I had been using Nettle over Twinblade before I quit... and it seems I answered my own question: Gilt-Leaf > Vanquisher for quantity of tokens.
My FF.net accountI really want to try out the Gilt-Leaf Ambush card. I love the Vanquisher though, she's some scary elf poon. I'm thinking of disecting my Elf-Ball deck into two decks: Mono-Green life gain/token deck and a Green/Red Warrior Beatdown. But more than anything I want to try out the new Elf Warrior card Joraga Warcaller
from the Worldwake set, I think he'll be a staple for Elf-ball decks. Plus he gets my Bramblewood's vote!
Mappi, are you using Oran-Rief
in your Elf-Ball deck? I have 3 in mine and I find it incredibly useful in conjunction with the Bramblewood.
edited 22nd Jan '10 10:31:15 AM by Mr.Glass
If you don't see anything worth laughing at, pretend you see it, then laughI quit before Oran-Rief came out, so no. I stopped using Vanquisher because a Shriekmaw owns it.
My FF.net account^^^^ I'm fine with playing your elf deck, you've just been insisting on playing your blue-white and Doran decks as of late.
edited 22nd Jan '10 10:35:15 AM by Justice4243
Justice is a joy to the godly, but it terrifies evildoers.Proverbs21:15 FimFiction account."Justice"! You naughty potato! Let's not turn this thread into a spousal fight!
Mappi, have you thought about Steely Resolve or Dense Foliage? They'll protect your elves and piss off your opponent - a winning combination. Your opponent will be sat their with a bunch of redundant cards as a result.
My Elf-Ball deck as it stands:
4x Llanowar Augar
/ Nettle Sentinel
(want to put in Joraga Warcaller)
4x Wellwisher
16x Forest (would like a Gaea's Cradle
or 2)
1x Pendelhaven
Sideboard:
4x Jagged-Scar Archers
4x Viridian Zealot
3x Sylvan Messenger
2x Fyndhorn Elves
edited 22nd Jan '10 11:02:18 AM by Mr.Glass
If you don't see anything worth laughing at, pretend you see it, then laugh
You started it.
Edit: It's true! Having to throw a tarfire
at opponent who has most of their life still, because that’s the best use you’ll find for it is not fun.
edited 22nd Jan '10 11:29:57 AM by Justice4243
Justice is a joy to the godly, but it terrifies evildoers.Proverbs21:15 FimFiction account.Many people did. Although combat is simplified, not having to worry about mana burn is actually pretty fun. Except that you can’t commit seppuku anymore.
Justice is a joy to the godly, but it terrifies evildoers.Proverbs21:15 FimFiction account.An enchantment that reintroduces the mechanic of mana burn may not be a bad idea to at least attempt to appease some of player’s who had decks that relied on the mechanism. However, the upcoming set looks like it’s going to have at least one card that lets you float mana between phases. Who knows how they’d have to word the “mana burn” enchantment or what rules they’d have to write just to keep confusion down to a minimum.
Speaking of confusion, from what I can, tell the biggest complaint about the M10 changes was removing the stack from combat. Wizards sacrificed one of the more complex strategy elements of the game in favor of having less people angrily sweep cards of the table while shouting “Fuck this game!” Magic is…complex, to put it lightly. And M10 tried to limit some of the more confusing elements in favor of attracting new players to the game. I don’t like some of the changes (regeneration being substantially depowered for one), but I think I actually like there being a little more logic to combat in regards to creatures can no longer block/or be blocked and then “kill themselves” (sacrifice) yet still get to deal damage and count as blocking a creature.
Changing gears back to Elf decks, one managed to place top 4 in a recent magic-league tournament
. Looks like this one’s a healthy sprinkling of elves that give other elves +1/+1 with a deluge of elves that add mana acceleration to power a game ending Mirror Entity
. Tribal Forcemage
seems to be win mechanism #2. Props to my wife to figuring out some of the deck’s mechanics.
My beloved Goblins have placed 1st in a tournament
a little over a month back. That deck is pretty close to what mine is now. I found the Stingscourger
a good replacement for Mogg Fanatic
considering it’s beginning to be much more likely you’re opponent is going to cast a 2/2 on their first turn over a 1/1. I still have my tarfires
, however.
edited 29th Jan '10 3:10:54 PM by Justice4243
Justice is a joy to the godly, but it terrifies evildoers.Proverbs21:15 FimFiction account.Tribal decks tend to suffer when the Control players start employing the power of Engineered Plague, though.
I planned at one point to rebuild Spellbomb Control into various other forms, including a WUB discard/lock variant (using Disciple to turn every broken spellbomb or Bauble into lifeloss), a W Ur aggro-control build with Shrapnel Blast (turning a spellbomb into a 5-point explosion is worth it!), and even a fast-mana Wu G variant with mass Plow Unders supplemented by Eternal Witnesses and Conjuror's Bauble (which sticks cards back in the library to avoid them getting RFG'd or simply just to pseudo-cycle).
The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!The Elf deck actually has a few recovery mechanisms, I noticed. Goblin decks usually don’t (unless they splash black and add Patriarch's Bidding
)).
It helps to hold on to a card or two if think your opponent can wipe the battlefield clean.
edited 26th Jan '10 12:56:42 PM by Justice4243
Justice is a joy to the godly, but it terrifies evildoers.Proverbs21:15 FimFiction account.Green players can afford to toss non-tribal threats in because of their crazy mana (like Jamie Wakefield's classical Secret Force, which just wins with large critters).
