Phyrexian Crusader
For Crusader to be lethal in 1 shot, you need to pump him +8, so 11 lands out. 2 shots with no blockers is 6 lands out.
Immune to all red deck tech except shrine. Immune to all white tech except DoJ and Elesh Norn. Grave Titan
Grave Titan with no blockers and a 1 shot kill needs +10, so 13 lands. 2 shots w/o blockers is 0 lands (10, then 14 with zombie tokens).
Takes 2 slagstorms, or 3 whipflares, which is card advantage in your favour anyways. O-Ring leaves 2 2/2s.
The general feeling I get from Crusader is that he is a good finisher after you play a Primeval Titan that gets removed. Grave Titan on the other hand is an alternative win-con to Primeval Titan.
It works excellently against every deck with a few exceptions. It has trouble against; a nuts draw mono-black infect and the U/B control decks full of removal and counterspell.
The main problem vs the infect deck is a crusader and skittles. How do I deal with them?
I've given up vs u/b control. I either need more Thrun, or Inkmoths, but they are not budget. Inferno and acidic smile come out in that matchup, and put in creeping renaissance, which has proven to be very useful at refilling my hand after losing all my creatures to counterspell and removal. It gives me a chance, but it feels like I've gone from a 10% chance to winning the u/b matchup to 40% after sideboarding.
It's got some awesome tool-box cards to help against specific decks:
Mayor of Avabruck is for the Blue deck control match-up. If he lands early, he threatens 3 x (1 x # of turns on the field). This forces an opposing U/B, U/B/W, or R/U/G player to kill it if they can, or cast their instant speed draw spells on their own turn to prevent it from transforming. This taps out their lands and gives you an opportunity to play a titan, or Garruk, Primal Hunter without fear of a counterspell.
Acidic Slime hits the obvious inkmoths, Kessig Wolf Runs, artifacts and enchantments.
Skinrenderer a value card that both gives you a resilient body as black creatures go, as well as removal.
Thrun, the Last Troll is another anti-control creature which becomes your opponents main concern early and promises to stick around to block.
Precursor Golem is vulnerable, but manages to finish close games.
Beast Within takes out enemy titans and planeswalkers.
Dismember should be held onto to remove a key blocker your opponent has been counting on and finish the game.
Precursor Pros:
-Cheaper
-Flexible mana cost
-Even 3/3 body spread
Cons
-Owned by removal
-All of Grave Titan's Pros...
Grave Titan Pros:
-Deathtouch
-A 6/6
-A resilient to Doom Blade black creature
-More tokens each turn
Cons
-Against 1 blocker, he deals 4 damage instead of 6
Skinrenderer Pros:
-Kills <4 toughness creatures.
-lasting effect on >3 toughness creatures
-Creature
-Black 3/3 body
Cons
-2BB mana cost might be rough early game
-Can kill itself
Garruk, the Veil-Cursed Pros:
-Kills >3 toughness creatures
-Planewalkers get better the longer they are in play
-Pumps out 2/2s, or 1/1's with deatouch
-Transformed, combos with Viridian Emissary to fetch a titan
-Kills an opponents Garruk
Cons
-Can kill itself
-Your opponent may influence/prevent a transform
-Legendary, you can't play your Garruk, Primal Hunter, or vice versa
Primordial Hydra Pros:
-Easy to play early
-Scales to be relevant each turn
-Can end a game on it's own
-Can be played around Mana Leak
-Surprise factor
Cons:
-Weak to all removal
-No value until you attack
-Can't be fetched with Green Sun's Zenith
Titan Pros:
-Immediate value
-Promising value each turn that it attacks
Cons:
-People Expect them
-Need exactly 6 mana
-Becomes a clone target
3 Birds of Paradise Vs. 3 Slagstorm
Birds Pros:
-Promises early ramp
-Helps fix colour issues
-Great late game blocker
Cons:
-Dies faster than your first pet fish
-Dies to their slagstorm anyways
Slagstorm Pros:
-Popular combo with Beast Within and Viridian Emissary
-Kills their creatures early
-Good for 3 damage to target player, or planeswalker
Cons:
-Needs 4 rampant growth to support
-Probably needs more than 4 red mana producing lands
-Less likely to be useful as the game goes on.
Go ahead and test the deck, then come back and comment. If you find you would rather play a Wolf-Run variant, go ahead, but don't compare them. They are not the same at all.
