Pros:
-You don't need to maintain a board to build it.
-Casting Elves doesn't actually cost you anything if you're ramping into say, Genesis Wave or a Chorded anything.
Cons:
-Not all that useful except on turn 2
On a more on topic note, Vines of Vastwood is really really good. It counters anything that targets ANY creature(yours or theirs).
Ok my mistake, but with damnation and wrath of god or pyroclasm will work. Let say you have 10 elfs, next turn you will have 10 2/2 bears ready to attack.
Definitely not unreasonable considering Xathrid Necromancer is run in humans
I'd rather run Growing Rites of Itlimoc over Shrine since Rites replaces itself. Also, as people have found out, extra mana isn't really what we need. A best, a turn two Shrine doesn't do anything to advance our board state. I'd rather be casting Heritage Druid + Dwynen's Elite on turn two.
Vines is interesting, but when we start to run cards like Vines, we dilute the power of Collected Company. We're also relying on drawing it since we can't Chord or Company into it like we could a Spellskite, which essentially does the same thing.
I dont think that caller of the claw would change the deck. Heroic Intervention, which is already legal, accomplishes the same thing, except that it costs 1 less and leaves us with the benefit of our tribal synergies over bears.
I dont think that caller of the claw would change the deck. Heroic Intervention, which is already legal, accomplishes the same thing, except that it costs 1 less and leaves us with the benefit of our tribal synergies over bears.
Caller of the Claw can be a Chord target though. Also doesn't dilute CoCo. I'd be happy to include at least one in my 75 if WotC ever made it legal.
Caller of the Claw is an elf, but that is about it. It won't help with Anger of the Gods because Anger exiles, and with other wipes it will just give you some 2/2 Bears that can't be pumped or regen'd by Ezuri, and don't work with Heritage or Archdruid to make mana.
Ok my mistake, but with damnation and wrath of god or pyroclasm will work. Let say you have 10 elfs, next turn you will have 10 2/2 bears ready to attack.
If I manage to get 10 elves on the board, I want to either win that turn, or have an answer in-hand in case my opponent attempts to wrath the board. For me, Caller doesn't fill that role.
I mean, if my opponent has enough creatures in play to keep my elves at bay, I don't see that the same number of 2/2 bears have any better chance of getting through.
If my opponent's board is sparse enough that some bears could get through, my elves should have already won the game.
At the moment, it doesn't really matter because Caller isn't legal, but even if does get reprinted,
Forge-tender, Selfless Spirit, and Tajuru Preserver all still seem like better options.
Archdruid on turn 2 isn't as great as it sounds. No heritage in hand is also no bueno. Just exploring alternative cards to make starting hands more consistent. And lead is probably the best turn 2 play.
Good point on skite being able to be a 1 of.
I just tested a simic elves featuring warcaller, rishkar, and Beck. And it didn't go well on first go. Albeit casting Beck for just 1 blue Mana was dope. Learned a lot. Will have to get summoner's pacts and such and it still probably won't be okay. Sorry, I like to tinker
I agree with middle. Prowess of the fair, though is better than caller. And it faces the same issue: exile. Thoughtseize and such is probably the best option. There just isn't a disruption option that doesn't slow deck down.
Archdruid on turn 2 isn't as great as it sounds. No heritage in hand is also no bueno. Just exploring alternative cards to make starting hands more consistent. And lead is probably the best turn 2 play.
The strength of elves and all their mana dorks is to accelerate ahead of the curve. Plyaing a 3 drop, 1 and a 2 drop, or 3 1 drops on turn 2 is exactly what you want to be doing. I'm not sure what you mean by a turn two archdruid isn't as good as it sounds. I realize I'm not always going to have a Heritage Druid in hand for the perfect Druid/Elite set up, but my point is I don't want to dilute the deck with cards like Shrine and Rites so I increase my chances of having creatures and business.
Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying don't even bother with the cards you mentioned, but you asked for thoughts on them and this is what I see with my experience with the deck.
