Idk, the idea of topdecking an SS, or multiples vs jund on turn 4 after removal has been slung at relevant elves gives me angina. Vs a lead, which is always good regardless of my opponent's draw and hits 3 elves on average. Or a lifecrafter's bestiary, which is an auto win in long games.
On the other hand, I want to talk about the "you don't want to drop SS T1". Actually, when you bring SS in, you absolutely want to cast it T1. You always bring it in MU where elves are removed from the board with Bolt, Push, and all kind of spot removals. Sooo... Your T1 elf isn't going to live past the T1. You won't untap with it.
Playing T1 mana dork is offering a trade to your opponent : 1 card (and your explosivity) VS 1 card (spot removal). When you play T1 SS, you don't offer your opponent the possibilty to trade anything. If he kept mana up, it's all for naught this turn. What's more, when your dork will hit the battlefield, the trade will read : 1 card (a spot removal) VS cycling a dork into a draw. Much less attractive... Let's bet that this time, your T2 dork will stay on the board. What's more, T2, you can play 2 1-drops, or a Devoted Druid.
TL;DR : for me, T1 SS is quite an automatic win if your opponent has a lot of spot removals, no sweepers in hand, and not a huuuge package of discard (because he then can discard key cards and let your dorks live). A bit limitated isn't it ?
Only Jeskai and probably some (not all) Jund/Junk fits this description...
The only other trix I think about is against Walking Ballista. Want to kill some elves ? Good, let me draw like crazy ! But if you already play Stony Silence, that's under effective.
I like your rationale on SS regarding the t1 problem. However, I still don't like slowing our mana production down for a card that doesn't help us beat board wipes. Our opponents post board can easily cast no spot removal and still beat us with a 2-4 mana wrath. In that scenario, it draws us no cards and we lose. I also don't like not playing a t1 dork, and then just getting out tempo'd when jund or shadow sticks a t2 fatty and beats face before our slow card draw, that our opponents can control by using removal conservatively, matters. For these reasons, I think that lead the stampede and lifecrafter's bestiary are superior choices.
Haha I have absolutely found mirror entity to be exceptional in my experience. Sounds like you didn't get enough reps in gw doesn't have a problem beating ensnaring bridge thanks to devoted druid, and pithing needle after the inclusion of entity. Beating worship is almost never going to come up. When it does, you are exceedingly likely to have won before t5. + you can still just win with shaman or rec sage if you're super worried about it. Mirror entity will frequently be just as good as ezuri t3, due to our density of 1s and 2s. If we make infinite mana t3, we are likely to have 2-3 infinite power attackers minimum. Even if our opponent can block, those chumps will put us in a favorable position. For your scapeshift example, even if we can't win on that turn, we can still buff our board out of range of an anger on their turn. Trying to argue that duskwatch is better than the rest of our infinite mana win cons is laughable. If you believe that, play abzan coco, because it's the better deck at that point. Elves is superior because we dont have to rely on bad infinite mana payoffs like duskwatch. When you try to go for t3 vizier combo, and you get hit with a removal spell vs grixis DS, you're gonna be caught with your pants down staring at a 2/2 for 2 in hand, that isn't an elf, that isn't good unless you already have infinite mana when he's cast. It's gonna be even more embarrassing when they force you to chump with your dorks by swinging with shadow or angler, and leave you without enough mana to activate your 2/2's 3 mana ability even once! The same argument regarding mana intensiveness doesn't apply to entity or ezuri. With any board state, those creatures immediately threaten to win the game, despite a high mana investment. When ezuri/entity would end the game with 3-6 mana, duskwatch would just draw 1 or 2 cards. No infinite mana required for entity and ezuri. Entity is much better, for example, alongside elvish archdruid. Another sidenote, it can buff our elves out of range of pyroclasm, whipflare, flaying tendrils, kozilek's return, and anger at instant speed much more easily than ezuri. Again, if your mana base isn't producing white by t3 or t4, rebuild it. This is modern. Turn 1 white and green is not hard.
