect anti-DoJ card in the form of Creeping Renaissance .
Also pure- and not-so-pure-steel decks going to run rampant, to which elves can answer easily by one sided accelerated sweeper in the form of creeping corrosion out of SB.

With their natural predators out of the picture elves can try something like this:

Smooth Criminal's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
mana 4x Llanowar elf 4x Avacyn's pilgrim 4x Elvish archdruid kill 4x Copperhorn scout 4x Ezuri, renegade leader	draw 4x Mentor of the meek 3x Lead the stampede 2x Creeping Renaissance zenith package 1x Thrun the last troll 1x Acidic slime 1x Garruk's horde \ Essence of the wild \ Primeval titan 4x Green sun's zenith	trouble solver 2x beast within land buff 2x gavony township 20x lands

Cards to consider:
Mikaeus the lunarch as a giant beatstick or buffer with copperhorn scout.
Elder of Laurels as a second way to dump mana besides Ezuri.
Some zenith target after DoJ like boneyard wurm or kessig cage breakers.

Have to mention cute idea:
GB version around Skirsdag priest + copperhorn scout.

Mentor > anything other color can give to elves. No need for clunky metallcraft dudes or Glissa, just throw bodies at them untill you win.
Also gavony township.

I see two big questions:
- is Mikaeus woth using granted you can't zenith for him? Obviously Mikaeus+scout is game winning, but without tutorin it can be awkward to have many copies of him.
- what big bad creature to use as a 1-of as an alternative to Ezuri oveerun and is it needed at all?

Quote from Smooth Criminal

My thoughts from Rumor forum.



Mentor > anything other color can give to elves. No need for clunky metallcraft dudes or Glissa, just throw bodies at them untill you win.
Also gavony township.

I see two big questions:
- is Mikaeus woth using granted you can't zenith for him? Obviously Mikaeus+scout is game winning, but without tutorin it can be awkward to have many copies of him.
- what big bad creature to use as a 1-of as an alternative to Ezuri oveerun and is it needed at all?

How is Mikaeus game winning at all? You can't generate that much mana because you cut archdruid for bad cards, and you are putting in Mikaeus for no reason. What needs those counters? How would it be game winning? You either get to add 2 +1/1 counters to him or take 2 off per turn per scout. Yeah, there's a ton of cool shenanigans you can do with counters...why does that matter when you should just be getting a ton of elves to pump archdruid so you can Ezuri overrun?

Elves is still Archdruid+Copperhorn+Ezuri.

There is nothing that beats that package. A bad card-draw engine doesn't beat that package. Mikeaus certainly doesn't beat that package. I wouldn't use white ever because there's nothing good that white offers us.

Black we have Glissa. Sure, you can say Glissa is bad all you want but recurring spellskites/metamorphs/wurmcoils (all-star cards of NP) isn't anything to laugh at. We also get access to good removal in terms of GfTT, free Dismembers, and things like that.

Black gives us a TON of options, and an amazing First strike/Death-touch Elf that recurs artifacts, and we can still keep our core package.

White doesn't give us anything that good.

I'd want to see Innistrad elves list with black that:
1) Doesn't die to it's own manabase
2) Can abuse Glissa's ability to recur things.

Then you can rightfully say black is better.

You can't generate that much mana because you cut archdruid for bad cards, and you are putting in Mikaeus for no reason.

You read the list, right?

Hi all..I recently tried to create an Elves deck after rotation and came out with this:



The SBs:
Autumn's Veil -protection from blue and black
Creeping Corrosion - artifact hate
Fresh Meat - answer to DoJ
BoP - Mana ramp i guess
Beast Within - best removal ever
Splinterfright - answer to DoJ as well

Strategy:
Get as many elves on the battlefield and win on turn 4 with either:
1/ Ezuri's Overrun, or
2/ Triumph

Could this be somewhat playable competitively?

Thanks

I have Michael Martin's (SCG writer) Elves Wave list in my Genesis Wave Variants. Look pretty good and possible competitive. Enjoy

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=364217

After a couple weeks of testing Elves, mostly on Cockatrice, I have found that this variant is surprisingly resilient to sweepers, partially due to a Kessig Cagebreakers post-sweep. I've been fairly successful with this list online, but have yet to do much real life testing other than facing a weird cheat a colossus deck which I beat quite easily. I plan on taking either this or Delusions to FHM on friday.

Any comments or criticism would be great.

I agree with Bobwayne17 in that the best play with Elves is still Scout+Elder+Ezuri. I can't see black adding too much to that gameplan though, except for Postmortem Lunge, which doesn't need the colored mana.

The missing piece is the second mana-producing Elf 1-drop. Assuming using Avacyn's Pilgrim or Birds of Paradise is passable, the core of the Elf deck is still intact. It's slower now, but it can still pull off the overkill wins. The only changes I'd make would be to add a copy of Kessig Cagebreakers as a Green Sun's Zenith target, and make use of a couple of Postmortem Lunge as redundancy for the 'combo'.

Kix started a Wolf Run Elf Thread that has been getting some good discussion. Maybe if we can merge these two together we will get some good discussion

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=369581

These version of elf decks function very much like wolf run decks but have the Ezuri, Scout Archdruid combo in the deck as well. Might want to check those out.

