A friend of mine was watching me experiment with my Elfball deck, and wanted to try it out himself. Lent it to him, and he seemed to enjoy it enough to want to buy into it. He's even more of a Johnny than I am, though with far less of a budget to work with. In an attempt to help him out, I tried to construct an Elfball deck using two colors instead of the mono-green that was my Ezuri.
I decided to go with two colors and a budget of $100 after an optimized Heavily Played search from TCGPlayer. While there are some pieces to Elfball combo that are non-negotiable (Staff of Domination being the big one), I found that there are some somewhat functional replacements for the other things which serve as signatures for Green decks.
The nice thing about White is that it offers another cheap wincon that functions well for the tribe (Mirror Entity), another 1CMC mana dork (Avacyn's Pilgrim), and also gives one cheap tutor for combo pieces (Steelshaper's Gift) and two more semi-cheap tutors for other pieces (Eladamri's Call, Sterling Grove). However, given our budget, we only have enough free space to run Steelshaper. Still, those two are very obvious upgrades to the deck, with Call matching Demonic Tutor in CMC and speed (though you have to reveal the card and it has to be a creature) and the other being storable.
Speaking of tutors, Elves has a bunch of cheap ones available even without getting into White. Elvish Harbinger doubles as a mana dork, Skyshroud Poacher can duck a lot of things by bringing stuff into play directly, Wirewood Herald can tutor for Caller of the Claw in response to a boardwipe, and Fierce Empath can bring you an array of useful 6+ CMC creatures.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Elvish Guidance won't match Gaea's Cradle in power, but you'd potentially run the two anyway AND they still can do the big mana plays that Cradle allows. Though both will have to be used a bit later than Cradle can, and Elvish Guidance in particular can get you two-for-one'd. Still, having big mana through lands as an option even without Cradle is great.
In addition to big mana, our various land tutors let us fetch everything from removal to unblockability to land destruction.
Genesis Hydra isn't anywhere near Genesis Wave in power, but it can dig just as deeply to find you what you need. We've also managed to squeeze enough budget to get Wave itself.
You'll need more mana to get Primordial Sage going compared to Glimpse of Nature, but it should be noted that it can be fetched with Empath.
If you can't red zone your way to victory, then Hurricane and Squall Line provide a way to just slam the whole table for big damage. Sure, you might also kill yourself, but you'll have done a nice impression of a Heartless Hidetsugu deck while doing it.
Staff of Domination is, in my opinion, mostly non-negotiable as it's both card draw AND another infinite enabler. You still pack some power in the deck without it (Umbral Mantle can do the infinite mana thing too) but it does enough that it deserves to be slotted in despite being over $10 in price.
They're not Craterhoof Behemoth or even Ezuri, Renegade Leader, but Chameleon Colossus and the aforementioned Mirror Entity can serve as ways to handily take out an opponent through damage while doubling as "Elves," meaning they're fetchable by our plethora of budget Elf tutors. Though Colossus does not have Trample or some form of Evasion, you can tutor it up for him using a land tutor for Rogue's Passage or utilize Triumph of the Hordes. For the amount of mana you'd spend on Hoof or a one-activation Ezuri, you can pump your forces up to 5/5 which can sometimes be enough. But more importantly, Entity enables more combos.
We have three main haste enablers in this deck: Concordant Crossroads, Thousand-Year Elixir, and Lightning Greaves. Each of them can enable infinite mana on the turn you've got the mana and the cards to start the combo, and are all quite cheap. That Green has the extra haste enabler helps us significantly. Joraga Warcaller also enables a combo with Devoted Druid in particular, but it requires a bit more mana to truly get going as a wincon.
Example combos:
Wirewood Symbiote + Devoted Druid + Joraga Warcaller (Kicked at least once) + Greaves/Crossroads/Elixir
Tap and untap Druid for 3+ mana, return it with Wirewood Symbiote, recast it and then tap it again for infinite mana since Devoted Druid only costs 2. Warcaller also fits as a potential wincon here since it can also be returned by Wirewood Symbiote and then recast with infinite multikickers.
Wirewood Symbiote + Mirror Entity + Megadork (Tapping for at least 3 Mana)
Tap the Megadork for 3 mana or more. Turn all creatures into an Elf with Mirror Entity (you only have to pay 1 for now). Untap the Megadork with Symbiote targeting itself for bouncing back to hand since it's now an Elf itself. Recast Symbiote, retap the Megadork for 3 mana, re-use Mirror Entity's ability, untap Megadork and bounce Symbiote back, and repeat ad infinitum. Note that, again, a wincon is built in here with Mirror Entity as a way to dump all the mana.
Megadork (Tapping for at least 4 Mana) + Umbral Mantle
Tap for 4, untap spending 3, tap for 4, surplus 1-- repeat for infinite mana. At a large enough table with a bit of luck, Selvala herself might be able to keep this going and add some card draw (albeit symmetrical) to the mix as well.
Megadork (Tapping for at least 5 Mana) + Staff of Domination
Tapping for 5 will beat Staff of Domination's total tap and untap costs of 4 mana, netting you a surplus that you can repeat for infinite mana. You can use that surplus to draw your whole deck.
Upgrades:
To be added.
Changelog:
12/15/2015:
-1 Seeker of Skybreak, -1 Nullmage Shepherd, -1 Dauntless Escort, - Viridian Zealot
+1 Vitalize, +1 To Arms!, +1 Village Bell-Ringer, +1 Caller of the Claw
