Twin is bringing in more hate for spellskite now though. Thye are also playing Twisted Image, Roasts, etc. If it is Grixis or Jeskai, they have even more answers to it. I don't think we can rely on Spellskite as much as we once did. This is sad, but Warping Wail will probably be great twin hate enough that you could probably replace Spellskites 3-4 with a more diverse and complex package of Twin threats
Spellskites, Abrupt Decay, Dismember, Warping Wail, Nature's Claim, Harmonic Sliver are some of the better Twin Hate available and a mix of the package might prove better results. I think I have learned that as well. We want diverse answers.
I don't think the Aggro list that I used will be that great. Merfolk and Slivers have better and more interesting utility to their lords and additional creatures. Is there a spreading seas like card for Elves? If so, I think Elves would see more play as a Vial Aggro deck along side Merfolk and Slivers. Until we gain more utility in our creature package, I don't know if Elves is the place to be a vial/mutavault agressive deck. However, I could be wrong and more testing is always nice and needed.
I think our best bet is in some sort of Combo. I like the agressiveness of the Coco builds for the combo aspect. We can go Card Advantage of Lead, cheap filtering with Commune with Nature or Oath of Nissa, or Summoning the right pieces with Chord or Summoner's Pact.
There are a whole lot of options on what to do now that we have fallen off the radar due to the rise in our bad matchups. I don't have an answer on the whole and dodge isn't a logical resonse as our bad matcups are rapidly climbing in popularity. Warping Wail is the best card we have seen that contributes to upping our percentages against our matchups since Origins providing both Shaman and Elite.
Is it worth tinkering with the mana base to making Warping Wail work? Colorless is essentially a splash color at that point and I don't think we can reasonably do a 4 color splash. I think a 3 color splash is more viable, but we lost either Horizon Canopies or Gilt-Leaf Palace. For people on a budget, I think the Black/Colorless splash will be cheaper on the whole and just as effective. You can replace Golgari Charm with Warping Wail as it will achieve the same affect. The issue is that you might want some lifegain in the main as you are going to be taking more damage from your lands in the form of pain lands and/or Thoughtseize. You are also going to have to realize that you don't have the same Card Advantage that you used to, so grinding will be harder.
Black/Color splash mana base - I think this can work on the whole for a Black/Colorless splash for Warping Wail and some black Sideboard cards.
This will work the same as the black/colorless splash. You have more card advantge, but you lose the ability to really cast Shaman of the Pack. Going lower than 4 Forest really opens you up to the risk of being bloodmooned. It might be worth it due to the amount of green mana we have for Elves and cards like BFT and Mark of Asylum for White that can provide that mana from being taken.
This is really pushing the mana base to be able to cast Warping Wail, Shaman of the Pack, and still have the same Card Advantage that makes Elves a superior choice for aggro/combo decks. I might be trying this out when warping wail comes into effect. We kinda need this card to be as effective as we want to be against twin and others, but knowing that, bloodmoon will be a real card and we don't have a lot of answers outside of running rec sage since the 5 mana Fracturing Gust is inefficient and Nature's Claim isn't where we want to be althoug works. I will probably using my flex spot in the main as a rec sage rather than Fauna Shaman as there are plenty of odd artifacts and enchantments game one.
Thrun isn't an all star per se. Yeah he is hard to handle, but we are solid already due to our card advantage. Choke is better able to disrupt combos and digging I think. Also with Rhino and Tasigur, Thruns best days are behind him. Sad troll indeed!
I kinda want to put visionaries in replace of the Elvish mystics or some of the lords. This would have the same issue as Allies and to an extent in slivers...no card draw.
Merfolk depends on a lot of things. We are still favored though to our combo nature. If we were just a sraight aggro deck, it might be more troublesome.
I have a good friend who plays Merfolk and I have played this matchup a lot. The plan B of Aggro Beats generally doens't work unless we go so wide that they don't have enough lords or we could get damage in before hand. The best way for us to win is Ezuri overrun bar none or Mirror Entity beats. THe second best way is to go wide with Shaman of the Pack and whatever beats we can.
If they have an aggressive hand, it will be troublesome. If we whiff or are slow or can't find a win-condition, we can't really muddle through like we could against other decks. They will just overpower or island walk to victory. They are a turn or 2 slower then us, so our slow hand + their good hand means they probably win. We are favored, but we can't really afford to slow down against them. They are a good deck with tools to beat us. However, they can't slow roll you. If they don't know the matchup or have a slow hand, they are probably dead.