Yes, it is a lot more straight forward to drop visionary. But reluctance to divulge from 4x nettle is one of the factors keeping modern elves down. For a very small cost against combo/big mana, where we still consistently t3 or t4, we can greatly improve our matchup against midrange and control, which comprises a massive percentage of the modern meta. Having visionaries + horizon canopies to cantrip along with 4 cocos all maindeck gives us a very solid game against mid variants, and a crazy positive matchup vs 8-rack.
It's matchup dependent, but when people board in interaction, nettle and heritage are our worst cards. I definitely board out all my nettle sentinels first, but I only have two. So heritage druid is frequently next. Sometimes chord is shaved instead, or a mix of both. It depends.
RE: Mirror entity. Your comments hint that you have not even tried mirror entity yet, though I might be wrong Mirror entity is good because if ezuri is interacted with through a phyrexian revoker, surgical extraction, pithing needle, etc we still have another out to combo. It also serves as 5th ezuri. The frequency with which your opponent will have enough blockers to fight through a minimum of 3 infinite attack creatures is nil. It also gives you a maindeck out to living end. Activate it for 0 and you get all your dudes back post living end. Honestly, the fact that you are decrying mirror entity so much makes me positive you haven't played it. The card is outstanding. It is much better than duskwatch. Your argument about ezuri eating a removal spell, therefore duskwatch is just silliness. How often do you play a duskwatch and have 3 mana left over to activate before your opponent gets a chance to kill it? How often do you have time or want to spend 3 mana putting a creature in your hand? Duskwatch is a bad payoff card because it is not an elf, is extremely slow, and is unnecessary when we already have ezuri and mirror entity that are 1. Elves 2. Are naturally good in our deck 3. Are already good infinite mana payoffs. Duskwatch is clunky and bad in any draw where we don't produce infinite mana, which happens a good % of the time since we aren't all in on vizier combo. As for the white mana, unless you have a terrible mana base, 1 white should not be a problem. Entity's activated ability is generic mana.
On the topic of visionary/nettle. Idk if you read my comment all the way through, but I said that I am running 2 nettle in order to maintain a high density of 1 drops. All the other 1 drop elves, besides boreal druid, are worse. However, when it comes to nettle enabling heritage druid draws, most of the time, any other 1 drop would be effectively the same as a nettle. Very rarely can we produce 3 mana with heritage twice on t2. It requires t1 1 drop into t2 heritage nettle make 3 dwynen's elite. Exceedingly unlikely, and in most draws, where we just want to play a 3 drop with our heritage druid, any of our other 1 drops would be just as good as a nettle. So the question is how many 1 drops do we need to consistently enable t2 druid? Dwynen's elite enables druid as well, so I think 14 is more than enough. This is why I am playing a split with visionary. It's a good proactive 2 in grindy matchups where t1 is interacted with, and if we have infinite mana with no payoff, it can help dig to our outs. Comparing visionary to nettle sentinel is far more reasonable than matching it against devoted druid. And just because two cards differ by 1 cmc, does not mean considering 1 in place of the other is out of the question. Your logic will lead to stymied deck building and hinder innovation.
Also, finishing point on the nettle/heritage issue, it is common knowledge that heritage and nettle are the weakest links in modern elves. They contribute to our most busted draws, but are also independently our worst cards. They are most frequently boarded out as well. Putting too much stock in the power of low impact 1 drops is a path to failure. Makes all our bad matchups much worse, and our good ones only very marginally better.
Idk if you guys are referring to my comments about the strength of visionary, but I don't know of any discussion where visionary over devoted druid was considered. That is absolutely not a change that should be made. Visionary over nettle, on the other hand, is very reasonable.
I don't think any build of elves with duskwatch recruiter is correct. It's a bad infinite mana payoff that abzan coco is priced into running, not because they want to but because they need it. The point of playing vizier in elves is that we already have a good infinite mana payoff in ezuri. If you want to diversify infinite mana payoffs, play mirror entity.
