Hey guys, just a report from going to the Starcity Worcester event:
My friend borrowed my deck running 3x of the new Elvish Clancaller and 2x Steel Leaf Champion and both were over performers for him the whole day (he played against: Jeskai, Elves mirror, Mardu, Humans, Knights, Scapeshift, Jund)
Those Steel Leaf Champions are almost always unblock able right now in the format because there are so many low powered creatures.
He ended up going 4-3
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
UU"Brute force can sometimes kick down a locked door, but knowledge is a skeleton key"UU
Mana sources, how many do we truly need guys. If I’m running my Abzan list I have 4 shaman and 2 Abrupt Decay that cast B mana and I have 3 RiP, 2 Stony, 1 Kataki and 1 Selfless Spirit that cost W mana. Most of my mana is Green or GB, wondering if I have enough W to reliably cast my sidebord cards.
At this point in time I cannot think of any useful scenario for Vines in modern to be played against the oppo, except maybe infect, but then infect is equipped to handle instant speed shenanigans.
It's kinda hard to imagine your meta, but let's operate on the premise that you're going to modern FNM, so... blind meta.
The main worry I have for your deck is how you need to reset every time the opponent wipes. At the typical FNM you can expect to run into a lot of Supreme Verdicts, Terminus, Anger of the Gods, Damnations. It'll be in the sideboards, sometime mainboards of most established or semi competitive decks, so you'll need to be prepared for that.
I get how the GL archdruid also serves as a card advantage engine, but do remember this is a format with a very high bar for 5 cmc. Perhaps, it can serve as an alt win con alongside ezuri, but I honestly feel like having 4 will more often than not result in clunky hands. Then again I've never played druid tribal with 16 mana dorks (20 if you count heritage).
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
Yup great advice. I will certainly keep an eye out for my glit leaf draw, and see if I would be better playing with less, and perhaps some tutors instead.
The main worry I have for your deck is how you need to reset every time the opponent wipes. At the typical FNM you can expect to run into a lot of Supreme Verdicts, Terminus, Anger of the Gods, Damnations. It'll be in the sideboards, sometime mainboards of most established or semi competitive decks, so you'll need to be prepared for that.
Yes... Heroic Intervention might need to become a main part of my deck. Time will tell, I should have some opportunity to see how the deck goes before I compete. Besides, I am not going in to win. At least, not until I really get my head around modern, then I might try to design/copy a deck that is competitive.
Then again I've never played druid tribal with 16 mana dorks (20 if you count heritage).
Reading this primer made my understand Heritage Druid, and discovering Boreal Druid from a search made this deck (casually) playable. 12 was just not enough for it to be worthwhile. 16/20 is.
Then again, I am coming in with a unique design in a format I do not understand - so, yeah, I am not expecting to be competitive.
But when it goes off, it's a lot of fun. Without the land grab, with both archdruids and enough dorks, 15+ elves out on turn 4 is the norm. It would be interesting to test what the theoretical maximum would be... my guess is close to 25.
Now that you mention that, your deck is kind of like an "elf storm" deck. Why not play nettle sentinel? Combined with heritage druid, it'll really let you go off.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
Yes I have been very tempted by it - but it isn't a druid. The Mul-Daya Channellers would be the ones to go and they are sort of a glue, able to attack at 5/5 early if I can't get the swarm off, and able to add 2 mana if it's needed.
Nettle Sentinel would be good no doubt - generally only when I already have glit-leaf and a heritage out. In that case, the odds are I'm pretty happy anyway.
Elves vs Goblins the decks are basically aiming for the same thing, problem is Goblins doesn't have the reach of a GB version of elves or a combo version of GW. Where goblins gets points is that alot of the time their creatures have haste and they have consistent token generators, due to this fact Goblins is less suseptible to traditional boardwipes (Wrath, Verdict, Damnation) as they get to attack with their army early before T4 and have a much easier time of winning by T3 or having the opponent so low that T4 after a wipe their haste creatures will still finish. However goblins is all in on the aggro beat down and does require alot of pieces to truly go off and bushwhacker is one of the better cards.