I don't have a lot of new ideas regarding this deck. However, I am interested in matches. I am this close to financially pulling the trigger.
Currently, I play Elves. If you go in the Collected Company Elf thread, I am an active poster. I like Slivers due to the creature heavy aggressive tribal nature of the deck. I will get it like I will eventually for Merfolk.
I am wondering what are some of the troublesome matchups of the deck.
Elves don't like Combo decks for hte most part, Infect, Tron, Twin (I hate twin), Scapeshift, Ad Nausuem generally provide all sorts of problems for the Elf deck to the being faster Infect and just having removal until the Combo. We are good at Grinding or Being Fast against creatures. We have good/decent matchups against Burn, zoo, tokens, merfolk, bgx., straight control, delver, etc.
Does Slivers improve any of these matchups while bringing matchup problems on its own? Please be mindful, this won't turn me off of Slivers on the whole. I plan on getting it and playing it in addition to Elves. One of the benefits I think running slivers in this meta is Aether Vial tricks, casting Warping Wail, and less susceptiable to boardwipes due to ease of getting out of pyro/anger rage from lords.
We are dogs to Combo in general, more so to combo that can interact with us or be faster then us. This is especially interesting since we do better in a straight aggro meta or interactive heavy meta.
We can deal with speed based on creatures or damage, we can deal with control. We just aren't that great against Combo's with some police elements.
We can't just outgrind them or assemble our combo faster than them. It generally doesn't work like that. Infect is just faster and all the other combo's will run disruptive elements such as Targetted Removal, Wide Removal, Counters. None of our problematic matchups run discard. Discard isn't that great against us due to our redundancy. Targetted Removal is better as it generally tempo's us or takes a key/winning piece, counters also can tempo us/remove needed Card Advantage or Wincon.
Lets look at each one in turn to see what we can do.
Counters - Counters are instant speed effects (Cursecatcher) or spells (Dispel). Elves are mono-green. Option splash Blue for counters to protect our key pieces or prevent their combo. Some people have tried a Simic Elf list especially with Coiling Oracle. We also have Cavern of Souls to help make our creatures enter the field. Other decks use Aether Vial. We have spread out costs to make Aether Vial worth it especially since we don't have a lot of 2 casting cost creatures. It might be worth an experiment though as a Vialled in Shaman will be wicked fun, but it dilutes the creature base further. It might be a better option in the CoCo Elf Warrior lists that are floating around instead of or trimming the mana dorks.
Targetted Removal - Targetted Removal are generally, but not necessarily instant speed effects such as bolt, k-command, terminate, roast, etc. Black can stop targetted removal by discard effects or Golgari Charm. White has Burrenton Forge-Tender and Mark of Asylum. Green has Wrap in Vigor and Ezuri. There could be Anthem affects to raise us above 2 or 3 of most removal, but that is tough to achieve in the early turns. This prevents our pieces from being destroyed either for a better aggro game or combo game that we are having. It could mean the difference in success or combo.
Boardwipes - These are generally Sorcery. The same things that apply to Targetted Removal also apply here save that White's effects are narrow and only generally apply to Red Boardwipes. They don't apply to Supreme Verdict, Wrath, or Damnation. Green's dont apply to the Wrath/Damnation Crowd. Black, discard hits it, but Golgari Charm only hits the same boardwipes that White/Green hit. Colorless though can hit all of these off of Warping Wail, but doesn't do much against Targetted Removal which on the whole matters less.
Warping Wail as it happens, hits all of our worst matchups. All of its abilities are relevant even to chump block a Etched Champion.
We would need a radical alternation in our mana to make Warping Wail work though.
I think Warping Wail could best be slotted in Slivers due to the natural 12 colorless land they run. We run 5-6 maindeck, Merfolk runs 5-6.
We could try Mutavault in the Warrior Centric build and go pure aggro with little combo especially off Aether Vials. However, we don't have the utility aspects of Slivers or Merfolk to back up the Aether Vial/Mutavault Elf Warrior plan although it would be interesting on the whole. 2 Warping Wail in the main, 4 Aether Vial, CoCo would be the spells. 4 Cavern, 4 Mutavaults, 4 Llanowar/Brush lands for the other colorless.
So for a non-warrior more combo-centric approach to Elves and colorless mana. We want at least bare minimum 7 colorless sources and preferably more like 12. 4 Caverns and a Nykthos is given. If we assume both Gilt-Leaf Palace and Horizon Canopy, we can only run 3-4 Painlands due to Forests/Pendelhaven. I wouldn't give up Nykthos although it might be necessary on the whole. We generally need the coloress mana by turn 4. We could try the Filterlands?
