MTG Salvation

The pilot of the GW list's name is Takano Shigeki. Good finds, very interesting to see those lists.

Selfless Soul
1W
Creature - Spirit
Flying

Sacrifice Selfless Soul: Creatures you control gain indestructible until end of turn.
Illus. Seb McKinnon 2/1

Now this is perfect for us. 2cmc silver bullet to protect our team.

Came here to post that! Definitely a replacement for Dauntless Escort, and cheaper to Chord for/can exchange a token for with Eldritch Evolution/cheaper to cast outright if need be. Definitely shores up our protection against wipes a bit. Especially if we have this and Burrenton Fire-Tender against Anger of the Gods.

It's great because it gets around the "Can't be regenerated" on Damnation/Wrath of God.

Went 3-1 today with similar list to the #1 GB list posted on last page. I'll update the post later with decklist.

Hey all, i'm currently looking into building an elves deck I have always been a fan of elves and it's time i build a Modern deck for my friends and not just my Commander Deck, the problem i am having is deciding which route to take with the list. I know the core across all lists is generally the same with a few minor tweaks. I have gone back and fourth countless times between Collected Company Elves, Aggro Elves, Combo Elves (Curio, Intruder Alarm and Beck/Call) as well as Evolutionary Elves and would like some other people experiences / opinions on these different lists (i know this list is dedicated for the Collected Company pkg, but i have also debated heavily on certain cards and why not others)

For the Collected Company Version: I have tossed back and fourth the ideas of the standard CoCo / Chord pkg, but also looked at variants involving Genesis Wave or Lead the Stampede (i see this one is heavily debated).
I know the drawbacks of Genesis wave are it is sorcery speed and that it is a huge mana sink instead of using something like chord for a silver bullet / win-con at EoT. However with the Mana we can produce this card can fill our board quickly, and we can even run some sort of Akroma's Memorial (for haste / evasion / Protection) which Wave will hit or even Asceticism for removal protection. Thoughts? or reasons why or why not

Also, i wont ask for to much details (unless you offer it) but what is the main advantage this deck has over Aggro elves and having all the Lords? or Combo elves and being able to inf loop elf tokens/life/mana etc or even the chance of turn 2 Emrakul? Is it solely that this version has more consistency over trying to just focus on getting an Emrakul? and as for Aggro is the only advantage because the Aggro list requires lords in play?

Any and all information is welcome i really want to get a list going and just having difficult time deciding which way to start and why.

Thanks!

Finally a silver bullet for board wipes Selfless Spirit

Thanks for the reply.

When i referred to "Aggro Elves" I had seen a list that ran 4-copies of every Elf Lord (excluding Ezuri) so Elvish Archdruid, Elvish Champion, Imperious Perfect, Joaraga Warcaller (obviously a non-bo with CoCo) as well as some have run the Bramblewood Paragon.

As for the Shaman is he really required? wouldn't just old fashioned craterhoof beatdown be just as effective or is the fact that shaman is immediate damage that cannot be "Fogged" what makes him more appealing?
As for Imperious Perfect isn't she best if you are running Simic colors so you can get use her and intruder Alarm for Infinite tokens?

I have been play testing the CoCo list (as well as the others) but my lists never included the shaman, that's why i am finally posting I am leaning towards this version of the deck for the resiliency as the combo elves I've found to be not consistent enough but i wanted to know if there was other advantages this list offers over consistency as tweaking may make those more consistent (haven't played with that path to much)

Also if we do not have that much mana usually, and archdruid is being bolted quickly then wouldn't Lead be better then Chord in most cases as then with Archdruid gone we are not going to produce 6 mana easily enough to chord into a shaman or anything else but should be able to use Lead? I only ask because if Archdruid does live for 1 turn we can most likely be Gen Waving for 5+ or using Lead the stampede to get a good board presence vs having to wait until their next end step to use chord (ideally) hoping that he doesn't get bolted yet again.

Does Eldritch Evolution makes Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen more playable?

Quote from esplanades »

The pilot of the GW list's name is Takano Shigeki. Good finds, very interesting to see those lists.

Thought it was better to ??? then to guess - google translate had his name as Takano Stimulus...

Quote from kavselj »

Selfless Soul
1W
Creature - Spirit
Flying

Sacrifice Selfless Soul: Creatures you control gain indestructible until end of turn.
Illus. Seb McKinnon 2/1

Now this is perfect for us. 2cmc silver bullet to protect our team.

