With it's most recent win in GP Charlotte as well as the MOCS 2015...Collected Elves is here to stay!
While Elves have historically been a strong deck (in Extended, etc.); in the past, elves was considered a "combo" deck. Since the inception of the "Modern" format as it is today; elves struggled to find it's footing. That was until the printing of Collected Company. This card (along with the printing of Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx to a lesser extent) pushed the deck into Tier-Status in Modern. The deck saw early and often discussion at sites such as www.ModernNexus.com; and within only a few weeks has exploded onto the Modern scene with numerous spectacular performances.
The deck plays nothing like its Legacy counterpart. A far more aggro-based strategy; the deck wins off the speed at which it can build a lethal army of elves as well as it's clinical use of Chord of Calling and Collected Elves to find "answers" for some of the toughest match ups in the format. The deck plays a "Core" of Elves that has been the "staple" of elves decks for years (as far back as Extended). This "Elf Core" gives the deck the speed it needs to overwhelm opponents. Beyond the "Elf Core", the deck relys on two instant speed green powerhouse spells in Chord of Calling and Collected Company. These instant-speed spells give the deck both the card advantage it needs to deal with the numerous and voluminous cheap spot-removal spells seen in modern; while also giving the deck the ability to tutor for specific 1-of answers spread throughout the main deck and sideboard (such as Spellskite, Scavenging Ooze.
The king win-condition of the deck is far and away Ezuri, Renegade Leader. The deck creates extremely large sums of mana quite quickly through both its elves (such as Elvish Mystic and Heritage Druid...) as well as it's lands (most importantly Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx...). The deck is extremely consistent; and often times Ezuri can be triggered multiple times on turn 4 (and sometimes on turn 3) to turn your army of elves into extremely large trampling threats. While it may seem somewhat linear; in many games Ezuri, Renegade Leader is not even necessary. With Elf Lords including Elvish Archdruid and Elvish Champion often times you can simply attack through with multiple 3/3 - 5/5 elves for the win!
The deck is fast and consistent. If you love playing tribal decks and you love playing green....Collected Elves is the deck for you!
The Deck List
First, we begin with the list that began it all. Our very own Destroyermaker was a VERY early adopter of this deck and has tuned his mono-green version to the following:
An important item within this list is the original Devoted Druid combo is still in the list. Having 2x Devoted Druid and an Ezuri, Renegade Leader is literally infinite mana and at least three infinitely large elves! This isn't seen in a lot of current decks; but to be honest....there's no reason for this. It can still be strong and should still be considered when building Collected Elves.
The most recent (and largest) win for the deck came at GP Charlotte with the following deck list:
This particular list splashes White...which has been the most popular (and most successful) color to splash to date.
The Elf Core
Collected Elves is at it's "Core" and Elf deck. While decks may differ on their sideboards, their "silver bullets", their 1-of's, etc.; there is a set of cards seen in every Collected Elves deck. This includes:
Some decks play additional copies of Fauna Shaman, some play Devoted Druid; however the above are the Core of any Collected Elves deck. This core provides the speed and consistency the deck needs in its early turns.
One area that new players will often have a question is the combination of Nettle Sentinel and Heritage Druid. While this pair has been together (you don't see one without the other ) since their printing; they still can confuse those new to elves. The power comes from the fact that Heritage Druid's ability can be triggered at instant speed. By tapping both Druid and Sentinel as well as one additional elf; you obtain GGG...casting another elf leaves you with GG and Nettle Sentinel untaps...this allows you to cast another elf for a total of three untapped elves (which can in turn be tapped via Heritage Druid's ability). As one would guess, this can get out of hand quite quickly.
Anyone wishing to brew with Collected Elves should start with the above Core.
The Tutors
These are the cards that pull all of the elves together. With these, you can consistently get to your Ezuri, Renegade Leaders as well as cards great in specific match ups. Collected Company also provides much needed card advantage to the deck. Being able to respond to a boardwipe with a Collected Company to put two creatures back on the board is simply something Elf decks could not do in the past.
While both cards are relatively straightforward; many of the most complex decisions you will make with this deck revolve around these two spells. At instant speed, both can be case in response to cards like removal, counters and combos. If Elves are the core of the deck, these spells are the glue.
The Win-Cons
The win-conditions in Collected Elves all follow the same central idea...make your army of elves as large as possible as quickly as possible. There are not many in the deck, however one must remember that the pilot can easily Chord of Calling and/or Collected Company into one or more of the win-cons available in the deck.
This far and away is the most utilized and most powerful win-condition in the deck. 9 out of 10 games will be won with Ezuri. Ezuri's ability to pump the entire army by +3/+3 AND give each elf trample is simply unbeatable in many situations. With the huge sums of mana that can be created with both the Elf-dorks, Elvish Archdruid, and via Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx...often times you will be able to trigger this ability multiple times in a single turn. It is not unheard to attack with several 10/10 elves with the aid of Ezuri, Renegade Leader.
In those games where the opponent can keep you off of Ezuri, Renegade Leader; Collected Elves still can win via grinding card advantage and incremental damage. The main source of this damage comes from the Elf Lords.
When each elf is 3/3, 4/4 or more; and cards like Collected Company are putting several into play each turn; eventually you can "chip away" at an opponent. In games where you play Spellskite and/or numerous sideboard "hate" cards and the game is slowed down quite a bit; the person with the most advantageous attacks will win the game. This is where the Elf Lords show their true power.
There are other ways to win (in particular a very large Scavenging Ooze in games with heavy removal); the above are the main strategies the deck puts forth to bring the opponent to zero life.
Support Cards
This deck, thanks to Chord of Calling and Collected Company, can play numerous 1-of and 2-of creatures that are good in numerous match ups; but GREAT in a few match ups. It can also play Devoted Druid always be one potential tutor away from an infinite combo. The most popular among these are Spellskite, Eternal Witness, Scavenging Ooze, and Reclamation Sage. A full list of potential "Silver Bullets" (and the reason for their use) are below:
COMING SOON
Land Base / Utility Lands
Lands play a very important role in the Collected elves deck. While lands like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Cavern of Souls have obvious and powerful uses; there are many additional lands that offer incremental advantages with very little downside. These include:
Generally, 19 lands is a sound amount. Some run 18; and there is still debate on how many Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx should be run.
Sideboarding
Sideboarding is extremely important for any list; but Collected Elves has a leg up in "boarding" due to Collected Company and Chord of Calling. Both allow the deck pilot to feel extremely comfortable playing 1-of "answer" and/or "hate" cards in the board while feeling confidant that the card will be available when it is needed.
Thanks to Imro (one of the most active elf players around!) we have a very deep sideboarding list. While the most played cards will be listed in their own section, below is a "master list" of viable sideboarding options for Elf decks.
Sideboarding is an art in Magic. One needs to know the Meta, what cards are good vs the opponent, and what cards to replace from one's 60. There is also the trap of over-sideboarding and drawing into too much hate. This section of the primer can't teach how to avoid this or the art of boarding, but it can give ideas of cards to place in one's sideboard and what match-ups they are good for.
Choke - This is the kind of card that Wizards has proclaimed they will not make anymore. Be glad it just sneaks in to modern through 8th edition and green decks have access to its power. This is the go to card against any deck running Islands. With all of the mana dorks in this deck a turn 2 Choke is very doable and can win the game right then and there. Very useful vs Twin, Delver, and Merfolk.
Twin ~= 50% of mana producing lands are Islands
Delver ~= 65% of mana producing lands are Islands
Merfolk ~= 75%-90% of mana producing lands are Islands
Be careful with Twin as they can use Deceiver Exarch to untap an island and regain access to blue.
Burrenton Forge-Tender - This is a spectacular Chord-target to keep your elves alive from the most prevalent board wipes in the Modern meta (Pyroclasm, Anger of the Gods, etc.). It fits in a "proactive" deck because it can be played before it's needed as well.
Creeping Corrosion - All sideboards need an answer for Affinity and fortunately green is the best color for hating out artifacts. Creeping Corrosion is easily out on turn 3 to wipe the battlefield clean of any robots. Being untargeted lets it destroy even Etched Champion and many games become a race to finding Whipflare or Creeping Corrsion first. If Cloudstone Curio is on the battlefield do not worry about it and fire off corrosion if you draw into it vs Affinity.
Fracturing Gust - Very similar to Creeping Corrosion above and is an effective, if slower, answer to Affinity. But Fracturing Gust is showing up in more Elves sideboards for a number of reasons.
Grafdigger's Cage - With Company decks being more common in modern, Grafdigger's Cage is showing up in sideboards again to deal with the threats. The card originally showed up to be an answer to pod and then left lists as soon as Pod was banned. Now it works equally well against Junk Company and our sister deck Collected Elves. This turns off all of their searching with Company and Chord of Calling and also prevents persist creatures from coming back.
Do be careful as this card does not work against Living End. Those cards are first exiled and then moved to the battlefield.
Blood Moon - Elves will never have a problem producing green mana and if you splash red for this card it will only make it easier to find red mana. This is for the decks like Abzan that cannot function with Blood Moon out.
Stabalizing
Fecundity - This card can be great vs decks running board wipes like Pyroclasm or Supreme Verdict. Every Elf you lose now draws you into more cards. And with Heritage Druid + Nettle Sentinel, your battlefield can be full in as little as one turn. It can also help vs. decks that like to trade cards one for one with effects like Abrupt Decay or Bolt. Now every creature that dies is card advantage. Anger of the Gods gets around this by exiling the creatures, leaving no Fecundity triggers.
Prowess of the Fair - Very Similar to Fecundity above in its effectiveness versus board wipes. Any wipe will leave the board with the same number of elves as before. Bonus that this card is an Elf so can be regenerated by Ezuri or tapped for mana with Heritage Druid.
Outpost Siege - This can easily make an opponent think twice about killing elves or wiping the board. The dragons mode let's board wipes easily become 5 damage to the opponent's face and each elf that dies in combat can add extra points of damage to the opponent or remove an already weakened creature. The dragons mode also pairs well with Cloudstone Curio making all your mana easy damage, or an infinite combo with Heritage Druid and 2 other 1 CMC elves. Finally, the Khans mode helps with its card advantage every turn.
