Don't pick something too tough though, I chose doomsday storm when I first got into legacy and then ended up trading into Canadian Thresh before the printing of Delver. That deck is seriously the hardest deck to play - ever.
Anyways, pick something enjoyable. The plus part about elves is that once you start winning tournaments, you can foil it all fairly easily (except cradle)
Dredge is fine, just practice and Practice and realize that your're fighting and uphill battle against hate.
Any deck is going to be difficult to master.
Don't build burn, I had a friend who built it and was happy with it for like a week until he got sick of casting lightning bolt every turn.
I'm with him on that one, I prefer Stifle. 2 Snares seems like too little, as it counters just so many cards. I don't think I'd want three over the course of a game, but I'm not sure if I'm prepared to cut one tbh. It might just be too good. Against aggro decks I don't want more than 1 Pierce (hits removal).
Stifle let's you interact in ways Pierce and the rest of your deck do not, however. Pierce might be the more versatile card but Stifle adds versatility to your deck*
I've gotten a pretty good feel for when to hold mana up for stifle and when I need to build my board presence. Blind turn 1 Delver is a better play than holding stifle, while blind turn 1 mongoose is significantly worse. Once I hit my second land drop, I play my Mongoose. It's kind of a card you have to get a feel for, it's not something tangible. That's like all counters though really, hold mana or commit the mana for board presence.
Well I'd like to say that Stoneforge doesn't create card advantage, because squire is not worth a card and can't trade evenly against us. It's worth like half a card.
Homeland, how vulnerable do you find yourself being to wasteland when you play no stifle?
Let's address the elephant in the room; Stifle vs Pierce. I'll start out with a really quick post on both.
Stifle:
-Great for mana denial in the early game
-Gives your fragile manabase some protection against opposing wastelands.
-Actually has a pretty massive number of targets
-Messing up Brainstorms by countering fetches
-Messing up Brainstorms by making them play out lands they don't want to
-Makes Daze significantly better.
-Make them blow ponders to find lands, essentially negating the investment of casting Stifle in the first place, because now they've wasted a spell to find a land.
-Is a pretty poor topdeck in the late game, however.
-Semi goes against the idea of Thresh taking the later game by out drawing the opponent on spells. If spells are their scarce resource what are we doing countering their lands in the late game? It's value fluctuates in that its great when a land is worth more than a spell, and weak when a spell is worth more than a land.
That said, it's awesome in the early game, and should be Brainstormed away when it's bad.
Spell Pierce - This is like force of will 5-8 a lot of the time. It makes your Delvers over the top insane, because you can just counter whatever removal they put on you.
It will make your Control and Combo matchups stronger, but you'll have some problems against aggro that wants to wasteland you off of mana.
How is it that much better than Mental Note? You will never mess up their Brainstorm, only make it better. They'll also take the best card off their ponder against us, we have no discard, so you only make their ponder's better if you mill them with that. Hitting Terminus the turn before they miracle is a guessing game that I wouldn't build my deck around. The only situation I can see it being good is to bin a top that got flipped, but to do that play you have to have the Grudge as well, and you've just wasted two mana minimum and lost some tempo because of it. And not to mention, if you're doing it on them it's not really powering up your Mongoose significantly.
I have a "Red Zone" playmat from starcity games I use, and have recently started using the red zone as the graveyard. I know this is okay because many dredge players put the graveyard in this position, but for casting spells, is it okay to cast spells (counters, brainstorm, ponder) onto the end of the graveyard instead somewhere else and then moving them to the graveyard?
You're more than welcome to test it, but Mental Note has been around for years and people decided that was bad after testing, and that was before Delver when Nimble was your primary win condition every game.
So Mind Harness vs Submerge? I can see the merits of Harness, but like many have said; Submerge is very close to casting timewalk.
My SB looks like this right now:
1x Ancient Grudge - Equipment, Batterskull especially.
1x Rough/Tumble - Goblins, Elves, stuff you have to fight through to get to the top.
1x Krosan Grip - Was Grudge #2, but I wanted to be boarding in 6 things against Miracle Top, so it's this or the 3rd Spell Pierce. Still somewhat un decided.
3x Pyroblast - Beating brainstorm all day long.
2x Spell Pierce - These are really strong to bring in as well, but I'm thinking of making Krosan the 3rd one of these.
3x Submerge - It's a really powerful effect against any deck running Green - we all know this card is the nuts.
1x Mind Harness - I'm testing this out, any feedback would be nice.
3x Surgical Extraction - I like having three, the more you cast the more powerful the effect is; especially against Dredge. Remove their Narcs? They go with Ichorids. If you cast it on Narc and Ichorid, you win basically.
Anyways, pick something enjoyable. The plus part about elves is that once you start winning tournaments, you can foil it all fairly easily (except cradle)
Dredge is fine, just practice and Practice and realize that your're fighting and uphill battle against hate.
Any deck is going to be difficult to master.
Don't build burn, I had a friend who built it and was happy with it for like a week until he got sick of casting lightning bolt every turn.
What are you opinions on 4x Snare? I run the stifle build, but I've been considering changing 1 snare for 1 Pierce.
Homeland, how vulnerable do you find yourself being to wasteland when you play no stifle?
Stifle:
-Great for mana denial in the early game
-Gives your fragile manabase some protection against opposing wastelands.
-Actually has a pretty massive number of targets
-Messing up Brainstorms by countering fetches
-Messing up Brainstorms by making them play out lands they don't want to
-Makes Daze significantly better.
-Make them blow ponders to find lands, essentially negating the investment of casting Stifle in the first place, because now they've wasted a spell to find a land.
-Is a pretty poor topdeck in the late game, however.
-Semi goes against the idea of Thresh taking the later game by out drawing the opponent on spells. If spells are their scarce resource what are we doing countering their lands in the late game? It's value fluctuates in that its great when a land is worth more than a spell, and weak when a spell is worth more than a land.
That said, it's awesome in the early game, and should be Brainstormed away when it's bad.
Spell Pierce - This is like force of will 5-8 a lot of the time. It makes your Delvers over the top insane, because you can just counter whatever removal they put on you.
It will make your Control and Combo matchups stronger, but you'll have some problems against aggro that wants to wasteland you off of mana.
Let's open the flood gates
So Mind Harness vs Submerge? I can see the merits of Harness, but like many have said; Submerge is very close to casting timewalk.
My SB looks like this right now:
1x Ancient Grudge - Equipment, Batterskull especially.
1x Rough/Tumble - Goblins, Elves, stuff you have to fight through to get to the top.
1x Krosan Grip - Was Grudge #2, but I wanted to be boarding in 6 things against Miracle Top, so it's this or the 3rd Spell Pierce. Still somewhat un decided.
3x Pyroblast - Beating brainstorm all day long.
2x Spell Pierce - These are really strong to bring in as well, but I'm thinking of making Krosan the 3rd one of these.
3x Submerge - It's a really powerful effect against any deck running Green - we all know this card is the nuts.
1x Mind Harness - I'm testing this out, any feedback would be nice.
3x Surgical Extraction - I like having three, the more you cast the more powerful the effect is; especially against Dredge. Remove their Narcs? They go with Ichorids. If you cast it on Narc and Ichorid, you win basically.
Let me know what you guys think!