On the topic of shaper's sanctuary, i think that card is real bad. You always want to play a mana dork t1. Sanctuary isn't strong enough to lead on over a t1 dork. However, a t1 dork is the most important elf for the opponent to remove. So already, it conflicts with our t1 play, and is therefore weak in the early game since our opponent is likely to remove our 1 drop before we untap. In the late game, it's utter trash. You topdeck it when both players are out of gas, with a couple 1/1s on your board, and get steamrolled by goyfs + shadows. I just don't see anywhere on the curve where it's good. Even on t2, we'd rather be pulling heritage druid shenanigans or deploying a 3 drop with our dork. Lead and lifecrafter's bestiary seem like way better options to me.
Of course shaman is going to do the most damage when our board isn't answered. But the incremental damage it offers every time we play it on a board with just a few dudes is our most effective tool against interactive decks, where we have to default to a combat damage based backup plan. No, it isn't great value in the traditional sense, but it's valuable to us as it will frequently represent between 3-5 damage even after all the removal spells have been slung. That's my experience with the card at least.
I was skeptical of devoted druid against interaction as well, but it's not air when A. They have to remove it and B. If not removed, it threatens to win the game alongside 1 or 2 additional cards. Getting those 1 or 2 additional cards is not a big stretch when we have so many routes to cycle/accrue advantage, like coco, visionary, and horizon canopy. It does this, in addition to filling the role of a proactive 2 that doesn't require a 1 drop to be good (we don't want to play dwynen's elite on 2, but we need to use mana efficiently), and making up lost tempo vs. removal. I've stopped boarding out the vizier combo vs midrange and control, and been happy with it so far.
Currently, I'm on a 2-2 split for visionaries and nettle sentinels. Sentinel is the worst card in elves. Yes, it can contribute to silly stuff a turn 2 collected company. But most of the time, when we just want to activate a heritage druid t2, any other 1 drop would fill the same role. Frequently, if we hit a t1 dork, then llanowar/mystic/heritage + heritage does the same thing as a nettle sentinel in terms of mana production. Currently, I'm only running sentinel to maintain a high density of 1 drops for heritage druid. I can see myself going to 4 visionary, or 2 visionary 2 boreal druid.
I won't go in circles with you on 4 chord 4 ezuri, so I'll just make my final points here. In GW combo, it is 200% correct to run 4 and 4. Period. They are your win cons. You want as many as possible. You are a combo deck. In GB, the topic is a little more up for discussion, depending on the meta. However, with the state of modern, I feel as though maindeck lead is extremely greedy in an open field. Yes, Ezuri and chord are at their worse when you look at them vs control and midrange. But even in those matchups, we will frequently have time to chord for our best creature against them, whether it's elite, visionary, etc. And we want 4 ezuri because he is exceedingly likely to be answered on sight. Therefore, we need as many ezuri as possible so that we can eventually land one and have it stick to the board. Sure, he's a 3 mana 2/2 by himself, but so are most of our payoff cards. They're terrible by themselves, but quickly get much better with 2 or 3 elves on the board. When we get to the late game vs mid and control, and we have 5 mana in play so we can just activate ezuri the old fashioned way, he's easily our best payoff.
No, I don't think that list is worth it. Mana is way more painful, you don't get to run nykthos, pendelhaven, or 4 canopy. And I still feel like devoted druid and shaman don't belong in the same deck. Shaman contributes to a combat damage based win con, where devoted wants you to combo off with ezuri, archdruid or mirror entity. I'd rather be all in on GW's game plan. It's more consistent.
Actually, both the vizier combo and shaman of the pack help race combo decks. They perform the same role which is making the deck more explosive; it's not true that shaman is good against interactive decks because you need many elves on board for shaman to be good.
The difference is that the gw combo build is even faster, with the possibility of turn 3 wins but has to play some quite bad cards like devoted druid, vizier of remedies, and the full 4 copies of ezuri and chord; the gb build instead, while being slightly slower, has a better card quality (shaman of the pack and elvish visionary are better cards in a vacuum than devoted druid and vizier)and can afford to trim some copies of ezuri and chord.
As a result, i think the gb build is a bit better against interaction (not because shaman is generically good against interaction, but just because you play 3/2s rather than 0/2s and less chords); it's true that often opponents are forced to spend removal on devoted druid, but in the end sometimes you're in topdeck mode and find a useless 0/2 or worse company into 0/2s.