Would the Filterlands be good as just a 1 of or a two of? so 4 Cavern, 4 Horizon Canopy, 4 Llanowar Waste, 4 Gilt-Leaf Palace, 1 Filter, 2 Forest?
Unless we pick a preferred Splash color whether it is White, Black, or Coloress, it could be tough. It would be easier to add Colorless if we remove either Horizon Canopy or Gilt-Leaf Palace. It would free up more slots to go deeper in the color for the splash and could run more painlands/filterlands without the plan to run Warping Wail.
The CoCo Aggro plan might be correct way to go with Elves as more interactive combo comes into effect, the less our plan that requies a larger boardstate is worse.
We Elves are a friendly bunch. Just kinda ignore me when I am all mopey and angsty at Twin. I will get over it.
Overall, Elves is a decent deck. It is an aggro combo deck that isn't that great against other Combo decks, but does very well against other aggro decks, midrange, and control decks. The Chord version will probably have better game against the Combo decks, but it isn't guranteed.
4 spellskites, a dismember, 2 wrap in vigor, 2 chameleon colollus against Grixis. I was running abzan mono-green elves.
I am just sick of seeing twin especially Grixis twin. It was intensely frustrating to keep losing to it. However, I had some bad hands, probably didn't mulligan a couple hands that were weak. I don't know if it would have mattered.
Elves just aren't in a great place now. I don't think Warping Wail will help that much due to the changes to the mana base.
I am really frustrated at myself and in general. 54 man Starcity Iq 0-3 drop. Infect 0-2, Grixis Twin 0-2, Grixis Twin 1-2.
I had one land hands that didn't net a second land for awhile. I kept getting hands with gas, but no 1/1s. I think I am just frustrated by Friday and today. I saw a ton of twin. I don't know why I had an expectation of doing ok, but I did.
I have talked about this combo oriented meta, and I still thought I could just roll in there and do well. I need to reflect on some of my decisions in mulligan int or keeping hands.
Too much interactive combo for Elves to do extremely well.
2. We play differently than either Affinity or Merfolk.
3. We can have different percentages in different match ups.
4. I think Elves while having some bad match ups in combo, has excellent match ups in other areas. Even against combo we force them to work for it. We are a meta dependent deck, probably more so than Merfolk.
You can cut a Spellskite and choke or two golgari Charm or the abrupt decay.
The thing with golgari charm is that it helps against all board wipes save for damnation and wrath. So, it will protect your Tron board state against pyro, fire spout, and o-stone. Tron is a race. They have trouble with Aggro decks like ours. Since are more Aggro combo our board state matters for more in determining this match up then other Aggro decks. Forcing them to have two or more answers progresses us and threatens them more. It is the same argument for Burrenton forge tender save that golgari charm can also do double duty vs. twin.
BG doesn't have stony silence, mark of asylum, bft etc. to slow down Tron. if they have the nuts hand, they probably win.
Golgari Charm isn't just for Tron or twin, but for ad nausauem, jeksai, burn, boggles, troll worship, tokens, any red-based sweeper deck like scapeshift, any supreme verdict deck, any deck that relies on enchantment or 1/1 like affinity. It has a wide and versitle application.
You will want Golgari charm for the regenerating effects if you are going green black. It will also have a decent twin match up and helps you survive the early Tron board wipe. It essentially replaces Burrenton Forge tender or Mark of Asylum.
There were five twin decks there at FNM with 19 players. 2 Grixis, 2 UR, 1 Living. 0-2 and the bye. 3 rounds
Round 1 - Grixis Twin - 1-2 - Game 1: Explosive start even on a one lander allowed me to drain for six on turn 3. On his turn passed. My turn I play archdruid, he fetches, shocks, casts pestermie taps shaman, but needs to block because I have exactly lethal attacking. He scoops. Game 2, pyro and bolt to Spellskite loses to turn5 twin. Game 3 I had a decent hand, with colossus and some speed, but turn 4 twin. He had the combo all 3 games from opening hand
Round 2 - UR Twin - 1-2 - Game 1 - I didn't feel I had keep able hands. Knew from glancing that on a blue red deck. I mulled to 4. He cast serum and thought twin and scooped to not give information. Game 2 he didn't seem to have anything and I was able to explode heritage into archdruid. Turn 3 cast ezuri, I could have overran for 16, but not for lethal. Held back to be able to regen board if anger as I had second ezuri in hand. Killed the ezuri, but cast second and won. Game 3 mulled to six, but on one land for 3 turns into 2 remands and then an anger. Dead to twin
Round 3 - bye
Hopefully, Sunday's iq will be better. I will have Wrap in Vigor to check and a wider meta will be fantastic for Elves.
