I think the best companion deck for Elves is something that is little creature based in order to take revenge on those people who got their day made when your elves run into their removal.dec.
Some days ago got salty when my Jund controllish deck got paired against Bogles but that is totally a legit option for people who got the cards. I myself have got the Scapeshift cards so I can calmly drop my lands and ramp into them in the face of Lighting bolts and Anger of the gods (a surprise Blood Moon is an issue though).
Lili isn't a problem vs go wide decks. It's the removal into Lili like jund deck that is the only reason why she is a problem. Lili in a control deck is absolutely worse because they tap out to for a mediocre edict effect, where the elf t3 is more explosive.
I'm saying revoker is just worse in a field of K command, which seems logical as people are leaning towards R/B/X style decks. Elves should already have an over 50% match up against Tron because it's their t3 all Tron lands vs. the elfball strat t4 kill pre board. Post board, you can side in kataki and more importantly the new dampening sphere.
Affinity-wise, you already have kataki + spellskite + Stony silences + reclamation sage. You have 5-6 cards for the affinity match up already, you are over SBing by adding the revoker, where only one of these cards help you with the tribal elf type, vs. all of the non elf types.
Revoker is good in so many matchups.
I never leave home without one. If you're letting it die you didn't play it right imo.
Make or break situations with revoker:
Tron plays: Oblivion Stone or Ugin. chord revoker win next turn.
Ad Nauseam plays: Ad Nauseam. Chord revoker name Lightning Storm win next turn.
BGx plays LtlH: Chord revoker kill lili next turn.
Tron plays Walking Ballista: ....
Affinity plays Ravager, Plating, Overseer:...
Abzan coco or Elves play devoted druid:...
These are some of the important plays.
Sounds good enough to me.
I don't know if I'm sold on Revoker either. I don't think it's a bad sideboard choice, but I think you make it sound a lot better than it actually is when you add "win next turn" after every time it hits the battlefield.
The issue is if you're chording for revoker, you aren't chording for Ezuri or Archduid or something that actually wins you the game. Revoker usually stops you from losing, but it doesn't win you the game.
I had 2 Abrupt Decays in the side for a while but would rarely side them in. I found Rec Sage was able to hit all the same things so I dropped them altogether. The Wardens are for any heavy creature matchups/burn. If they are wasting a burn spell on Warden, I’m winning. Maybe one day we will get an Elf version of Kitesail! Wishful.. I know.
How do you sideboard against Jund, GW Hatebears and Soul Sisters?
I had 2 Abrupt Decays in the side for a while but would rarely side them in. I found Rec Sage was able to hit all the same things so I dropped them altogether. The Wardens are for any heavy creature matchups/burn. If they are wasting a burn spell on Warden, I’m winning. Maybe one day we will get an Elf version of Kitesail! Wishful.. I know.
How do you sideboard against Jund, GW Hatebears and Soul Sisters?
</blockquote>
I never see Soul Sisters or Hatebear at my locals. And for Jund I’ll only side in Champion. Lead the Stampede is MVP vs Jund.
Elf Kitesail would feel weaksauce, the pointy eared tribe deserves better:
Blightless Mind 1B
Tribal Sorcery - Elf
Reveal any number of Elf cards from your hand. Target opponent discards X cards, where X is number of Elves you control plus the elf cards revealed this way.
Although looks broken in some scenarios, it would probably be slightly better Wrench Mind on average (in the sense there's no artifact clause). But excellent to clear the way out of removal spells preemptively.
I had 2 Abrupt Decays in the side for a while but would rarely side them in. I found Rec Sage was able to hit all the same things so I dropped them altogether. The Wardens are for any heavy creature matchups/burn. If they are wasting a burn spell on Warden, I’m winning. Maybe one day we will get an Elf version of Kitesail! Wishful.. I know.
How do you sideboard against Jund, GW Hatebears and Soul Sisters?
I never see Soul Sisters or Hatebear at my locals. And for Jund I’ll only side in Champion. Lead the Stampede is MVP vs Jund.
Ah, could you post your list please? I'm interested to see the difference as Jund and Soul Sisters are hard matchups for me.
Revoker is good in so many matchups.
I never leave home without one. If you're letting it die you didn't play it right imo.
Make or break situations with revoker:
Tron plays: Oblivion Stone or Ugin. chord revoker win next turn.
Ad Nauseam plays: Ad Nauseam. Chord revoker name Lightning Storm win next turn.
BGx plays LtlH: Chord revoker kill lili next turn.
Tron plays Walking Ballista: ....
Affinity plays Ravager, Plating, Overseer:...
Abzan coco or Elves play devoted druid:...
These are some of the important plays.
Sounds good enough to me.
I don't know if I'm sold on Revoker either. I don't think it's a bad sideboard choice, but I think you make it sound a lot better than it actually is when you add "win next turn" after every time it hits the battlefield.
The issue is if you're chording for revoker, you aren't chording for Ezuri or Archduid or something that actually wins you the game. Revoker usually stops you from losing, but it doesn't win you the game.
Well, i'm talking GB Elves with SotP, so it's easy to win without chord.
With Tron and Ad nauseum it always comes down to this. They are about as fast as GB Elves and stopping them the turn before you win is a very common scenario.
Same against GW Elves and Abzan coco.
Affinity really needs all the hate, they are just faster. Sometimes you're not even able to chord in time so you need to hardcast some hate.
Anyway, this is the way i use Revoker: Having the option to secure my win.
Oh I definitely see the value in Revoker, I just don’t put that much stock in it. You can name karn, ugin, or o stone, but whatever you don’t name still deals with Revoker or your entire board. Against ad nauseam, they just slaughter pact your Revoker once their deck is in their hand, or pact of negation the chord/Revoker in the first place.
Been browsing through decklists and something I don't like about Elves in the current incarnation is that they are overly reliant on Ezuri to pull the win. Unless the opponent doesn't play creatures either because playing combo or just mana screwed or flooded, it seems that most of the games depend on finding Ezuri, having it survive a turn in order to do an overrun or two and win. Without him, the deck is at best a bunch of 2 / 2s cast ahead of the curve but against enough blockers it isn't enough to win.
Not saying that Ezuri is not good: he's insane and merits his place but I feel that many opponents could find out and apply a "just bolt the Ezuri" strategy to win or at least buy a number of turns. Humans should be a good matchup, but if they manage to Reflector Mage Ezuri or name it with Meddling Mage their chances go way up.
Is there a way to mitigate the dependence on Ezuri and pull out wins without him? If this is the advantage of the Shaman of the Pack builds (haven't played those), I'm on board.
So I'm on the GB elves deck and I'm wondering why it is that the GB version seems to want 4 Visionary, while GW wants 2 or even none. Visionary doesn't ever feel like a great card and seems like at least 1 more Ezuri could replace him. Why does GB want 4 of Visionary and only 2 Ezuri? Too many 3 drops between archdruid, Ezuri, Coco, Lead and Shaman of the Pack? What is the correct number of 3-drops to play?
Round 1 vs. Amulet Titan. Game 1, I go off on turn 4 with infinite mana and then Ezuri. Had 2 Collected Company to find Ezuri, got an Elvish Visionary to draw into a 3rd Company, but the 2nd one gets there. In the next game, I get a bunch of Elves, but he has Prime Time with Amulet and gets there pretty easily. Never found a payoff card. In the next game, I semi explode, while he gets Kozilek's Return to wipe my board. But I have 5 creatures that I found off Lead the Stampede and get them into play before a Prime Time can hurt me. I swing for lethal through the Prime Time. It was close, having it only by 2 damage (with a Phyrexian Revoker, naming Engineered Explosives), but I drew a land to be able to attack with an Elf that I thought I'd have to tap for mana to Ezuri Overrun. Lucky matchup. This guy usually runs Control or decks with a lot of removal. 2-1.
Round 2 vs. Affinity. There are a lot of mulls this tournament. He had 5 cards and I had 6. I am only able to attack for 17 on turn 3 and he gets an Infect kill on turn 4. I go for Lead the Stampede, hoping to find Rec Sage. I don't. I go for Collected Company on his attack and don't find it and scoop. In the next game, we both mull to 6. I get there with the combo on turn 3 I believe. In the last game, he is on 6 and I have 5 cards. He goes Vault Skirge into Steel Overseer. I go Elf into Elvish Archdruid. He attacks, pumps, and plays Ghirapur Aether Grid. I get down another Archdruid, some more Elves, and Ezuri to put lethal on the board for the next turn. Got there. 2-1.
Round 3 vs. Storm. Not really much to see here. He mulled to 5 in both games and didn't have the best kind of hands. I goldfish fairly quickly in game 1 and get double Lord by turn 3 in game 2, swinging for lethal soon thereafter. 2-0.
Round 4 vs. KCI. We ID. I kind of wish I could have played for the 4-0, but I was carpooling with a guy who played Standard, which started and ended an hour earlier, so we go. Would have been a fun match! I wanted a "retry" since I punted at a 1K with Bogles vs. KCI. Oh well. I always have an excuse for IDing, lol. 0-0-3.
I finish 3-0-1, so pretty good for the first evening with Elves in quite a while!
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Visionary is for helping to get to your SB cards and it cantrips itself. The G/B version also isn't the chord version by outvaluing with LTS vs. getting silver bullets.
Shamans are the alternative win con, which is better imo. But I also feel like we can just be slamming down a hoof. I always loved hoof, but hoof seems too much? Feels sad that hoof version needs a ton of testing to make it work.
Sideboarding with the deck is tricky. Playing the GB version it's tricky to decide when it's correct to bring in Thoughtseize. Unfortunately, this primer is missing a fleshed-out sideboard guide.
Playing against Jund, the guide says it's okay to keep slow hands, especially in game one as you can rely on Lead and CoCo to give you enough card advantage to win. In my experience, this is not the case as if your hand doesn't do anything until a turn 3 Lead they've likely stripped your hand and board of anything relevant. You need to keep hands that make enough mana that cards like Lead and CoCo can be cast as soon as you see them. I feel like Elvish Champion and Scavenging Ooze are the only cards you want to bring in for the matchup, cutting some number of Nettle Sentinel and/or Elvish Visionary. I don't think you're interested in creature removal spells like the guide would suggest.
Are there any more complete and up-to-date sideboard guides for elves out there?
Edit: For humans you likely just want to be as fast as possible, so -3 Lead the Stampede for +3 Essence Warden. For burn, the same -3 Lead for +3 Warden, and also -2 Shaman of the Pack for +2 Ooze. It doesn't seem worth it to try to get fancy with Rec Sage to hit Eidolon of the Great Revel, unless I'm way off.
How do you people feel about the boreal druid in ross merriams new list which placed 2nd? Also whats the deal with the singleton Marwyn, what purpose could it serve? Interested in hearing peoples thoughts.
Been browsing through decklists and something I don't like about Elves in the current incarnation is that they are overly reliant on Ezuri to pull the win. Unless the opponent doesn't play creatures either because playing combo or just mana screwed or flooded, it seems that most of the games depend on finding Ezuri, having it survive a turn in order to do an overrun or two and win. Without him, the deck is at best a bunch of 2 / 2s cast ahead of the curve but against enough blockers it isn't enough to win.
Not saying that Ezuri is not good: he's insane and merits his place but I feel that many opponents could find out and apply a "just bolt the Ezuri" strategy to win or at least buy a number of turns. Humans should be a good matchup, but if they manage to Reflector Mage Ezuri or name it with Meddling Mage their chances go way up.
Is there a way to mitigate the dependence on Ezuri and pull out wins without him? If this is the advantage of the Shaman of the Pack builds (haven't played those), I'm on board.
This is why chord and the new combo is so important. It brings ezuri down at instant speed, dodges that pesky meddling mage "ban" too. The infinite mana combo ensures that once ezuri hits the board, killing ezuri won't help. They'll have to spend precious removal on your Devoted Druid first.
Shaman of the Pack comes from a different direction. The Lead The Stampedes in place of Chords is the biggest indicator of this shift. The focus becomes card advantage and value, and moves away from Toolbox/combo.
To answer your question in short, yes, Shaman does diversify your winning conditions. Remember too that u have only so many slots, and for every one card that goes in, something else must come out. GW elves has flex slots where they can main toolbox elements like selfless spirit or rekt sage. SOTP builds don't have this luxury typically, and they may run fewer copies of Ezuri.
Personally, I want both the combo kill so I don't have to fear big mana decks, while I also love the SOTP kills, especially the old school shaman - trigger on stack - chord for second shaman kind of kill. So i play Abzan, which is not without its own drawbacks. Nonetheless, I do well with it, and I like being able to threaten people 2 ways.
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Some quick Q&A that will prolly come up:
Q: Shaman AND Vizier??
A: I'm greedy and like to have it both ways. What I had to give up in return was any maindeck toolbox options, and the pure efficiency that a dedicated deck enjoys. I cannot for example chord for Ooze early and start eating up Bloodghasts on game 1. I also lack the leads and visionaries that help GB lists build their lethal mass for Shaman. What happens, however, is also that the opponent really has no idea what to do with their removal most of the time, and my chord becomes way more powerful in that sense.
Q: Uh, your mana-
A: Is *****ty yes. It's a poor man's manabase. Unclaimed is supposed to be cavern, and the fetchlands are tied up in another modern deck. I might take the windswept heaths back since its difficult to Ponza in a meta with so many Hollow Ones.
Q: But really your white mana is nonexistent.
A: I lean pretty hard on unclaimed to cast my white creatures. It seldom comes up, truly. I'm more of GB white splash than GW black splash. Have you seen the price of Horizon canopy? Jeez.
Report:
Round 1 - BR Hollow One
I win the die roll and turn 4 him with the combo. What can I say, his faithless lootings missed, and I picked the right random cards during Goblin lore. He got in a couple hits with a Vengevine and Bloodghast, but I only had to find my chord for a vizier and I was set, having an Ezuri in hand and Devoted on the board.
Boarding - Ooze in, Shaman out.
In game 2 he scoops to the Ooze, which comes out timely off the top of the library and chomps on a couple of Ghasts, growing promptly to 4/4 and making it pretty much difficult for him to build and overcome. Lucky break, and a good start to the FNM!
Round 2 - Sun and Moon prison
I get the opponent down to 1 life while tanking 2 Angers and 2 Helixes and can't find the last shaman before he lands an elspeth, gains life off of more helixes and basically locks me out of any possible recovery.
Boarding - Burrenton, Selfless IN, Nettle, Shaman OUT. I figure I need to survive wipes more than I need a piece that wins off of critical mass.
In game 2 he wipes the board twice, but I started with 2 cocos in hand and drew 1 later on. They bring me back from the dead and my third coco steals the win by hitting an Ezuri when I have 2 Devoted on the board.
In game 3 he gets overrun while mana screwing on 3 lands. Not much to say here. Shaman shortens the clock enough for an archdruid boost to let the dorks finish the game timely.
Round 3 - Merfolk
Game 1 is a walkover as would be expected - he has a couple of lords, but I put too much pressure on him so he can't attack, and after a couple of trades he's at zero while I'm at 20.
Boarding - 2 Essence Wardens IN, 2 Nettles out. To make this race more difficult for him I wanted a couple of soul sisters. As it turned out I never drew them, so it never factored.
Game 2 is a total bust. He has a gutshot for my heritage druid while my Dwynen's elite is on the stack - what would have been an awesome start fizzles into an awful plunge into a merfolk-overrun doom.
Game 3 is close AF. I won by bluffing a land in my hand for a chord or coco, and he could have won the turn after vialing a master of waves in for 6. Instead, he opted to spread his damage over 2 turns, but I draw an ezuri and win before the 2nd wave.
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Ross Merriam just placed 2nd with GW elves. He ran a single Marwyn in the deck. I’m intrigued.
Does anyone know what his individual record was? This was a team event after all, and it might be a question of did his team place second "in spite of" Marwyn.
shalai, Voice of plenty seems Made for Elves as a toolbox hate card that salso provides value for green-producing creatures.
I'm supposed to be getting one in the mail soon. I will try her out. She seems good against spot removal, but I try not to play Elves when I see those types of decks present. Those decks usually have some sort of sweepers and it's really tough to play around spot removal AND sweepers.
Ross Merriam just placed 2nd with GW elves. He ran a single Marwyn in the deck. I’m intrigued.
Does anyone know what his individual record was? This was a team event after all, and it might be a question of did his team place second "in spite of" Marwyn.
It looks kind of like an inferior Elvish Archdruid, so I can't see it really being all too bad.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Hello guys!! I need a help from the elvish comunity. Does anyone have a playmat personalized with the elves of the modern deck? I want to make a playmat with the main elves that play on modern deck, and I want ideas for the art, or someone that like to draw, and do the art it would be so awesome ^^ thanks a lot.
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Some days ago got salty when my Jund controllish deck got paired against Bogles but that is totally a legit option for people who got the cards. I myself have got the Scapeshift cards so I can calmly drop my lands and ramp into them in the face of Lighting bolts and Anger of the gods (a surprise Blood Moon is an issue though).
I'm saying revoker is just worse in a field of K command, which seems logical as people are leaning towards R/B/X style decks. Elves should already have an over 50% match up against Tron because it's their t3 all Tron lands vs. the elfball strat t4 kill pre board. Post board, you can side in kataki and more importantly the new dampening sphere.
Affinity-wise, you already have kataki + spellskite + Stony silences + reclamation sage. You have 5-6 cards for the affinity match up already, you are over SBing by adding the revoker, where only one of these cards help you with the tribal elf type, vs. all of the non elf types.
I don't know if I'm sold on Revoker either. I don't think it's a bad sideboard choice, but I think you make it sound a lot better than it actually is when you add "win next turn" after every time it hits the battlefield.
The issue is if you're chording for revoker, you aren't chording for Ezuri or Archduid or something that actually wins you the game. Revoker usually stops you from losing, but it doesn't win you the game.
BLiliana, Heretical HealerB| |GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
GWBDoom Plane EnchantressBWG
How do you sideboard against Jund, GW Hatebears and Soul Sisters?
I never see Soul Sisters or Hatebear at my locals. And for Jund I’ll only side in Champion. Lead the Stampede is MVP vs Jund.
Blightless Mind
1B
Tribal Sorcery - Elf
Reveal any number of Elf cards from your hand. Target opponent discards X cards, where X is number of Elves you control plus the elf cards revealed this way.
Although looks broken in some scenarios, it would probably be slightly better Wrench Mind on average (in the sense there's no artifact clause). But excellent to clear the way out of removal spells preemptively.
Ah, could you post your list please? I'm interested to see the difference as Jund and Soul Sisters are hard matchups for me.
Oh I definitely see the value in Revoker, I just don’t put that much stock in it. You can name karn, ugin, or o stone, but whatever you don’t name still deals with Revoker or your entire board. Against ad nauseam, they just slaughter pact your Revoker once their deck is in their hand, or pact of negation the chord/Revoker in the first place.
BLiliana, Heretical HealerB| |GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
GWBDoom Plane EnchantressBWG
Not saying that Ezuri is not good: he's insane and merits his place but I feel that many opponents could find out and apply a "just bolt the Ezuri" strategy to win or at least buy a number of turns. Humans should be a good matchup, but if they manage to Reflector Mage Ezuri or name it with Meddling Mage their chances go way up.
Is there a way to mitigate the dependence on Ezuri and pull out wins without him? If this is the advantage of the Shaman of the Pack builds (haven't played those), I'm on board.
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Elvish Archdruid
2 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Shaman of the Pack
4 Collected Company
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Blooming Marsh
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
4 Forest
1 Pendelhaven
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Thoughtseize
2 Elvish Champion
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Fracturing Gust
2 Reclamation Sage
3 Essence Warden
Round 1 vs. Amulet Titan. Game 1, I go off on turn 4 with infinite mana and then Ezuri. Had 2 Collected Company to find Ezuri, got an Elvish Visionary to draw into a 3rd Company, but the 2nd one gets there. In the next game, I get a bunch of Elves, but he has Prime Time with Amulet and gets there pretty easily. Never found a payoff card. In the next game, I semi explode, while he gets Kozilek's Return to wipe my board. But I have 5 creatures that I found off Lead the Stampede and get them into play before a Prime Time can hurt me. I swing for lethal through the Prime Time. It was close, having it only by 2 damage (with a Phyrexian Revoker, naming Engineered Explosives), but I drew a land to be able to attack with an Elf that I thought I'd have to tap for mana to Ezuri Overrun. Lucky matchup. This guy usually runs Control or decks with a lot of removal. 2-1.
Round 2 vs. Affinity. There are a lot of mulls this tournament. He had 5 cards and I had 6. I am only able to attack for 17 on turn 3 and he gets an Infect kill on turn 4. I go for Lead the Stampede, hoping to find Rec Sage. I don't. I go for Collected Company on his attack and don't find it and scoop. In the next game, we both mull to 6. I get there with the combo on turn 3 I believe. In the last game, he is on 6 and I have 5 cards. He goes Vault Skirge into Steel Overseer. I go Elf into Elvish Archdruid. He attacks, pumps, and plays Ghirapur Aether Grid. I get down another Archdruid, some more Elves, and Ezuri to put lethal on the board for the next turn. Got there. 2-1.
Round 3 vs. Storm. Not really much to see here. He mulled to 5 in both games and didn't have the best kind of hands. I goldfish fairly quickly in game 1 and get double Lord by turn 3 in game 2, swinging for lethal soon thereafter. 2-0.
Round 4 vs. KCI. We ID. I kind of wish I could have played for the 4-0, but I was carpooling with a guy who played Standard, which started and ended an hour earlier, so we go. Would have been a fun match! I wanted a "retry" since I punted at a 1K with Bogles vs. KCI. Oh well. I always have an excuse for IDing, lol. 0-0-3.
I finish 3-0-1, so pretty good for the first evening with Elves in quite a while!
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Shamans are the alternative win con, which is better imo. But I also feel like we can just be slamming down a hoof. I always loved hoof, but hoof seems too much? Feels sad that hoof version needs a ton of testing to make it work.
Playing against Jund, the guide says it's okay to keep slow hands, especially in game one as you can rely on Lead and CoCo to give you enough card advantage to win. In my experience, this is not the case as if your hand doesn't do anything until a turn 3 Lead they've likely stripped your hand and board of anything relevant. You need to keep hands that make enough mana that cards like Lead and CoCo can be cast as soon as you see them. I feel like Elvish Champion and Scavenging Ooze are the only cards you want to bring in for the matchup, cutting some number of Nettle Sentinel and/or Elvish Visionary. I don't think you're interested in creature removal spells like the guide would suggest.
Are there any more complete and up-to-date sideboard guides for elves out there?
Edit: For humans you likely just want to be as fast as possible, so -3 Lead the Stampede for +3 Essence Warden. For burn, the same -3 Lead for +3 Warden, and also -2 Shaman of the Pack for +2 Ooze. It doesn't seem worth it to try to get fancy with Rec Sage to hit Eidolon of the Great Revel, unless I'm way off.
Heres the list for reference: http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/120601
This is why chord and the new combo is so important. It brings ezuri down at instant speed, dodges that pesky meddling mage "ban" too. The infinite mana combo ensures that once ezuri hits the board, killing ezuri won't help. They'll have to spend precious removal on your Devoted Druid first.
Shaman of the Pack comes from a different direction. The Lead The Stampedes in place of Chords is the biggest indicator of this shift. The focus becomes card advantage and value, and moves away from Toolbox/combo.
To answer your question in short, yes, Shaman does diversify your winning conditions. Remember too that u have only so many slots, and for every one card that goes in, something else must come out. GW elves has flex slots where they can main toolbox elements like selfless spirit or rekt sage. SOTP builds don't have this luxury typically, and they may run fewer copies of Ezuri.
Personally, I want both the combo kill so I don't have to fear big mana decks, while I also love the SOTP kills, especially the old school shaman - trigger on stack - chord for second shaman kind of kill. So i play Abzan, which is not without its own drawbacks. Nonetheless, I do well with it, and I like being able to threaten people 2 ways.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
The list:
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Heritage Druid
3 Nettle Sentinel
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Devoted Druid
1 Vizier of Remedies
4 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Elvish Archdruid
3 Shaman of the Pack
4 Collected Company
4 Chord of Calling
Real Estate (17)
3 Forest
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
4 Blooming Marsh
4 Unclaimed Territory
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Pendelhaven
Board (15)
1 Spellskite
1 Selfless Spirit
1 Burrenton Forge Tender
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1 Lead the Stampede
1 Lifecrafter's Bestiary
2 Fracturing Gust
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Shaper's Sanctuary
2 Essence Warden
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Can't remember my last card
Some quick Q&A that will prolly come up:
Q: Shaman AND Vizier??
A: I'm greedy and like to have it both ways. What I had to give up in return was any maindeck toolbox options, and the pure efficiency that a dedicated deck enjoys. I cannot for example chord for Ooze early and start eating up Bloodghasts on game 1. I also lack the leads and visionaries that help GB lists build their lethal mass for Shaman. What happens, however, is also that the opponent really has no idea what to do with their removal most of the time, and my chord becomes way more powerful in that sense.
Q: Uh, your mana-
A: Is *****ty yes. It's a poor man's manabase. Unclaimed is supposed to be cavern, and the fetchlands are tied up in another modern deck. I might take the windswept heaths back since its difficult to Ponza in a meta with so many Hollow Ones.
Q: But really your white mana is nonexistent.
A: I lean pretty hard on unclaimed to cast my white creatures. It seldom comes up, truly. I'm more of GB white splash than GW black splash. Have you seen the price of Horizon canopy? Jeez.
Report:
Round 1 - BR Hollow One
I win the die roll and turn 4 him with the combo. What can I say, his faithless lootings missed, and I picked the right random cards during Goblin lore. He got in a couple hits with a Vengevine and Bloodghast, but I only had to find my chord for a vizier and I was set, having an Ezuri in hand and Devoted on the board.
Boarding - Ooze in, Shaman out.
In game 2 he scoops to the Ooze, which comes out timely off the top of the library and chomps on a couple of Ghasts, growing promptly to 4/4 and making it pretty much difficult for him to build and overcome. Lucky break, and a good start to the FNM!
Round 2 - Sun and Moon prison
I get the opponent down to 1 life while tanking 2 Angers and 2 Helixes and can't find the last shaman before he lands an elspeth, gains life off of more helixes and basically locks me out of any possible recovery.
Boarding - Burrenton, Selfless IN, Nettle, Shaman OUT. I figure I need to survive wipes more than I need a piece that wins off of critical mass.
In game 2 he wipes the board twice, but I started with 2 cocos in hand and drew 1 later on. They bring me back from the dead and my third coco steals the win by hitting an Ezuri when I have 2 Devoted on the board.
In game 3 he gets overrun while mana screwing on 3 lands. Not much to say here. Shaman shortens the clock enough for an archdruid boost to let the dorks finish the game timely.
Round 3 - Merfolk
Game 1 is a walkover as would be expected - he has a couple of lords, but I put too much pressure on him so he can't attack, and after a couple of trades he's at zero while I'm at 20.
Boarding - 2 Essence Wardens IN, 2 Nettles out. To make this race more difficult for him I wanted a couple of soul sisters. As it turned out I never drew them, so it never factored.
Game 2 is a total bust. He has a gutshot for my heritage druid while my Dwynen's elite is on the stack - what would have been an awesome start fizzles into an awful plunge into a merfolk-overrun doom.
Game 3 is close AF. I won by bluffing a land in my hand for a chord or coco, and he could have won the turn after vialing a master of waves in for 6. Instead, he opted to spread his damage over 2 turns, but I draw an ezuri and win before the 2nd wave.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
Does anyone know what his individual record was? This was a team event after all, and it might be a question of did his team place second "in spite of" Marwyn.
I'm supposed to be getting one in the mail soon. I will try her out. She seems good against spot removal, but I try not to play Elves when I see those types of decks present. Those decks usually have some sort of sweepers and it's really tough to play around spot removal AND sweepers.
It looks kind of like an inferior Elvish Archdruid, so I can't see it really being all too bad.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)