Thanks for your response. I should probably give a little more background on why I chose this particular deck. The only time I get to play is with a group of about 4 or 5 guys, one of which plays an exclusively elves deck that has a lot of dangerous enchantments and creatures with dangerous abilities. That's why I have 4 each of the destroy creature and destroy enchantment in my deck.
As far as my mana, I took it down to 16 for a couple of reasons.
1. The Priest of Titania gives me one mana for each elf on the battlefield and in our games, that would be at least 4 by turn 2. By turn 5 that could be 10 elves on the battlefield. My Llanowar Elves will contribute to that total as well as giving me one more mana a piece and Living Wish will allow me to bring Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary into the game, doubling my forests and again adding another elf to the total.
2. Primeval Titan will bring 2 forests into play immediately and two more any time I attack so as long as I can get those into play I won't run short on any forests and the mana curve is very low already. Plus when teamed with Rampaging Baloths, I'll have a lot of 4/4 tokens out.
I have play tested it through the decked builder app and will get a chance to test it for real in a few days. In all of my tests it was very easy for me to get the mana elves onto the battlefield and in many cases I could quickly my mana pool higher than I could actually spend. In our games, a lot of this will depend on whether or not I can destroy the right creatures, nullify the right creatures and protect my own things with Privileged Postion. Luckily I will not face any board wipe cards but it would cripple me if it happened early enough to limit the forests I had out. I probably could take out a Defense of the Heart just to bring the card total down another tick. It's not as effective in this deck as it was in my previous green setups.
I suppose as long as it's in a very specific meta (a group of friends), and you have indeed play tested the deck, it could work. In my meta however, there's more board wipe than you can shake a stick at, so if I ran your proposed deck (where your primary ramp is creature ramp), and they wiped the board, I think I'd be absolutely mana/land screwed. If your meta isn't huge on board wipes then I can see it being quite powerful if your opponents ALLOW you to amass so many elves... my friends would deny me that and F me over pretty hard :P. Also I've never seen a deck run on 16 lands... so it looked strange to me at first.
Alright, I'm back with a completely revamped green deck. I got way too carried away with creatures in my last deck and had basically zero synergy, and no instant or enchantment cards to speak of. I'd love to get some feedback on this particular setup. The only problem I foresee is the lack of ability to draw cards without getting Garruk in from the sideboard. I also had Asceticism in my deck but took it out because of the overlap with PP.
Have you play tested this list? You don't appear to have very much ramp and at only 16 lands I can see you getting mana screwed often, especially if the opponent drops a board wipe clearing the few mana dorks you may have on the board... You really should up the land count to at least 20. I'm at university at the moment and cannot play test this deck but at first glance it looks unplayable due to such a low land count. If you don't want to take out any more creatures, try taking out 1 of 4 different spells you have, e.g. -1 Naturalize, -1 Beast Within, -1 Defense of the Heart, -1 Worldly Tutor and go +4 Forest. After that you might have to look at removing something that's not absolutely necessary in favor of more ramp... You want AT LEAST 20 lands in a ramp deck, and that's assuming you have a ton of creature/other ramp which your list does not. Check out the deck list I posted a couple comments before this one; the ramp package I have covers a broad spectrum of ramp abilities (with 22 ramp sources in total if you count the Eldrazi Temples).
I threw this into cockatrice, and goldfished a few games to see how well it ramped up to the big guys, and I ran into a couple of problems, which I think are easily solved. Firstly, I think your finisher package is too big - between your 12 finishers and Not of This World, I ran into a lot of hands that were essentially unplayable. I'm not sure this deck has enough draw and what have you to feel comfortable with an aggressive mulligan plan (mulling to five or less felt like it would be an auto-lose, because the deck doesn't have any way to recover from that kind of card disadvantage). I would trim the package probably even by as much as 50% - even though you aren't running any of the big Eldrazi, I would say that you probably don't need multiples to push through for the win. I also get that Not of This World is a bit of a "gotcha" counter, but I think it's redundant with Asceticism, and it felt awkward whenever I drew it. If you simply went down to two-ofs on each of your finishers, and slotted in more ramp, that might help (I'm not wild about the Treespeaker - it felt like dumping mana into him would have been better off doing something else, since if he eats removal after you level him, you're getting into auto-scoop territory - you might only want to pump him once, but that means you're doing nothing but getting him on-line before turn three. I'm not sure that I don't like plain old Llanowar Elves better here). I might go with something as straightforward as Rampant Growth - but Cultivate or Kodama's Reach would probably be better choices. You can't afford to miss land drops, and those would help you both ramp, and hit your next drop. You could also try Skyshroud Claim - going T1 Llanowar Elves, T2 Cultivate, T3 Skyshroud Claim seems stronger than any opening I was really able to get with the current build.
The other thing I would look at cutting is Overgrowth - you said that enchantment removal was a thing in your meta, and I can't imagine this won't be a prime target for Disenchant and friends if everyone knows you're running ramp. I might cut them to go back up to three on each of your Eldrazi, and fill out your playset of Ancient Stirrings.
The other option is to go a more conventional 8-post route, with Expedition Maps, and so on.
