I understand just fine thanks. Please address this circumstance which you're still failing to account for -
We resolve a coco. Bottom 4 cards of library are no longer random, are known, and because of our selective ability, contain more chaff than wheat (we're not bottoming our better three mana creatures). This may frequently improve threat density in the rest of the randomized library, especially if the resolved coco was a whiff. If you fetch after this (shuffling library), you destroy the sorting effect, increasing the denominator for your threat density calculation. You haven't quantified this and more or less ignored the point in your last post.
If resolving cocos tends to - on average - improve the density of good mid/late game topdecks in the remainder of the randomized library, then we may be losing a good portion of the value of the fetches' library thinning by way of shuffling away our preferential sorts.
Edit: this is one of the reasons why horizon canopy may compare favorably.
New elf player here, had a rules question for those who use Phyrexian Revoker with Chord. I understand that you can chord in response to someone casting a Planeswalker but that Revoker but it loses its utility if Planeswalker is in play and the opponent activates an ability since that ability would resolve anyways.
Is it possible to Chord a Revoker in response to an equip? I assume not as the equip would already be on stack, but Revoker would prevent any future changes to what the equipment is attached to. Thanks!
New elf player here, had a rules question for those who use Phyrexian Revoker with Chord. I understand that you can chord in response to someone casting a Planeswalker but that Revoker but it loses its utility if Planeswalker is in play and the opponent activates an ability since that ability would resolve anyways.
Is it possible to Chord a Revoker in response to an equip? I assume not as the equip would already be on stack, but Revoker would prevent any future changes to what the equipment is attached to. Thanks!
Nope, Revoker will not stop an ability already on the stack regardless of what the card type is. Similarly it wont stop a planeswalker ability already on the stack.
On the front of fetchlands thinning - I don't think its relevant enough in the Chord of Calling build. I think it probably is worth doing though in a Lead the Stampede / Sylvan Messenger build though because of how many cards care about densities of nonlands in the top x cards.
I am hoping to try out the Lead the Stampede build this Friday. This is what I am hoping to field as it stands.
I overhauled the landbase adding fetches and shocks as well as moving to the Gavony Township because I feel like overall my lords count isn't that high so I want to enable big fast mana with my creatures but also have the option of hitting some sort of buffs. With the consistency of setting up the ideal being a little slower I wanted another way of fighting off mass damage effects as well as options to beat in better. I am just sort of toying with the Lead the Stampede builds for now so its not that I am sold on it but I am interested in it yet.
I understand just fine thanks. Please address this circumstance which you're still failing to account for -
We resolve a coco. Bottom 4 cards of library are no longer random, are known, and because of our selective ability, contain more chaff than wheat (we're not bottoming our better three mana creatures). This may frequently improve threat density in the rest of the randomized library, especially if the resolved coco was a whiff. If you fetch after this (shuffling library), you destroy the sorting effect, increasing the denominator for your threat density calculation. You haven't quantified this and more or less ignored the point in your last post.
If resolving cocos tends to - on average - improve the density of good mid/late game topdecks in the remainder of the randomized library, then we may be losing a good portion of the value of the fetches' library thinning by way of shuffling away our preferential sorts.
Edit: this is one of the reasons why horizon canopy may compare favorably.
The other possibility is also likely and has happened to me before, you CoCo and find 2 Ezuri's you cant take them both so you have to pitch one to the bottom. You want to then shuffle it back in so you have a higher chance of finding it again.
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On the front of fetchlands thinning - I don't think its relevant enough in the Chord of Calling build. I think it probably is worth doing though in a Lead the Stampede / Sylvan Messenger build though because of how many cards care about densities of nonlands in the top x cards.
I think you are thinking about it wrong. It is actually better in the Chord decks than the Lead the Stampede decks. Chord already is shuffling things back in, where as Lead lets you put ONLY chaf on the bottom. Additionally I feel the Lead the Stampede decks are better prepared for the long game but can't find their toolbox answers as easily. In the end though, I think the point of running fetches is to improve the FIRST CoCo cast each game. Because I am only running 4, I usually only hit 1 before coco and not many after.
Side note: Went 2-2 last night losing to Jund in 3 (Stupid Olivia, did we ever find a good answer for her... usually I am pretty good against Jund but in addition to some awful land draws in games 2 and 3, I literally had no answer for her as she was able to ping away my board and kill me. The land draws probably didnt help though as I usually beat Jund through speed and I got flooded game 2 (4 land draws turns 1-4 and 3 in starting hand, Thoughtseize, Inquisition and bolt took care of most of my nonlands) and saw 2 lands all of game 3 (like 7+ turns). I'm probably going to chock it up to variance but I'd still like to see Olivia hit the board and know I have an answer in my deck somewhere). The other loss was to this weird Boros Aggro deck where I had god awful luck as well including game 3 casting 3 CoCo's to find 0 lord or Ezuris, dont know how that happened but oh well. Addtionally though, I did play Robots round 1 and bought a Kataki before the tournament (had no idea they were only a dollar!). Rofled Mono Green Robot style game 1 (Barf Hand onto board turn 2, turn 3 coco into 2 more lords and it was over on my turn 4), Game 2 I chord for Kataki (he had 3 artifacts out and 3 mana available). He pays his mana and keeps attacking. I then cast Revoker and name his Mox Opal and he was forced to sac it and the game was mine from there (oh I should mention he had a Ethersworn Canonist in play which slowed me down immensely).
I think you are thinking about it wrong. It is actually better in the Chord decks than the Lead the Stampede decks. Chord already is shuffling things back in, where as Lead lets you put ONLY chaf on the bottom. Additionally I feel the Lead the Stampede decks are better prepared for the long game but can't find their toolbox answers as easily. In the end though, I think the point of running fetches is to improve the FIRST CoCo cast each game. Because I am only running 4, I usually only hit 1 before coco and not many after.