Ezuri, Renegade Leader - Ezuri is mainly used for his built-in Overrun Ability when paired with Nykthos or Archdruid, but it is his first ability which will frustrate opponents and buy time to assemble combos. With Archdruid all of the elves can be regenerate, save Ezuri, in response to a non-Wrath wipe. And all targeted removal will now have to go towards Ezuri first before hitting your other elves.
Anti-Control
Thrun, the Last Troll - This card is the reason Control decks still run Wrath of God. It is their only answer to a troll that will keep coming towards them without stopping. Just be sure to always have 2 mana available to regenerate this guy and he'll make short work of any player on UWR Control.
Cavern of Souls - Elves is a tribal deck and most have a few Caverns in the mainboard, but going up to four in a control heavy match is never a bad idea. Most of the time this should count as a green source of mana in deckbuilding. It make so many cards in control's hand dead and force them to find Bolts or wipes to deal with the ever growing tide of elves on the battlefield.
Vexing Shusher - Some lists have experiemented with this little guy against control. For the small cost of G for each spell they gain the Scragnoth ability. Plus Shusher's ability works for all spells and not just creatures. Sure this guy will eat many bolts. But for the times when he doesn't, he adds two devotion for Nykthos and will protect everything from counterspells.
When using him don't activate his ability unless a spell is targetted by a counter spell. If you pay first not only are you wasting mana, but an opponent can respond to the activation and then counter the spell.
Artifact and Enchantment Destruction
Reclamation Sage - This handy elf replaced Viridian Shaman in lists as soon as it was legal. It can target enchantments on top of Shaman's artifact destruction and is optional. This elf is great for all sorcery speed removal and leaves behind a nice 2/1 body. Also, being a creature with an ETB ability be sure to abuse it with Curio and Temur Sabertooth.
Nature's Claim - Green decks' go to enchantment and artifact destruction. Its downside of 4 life is more than made up for by the instant speed and low cost. Elves is mostly a proactive deck, so holding up 5 mana for Fracturing Gust or even 2 mana for Naturalize can significantly harm the deck's tempo. But Elves always seems to have G lying around to deal with threats.
Nullmage Shepherd - She is a bit slow, but when online can take over a game from Mono-U tron or hold back the cards like Cranial Plating plating in affinity. Her ability works just like Heritage Druid in that you don't need haste to activate it the turn it comes down. She also has a nice 2/4 body which is out of bolt range. Usually opt for Creeping Corrosion or Reclamation Sage vs Affinity, but every little bit of hate helps in that match up.
Point Removal
Dismember - The ultimate in "colorless" removal and awesome that it gets around indestructibility. Helpful for any green deck since creature removal is one of green's weaknesses. This can be used to destroy pesky Pestermites or Blighted Agent. In infect's case teh -5/-5 even gets around one pump spell that isn't Become Immense. The 4 life payment can be reduced by using Abundant Growth or splashing for black.
Mercy Killing - Can be cute, but probably not too useful. It is a sacrifice effect in green and can be used on your own elves to reduce loses. It can feel nice turning a 2/2 Heritage Druid targeted by Bolt into two 2/2 elves instead. Gets around indestructibility and regeneration.
Beast Within - Destroy anything. Not even restricted to the usual non-creature clause found in green destruction. The downside is leaving a 3/3 beast for your opponent. This card is used as an answer to any combo that will win the game immediately. Beast Within a key card and leave the opponent with a 3/3, but know there will be another turn to assemble your combo. This card can also be used on your own permanents if you get too many lands or want to turn a tapped LLanowar Elves into a blocker for a Snapcaster Mage.
Abrupt Decay - One of the large policing cards in Modern and a fine reason to splash black. It can destroy most threats that exist out in the wild.
Counters
Unified Will - Elves and Affinity are both known for how quickly they can dump their hands, but this can lead to overextending on creatures and turn cards like Anger of the Gods into large card advantage. Since elves will most like have more creatures than the opponent Unified Will becomes a 2 mana hard counter to any spell they throw to disrupt your strategy.
Swan Song - Similar in style to Beast Within, this card can disrupt an opponent's game plan or combo, but it also shines in protecting your combo from a disruption. At just U this card is easily splashed and if it protects the combo you need not worry about the new 2/2 flyer you can't block.
Vines of Vastwood - Often seen in infect, this card can do equally well in protecting your elves from any targeted removal. It also helps in plan B of just beating down on your opponet with some buffed elves. Finally this card acts as an answer to Splinter Twin. This card does not grant hexproof, but makes a creature untargetable by your opponents spells. So in response to a Twin coming down, cast this on the Exarch and the enchantment harmlessly goes to the graveyard.
Utility
Yeva, Nature's Herald - Flash is a great ability and can help suprise the opponent or save your creatures. Yeva can do great work with Summoner's Pact to create a 4/4 blocker at instant speed your opponent wasn't expecting. Flash + Curio now allows you to bounce your creatures out of harms way in response to a Bolt or Abrupt Decay. Also, Yeva can be used to great success vs. decks that bring in Ethersworn Canonist and her friends. With Yeva you get to cast two creatures each turn and thus end up having a larger board presence faster than they can. Also, Yeva is an elf, so all the normal interactions with your elf cards apply.
Bow of Nylea - None of the modes are dead on this card and it is a nice addition of 2 devotion for Nykthos. Shooting Delvers, Inkmoths, and Cliques out of the sky is great fun and repeatable life gain is one of burn's largest weaknesses. If none of those end up being useful, add a +1/+1 counter at the end of the opponents turn to an elf (they build up surprisingly fast). And don't forget the first ability and its combo with Ezuri, deathtouch + trample.
Primal Command - This card oozes utility. It is tutor, life gain, anti-delve and Snapcaster, and set the opponent back one land drop and draw. With the ability to search for Eternal Witness it even has more value. The 5 CMC is a drawback, but with all the modes this card provides one can see why the cost is that high.
Leyline of Vitality - Quick bonus 2 devotion on turn 0 and protection from Electrolyze. With one lord you are out of range of Pyroclasm and the life gain is repeatable. In most cases you'll find the life gain doesn't add up that quickly, but devotion and defense are quite valuable.
Eternal Witness - Green's Snapcaster Mage. It will get back tutors used to find it, a hate card like Choke that was destroyed, or that last piece of the combo. This card's only drawback is it isn't an elf. So no regen with Ezuri and no buff with Archdruid. But the ability is an ETB type, so abuse it with Curio and Sabertooth for extra card advantage.
Nature's Claim: Instant speed kill of the Twin. Wait until the first token is made and the trigger to untap is on the stack. If you try to kill Exarch before this they will activate the ability and make 20,000 tokens all while claim is on the stack.
Leyline of Vitality: Risky as Burn will probably bring in Destructive Revelry vs. Combo Elves, but if that doesn't happen repeatable life gain is handy. Also the defensive boost usually won't be enough to get out of range of their burn.
Bow of Nylea: It is repeatable life gain and is a lot per dose. Each use will set burn back one turn.
Reclamation Sage: Removing the opponent's stuff is awesome and we get another elf to put pressure on the Affinity player.
Nullmage Shepherd: Repeatable removal, but high CMC. This one you gamble on affinity having a slow start, if it does you'll control the game with her out there.
Remove:
Jund
Potentially Add:
Tajuru Preserver: Prevents Liliana from doing most of what she wants to do.
Thrun, the Last Troll: Jund isn't control, but a creature that can't be touched by their removal and blocks Tarmogoyf all day is welcome.
Beast Within: Great tool for removing Liliana instead of sending your remaining elves on a suicide mission through goyf infested forests.
Unified Will: Another great tool to prevent problem cards from Jund.
Fecundity: Jund wants to 1 for 1 until their efficient creatures beat you down. Make all their removal 1 for 0 instead.
Remove:
Abzan
Potentially Add:
Blood Moon: Abzan's mana base is so greedy that this can potentially shut them out of the game.
Tajuru Preserver: Prevents Liliana from doing most of what she wants to do.
Thrun, the Last Troll: Jund isn't control, but a creature that can't be touched by their removal and blocks Tarmogoyf all day is welcome.
Beast Within: Great tool for removing Liliana instead of sending your remaining elves on a suicide mission through goyf infested forests.
Unified Will: Another great tool to prevent problem cards from Abzan.
Fecundity: Jund wants to 1 for 1 until their efficient creatures beat you down. Make all their removal 1 for 0 instead.
Elves dominated Modern for a brief period with the almighty power of Glimpse of Nature and Green Sun's Zenith combined, but after bannings, things went south. After a lot of effort in vain to keep the deck competitive, Collected Company was released in 2015, and a primary list was at last born, built to fully exploit the new powerhouse card while achieving as much consistency as possible.
The list below and similar versions of it have seen repeated success in daily and paper tournaments, proving this is the best version of the deck yet, and securing it a spot in the Developing Competitive forum. Rest assured it's been tweaked and tested extensively, and is near "finished".
As you can see, the Modern version of Elves goes a very different route than its Legacy counterpart. Where the latter is a combo deck that can grind out "aggro" wins, the former is a ramp deck that can occasionally beat down with buffed elves or, on rare occasion, combo with Devoted Druid and Ezuri (two untapped Druids lets you get four mana -- tap another source for five, pump with Ezuri, and repeat, netting mana each time). We also have a toolbox element through Company and tutors, which lets us summon the likes of Spellskite, Scavenging Ooze, Reclamation Sage, and more cards at will (great splash targets include Aven Mindcensor and Magus of the Moon). The pieces we do have in Modern to assemble a combo deck simply aren't strong, fast, and resilient enough to make the deck competitive, so we take this approach instead.
Other Lists
Elves is a flexible archetype, and as such, has spawned a variety of very different incarnations. If the list above isn't your thing, try one of the many other options below. The Devotion list appears to be the best of them, but results aren't in yet.
Combo Elves
Combo Elves abuses Beck and Cloudstone Curio to draw infinite cards and/or generate infinite mana, then drops Craterhoof Behemoth with enough creatures on board for lethal damage. The Modern version of the deck is not "broken" like its Legacy counterpart, but maintains almost all of the key cards and mechanics, and as such, is a viable deck with some tournament results. It can win as early as turn 3, though it's usually 4 or 5.
I've had reasonable success with it at FNM in the past, in a hostile meta, even. It's been quite some time since I've played it and it probably needs tweaking, but it's a solid start if you want to play Combo Elves and do decently well.