It's usually for control. Most control decks focus on early permission and big beaters late game and even then they wait for enough mana to counter something still. An early Luminarch Ascension is a real clock for control if it can't find a way to hit you fast.
Isn't this deck aggro, and therefore has an advantage vs. to control? Luminarch Ascension is wasting the spot of a card that could be used in a less favorable match-up.
If the valakut activates, there is nothing we can do as a mono-green deck. But our strategy is not to beat them once they have that advantage. What we want to do it prevent it until we can win with ezuri, or what have you. Putting out wurmcoil Engine won't save us, unless we play multiple and hope they have 0 cards left.
Whether, or not we win game 1 (which will hang in many cases over who goes first, but still in their favor), they usually side in Slagstorm and Pyroclasm just to be safe against us. When they do, we will have the Baloths who survive the board wipe. It isn't ideal to slow ourselves down for a slightly bulky creature, but it means we are at least not left with nothing.
Memoricide seems like a good SB plan.
Here are 2 decklists I'm testing. They don't have Fauna, or Venge, but you can easily fit them in by taking out the zeniths, acidic slimes, or Karns.
This is a basic aggro elves, where I play as many elves asap. Slimes mainboard to slow down valakut. 1 Leatherback to help vs RDW. IMO, sideboard has good coverage.
The this deck can win by getting ezuri out with lots of mana, or getting out a powerful Masticore, or Wurmcoil. Obstinate baloth mainboard to help with survival since using genesis wave take a little longer to activate than simple elves aggro. The OB and AS also make great ETB effects combined with genesis wave.
I like dropping the fauna shaman and vengevine package since itsnproven weak vs valakut. I also like how you cane make use of mul daya channelers and sylvan ranger. The problem is you are risking slowing down the deck for what is right now only 2 counter spells. I would go up to 6-7 counter spells, max sylvan ranger and remove lead the stampede from the mainboard.
You need a tutor, especially for ezuri, so you can use either green sun's zenith or fauna shaman for that. I think GSZ is faster, cheaper and more efficient overall. Without the need to discard vengevine, it is all around better.
Why dont people use karn liberated and/or phyrexian metamorph?
Karn is a bomb that can remove any road block as well as absorb at least one turn of attacks, buying you some time.
PM lets you copy your own archruid, which is... Another archdruid. I found it unfavourable vs caw-blade, but now that it is almost gone, I anticipate the meta to allow for larger creatures to copy more often.
I dont think RDW is a threat for elves. Elves have leatherback and obstinate baloth, leyline of vitality, and, imo the trump, lead the stampede.
Against valakut, i think the only option is permanent removal: beast within coming to mind as being able to kill their cobra or titan. I would agree with anyone saying it is the hardest matchup in the post-cawblade meta. Wasnt valakut like 40% of the meta when SOM was released? This will be tough.
For Crusader to be lethal in 1 shot, you need to pump him +8, so 11 lands out. 2 shots with no blockers is 6 lands out.
Immune to all red deck tech except shrine. Immune to all white tech except DoJ and Elesh Norn.
Grave Titan
Grave Titan with no blockers and a 1 shot kill needs +10, so 13 lands. 2 shots w/o blockers is 0 lands (10, then 14 with zombie tokens).
Takes 2 slagstorms, or 3 whipflares, which is card advantage in your favour anyways. O-Ring leaves 2 2/2s.
The general feeling I get from Crusader is that he is a good finisher after you play a Primeval Titan that gets removed. Grave Titan on the other hand is an alternative win-con to Primeval Titan.
10 Forest
4 Mountain
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Copperline Gorge
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Inkmoth Nexus
Non-creature spells
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
4 Green Sun's Zenith
Creatures
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Viridian Emissary
1 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Inferno Titan
1 Acidic Slime
4 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Elvish Archdruid
2 Primeval Titan
1 Daybreak Ranger
1 Urabrask the Hidden
1 Tree of Redemption
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Viridian Corrupter
2 Arc Trail
2 Creeping Renaissance
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Karn Liberated
1 Beast Within
1 Acidic Slime
4 Combust
It works excellently against every deck with a few exceptions. It has trouble against; a nuts draw mono-black infect and the U/B control decks full of removal and counterspell.
The main problem vs the infect deck is a crusader and skittles. How do I deal with them?