Side note: Went 2-2 last night losing to Jund in 3 (Stupid Olivia, did we ever find a good answer for her... usually I am pretty good against Jund but in addition to some awful land draws in games 2 and 3, I literally had no answer for her as she was able to ping away my board and kill me. The land draws probably didnt help though as I usually beat Jund through speed and I got flooded game 2 (4 land draws turns 1-4 and 3 in starting hand, Thoughtseize, Inquisition and bolt took care of most of my nonlands) and saw 2 lands all of game 3 (like 7+ turns). I'm probably going to chock it up to variance but I'd still like to see Olivia hit the board and know I have an answer in my deck somewhere). The other loss was to this weird Boros Aggro deck where I had god awful luck as well including game 3 casting 3 CoCo's to find 0 lord or Ezuris, dont know how that happened but oh well. Addtionally though, I did play Robots round 1 and bought a Kataki before the tournament (had no idea they were only a dollar!). Rofled Mono Green Robot style game 1 (Barf Hand onto board turn 2, turn 3 coco into 2 more lords and it was over on my turn 4), Game 2 I chord for Kataki (he had 3 artifacts out and 3 mana available). He pays his mana and keeps attacking. I then cast Revoker and name his Mox Opal and he was forced to sac it and the game was mine from there (oh I should mention he had a Ethersworn Canonist in play which slowed me down immensely).
In the Chord build you only have 4 cards in deck that care about the density of threats. That means that there is less situations in which you care about your density. Chord will help shuffle spells back into the deck that you accidentally hit in the creatures matter effects but there are a lot less being cast as well. Fetchlands matter more in Lead the Stampede builds because the quantity of creature density matters effects is increased.
The argument about deck thinning on lands matters more with the more you would cast creatures matter effects.
Olivia - Chameleon Colossus is still probably the best answer I have because he ignores most of their removal and swings past her. Dismember / Beast Within can also be options but the easier to get Revoker probably just gets popped by their removal so its a hard one to answer nicely. Colossus is still tricky as you have to get it past their Liliana edicts and Thoughtseize.
Have you tried the Essence Wardens over the Finks?
In the stampede version it seems to be easier to get 1-2 wardens into play and then spam out 6+health. Finks on the other hand can have issues because he's not an elf, and those matches where you want the life gain, you can't afford to be putting it at the bottom of your deck.
Revoker would work against Olivia wouldn't it? Also, wouldn't Chameleon Colossus have protection from her as far as the control ability goes since it uses black?
Have you tried the Essence Wardens over the Finks?
In the stampede version it seems to be easier to get 1-2 wardens into play and then spam out 6+health. Finks on the other hand can have issues because he's not an elf, and those matches where you want the life gain, you can't afford to be putting it at the bottom of your deck.
Essence Warden is an option. When it comes to fast aggro and burn opposition though Sylvan Messenger is one of the first cards going out because its 4 mana and it misses on some of the things I want. In general you don't need card advantage as much against these decks so moving to the right answers and lifegain is where you want to be over trying to draw cards. Chaining draw is a strategy against control decks primarily.
Essence Warden can be a little awkward too depending on how much your opponent minds using removal on your creatures. Warden is a fast target for removal which does save some life but I like that the Finks give a fast boost of life and block off their attacks well because they have to remove them twice to get past them in combat. Its a tough call as I have seen people make arguments for both sides. As it stands I have not tested the Lead the Stampede plan much and the original author of the deck runs Finks which is why I am also playing them in part because I don't want to change it too much from the original author as I want to still get a feel for what they are playing and getting results with.
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Revoker does work (keep in mind I had very bad luck last night) but he bolted it immediately. (I also had a turn where I played Scooze after he cleared my board and he top decked his own, with olivia out I couldn't eat in response as I was screwed on mana because he could just *ping ping* and kill it). I might try Colossus because he does answer most of the threats (and most Jund players I know have sideboarded out Liliana for g2&3 because if you zerg out onto the board it does nothing) and he is an Elf still. I recently picked up some Dismembers for another deck so I may put them in, I think they will just get pulled by discard though.
I understand just fine thanks. Please address this circumstance which you're still failing to account for -
We resolve a coco. Bottom 4 cards of library are no longer random, are known, and because of our selective ability, contain more chaff than wheat (we're not bottoming our better three mana creatures). This may frequently improve threat density in the rest of the randomized library, especially if the resolved coco was a whiff. If you fetch after this (shuffling library), you destroy the sorting effect, increasing the denominator for your threat density calculation. You haven't quantified this and more or less ignored the point in your last post.
If resolving cocos tends to - on average - improve the density of good mid/late game topdecks in the remainder of the randomized library, then we may be losing a good portion of the value of the fetches' library thinning by way of shuffling away our preferential sorts.
Edit: this is one of the reasons why horizon canopy may compare favorably.
This assumption is actually a bit of a logical fallacy, the density of non creature cards in your library is an absolute at any given time, but the chances of each card drawn being a creature or non creature card is the same regardless of how many times the deck is rifled/shuffled/etc. This is why buying 100 lottery tickets will not give you a significant advantage to winning over buying just a few. The only time this will matter measurably is if you have the ability to control what card(s) are on TOP of your library or if you've somehow pulled card types from your library prior to drawing. The sequence of ordering at the bottom of your library wont actually matter in regards to a binary card type density until you reach the bottom of your library again; this is bc statistically speaking, the cards you've put there from previously resolved Collected Companies will have the same density as the rest of your unknown library. So in this scenario, multiple resolved CoCo's wont increase the chance of pulling wheat from the top of your library in a mathematically significant way... in fact, you're just as likely to draw all 6 creature cards and be forced to bottom stack 4 of them, as you are to draw all 6 non creature cards and whiffing.
This is why mass milling alone is not a viable control strategy unless you can get your opponent to 0 cards, or can somehow take advantage of the cards milled (like Ashiok). You're just as likely to mill wheat as you are chaff.
Since a resolved Collected Company could affect your binary card type density by ~1.5% (-2 creatures -1 non creature card), we can actually use fetches to compensate for that loss by removing more non creature cards from the library before we cast it again.
The main reason Horizon Canopy is such a good card is that its played for free, will allow you to play cards, and can be cycled when no longer needed.
Revoker does work (keep in mind I had very bad luck last night) but he bolted it immediately. (I also had a turn where I played Scooze after he cleared my board and he top decked his own, with olivia out I couldn't eat in response as I was screwed on mana because he could just *ping ping* and kill it). I might try Colossus because he does answer most of the threats (and most Jund players I know have sideboarded out Liliana for g2&3 because if you zerg out onto the board it does nothing) and he is an Elf still. I recently picked up some Dismembers for another deck so I may put them in, I think they will just get pulled by discard though.
Chameleon Colossus is a powerhouse versus a lot of decks: resistant to most removal, a chump blocker against Tasigur/Angler, and can be a wincon on his own. Highly suggest one or two in the side board. Also if Revoker manages to eat a bolt and buy me a turn I'm ok with that.
EDIT: I've read a bit further back and may have been arguing against something that no one was arguing for.