For reference, below is how the Curio combo works (explanation courtesy of Irmo). Once you're comfortable with it, be sure after going through it once that you shortcut it by telling your opponent you're going to repeat it (without actually doing it manually). This will let you achieve infinite mana and/or draw without taking up a ton of match time (especially important in tournaments). See here for the official rules on shortcuts.
For the main combo you need Cloudstone Curio, Heritage Druid, Nettle Sentinel, and a one-drop or Elvish Visionary if you are going for inifinite mana or card draw respectively. The steps below outline the inifinite mana route.
-> represents triggers that go on the stack; T represents tapped permanents.
Battlefield: Cloudstone Curio, Heritage druid, Nettle Sentinel
Stack: Empty
Hand: One-drop
Mana Pool: G
You are now at the same board state as the first iteration, but with one extra G in your pool. Repeat as many times as you like.
Same goes for the Elvish Visionary except the extra 1 in the Visionaries casting cost uses the extra G gained from the loop. It is ok, though because you are are drawing a card each time, and can eventually replace the Visionary with a one drop to get infinite mana. Infinite card draw + infinite mana.
This is a deck created by famed brewer Travis Woo, who describes it as a powerful but inconsistent deck, namely due to cards like Pyroclasm. It works much the same as the Combo Elves version, except it uses Intruder Alarm instead of Cloudstone Curio to combo. Alarm offers more explosive plays, but may be less consistent overall. Additionally, Woo goes for more Beck value at the expense of the backup aggro plan by utilizing Forbidden Orchard. If you're interested in a more explosive, but arguably less versatile and consistent combo deck, Intruder Alarm Elves is the version for you.
The list below is old, so if you try it out, you'll want to update it some.
Aggro Elves is much more straightforward (drop lots of elves, make them big, and swing), which makes it suitable for casual players or those new to Modern. It's also suitable for spikes, as it's had a little tournament success. One of the main reasons to consider running it over other versions is Lead the Stampede. Another is it's by far the cheapest version (about $200).
Aggro generally bores me as a playstyle, so I've never attempted to develop an aggro list myself. As such, the list below is from Brandon Ridgway, who placed top 8 in a small tournament with it in 2014 (Mount Pearl represent). It looks pretty solid to me, so I'd start here if this is the version you're into (please suggest a better list if you have one or find one). The Cages should be replaced with something else, since Pod is no longer in the format (RIP).
Our own CurdBros has developed a Nykthos-centric version which runs enchantments and planeswalkers in addition to elves to power out wins. He says he's had quite a bit of success with it through his own testing, and at FNM, his local shop, and in his playgroup, but whether it's competitive beyond that remains to be seen.
The main benefit of running this version is it's less soft to wrath, since it ramps with more than just elves (plus, it's a good excuse to play Genesis Wave).
I developed this version based on LSV's Elves transformative aggro sideboard circa 2011. The idea was to swap out combo pieces for Vengevines and Fauna Shamans, making you much better able to deal with removal and wrath for decks that packed lots of it.
My feeling is because we no longer have Glimpse and the Beck/Curio plan is suboptimal, and we lack the resilience the Legacy version of Elves has, it could be best to move that Vengevine plan to the mainboard. This became an even better idea when Pod was removed from the format, thereby drastically reducing the amount of Anger of the Gods (which defeats the purpose of the Vengevine plan). The downside of this approach is we open ourselves up to graveyard hate in game 2 and 3. If graveyard hate isn't common in the meta, though, this could work out very well.
I've tested the list below a bit and liked what I saw, although I'm not sure if it's better overall (unless in a wrath heavy meta, in which case it probably is). I may work on it more in the future (including the sideboard, which is incomplete). In the meantime, feel free to give it a spin yourself and report results, and to suggest tweaks/additions.
Below you can find an in-depth look at the cards in Elves, including reasons why they're chosen and how they're best used.
Elvish Mystic/Llanowar Elves
These two help a lot toward quick wins. Late game they're not so useful for speed, so we turn them into tutors via Fauna Shaman.
Heritage Druid
A key component to the deck's speed and explosiveness, Heritage doesn't require an untap to make mana, and makes spells free or cheap in concert with Nettle Sentinel (Devoted Druid can help, too). Side some amount of her out for decks with heavy amounts of removal, as she's less good when facing it.
Nettle Sentinel
Makes spells free or cheap in concert with Heritage Druid (Devoted Druid can help, too), and is decent as a beater by itself or with Elvish Archdruid.
Devoted Druid
Makes spells free or cheap in concert with Heritage Druid (Devoted Druid can help, too) and lets you combo infinitely with Ezuri (just tap two untapped Druids and another source for five mana, pump, and repeat, netting mana and pumping your guys each time). Also great after a wrath (twice as good as Llanowar Elves).
Elvish Archdruid
Gives us a viable backup beatdown down, lets Druid tap for more mana, and provides us with the stupid amount of mana we need to win sometimes.
Fauna Shaman
Adds consistency, turns poor topdecks into great ones, and synergizes well with Company and Scavenging Ooze. Some prefer Chord of Calling instead of Shaman, or a split (I prefer the synergy, repeatability, and the uncounterability courtesy of Cavern of Souls).
Ezuri, Renegade Leader
The big guy. He's what lets us go over the top and win games. Combos with Devoted Druid and offers much needed resilience. Particularly nice with a Spellskite in play.
Scavenging Ooze
Hurts Delve, punishes opponents for removal/wrath, gains life, hates on Snapcaster Mage, and synergizes with Fauna Shaman -- Ooze does it all. I currently run 4 main, but as it's not very good against Burn and Affinity (very popular) most of the time, I may move the 4th to the side. It has been extremely good in my testing, adding some much needed punch and resilience previously missing.
Spellskite
Protects our guys and hates on Infect, Affinity, and Twin. Solid card.
Collected Company
The piece that ties it all together, Company brings sorely needed consistency and resilience to the deck, and lets us run a small toolbox. As a bonus, it gives us some extra game versus blue control decks, who will sometimes tap out at the end of our turn when they see we haven't played anything on our main phase. Note that when an opponent wraths, you can float mana from your dorks, wait for the wrath to resolve, then use the floated mana to cast Company.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
This is here almost purely to let us attack with more guys when activating Ezuri's Overrun. I tested it as a 1, 2, and 3-of and found I was happiest with 1. As a 2 and 3 of, it just messed with my turn 2 plays too often for my liking. That and it's pretty situational, so we don't need to see it as often as we do with it as a 2 or 3 of necessarily.
Cavern of Souls
Vastly improves our game versus decks with counterspells.
Pendelhaven
Helps when grinding out aggro wins or blocking Goblin Guide and the like, and hates on Electrolyze and Grim Lavamancer, among other cards. Very important to our resilience.
Essence Warden
Can help a lot versus aggro decks, although can come at the wrong time and be underwhelming, too. It's possible this should be Kitchen Finks, despite not synergizing nearly as well with the rest of the deck.
Phyrexian Revoker
Hates on Grim Lavamancer, Tron, Twin, manlands, Amulet, and lots more. I haven't actually tested this one yet and it might be too midrangey, but it has potential, too. Good synergy with Company, of course.
Choke
When timed right, it steals games versus blue decks. Excellent card. Possibly should be a 2-of.
Reclamation Sage
Synergistic, blows up key artifacts and enchantments, and is a pretty decent beater to boot.
Primal Command
Just too versatile to not put in the board, I think. It's been great for me mostly versus Burn and random graveyard decks. I'm not 100% on it, but I do like it and it's done work.
Fracturing Gust
Affinity is a hard matchup, until you draw one of these. We need to see it to win against them (usually), so we use 3. Also good against Auras and Enchantress. The instant speed is nice, given how much of our deck can operate at instant speed.
I'd like a larger emphasis on Craterhoof Behemoth's power as a win con--I win more than half the time with both Legacy Combo Elves and Modern Combo Elves by slamming down Hoof without ever resolving Glimpse or Beck. The Hoof strategy is great when all they do is hate on combo pieces--it isn't so great when they hate on everything.
Combo elfes is a great deck for beginner modern players and the old modern players. it is a great deck with a great win con I hope to see the future of this deck is bright.
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It's a pretty bad choice for new players I think, actually. It has a lot of depth, choices, and complex interactions. An aggro version is a good choice, although less competitive (though Fauna/Vengevine mainboard version could be competitive, maybe).
It's not a hyper competitive deck although it's not far off. I think probably we just need Wirewood Symbiote and/or Quirion Ranger to get there.
ktkenshinx, I hope you don't mind my asking, but this seemed a bit sudden. Was izzetmage consulted on the closing of the previous thread? I am not trying to make waves, nor attack destroyermaker's list (which is certainly fine), but I feel that a lot of other ideas were developed in the old thread that are not represented in destroyermaker's OP.
destroyermaker, would you be opposed to including some alternative builds from the old thread in your OP? There are more than one way to skin a cat or make infinity little green men. Is that what is "coming soon" that you referenced? That being said, I like the layout in your OP, with the full card art.
I hate to see all the work that went into the old thread get swept aside, is all I'm saying. I hope that some of the ideas that were discussed there can be brought into the discussion here.
To wit: Manamorphose. I have been running 3-4 of these in my build for a year or more now and really feel like it gets even better with Beck. It is a cantripping Ritual with Nettle/Heritage online, and it can fix blue mid-turn if you draw into a Beck and need to resolve it to dig deeper. Plus thinning the deck is always welcome. Downside: it can make mulliganing a bit trickier since you don't actually see what you're getting, and it's not an Elf. Anyone else test this yet?
The thread is new and will be developed further over the next week or two. I will certainly be gleaning the old thread for relevant info, decks, etc to include, and I've followed it for a long time now.
Yes, I consulted with izzetmage; he was perfectly happy to give up the thread as he lost interest once it turned out post-Beck Elves weren't winning (hence why the original post wasn't updated in ages).
The card options section is for various cards that are good for us and not strictly 'wrong' to include in the deck over what's in the primary list (e.g. Eternal Witness, Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Scryb Ranger, etc). It's possible I'll include alternate builds as well if I find them compelling and different enough. Feel free to highlight any decks and cards here and explain why they're great, how they work, etc.
Well, I for one definitely like a MD Witness in case we draw into 'Hoof on turn one and then it gets Thoughtseized.