I've given up vs u/b control. I either need more Thrun, or Inkmoths, but they are not budget. Inferno and acidic smile come out in that matchup, and put in creeping renaissance, which has proven to be very useful at refilling my hand after losing all my creatures to counterspell and removal. It gives me a chance, but it feels like I've gone from a 10% chance to winning the u/b matchup to 40% after sideboarding.
4 Mountain
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Copperline Gorge
10 Forest
1 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Kessig Wolf Run
Creatures 26
4 Inferno Titan
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Urabrask the Hidden
2 Primeval Titan
1 Daybreak Ranger
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Viridian Emissary
1 Acidic Slime
1 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Phyrexian Metamorph
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Viridian Corrupter
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Tree of Redemption
4 Combust
2 Arc Trail
1 Acidic Slime
2 Creeping Renaissance
1 Karn Liberated
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Beast Within
1 Acidic Slime
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Grave Titan
3 Inferno Titan
1 Mayor of Avabruck
1 Precursor Golem
2 Primeval Titan
1 Primordial Hydra
2 Skinrenderer
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
4 Viridian Emissary
1 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Beast Within
1 Dismember
Land
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Copperline Gorge
9 Forest
2 Mountain
4 Rootbound Crag
1 Stensia BloodHall
3 Swamp
Planeswalkers/Sorcery
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Rampant Growth
1 Witchbane Orb
1 Ezuri's Archers
1 Viridian Corrupter
3 Doom Blade
2 Tribute to Hunger
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Karn Liberated
1 Black Sun's Zenith
3 Ancient Grudge
It's got some awesome tool-box cards to help against specific decks:
Mayor of Avabruck is for the Blue deck control match-up. If he lands early, he threatens 3 x (1 x # of turns on the field). This forces an opposing U/B, U/B/W, or R/U/G player to kill it if they can, or cast their instant speed draw spells on their own turn to prevent it from transforming. This taps out their lands and gives you an opportunity to play a titan, or Garruk, Primal Hunter without fear of a counterspell.
Acidic Slime hits the obvious inkmoths, Kessig Wolf Runs, artifacts and enchantments.
Skinrenderer a value card that both gives you a resilient body as black creatures go, as well as removal.
Thrun, the Last Troll is another anti-control creature which becomes your opponents main concern early and promises to stick around to block.
Precursor Golem is vulnerable, but manages to finish close games.
Beast Within takes out enemy titans and planeswalkers.
Dismember should be held onto to remove a key blocker your opponent has been counting on and finish the game.
Improvements to test:
Precursor Golem Vs. 1 more Grave Titan.
Precursor Pros:
-Cheaper
-Flexible mana cost
-Even 3/3 body spread
Cons
-Owned by removal
-All of Grave Titan's Pros...
Grave Titan Pros:
-Deathtouch
-A 6/6
-A resilient to Doom Blade black creature
-More tokens each turn
Cons
-Against 1 blocker, he deals 4 damage instead of 6
2 Skinrenderer Vs. 2 Garruk, the Veil-Cursed
Skinrenderer Pros:
-Kills <4 toughness creatures.
-lasting effect on >3 toughness creatures
-Creature
-Black 3/3 body
Cons
-2BB mana cost might be rough early game
-Can kill itself
Garruk, the Veil-Cursed Pros:
-Kills >3 toughness creatures
-Planewalkers get better the longer they are in play
-Pumps out 2/2s, or 1/1's with deatouch
-Transformed, combos with Viridian Emissary to fetch a titan
-Kills an opponents Garruk
Cons
-Can kill itself
-Your opponent may influence/prevent a transform
-Legendary, you can't play your Garruk, Primal Hunter, or vice versa
Primordial Hydra Vs. +1 Any Titan
Primordial Hydra Pros:
-Easy to play early
-Scales to be relevant each turn
-Can end a game on it's own
-Can be played around Mana Leak
-Surprise factor
Cons:
-Weak to all removal
-No value until you attack
-Can't be fetched with Green Sun's Zenith
Titan Pros:
-Immediate value
-Promising value each turn that it attacks
Cons:
-People Expect them
-Need exactly 6 mana
-Becomes a clone target
3 Birds of Paradise Vs. 3 Slagstorm
Birds Pros:
-Promises early ramp
-Helps fix colour issues
-Great late game blocker
Cons:
-Dies faster than your first pet fish
-Dies to their slagstorm anyways
Slagstorm Pros:
-Popular combo with Beast Within and Viridian Emissary
-Kills their creatures early
-Good for 3 damage to target player, or planeswalker
Cons:
-Needs 4 rampant growth to support
-Probably needs more than 4 red mana producing lands
-Less likely to be useful as the game goes on.
Go ahead and test the deck, then come back and comment. If you find you would rather play a Wolf-Run variant, go ahead, but don't compare them. They are not the same at all.
Thanks for reading.
4 Suture Priest
4 Soul's Attendant
4 Ajani's Pridemate
4 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Serra Ascendant
4 Leonin Relic-Warder
4 Lone Missionary
1 Baneslayer Angel
2 Transcendent Master
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Glimmerpoint Stag
4 Glimmerpost
14 Plains
4 Kabira Crossroads
Other
3 Pristine Talisman
2 Journey to Nowhere
4 Celestial Purge
3 Glimmerpoint Stag
4 Inquisitor Exarch
3 Luminarch Ascension
1 Karn Liberated
Should I be using white planeswalkers, or maybe Hero of Bladehold instead of some of my larger creatures MB?
Isn't this deck aggro, and therefore has an advantage vs. to control? Luminarch Ascension is wasting the spot of a card that could be used in a less favorable match-up.
20 Forest
Creatures (34)
1 Sylvan Ranger
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
3 Fauna Shaman
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Elvish Archdruid
3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Arbor Elf
4 Acidic Slime
2 Copperhorn Scout
3 Obstinate Baloth
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Joraga Treespeaker
1 Omnath, Locus of Mana
1 Leatherback Baloth
2 Asceticism
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Genesis Wave
4 Beast Within
3 Leyline of Vitality
1 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Karn Liberated
1 Molten-Tail Masticore
Thanks!
Whether, or not we win game 1 (which will hang in many cases over who goes first, but still in their favor), they usually side in Slagstorm and Pyroclasm just to be safe against us. When they do, we will have the Baloths who survive the board wipe. It isn't ideal to slow ourselves down for a slightly bulky creature, but it means we are at least not left with nothing.
Memoricide seems like a good SB plan.
This is a basic aggro elves, where I play as many elves asap. Slimes mainboard to slow down valakut. 1 Leatherback to help vs RDW. IMO, sideboard has good coverage.
4 Elvish Archdruid
3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
3 Joraga Treespeaker
4 Joraga Warcaller
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Arbor Elf
2 Copperhorn Scout
3 Sylvan Ranger
4 Acidic Slime
1 Leatherback Baloth
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Karn Liberated
3 Lead the Stampede
Lands
2 Mystifying Maze
16 Forest
4 Nature's Claim
3 Leyline of Vitality
3 Obstinate Baloth
3 Beast Within
2 Viridian Corrupter
The this deck can win by getting ezuri out with lots of mana, or getting out a powerful Masticore, or Wurmcoil. Obstinate baloth mainboard to help with survival since using genesis wave take a little longer to activate than simple elves aggro. The OB and AS also make great ETB effects combined with genesis wave.
4 Elvish Archdruid
3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
3 Joraga Treespeaker
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Arbor Elf
4 Copperhorn Scout
4 Sylvan Ranger
4 Acidic Slime
1 Molten-Tail Masticore
1 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Obstinate Baloth
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Genesis Wave
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Lead the Stampede
Lands
2 Mystifying Maze
16 Forest
2 Viridian Corrupter
4 Nature's Claim
3 Leyline of Vitality
3 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Karn Liberated
Both of these decks are as much anti-valakut and anti-rdw as I could go with elves in mono-green.
You need a tutor, especially for ezuri, so you can use either green sun's zenith or fauna shaman for that. I think GSZ is faster, cheaper and more efficient overall. Without the need to discard vengevine, it is all around better.
Karn is a bomb that can remove any road block as well as absorb at least one turn of attacks, buying you some time.
PM lets you copy your own archruid, which is... Another archdruid. I found it unfavourable vs caw-blade, but now that it is almost gone, I anticipate the meta to allow for larger creatures to copy more often.
I dont think RDW is a threat for elves. Elves have leatherback and obstinate baloth, leyline of vitality, and, imo the trump, lead the stampede.
Against valakut, i think the only option is permanent removal: beast within coming to mind as being able to kill their cobra or titan. I would agree with anyone saying it is the hardest matchup in the post-cawblade meta. Wasnt valakut like 40% of the meta when SOM was released? This will be tough.