Usually after I resolve CoCo, and always after I resolve Sylvan Messenger or Lead the Stampede, I'm putting junk on the bottom of the deck. I sometimes don't want to shuffle after resolving one of those spells (especially the latter two). When you add to that the fact that my chances of hitting more creatures is (marginally) improved by fetching before those resolve, we're left with a situation where it's difficult to understand an argument for waiting until after you bottom your cards to fetch.
Chr0m3_c0y0t3, I don't mean to pick on you, but I want to make sure to clear up a few things for other readers (and maybe you as well), because your post is wrong in a lot of ways.
the chances of each card drawn being a creature or non creature card is the same regardless of how many times the deck is rifled/shuffled/etc
While you're technically correct, it appears to me that you've missed the whole point of the argument to fetch either before or after you resolve CoCo. First, removing a land from the deck is going to change what you're referring to as the "binary card type density" (creature/non-creature) — I'm going to refer to it randomCardCreature%: I'll use that to mean the percent chance that the top x cards of our deck have y creatures (for CoCo, x=6 and y=2; x can be thought of as random cards unless we start running scry lands or something). Second, shuffling our deck after we have specific information about a certain part of the deck — like, say, the bottom, — changes randomCardCreature%, since the known cards at the bottom are rejoining the random pool; in other words, they have a chance of being at the top of the deck after shuffling.
Quote from Chr0m3_c0y0t3 »
The only time this will matter measurably is if you have the ability to control what card(s) are on TOP of your library
You may have a different idea of what measurable means than I do, but this is just wrong. As I mention above, knowing the bottom of the deck is relevant, and changing the composition of the deck will most definitely have a measurable effect on randomCardCreature%.
Quote from Chr0m3_c0y0t3 »
The sequence of ordering at the bottom of your library wont actually matter in regards to a binary card type density until you reach the bottom of your library again; this is bc statistically speaking, the cards you've put there from previously resolved Collected Companies will have the same density as the rest of your unknown library.
The cards at the bottom will almost definitely not have the same "density" as the pool of random cards above it, since we're removing creatures from that bottom pool.
Quote from Chr0m3_c0y0t3 »
So in this scenario, multiple resolved CoCo's wont increase the chance of pulling wheat from the top of your library in a mathematically significant way...
I don't really disagree with this, but it's worth noting that the cards at the bottom of the library are, in general, significantly less likely to be creatures than those cards above it (of course, in a specific game state that may or may not be the case).
Quote from Chr0m3_c0y0t3 »
in fact, you're just as likely to draw all 6 creature cards and be forced to bottom stack 4 of them, as you are to draw all 6 non creature cards and whiffing.
If the remainder of your deck is exactly half creatures, then this is true. With 50 cards left, there's about a 1% chance of either of those outcomes. In contrast, there's about a 1/3 chance of hitting 3 creatures, and about a 1/4 chance of hitting 2 and 4 creatures.
Quote from Chr0m3_c0y0t3 »
Since a resolved Collected Company could affect your binary card type density by ~1.5% (-2 creatures -1 non creature card), we can actually use fetches to compensate for that loss by removing more non creature cards from the library before we cast it again.
The CoCo was already out of the deck if you resolved it. The bottom cards are much more likely to be non-creatures than creatures.
I want to walk through a couple of examples to show exactly how when you choose to fetch affects the result of CoCo and the following draws. In these examples, we have 50 cards left in our deck, half of which are creatures. Of the non-creatures, 16 are lands (which are often dead draws, especially after resolving CoCo) and the other 9 are spells that we might want to draw later. This leaves us with 34/50 live draws (I'm not even going to count the fact that often, when hitting 3+ creatures with CoCo, the creatures we're sending to the bottom are low-quality and nearly as bad as lands, but it's worth noting here that our dead-draw chance after shuffling will be higher than I'm noting).
Example 1: Fetching before resolving CoCo
We now have 49 cards, 25 of which are creatures. Our chances of hitting at least 2 creatures, which is our goal, increases by ~1% to 91.4%. The most likely outcomes are that we hit 2 (22.8%), 3 (33.3%), or 4 (25.0%) creatures.
If we hit 2 creatures, then we bottom four non-creatures. On average, ~2.5 will be lands. So we have 4 cards on the bottom of our library, 1.5 of which are live draws. In the random pool of 43 cards above it, we have 23 creatures, 7.5 other spells, and 12.5 lands; our probability of drawing a land is ~29%. Note that we have a >50% chance of picking a land from the bottom 4 cards. Shuffling after resolving CoCo gives us 15 lands and 47 cards: that leaves us with a 32% chance of drawing a land.
If we hit 3 creatures (the most likely outcome), then we bottom three non-creatures. On average, ~2 (closer to 1.9) will be lands. So we have 4 cards on the bottom of our library, 2 of which are live draws. In the random pool of 43 cards above it, we have 22 creatures, 8 other spells, and 13 lands; our probability of drawing a land is ~30%. Shuffling after resolving CoCo still gives us 15 lands and 47 cards: that leaves us with a 32% chance of drawing a land.
If we hit 4 creatures, then we bottom two non-creatures. On average, 1 will be a land. So we have 4 cards on the bottom of our library, 3 of which are live draws. In the random pool of 43 cards above it, we have 21 creatures, 8 other spells, and 14 lands; our probability of drawing a land is ~32.5%. Shuffling after resolving CoCo in this scenario actually decreases our chances of drawing a land, albeit by a very small amount.
Example 2: Fetching after resolving CoCo
Our chances of hitting 2+ creatures is 90.5%.
We hit 2 creatures (23.9%): we bottom 4 non-creatures, ~2.6 of which are lands; we fetch now, and instead of having a ~31% chance of drawing a land (worse than if we'd have fetched first), we're left with 32%.
We hit 3 creatures (33.3%): bottom 3 non-creatures, ~2 of which are lands; 32.6% chance of drawing land before fetching (always 32% after).
We hit 4 creatures (23.9%): bottom 3 non-creatures, ~1.28 of which are lands; ~34% chance of drawing land before fetching
This is a long-winded way to show that you'd always want to fetch before casting CoCo and it's sometimes beneficial to hold off on fetching afterwards, depending on what you put on the bottom.
It bought me 0 turns. Bolt EOT. Pinged my ooze twice (it still lived) and then attacked for like 7. Again I was unlucky and jund has a ton of spot removal
NarWil - that is a good addition to the argument on fetchlands. I didn't think about the fact that the bottom targets tend to be whiffs and or lesser targets. Good insight.