A lot of lists run Scryb Ranger but I am still scratching my head and trying to figure out why. I get that he's a Ritual if you control an Archdruid and need a bit more mana to push through, but wouldn't playing another Elf be more reliable? I just don't get Ranger. Can you explain it to me?
As for Ezuri, I've tested him a lot and my high hopes were pretty thoroughly dashed. In practice he never seems to do enough to be worth his mana cost. I feel 'Hoof was a strict upgrade over him in terms of win condition.
I'll confirm this, destroyermaker PMed me about wanting to start a new thread and I told him to go ahead. To be honest, I think you're giving me more credit for the old thread than I deserve. After the printing of Beck//Call, my plan was to analyze winning decklists from MTGO/paper events and update the primer, but Elves turned out to be not so good after all and that update never came. Not to worry, you can still read the old thread in the archives section.
Now about Elves: yes, there are a lot of ways to build it. Mostly, the difference is in what cards you choose for your engine. I'll go through some of them here and give my opinions on them.
Beck//Call: I really hate how this card has blue in its casting cost, because it means that if you draw extras during the combo, they're totally dead. (The mana engine, Heritage Druid, only produces green, and we don't have Birchlore Rangers or similar to filter). Costing 2 instead of 1 doesn't help either. I think most people will go by the "how can you have an Elves deck without Glimpse?" line of logic to rationalize playing this card, and my answer to that is that the Glimpse substitute is so bad that it's not worth using.
Cloudstone Curio: The first time I tried to build a Modern version of Elves, I looked to Extended for inspiration, and the Extended deck used this card. However, I don't think Curio is any good in Modern because it's too slow. There are some infinite combos with Curio, but one of them requires an active Glimpse effect, and I don't think the Glimpse that we have (i.e. Beck//Call) is worth playing. Outside of infinites, Curio is just a bad Wirewood Symbiote, in that you can bounce & replay a Visionary repeatedly to draw cards, except that doing that with Curio costs a lot more mana than with Symbiote.
Intruder Alarm: This turns all your creatures into Nettle Sentinels, which is pretty good, but like Beck//Call it requires blue mana. It never was a popular choice.
Distant Melody: Basically Regal Force without the body. It's an option for Pauper decks, because they don't have Regal Force or Summoner's Pact. But it needs blue, so it's bad in Modern.
Staff of Domination: You can go infinite with Elvish Archdruid and enough Elves. The flaw is that Archdruid is easily killed and doesn't have haste (so you need to cast it first and hope that it survives one turn). Don't play it.
Devoted Druid: You can go infinite with 2 Druids and Ezuri. Disadvantage: it's a 3-card combo that involves 2 copies of a card that you can only play 4 copies of. Again, don't play it.
Fauna Shaman + Vengevine: The idea with this combo is that you can play an aggro game instead. However, Fauna Shaman is kinda slow since it doesn't have haste. What you really want (short of Survival of the Fittest) is Buried Alive, but that isn't in Modern.
Lead the Stampede: IMO, the best engine card for Elves at the moment. It doesn't need blue like some other cards above and it can't go infinite, but man, does it dig deep. It's a deceptively powerful draw spell; while all of the engines above can be disrupted by removal on a critical Elf halfway through, Lead the Stampede can't be stopped. If it resolves, it's going to draw you cards, guaranteed.
When building with Lead the Stampede, remember that you need a high creature count for it to work. This pretty much means that the only non-creature spells you can play are Lead the Stampede and Summoner's Pact. (It's a bit like GW Death & Taxes, they play Thalias and their only noncreature spells are Vial and Path.) Also, and this applies to all Elves decks, not just those with Stampede, don't skimp on 1-drops. You need them for Heritage Druid to function. In the deck above I have 3 Twinblade Slasher for this reason. Slasher is also a mana sink.
Elves in the current meta is pretty bad because there's a lot of efficient removal, like Bolt + Snap, Electrolyze, and Anger of the Gods. Sadly, the one thing that Elves has which can beat removal (i.e. Glimpse) is banned, and the substitute for it (Beck//Call) isn't good enough. It's a bit like playing Storm, but while the only common maindeck cards which can stop Storm are counterspells and discard (removal for Goblin Electromancer aside), Elves is stopped by all of the above AND creature removal. This means that you don't have as many "free" Game 1s as Storm.
My wishlist for Elves (aside from Glimpse unbanned and old reprints like Quirion Ranger, Wirewood Symbiote) would probably be an Orochi Leafcaller with the Elf subtype. This makes Beck//Call not suck as badly, and casting/fusing the other half for 4 Birds actually becomes viable. And yes, the Elf subtype matters, because of Heritage Druid.
Well, I for one definitely like a MD Witness in case we draw into 'Hoof on turn one and then it gets Thoughtseized.
A lot of lists run Scryb Ranger but I am still scratching my head and trying to figure out why. I get that he's a Ritual if you control an Archdruid and need a bit more mana to push through, but wouldn't playing another Elf be more reliable? I just don't get Ranger. Can you explain it to me?
As for Ezuri, I've tested him a lot and my high hopes were pretty thoroughly dashed. In practice he never seems to do enough to be worth his mana cost. I feel 'Hoof was a strict upgrade over him in terms of win condition.
I had Witness in there before but in testing I found I rarely used it and when I did it was often too little too late (although on rare occasion it was amazing). I'm open to being wrong about it, though.
We very rarely draw Hoof like that, and we shouldn't really try to win via combo against BGx anyway.
Scryb is our Quirion Ranger that happens to be good against Delver and fae. I've recently come to the realization if we run her we should be running some number of Dryad Arbor as well, as the Legacy version does. Besides offering some resilience in bouncing Arbor, it lets us untap Elves for when we're one short for Heritage Druid, untap Archdruid for double mana (the primary reason people use her, but this should be your last reason), gives us a 'new' land drop on turns we don't actually have one, gives psuedo-vigiliance in fringe situations, and can even give us double blue for double Beck, or Beck/Call (also a fringe situation, but still). I'm not saying we should for sure be using her: her costing 2 and not being an elf is a big deal, but I think she's worth considering at this stage.
Ezuri is better in different situations. You can play him turn 3, he helps against wrath, his overrun is repeatable (within turns and across turns), and he's an elf. But again, that's not to say he's worth using.
I'll confirm this, destroyermaker PMed me about wanting to start a new thread and I told him to go ahead. To be honest, I think you're giving me more credit for the old thread than I deserve. After the printing of Beck//Call, my plan was to analyze winning decklists from MTGO/paper events and update the primer, but Elves turned out to be not so good after all and that update never came. Not to worry, you can still read the old thread in the archives section.
Now about Elves: yes, there are a lot of ways to build it. Mostly, the difference is in what cards you choose for your engine. I'll go through some of them here and give my opinions on them.
Beck//Call: I really hate how this card has blue in its casting cost, because it means that if you draw extras during the combo, they're totally dead. (The mana engine, Heritage Druid, only produces green, and we don't have Birchlore Rangers or similar to filter). Costing 2 instead of 1 doesn't help either. I think most people will go by the "how can you have an Elves deck without Glimpse?" line of logic to rationalize playing this card, and my answer to that is that the Glimpse substitute is so bad that it's not worth using.
Cloudstone Curio: The first time I tried to build a Modern version of Elves, I looked to Extended for inspiration, and the Extended deck used this card. However, I don't think Curio is any good in Modern because it's too slow. There are some infinite combos with Curio, but one of them requires an active Glimpse effect, and I don't think the Glimpse that we have (i.e. Beck//Call) is worth playing. Outside of infinites, Curio is just a bad Wirewood Symbiote, in that you can bounce & replay a Visionary repeatedly to draw cards, except that doing that with Curio costs a lot more mana than with Symbiote.
Intruder Alarm: This turns all your creatures into Nettle Sentinels, which is pretty good, but like Beck//Call it requires blue mana. It never was a popular choice.
Distant Melody: Basically Regal Force without the body. It's an option for Pauper decks, because they don't have Regal Force or Summoner's Pact. But it needs blue, so it's bad in Modern.
Staff of Domination: You can go infinite with Elvish Archdruid and enough Elves. The flaw is that Archdruid is easily killed and doesn't have haste (so you need to cast it first and hope that it survives one turn). Don't play it.
Devoted Druid: You can go infinite with 2 Druids and Ezuri. Disadvantage: it's a 3-card combo that involves 2 copies of a card that you can only play 4 copies of. Again, don't play it.
Fauna Shaman + Vengevine: The idea with this combo is that you can play an aggro game instead. However, Fauna Shaman is kinda slow since it doesn't have haste. What you really want (short of Survival of the Fittest) is Buried Alive, but that isn't in Modern.
Lead the Stampede: IMO, the best engine card for Elves at the moment. It doesn't need blue like some other cards above and it can't go infinite, but man, does it dig deep. It's a deceptively powerful draw spell; while all of the engines above can be disrupted by removal on a critical Elf halfway through, Lead the Stampede can't be stopped. If it resolves, it's going to draw you cards, guaranteed.
When building with Lead the Stampede, remember that you need a high creature count for it to work. This pretty much means that the only non-creature spells you can play are Lead the Stampede and Summoner's Pact. (It's a bit like GW Death & Taxes, they play Thalias and their only noncreature spells are Vial and Path.) Also, and this applies to all Elves decks, not just those with Stampede, don't skimp on 1-drops. You need them for Heritage Druid to function. In the deck above I have 3 Twinblade Slasher for this reason. Slasher is also a mana sink.
Elves in the current meta is pretty bad because there's a lot of efficient removal, like Bolt + Snap, Electrolyze, and Anger of the Gods. Sadly, the one thing that Elves has which can beat removal (i.e. Glimpse) is banned, and the substitute for it (Beck//Call) isn't good enough. It's a bit like playing Storm, but while the only common maindeck cards which can stop Storm are counterspells and discard (removal for Goblin Electromancer aside), Elves is stopped by all of the above AND creature removal. This means that you don't have as many "free" Game 1s as Storm.
My wishlist for Elves (aside from Glimpse unbanned and old reprints like Quirion Ranger, Wirewood Symbiote) would probably be an Orochi Leafcaller with the Elf subtype. This makes Beck//Call not suck as badly, and casting/fusing the other half for 4 Birds actually becomes viable. And yes, the Elf subtype matters, because of Heritage Druid.