I don't know if the two builds can be merged, and i'm a bit skeptical because it would mean raising the curve significantly, cutting one drops like nettle sentinel or cutting some combo pieces while still playing the combo.
Leocop. Shaman is a slower win con than devoted combo. It is another win condition, but it is slower than what gw brings to the table by a turn. It is for this reason that "shaman helps race combo" isn't an accurate statement. GB is worse at racing combo than GW.
Devoted druid is actually quite good, even against interactive decks. If t1 dork is interacted with, devoted is a solid turn 2 play that makes up lost tempo. Although it isnt good at executing a combat damage based backup plan, 2 devoted druids + ezuri or devoted druid + vizier is a win. Vizier of remedies is a 1 of, so it hardly contributes to average card quality.
My build of gw currently runs elvish visionaries in place of nettle sentinels, so I disagree about "average card quality". GW also gets 4 horizon canopy, which improves consistency and grinding over GB. Every build of elves should be on 4 ezuri and 4 chord, unless you are metagaming with maindeck lead. Lead is too slow to be maindecked in an open field. Chord is great, it finds bullets post board and game winning threats g1. Similarly, we want 4 ezuri because he is critical to victory, and if not answered immediately, will win the game whether another is stranded in hand or not.
You are absolutely wrong about shaman being bad against interaction. That's where he shines. Even decks running tons of removal spells cant hope to answer all our elves. We are always left with a board leftover. Shaman turns our random 1/1s into serious damage against interactive decks, furthering our combat damage based game plan. Even if shaman comes down on an empty board, he's still helping get our opponent dead better than an archdruid or ezuri would. Shaman is our best elf, alongside visionary and dwynen's elite, against interaction.
I don't think that shaman and vizier combo belong in the same deck. There just isn't room. If you're running 4 archdruid, 4 ezuri, 1 mirror entity, and 4 shaman, thing are getting real clogged at 3. I could potentially see shaman as a 1 of chord target, but I'm still lukewarm on that. If it ever ends up in your opener, it's unlikely to contribute to winning the game unless you face heavy interaction. Along with the mana base being more painful. At this time, I think gw vizier elves is pretty clearly the best way to go. Even against interactive decks, where shaman would help, vizier combo represents an oops I win button that midrange/control have to respect. It forces them to spend interaction on 2 mana 0/2s. And the deck is very big on value otherwise. In addition to 4 coco, you have 4 dwynen's elite, + horizon canopy. I've also been trimming on nettle sentinels for elvish visionaries, which further contributes to our value gameplan. The biggest loss from cutting black is thoughtseize, which is one of the cleanest ways to answer sweepers. However, I think the percentage points added elsewhere by not having a painful mana base while having access to more versatile white sideboard cards is still better against the field tho.
This is coming from someone who loves shaman of the pack, and has played both builds of elves. Outside of very specific metagames, we need to be able to consistently race combo. That means t3 wins. Gw is much better at pulling that off.
You should run 4 ezuri in any elf deck with the devoted/vizier combo. I like to run 1 mirror entity in addition to the 4th ezuri in order to combat surgical extractions, pithing needles, lost legacy, phyrexian revokers, etc. It's also just another mana sink/payoff.
I dont think that caller of the claw would change the deck. Heroic Intervention, which is already legal, accomplishes the same thing, except that it costs 1 less and leaves us with the benefit of our tribal synergies over bears.
Caller of the Claw can be a Chord target though. Also doesn't dilute CoCo. I'd be happy to include at least one in my 75 if WotC ever made it legal.
Well, you wouldnt get to use your dudes to pay for the chord (have to cast after the wrath so cant use convoke), and if you're chording for an answer to a wrath we already have burrenton and selfless spirit.
I'm on GB though so your point on forge-tender and selfless spirit is moot for me. I can always just float the mana with a board wipe on the stack and chord for the caller after it resolves. Not that hard to do with Elves. For the record, I do not think Caller of the Claw is the fix that Elves need right now. I'm just saying I'll run it over Heroic Intervention because of the reasons I gave.
No no, I'm saying you can't use convoke after your creatures are gone. If you have heritage druid, dorks, or archdruid, sure you can float. But you can't use convoke for caller in response to the board wipe. Which makes it considerably worse than other chord targets. If you're on GB, run thoughtseize as your anti-sweeper sb card.