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NarWil - that is a good addition to the argument on fetchlands. I didn't think about the fact that the bottom targets tend to be whiffs and or lesser targets. Good insight.
I did say something similar which is why I like my 4 of in decks that use Chord (where you may be shuffling anyway). If you are using Lead the Stampede and Sylvan Messenger though you are going to be rewarded MORE for the initial fetch, but hurt worse by every fetch after you start filtering. To this same affect, decks running chord could also run Fauna Shaman and live with the fact that sometimes they are going to be shuffling junk back into the library where as Lead the Stampede and Sylvan decks would want to avoid this as they will have sorted more (and unlike CoCo where you can pull 2 creatures and then tuck 2 creatures and 2 lands, with Lead the Stampede and Sylvan you are grabbing ALL creatures). The % of this that actually affects games will be small but its something to consider. I think in the end we will end up with essentially 2 lists. 1 that can be more toolboxy but can search for its answers and 1 that is much more resilient to board wipes (which is the primary sideboard in against us). Which deck is better might be preference and I am sure eventually it will be determined (or another elf will be printed that pushes us in one direction or the other).
Would love to know peoples opinion on Tron? What do you side in and how to you play against it game 1 and game 2?
GR Tron is rough with pyroclasm mainboard but my worse match is Ux tron where turn 4, they cast Gifts ungiving putting unburrial rites and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite in their graveyard.
Would love to know peoples opinion on Tron? What do you side in and how to you play against it game 1 and game 2?
GR Tron is rough with pyroclasm mainboard but my worse match is Ux tron where turn 4, they cast Gifts ungiving putting unburrial rites and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite in their graveyard.
Tron is a bad matchup. What we have in our favor is that their deck tends to involve a lot of moving pieces so even without us having a specific card I think there is still like a 30% chance that their deck just fumbles on its own. Mainboard, we have an absolutely terrible matchup and after sideboard, its not much better to be honest.
Phyrexian Revoker - it can stop a lot of their removal as it can jam up Ugin, the Spirit Dragon & Oblivion Stone potentially. If you are playing Chord you can respond to them casting these cards and essentially blank a turn on them.
Burrenton Forge-Tender can get you out of a pyroclasm. Mark of Asylum also fits this role but cant be tutored and it blows up to a lot of their bigger sweepers.
As a whole, the answer is mostly that the matchup isn't one of our better ones and you have to just sort of play out knowing they are heavy sweeper. Try to time your cards and there is a chance they fumble our you out race their pyroclasms. For reanimator, try Scavenging Ooze and or Rest in Peace.
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While we are on the subject of match ups, after GP Charlotte LSV and Paul Cheon were doing a show for Channel Fireball and LSV's entire thoughts (from the show anyway) on the winning Elves list were "What good match ups does this deck have?"
Which is a tad disheartening, being that LSV made his name playing Elves, but it got me thinking, what are our good matches?
THIS 100X!!! If you don't agree with this then there is no amount of logic that will ever convince you that good, non-oppressive, combos should be allowed. If you don't agree with it then just don't play this game, and you certainly shouldn't feel entitled to make any comment on ban lists ever.
While we are on the subject of match ups, after GP Charlotte LSV and Paul Cheon were doing a show for Channel Fireball and LSV's entire thoughts (from the show anyway) on the winning Elves list were "What good match ups does this deck have?"
Which is a tad disheartening, being that LSV made his name playing Elves, but it got me thinking, what are our good matches?
Its a little bit depending on exactly how you set your list up but going off of a traditional Chord of Calling build, its usually something like this:
GOOD:
Burn - depends on how much sideboard hate you give them.
Twin - Spellskite
Merfolk - we tend to be faster than they are.
Affinity - more consistent, faster than their non god hands, better access to SB cards.
Scapeshift - we are a fast deck that tends not to run fetches so that buys us more time even against them. We also don't really care about sideboarded baloth assuming that's still their sb plan. They might sideboard sweepers but we tend to be sort of fast and their mainboard answers aren't that numerous.
Infect - we can drop a LOT of guys very fast and each of our guys essentially trades on their own against their infect guys. They tend to be better against removal.
Zoo - We are faster. They have a bit of removal though so it comes down to how much they draw. Their threats are better than ours so they can curve well followed with removal but it usually doesnt happen.
SO SO:
Grixis Control - Its probably going to be a bit of a coin flip or a little worse. Their creatures are big but dont generate value and they tend to run counter magic which is good and bad.
Grixus Delver - Delver is a pain to get rid of and they have a lot of removal still. Their removal and disruption is usually online very fast.
Abzan Midrange - its like slower jund. We are aggro so our matchup is a bit better.
Abzan Company - they are a combo deck that can go off quickly. We have tools against them and our games 2/3 tend to be better due to SB. Grave Hate and Revoker all interfere with them.
BAD:
Jund - Their threats tend to generate value and be bigger than ours. They also pack a lot of removal which essentially all catches us.
Tron - mainboard pyro is bad news. The tactics that work best against them are hard to have access to in our colors.
Amulet - we dont have a way to interact with their combo and they "can" go off far before us.
Grishoalbrand - its.... really fast when it works. We dont have much for answers and most of the time we cant set them up fast enough to counter this. Its a matter of if they get good hands as elves really cant fight this well.
For the most part, I would say that fast combo is bad for us. Sweepers and heavy removal is also bad for us and I think we are faster than most of the "fair" decks. This is just me sort of shooting from the hip based on my own limited experience. You might also put Grixus Control in the bad are as well but I don't have enough experience against it to really say so.
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Amulet - we dont have a way to interact with their combo and they "can" go off far before us.
Grishoalbrand - its.... really fast when it works. We dont have much for answers and most of the time we cant set them up fast enough to counter this. Its a matter of if they get good hands as elves really cant fight this well.
To be fair those are bad matchups for any deck if they work as they are supposed to. But they can also just as easily lose to themselves. I can't speak for Grishoalbrand as I am not too familiar with that deck but Bloom you can RecSage their Amulets and Beast Within bouncelands/Titan. I'm not saying it's a great matchup but I wouldn't characterize it as unwinnable either. If you are running the Naya/Blood Moon decklist I would say it is a 50/50 matchup or better.
On Jund, correct me if I am wrong as I have not faced it yet but theoretically post board should be a pretty close matchup from what I have heard.