Extra Becks are not necessarily dead. Arbor Elf gets you double blue and sometimes you have two blue land sources. It rarely happens but it's possible. But yes, Glimpse is a much better card, and this is a large part of why.
I agree with you our engine options have significant weaknesses, but builds with Lead (which is a great card) have a major weakness: they're all at 1-2 turns too slow for most decks. The 'traditional' combo route, while weak in ways, wins more often because it's on average one turn faster than other combo decks, and one turn too fast for wrath. That said, I'm curious on a Vengevine version with Lead.
I was actually really excited to see Anger of the Gods get more popular than Pyroclasm (if I'm not mistaken, at least, it has), because I know we can win before Anger hits (if we're on the play), or at least play around it better, but not Pyroclasm (we can play around it, but it's harder).
Anyway, I expect we'll get some playable elves before too long, whether old or new stuff. I'd put bets on at least one solid one in M15 and then another in the next Zendikar set (tons of hints at that one coming up). Hoping for a competitive Nissa myself (lots of hints at her, too). Birchlore Rangers seems entirely fair, as well as Symbiote and Ranger.
On a related note, it's not what we need, but it's still welcome: Reclamation Sage in M15, for anyone that hasn't seen.
I am wondering if anyone has given any thought to my mention of Manamorphose? Because I see both of you discussing the difficulty of the blue cost of Beck and I'm suggesting a card that can fix blue mid combo... A card that has proven its worth in many Modern combo decks. Any thoughts?
The 2cmc is much more of a problem than the blue. We almost never have trouble casting Beck, and if we did, that'd be a problem we could rectify with land, not spells. Manamorphose works in a deck with few or no creatures (quite the opposite of this deck).
Thank you for taking the time to update the primer. It looks good and I'm glad to see some new discussion on Combo Elves.
When you update the primer in the coming weeks I had a few suggestions. The combo doesn't list ways to generate "infinite" mana with Curio. There should be another section beforehand stating how that happens with Heritage Druid, Nettle Sentinel, and a one-drop. Otherwise it just goes from getting craterhoof to somehow having 8 mana.
For steps 6, the two triggers for Curio and Nettle Sentinel actually won't be on the stack at the same time. The Sentinel's trigger actually happens when a green spell is cast. How you have it written is fine for most circumstances and is handled with out-of-order sequencing. But it is important to note for times when the deck runs into a Pestermite. That card can flash in after the untap has resolved, but before the Heritage Druid from step 6 is on the battlefield.
Yeah I'll probably expand the combo section to include the major plays and maybe some nuances. I'll have another look at the sequencing and such. I know they don't go on at the same time; I need to make some things more clear. Thanks.
Sunblade Elf G
Creature - Elf Warrior
Sunblade Elf gets +1/+1 as long as you control a Plains. 4W: Creatures you control get +1/+1 until end of turn.
1/1
With this card, I'm convinced that white is the splash color for this deck. This card is everything I wanted Twinblade Slasher to be, and more: 1-drop with an outlet for all the extra mana you generate. The +1/+1 boost for having a Plains is icing on the cake; honestly, I would have played this even if it didn't have that effect, just for the mana sink ability.
Care to explain why? I'll agree that Twinblade Slasher isn't the best choice, but I think Sunblade Elf very good because it's a 1-drop AND it's a mana sink.
1s are crucial to the deck. Heritage Druid loves 1, because you can go T1 land, 1-drop; T2 land, Heritage Druid, 1-drop, 3-drop. Nettle Sentinel also loves 1s, because under Heritage Druid, Sentinel taps for 1 mana, and each 1-drop you cast untaps Sentinel, so you effectively get to play the 1-drop for free. (Strictly speaking, with only 1 Sentinel, for every 2 1-drops, only 1 is free because you need 3 Elves for H. Druid.)
Mana sinks are also good to have. Sometimes all you have is a bunch of 1-drops and an Archdruid and you have to go for beatdown. While, of course, you can attack with a bunch of 2/2s, if one of the 1/1s was replaced by a Sunblade Elf your position is much better. You tap Archdruid (which you're not going to risk in combat anyway) and a white land and pump the entire team, so you're now attacking with 3/3s instead of 2/2s. And remember, if you have a Temple Garden, that Sunblade Elf is now a 4/4.
I know you're playing the Cloudstone Curio version, so Sunblade Elf looks like crap to you. And it is - for the Cloudstone Curio version, that is - because your splash color is blue (not white) and Sunblade Elf doesn't have any ETB triggers to abuse. On the other hand, I'm writing about Sunblade Elf in Lead the Stampede, which I think is really good. I'll just say this: try the LTS version with Sunblade Elf and you won't be disappointed.
It's not good enough in any version; the aggro version of the deck isn't strong enough and this will help it little. It's too much mana for too little an effect; it comes too late. We run few land and Archdruid usually dies before we use his mana ability, so buffing our creatures for 5 means 80-90% of the time we'll have to tap at least two creatures to do it, which in most cases means they won't be able to attack, thereby lessening of the significance of the buff.
I think you're getting overexcited at a new card because you want something to make this competitive so bad, but this isn't it.
If Archdruid dies, it means that they had to spend mana on their turn and are tapped out or tapped low. Then you change gears and just attack them. Sunblade Elf's 2 power goes a long way towards that.
And let me assure you, I have no illusions on this deck's competitiveness. As long as people are playing Bolts and Anger of the Gods, this deck will never be able to make it. I am not getting overexcited just because this card is new either - quite the contrary, actually. When building this deck I identified one problem with it: sometimes you have tons of mana but nothing to spend it on. That's why I turned to Twinblade Slasher in the first place - Slasher is a 1-drop, so he doesn't eat into the consistency of the Heritage Druid mana engine, and if you have spare mana you can pump him.
All I was looking for was a 1-drop that you can sink mana into for some effect. I knew that that kind of card would be able to improve the deck, maybe not to the point of tier 2+, it would be an improvement nonetheless. So when Sunblade Elf came out I immediately knew that it was the kind of card that I wanted to play - it satisfies both criteria I was looking for, 1) 1-drop and 2) mana sink.
Please understand, my reaction was not "wow, it's a new Elf, let's try it out, maybe it will amount to something". It was "I have been looking for this kind of card for more than a year, and now it finally gets printed, so you can bet I'll play it". My judgment of Sunblade Elf is not merely a hasty, spur-of-the-moment decision. It's the result of trying multiple variations of this deck for months and figuring out exactly what kinds of cards would be able to improve it.
As long as people are playing Bolts and Anger of the Gods, this deck will never be able to make it.
It's quite annoying most people think a single Lightning Bolt brings the entire deck to its knees (I exaggerate only a little). It's quite resilient for a skilled pilot; many, many times I've won through multiple wraths. Not as resilient as the Legacy version, mind you (I'm dying for Wirewood Symbiote and/or Quirion Ranger or something similar in Modern), but still respectably resilient. Removal can only do so much when you have 30+ creatures in the deck, cantrips, and draw spells that can go infinite, among other things. Of course it has trouble with it sometimes, but it's not terrible like everyone thinks. I think we just need one great elf to give us that extra edge we need; I was hoping the new Nissa would do the job, but it's not to be.
Yeah, meant to mention that: if you want to play Sunblade, take out Pacts, Hoof, and Force and put in more aggro stuff. I don't want to discuss the aggro version here, though.
I prefer the intruder alarm version. Being able to go off with just a mana dork or two is nice. the two temple gardens are for sideboard cards as white gives the best sideboard options.
Introduction
With it's most recent win in GP Charlotte as well as the MOCS 2015...Collected Elves is here to stay!
While Elves have historically been a strong deck (in Extended, etc.); in the past, elves was considered a "combo" deck. Since the inception of the "Modern" format as it is today; elves struggled to find it's footing. That was until the printing of Collected Company. This card (along with the printing of Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx to a lesser extent) pushed the deck into Tier-Status in Modern. The deck saw early and often discussion at sites such as www.ModernNexus.com; and within only a few weeks has exploded onto the Modern scene with numerous spectacular performances.
The deck plays nothing like its Legacy counterpart. A far more aggro-based strategy; the deck wins off the speed at which it can build a lethal army of elves as well as it's clinical use of Chord of Calling and Collected Elves to find "answers" for some of the toughest match ups in the format. The deck plays a "Core" of Elves that has been the "staple" of elves decks for years (as far back as Extended). This "Elf Core" gives the deck the speed it needs to overwhelm opponents. Beyond the "Elf Core", the deck relys on two instant speed green powerhouse spells in Chord of Calling and Collected Company. These instant-speed spells give the deck both the card advantage it needs to deal with the numerous and voluminous cheap spot-removal spells seen in modern; while also giving the deck the ability to tutor for specific 1-of answers spread throughout the main deck and sideboard (such as Spellskite, Scavenging Ooze.
The king win-condition of the deck is far and away Ezuri, Renegade Leader. The deck creates extremely large sums of mana quite quickly through both its elves (such as Elvish Mystic and Heritage Druid...) as well as it's lands (most importantly Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx...). The deck is extremely consistent; and often times Ezuri can be triggered multiple times on turn 4 (and sometimes on turn 3) to turn your army of elves into extremely large trampling threats. While it may seem somewhat linear; in many games Ezuri, Renegade Leader is not even necessary. With Elf Lords including Elvish Archdruid and Elvish Champion often times you can simply attack through with multiple 3/3 - 5/5 elves for the win!
The deck is fast and consistent. If you love playing tribal decks and you love playing green....Collected Elves is the deck for you!
The Deck List
First, we begin with the list that began it all. Our very own Destroyermaker was a VERY early adopter of this deck and has tuned his mono-green version to the following:
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Spellskite
2 Devoted Druid
4 Dwynen's Elite
1 Copperhorn Scout
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Elvish Archdruid
1 Mirror Entity
3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Collected Company
4 Chord of Calling
Land
7 Forest
2 Pendelhaven
3 Cavern of Souls
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Essence Warden
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Spellskite
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Elvish Champion
1 Choke
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Imperious Perfect
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Phyrexian Revoker
An important item within this list is the original Devoted Druid combo is still in the list. Having 2x Devoted Druid and an Ezuri, Renegade Leader is literally infinite mana and at least three infinitely large elves! This isn't seen in a lot of current decks; but to be honest....there's no reason for this. It can still be strong and should still be considered when building Collected Elves.
