MTG Salvation

Yeah, I was thinking Needle would help protect the lock against EE, but I guess I'm overvaluing the lock?

So I'm thinking of picking Lantern control up, what would you say the decks good/bad Matchups are? My guessed and what I've heard would be something like:

Good: Humans, Hollow One, BGx, [most creature based strategies], Living End, most non-fetch decks

Bad: Spell-based combos (Storm, KCI, Ad Naus) UWx (mostly because of Snappy and Cryptic), maybe Mardu? Mardu seems like it would be close, they have flashback and Moon but Bridge also basically kills all of their wincons as long as they don't just slam Moon. I know Tron is bad and I'd assume Titanshift is similarly bad.

I'm probably super wrong on these, but how do my impressions compare to reality?

EDIT: actually, just realized Needle probably helps the KCI matchup a lot, we might be better vs. them than I thought originally.

Frontier isn't huge in paper right now, but there are several online leagues that are active: the Untap Open League's 5th season starts tomorrow, and the MTGFrontier Discord hosts leagues over both Cockatrice and XMage. A MTGO - based league is also starting, check out MTGOLeagues.com for more info.

Hey we got bumped up a tier

Hey, very cool deck! However, there are some things I think are wrong with your reasoning.

1. No CoCo/Chord/Lead. I can accept that this is a (relatively) budgeted deck, but no Lead? As of now you have close to no consistency, and if you draw the wrong half of your deck at the wrong time it could be disastrous. I would add at least one of those cards to the deck to help you get more consistent. CoCo and Lead also allow you to play a grindy game, which is something this list is trying to do. You say you plan to test Chord, which you should definitely do, and I think you should also try Company.

2. No Ezuri. You say, "The thing I don't like about ezuri is he can't regenerate himself. The shams are usually enough to close out a game. Coco elves really only has ezuri to dump Mana in. Ultimately, sotp is better than ezuri Imo. Life loss is harder to stop than combat damage. Chording ezuri has it's advantages but if you have 11 Mana to chord for ezuri and protect him from bolt, wouldn't putting 8 permanents on the field be better because it gets past a path and the like?" So as far as I can tell, you make a couple points:

a. He can't regenerate himself. The problem with this argument is, of the popular removal spells in the format, only Path and Terminate hit him, and both stop him from regenerating anyway. Push can hit him too, but not as consistently.

b. CoCo Elves only has him to dump mana into. Well... yeah, he's a mana sink. But that isn't all he does. He also regenerates your creatures, making him great against board wipes and good against beatdown decks, while also keeping a win condition in the deck. You essentially have Genesis Wave in his slot as a mana sink. I think this is incorrect because it's usually a turn or so slower. He also taps for mana with Heritage Druid and helps Archdruid, whereas Wave sits in your hand until you're ready to cast it. He is a great mana sink, and by far the best option Elves has, but that isn't all he does.

c. Life loss is harder to stop then combat damage. First of all, I'm not convinced this is relevant--people don't really run fog effects in modern. He also does more damage usually. Shaman will deal around 10 damage. Ezuri can easily deal upwards of 20 damage on turn 4. Past that, this argument forgets half of the card. He protects your other elves very well, and in my opinion should be in your deck.

3. Prowess of the Fair. Yes, I know you're singing the praises, and here's the direct quote:

"I cannot say enough about this card. It keeps the elf count up no matter if you're getting bolted or chump blocking so Heritage/Archdruid/Shaman can do their thing. What's extra special about it is that all 3 of those cards count it as an elf. You can even tap it with Heritage Druid! Its close to broken in multiples. If their removal doesn't exile, it's board advantage for you."

Sadly, this doesn't mention the fact that several of modern's top decks (Gifts Storm, Humans, Eldrazi Tron, etc.) play little to no removal, and in those matchups, its just a 2 mana do-nothing card. Even outside of those matchups, how many tokens does it usually make? And all of the cards you mention that it synergizes with are high priority removal magnets anyway. This should be an easy cut for an Ezuri, or for the next card I'm going to get to.

4. No Dwynen's Elite. This card does so many things for us. It provides card advantage in grindy matchups, allows us to swing with an army of giant creatures with lords or an Ezuri if you add one, synergizes with Chord and Archdruid, where it's basically a free spell, and allows you to go off with a Heritage Druid on turn 2.

5. 4 Essence Warden. I think this card should be a 1-2 of, if in the deck at all. However, this is a relatively minor issue.

6. The Sideboard. How much Storm is in your meta that you need 4 Dryad Militants along with the Relic? I would cut down to 3-4 pieces of graveyard hate and add more lifegain creatures (I know you have the Wardens but they get bolted almost immediately most of the time), more big mana hate, etc.

7. Lifecrafters Bestiary. "Firstly, the scry is HUGE. Elves don't want to draw lands. They can actually function off of one land in some cases. This scry and additional card draw let's you speed through your deck for a Genesis Wave if you don't have one already. (G: Draw a card) as a mana-sink is as good as it gets for Elves. It's generally better to always scry(better chance of hitting an elf than a land AND it puts you closer to what you need)."

a. The scry keeps lands away, yes, but if you have a one lander you either will not be playing a Bestiary, playing it on turn 3, which is too slow, or playing it on turn 2 after drawing another land anyway. If you're having problems with mana flood, just cut lands.

b. The card draw is good, but G: Draw a card is too slow for us unless we have a Heritage draw.

8. 4 Visionary. This is one of the slowest cards in the deck, and I would only advocate running more than 1 if you run the Devoted Druid combo AND run 4 Collected Company. Even then I would try to stick to 1 or 2.

I hope these suggestions help you out! Good luck with the deck!

I've played against Grixis Shadow twice, alot of UWX control, one or two goblin players, and one or two affinity players one titanshift and one burn player. Lost to UWR after 2x Helix, Anger, Cryptic, Verdict

Sooooooooooo, right now I'm 13-1 with this list, which is INSANE.

I think I would rather just run Nykthos.

I was against Death's Shadow so they did have interaction, but at the time I didn't know that. I won anyway though, so it didn't matter

Hey all! So recently I found myself unsure on whether to keep a hand. It was game one, and I was on the draw. I didn't know at the time what deck he was on.



I decided to keep, I figured every turn there were 8 cards I could draw that would result in me getting infinite mana and winning.

My current list is:



Thoughts?

EDIT: Fixed a typo

Is there a reason we don't play joraga treespeaker? She seems good as a sort of redundant heritage druid effect.

Is it ok to be boarding eidolon of rhetoric in against snapcaster mage decks?

You need a nut draw, but there is something like this: t1 Nettle Sentinel, t2 heritage druid, sentinel, tap all for sentinel, elvish visionary, visionary floating 1, tap 3 for visionary floating 2, tap 3 for visionary floating 3, tap 3 for elvish mystic floating 5, tap 3, cast craterhoof behemoth swing 15 with hoof and 12 with nettle sentinel. Very uncommon though, obviously, and that's the only way I can think of. Also you technically don't need pact for that, but it makes the draw a lot easier by giving you a virtual 8 copies of every card.

Sadly regenerating Devoted Druid doesn't make infinite mana. 704.5f If a creature has toughness 0 or less, it's put into its owner's graveyard. Regeneration can't replace this event.