I couldn't find a thread for the Elfball deck, so I decided to start one.
Elfball as many people know, is an aggro-combo deck based on Elves (durr).
The main strategy is to dump as many elves as possible, then play Distant Melody and draw a lot of other elves. If you can't combo out, just try beatdown and you'll eventually win (or not).
Card choices:
Mana Dorks: Llanowar Elves - Basic mana producing dork. Nothing much to say here... Elvish Mystic - Llanowar Elves #5~#8 Priest of Titania - Gaea's Cradle in a stick. Enough said. Sylvan Ranger - The cheapest Elf way to fetch an Island (or Forest, if needed). This card is very weak, but fits nice role. Sometimes lack of blue mana can make the deck struggle. Birchlore Rangers - Produce any colour mana, great synergy with Nettle Sentinel and a nice way to cast your stuff post Distant Melody.
Draw Spells: Distant Melody - This is the deck main powerhouse. Massive draw engine. Elvish Visionary - This cantrip-dude is essencial to find more gas. Multani's Acolyte - Elvish Visionary #5~#8. Very expendable. If you have something better for this slot, feel free to add it. Also don't forget Echo, paying it (or not) might be relevant.
Finishers: Timberwatch Elf - Self-Explanatory. Makes other elves ridiculously big. Lys Alana Huntmaster - Adding more elves to the party. This card is nice because it can add bodies to a larger Distant Melody or Timberwatch's activation. But very expendable.
Utility Cards: Quirion Ranger - Deck's best dude. He has so many applications... Adding more mana, add extra damage from Timberwatch or extra life from Wellwisher. I've even saved a land from Stone Rain. Nettle Sentinel - 2/2 for G, that have great synergy with Birchlore Rangers. Viridian Longbow - This card is very nice in some situations, and very weak in others. Paired with Quirion Ranger or Nettle Sentinel, this can deal important damage to creatures, and push extra damage when you can't attack profitably (lots of blockers). Curfew - This is really techy. This card can save an elf from spot removal, and disrupt your opponent's board at the same time. Of course bouncing some creatures with ETB triggers aren't ideal, but I've already saved a lot of Priest of Titania and Timberwatch Elf. It also has some greay synergy with Elvish Visionary to draw that extra card, and make more tokens off Lys Alana Huntmaster. It also disrupts GW Aura pretty nicely.
Sideboard: Gleeful Sabotage - 2-for-1 against Affinity and GW Cloak. It also killsJourney to Nowhere. Awesome. Blastoderm - I always wonder if this shouldn't be maindeck. He's so good. Easy to cast with this deck, and 5/5 Shroud is VERY relevant in Pauper. Spidersilk Armor - This card has two applications: it makes your dudes survive Electrickery, and makes your dudes able to block White Weenie's and Delver's critters. Wellwisher - Self-Explanatory. Massive lifegain (better when paired with Quirion Ranger) Wrap in Vigor - This card comes and goes in my sideboard. Great against boardwipes. Awesome against Electrickery and Crypt Rats (if your opponent's can't stack his ability properly).
Other options: Ulamog's Crusher - Pauper's biggest dude. He's the ultimate finisher of this format. He's vulnerable to non-burn removal, so be careful when casting. Elvish Branchbender - This card is another finisher. Great with Quirion Ranger. Tangle Golem - Beefy critter that will cost 3~4 mana, usually. Nice aggressive addition, if you need it. Scattershot Archer - 1/2 for G, and also slaughters small flyers. Nice meta-choice pick if you face Delver and White Weenie a lot. Naturalize - Instant removal for Artifacts or Enchantment. Should come after Gleeful Sabotage. Serene Heart - Pretty good if GW Cloak is present in your meta. Fyndhorn Elves - Another Llanowar Elves. Rancor - Pretty good enchantment. Be careful with spot removal and you should push good damage from it. Hornet Sting - This card is very weak, I know. But it can kill some pesky creatures like Fireslinger and Crypt Rats (this deck's archenemy).
Well, the deck works like this: Play a bunch of Elves and then try to Distant Melody. As you can see, Distant Melody is a blue Sorcery, so you'll need blue mana. 4 Birchlore Rangers and 2 Sylvan Ranger are able to produce/fetch that mana. Distant Melody is really powerful but not that reliable against the decks with lots of removal, so we have another 8 dudes that can cantrip, namely Elvish Visionary and Multani's Acolyte.