Spellskites, Abrupt Decay, Dismember, Warping Wail, Nature's Claim, Harmonic Sliver are some of the better Twin Hate available and a mix of the package might prove better results. I think I have learned that as well. We want diverse answers.
I don't think the Aggro list that I used will be that great. Merfolk and Slivers have better and more interesting utility to their lords and additional creatures. Is there a spreading seas like card for Elves? If so, I think Elves would see more play as a Vial Aggro deck along side Merfolk and Slivers. Until we gain more utility in our creature package, I don't know if Elves is the place to be a vial/mutavault agressive deck. However, I could be wrong and more testing is always nice and needed.
I think our best bet is in some sort of Combo. I like the agressiveness of the Coco builds for the combo aspect. We can go Card Advantage of Lead, cheap filtering with Commune with Nature or Oath of Nissa, or Summoning the right pieces with Chord or Summoner's Pact.
There are a whole lot of options on what to do now that we have fallen off the radar due to the rise in our bad matchups. I don't have an answer on the whole and dodge isn't a logical resonse as our bad matcups are rapidly climbing in popularity. Warping Wail is the best card we have seen that contributes to upping our percentages against our matchups since Origins providing both Shaman and Elite.
Is it worth tinkering with the mana base to making Warping Wail work? Colorless is essentially a splash color at that point and I don't think we can reasonably do a 4 color splash. I think a 3 color splash is more viable, but we lost either Horizon Canopies or Gilt-Leaf Palace. For people on a budget, I think the Black/Colorless splash will be cheaper on the whole and just as effective. You can replace Golgari Charm with Warping Wail as it will achieve the same affect. The issue is that you might want some lifegain in the main as you are going to be taking more damage from your lands in the form of pain lands and/or Thoughtseize. You are also going to have to realize that you don't have the same Card Advantage that you used to, so grinding will be harder.
Black/Color splash mana base - I think this can work on the whole for a Black/Colorless splash for Warping Wail and some black Sideboard cards.
4 Llanowar Waste
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Pendelhaven
4 Forest
White/Colorless Splash
4 Brushland
4 Horizon Canopy
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Pendelhaven
4 Forest
This will work the same as the black/colorless splash. You have more card advantge, but you lose the ability to really cast Shaman of the Pack. Going lower than 4 Forest really opens you up to the risk of being bloodmooned. It might be worth it due to the amount of green mana we have for Elves and cards like BFT and Mark of Asylum for White that can provide that mana from being taken.
White/colorless/Gilt Leaf
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
4 Brushland
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Pendelhaven
1 Forest
This is really pushing the mana base to be able to cast Warping Wail, Shaman of the Pack, and still have the same Card Advantage that makes Elves a superior choice for aggro/combo decks. I might be trying this out when warping wail comes into effect. We kinda need this card to be as effective as we want to be against twin and others, but knowing that, bloodmoon will be a real card and we don't have a lot of answers outside of running rec sage since the 5 mana Fracturing Gust is inefficient and Nature's Claim isn't where we want to be althoug works. I will probably using my flex spot in the main as a rec sage rather than Fauna Shaman as there are plenty of odd artifacts and enchantments game one.
My sideboard for that white/colorless splash
3 Warping Wail
2 Chameleon Colossus
2 Mark of Asylum
1 Stony Silence
3 Essence Warden
1 Rest in Peace
4 Mutavaults
2 Brushland
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Forest
1 Nytkhos, Shrine to Nyx
Creatures
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Bramblewood Paragon
4 Imperious Perfect
2 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Elvish Archdruid
1 Elvish Champion
4 Aether Vial
4 Collected Company
2 Warping Wail
2x Chameleon Colossus
4x Spellskite
2x Dismember
3x Essence Warden
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Stony Silence
2x Mark of Asylum
I have a good friend who plays Merfolk and I have played this matchup a lot. The plan B of Aggro Beats generally doens't work unless we go so wide that they don't have enough lords or we could get damage in before hand. The best way for us to win is Ezuri overrun bar none or Mirror Entity beats. THe second best way is to go wide with Shaman of the Pack and whatever beats we can.
If they have an aggressive hand, it will be troublesome. If we whiff or are slow or can't find a win-condition, we can't really muddle through like we could against other decks. They will just overpower or island walk to victory. They are a turn or 2 slower then us, so our slow hand + their good hand means they probably win. We are favored, but we can't really afford to slow down against them. They are a good deck with tools to beat us. However, they can't slow roll you. If they don't know the matchup or have a slow hand, they are probably dead.
Currently, I play Elves. If you go in the Collected Company Elf thread, I am an active poster. I like Slivers due to the creature heavy aggressive tribal nature of the deck. I will get it like I will eventually for Merfolk.
I am wondering what are some of the troublesome matchups of the deck.
Elves don't like Combo decks for hte most part, Infect, Tron, Twin (I hate twin), Scapeshift, Ad Nausuem generally provide all sorts of problems for the Elf deck to the being faster Infect and just having removal until the Combo. We are good at Grinding or Being Fast against creatures. We have good/decent matchups against Burn, zoo, tokens, merfolk, bgx., straight control, delver, etc.
Does Slivers improve any of these matchups while bringing matchup problems on its own? Please be mindful, this won't turn me off of Slivers on the whole. I plan on getting it and playing it in addition to Elves. One of the benefits I think running slivers in this meta is Aether Vial tricks, casting Warping Wail, and less susceptiable to boardwipes due to ease of getting out of pyro/anger rage from lords.
We can deal with speed based on creatures or damage, we can deal with control. We just aren't that great against Combo's with some police elements.
We can't just outgrind them or assemble our combo faster than them. It generally doesn't work like that. Infect is just faster and all the other combo's will run disruptive elements such as Targetted Removal, Wide Removal, Counters. None of our problematic matchups run discard. Discard isn't that great against us due to our redundancy. Targetted Removal is better as it generally tempo's us or takes a key/winning piece, counters also can tempo us/remove needed Card Advantage or Wincon.
Lets look at each one in turn to see what we can do.
Counters - Counters are instant speed effects (Cursecatcher) or spells (Dispel). Elves are mono-green. Option splash Blue for counters to protect our key pieces or prevent their combo. Some people have tried a Simic Elf list especially with Coiling Oracle. We also have Cavern of Souls to help make our creatures enter the field. Other decks use Aether Vial. We have spread out costs to make Aether Vial worth it especially since we don't have a lot of 2 casting cost creatures. It might be worth an experiment though as a Vialled in Shaman will be wicked fun, but it dilutes the creature base further. It might be a better option in the CoCo Elf Warrior lists that are floating around instead of or trimming the mana dorks.
Targetted Removal - Targetted Removal are generally, but not necessarily instant speed effects such as bolt, k-command, terminate, roast, etc. Black can stop targetted removal by discard effects or Golgari Charm. White has Burrenton Forge-Tender and Mark of Asylum. Green has Wrap in Vigor and Ezuri. There could be Anthem affects to raise us above 2 or 3 of most removal, but that is tough to achieve in the early turns. This prevents our pieces from being destroyed either for a better aggro game or combo game that we are having. It could mean the difference in success or combo.
Boardwipes - These are generally Sorcery. The same things that apply to Targetted Removal also apply here save that White's effects are narrow and only generally apply to Red Boardwipes. They don't apply to Supreme Verdict, Wrath, or Damnation. Green's dont apply to the Wrath/Damnation Crowd. Black, discard hits it, but Golgari Charm only hits the same boardwipes that White/Green hit. Colorless though can hit all of these off of Warping Wail, but doesn't do much against Targetted Removal which on the whole matters less.
Warping Wail as it happens, hits all of our worst matchups. All of its abilities are relevant even to chump block a Etched Champion.
We would need a radical alternation in our mana to make Warping Wail work though.
I think Warping Wail could best be slotted in Slivers due to the natural 12 colorless land they run. We run 5-6 maindeck, Merfolk runs 5-6.
We could try Mutavault in the Warrior Centric build and go pure aggro with little combo especially off Aether Vials. However, we don't have the utility aspects of Slivers or Merfolk to back up the Aether Vial/Mutavault Elf Warrior plan although it would be interesting on the whole. 2 Warping Wail in the main, 4 Aether Vial, CoCo would be the spells. 4 Cavern, 4 Mutavaults, 4 Llanowar/Brush lands for the other colorless.