Also, I rarely cast Lead on turn two. A turn two lead on the play only allows you to net up to 3 cards before you have to discard or bottom the extras. 3 cards is a lot, but it's not full potential value and it doesn't advance your board. Early game, I want to be advancing my board and sandbagging the lead for when I'm low on resources.
On the play:
T1: Forest, Elf, Pass with 5 Cards in hand
T2: Draw up to 6, Forest, Lead, 4 cards in hand
From here a couple of things can happen:
1. You can hit 0-3 creatures and have an equal or larger hand than you started the turn with,
2. You can hit 4-5 creatures which you would be forced to bottom or discard so you lose value on the lead
On the draw it's even worse.
But both scenarios only leave you with an Elvish Mystic on the board on turn 2 and generally you're going to want to be more explosive than that.
Archdruid on turn 2 isn't as great as it sounds. No heritage in hand is also no bueno. Just exploring alternative cards to make starting hands more consistent. And lead is probably the best turn 2 play.
On the play:
T1: Forest, Elf, Pass with 5 Cards in hand
T2: Draw up to 6, Forest Lead, 4 cards in hand
From here a couple of things can happen:
1. You can hit 0-3 creatures and have an equal or larger hand than you started the turn with,
2. You can hit 4-5 creatures which you would be forced to bottom or discard so you lose value on the lead
On the draw it's even worse.
But both scenarios only leave you with an Elvish Mystic on the board on turn 2 and generally you're going to want to be more explosive than that.
What about this scenario on the play:
T1: Forest, Nettle, Pass with 5 Cards in hand
T2: Draw up to 6, Forest, Nettle, Heritage, Tap all for 3G, Archdruid, Tap Nettles and Archdruid for 3G, Lead, attack for 3 with Nettle #1, Pass turn
Depending on how well you hit with Lead, you will end T2 with 10 power on the board and 1 - 6 cards in hand.
I admit it requires a rather magical Christmasland nut draw (I rarely get them IRL), but an explosive start that includes casting Lead T2 is possible...
Like I said, I rarely cast it on turn two, not I never cast it turn two. I just think Lead is better suited to be cast later in the game when you aren't squandering its potential and you hopefully have mana left over to lay down some of the gas you draw off of it.
I dont think that caller of the claw would change the deck. Heroic Intervention, which is already legal, accomplishes the same thing, except that it costs 1 less and leaves us with the benefit of our tribal synergies over bears.
Caller of the Claw can be a Chord target though. Also doesn't dilute CoCo. I'd be happy to include at least one in my 75 if WotC ever made it legal.
Well, you wouldnt get to use your dudes to pay for the chord (have to cast after the wrath so cant use convoke), and if you're chording for an answer to a wrath we already have burrenton and selfless spirit.
I dont think that caller of the claw would change the deck. Heroic Intervention, which is already legal, accomplishes the same thing, except that it costs 1 less and leaves us with the benefit of our tribal synergies over bears.
Caller of the Claw can be a Chord target though. Also doesn't dilute CoCo. I'd be happy to include at least one in my 75 if WotC ever made it legal.
Well, you wouldnt get to use your dudes to pay for the chord (have to cast after the wrath so cant use convoke), and if you're chording for an answer to a wrath we already have burrenton and selfless spirit.
We also have vile redeemer which is a similar effect that can ramp if we want that requires mana base tweaks as well as fresh meat which spits out bigger tokens. Both of these can occur at instant speed without requiring chord. The effect is in the modern card pool if we wanted it, but I agree that the non elf dudes like selfless spirit are just better. I'd rather keep a bunch of elves over anything else.
I just feel like the small tribal synergies makes caller okayish? Sure floating 4 into a verdict on 2-3 dudes and then coco into two callers is pretty gross...or very gross...but not sure that happens often enough to run it. Exile clauses are also a big deal.