[quote from="Rancormaniac »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/tier-2-modern/767834-collected-company-elves?comment=1741"]
Well, you wouldnt get to use your dudes to pay for the chord (have to cast after the wrath so cant use convoke), and if you're chording for an answer to a wrath we already have burrenton and selfless spirit.
you can convoke even if the creatures are summoning sick (just as you can use heritage druid's ability, or Devoted druid's untap ability).
I agree with the rest of your argument, though.
By the way guys, could you please give me some feedback on the GWB list i posted? Today i ran a test match against a vengevine/hollow one zoo and it came out that maybe thoughtseize is indeed better than duress, for the burn matchup i'll have to find other hosers (maybe some creatures, i'm undecided between spellskite, kitchen finks, thragtusk and scavenging ooze)
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You are absolutely right, but im not talking about summoning sickness. Read caller of the claw. It has to come down post board wipe. So by the time youre chording for caller, the wipe has already happened and you dont have dudes to convoke with at all.
I dont think that caller of the claw would change the deck. Heroic Intervention, which is already legal, accomplishes the same thing, except that it costs 1 less and leaves us with the benefit of our tribal synergies over bears.
Caller of the Claw can be a Chord target though. Also doesn't dilute CoCo. I'd be happy to include at least one in my 75 if WotC ever made it legal.
Well, you wouldnt get to use your dudes to pay for the chord (have to cast after the wrath so cant use convoke), and if you're chording for an answer to a wrath we already have burrenton and selfless spirit.
I dont think that caller of the claw would change the deck. Heroic Intervention, which is already legal, accomplishes the same thing, except that it costs 1 less and leaves us with the benefit of our tribal synergies over bears.
Most certainly do not mulligan for cavern against jeskai or uw control. We want as many cards as possible in these matchups to beat their removal. We don't need extra tech to beat counterspells on creatures. They want to counter our cocos anyway. What we need to be able to do is play to beat t4 supreme verdict, either by racing it, holding up ezuri regens, or grinding it out. The more cards we have, the better.
RG Tron with maindeck pyroclasm is definitely not favorable, but luckily that deck sees far less play than every other tron variant. Red isn't the color for tron in the meta atm. Against every other tron variant, we are heavily favored. GW elves more so, but it's still the case with gb. Neither ugin nor o stone can happen till t4. Our average draws will win t3 or t4. Play draw can be relevant, but we'll be fast enough majority of the time.
Scapeshift is another matchup that can be swung with maindeck board clears, but most lists only run 1-2. In the average g1, they wont have it. After g1, like you said, mindcensor, forge tender, and spirit shore up these issues. For these reasons, I wouldn't say scapeshift is a bad matchup. Sometimes they have it, but most of the time they don't.
I like your rationale on SS regarding the t1 problem. However, I still don't like slowing our mana production down for a card that doesn't help us beat board wipes. Our opponents post board can easily cast no spot removal and still beat us with a 2-4 mana wrath. In that scenario, it draws us no cards and we lose. I also don't like not playing a t1 dork, and then just getting out tempo'd when jund or shadow sticks a t2 fatty and beats face before our slow card draw, that our opponents can control by using removal conservatively, matters. For these reasons, I think that lead the stampede and lifecrafter's bestiary are superior choices.
Yes, it is a lot more straight forward to drop visionary. But reluctance to divulge from 4x nettle is one of the factors keeping modern elves down. For a very small cost against combo/big mana, where we still consistently t3 or t4, we can greatly improve our matchup against midrange and control, which comprises a massive percentage of the modern meta. Having visionaries + horizon canopies to cantrip along with 4 cocos all maindeck gives us a very solid game against mid variants, and a crazy positive matchup vs 8-rack.
It's matchup dependent, but when people board in interaction, nettle and heritage are our worst cards. I definitely board out all my nettle sentinels first, but I only have two. So heritage druid is frequently next. Sometimes chord is shaved instead, or a mix of both. It depends.