Once you establish your mana, time to deal damage. Timberwatch Elf is the main finisher, as he makes people pretty strong. Lys Alana Huntmaster is a good finisher as well, as she can flood the board with those noble creatures. Be aware that you should only use Timberwatch Elf after blockers are declared, so you can kill a blocker or push damage through an unblocked creature.
Well, this is very drafty, so if I forgot anything, I'll edit it later.
Tangle Golem as a 2-of should be somewhere in the 75. Too good not to have in there. Also with Lightning Bolt alive and well, I might want to add a few more lands, maybe up the total count to 16 or 17.
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I can't see how Tangle Golem is better than Blastoderm, I don't usually have more than 2~3 Forests by the time I can cast it. Blastoderm's Shroud is awesome. He can only live 3 turns, but against MBC, that should be enough. Perhaps I could try those Golems in the Lys Alana's slot.
About 16~17 lands, I don't know... I've tried 16 in the past, and I've got flooded big time. The only upside of adding lands is making mulligans less likely.
It's the hardest matchup, by far, I would say. Game 1 strategy is to mulligan into a fast (turn 3) Distant Melody, or a hand with both Quirion Ranger and Timberwatch Elf. Also, use your mana carefully, you need to attack asap (try not to durdle around too much). Cantrip elves like Multani's Acolyte and Elvish Visionary are really useful, as they draw into more gas.
Postboard, I bring those Blastoderms. The 5/5 Shroud body is awesome, and they have trouble dealing with it. If you manage to cast 2 Blastoderms, you should be in a pretty good spot.
Usually, it's a mix of a good hand or mulligan, and them not having Crypt Rats early game.
I've really been liking the 4 Divination in the sideboard, they really help you reload your hand in hard matchups, sometimes ill take out all of my melody's for the divinations and they work great even with no creatures. Sentinel Spider is just a test right now to see if it is relevant but i haven't had a chance to use it yet.
Nice deck and thread. I actually think of Elfball as a more established archetype. It's common and powerful enough to run into that I usually at least think about the matchup from a meta perspective.
From an opponent's perspective, the win cons can seem somewhat frail; Elfball's offense usually seems to hinge on Timberwatch Elf, to the point I'll always hold a removal spell or counter or two for it. Even if you have 10 other guys and a Wellwisher out there, lifegain from Gary/Fangren and bigger creatures and spells from control will still stabilize. Aggro opponents who run a little removal can also often get there by holding their small removal packages for the Timberwatches, and control can usually stabilize by selecting the right targets.
I don't have the deck myself, but how are your matchups/record so far? I haven't actually played against a deck that runs Blastoderm, which seems like a very good idea as a more resilient wincon than just Timberwatches themselves.
I don't keep records of my matchups, but I've played against a lot of decks.
The worst matchups: MBC, UB Teachings, Dead Dog (these 3 decks use Crypt Rats), Boros Kuldotha (infinite removal + electrickery).
Even matchups: Familiar Combo (depends on who combo's faster), Goblins (depends on how explosive their hand is, I can usually get through Death Spark), Burn (depends on how explosive their hand is), Affinity (sometimes the get that god hand no one can beat, but gets much easier postboard).
Good matchups: GW Auras (g1 is usually bad, but post-board gets much easier), Delver, Mono Green Aggro, UG Madness, White Weenie. These decks tend to pack none to few removal spells, and makes life pretty easy.
Haven't met enough RUG Tron and other decks to have a solid opinion.
TL,DR: Crypt Rats and Electrickery are evil, everything else is manageable.
I figure in the current meta the big bads are delver, which this deck is well-suited to fight, and thus the main deck archers; stompy, goblins, and the new mono-white tokens deck (the scattershots are for the archers again) - again, we're in pretty good shape against those decks; and U/R fiend control, which is less of a combo deck than the classic fiend decks and more of a "clear your board with flame slashes, firebolts, et cetera" - that's what the sideboard cruise is for and the vines as well. The sentinels also force the u/r deck to use a lot of ammo to clear them. Not sure what exactly the dispel is for at this point - the longbow is in case I somehow need an alternate damage source than just swinging in.