To be fair those are bad matchups for any deck if they work as they are supposed to. But they can also just as easily lose to themselves. I can't speak for Grishoalbrand as I am not too familiar with that deck but Bloom you can RecSage their Amulets and Beast Within bouncelands/Titan. I'm not saying it's a great matchup but I wouldn't characterize it as unwinnable either. If you are running the Naya/Blood Moon decklist I would go even it is a 50/50 matchup or better.
On Jund, correct me if I am wrong as I have not faced it yet but theoretically post board should be a pretty close matchup from what I have heard.
Tron is just the worst.
Amulet - they can go off on turn 2 in extreme situations and it involves zero creatures. You are correct that Amulet and GBrand are both matchups where you have to rely somewhat on them not just god handing you every game but I listed them as bad games because its entirely optional for you to just not be able to interact. Ideal GBrand requires 3 cards to go off (looting effect, GBrand, Goryo's Vengeance) and ideal Amulet requires... 5 (ammulet, bounce land, Summer Bloom, Hive Mind, Pact)? Its more likely that Amulet doesn't go off with a god hand because of the increaded card count but even then they are hard to interact with so its a matter of racing both games. Goryo's Vengeance can be interacted with by means of graveyard hate but then they have Through the Breach still. Phyrexian Revoker can work against Griselbrand but only so long as they dont have removal.
In general, I think both Amulet and Griselbrand are bad matchups for us because ideal hands can go off before we have the option of interacting with their decks.
With Jund, Chameleon Colossus has been the only thing that has really worked well for me so far and its really hard to get into play still. Most of my interactions with Jund have been me never having more than 1 creature at a time because they have that much removal. It means that getting the 7 for Chord of Calling is almost impossible and a lot of their threats will kill you off of their value and are incredibly hard for this deck to interact with. I actually put them as the worse of the control decks because all of their creatures are still mostly bigger than ours but they also generate value which is horrible for us.
Tron - roll the dice and hope they roll poorly.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I played Bloom Titan for 2 years (before people started learning about it in January-Febuary and learned how to play against it) and I can say the "combo" is really easy to put down on turn 2. Maybe not turn 2 win but fast enough that you can't do too much about it. First off, after game 1 they will know you don't have abrupt decay and the like so they can play (amulet t1, amulet t2 and then bounce into azusa/summerbloom into pact/titan and lethal you with a titan swing that turn, also requiring 4 cards to do (but effectively 8 titans in the deck and at minimum 8 bounce lands that work.. usually more)) Just because they can't kill you T2 doesn't mean you arent essentially dead onboard. T2-3 Primetime is pretty easy and if you aren't working a perfect T3-T4 kill they will get in for 8 the turn he enters and then 6-14 the following turn (depending what line of play they chose, could play the safe route and fetch blockers\lifegain but I'd personally usually go get another Titan that way even if you kill the one I got, I can swing for 8 more the following turn minimum). You have to essentially out race them and pray they don't roflstomp you. I'd probably try and get Magus of the Moon out as fast as possible (though I always ran a 2x Anger of the Gods in the side that I would definitely bring in).
As far as Jund though. I think we are favored game 1 because most of the time you can just overwhelm their 1:1 approach. I think they take that favor back for games 2 and 3 because like you said ISBPathfiner, they have a ton of removal and value (Olivia as mentioned a page or 2 ago being king of keep your dudes off the board). In addition to making Chording for Colossus impossible, they also have a plethora of discard effects if you are playing the Lead the Stampede/Sylvan Messenger route to find it.
Tron is really a dice roll. Only problem is you are rolling 1d3 and they are rolling 1d10. Having Ghost Quarters in the main has helped a bit and I know I will probably main deck Magus of the Moon because even though he dies to pyroclasm, it forces them to have an answer or be forever screwed. (Revoker has done wonders for the matchup, as well as Reclamation Sage for those playing Sundering Titan. Because of my trolly luck against that particular card I have chorded in response to trigger/played the following turn, every time I see that card. Usually costs me 2-3 lands as a thanks but my 2-3 lands, usually their mountain and they wasted a turn while I can slam in for damage has always been a turning play in matches that went my way. What you don't want is my luck in general against the deck where I faced Karn (exiled my land, I swing and kill it with my elves on board) followed by Karn (repeat process) followed by Karn (plusing this time so I can't kill it) followed by Ugin (bolting my dude)... Isn't tron fun!)
I am playing in an SCG IQ this coming Saturday. If anyone would like to review, give feedback, comment, whatever, I;d love to hear it. I do not know what the meta will be like. I am playing a version of the GP Charlotte winning Elves deck.
Things I'm considering:
-Thragtusk - Maindeck Forge Tender +2 Dwynen Elite
Reason: Dwynen Elite increases the number of keepable opening hands at the cost of utility. I'm unsure if having answers is better than being faster.
-1 Choke -1 Fracturing Gust + 2 Rest in Peace in the board
Reason: Scooze is slow and vulnerable and more of a comeback card in grindy games than an out to GY decks.I am also unsure how good Choke actually is.
- Eidolon + Aven Mindcensor
Because I can't beat Amulet.
That's the list. Thanks again for anyone who checks it out.
THIS 100X!!! If you don't agree with this then there is no amount of logic that will ever convince you that good, non-oppressive, combos should be allowed. If you don't agree with it then just don't play this game, and you certainly shouldn't feel entitled to make any comment on ban lists ever.
We resolve a coco. Bottom 4 cards of library are no longer random, are known, and because of our selective ability, contain more chaff than wheat (we're not bottoming our better three mana creatures). This may frequently improve threat density in the rest of the randomized library, especially if the resolved coco was a whiff. If you fetch after this (shuffling library), you destroy the sorting effect, increasing the denominator for your threat density calculation. You haven't quantified this and more or less ignored the point in your last post.
If resolving cocos tends to - on average - improve the density of good mid/late game topdecks in the remainder of the randomized library, then we may be losing a good portion of the value of the fetches' library thinning by way of shuffling away our preferential sorts.
Edit: this is one of the reasons why horizon canopy may compare favorably.
Is it possible to Chord a Revoker in response to an equip? I assume not as the equip would already be on stack, but Revoker would prevent any future changes to what the equipment is attached to. Thanks!
Nope, Revoker will not stop an ability already on the stack regardless of what the card type is. Similarly it wont stop a planeswalker ability already on the stack.
On the front of fetchlands thinning - I don't think its relevant enough in the Chord of Calling build. I think it probably is worth doing though in a Lead the Stampede / Sylvan Messenger build though because of how many cards care about densities of nonlands in the top x cards.