Personally i think Elves is the stronger of the too as if you have removal early to shut down a couple goblins and they didnt Nut draw to kill you T3 they will have a harder time recovering from the boardwipe or from go wide strategy and bloockers since they have no real way of trample, just swarming. Elves on the other hand may not always kill by T3 (it is possible) but we can rebuild easier after a boardwipe thanks to CoCo, Lead the Stampede, and alot of mana dorks. Goblins eschews the dorks for ritual effects and once their are burned its gone.
Objective is to swarm elves rather than being combo.
Wouldn't Steel Leaf Champion be a nice addition with BBE in the mix ? I feel like you have too many value cards (Visionary, BBE, Messenger and Lead !!!) that mostly get 1/1s, and lords that will mostly pump themselves and other 1/1s...
I feel your list could ramp for aggro bodies instead (Narnam Renegade or Nettle Sentinel could be better than some of the 1/1s).
BBE is great with lead, but bad with Messenger, I would probably cut them cause they're way too slow for your plan.
Elves naturally lose to flyers (Especially Affinity), so Lightning Bolt or Atarka's Command (gives reach) could actually be fine cards in the mix (and nice with BBE and Sentinel).
I'm giving a little bit more thought about the RG version, so let me share what i've got so far :
1- I'm not convinced BBE is better than Collected Company : it's interesting to compare both plays in in game and see that Coco lets us abuse Heritage Druid more (this is where Nettle Sentinel is useful to vomit our hand entirely) where BBE lets us short 1 mana because we can't use our Stomping Ground (needed for sthg else). Also Coco guarantees 2 bodies on the field while BBE doesn't.
2- Nettle Sentinel and Dwynen's Elite combo with Heritage Druid, that's why I wouldn't see myself cutting the cards that offer the most explosive starts. Now it's been see that a couple Sentinels got cut, but there never was a consensus whether it was a good idea or not after all.
3- I noticed 2 very interesting cards in order to break stalll boards (since there's no combo outside of Ezuri): Legion Loyalist and Savage Alliance. Main or Side, hard to tell. They could be better cards than Command, I don't know. I feel like I lose too much vs Affinity, Spirits, andHumans, which is due to my inability to stall the board (we run no flyers) or get through their defensive board. I can imagine the same result VS Bogles, Merfolk or other Coco decks.
I understand the 1drops are not great, but they are necessary. With only 18 lands it's hard to get to 4 mana without enough Dorks. Sentinel really does nothing for the deck but being a a slightly bigger dude.
Yeah, I proposed a very greedy draft list there. I explained above why Sentinel seems still good enough though. And I like the sequence Sentinel >> Clancaller.
Bolt could be replaced with Abrade and switched to the sideboard instead of Dismember probably.
Good call.
There might be too many value cards, but that was kinda the point. Maybe Messenger or Visionary should be cut, but i don't think both.
You may be right. But I feel like 4 Coco/BBE + some Leads is already enough, especially if you play better stand-alone threats than regular Elves lists. This is only what I expect on paper, not enough testing by my side obviously.
I've been playing elves ever since Shaman of the Pack was spoiled.
However, I decided that i'm going to try a different approach with elves for a coming PPTQ.
I feel that GB's Shaman of the Pack is not that great, because of all the midrange and control decks keeping the board clean. Same goes GW's combo.
Therefore i'm going to try GR. Objective is to swarm elves rather than being combo.
So, you will notice that i've cut CoCo and Chord entirely. These cards are very good, yet less relevant when there is no vizier combo or SotP to find. Ofcourse you can always get the Archdruid Ezuri combo, but i decided to focus entirely on swarming and not have a half and half strategy.
With BBE, Messenger and LtS, the control/midrange matchup becomes alot better. With this list there are so many value cards that both hand and board is filled with elves. Hence that the creature count is higher than other lists, so LtS and Messenger hit more.
Another thing that's different is Arbor Elf. I've cut Nettle Sentinel and made sure every 1 drop produces mana. I've noticed that it's more important to have a dork t1 than GB Elves because of the 4 drops, but also because of the many elves drawn.
I think the curve is smoother now. 14x 1drops, 12x 2drops, 10x 3drops, 6x 4drops. Out of 60-18-6=36 Cascade hits, 22 are really good to hit. LtS and Messenger have 24 good hits. Their hits also get better after fetching.