I just started building this deck, but havnt played in any tournaments with it yet. There are a few other cards that I have been experimenting with that I dont see in anyone decks so I will put it up here
My weird card choices: Seeker of Skybreak is in as an extra 2 of quirion ranger to help speed up the combo. Essence Warden makes for a very aggressive t1 or t2 drop, and buys you time to get other elfs on the board Rancor (makes attacking worth it) Fling is in as an extra win con, though I am also considering Fireball w/ Priest of Titania, and interested in playtesting Wirewood Pride
I've also added quite a few cantrips to thin out the deck and get the combo on the table faster. Manamorphose doubles as a mana fixer so its also been usefull too in the few games I have played, and Gitaxian Probe is basically free thanks to Essence Warden
Sideboard wise I kinda like the versatility of Return to the Earth though who knows, it may be too expensive Winnower Patrol is also kinda fun, I have seen him beef up to a 6/5 several times, and just adds more protection against damage based removal/and is a good attacker
Im interested to see how this deck performs, should be testing it out in my local tourneys in a couple of weeks
Traditionally speaking, "Elfball" used an x damage spell (like fireball) along with Ashnod's Altar to blast kill your opponent for lethal in a few turns. The concept you're referring to is closer to an Elf Combo with the Distant Melody, Nettle Sentinel, and Birchlore Rangers
Elfball as many people know, is an aggro-combo deck based on Elves (durr).
The main strategy is to dump as many elves as possible, then play Distant Melody and draw a lot of other elves. If you can't combo out, just try beatdown and you'll eventually win (or not).
This is my current list:
12 Forest
1 Island
Mana Dorks [18]
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Priest of Titania
4 Birchlore Rangers
2 Sylvan Ranger
Utility Dorks [8]
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Multani's Acolyte
Finishers [7]
4 Timberwatch Elf
3 Lys Alana Huntmaster
Spells [8]
4 Distant Melody
3 Curfew
1 Viridian Longbow
4 Gleeful Sabotage
4 Blastoderm
3 Wellwisher
2 Spidersilk Armor
1 Wrap in Vigor
1 Viridian Longbow
Card choices:
Mana Dorks:
Llanowar Elves - Basic mana producing dork. Nothing much to say here...
Elvish Mystic - Llanowar Elves #5~#8
Priest of Titania - Gaea's Cradle in a stick. Enough said.
Sylvan Ranger - The cheapest Elf way to fetch an Island (or Forest, if needed). This card is very weak, but fits nice role. Sometimes lack of blue mana can make the deck struggle.
Birchlore Rangers - Produce any colour mana, great synergy with Nettle Sentinel and a nice way to cast your stuff post Distant Melody.
Draw Spells:
Distant Melody - This is the deck main powerhouse. Massive draw engine.
Elvish Visionary - This cantrip-dude is essencial to find more gas.
Multani's Acolyte - Elvish Visionary #5~#8. Very expendable. If you have something better for this slot, feel free to add it. Also don't forget Echo, paying it (or not) might be relevant.
Finishers:
Timberwatch Elf - Self-Explanatory. Makes other elves ridiculously big.
Lys Alana Huntmaster - Adding more elves to the party. This card is nice because it can add bodies to a larger Distant Melody or Timberwatch's activation. But very expendable.
Utility Cards:
Quirion Ranger - Deck's best dude. He has so many applications... Adding more mana, add extra damage from Timberwatch or extra life from Wellwisher. I've even saved a land from Stone Rain.
Nettle Sentinel - 2/2 for G, that have great synergy with Birchlore Rangers.
Viridian Longbow - This card is very nice in some situations, and very weak in others. Paired with Quirion Ranger or Nettle Sentinel, this can deal important damage to creatures, and push extra damage when you can't attack profitably (lots of blockers).
Curfew - This is really techy. This card can save an elf from spot removal, and disrupt your opponent's board at the same time. Of course bouncing some creatures with ETB triggers aren't ideal, but I've already saved a lot of Priest of Titania and Timberwatch Elf. It also has some greay synergy with Elvish Visionary to draw that extra card, and make more tokens off Lys Alana Huntmaster. It also disrupts GW Aura pretty nicely.
Sideboard:
Gleeful Sabotage - 2-for-1 against Affinity and GW Cloak. It also killsJourney to Nowhere. Awesome.