On the topic of visionary/nettle. Idk if you read my comment all the way through, but I said that I am running 2 nettle in order to maintain a high density of 1 drops. All the other 1 drop elves, besides boreal druid, are worse. However, when it comes to nettle enabling heritage druid draws, most of the time, any other 1 drop would be effectively the same as a nettle. Very rarely can we produce 3 mana with heritage twice on t2. It requires t1 1 drop into t2 heritage nettle make 3 dwynen's elite. Exceedingly unlikely, and in most draws, where we just want to play a 3 drop with our heritage druid, any of our other 1 drops would be just as good as a nettle. So the question is how many 1 drops do we need to consistently enable t2 druid? Dwynen's elite enables druid as well, so I think 14 is more than enough. This is why I am playing a split with visionary. It's a good proactive 2 in grindy matchups where t1 is interacted with, and if we have infinite mana with no payoff, it can help dig to our outs. Comparing visionary to nettle sentinel is far more reasonable than matching it against devoted druid. And just because two cards differ by 1 cmc, does not mean considering 1 in place of the other is out of the question. Your logic will lead to stymied deck building and hinder innovation.
Also, finishing point on the nettle/heritage issue, it is common knowledge that heritage and nettle are the weakest links in modern elves. They contribute to our most busted draws, but are also independently our worst cards. They are most frequently boarded out as well. Putting too much stock in the power of low impact 1 drops is a path to failure. Makes all our bad matchups much worse, and our good ones only very marginally better.
I don't think any build of elves with duskwatch recruiter is correct. It's a bad infinite mana payoff that abzan coco is priced into running, not because they want to but because they need it. The point of playing vizier in elves is that we already have a good infinite mana payoff in ezuri. If you want to diversify infinite mana payoffs, play mirror entity.
On the topic of shaper's sanctuary, i think that card is real bad. You always want to play a mana dork t1. Sanctuary isn't strong enough to lead on over a t1 dork. However, a t1 dork is the most important elf for the opponent to remove. So already, it conflicts with our t1 play, and is therefore weak in the early game since our opponent is likely to remove our 1 drop before we untap. In the late game, it's utter trash. You topdeck it when both players are out of gas, with a couple 1/1s on your board, and get steamrolled by goyfs + shadows. I just don't see anywhere on the curve where it's good. Even on t2, we'd rather be pulling heritage druid shenanigans or deploying a 3 drop with our dork. Lead and lifecrafter's bestiary seem like way better options to me.
Of course shaman is going to do the most damage when our board isn't answered. But the incremental damage it offers every time we play it on a board with just a few dudes is our most effective tool against interactive decks, where we have to default to a combat damage based backup plan. No, it isn't great value in the traditional sense, but it's valuable to us as it will frequently represent between 3-5 damage even after all the removal spells have been slung. That's my experience with the card at least.
I was skeptical of devoted druid against interaction as well, but it's not air when A. They have to remove it and B. If not removed, it threatens to win the game alongside 1 or 2 additional cards. Getting those 1 or 2 additional cards is not a big stretch when we have so many routes to cycle/accrue advantage, like coco, visionary, and horizon canopy. It does this, in addition to filling the role of a proactive 2 that doesn't require a 1 drop to be good (we don't want to play dwynen's elite on 2, but we need to use mana efficiently), and making up lost tempo vs. removal. I've stopped boarding out the vizier combo vs midrange and control, and been happy with it so far.
Currently, I'm on a 2-2 split for visionaries and nettle sentinels. Sentinel is the worst card in elves. Yes, it can contribute to silly stuff a turn 2 collected company. But most of the time, when we just want to activate a heritage druid t2, any other 1 drop would fill the same role. Frequently, if we hit a t1 dork, then llanowar/mystic/heritage + heritage does the same thing as a nettle sentinel in terms of mana production. Currently, I'm only running sentinel to maintain a high density of 1 drops for heritage druid. I can see myself going to 4 visionary, or 2 visionary 2 boreal druid.
I won't go in circles with you on 4 chord 4 ezuri, so I'll just make my final points here. In GW combo, it is 200% correct to run 4 and 4. Period. They are your win cons. You want as many as possible. You are a combo deck. In GB, the topic is a little more up for discussion, depending on the meta. However, with the state of modern, I feel as though maindeck lead is extremely greedy in an open field. Yes, Ezuri and chord are at their worse when you look at them vs control and midrange. But even in those matchups, we will frequently have time to chord for our best creature against them, whether it's elite, visionary, etc. And we want 4 ezuri because he is exceedingly likely to be answered on sight. Therefore, we need as many ezuri as possible so that we can eventually land one and have it stick to the board. Sure, he's a 3 mana 2/2 by himself, but so are most of our payoff cards. They're terrible by themselves, but quickly get much better with 2 or 3 elves on the board. When we get to the late game vs mid and control, and we have 5 mana in play so we can just activate ezuri the old fashioned way, he's easily our best payoff.
Leocop. Shaman is a slower win con than devoted combo. It is another win condition, but it is slower than what gw brings to the table by a turn. It is for this reason that "shaman helps race combo" isn't an accurate statement. GB is worse at racing combo than GW.
Devoted druid is actually quite good, even against interactive decks. If t1 dork is interacted with, devoted is a solid turn 2 play that makes up lost tempo. Although it isnt good at executing a combat damage based backup plan, 2 devoted druids + ezuri or devoted druid + vizier is a win. Vizier of remedies is a 1 of, so it hardly contributes to average card quality.
My build of gw currently runs elvish visionaries in place of nettle sentinels, so I disagree about "average card quality". GW also gets 4 horizon canopy, which improves consistency and grinding over GB. Every build of elves should be on 4 ezuri and 4 chord, unless you are metagaming with maindeck lead. Lead is too slow to be maindecked in an open field. Chord is great, it finds bullets post board and game winning threats g1. Similarly, we want 4 ezuri because he is critical to victory, and if not answered immediately, will win the game whether another is stranded in hand or not.
You are absolutely wrong about shaman being bad against interaction. That's where he shines. Even decks running tons of removal spells cant hope to answer all our elves. We are always left with a board leftover. Shaman turns our random 1/1s into serious damage against interactive decks, furthering our combat damage based game plan. Even if shaman comes down on an empty board, he's still helping get our opponent dead better than an archdruid or ezuri would. Shaman is our best elf, alongside visionary and dwynen's elite, against interaction.
Lots of points where your analysis is way off.
This is coming from someone who loves shaman of the pack, and has played both builds of elves. Outside of very specific metagames, we need to be able to consistently race combo. That means t3 wins. Gw is much better at pulling that off.
No no, I'm saying you can't use convoke after your creatures are gone. If you have heritage druid, dorks, or archdruid, sure you can float. But you can't use convoke for caller in response to the board wipe. Which makes it considerably worse than other chord targets. If you're on GB, run thoughtseize as your anti-sweeper sb card.
You are absolutely right, but im not talking about summoning sickness. Read caller of the claw. It has to come down post board wipe. So by the time youre chording for caller, the wipe has already happened and you dont have dudes to convoke with at all.
Well, you wouldnt get to use your dudes to pay for the chord (have to cast after the wrath so cant use convoke), and if you're chording for an answer to a wrath we already have burrenton and selfless spirit.
Most certainly do not mulligan for cavern against jeskai or uw control. We want as many cards as possible in these matchups to beat their removal. We don't need extra tech to beat counterspells on creatures. They want to counter our cocos anyway. What we need to be able to do is play to beat t4 supreme verdict, either by racing it, holding up ezuri regens, or grinding it out. The more cards we have, the better.
RG Tron with maindeck pyroclasm is definitely not favorable, but luckily that deck sees far less play than every other tron variant. Red isn't the color for tron in the meta atm. Against every other tron variant, we are heavily favored. GW elves more so, but it's still the case with gb. Neither ugin nor o stone can happen till t4. Our average draws will win t3 or t4. Play draw can be relevant, but we'll be fast enough majority of the time.
Scapeshift is another matchup that can be swung with maindeck board clears, but most lists only run 1-2. In the average g1, they wont have it. After g1, like you said, mindcensor, forge tender, and spirit shore up these issues. For these reasons, I wouldn't say scapeshift is a bad matchup. Sometimes they have it, but most of the time they don't.