So, i predict this list:
* works better against midrange/control.
* Against aggro, it might be harder to race with the lack of combo, but the field will be swarmed more. Meaning more blocker and more beaters.
* Will have a difficult time against combo. There is no instant speed interaction to stop them from comboing. Also, Damping Sphere is likely to disrupt myself as much as the opponent with this list, so it's not in the 75.
This is a Meta call for me, because midrange/control is at the upperhand here.
I do would like to have something in the side for KCI and Storm. Ofcourse there are Some Rec sage and Fracturing gust for KCI, but only Gust is instant speed. I was thinking about Abrade, Kill KCI's artifacts and Stom's goblin/baral.
I'm open to any suggestions about the list entirely.
If you think this deck is a bad idea let me know too
Actually if your objective is to swarm with elves and just go all gangsta, I think you don't want to drop Shaman. First, its a cascade target, second, it will often reduce your clock by 1 turn. The black is not really an issue, since we have access to caverns, unclaimed territory, and gilt-leaf is like a zero downside dual land. Relying on these lands would make your manabase less painful and also increase your % against burn.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
Looks like most people are forgoing Elvish Visionaries for a set of Elvish Clancallers instead in GB elves. Anyone here test this out at all? I’m curious if it’s been showing positive results.
Had a chance to go play tonight. Been running G/B with 3 Lead the stampede but I've taken out 4 visionaries for 4 clancallers and in the "matches" tonight I wouldn't have preferred visionary at any point.
I didn't take any notes for my matches, but round 1 and 2 were U/W spirits and Mono W Eldrazi Taxes and I just walked over both of them in 2 games.
Round 3 was Abzan. Last time I played against him he was on jeskai control so I kept a hand of 2 dorks 1 cavern 1 forest 3 shaman. Probably not a great keep, but I was there to have fun so why not. I lost game 1 to push/path, land drops, and double goyf. Game 2 he mulled and kept a mediocre hand that I just overwhelemed. Game 3 we both played scavenging ooze and mine ate more stuff. Clancaller was also great in this matchup.
Round 4 I happily split against infect. Game 1 feels heavily in their favor due evasiveness. If we were to sideboard I would drop 1 lead, 3 shaman, 1 ezuri, 1 rec sage for 2 thoughtseize, 2 stain the mind, and 2 scavenging ooze. Still uncertain how to approach this matchup, but slowing them down from become immense seems like the best plan.
As my final classes wind down I'll try to play more. I'll try to keep notes for matchups that aren't free ignoring unlucky mulligans.
Yeah I think Elvish Clancaller is definitely the correct route now a days.. When I first saw the card, it's second ability of tapping (6) and itself to tutor for another seemed cute but irrelevant yet from the week I have played with them I find 80% of the time I have access to the mana and it works really well.
I think Visionary was only there as a placeholder until a better 2 drop became available. Plus I run 3x Lead the Stampede mainboard which is far more efficient at keeping the hand full and is better at protecting against board wipes and loss of tempo
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
UU"Brute force can sometimes kick down a locked door, but knowledge is a skeleton key"UU
Thought knot seer is a lot better, peeks at the hand, it is a body, and it is colorless. Which is mostly relavant. congrats on the results.
I do feel visionary is a lot better than clancaller specifically for G/B because you want to be drawing more of your SB cards to have consistent results. I haven't want to test the champion, although a bunch of 1/1's is indeed the format that isn't humans or tron. Not sure how to cut for it since slots are tight as is. If tokens are a problem, instead of cast down, bile blight could be a better choice for more black heavy decks to kill off token decks.
Just going to casually post this list that took 9th at scg classics with 4 clancallers.
I had a hunch, but my confidence is growing in this card.
Congrats on that result! Great job! I have the same feeling about elvish clancaller. Powers the whole team. It's a great hit for coco too. And even his ability is relative easy to cast (I have to admit I play this deck with 2 Nykthos, shrine to nyx)
How did you feel about the chords? They feel a bit clunky to me. I prefer lead > chord in this GB version. Especially without elvish visionary
My friend borrowed my deck running 3x of the new Elvish Clancaller and 2x Steel Leaf Champion and both were over performers for him the whole day (he played against: Jeskai, Elves mirror, Mardu, Humans, Knights, Scapeshift, Jund)
Those Steel Leaf Champions are almost always unblock able right now in the format because there are so many low powered creatures.