So for a non-warrior more combo-centric approach to Elves and colorless mana. We want at least bare minimum 7 colorless sources and preferably more like 12. 4 Caverns and a Nykthos is given. If we assume both Gilt-Leaf Palace and Horizon Canopy, we can only run 3-4 Painlands due to Forests/Pendelhaven. I wouldn't give up Nykthos although it might be necessary on the whole. We generally need the coloress mana by turn 4. We could try the Filterlands?
Would the Filterlands be good as just a 1 of or a two of? so 4 Cavern, 4 Horizon Canopy, 4 Llanowar Waste, 4 Gilt-Leaf Palace, 1 Filter, 2 Forest?
Unless we pick a preferred Splash color whether it is White, Black, or Coloress, it could be tough. It would be easier to add Colorless if we remove either Horizon Canopy or Gilt-Leaf Palace. It would free up more slots to go deeper in the color for the splash and could run more painlands/filterlands without the plan to run Warping Wail.
The CoCo Aggro plan might be correct way to go with Elves as more interactive combo comes into effect, the less our plan that requies a larger boardstate is worse.
We Elves are a friendly bunch. Just kinda ignore me when I am all mopey and angsty at Twin. I will get over it.
Overall, Elves is a decent deck. It is an aggro combo deck that isn't that great against other Combo decks, but does very well against other aggro decks, midrange, and control decks. The Chord version will probably have better game against the Combo decks, but it isn't guranteed.
Good Elfing!
I am just sick of seeing twin especially Grixis twin. It was intensely frustrating to keep losing to it. However, I had some bad hands, probably didn't mulligan a couple hands that were weak. I don't know if it would have mattered.
Elves just aren't in a great place now. I don't think Warping Wail will help that much due to the changes to the mana base.
I had one land hands that didn't net a second land for awhile. I kept getting hands with gas, but no 1/1s. I think I am just frustrated by Friday and today. I saw a ton of twin. I don't know why I had an expectation of doing ok, but I did.
I have talked about this combo oriented meta, and I still thought I could just roll in there and do well. I need to reflect on some of my decisions in mulligan int or keeping hands.
Too much interactive combo for Elves to do extremely well.
2. We play differently than either Affinity or Merfolk.
3. We can have different percentages in different match ups.
4. I think Elves while having some bad match ups in combo, has excellent match ups in other areas. Even against combo we force them to work for it. We are a meta dependent deck, probably more so than Merfolk.
The thing with golgari charm is that it helps against all board wipes save for damnation and wrath. So, it will protect your Tron board state against pyro, fire spout, and o-stone. Tron is a race. They have trouble with Aggro decks like ours. Since are more Aggro combo our board state matters for more in determining this match up then other Aggro decks. Forcing them to have two or more answers progresses us and threatens them more. It is the same argument for Burrenton forge tender save that golgari charm can also do double duty vs. twin.
BG doesn't have stony silence, mark of asylum, bft etc. to slow down Tron. if they have the nuts hand, they probably win.
Golgari Charm isn't just for Tron or twin, but for ad nausauem, jeksai, burn, boggles, troll worship, tokens, any red-based sweeper deck like scapeshift, any supreme verdict deck, any deck that relies on enchantment or 1/1 like affinity. It has a wide and versitle application.
There were five twin decks there at FNM with 19 players. 2 Grixis, 2 UR, 1 Living. 0-2 and the bye. 3 rounds
Round 1 - Grixis Twin - 1-2 - Game 1: Explosive start even on a one lander allowed me to drain for six on turn 3. On his turn passed. My turn I play archdruid, he fetches, shocks, casts pestermie taps shaman, but needs to block because I have exactly lethal attacking. He scoops. Game 2, pyro and bolt to Spellskite loses to turn5 twin. Game 3 I had a decent hand, with colossus and some speed, but turn 4 twin. He had the combo all 3 games from opening hand
Round 2 - UR Twin - 1-2 - Game 1 - I didn't feel I had keep able hands. Knew from glancing that on a blue red deck. I mulled to 4. He cast serum and thought twin and scooped to not give information. Game 2 he didn't seem to have anything and I was able to explode heritage into archdruid. Turn 3 cast ezuri, I could have overran for 16, but not for lethal. Held back to be able to regen board if anger as I had second ezuri in hand. Killed the ezuri, but cast second and won. Game 3 mulled to six, but on one land for 3 turns into 2 remands and then an anger. Dead to twin
Round 3 - bye
Hopefully, Sunday's iq will be better. I will have Wrap in Vigor to check and a wider meta will be fantastic for Elves.