Blastoderm - I always wonder if this shouldn't be maindeck. He's so good. Easy to cast with this deck, and 5/5 Shroud is VERY relevant in Pauper.
Spidersilk Armor - This card has two applications: it makes your dudes survive Electrickery, and makes your dudes able to block White Weenie's and Delver's critters.
Wellwisher - Self-Explanatory. Massive lifegain (better when paired with Quirion Ranger)
Wrap in Vigor - This card comes and goes in my sideboard. Great against boardwipes. Awesome against Electrickery and Crypt Rats (if your opponent's can't stack his ability properly).
Other options:
Ulamog's Crusher - Pauper's biggest dude. He's the ultimate finisher of this format. He's vulnerable to non-burn removal, so be careful when casting.
Elvish Branchbender - This card is another finisher. Great with Quirion Ranger.
Tangle Golem - Beefy critter that will cost 3~4 mana, usually. Nice aggressive addition, if you need it.
Scattershot Archer - 1/2 for G, and also slaughters small flyers. Nice meta-choice pick if you face Delver and White Weenie a lot.
Naturalize - Instant removal for Artifacts or Enchantment. Should come after Gleeful Sabotage.
Serene Heart - Pretty good if GW Cloak is present in your meta.
Fyndhorn Elves - Another Llanowar Elves.
Rancor - Pretty good enchantment. Be careful with spot removal and you should push good damage from it.
Hornet Sting - This card is very weak, I know. But it can kill some pesky creatures like Fireslinger and Crypt Rats (this deck's archenemy).
Well, the deck works like this: Play a bunch of Elves and then try to Distant Melody. As you can see, Distant Melody is a blue Sorcery, so you'll need blue mana. 4 Birchlore Rangers and 2 Sylvan Ranger are able to produce/fetch that mana. Distant Melody is really powerful but not that reliable against the decks with lots of removal, so we have another 8 dudes that can cantrip, namely Elvish Visionary and Multani's Acolyte.
Once you establish your mana, time to deal damage. Timberwatch Elf is the main finisher, as he makes people pretty strong. Lys Alana Huntmaster is a good finisher as well, as she can flood the board with those noble creatures. Be aware that you should only use Timberwatch Elf after blockers are declared, so you can kill a blocker or push damage through an unblocked creature.
Well, this is very drafty, so if I forgot anything, I'll edit it later.
Thanks for your read.
The funniest thing about this particular signature is that by the time you realize it doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it....
I can't see how Tangle Golem is better than Blastoderm, I don't usually have more than 2~3 Forests by the time I can cast it. Blastoderm's Shroud is awesome. He can only live 3 turns, but against MBC, that should be enough. Perhaps I could try those Golems in the Lys Alana's slot.
About 16~17 lands, I don't know... I've tried 16 in the past, and I've got flooded big time. The only upside of adding lands is making mulligans less likely.
Postboard, I bring those Blastoderms. The 5/5 Shroud body is awesome, and they have trouble dealing with it. If you manage to cast 2 Blastoderms, you should be in a pretty good spot.
Usually, it's a mix of a good hand or mulligan, and them not having Crypt Rats early game.
4 Birchlore Rangers
2 Elvish Mystic
2 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Priest of Titania
2 Sylvan Ranger
3 Wellwisher
4 Llanowar Sentinel
4 Timberwatch Elf
4 Distant Melody
Artifacts: 2
2 Viridian Longbow
4 Divination
3 Gleeful Sabotage
3 Blastoderm
2 Spidersilk Armor
1 Presence of Gond
1 Sentinel Spider
1 Wellwisher
I've really been liking the 4 Divination in the sideboard, they really help you reload your hand in hard matchups, sometimes ill take out all of my melody's for the divinations and they work great even with no creatures. Sentinel Spider is just a test right now to see if it is relevant but i haven't had a chance to use it yet.
WU Rhystic Tron WU
WUBRG Snow-Go WUBRG
From an opponent's perspective, the win cons can seem somewhat frail; Elfball's offense usually seems to hinge on Timberwatch Elf, to the point I'll always hold a removal spell or counter or two for it. Even if you have 10 other guys and a Wellwisher out there, lifegain from Gary/Fangren and bigger creatures and spells from control will still stabilize. Aggro opponents who run a little removal can also often get there by holding their small removal packages for the Timberwatches, and control can usually stabilize by selecting the right targets.
I don't have the deck myself, but how are your matchups/record so far? I haven't actually played against a deck that runs Blastoderm, which seems like a very good idea as a more resilient wincon than just Timberwatches themselves.
The worst matchups: MBC, UB Teachings, Dead Dog (these 3 decks use Crypt Rats), Boros Kuldotha (infinite removal + electrickery).
Even matchups: Familiar Combo (depends on who combo's faster), Goblins (depends on how explosive their hand is, I can usually get through Death Spark), Burn (depends on how explosive their hand is), Affinity (sometimes the get that god hand no one can beat, but gets much easier postboard).
Good matchups: GW Auras (g1 is usually bad, but post-board gets much easier), Delver, Mono Green Aggro, UG Madness, White Weenie. These decks tend to pack none to few removal spells, and makes life pretty easy.
Haven't met enough RUG Tron and other decks to have a solid opinion.
TL,DR: Crypt Rats and Electrickery are evil, everything else is manageable.
PS: Curfew has been AWESOME, please test it.
3 Llanowar Elf
3 Elvish Mystic
2 Sylvan Ranger
4 Priest of Titania
4 Timberwatch Elf
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Birchlore Rangers
3 Distant Melody
1 Island
12 Forest
That's 44 cards, so you have 16 flex spots. I figure on just basically throwing the MBC matchup away; my current build has
1 Elvish Mystic
2 Sylvan Ranger
2 Elvish Visionary
4 Llanowar Sentinel
2 Lys Alana Huntmaster
1 Rancor
2 Scattershot Archer
2 Spidersilk Armor
2 Scattershot Archer
2 Spidersilk Armor
3 Vines of the Vastwood
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Distant Melody
1 Dispel
2 Viridian Longbow
3 Wellwisher
I figure in the current meta the big bads are delver, which this deck is well-suited to fight, and thus the main deck archers; stompy, goblins, and the new mono-white tokens deck (the scattershots are for the archers again) - again, we're in pretty good shape against those decks; and U/R fiend control, which is less of a combo deck than the classic fiend decks and more of a "clear your board with flame slashes, firebolts, et cetera" - that's what the sideboard cruise is for and the vines as well. The sentinels also force the u/r deck to use a lot of ammo to clear them. Not sure what exactly the dispel is for at this point - the longbow is in case I somehow need an alternate damage source than just swinging in.
just built the deck around the decklist I found in this primer. Maybe it could be added to the primer here.
http://magicgatheringstrat.com/2014/12/pauper-primer-1-elves/
It was written less than a month ago. Note that there are not any visionaries!
12x Forest
CREATURES 34
4x Quirion Ranger
2x Seeker of Skybreak
4x Timberwatch Elf
3x Llanowar Elves
3x Arbor Elf
3x Birchlore Rangers
4x Priest of Titania
3x Nettle Sentinel
2x Essence Warden
2x Lys Alana Huntmaster
SPELLS
3x Rancor
2x Fling
CANTRIPS
3x Distant Melody
4x Manamorphose
2x Gitaxian Probe
3x Fog
2x Naturalize
2x Return to the Earth
3x Spidersilk Armor
3x Winnower Patrol
2x Wirewood Pride
My weird card choices:
Seeker of Skybreak is in as an extra 2 of quirion ranger to help speed up the combo.
Essence Warden makes for a very aggressive t1 or t2 drop, and buys you time to get other elfs on the board
Rancor (makes attacking worth it)
Fling is in as an extra win con, though I am also considering Fireball w/ Priest of Titania, and interested in playtesting Wirewood Pride
I've also added quite a few cantrips to thin out the deck and get the combo on the table faster. Manamorphose doubles as a mana fixer so its also been usefull too in the few games I have played, and Gitaxian Probe is basically free thanks to Essence Warden
Sideboard wise I kinda like the versatility of Return to the Earth though who knows, it may be too expensive
Winnower Patrol is also kinda fun, I have seen him beef up to a 6/5 several times, and just adds more protection against damage based removal/and is a good attacker
Im interested to see how this deck performs, should be testing it out in my local tourneys in a couple of weeks
Any thoughts are more than welcome!
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