The most recent (and largest) win for the deck came at GP Charlotte with the following deck list:
4 Elvish Archdruid
1 Elvish Champion
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fauna Shaman
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Thragtusk
1 Spellskite
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
Legendary Creatures
3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Lands
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Razorverge Thicket
5 Forest
3 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1 Pendelhaven
1 Spellskite
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Hushwing Gryff
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Reclamation Sage
3 Beast Within
2 Dismember
2 Fracturing Gust
1 Bow of Nylea
This particular list splashes White...which has been the most popular (and most successful) color to splash to date.
The Elf Core
Collected Elves is at it's "Core" and Elf deck. While decks may differ on their sideboards, their "silver bullets", their 1-of's, etc.; there is a set of cards seen in every Collected Elves deck. This includes:
Some decks play additional copies of Fauna Shaman, some play Devoted Druid; however the above are the Core of any Collected Elves deck. This core provides the speed and consistency the deck needs in its early turns.
One area that new players will often have a question is the combination of Nettle Sentinel and Heritage Druid. While this pair has been together (you don't see one without the other ) since their printing; they still can confuse those new to elves. The power comes from the fact that Heritage Druid's ability can be triggered at instant speed. By tapping both Druid and Sentinel as well as one additional elf; you obtain GGG...casting another elf leaves you with GG and Nettle Sentinel untaps...this allows you to cast another elf for a total of three untapped elves (which can in turn be tapped via Heritage Druid's ability). As one would guess, this can get out of hand quite quickly.
Anyone wishing to brew with Collected Elves should start with the above Core.
The Tutors
These are the cards that pull all of the elves together. With these, you can consistently get to your Ezuri, Renegade Leaders as well as cards great in specific match ups. Collected Company also provides much needed card advantage to the deck. Being able to respond to a boardwipe with a Collected Company to put two creatures back on the board is simply something Elf decks could not do in the past.
While both cards are relatively straightforward; many of the most complex decisions you will make with this deck revolve around these two spells. At instant speed, both can be case in response to cards like removal, counters and combos. If Elves are the core of the deck, these spells are the glue.
The Win-Cons
The win-conditions in Collected Elves all follow the same central idea...make your army of elves as large as possible as quickly as possible. There are not many in the deck, however one must remember that the pilot can easily Chord of Calling and/or Collected Company into one or more of the win-cons available in the deck.
Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Elvish Archdruid and Elvish Champion
When each elf is 3/3, 4/4 or more; and cards like Collected Company are putting several into play each turn; eventually you can "chip away" at an opponent. In games where you play Spellskite and/or numerous sideboard "hate" cards and the game is slowed down quite a bit; the person with the most advantageous attacks will win the game. This is where the Elf Lords show their true power.
There are other ways to win (in particular a very large Scavenging Ooze in games with heavy removal); the above are the main strategies the deck puts forth to bring the opponent to zero life.
Support Cards
This deck, thanks to Chord of Calling and Collected Company, can play numerous 1-of and 2-of creatures that are good in numerous match ups; but GREAT in a few match ups. It can also play Devoted Druid always be one potential tutor away from an infinite combo. The most popular among these are Spellskite, Eternal Witness, Scavenging Ooze, and Reclamation Sage. A full list of potential "Silver Bullets" (and the reason for their use) are below:
COMING SOON
Land Base / Utility Lands
Lands play a very important role in the Collected elves deck. While lands like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Cavern of Souls have obvious and powerful uses; there are many additional lands that offer incremental advantages with very little downside. These include:
Generally, 19 lands is a sound amount. Some run 18; and there is still debate on how many Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx should be run.
Sideboarding
Sideboarding is extremely important for any list; but Collected Elves has a leg up in "boarding" due to Collected Company and Chord of Calling. Both allow the deck pilot to feel extremely comfortable playing 1-of "answer" and/or "hate" cards in the board while feeling confidant that the card will be available when it is needed.
Thanks to Imro (one of the most active elf players around!) we have a very deep sideboarding list. While the most played cards will be listed in their own section, below is a "master list" of viable sideboarding options for Elf decks.
Sideboarding is an art in Magic. One needs to know the Meta, what cards are good vs the opponent, and what cards to replace from one's 60. There is also the trap of over-sideboarding and drawing into too much hate. This section of the primer can't teach how to avoid this or the art of boarding, but it can give ideas of cards to place in one's sideboard and what match-ups they are good for.
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Elves dominated Modern for a brief period with the almighty power of Glimpse of Nature and Green Sun's Zenith combined, but after bannings, things went south. After a lot of effort in vain to keep the deck competitive, Collected Company was released in 2015, and a primary list was at last born, built to fully exploit the new powerhouse card while achieving as much consistency as possible.
The list below and similar versions of it have seen repeated success in daily and paper tournaments, proving this is the best version of the deck yet, and securing it a spot in the Developing Competitive forum. Rest assured it's been tweaked and tested extensively, and is near "finished".
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Devoted Druid
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
3 Fauna Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Spellskite
4 Collected Company
Lands
13 Forest
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
3 Cavern of Souls
2 Pendelhaven
4 Essence Warden
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Setessan Tactics
1 Choke
1 Reclamation Sage
3 Fracturing Gust
1 Spellskite
1 Biorhythm
1 Primal Command
1 Cavern of Souls
As you can see, the Modern version of Elves goes a very different route than its Legacy counterpart. Where the latter is a combo deck that can grind out "aggro" wins, the former is a ramp deck that can occasionally beat down with buffed elves or, on rare occasion, combo with Devoted Druid and Ezuri (two untapped Druids lets you get four mana -- tap another source for five, pump with Ezuri, and repeat, netting mana each time). We also have a toolbox element through Company and tutors, which lets us summon the likes of Spellskite, Scavenging Ooze, Reclamation Sage, and more cards at will (great splash targets include Aven Mindcensor and Magus of the Moon). The pieces we do have in Modern to assemble a combo deck simply aren't strong, fast, and resilient enough to make the deck competitive, so we take this approach instead.
Other Lists
Elves is a flexible archetype, and as such, has spawned a variety of very different incarnations. If the list above isn't your thing, try one of the many other options below. The Devotion list appears to be the best of them, but results aren't in yet.
Combo Elves
Combo Elves abuses Beck and Cloudstone Curio to draw infinite cards and/or generate infinite mana, then drops Craterhoof Behemoth with enough creatures on board for lethal damage. The Modern version of the deck is not "broken" like its Legacy counterpart, but maintains almost all of the key cards and mechanics, and as such, is a viable deck with some tournament results. It can win as early as turn 3, though it's usually 4 or 5.
I've had reasonable success with it at FNM in the past, in a hostile meta, even. It's been quite some time since I've played it and it probably needs tweaking, but it's a solid start if you want to play Combo Elves and do decently well.
For reference, below is how the Curio combo works (explanation courtesy of Irmo). Once you're comfortable with it, be sure after going through it once that you shortcut it by telling your opponent you're going to repeat it (without actually doing it manually). This will let you achieve infinite mana and/or draw without taking up a ton of match time (especially important in tournaments). See here for the official rules on shortcuts.
For the main combo you need Cloudstone Curio, Heritage Druid, Nettle Sentinel, and a one-drop or Elvish Visionary if you are going for inifinite mana or card draw respectively. The steps below outline the inifinite mana route.
-> represents triggers that go on the stack; T represents tapped permanents.
Cast the one-drop -> Nettle Sentinel triggers
The Nettle Sentinel trigger resolves untapping the already untaped creature
One-drop resolves -> Curio triggers
In response to the Curio Trigger activate the Heritage Druid and gain GGG
Curio trigger resolves and bounce the Heritage Druid
Cast the Heritage Druid -> Nettle Sentinel triggers
Untap the Nettle Sentinel
Heritage Druid resolves -> Curio triggers
Curio trigger resolves and bounces the one-drop
You are now at the same board state as the first iteration, but with one extra G in your pool. Repeat as many times as you like.
Same goes for the Elvish Visionary except the extra 1 in the Visionaries casting cost uses the extra G gained from the loop. It is ok, though because you are are drawing a card each time, and can eventually replace the Visionary with a one drop to get infinite mana. Infinite card draw + infinite mana.
6 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Windswept Heath
2 Breeding Pool
1 Temple Garden
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Creatures: 32
4 Arbor Elf
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Regal Force
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Beck // Call
3 Cloudstone Curio
4 Summoner's Pact
3 Fauna Shaman
4 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Vengevine
3 Vexing Shusher
1 Reclamation Sage
Intruder Alarm Elves
This is a deck created by famed brewer Travis Woo, who describes it as a powerful but inconsistent deck, namely due to cards like Pyroclasm. It works much the same as the Combo Elves version, except it uses Intruder Alarm instead of Cloudstone Curio to combo. Alarm offers more explosive plays, but may be less consistent overall. Additionally, Woo goes for more Beck value at the expense of the backup aggro plan by utilizing Forbidden Orchard. If you're interested in a more explosive, but arguably less versatile and consistent combo deck, Intruder Alarm Elves is the version for you.
The list below is old, so if you try it out, you'll want to update it some.
3 Forest
4 Forbidden Orchard
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Breeding Pool
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Dryad Arbor
Creatures: 30
4 Arbor Elf
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Joraga Treespeaker
3 Ranger of Eos
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Ant Queen
1 Regal Force
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Beck // Call
3 Intruder Alarm
4 Summoner's Pact
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
3 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Dismember
1 Intruder Alarm
2 Creeping Corrosion
Aggro Elves
Aggro Elves is much more straightforward (drop lots of elves, make them big, and swing), which makes it suitable for casual players or those new to Modern. It's also suitable for spikes, as it's had a little tournament success. One of the main reasons to consider running it over other versions is Lead the Stampede. Another is it's by far the cheapest version (about $200).
Aggro generally bores me as a playstyle, so I've never attempted to develop an aggro list myself. As such, the list below is from Brandon Ridgway, who placed top 8 in a small tournament with it in 2014 (Mount Pearl represent). It looks pretty solid to me, so I'd start here if this is the version you're into (please suggest a better list if you have one or find one). The Cages should be replaced with something else, since Pod is no longer in the format (RIP).