My personal favourite "tribeless" Green deck is the Mirrodin classical Tooth and Nail, which to me feels like some kind of neo-Secret Force sans dinosaur tokens. From Akroma to the Triskelion/Mephidross Vampire combinations, Platinum Angel/Leonin Abunas to Sundering Titan/Kiki-Jiki, T&N is amazingly brutal. Not many decks let you climb up to 7GG in 4 turns to literally gg your opponent, and if you need to you can just hardcast a 11/11 indestructible trampler and put them on a very short damage clock, and wins off your support team of Eternal Witnesses and other 2/1-power critters are not unheard of. Aggro-combo is awesome, innit?
My personal build is currently an Urzatron Mirrodin/Kamigawa build T&N which is rebuilt to operate even with no forests in the starting hand. As I am semi-retired and my deck is now obsolete (except when playing seasonally), I feel that it is safe for me to leak my own super-secret tech:
- Instead of merely using the 1G Sakurai-tribe Elders (laughs), I employ Wayfarer's Baubles (1, 2T+sacrifice for Rampant Growth effect) for the early game so if I get a no-forest opening hand, I can still afford not to mulligan.
- Higher up the mana curve, I stuck the Solemn Simulacrum to add more Forest-thinning power, because he is still juuuust fine despite his (4) mana cost (Comes into play with a Rampant Growth effect, draws you a card when he hits the grave).
- Some plains and some Sacred Grounds in the sideboard ensure I can fair better in G2/3 versus Land D. Boseiju (T, pay life to add mana that makes spells counterspell-resistant) goes in the maindeck to stuff Blue players packing countermagic.
- To combat Obliterate and colour denial, I run Darksteel Ingots (3 Artifact, taps for any colour of mana, indestructible)...
- ...Which I pair with a City of Brass (or two) to ensure I have the coloured mana if I need to hardcast Kiki-Jiki.
- In theory I could stuff Time of Need (1G Sorc, tutors a Legendary Creature and puts it in your hand) in to tutor up legends, but T&N is crowded as it is, so I left it out.
- Plow Under plus Eternal Witness is evil. Pair that combo up with more recurrance (Eternal Slide abuses their own Slide effects for it, while I can abuse Kiki-Jiki for it!) and it becomes a virtual death sentence.
- My lower-forest-count build also protects me from my own Sundering Titan's land destruction.
Of course, my deck has been so finely tuned, I haven't been able to optimise it any further wihout completely rebuilding it.
edited 22nd Feb '10 4:58:56 PM by AceOfScarabs
The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!Hey. I don't usually post in this part of the forum, but this deck of mine feels almost complete- I just think it's missing something. Any suggestions?
Revised decklist is:
Land:
1x Cabal Coffers
24x Swamp
Creatures:
2x Nightmare
2x Shriekmaw
2x Chainer, Dementia Master
1x Toshiro Umezawa
1x Moonglove Changeling
1x Faceless Butcher
1x Ascendant Evincar
2x Mesmeric Fiend
1x Hypnox
Instants:
2x Tendrils of Corruption
2x Unmake
3x Doom Blade
Sorceries:
2x Sign in Blood
2x Consume Spirit
4x Corrupt
Enchantments:
1x Lethal Vapors
1x Sanguine Bond
1x Night of Souls' Betrayal
Artifacts:
1x Demon's Horn
1x Ashnod's Altar
1x Life Chisel
1x Mirari
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
61 cards total.
Lessee... main theme of the deck is creature death and lifegain, both of these to fuel Chainer's ability. Nightmares are in there to fuck with opponents and get buffed by Chainer; Ascendant Evincar is there to cancel out the effects of Night of Souls' Betrayal. Ashnod's Altar is less of a mana pump and more a way to fuck the stack over and make Faceless Butcher and Mesmeric Fiends' removal abilities permanent; Life Chisel is there so I can take big creatures off my opponents and then sacrifice them for lifegain.
I feel like it could use more stuff with cost X, because of Cabal Coffers, but I also feel like it could be streamlined down to 60 or 65 cards. Thoughts?
edited 23rd Feb '10 11:12:39 PM by Blackmoon
I'll think of what you can remove, but please try to cut the deck down to 60 cards max. I find it harder to get what you need in a deck with more than 60 cards, even with fetchlands.
Edit: You should probably reduce your lands. 30 Swamps is waaay too much mana. Your mana curve is leaning towards flood levels.
edited 23rd Feb '10 9:37:37 PM by Mapi
My FF.net accountIt's usually 24 Lands, then 36 other crap you want. I think you can stand cutting down on creatures.
My troper wall's now my troper page, yay! Come to IJBMI usually have 21-23 lands. However I think I reduced it to 20 lands in my current ELVES! deck.
My FF.net accountOkay, not really seeing why you have Sadistic Sacrament.
My troper wall's now my troper page, yay! Come to IJBMSame here. If you're gonna use that, have at least 2 or 3 of them. My decks usually have 3 or a set of a certain creature or spell.
My FF.net account

Hi Mappi, I'm the wife that plays with the elf ball deck! I've tried Nettle Sentinel and Twinblade Slasher in my Elf deck. Despite how highly regarded the Twinblade Slasher is because of his ability, the problem is that on turn 1 he can only be a 1/1 creature, you have to wait until the next turn to cast his ability by which time I find he's already dead
. The Nettle Sentinel is much better in that you have a 2/2 defender turn one.
I even went as far as to try a Llanowar Augar
but my husband doesn't like to play my Elf deck so I haven't been able to try him out yet! I just liked the idea that if anyone tried to mess with him I could sacrifice him to make something else better or in fact protect a creature by making them bigger when defending which the opponent hopefully won't see coming. My only snag is that I have a Warrior deck so he doesn't get the juicy Bramblewood bonus, but hey, beggars can't be choosers (damn you Wizards).
edited 22nd Jan '10 10:30:17 AM by Mr.Glass
If you don't see anything worth laughing at, pretend you see it, then laugh