Perfect middle ground between BFT and Dauntless Escort - looks like a good card to include.

@Syreal94,

Hehe, yup. Shigeki means "Stimulus" or "Stimulation" in Japanese. But, of course context rules If you pair with a very common last name like Takano, Shigeki is definitely a persons name, not so uncommon.

Selfless souls does look delicious. I am very much wanting to play with it, to the point where I might drop my black sideboards for it. I know, as a man who has been playing black for a year, it is almost blasphemous. Gotta try out new toys though!

Has everyone been doing good with the deck these days? I have to admit, I am liking the Lead of Stampedes mainboard lately.

I'm liking it with Leads. I will say that I find my current list a bit odd, just because I have a bunch of silver bullets in the side along with 3 Chords, but I'm not sure that's right.



I'm definitely thinking I could swap in Selfless Soul for Essence Warden. Tips/critiques welcome.

3-1, W 2-1 vs. RW Control, W 2-0 vs. BW Tokens, W 2-0 vs Death & Taxes, L 1-2 vs. Infect

I've been testing Coiling Oracle recently as a way to increase our 2CMC count and achieve higher consistency with Eldritch Evolution on hitting our 4CMC bullets. Since EMN is still two weeks out, I figured it's still worth checking out how Oracle will perform. And I gotta say I love it. There is the UG mana restriction but with 4 copies of Caverns, 4 fetches and 1 Breeding Pool I never found myself not being able to cast it. The biggest advantage is the land we get into play untapped if we reveal one. It happened twice that I started with T1 land, dork. T2 land into Oracle revealing land, casting another Oracle revealing another land. Having this kind of advantage this early on means more consistency in T3 kills. It's an upgraded Visionary which I've always felt was a bit lackluster for a two drop. It's here to stay.

I have a couple quick questions about cards and interactions.

When you cast Shaman of the Pack does it count towards your total # of elves (if you have 3 other elves and cast Shaman, does you opponent take 3 or 4?)

If the Shaman of the Pack counts towards your total elves and you cast Collected Company and hit 2 Shaman of the Pack would they trigger simultaneously for a total of 4 damage, or sequentially for 3 damage (plus your other elves of course)?

Pretty sure I know the answer to this one, but if you hit Joraga Warcaller with Collected Company, does it only count as if it were cast as a 1 drop, count as if it were cast for 3(kicked once), or are you able to spend mana to kick it?

Thanks

Yes, it counts towards the total number, as long as it's still alive when the ability resolves. If you hit two Shaman of the Pack, there'll be two copies of the ability, which will do the same amount of damage.

If you had two elves on the table, then CoCo'd into two Shaman of the Pack, it'd do 8 damage if nothing caused one of them to die before the abilities resolved.

You can't kick things like Joraga Warcaller since you aren't casting them.

As for the Shaman is he really required? wouldn't just old fashioned craterhoof beatdown be just as effective or is the fact that shaman is immediate damage that cannot be "Fogged" what makes him more appealing?

Shaman is one very unique way to reach and win. This is the one card that makes the BG version as good if not better than the other versions. The deck is less cumfortable to play because of a poorer SB, but the Shaman plan is well positionned in the format.
The Hoof is pretty hard to get online because the format answers very well our mana guys. It's safer and more consistent to rely on lower costs. Ezuri is often played for 3 and used the next turn only. Pretty hard to cast and use within the same turn when your mana dorks and mana engines get bolted as soon as they touch the board...

When you cast Shaman of the Pack does it count towards your total # of elves

Yes. The opponent and yourself can respond to the trigger to decrease or increase the amount of Elves before the trigger resolves though (opponent's removal, your own Coco).

hit 2 Shaman of the Pack would they trigger simultaneously for a total of 4 damage

Yes. They enter the battlefield at the same time and see eachother. They will both count for each separate trigger.

if you hit Joraga Warcaller with Collected Company [...] are you able to spend mana to kick it?

No.

Cool, I saw a video of someone playing BG elves and doing the damage on the Shaman wrong, just wanted to make sure I did it correctly if I use them.

I figured that was the case with Joraga, just making sure.