Hi there.

I'm thinking of making a standard Elves deck very similar to the one Mattsadface posted (instead of "Lead the Stampede" and "kessing cagebreakers" I'll put some green zeniths, some beast within and some dismembers, leaving the cagebreakers in sideboard).

Now what I want to know is: Is there any chance this deck would be viable, I mean, in a competitive way?

I think it does have a chance to be competitive. It's in my experience just as fast as TS without the likelihood of bad hands. I'm not just saying that, I did play TS pre-rotation a bit. The deck really needs Lead the Stampede imo. It's our only source of card advantage unless you run idk Garruk Primal Hunter or Hunter's Insight neither of which suit the deck as well. If I'm up against sweepers I just hold it until they sweep so I can immediately start playing elves again or against a creature heavy deck play it when I empty my hand to just keep dropping more elves. I think you could definitely drop the number of Cagebreakers from three, it's not as important but it can really throw an opponent off due to its lack of use in a lot of decks.

I really liked GSZ when I tested with it. The ability to search for Ezuri, Renegade Leader or an Elvish Archdruid was quite useful but I don't happen to own a playset and they're kinda hard to get/expensive. A singleton Acidic Slime was pretty useful when I was running GSZ.

There isn't really anything that I care to dismember because you can't dismember anything larger than X/5 and for the most part anything that size or smaller just gets run over by elves. Beast Within however is amazing and something I need to put in.

Thanks. I'm gonna build the deck, but yeah, I'm gonna have a hard time getting the Zeniths

Post some results when you get them. I meant to go to fnm tonight but I'm sick

Omg, I just thought about how gross it would be to have an Ezuri's Brigade with 2 Metamorphs, that are copied to it and a mox opal....


This is just me quick listing again....

I'm not sure if someone has suggested it yet, but how about Kessig Elves? Here's a small appetizer...



Not sure what else. This deck could probably be tuned a lot better but I don't have much time right now to test it.

It has been suggested...

Look under Wolf Run Elves?

With Dark Ascension fully spoiled we got a new toy, Vorapede. The card is a complete beast it has protection, evasion, and it fits into our curve really well. Here's the list I'm running in testing right now and honestly I'm finding it to be quite successful.


I'm working on a sideboard but I know it contains a forth Vorapede, Lead the Stampede, and Beast Within.

I know that I have previously vouched for GSZ but after testing for a while I just feel like I can't pay an extra mana for anything really.

Quote from Mattsadface

With Dark Ascension fully spoiled we got a new toy, Vorapede. The card is a complete beast it has protection, evasion, and it fits into our curve really well. Here's the list I'm running in testing right now and honestly I'm finding it to be quite successful.

Bobwayne17's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
31 Creatures 4x Copperhorn Scout 4x Gladecover Scout 4x Ezuri's Archers 4x Llanowar Elves 4x Elvish Archdruid 4x Ezuri, Renegade Leader 4x Adaptive Automaton 3x Vorapede	6 Spells 3x Beast Within 3x Lead the Stampede 23 Land 23x Forest

I'm working on a sideboard but I know it contains a forth Vorapede, Lead the Stampede, and Beast Within.

I know that I have previously vouched for GSZ but after testing for a while I just feel like I can't pay an extra mana for anything really.

You need GSZ. GSZ is instantly better than 3x MD Beast Within. Ezuri+Copperhorn turns Elves into an explosive 1 turn blow-out deck instead of an aggro beats deck. You need to blow them away. GSZ for Ezuri and then win. That's it. That's all Elves will be as long as Ezuri+Copperhorn+Archdruid are there. The rest of the cards should only be there to A. Make more elves for more overrun B. Find Elves. C. Protect Elves.

I respectfully disagree. Archdruid, copperhorn, ezuri is certainly our plan A but it isn't our only plan. We have vorapede, lord effects and just plain elves slowly chipping away at the opponents health as contingencies. I'm not playing this deck like it's a three card combo deck. It has a lot more depth to it than that. Beast within MD is to deal with things that elves cannot/don't want to deal with, like PWs, big first strikers, even flyers potentially.

I am a big fan of Elfball, which Wolf Run Elves is the latest version of, though I am not a fan of fourth turn board wipe while being an elf player. While playing at the prerelease my wife pulled Increasing Confusion. I began to formulate how to best utilize this and think this may work.


I agree with Mattsadface about Vorapede and think that this list needs to be be tested and tuned to work, but the premise is simple in either this mills out a deck, which from my praticular meta loving to mill themselves as they dig already is not to difficult. As well as giving some protection against DOJ and the like with counters. That said this is just splashing blue into this list.



The problem with Wolf Run Elves and the straight Elves Decklist is that they have no sweep protection like Blue provides. We don't have elves that will combo out before a wrath will hit like in other formats, the other aggro decks are fast in this format, so our only real option is to try and control the board while placing down Elves.

P.S. After looking at the Hinterland Elves again -2 Increasing Confusion and +1 Mana Leak +1 Negate seems quite possible as well and maybe more consistent.