16 Forest
2 Cavern of Souls
Creatures: 35
4 Elvish Champion
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
2 Fauna Shaman
2 Joraga Warcaller
1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Regal Force
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
3 Lead the Stampede
4 Summoner's Pact
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Nature's Claim
2 Choke
2 Beast Within
2 Essence Warden
2 Vines of Vastwood
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Terastodon
1 Dismember
Devotion Elves
Our own CurdBros has developed a Nykthos-centric version which runs enchantments and planeswalkers in addition to elves to power out wins. He says he's had quite a bit of success with it through his own testing, and at FNM, his local shop, and in his playgroup, but whether it's competitive beyond that remains to be seen.
The main benefit of running this version is it's less soft to wrath, since it ramps with more than just elves (plus, it's a good excuse to play Genesis Wave).
If you like this version, be sure to also check out the Nykthos Devotion primer.
4 Arbor Elf
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Coiling Oracle
2 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Temur Sabertooth
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
Enchantments and Artifacts: 12
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Abundant Growth
4 Cloudstone Curio
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
Instant and Sorceries: 4
4 Genesis Wave
Lands: 19
8 Forest
2 Breeding Pool
2 Stomping Ground
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Kessig Wolf Run
2 Boil
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Outpost Siege
4 Root Maze
2 Seal of Primordium
Vengevine Elves
I developed this version based on LSV's Elves transformative aggro sideboard circa 2011. The idea was to swap out combo pieces for Vengevines and Fauna Shamans, making you much better able to deal with removal and wrath for decks that packed lots of it.
My feeling is because we no longer have Glimpse and the Beck/Curio plan is suboptimal, and we lack the resilience the Legacy version of Elves has, it could be best to move that Vengevine plan to the mainboard. This became an even better idea when Pod was removed from the format, thereby drastically reducing the amount of Anger of the Gods (which defeats the purpose of the Vengevine plan). The downside of this approach is we open ourselves up to graveyard hate in game 2 and 3. If graveyard hate isn't common in the meta, though, this could work out very well.
I've tested the list below a bit and liked what I saw, although I'm not sure if it's better overall (unless in a wrath heavy meta, in which case it probably is). I may work on it more in the future (including the sideboard, which is incomplete). In the meantime, feel free to give it a spin yourself and report results, and to suggest tweaks/additions.
7 Forest
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Stomping Ground
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
1 Breeding Pool
1 Temple Garden
4 Arbor Elf
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Vengevine
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Nullmage Shepherd
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
2 Beck // Call
4 Lead the Stampede
Card choices
Below you can find an in-depth look at the cards in Elves, including reasons why they're chosen and how they're best used.
Elvish Mystic/Llanowar Elves
These two help a lot toward quick wins. Late game they're not so useful for speed, so we turn them into tutors via Fauna Shaman.
Heritage Druid
A key component to the deck's speed and explosiveness, Heritage doesn't require an untap to make mana, and makes spells free or cheap in concert with Nettle Sentinel (Devoted Druid can help, too). Side some amount of her out for decks with heavy amounts of removal, as she's less good when facing it.
Nettle Sentinel
Makes spells free or cheap in concert with Heritage Druid (Devoted Druid can help, too), and is decent as a beater by itself or with Elvish Archdruid.
Devoted Druid
Makes spells free or cheap in concert with Heritage Druid (Devoted Druid can help, too) and lets you combo infinitely with Ezuri (just tap two untapped Druids and another source for five mana, pump, and repeat, netting mana and pumping your guys each time). Also great after a wrath (twice as good as Llanowar Elves).
Elvish Archdruid
Gives us a viable backup beatdown down, lets Druid tap for more mana, and provides us with the stupid amount of mana we need to win sometimes.
Fauna Shaman
Adds consistency, turns poor topdecks into great ones, and synergizes well with Company and Scavenging Ooze. Some prefer Chord of Calling instead of Shaman, or a split (I prefer the synergy, repeatability, and the uncounterability courtesy of Cavern of Souls).
Ezuri, Renegade Leader
The big guy. He's what lets us go over the top and win games. Combos with Devoted Druid and offers much needed resilience. Particularly nice with a Spellskite in play.
Scavenging Ooze
Hurts Delve, punishes opponents for removal/wrath, gains life, hates on Snapcaster Mage, and synergizes with Fauna Shaman -- Ooze does it all. I currently run 4 main, but as it's not very good against Burn and Affinity (very popular) most of the time, I may move the 4th to the side. It has been extremely good in my testing, adding some much needed punch and resilience previously missing.
Spellskite
Protects our guys and hates on Infect, Affinity, and Twin. Solid card.
Collected Company
The piece that ties it all together, Company brings sorely needed consistency and resilience to the deck, and lets us run a small toolbox. As a bonus, it gives us some extra game versus blue control decks, who will sometimes tap out at the end of our turn when they see we haven't played anything on our main phase. Note that when an opponent wraths, you can float mana from your dorks, wait for the wrath to resolve, then use the floated mana to cast Company.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
This is here almost purely to let us attack with more guys when activating Ezuri's Overrun. I tested it as a 1, 2, and 3-of and found I was happiest with 1. As a 2 and 3 of, it just messed with my turn 2 plays too often for my liking. That and it's pretty situational, so we don't need to see it as often as we do with it as a 2 or 3 of necessarily.
Cavern of Souls
Vastly improves our game versus decks with counterspells.
Pendelhaven
Helps when grinding out aggro wins or blocking Goblin Guide and the like, and hates on Electrolyze and Grim Lavamancer, among other cards. Very important to our resilience.
Essence Warden
Can help a lot versus aggro decks, although can come at the wrong time and be underwhelming, too. It's possible this should be Kitchen Finks, despite not synergizing nearly as well with the rest of the deck.
Phyrexian Revoker
Hates on Grim Lavamancer, Tron, Twin, manlands, Amulet, and lots more. I haven't actually tested this one yet and it might be too midrangey, but it has potential, too. Good synergy with Company, of course.
Choke
When timed right, it steals games versus blue decks. Excellent card. Possibly should be a 2-of.
Reclamation Sage
Synergistic, blows up key artifacts and enchantments, and is a pretty decent beater to boot.
Primal Command
Just too versatile to not put in the board, I think. It's been great for me mostly versus Burn and random graveyard decks. I'm not 100% on it, but I do like it and it's done work.
Fracturing Gust
Affinity is a hard matchup, until you draw one of these. We need to see it to win against them (usually), so we use 3. Also good against Auras and Enchantress. The instant speed is nice, given how much of our deck can operate at instant speed.
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It's not a hyper competitive deck although it's not far off. I think probably we just need Wirewood Symbiote and/or Quirion Ranger to get there.
destroyermaker, would you be opposed to including some alternative builds from the old thread in your OP? There are more than one way to skin a cat or make infinity little green men. Is that what is "coming soon" that you referenced? That being said, I like the layout in your OP, with the full card art.
I hate to see all the work that went into the old thread get swept aside, is all I'm saying. I hope that some of the ideas that were discussed there can be brought into the discussion here.
To wit: Manamorphose. I have been running 3-4 of these in my build for a year or more now and really feel like it gets even better with Beck. It is a cantripping Ritual with Nettle/Heritage online, and it can fix blue mid-turn if you draw into a Beck and need to resolve it to dig deeper. Plus thinning the deck is always welcome. Downside: it can make mulliganing a bit trickier since you don't actually see what you're getting, and it's not an Elf. Anyone else test this yet?
--Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who is up in Heaven now. EDH WUBRG Child of Alara WUBRG BGW Karador, Ghost Chieftain BGW RGW Mayael the Anima RGW WUB Sharuum the Hegemon WUB RWU Zedruu the Greathearted RWU
WB Ghost Council of Orzhova WB RG Ulasht, the Hate Seed RG B Korlash, Heir to Blackblade B G Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer G *click the general's name to see my list!*
Yes, I consulted with izzetmage; he was perfectly happy to give up the thread as he lost interest once it turned out post-Beck Elves weren't winning (hence why the original post wasn't updated in ages).
The card options section is for various cards that are good for us and not strictly 'wrong' to include in the deck over what's in the primary list (e.g. Eternal Witness, Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Scryb Ranger, etc). It's possible I'll include alternate builds as well if I find them compelling and different enough. Feel free to highlight any decks and cards here and explain why they're great, how they work, etc.
A lot of lists run Scryb Ranger but I am still scratching my head and trying to figure out why. I get that he's a Ritual if you control an Archdruid and need a bit more mana to push through, but wouldn't playing another Elf be more reliable? I just don't get Ranger. Can you explain it to me?
As for Ezuri, I've tested him a lot and my high hopes were pretty thoroughly dashed. In practice he never seems to do enough to be worth his mana cost. I feel 'Hoof was a strict upgrade over him in terms of win condition.
--Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who is up in Heaven now. EDH WUBRG Child of Alara WUBRG BGW Karador, Ghost Chieftain BGW RGW Mayael the Anima RGW WUB Sharuum the Hegemon WUB RWU Zedruu the Greathearted RWU
WB Ghost Council of Orzhova WB RG Ulasht, the Hate Seed RG B Korlash, Heir to Blackblade B G Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer G *click the general's name to see my list!*
Now about Elves: yes, there are a lot of ways to build it. Mostly, the difference is in what cards you choose for your engine. I'll go through some of them here and give my opinions on them.
Beck//Call: I really hate how this card has blue in its casting cost, because it means that if you draw extras during the combo, they're totally dead. (The mana engine, Heritage Druid, only produces green, and we don't have Birchlore Rangers or similar to filter). Costing 2 instead of 1 doesn't help either. I think most people will go by the "how can you have an Elves deck without Glimpse?" line of logic to rationalize playing this card, and my answer to that is that the Glimpse substitute is so bad that it's not worth using.
Cloudstone Curio: The first time I tried to build a Modern version of Elves, I looked to Extended for inspiration, and the Extended deck used this card. However, I don't think Curio is any good in Modern because it's too slow. There are some infinite combos with Curio, but one of them requires an active Glimpse effect, and I don't think the Glimpse that we have (i.e. Beck//Call) is worth playing. Outside of infinites, Curio is just a bad Wirewood Symbiote, in that you can bounce & replay a Visionary repeatedly to draw cards, except that doing that with Curio costs a lot more mana than with Symbiote.
Intruder Alarm: This turns all your creatures into Nettle Sentinels, which is pretty good, but like Beck//Call it requires blue mana. It never was a popular choice.