I am hoping to try out the Lead the Stampede build this Friday. This is what I am hoping to field as it stands.
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
3 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Fauna Shaman
4 Elvish Archdruid
3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
3 Sylvan Messenger
3 Lead the Stampede
4 Collected Company
LAND (19)
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Forest
2 Gavony Township
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Fauna Shaman
1 Kataki, War's Wage
3 Rest in Peace
1 Spellskite
3 Dismember
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Chameleon Colossus
I overhauled the landbase adding fetches and shocks as well as moving to the Gavony Township because I feel like overall my lords count isn't that high so I want to enable big fast mana with my creatures but also have the option of hitting some sort of buffs. With the consistency of setting up the ideal being a little slower I wanted another way of fighting off mass damage effects as well as options to beat in better. I am just sort of toying with the Lead the Stampede builds for now so its not that I am sold on it but I am interested in it yet.
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The other possibility is also likely and has happened to me before, you CoCo and find 2 Ezuri's you cant take them both so you have to pitch one to the bottom. You want to then shuffle it back in so you have a higher chance of finding it again.
I think you are thinking about it wrong. It is actually better in the Chord decks than the Lead the Stampede decks. Chord already is shuffling things back in, where as Lead lets you put ONLY chaf on the bottom. Additionally I feel the Lead the Stampede decks are better prepared for the long game but can't find their toolbox answers as easily. In the end though, I think the point of running fetches is to improve the FIRST CoCo cast each game. Because I am only running 4, I usually only hit 1 before coco and not many after.
Side note: Went 2-2 last night losing to Jund in 3 (Stupid Olivia, did we ever find a good answer for her... usually I am pretty good against Jund but in addition to some awful land draws in games 2 and 3, I literally had no answer for her as she was able to ping away my board and kill me. The land draws probably didnt help though as I usually beat Jund through speed and I got flooded game 2 (4 land draws turns 1-4 and 3 in starting hand, Thoughtseize, Inquisition and bolt took care of most of my nonlands) and saw 2 lands all of game 3 (like 7+ turns). I'm probably going to chock it up to variance but I'd still like to see Olivia hit the board and know I have an answer in my deck somewhere). The other loss was to this weird Boros Aggro deck where I had god awful luck as well including game 3 casting 3 CoCo's to find 0 lord or Ezuris, dont know how that happened but oh well. Addtionally though, I did play Robots round 1 and bought a Kataki before the tournament (had no idea they were only a dollar!). Rofled Mono Green Robot style game 1 (Barf Hand onto board turn 2, turn 3 coco into 2 more lords and it was over on my turn 4), Game 2 I chord for Kataki (he had 3 artifacts out and 3 mana available). He pays his mana and keeps attacking. I then cast Revoker and name his Mox Opal and he was forced to sac it and the game was mine from there (oh I should mention he had a Ethersworn Canonist in play which slowed me down immensely).
In the Chord build you only have 4 cards in deck that care about the density of threats. That means that there is less situations in which you care about your density. Chord will help shuffle spells back into the deck that you accidentally hit in the creatures matter effects but there are a lot less being cast as well. Fetchlands matter more in Lead the Stampede builds because the quantity of creature density matters effects is increased.
The argument about deck thinning on lands matters more with the more you would cast creatures matter effects.
Olivia - Chameleon Colossus is still probably the best answer I have because he ignores most of their removal and swings past her. Dismember / Beast Within can also be options but the easier to get Revoker probably just gets popped by their removal so its a hard one to answer nicely. Colossus is still tricky as you have to get it past their Liliana edicts and Thoughtseize.
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Have you tried the Essence Wardens over the Finks?
In the stampede version it seems to be easier to get 1-2 wardens into play and then spam out 6+health. Finks on the other hand can have issues because he's not an elf, and those matches where you want the life gain, you can't afford to be putting it at the bottom of your deck.
Edit: Beaten by Pathfinder.
Essence Warden is an option. When it comes to fast aggro and burn opposition though Sylvan Messenger is one of the first cards going out because its 4 mana and it misses on some of the things I want. In general you don't need card advantage as much against these decks so moving to the right answers and lifegain is where you want to be over trying to draw cards. Chaining draw is a strategy against control decks primarily.
Essence Warden can be a little awkward too depending on how much your opponent minds using removal on your creatures. Warden is a fast target for removal which does save some life but I like that the Finks give a fast boost of life and block off their attacks well because they have to remove them twice to get past them in combat. Its a tough call as I have seen people make arguments for both sides. As it stands I have not tested the Lead the Stampede plan much and the original author of the deck runs Finks which is why I am also playing them in part because I don't want to change it too much from the original author as I want to still get a feel for what they are playing and getting results with.
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This assumption is actually a bit of a logical fallacy, the density of non creature cards in your library is an absolute at any given time, but the chances of each card drawn being a creature or non creature card is the same regardless of how many times the deck is rifled/shuffled/etc. This is why buying 100 lottery tickets will not give you a significant advantage to winning over buying just a few. The only time this will matter measurably is if you have the ability to control what card(s) are on TOP of your library or if you've somehow pulled card types from your library prior to drawing. The sequence of ordering at the bottom of your library wont actually matter in regards to a binary card type density until you reach the bottom of your library again; this is bc statistically speaking, the cards you've put there from previously resolved Collected Companies will have the same density as the rest of your unknown library. So in this scenario, multiple resolved CoCo's wont increase the chance of pulling wheat from the top of your library in a mathematically significant way... in fact, you're just as likely to draw all 6 creature cards and be forced to bottom stack 4 of them, as you are to draw all 6 non creature cards and whiffing.
This is why mass milling alone is not a viable control strategy unless you can get your opponent to 0 cards, or can somehow take advantage of the cards milled (like Ashiok). You're just as likely to mill wheat as you are chaff.
Since a resolved Collected Company could affect your binary card type density by ~1.5% (-2 creatures -1 non creature card), we can actually use fetches to compensate for that loss by removing more non creature cards from the library before we cast it again.
The main reason Horizon Canopy is such a good card is that its played for free, will allow you to play cards, and can be cycled when no longer needed.
Usually after I resolve CoCo, and always after I resolve Sylvan Messenger or Lead the Stampede, I'm putting junk on the bottom of the deck. I sometimes don't want to shuffle after resolving one of those spells (especially the latter two). When you add to that the fact that my chances of hitting more creatures is (marginally) improved by fetching before those resolve, we're left with a situation where it's difficult to understand an argument for waiting until after you bottom your cards to fetch.