[quote from="Rancormaniac »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/tier-2-modern/767834-collected-company-elves?comment=1741"]
Well, you wouldnt get to use your dudes to pay for the chord (have to cast after the wrath so cant use convoke), and if you're chording for an answer to a wrath we already have burrenton and selfless spirit.
you can convoke even if the creatures are summoning sick (just as you can use heritage druid's ability, or Devoted druid's untap ability).
I agree with the rest of your argument, though.
By the way guys, could you please give me some feedback on the GWB list i posted? Today i ran a test match against a vengevine/hollow one zoo and it came out that maybe thoughtseize is indeed better than duress, for the burn matchup i'll have to find other hosers (maybe some creatures, i'm undecided between spellskite, kitchen finks, thragtusk and scavenging ooze)
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You are absolutely right, but im not talking about summoning sickness. Read caller of the claw. It has to come down post board wipe. So by the time youre chording for caller, the wipe has already happened and you dont have dudes to convoke with at all.
Generally speaking heritage and archdruid in opening hand with ANY two 1 drops is a nut hand. You'll have 9 or 10 mana to blow on turn 3 if left unchecked(depending on turn 3 land drop).
I don't think Coco Elves should use Itlimoc. The only thing Coco Elves needs mana for is Chord or Ezuri. Itlimoc is a weaker lead and a conditional archdruid. But, the point I'm making is that it does 2 things instead of 1. Elves has mana, creatures, card/board advantage. Sometimes you're missing a specific creature, sometimes your missing a board/big hand, or something to spend that mana on. It's combo-orientated, so filling 2 niches has its merits. Nonetheless it fails the "creature" test. If Elves used Garruk instead, I could make a stronger case(those cards have crazy synergy). But elves wants the regenerate/pump at instant speed more than Garruk's untap/beasts/and purely offensive overrun. The abilities of Ezuri alone make him worth more than both those cards, Coco is just extra icing to slam that home.
I wish Elves would get something besides Coco, there's a ton of cards that just can't be used. Joraga Warcaller for instance... a Lord that scales.
I dont think that caller of the claw would change the deck. Heroic Intervention, which is already legal, accomplishes the same thing, except that it costs 1 less and leaves us with the benefit of our tribal synergies over bears.
Caller of the Claw can be a Chord target though. Also doesn't dilute CoCo. I'd be happy to include at least one in my 75 if WotC ever made it legal.
Well, you wouldnt get to use your dudes to pay for the chord (have to cast after the wrath so cant use convoke), and if you're chording for an answer to a wrath we already have burrenton and selfless spirit.
I'm on GB though so your point on forge-tender and selfless spirit is moot for me. I can always just float the mana with a board wipe on the stack and chord for the caller after it resolves. Not that hard to do with Elves. For the record, I do not think Caller of the Claw is the fix that Elves need right now. I'm just saying I'll run it over Heroic Intervention because of the reasons I gave.
I dont think that caller of the claw would change the deck. Heroic Intervention, which is already legal, accomplishes the same thing, except that it costs 1 less and leaves us with the benefit of our tribal synergies over bears.
Caller of the Claw can be a Chord target though. Also doesn't dilute CoCo. I'd be happy to include at least one in my 75 if WotC ever made it legal.
Well, you wouldnt get to use your dudes to pay for the chord (have to cast after the wrath so cant use convoke), and if you're chording for an answer to a wrath we already have burrenton and selfless spirit.
I'm on GB though so your point on forge-tender and selfless spirit is moot for me. I can always just float the mana with a board wipe on the stack and chord for the caller after it resolves. Not that hard to do with Elves. For the record, I do not think Caller of the Claw is the fix that Elves need right now. I'm just saying I'll run it over Heroic Intervention because of the reasons I gave.
No no, I'm saying you can't use convoke after your creatures are gone. If you have heritage druid, dorks, or archdruid, sure you can float. But you can't use convoke for caller in response to the board wipe. Which makes it considerably worse than other chord targets. If you're on GB, run thoughtseize as your anti-sweeper sb card.
Long time elf player. Been playing elves since the very beginning and love it. I’ve been wanting to find myself a solid second deck to play just for variation. I’ve played a whole bunch but never stick with any of them due to them not being fast enough for my liking. Nothing quite compares to elves in terms of speed and combo. So I wanted to ask what other super fast decks are there out there?
Decks I’ve tried:
Bogles
Zoo
Merfolk
Hollow one
Spirits
Eldrazi
Eldrazi Tron
Soul Sisters
Tokens
I was looking at trying out Dredge, do you think as an elf player, I would like this deck? Or do I bite the bullet and just shell out the cash for Affinity as that’s probably the next fastest deck? Or what else is there? Thanks in advance!
Some good suggestions there... What about Burn?
Storm?
There's a guy at my LGS that runs a Solemnity deck; if he gets all the pieces and his opponent has no disruption or removal, he can get turn 4 wins pretty regularly...
My main deck is GB Elves, but when I want to switch gears, I have had fun playing around with R/G Ponza
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Has anyone considered using this card?
Pros:
-You don't need to maintain a board to build it.
-Casting Elves doesn't actually cost you anything if you're ramping into say, Genesis Wave or a Chorded anything.
Cons:
-Not all that useful except on turn 2
On a more on topic note, Vines of Vastwood is really really good. It counters anything that targets ANY creature(yours or theirs).
Definitely not unreasonable considering Xathrid Necromancer is run in humans
Vines is interesting, but when we start to run cards like Vines, we dilute the power of Collected Company. We're also relying on drawing it since we can't Chord or Company into it like we could a Spellskite, which essentially does the same thing.
BLiliana, Heretical HealerB| |GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
GWBDoom Plane EnchantressBWG
If I manage to get 10 elves on the board, I want to either win that turn, or have an answer in-hand in case my opponent attempts to wrath the board. For me, Caller doesn't fill that role.
I mean, if my opponent has enough creatures in play to keep my elves at bay, I don't see that the same number of 2/2 bears have any better chance of getting through.
If my opponent's board is sparse enough that some bears could get through, my elves should have already won the game.
At the moment, it doesn't really matter because Caller isn't legal, but even if does get reprinted,
Forge-tender, Selfless Spirit, and Tajuru Preserver all still seem like better options.
Good point on skite being able to be a 1 of.
I just tested a simic elves featuring warcaller, rishkar, and Beck. And it didn't go well on first go. Albeit casting Beck for just 1 blue Mana was dope. Learned a lot. Will have to get summoner's pacts and such and it still probably won't be okay. Sorry, I like to tinker
The strength of elves and all their mana dorks is to accelerate ahead of the curve. Plyaing a 3 drop, 1 and a 2 drop, or 3 1 drops on turn 2 is exactly what you want to be doing. I'm not sure what you mean by a turn two archdruid isn't as good as it sounds. I realize I'm not always going to have a Heritage Druid in hand for the perfect Druid/Elite set up, but my point is I don't want to dilute the deck with cards like Shrine and Rites so I increase my chances of having creatures and business.
Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying don't even bother with the cards you mentioned, but you asked for thoughts on them and this is what I see with my experience with the deck.
Also, I rarely cast Lead on turn two. A turn two lead on the play only allows you to net up to 3 cards before you have to discard or bottom the extras. 3 cards is a lot, but it's not full potential value and it doesn't advance your board. Early game, I want to be advancing my board and sandbagging the lead for when I'm low on resources.
On the play:
T1: Forest, Elf, Pass with 5 Cards in hand
T2: Draw up to 6, Forest, Lead, 4 cards in hand
From here a couple of things can happen:
1. You can hit 0-3 creatures and have an equal or larger hand than you started the turn with,
2. You can hit 4-5 creatures which you would be forced to bottom or discard so you lose value on the lead
On the draw it's even worse.
But both scenarios only leave you with an Elvish Mystic on the board on turn 2 and generally you're going to want to be more explosive than that.
BLiliana, Heretical HealerB| |GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
GWBDoom Plane EnchantressBWG
What about this scenario on the play:
T1: Forest, Nettle, Pass with 5 Cards in hand
T2: Draw up to 6, Forest, Nettle, Heritage, Tap all for 3G, Archdruid, Tap Nettles and Archdruid for 3G, Lead, attack for 3 with Nettle #1, Pass turn
Depending on how well you hit with Lead, you will end T2 with 10 power on the board and 1 - 6 cards in hand.
I admit it requires a rather magical Christmasland nut draw (I rarely get them IRL), but an explosive start that includes casting Lead T2 is possible...
BLiliana, Heretical HealerB| |GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
GWBDoom Plane EnchantressBWG
Well, you wouldnt get to use your dudes to pay for the chord (have to cast after the wrath so cant use convoke), and if you're chording for an answer to a wrath we already have burrenton and selfless spirit.
We also have vile redeemer which is a similar effect that can ramp if we want that requires mana base tweaks as well as fresh meat which spits out bigger tokens. Both of these can occur at instant speed without requiring chord. The effect is in the modern card pool if we wanted it, but I agree that the non elf dudes like selfless spirit are just better. I'd rather keep a bunch of elves over anything else.
I just feel like the small tribal synergies makes caller okayish? Sure floating 4 into a verdict on 2-3 dudes and then coco into two callers is pretty gross...or very gross...but not sure that happens often enough to run it. Exile clauses are also a big deal.
You are absolutely right, but im not talking about summoning sickness. Read caller of the claw. It has to come down post board wipe. So by the time youre chording for caller, the wipe has already happened and you dont have dudes to convoke with at all.
I don't think Coco Elves should use Itlimoc. The only thing Coco Elves needs mana for is Chord or Ezuri. Itlimoc is a weaker lead and a conditional archdruid. But, the point I'm making is that it does 2 things instead of 1. Elves has mana, creatures, card/board advantage. Sometimes you're missing a specific creature, sometimes your missing a board/big hand, or something to spend that mana on. It's combo-orientated, so filling 2 niches has its merits. Nonetheless it fails the "creature" test. If Elves used Garruk instead, I could make a stronger case(those cards have crazy synergy). But elves wants the regenerate/pump at instant speed more than Garruk's untap/beasts/and purely offensive overrun. The abilities of Ezuri alone make him worth more than both those cards, Coco is just extra icing to slam that home.
I wish Elves would get something besides Coco, there's a ton of cards that just can't be used. Joraga Warcaller for instance... a Lord that scales.
No no, I'm saying you can't use convoke after your creatures are gone. If you have heritage druid, dorks, or archdruid, sure you can float. But you can't use convoke for caller in response to the board wipe. Which makes it considerably worse than other chord targets. If you're on GB, run thoughtseize as your anti-sweeper sb card.
Long time elf player. Been playing elves since the very beginning and love it. I’ve been wanting to find myself a solid second deck to play just for variation. I’ve played a whole bunch but never stick with any of them due to them not being fast enough for my liking. Nothing quite compares to elves in terms of speed and combo. So I wanted to ask what other super fast decks are there out there?
Decks I’ve tried:
Bogles
Zoo
Merfolk
Hollow one
Spirits
Eldrazi
Eldrazi Tron
Soul Sisters
Tokens
I was looking at trying out Dredge, do you think as an elf player, I would like this deck? Or do I bite the bullet and just shell out the cash for Affinity as that’s probably the next fastest deck? Or what else is there? Thanks in advance!
Storm?
There's a guy at my LGS that runs a Solemnity deck; if he gets all the pieces and his opponent has no disruption or removal, he can get turn 4 wins pretty regularly...
My main deck is GB Elves, but when I want to switch gears, I have had fun playing around with R/G Ponza