Distant Melody: Basically Regal Force without the body. It's an option for Pauper decks, because they don't have Regal Force or Summoner's Pact. But it needs blue, so it's bad in Modern.
Staff of Domination: You can go infinite with Elvish Archdruid and enough Elves. The flaw is that Archdruid is easily killed and doesn't have haste (so you need to cast it first and hope that it survives one turn). Don't play it.
Devoted Druid: You can go infinite with 2 Druids and Ezuri. Disadvantage: it's a 3-card combo that involves 2 copies of a card that you can only play 4 copies of. Again, don't play it.
Fauna Shaman + Vengevine: The idea with this combo is that you can play an aggro game instead. However, Fauna Shaman is kinda slow since it doesn't have haste. What you really want (short of Survival of the Fittest) is Buried Alive, but that isn't in Modern.
Lead the Stampede: IMO, the best engine card for Elves at the moment. It doesn't need blue like some other cards above and it can't go infinite, but man, does it dig deep. It's a deceptively powerful draw spell; while all of the engines above can be disrupted by removal on a critical Elf halfway through, Lead the Stampede can't be stopped. If it resolves, it's going to draw you cards, guaranteed.
Sample deck minus sideboard:
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Temple Garden
5 Forest
1 Pendelhaven
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Arbor Elf
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
3 Twinblade Slasher
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Elvish Archdruid
2 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Regal Force
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Lead the Stampede
When building with Lead the Stampede, remember that you need a high creature count for it to work. This pretty much means that the only non-creature spells you can play are Lead the Stampede and Summoner's Pact. (It's a bit like GW Death & Taxes, they play Thalias and their only noncreature spells are Vial and Path.) Also, and this applies to all Elves decks, not just those with Stampede, don't skimp on 1-drops. You need them for Heritage Druid to function. In the deck above I have 3 Twinblade Slasher for this reason. Slasher is also a mana sink.
Elves in the current meta is pretty bad because there's a lot of efficient removal, like Bolt + Snap, Electrolyze, and Anger of the Gods. Sadly, the one thing that Elves has which can beat removal (i.e. Glimpse) is banned, and the substitute for it (Beck//Call) isn't good enough. It's a bit like playing Storm, but while the only common maindeck cards which can stop Storm are counterspells and discard (removal for Goblin Electromancer aside), Elves is stopped by all of the above AND creature removal. This means that you don't have as many "free" Game 1s as Storm.
My wishlist for Elves (aside from Glimpse unbanned and old reprints like Quirion Ranger, Wirewood Symbiote) would probably be an Orochi Leafcaller with the Elf subtype. This makes Beck//Call not suck as badly, and casting/fusing the other half for 4 Birds actually becomes viable. And yes, the Elf subtype matters, because of Heritage Druid.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
I had Witness in there before but in testing I found I rarely used it and when I did it was often too little too late (although on rare occasion it was amazing). I'm open to being wrong about it, though.
We very rarely draw Hoof like that, and we shouldn't really try to win via combo against BGx anyway.
Scryb is our Quirion Ranger that happens to be good against Delver and fae. I've recently come to the realization if we run her we should be running some number of Dryad Arbor as well, as the Legacy version does. Besides offering some resilience in bouncing Arbor, it lets us untap Elves for when we're one short for Heritage Druid, untap Archdruid for double mana (the primary reason people use her, but this should be your last reason), gives us a 'new' land drop on turns we don't actually have one, gives psuedo-vigiliance in fringe situations, and can even give us double blue for double Beck, or Beck/Call (also a fringe situation, but still). I'm not saying we should for sure be using her: her costing 2 and not being an elf is a big deal, but I think she's worth considering at this stage.
Ezuri is better in different situations. You can play him turn 3, he helps against wrath, his overrun is repeatable (within turns and across turns), and he's an elf. But again, that's not to say he's worth using.
Extra Becks are not necessarily dead. Arbor Elf gets you double blue and sometimes you have two blue land sources. It rarely happens but it's possible. But yes, Glimpse is a much better card, and this is a large part of why.
I agree with you our engine options have significant weaknesses, but builds with Lead (which is a great card) have a major weakness: they're all at 1-2 turns too slow for most decks. The 'traditional' combo route, while weak in ways, wins more often because it's on average one turn faster than other combo decks, and one turn too fast for wrath. That said, I'm curious on a Vengevine version with Lead.
I was actually really excited to see Anger of the Gods get more popular than Pyroclasm (if I'm not mistaken, at least, it has), because I know we can win before Anger hits (if we're on the play), or at least play around it better, but not Pyroclasm (we can play around it, but it's harder).
Anyway, I expect we'll get some playable elves before too long, whether old or new stuff. I'd put bets on at least one solid one in M15 and then another in the next Zendikar set (tons of hints at that one coming up). Hoping for a competitive Nissa myself (lots of hints at her, too). Birchlore Rangers seems entirely fair, as well as Symbiote and Ranger.
On a related note, it's not what we need, but it's still welcome: Reclamation Sage in M15, for anyone that hasn't seen.
--Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who is up in Heaven now. EDH WUBRG Child of Alara WUBRG BGW Karador, Ghost Chieftain BGW RGW Mayael the Anima RGW WUB Sharuum the Hegemon WUB RWU Zedruu the Greathearted RWU
WB Ghost Council of Orzhova WB RG Ulasht, the Hate Seed RG B Korlash, Heir to Blackblade B G Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer G *click the general's name to see my list!*
Thank you for taking the time to update the primer. It looks good and I'm glad to see some new discussion on Combo Elves.
When you update the primer in the coming weeks I had a few suggestions. The combo doesn't list ways to generate "infinite" mana with Curio. There should be another section beforehand stating how that happens with Heritage Druid, Nettle Sentinel, and a one-drop. Otherwise it just goes from getting craterhoof to somehow having 8 mana.
For steps 6, the two triggers for Curio and Nettle Sentinel actually won't be on the stack at the same time. The Sentinel's trigger actually happens when a green spell is cast. How you have it written is fine for most circumstances and is handled with out-of-order sequencing. But it is important to note for times when the deck runs into a Pestermite. That card can flash in after the untap has resolved, but before the Heritage Druid from step 6 is on the battlefield.
Thank you again for working on this primer.
Creature - Elf Warrior
Sunblade Elf gets +1/+1 as long as you control a Plains.
4W: Creatures you control get +1/+1 until end of turn.
1/1
Update to my decklist above:
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Temple Garden
4 Forest
1 Pendelhaven
4 Elvish Mystic
3 Arbor Elf
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Sunblade Elf
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Elvish Archdruid
2 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Regal Force
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Lead the Stampede
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
1s are crucial to the deck. Heritage Druid loves 1, because you can go T1 land, 1-drop; T2 land, Heritage Druid, 1-drop, 3-drop. Nettle Sentinel also loves 1s, because under Heritage Druid, Sentinel taps for 1 mana, and each 1-drop you cast untaps Sentinel, so you effectively get to play the 1-drop for free. (Strictly speaking, with only 1 Sentinel, for every 2 1-drops, only 1 is free because you need 3 Elves for H. Druid.)
Mana sinks are also good to have. Sometimes all you have is a bunch of 1-drops and an Archdruid and you have to go for beatdown. While, of course, you can attack with a bunch of 2/2s, if one of the 1/1s was replaced by a Sunblade Elf your position is much better. You tap Archdruid (which you're not going to risk in combat anyway) and a white land and pump the entire team, so you're now attacking with 3/3s instead of 2/2s. And remember, if you have a Temple Garden, that Sunblade Elf is now a 4/4.
I know you're playing the Cloudstone Curio version, so Sunblade Elf looks like crap to you. And it is - for the Cloudstone Curio version, that is - because your splash color is blue (not white) and Sunblade Elf doesn't have any ETB triggers to abuse. On the other hand, I'm writing about Sunblade Elf in Lead the Stampede, which I think is really good. I'll just say this: try the LTS version with Sunblade Elf and you won't be disappointed.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
I think you're getting overexcited at a new card because you want something to make this competitive so bad, but this isn't it.
And let me assure you, I have no illusions on this deck's competitiveness. As long as people are playing Bolts and Anger of the Gods, this deck will never be able to make it. I am not getting overexcited just because this card is new either - quite the contrary, actually. When building this deck I identified one problem with it: sometimes you have tons of mana but nothing to spend it on. That's why I turned to Twinblade Slasher in the first place - Slasher is a 1-drop, so he doesn't eat into the consistency of the Heritage Druid mana engine, and if you have spare mana you can pump him.
All I was looking for was a 1-drop that you can sink mana into for some effect. I knew that that kind of card would be able to improve the deck, maybe not to the point of tier 2+, it would be an improvement nonetheless. So when Sunblade Elf came out I immediately knew that it was the kind of card that I wanted to play - it satisfies both criteria I was looking for, 1) 1-drop and 2) mana sink.
Please understand, my reaction was not "wow, it's a new Elf, let's try it out, maybe it will amount to something". It was "I have been looking for this kind of card for more than a year, and now it finally gets printed, so you can bet I'll play it". My judgment of Sunblade Elf is not merely a hasty, spur-of-the-moment decision. It's the result of trying multiple variations of this deck for months and figuring out exactly what kinds of cards would be able to improve it.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
It's quite annoying most people think a single Lightning Bolt brings the entire deck to its knees (I exaggerate only a little). It's quite resilient for a skilled pilot; many, many times I've won through multiple wraths. Not as resilient as the Legacy version, mind you (I'm dying for Wirewood Symbiote and/or Quirion Ranger or something similar in Modern), but still respectably resilient. Removal can only do so much when you have 30+ creatures in the deck, cantrips, and draw spells that can go infinite, among other things. Of course it has trouble with it sometimes, but it's not terrible like everyone thinks. I think we just need one great elf to give us that extra edge we need; I was hoping the new Nissa would do the job, but it's not to be.
I don't like Sunblade Elf because your plan is to combo moreso than beat in, it seems. That's just me though.
4 Arbor Elf
4 Elvish Mystic
3 Llanowar Elves
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Elvish Archdruid
2 Imperious Perfect
1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Regal Force
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
3 Intruder Alarm
3 beck // call
3 Lead the Stampede
4 Summoner's Pact
lands
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Breeding Pool
2 Temple Garden
4 Forest