Elves

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Ganondorf77
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Post by Ganondorf77 » 4 years ago

One of my first posts here. Super excited about pioneer. Wanted to play elves in Modern for awhile, but I think pioneer might make for a better home.

This is just a rough first draft of the deck. There wasn't too much thought put into the sideboard.

Let's talk about some green bois!


Mapccu
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Post by Mapccu » 4 years ago

Elves is a deck I actually have the most tournament level experience with in modern and while I definitely do think it's a strong option for pioneer, the format is still figuring out the right balance of safety valves to deal with some of silly top ends we've seen in standard lately like the big eldrazi. Below is just my two cents, haven't built the deck for the format yet.

We lack the critical volume of lords and mana production without arch druid to make going wide a reality really. Dredge decks are dropping amalgams, Bx and Rx decks can sweep as early as t3 w/o ramp. BG has a metric ton of great removal against elves (push, lili, sweepers, and larger threats). Hard to punch through that.

shaman of the pack and steel-leaf champion are 4 odd imho. Steel leaf in particular dodges non-revolted push, rumbles super well with most of what everyone else is playing, and can give burn fits without soulscar mage.

These are your explosive eot cocos or t2 proactive plays. As is, I think you want 4 of each. Trophy is a 4 of in the side because you have no dig to hit it and you need it for control. heroic intervention is good, but I think blossoming defense may be preferable for burn and racing.

I think marwyn is mediocre to okay here. Same with rishkar. They don't feel very impactful in the current build. HOWEVER, the tribe has some insane counter synergy so I'm thinking if they're your 3 drops of choice you want hardened scales and metallic mimic. Mimic and marwyn want dwynen's elite and scales wants nissa, voice of zendikar. growth chamber guardian and coco will keep your action coming. Scales also plays wells with riot mechanics. You can go insanely big super fast with this build.

deathrite shaman is a silly magic card. Play 4. I shredded UW control, vamps, and burn last pioneer event and I owe 70% of the heavy lifting to deathrite. I actually joked about having more planeswalkers than my UW Opp because the card kept him off delve for so long while getting in for like 10 drain. I literally passed on 3 mana for 4 turns sandbagging a trophy for whatever he played and just kept draining him eot. Against burn I aggressively blocked and just ate everything with scoops/deathrite until I stabilized at 1 when opp ran out of gas and I ended that game over 10.

Need to be careful against control because they're going to point removal at your impactful creatures and it's hard to beat a well timed board wipe followed by Teferi.

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Ganondorf77
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Post by Ganondorf77 » 4 years ago

Thanks for all the feedback!

I definitely agree about the lack of lord density and the need to play 4-ofs for our more impactful cards. I can definitely shave some of the more lackluster creatures to make room.

I wasn't sure about DRS, but I can definitely see him pulling weight vs burn and control like you say. Do you have him MB or SB?

Mapccu
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Post by Mapccu » 4 years ago

Sorry for the delay. I run deathrite as a 4 of MB in GB delirium. I've had great results so far given how open the meta has been and a lot of it is attributed to him.

I threw the elf counters deck together and it feels pretty good so far. Below is a rough list I've been goldfishing with and tweaking.

Sideboard is a little all over because I dunno what splash I'll settle on. Black gives you discard (proactive) and blue gives you counters (reactive). Red gives you rhythm of the wilds. White gives baby emara and some decent counter support.

I'm leaning towards testing black for retribution of the ancients. Against creature decks scales, retribution and nissa can really mess up combat math. I like thoughtsieze and stain the mind as well. Deck doesn't have much game against nexus in the main aside from the fastest starts.

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Post by Mapccu » 4 years ago

Played the counter list pretty close to my posted list with a UG base but I bought no sideboard and had no mainboard blue spells (basically pretty handicapped for the night. Went 4-0 and posted results against some pretty strong decks against me. I think the counters list has legs.

Game 1 was mono black zombies. G1 I won the die roll and opp blew removal early against me and I could never stabilize. I drew no hardened scales and when I did draw it I scooped to conceal info. G2 was a long slog, but steel leaf champion #3 was swinging past the team and got me over the finish line. G3 he didn't hit land 4 and I got there. He boarded in that -3/-3 to creatures of a chosen type black spell (wth is that even a thing)...still outgrew everything.

Match 2 was mono black vamps. G1 opp goes 1 drop, gifted Aether one, into sorrow minus for Kalitas. I killed sorrin, the second sorin, and lethaled while ignoring the third. Game was crazy close but that curve was insane. G2 she's on the play, I stick a hardened scales t1 and pass (can't remember hand but it was gas), she untaps and sticks blight beetle...wtf is this... we go 3 rounds before I scoop after she sticks the second one. G3 she sticks a t2 blight beetle again and I manage to still get there off steel leaf champions and eot cocos to dig for outs. She boarded in 2x beetles and saw both g2 and 1 game 3.

Match 3 was a mono white life gain. I take it 2-0. Game one I blew him out through 3 removal spells. G2 he flounders on 1 land and rishkar let's me build an insane board by t4. He played several removal spells this game as well.

Match 4 was abs an control with blight beetle in the side. G1 after a flurry of removal I just outgrow any of his threats and start turning a 12/12 marwyn sideways and force chumps for too long and he runs out of resources. Game 2 he hits blight beetle and ritual of soot sets me back to the Stone Age and he wins. G3 I dropped like 20 power on the board eot his t4. I had llanorwar, pelt collector, hardened scales x2. I coco and hit pelt collector and rishkar (3 counters on first pelt collector from his trigger and rishkar, rishkar drops 3 counters on himself and the other collector. I untap, drop land 4, play steel leaf champion to grow the pelt collectors, tap rishkar/elf/land to drop nissa voice of zen and stick 3 counters on everything. Turn pelt collectors sideways for stupid amounts and still have a ton of power on board. Opp scoops 1 turn later.

Each opp boarded against me, I had no sideboard, a suboptimal manabase, and faced down like 4 blight beetles over the night and was still able to easily cruise through some matches. The power this deck can drop on the board is just crazy. I had a blast. I think there is a deck here, even if t2.

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The Fluff
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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

thanks for sharing the report. It was a good read. :)

we certainly have something here.
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Mapccu
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Post by Mapccu » 4 years ago

Testing black splash with the following sideboard:

2 scavenging ooze
4 assassin's trophy
4 thoughtsieze
1 retribution of the ancients
2 walking ballista
1 nissa, voice of zendikar
1 heroic intervention

GY hate: scooze, which works well with GY counter synergy in the deck.
Kill spells: trophy, retribution, ballista
Pw hate: trophy
Combo: discard
Control: discard, 3rd nissa, intervention

May need to tweak numbers. Intervention could potentially be selfless spirit if you shift to chord so you can run multiple copies of the effect. Marwyn lets you chord for whatever you want if she hangs around.

3rd nissa May need to be a different walker so you don't get blown out by pithing needle.

reclamation sage is legal if you need to snipe arts/enchs in tribe. Again, coco and maybe chord could up your virtually count by a lot.

Nothing has haste so I don't think you need finale of devestation although I have hit the mana for it often.

Mana base could maybe use a 1 of nykthos, shrine to nyx but I don't think you need it. Deck doesn't have enough sinks for it.

Mapccu
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Post by Mapccu » 4 years ago

Played a short 4 round tournament last night and went 3-1 with the GB list I posted above.

Round 1 was a loss to mono green. Both games I got stuck on two lands and opp went dork, into the 3 drop giant from eldraine, into nylea, god of the hunt, into more crap I couldn't deal with. Game two I dropped ~35 power on the board in one turn with two hardened scales out and a rishkar to get more mileage out of my board and my opp played Rhône's 2.0 and got in for 52 trample damage... 0-2. My sideboard was 4 pelt collectors out for 4 trophy's.

Round two was a win against a mono red goblin deck. I hit retribution of the ancients and kept him off creatures for the rest of the game in game 2. 2-0 boarded out 3 pelt collectors for 1 retribution and 2 ballista.

Round 3 was jeskai control. I hit 4 mana on his t3 and baited a counter on scales to stick a nissa, voice of zendikar who jyay took over from there. Opp spent a lot of resources digging for verdict, which taxes ability to dig for mana smoothing and early interaction. I just came out of the gate to quickly both games.

Round 4 was against sultai dredgeless dredge. Game 1 opp made a bad swing, I had just enough to get in before lethal. I prioritized growing my dudes to 4 toughness and force bad attacks/blocks. wildborn preserver having reach really helps stem the slow bleed from the narcomoebas. Game two he mulls to 4 and I go dorkt1, marwyn t2, retribution and scooze T3 and still almost lose...he plays stitcher's supplier into satyr wayfinder that drops 7 power on the board t2...oof. After that I think it was a t4 gurmag angler who got me kinda low before I could grow marwyn up to block and stay untapped long enough. Eventually retribution and scooze pulled me out of the gutter. At one point I was at 3 and opp had 3 lands and creeping chill in hand - so I was dead to a u tapped land off the top. Luckily I stabilized first. 2-0

So dredge feels terrible still, may need some lay lines in the side. The 3rd nissa was for control but I didn't want it. Not sure what this should be. I swapped pelt collectors for thoughtsieze against control and it felt good.

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