Thanks

Hey community, long time no talking for me. I have been wondering, is Elves becoming a thing now in Modern? Looking at recent top 8's of SCG there are more than double the amount of top 8 placements for GB Elves than there is Abzan Company. Why is that? I thought Abzan Company was preferred for the 4-5 combos it could pull off, or is Shaman of the Pack triggers what is pushing this deck ahead of Abzan Company? Basically, why is it seeing higher placements than Abzan Company?

Elves and Abzan Company are both creature decks. One is combo reliant on graveyard with a decent side-plan of beatdown w/ Gavony Township activations, and the other is a fast, linear aggro deck with some build in resilience.

Abzan Company fell victim to it's own success, reaching Tier 1 status and putting Grafdigger's Cage and Rest In Peace into the sideboards of many modern players. I don't think Elves is necessarily any better as a deck than it was 6 months ago, but I think that more people are picking up the deck and finding out it is a very good deck that can easily win a tournament on a given day.

GB has been more successful than GW of late; Shaman of the Pack is just a damn good card.

Quote from VIPowL »

Elves and Abzan Company are both creature decks. One is combo reliant on graveyard with a decent side-plan of beatdown w/ Gavony Township activations, and the other is a fast, linear aggro deck with some build in resilience.

Abzan Company fell victim to it's own success, reaching Tier 1 status and putting Grafdigger's Cage and Rest In Peace into the sideboards of many modern players. I don't think Elves is necessarily any better as a deck than it was 6 months ago, but I think that more people are picking up the deck and finding out it is a very good deck that can easily win a tournament on a given day.

GB has been more successful than GW of late; Shaman of the Pack is just a damn good card.

This makes a heap of sense thank you. Now one more thing I want to ask. Would I be fine playing Elves instead of Abzan Company? I love Elves as a tribe and missing them, but I'm a Spike at heart so went Abzan Company at the time for power. Are they equal in strength so I could go back to Elves?

It's important to note that Grafdigger's Cage hoses elves, too, since it means we can't cast CoCo or Chord. Lead the Stampede is still OK, though.

I think Abzan having multiple different combos/methods of attack makes it slightly more resilient than ours; they have a LOT going on jam-packed into their deck. Ours is more linear so perhaps more easily disrupted. Board wipes, for instance, against Abzan are really not a big deal. Anger of the Gods? Just gains life off of Kitchen Finks. They can go off at instant speed and make infinite life or an infinitely big creature.

That said, I much prefer elves to grinding through Abzan, which is why I've built this deck and not Abzan. I think Eldritch Evolution is going to breathe some life into this deck for a while, too, while we try out the possibilities. The same could be said for Abzan, so it remains to be seen I guess.

Eldritch Evolution probably helps Abzan Coco more than Elves, to be honest. There's less risk of 2-for-1-ing yourself, since you could just sac a Finks as the cost. That said, I think the Abzan plan really wants everything to be instant speed, so they might not run it at all.

There is an elf with Persist: Safehold Elite. Could wind up seeing some play in a list with Eldritch Evolution, perhaps?

I doubt it, honestly. Finks gains you life when you sac it; this just... does nothing if we don't have anything like Elvish Vanguard to take advantage of elves ETB.

I agree it's a bit weak, but it's not nothing: it increases the elf count for SotP and can be tapped for mana with Heritage Druid.

If only Wirewood Symbiote were in modern

Quote from highpass »

Eldritch Evolution probably helps Abzan Coco more than Elves, to be honest. There's less risk of 2-for-1-ing yourself, since you could just sac a Finks as the cost. That said, I think the Abzan plan really wants everything to be instant speed, so they might not run it at all.

There is an elf with Persist: Safehold Elite. Could wind up seeing some play in a list with Eldritch Evolution, perhaps?

That's why you want to use Evolution on creatures with ETB effects so you're getting something out of it before Evolving it into something else.

There aren't many 2CMC elves with good ETB effect. Besides Elite, Visionary and Coiling Oracle, they only ones I'd maybe consider in a specific shell are Sylvan Ranger and Viridian Emissary. First one guarantees us a land drop on the same or next turn and other one ramps us if killed. This is the list I'm currently testing for EMN:

I still don't get why people are putting down the card. If you going the Chord plan, Eldritch Evolution is better as it is 3 mana less, meaning you can fetch Ezuri with spare mana for pumping, or following up another Shaman of the Pack trigger.