Chr0m3_c0y0t3, I don't mean to pick on you, but I want to make sure to clear up a few things for other readers (and maybe you as well), because your post is wrong in a lot of ways.
While you're technically correct, it appears to me that you've missed the whole point of the argument to fetch either before or after you resolve CoCo. First, removing a land from the deck is going to change what you're referring to as the "binary card type density" (creature/non-creature) — I'm going to refer to it randomCardCreature%: I'll use that to mean the percent chance that the top x cards of our deck have y creatures (for CoCo, x=6 and y=2; x can be thought of as random cards unless we start running scry lands or something). Second, shuffling our deck after we have specific information about a certain part of the deck — like, say, the bottom, — changes randomCardCreature%, since the known cards at the bottom are rejoining the random pool; in other words, they have a chance of being at the top of the deck after shuffling.
You may have a different idea of what measurable means than I do, but this is just wrong. As I mention above, knowing the bottom of the deck is relevant, and changing the composition of the deck will most definitely have a measurable effect on randomCardCreature%.
The cards at the bottom will almost definitely not have the same "density" as the pool of random cards above it, since we're removing creatures from that bottom pool.
I don't really disagree with this, but it's worth noting that the cards at the bottom of the library are, in general, significantly less likely to be creatures than those cards above it (of course, in a specific game state that may or may not be the case).
If the remainder of your deck is exactly half creatures, then this is true. With 50 cards left, there's about a 1% chance of either of those outcomes. In contrast, there's about a 1/3 chance of hitting 3 creatures, and about a 1/4 chance of hitting 2 and 4 creatures.
The CoCo was already out of the deck if you resolved it. The bottom cards are much more likely to be non-creatures than creatures.
I want to walk through a couple of examples to show exactly how when you choose to fetch affects the result of CoCo and the following draws. In these examples, we have 50 cards left in our deck, half of which are creatures. Of the non-creatures, 16 are lands (which are often dead draws, especially after resolving CoCo) and the other 9 are spells that we might want to draw later. This leaves us with 34/50 live draws (I'm not even going to count the fact that often, when hitting 3+ creatures with CoCo, the creatures we're sending to the bottom are low-quality and nearly as bad as lands, but it's worth noting here that our dead-draw chance after shuffling will be higher than I'm noting).
Example 1: Fetching before resolving CoCo
We now have 49 cards, 25 of which are creatures. Our chances of hitting at least 2 creatures, which is our goal, increases by ~1% to 91.4%. The most likely outcomes are that we hit 2 (22.8%), 3 (33.3%), or 4 (25.0%) creatures.
If we hit 2 creatures, then we bottom four non-creatures. On average, ~2.5 will be lands. So we have 4 cards on the bottom of our library, 1.5 of which are live draws. In the random pool of 43 cards above it, we have 23 creatures, 7.5 other spells, and 12.5 lands; our probability of drawing a land is ~29%. Note that we have a >50% chance of picking a land from the bottom 4 cards. Shuffling after resolving CoCo gives us 15 lands and 47 cards: that leaves us with a 32% chance of drawing a land.
If we hit 3 creatures (the most likely outcome), then we bottom three non-creatures. On average, ~2 (closer to 1.9) will be lands. So we have 4 cards on the bottom of our library, 2 of which are live draws. In the random pool of 43 cards above it, we have 22 creatures, 8 other spells, and 13 lands; our probability of drawing a land is ~30%. Shuffling after resolving CoCo still gives us 15 lands and 47 cards: that leaves us with a 32% chance of drawing a land.
If we hit 4 creatures, then we bottom two non-creatures. On average, 1 will be a land. So we have 4 cards on the bottom of our library, 3 of which are live draws. In the random pool of 43 cards above it, we have 21 creatures, 8 other spells, and 14 lands; our probability of drawing a land is ~32.5%. Shuffling after resolving CoCo in this scenario actually decreases our chances of drawing a land, albeit by a very small amount.
Example 2: Fetching after resolving CoCo
Our chances of hitting 2+ creatures is 90.5%.
We hit 2 creatures (23.9%): we bottom 4 non-creatures, ~2.6 of which are lands; we fetch now, and instead of having a ~31% chance of drawing a land (worse than if we'd have fetched first), we're left with 32%.
We hit 3 creatures (33.3%): bottom 3 non-creatures, ~2 of which are lands; 32.6% chance of drawing land before fetching (always 32% after).
We hit 4 creatures (23.9%): bottom 3 non-creatures, ~1.28 of which are lands; ~34% chance of drawing land before fetching
This is a long-winded way to show that you'd always want to fetch before casting CoCo and it's sometimes beneficial to hold off on fetching afterwards, depending on what you put on the bottom.
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I did say something similar which is why I like my 4 of in decks that use Chord (where you may be shuffling anyway). If you are using Lead the Stampede and Sylvan Messenger though you are going to be rewarded MORE for the initial fetch, but hurt worse by every fetch after you start filtering. To this same affect, decks running chord could also run Fauna Shaman and live with the fact that sometimes they are going to be shuffling junk back into the library where as Lead the Stampede and Sylvan decks would want to avoid this as they will have sorted more (and unlike CoCo where you can pull 2 creatures and then tuck 2 creatures and 2 lands, with Lead the Stampede and Sylvan you are grabbing ALL creatures). The % of this that actually affects games will be small but its something to consider. I think in the end we will end up with essentially 2 lists. 1 that can be more toolboxy but can search for its answers and 1 that is much more resilient to board wipes (which is the primary sideboard in against us). Which deck is better might be preference and I am sure eventually it will be determined (or another elf will be printed that pushes us in one direction or the other).
GR Tron is rough with pyroclasm mainboard but my worse match is Ux tron where turn 4, they cast Gifts ungiving putting unburrial rites and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite in their graveyard.
Tron is a bad matchup. What we have in our favor is that their deck tends to involve a lot of moving pieces so even without us having a specific card I think there is still like a 30% chance that their deck just fumbles on its own. Mainboard, we have an absolutely terrible matchup and after sideboard, its not much better to be honest.
Phyrexian Revoker - it can stop a lot of their removal as it can jam up Ugin, the Spirit Dragon & Oblivion Stone potentially. If you are playing Chord you can respond to them casting these cards and essentially blank a turn on them.
Burrenton Forge-Tender can get you out of a pyroclasm. Mark of Asylum also fits this role but cant be tutored and it blows up to a lot of their bigger sweepers.
Beast Within / Blood Moon - screw with their landbase.