He ended up going 4-3
It's kinda hard to imagine your meta, but let's operate on the premise that you're going to modern FNM, so... blind meta.
The main worry I have for your deck is how you need to reset every time the opponent wipes. At the typical FNM you can expect to run into a lot of Supreme Verdicts, Terminus, Anger of the Gods, Damnations. It'll be in the sideboards, sometime mainboards of most established or semi competitive decks, so you'll need to be prepared for that.
I get how the GL archdruid also serves as a card advantage engine, but do remember this is a format with a very high bar for 5 cmc. Perhaps, it can serve as an alt win con alongside ezuri, but I honestly feel like having 4 will more often than not result in clunky hands. Then again I've never played druid tribal with 16 mana dorks (20 if you count heritage).
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
Yes... Heroic Intervention might need to become a main part of my deck. Time will tell, I should have some opportunity to see how the deck goes before I compete. Besides, I am not going in to win. At least, not until I really get my head around modern, then I might try to design/copy a deck that is competitive.
Reading this primer made my understand Heritage Druid, and discovering Boreal Druid from a search made this deck (casually) playable. 12 was just not enough for it to be worthwhile. 16/20 is.
Then again, I am coming in with a unique design in a format I do not understand - so, yeah, I am not expecting to be competitive.
But when it goes off, it's a lot of fun. Without the land grab, with both archdruids and enough dorks, 15+ elves out on turn 4 is the norm. It would be interesting to test what the theoretical maximum would be... my guess is close to 25.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
Nettle Sentinel would be good no doubt - generally only when I already have glit-leaf and a heritage out. In that case, the odds are I'm pretty happy anyway.
Personally i think Elves is the stronger of the too as if you have removal early to shut down a couple goblins and they didnt Nut draw to kill you T3 they will have a harder time recovering from the boardwipe or from go wide strategy and bloockers since they have no real way of trample, just swarming. Elves on the other hand may not always kill by T3 (it is possible) but we can rebuild easier after a boardwipe thanks to CoCo, Lead the Stampede, and alot of mana dorks. Goblins eschews the dorks for ritual effects and once their are burned its gone.
Wouldn't Steel Leaf Champion be a nice addition with BBE in the mix ? I feel like you have too many value cards (Visionary, BBE, Messenger and Lead !!!) that mostly get 1/1s, and lords that will mostly pump themselves and other 1/1s...
I feel your list could ramp for aggro bodies instead (Narnam Renegade or Nettle Sentinel could be better than some of the 1/1s).
BBE is great with lead, but bad with Messenger, I would probably cut them cause they're way too slow for your plan.
Elves naturally lose to flyers (Especially Affinity), so Lightning Bolt or Atarka's Command (gives reach) could actually be fine cards in the mix (and nice with BBE and Sentinel).
Maybe something like that :
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Forest
2 Stomping Ground
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Windswept Heath
1 Pendelhaven
1 Kessig Wolf Run
2 Llanowar Elves
2 Elvish Mystic
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Clancaller
4 Steel Leaf Champion
4 Elvish Archdruid
3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Bloodbraid Elf
3 Lead the Stampede
2 Atarka's Command
2 Lightning Bolt
1- I'm not convinced BBE is better than Collected Company : it's interesting to compare both plays in in game and see that Coco lets us abuse Heritage Druid more (this is where Nettle Sentinel is useful to vomit our hand entirely) where BBE lets us short 1 mana because we can't use our Stomping Ground (needed for sthg else). Also Coco guarantees 2 bodies on the field while BBE doesn't.
2- Nettle Sentinel and Dwynen's Elite combo with Heritage Druid, that's why I wouldn't see myself cutting the cards that offer the most explosive starts. Now it's been see that a couple Sentinels got cut, but there never was a consensus whether it was a good idea or not after all.
3- I noticed 2 very interesting cards in order to break stalll boards (since there's no combo outside of Ezuri): Legion Loyalist and Savage Alliance. Main or Side, hard to tell. They could be better cards than Command, I don't know. I feel like I lose too much vs Affinity, Spirits, andHumans, which is due to my inability to stall the board (we run no flyers) or get through their defensive board. I can imagine the same result VS Bogles, Merfolk or other Coco decks.
Yeah, I proposed a very greedy draft list there. I explained above why Sentinel seems still good enough though. And I like the sequence Sentinel >> Clancaller.
Good call.
You may be right. But I feel like 4 Coco/BBE + some Leads is already enough, especially if you play better stand-alone threats than regular Elves lists. This is only what I expect on paper, not enough testing by my side obviously.
That might be the next step to my take :
4 Forest
2 Stomping Ground
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Windswept Heath
1 Pendelhaven
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Clancaller
4 Steel Leaf Champion
4 Elvish Archdruid
3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
INSTANTS/SORCERIES 7:
4 Collected Company
With a option on Loyalist be cut for Lead or Alliance or Commands or whatever.
Actually if your objective is to swarm with elves and just go all gangsta, I think you don't want to drop Shaman. First, its a cascade target, second, it will often reduce your clock by 1 turn. The black is not really an issue, since we have access to caverns, unclaimed territory, and gilt-leaf is like a zero downside dual land. Relying on these lands would make your manabase less painful and also increase your % against burn.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
I didn't take any notes for my matches, but round 1 and 2 were U/W spirits and Mono W Eldrazi Taxes and I just walked over both of them in 2 games.
Round 3 was Abzan. Last time I played against him he was on jeskai control so I kept a hand of 2 dorks 1 cavern 1 forest 3 shaman. Probably not a great keep, but I was there to have fun so why not. I lost game 1 to push/path, land drops, and double goyf. Game 2 he mulled and kept a mediocre hand that I just overwhelemed. Game 3 we both played scavenging ooze and mine ate more stuff. Clancaller was also great in this matchup.
Round 4 I happily split against infect. Game 1 feels heavily in their favor due evasiveness. If we were to sideboard I would drop 1 lead, 3 shaman, 1 ezuri, 1 rec sage for 2 thoughtseize, 2 stain the mind, and 2 scavenging ooze. Still uncertain how to approach this matchup, but slowing them down from become immense seems like the best plan.
As my final classes wind down I'll try to play more. I'll try to keep notes for matchups that aren't free ignoring unlucky mulligans.
I think Visionary was only there as a placeholder until a better 2 drop became available. Plus I run 3x Lead the Stampede mainboard which is far more efficient at keeping the hand full and is better at protecting against board wipes and loss of tempo
I do feel visionary is a lot better than clancaller specifically for G/B because you want to be drawing more of your SB cards to have consistent results. I haven't want to test the champion, although a bunch of 1/1's is indeed the format that isn't humans or tron. Not sure how to cut for it since slots are tight as is. If tokens are a problem, instead of cast down, bile blight could be a better choice for more black heavy decks to kill off token decks.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/instant-deck-tech-beatdown-elves-modern
Half the deck are elf lords. Definitely slower than merfolk. Seems super linear with no real tricks. Thoughts?
I'm thinking of trying it out.
I had a hunch, but my confidence is growing in this card.
BGElvesBG and BUGNissa ElvesBUG Faithful Elfer since May 1st, 2015
Results: SCG IQ Top 8, Monthly Modern Masters Top 4
Congrats on that result! Great job! I have the same feeling about elvish clancaller. Powers the whole team. It's a great hit for coco too. And even his ability is relative easy to cast (I have to admit I play this deck with 2 Nykthos, shrine to nyx)
How did you feel about the chords? They feel a bit clunky to me. I prefer lead > chord in this GB version. Especially without elvish visionary
RBWMardu Nahiri, GBElves, UW Emeria, RSkred Red,
GBelcher, BDevotion, GWRNaya landfall, UWBEsper Miracles
Oops, sorry I didn’t clarify, but this is not my list. I just found it.
BGElvesBG and BUGNissa ElvesBUG Faithful Elfer since May 1st, 2015
Results: SCG IQ Top 8, Monthly Modern Masters Top 4