Hey thanks for the suggestions. I see your points. However I seem to be having a case of Magic ADD and have now decided to jump ship to R/G Eldrazi ramp... I'm essentially going mono green with a red splash for board wipe. I'll try out Slagstorm as a sweeper rather than the Consume the Meek. But, if you guys can think of a better red sweeper by all means, suggest away :). Vines of Vastwood is great because it counters things like Condemn, Path to Exile, etc while also giving the option to pump for a massive +4/+4 (turning a mana dork into a win con or Pelakka Wurm into an Eldrazi level win con for one turn). I put them in on top of Asceticism because the latter is likely to get removed (especially in my casual meta where Disenchant and other things run rampant). Here's a list I modified from the previous B/G list (keep in mind I'm going semi-budget with this):
*DISCLAIMER* I'm sorry if this isn't the right place for a budget Eldrazi discussion, but the following is a casual deck and the "Casual" forum doesn't appear to have a budget sub forum...
I really love Eldrazi decks... but hate the Eldrazi price tags. So, I've been fiddling with what I believe to be a cheap alternative to stacking the mythic titans (though I wish I could afford them). I think it's got some synergistic qualities, especially with Pelakka Wurm + Artisan of Kozilek. I'm also fairly certain (although I haven't play tested this yet) that my ramp package is adequate to get my big Eldrazi (or Pelakka Wurm) out by turn 4-6, while stalling to an extent until then. Here's my current list, which I'm open to suggestions for:
Let me know if you think 3 Asceticism is too much (though I suspect it won't be with he amount of enchantment removal going around in my area). Any other suggestions and criticisms are welcomed, but if you suggest a card, tell me why and what I should replace with said card.
I suppose as long as it's in a very specific meta (a group of friends), and you have indeed play tested the deck, it could work. In my meta however, there's more board wipe than you can shake a stick at, so if I ran your proposed deck (where your primary ramp is creature ramp), and they wiped the board, I think I'd be absolutely mana/land screwed. If your meta isn't huge on board wipes then I can see it being quite powerful if your opponents ALLOW you to amass so many elves... my friends would deny me that and F me over pretty hard :P. Also I've never seen a deck run on 16 lands... so it looked strange to me at first.
Have you play tested this list? You don't appear to have very much ramp and at only 16 lands I can see you getting mana screwed often, especially if the opponent drops a board wipe clearing the few mana dorks you may have on the board... You really should up the land count to at least 20. I'm at university at the moment and cannot play test this deck but at first glance it looks unplayable due to such a low land count. If you don't want to take out any more creatures, try taking out 1 of 4 different spells you have, e.g. -1 Naturalize, -1 Beast Within, -1 Defense of the Heart, -1 Worldly Tutor and go +4 Forest. After that you might have to look at removing something that's not absolutely necessary in favor of more ramp... You want AT LEAST 20 lands in a ramp deck, and that's assuming you have a ton of creature/other ramp which your list does not. Check out the deck list I posted a couple comments before this one; the ramp package I have covers a broad spectrum of ramp abilities (with 22 ramp sources in total if you count the Eldrazi Temples).
Hey thanks for the suggestions. I see your points. However I seem to be having a case of Magic ADD and have now decided to jump ship to R/G Eldrazi ramp... I'm essentially going mono green with a red splash for board wipe. I'll try out Slagstorm as a sweeper rather than the Consume the Meek. But, if you guys can think of a better red sweeper by all means, suggest away :). Vines of Vastwood is great because it counters things like Condemn, Path to Exile, etc while also giving the option to pump for a massive +4/+4 (turning a mana dork into a win con or Pelakka Wurm into an Eldrazi level win con for one turn). I put them in on top of Asceticism because the latter is likely to get removed (especially in my casual meta where Disenchant and other things run rampant). Here's a list I modified from the previous B/G list (keep in mind I'm going semi-budget with this):
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Overgrown Battlement
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Pelakka Wurm
3 Artisan of Kozilek
3 It That Betrays
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
3 Asceticism
4 Awakening Zone
Instants and Sorceries: 11
4 Vines of Vastwood
4 Skyshroud Claim
3 Slagstorm
Land: 22
14 Forest
4 Mountain
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Mental Misstep
4 Hull Breach
4 Creeping Corrosion
I really love Eldrazi decks... but hate the Eldrazi price tags. So, I've been fiddling with what I believe to be a cheap alternative to stacking the mythic titans (though I wish I could afford them). I think it's got some synergistic qualities, especially with Pelakka Wurm + Artisan of Kozilek. I'm also fairly certain (although I haven't play tested this yet) that my ramp package is adequate to get my big Eldrazi (or Pelakka Wurm) out by turn 4-6, while stalling to an extent until then. Here's my current list, which I'm open to suggestions for:
4 Joraga Treespeaker
4 Overgrown Battlement
4 Pelakka Wurm
4 Artisan of Kozilek
4 It That Betrays
Enchantments: 11
4 Overgrowth
4 Awakening Zone
3 Asceticism
3 Consume the Meek
2 Not of This World
2 Ancient Stirrings
Land: 22
14 Forest
4 Swamp
4 Golgari Rot Farm
4 Mental Misstep
4 Naturalize
4 Creeping Corrosion
Let me know if you think 3 Asceticism is too much (though I suspect it won't be with he amount of enchantment removal going around in my area). Any other suggestions and criticisms are welcomed, but if you suggest a card, tell me why and what I should replace with said card.