As a whole, the answer is mostly that the matchup isn't one of our better ones and you have to just sort of play out knowing they are heavy sweeper. Try to time your cards and there is a chance they fumble our you out race their pyroclasms. For reanimator, try Scavenging Ooze and or Rest in Peace.
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Which is a tad disheartening, being that LSV made his name playing Elves, but it got me thinking, what are our good matches?
Its a little bit depending on exactly how you set your list up but going off of a traditional Chord of Calling build, its usually something like this:
GOOD:
Burn - depends on how much sideboard hate you give them.
Twin - Spellskite
Merfolk - we tend to be faster than they are.
Affinity - more consistent, faster than their non god hands, better access to SB cards.
Scapeshift - we are a fast deck that tends not to run fetches so that buys us more time even against them. We also don't really care about sideboarded baloth assuming that's still their sb plan. They might sideboard sweepers but we tend to be sort of fast and their mainboard answers aren't that numerous.
Infect - we can drop a LOT of guys very fast and each of our guys essentially trades on their own against their infect guys. They tend to be better against removal.
Zoo - We are faster. They have a bit of removal though so it comes down to how much they draw. Their threats are better than ours so they can curve well followed with removal but it usually doesnt happen.
SO SO:
Grixis Control - Its probably going to be a bit of a coin flip or a little worse. Their creatures are big but dont generate value and they tend to run counter magic which is good and bad.
Grixus Delver - Delver is a pain to get rid of and they have a lot of removal still. Their removal and disruption is usually online very fast.
Abzan Midrange - its like slower jund. We are aggro so our matchup is a bit better.
Abzan Company - they are a combo deck that can go off quickly. We have tools against them and our games 2/3 tend to be better due to SB. Grave Hate and Revoker all interfere with them.
BAD:
Jund - Their threats tend to generate value and be bigger than ours. They also pack a lot of removal which essentially all catches us.
Tron - mainboard pyro is bad news. The tactics that work best against them are hard to have access to in our colors.
Amulet - we dont have a way to interact with their combo and they "can" go off far before us.
Grishoalbrand - its.... really fast when it works. We dont have much for answers and most of the time we cant set them up fast enough to counter this. Its a matter of if they get good hands as elves really cant fight this well.
For the most part, I would say that fast combo is bad for us. Sweepers and heavy removal is also bad for us and I think we are faster than most of the "fair" decks. This is just me sort of shooting from the hip based on my own limited experience. You might also put Grixus Control in the bad are as well but I don't have enough experience against it to really say so.
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On Jund, correct me if I am wrong as I have not faced it yet but theoretically post board should be a pretty close matchup from what I have heard.
Tron is just the worst.
Amulet - they can go off on turn 2 in extreme situations and it involves zero creatures. You are correct that Amulet and GBrand are both matchups where you have to rely somewhat on them not just god handing you every game but I listed them as bad games because its entirely optional for you to just not be able to interact. Ideal GBrand requires 3 cards to go off (looting effect, GBrand, Goryo's Vengeance) and ideal Amulet requires... 5 (ammulet, bounce land, Summer Bloom, Hive Mind, Pact)? Its more likely that Amulet doesn't go off with a god hand because of the increaded card count but even then they are hard to interact with so its a matter of racing both games. Goryo's Vengeance can be interacted with by means of graveyard hate but then they have Through the Breach still. Phyrexian Revoker can work against Griselbrand but only so long as they dont have removal.
In general, I think both Amulet and Griselbrand are bad matchups for us because ideal hands can go off before we have the option of interacting with their decks.
With Jund, Chameleon Colossus has been the only thing that has really worked well for me so far and its really hard to get into play still. Most of my interactions with Jund have been me never having more than 1 creature at a time because they have that much removal. It means that getting the 7 for Chord of Calling is almost impossible and a lot of their threats will kill you off of their value and are incredibly hard for this deck to interact with. I actually put them as the worse of the control decks because all of their creatures are still mostly bigger than ours but they also generate value which is horrible for us.
Tron - roll the dice and hope they roll poorly.
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As far as Jund though. I think we are favored game 1 because most of the time you can just overwhelm their 1:1 approach. I think they take that favor back for games 2 and 3 because like you said ISBPathfiner, they have a ton of removal and value (Olivia as mentioned a page or 2 ago being king of keep your dudes off the board). In addition to making Chording for Colossus impossible, they also have a plethora of discard effects if you are playing the Lead the Stampede/Sylvan Messenger route to find it.
Tron is really a dice roll. Only problem is you are rolling 1d3 and they are rolling 1d10. Having Ghost Quarters in the main has helped a bit and I know I will probably main deck Magus of the Moon because even though he dies to pyroclasm, it forces them to have an answer or be forever screwed. (Revoker has done wonders for the matchup, as well as Reclamation Sage for those playing Sundering Titan. Because of my trolly luck against that particular card I have chorded in response to trigger/played the following turn, every time I see that card. Usually costs me 2-3 lands as a thanks but my 2-3 lands, usually their mountain and they wasted a turn while I can slam in for damage has always been a turning play in matches that went my way. What you don't want is my luck in general against the deck where I faced Karn (exiled my land, I swing and kill it with my elves on board) followed by Karn (repeat process) followed by Karn (plusing this time so I can't kill it) followed by Ugin (bolting my dude)... Isn't tron fun!)
4 Razorverge Thicket
1 Okina
3 Nykthos
1 Horizon Canopy
5 Forest
1 Pendelhaven
3 Ezuri
4 Archdruid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Elvish Mystic
1 Mirror Entity
1 Spellskite
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Thragtusk
1 Burrenton Forge Tender
1 Reclamation Sage
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Burrenton Forge Tender
2 Chameleon Colossus
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Hushwing Gryff
1 Merlia, Sylvok Outcast
1 Fracturing Gust
2 Choke
2 Beast Within
Things I'm considering:
-Thragtusk - Maindeck Forge Tender +2 Dwynen Elite
Reason: Dwynen Elite increases the number of keepable opening hands at the cost of utility. I'm unsure if having answers is better than being faster.
-1 Choke -1 Fracturing Gust + 2 Rest in Peace in the board
Reason: Scooze is slow and vulnerable and more of a comeback card in grindy games than an out to GY decks.I am also unsure how good Choke actually is.
- Eidolon + Aven Mindcensor
Because I can't beat Amulet.
That's the list. Thanks again for anyone who checks it out.
Elves just cannot afford a fetch manabase in my opinion. You'll win at 3-4 life a lot.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall