I took elves to the Seattle PTQ on July 5th. I went 5-4-0 for the day and was ranked 56th out of 236 players. It was my first PTQ and I feel it went quite well.
Some changes to the deck since last time. I've changed the combo win-con to Squall Line as this card can also work out of the board to kill Pestermite Tokens, Fae, and Spirits. While combo-ing just gain a large amount of life with Essence Warden and use the direct damage from Squall Line to do enough to them.
I'm thinking 3 Dismembers + 2 Beast Within might be too much removal. Sometimes I'd rather have had a Manamorphose then drawing a 3rd piece of hate.
Vs Krark-Clan Ironworks
Game 1: Opening hand had 3 of the 4 combo pieces and I drew into the last piece off of a Visionary play. I easily Combo'ed out, found Ezuri and attacked for several million damage.
Game 2: This game started with a turn 2 Torpor Orb from the Ironworks player. With that I moved to a beatdown strategy. Even using my own Beast Within on my Forest instead of a Tron land or the Orb. There was an Academy Ruins + Engineered Explosives combo this game too, but with the token, Visionary, and Nettle Sentienl It was too many varying CMCs
1-0
vs Living End
Game 1: Started off with a Root Maze and the opponent opened up with 2 fetch lands. I got the full combo off, but was stopped by a Simian Spirit Guide that made a 3rd mana for Violent Outburst. Fortunately I was able to get Heritage Druid + Essense Warden + One Drop down after that to get three billion life. Opponent conceded.
Game 2: Wasn't able to put any Lords or Combo pieces down. A quick cascade into Living End and I conceded.
Game 3: Started with a weak land hand. It had two Arbor Elves, one Archdruid, and only one Forest. On turn two, Arbor Elf one was dismembered. Turn three, Arbor Elf two was dismembered. I couldn't put much together and even forgot to bring the two arbor elves out of the yard with the living end.
1-1
vs Pod
Game 1: Very grindy with the boardstate. After some back and forth the Pod player was able to find Chord of Calling for 3 into Orzhov Pontiff.
Game 2: Mulliganed to 5 cards with two Forests, an Arbor Elf, and an Archdruid. I was able to get 3 Archdruids in total in play and it just made my creatures too efficient vs theirs. Won with beatdown
Game 3: This I counted wrong and was 1 mana short of comboing. I used Weird Harvest to get my pieces, but I couldn't play the cloudstone Curio first enabling triggers. My Weird Harvest allowed the Pod player to have Orzhov Pontiff available and I lost 2 out my 4 combo pieces.
1-2
vs Quest for the Holy Relic + Argentum Armor
Game 1: The player quickly plays Quest and some memnites. By turn 3 with some memnite bounces he's up to 5 counters and pulls out the Armor. I'm down 1 of my two lands and can only chump for so long and concede.
Game 2: I'm able to combo off early.
Game 3: I was able to Beast Within the Quest, but that only allowed the 3/3 Beast to come at my 1/1 and 2/2 elves. I got Ezuri out and was able to chump/regen for a bit vs the opponents creatures, but just before having enough mana for trample damage all of my opponent's artifacts got +2/+2.
1-3
vs Gifts Tron
Game 1: My opponent is able to Gifts for Iona, Shield of Emeria naming Green. I quickly concede and move to game 2
Game 2: My opponent has to mull to 4 cards. I start the game with a Lord and enough beats to make quick work of the opponent's life total. They were able to cast Detention Sphere on the Lord, but I had a Vines of Vastwook in my hand and ready.
Game 3: I get an early Weird Harvest in for 2 of the combo creatures. I don't mind if my opponent has Emrakul in their hand. I was able to combo off and deal 400 points of damage with Squall Line.
2-3
vs Twin
Game 1: The opponent top decks Splinter twin on turn 4 and we quickly go to game 2.
Game 2: Neither of us combo-ed, but without a Lord my 1/1's weren't a match for flying 3/1's.
2-4
vs Mono White Control
Game 1: Combo-ed on turn three on the play so I didn't get to see much of the deck.
Game 2: My opponent got stuck on 3 plains with Linvala, Keeper of Silence in hand since the start of the game. I was able to combo later.
3-4
vs Goblins
Game 1: The goblin player gets multiple lords out and beats me down very quickly.
Game 2: I'm able to match 2 lords to 2 lords with the Goblin player. At that point I had 5 elves in play I top deck a Weird Harvest. With that I can generate 10 mana and grab 5 creatures on of which is a regal force. I'm able to draw ~10 cards and draw into the combo and easily win.
Game 3: I get an early Essence Warden out which negate a lot of the beats by the Goblins player. Then a kicked Vines of Vastwood helped make a Lord for Lord trade into a one sided affair. At that point my larger elves were able to win the war of attrition.
4-4
vs Delver
Game 1: I was on the ropes with a fast start from the opponent. Turn 1 Goblin Guide, turn 2 Young Pyromancer followed by a Gitaxian Probe. Next turn saw a Delver. I got down to 4 life with no damage inflicted on the opponent, when the top deck grabbed the last combo piece. 1,000,000/1,000,000 Nettle Sentinel.
Game 2: Again a very fast start from this deck. Goblin Guide, Delver, Delver. Down to 5 life, but was able to Weird Harvest for the combo pieces and win the match
5-4
Can you elaborate on this post? Ad Nauseam is an established deck in this forum and they most certainly play Lotus Bloom. And if you read the PTQ reports it was actually making it into the top 16 at various locations. Recentposts from the Ad Nauseum primary page with Lotus Bloom.
I'm interested in this deck as it seems like a lot of fun, but I must ask how competitive it is. Consider in my case at least that I will be facing a fair amount of control (I'd say mostly American and Urza based counter decks). Does it stand a chance still?
Seems like it's a comparatively inexpensive decks compared to most, and it's doesn't play fair... which is exactly what I'm looking for!
To add to the conversation, would it be wise to play Ezuri, Renegade Leader if I'm expecting a fair amount of control in order to make their bolts and occasional board wipes less useful?
Also feel free to ignore me if this is dumb, but something like Garruk, Caller of Beasts could help keep the hand full and enable you to put in an uncounterable Craterhoof Behemoth at times, which may keep a few of your elves untapped and able to attack that turn.
Hi everyone I am kind of not sure how does this deck actually work.. I mean how does it goes off as combo deck ?
Also is this deck competitive as U/R Storm ? (Is the only Modern combo deck I played)
New to the deck, but what's the verdict on Banefire as an alternative win? Since the combo generates infinite mana, you can easily win through counter spells (since they can't) and even beat a pod player who gained infinite life.
Hi everyone I am kind of not sure how does this deck actually work.. I mean how does it goes off as combo deck ?
Also is this deck competitive as U/R Storm ? (Is the only Modern combo deck I played)
Right now it is not as competitive as Storm. It succumbs to the samehate, but our engine, unlike Pyromancer Ascension, is vulnerable to creature removal.
On the plus side vs storm this deck does have an aggro back up plan and the deck can be tailored to be more aggro vs combo. So on the aggro-combo elves side they'll run Lead the Stampede. Pure combo goes for Cloudstone Curio.
As for reading the primer to find out more about the deck, the primer still has some errors, but is mostly correct. Basically, there are two things the Curio combo tries to do.
1. Get infinite card draw with Heritage Druid, Nettle Sentinel, and Elvish Visionary. The Curio allows you to bounce the Druid and Visionary to your hand back and forth. So you'll be able to get 3 untapped elves each iteration that can tap for GGG, which is just enough to keep casting Visionary and Druid. So you'll get to draw a card each loop.
2. Get infinite mana with Heritage Druid, Nettle Sentinel, and anyonedrop. It is the same loop as above, but now the two creatures you are bouncing only cost GG, so each iteration nets 1 extra mana.
From there the sky's the limit. If you are playing at FNM then this deck is fairly competitive and I've had great success with it. Plus it is fairly cheap to build.
The two key cards are Heritage Druid and Nettle Sentinel. HD lets your Elves tap for mana on the turn they come down. Sentinel untaps whenever you cast an Elf. Put the two together and your 1-drop Elves are basically free. With an active Beck//Call, what you're doing is basically "cast 0-drop, draw into 0-drop, cast drawn 0-drop, etc". If you have 2 Sentinels, it gets even better - now your 3-drops are free too.
JJ2Styles, don't forget, it's also an aggro deck. Sometimes your combo doesn't go off and you can win anyway. You might not go infinite but maybe you can just barf a large number of Elves out. If your oppo can't kill you first or wrath your team, you can untap, drop a lord creature (or two), and just swing. The deck is full of cheap, strong creatures (Nettle is a 2/2 for one with minimal drawback, Archdruid is a lord, some run Warcaller too). When the combo fizzles or gets stopped you have the option of just attacking with dudes. You'd be surprised how often you wind up winning that way.
JJ2Styles, don't forget, it's also an aggro deck. Sometimes your combo doesn't go off and you can win anyway. You might not go infinite but maybe you can just barf a large number of Elves out. If your oppo can't kill you first or wrath your team, you can untap, drop a lord creature (or two), and just swing. The deck is full of cheap, strong creatures (Nettle is a 2/2 for one with minimal drawback, Archdruid is a lord, some run Warcaller too). When the combo fizzles or gets stopped you have the option of just attacking with dudes. You'd be surprised how often you wind up winning that way.
Some days I forget theres a combo in there at all. I personally like to run an excess amount of lords to get out of the anger range ASAP, so its VERY often that I just beat some face with elves.
Having all lands and artifacts come into play tapped offers Elves a strange sort of tempo game by disrupting when the opponent is able to play their curve. For decks like Scapeshift and Birthing Pod that rely on a fetchland-heavy manabase, Root Maze is a beating because it makes them have to wait two turns before they can use the lands they get from their fetches. The fetchland comes into play tapped, then the land they find comes into play tapped. If their plan is to play a mana dork on turn one, a Root Maze on the play can utterly shut down whatever curve the opponent was planning on running. More importantly, because our mana is predominantly from creatures rather than lands, Root Maze has next to no effect on our ability to power out creatures.
Dismember is a good choice for Linvala and maybe worthwhile for Twin (I don't have much experience against them with this deck; we might be a turn faster and just better off racing), and maybe other stuff.
Damping Matrix is a bomb, although if we run even one Temple Garden we should be fine to run Stony Silence instead (nice choice for people who don't have fetches yet, though).
So, tentatively, I'd run 1x Reclamation Sage 2x Stony Silence 2x Choke in the board.
I'm still looking for more ideas for a full-on non-transformative sideboard.
It is more than a sideboard card it is powerful enough to be mainboard in Elves. The reasons you want to run this are they seriously hurt fetches, our mana comes from creatures so we don't get a tempo hit, and it can hold up a few artifacts.
Think about when you'd want to side it in. Vs decks with fetches. But that is nearly every deck you will encounter.
Lets look at the all of the proven decks in this forum.
Jund: 8 fetches
Twin: 8 fetches
Storm: 8 fetches
Melira Pod: 8 fetches, also stops pod activation for a turn.
Only Merfolk is the card wasted and it can be boarded out. Otherwise Root Maze is just amazing. It helps us race the other decks into assembling our combo. It frustrates other players as they sit for 2 turns without mana to play.
I agree with Irmo. The card hates on the manabase of almost every deck in the format. The slowdown we suffer from it is much less than most other decks would suffer. If you run it, run it mainboard. I hadn't thought of Root Maze and now I'm excited to test it out. (I'm also tempted to test it in Amulet Combo, since almost all that deck's lands enter tapped anyway, so there's little downside.)
The only drawback that I can see is that it makes running Misty -> Pool -> Beck more or less impossible, so you have to choose. While I've been a supporter of the Beck version, I am sufficiently impressed by RM's potential that I will try it out. Should be pretty simple to substitute, and get rid of my fetches and shocks to save life while I'm at it.
Is there any reason in particular that prevents people from playing any number of Cavern of Souls? The only thing I can see it affecting is Arbor Elf if that's the only land you have available... but otherwise it could be really good at avoiding half of control deck's method of control on some of your key creatures. If playing a 16+ land deck, I think it's feasible to get away with 1-2 of them at least.
One thing about Root Maze is that it's only good early. It's pretty much dead if you draw it on turn 4 and your opponent already has 3 or 4 lands. Adding on to that, it has no synergy with the rest of the deck at all (well, not unless you're playing Abundant Growth and Cloudstone Curio, and even then it's a very narrow form of synergy that gets unlocked only when you are ahead). Literally any 1-drop Elf is better than Root Maze when you're trying to get triggers off Beck or Curio.
The other thing is, you're probably splashing a second color - blue for Beck//Call for example. That means playing fetchlands of your own.
If I had to suggest some cards to go with Root Maze it'd be Commune with the Gods and Vengevine. It's common to have 3 mana on turn 2 because of all the mana dorks in the deck, and Commune into Root Maze councidentally costs exactly 3 mana. With Vengevine we can put the incidental milling from Commune to good use. You probably can't fit all those cards AND your engines (Beck//Call, Curio, Stampede) into the deck, so it seems more of a transformational SB kind of thing.
Sage is better in main in my opinion, Viridian in side. Torpor orb hurts bad if youre trying to combo.
Thirst for Knowledge % to hit artifact
I was thinking Zealot not Shaman, no triggers to worry about with him.
Thirst for Knowledge % to hit artifact
Here's the deck:
15 Forest
Creatures
4 Arbor Elf
1 Elvish Mystic
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Riftsweeper
1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Essence Warden
1 Regal Force
4 Abundant Growth
3 Root Maze
Instants
4 Manamorphose
1 Research // Development
Artifacts
4 Cloudstone Curio
Sorceries
4 Weird Harvest
3 Vines of Vastwood
2 Beast Within
3 Dismember
1 Eternal Witness
1 Viridian Shaman
2 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Yeva, Nature's Herald
1 Tajuru Preserver
1 Squall Line
Some changes to the deck since last time. I've changed the combo win-con to Squall Line as this card can also work out of the board to kill Pestermite Tokens, Fae, and Spirits. While combo-ing just gain a large amount of life with Essence Warden and use the direct damage from Squall Line to do enough to them.
Swapped Riftsweeper from the sideboard with Tajuru. I hadn't been seeing much Jund, but thought Riftsweeper could hit Lotus Bloom or Search for Tomorrow
I'm thinking 3 Dismembers + 2 Beast Within might be too much removal. Sometimes I'd rather have had a Manamorphose then drawing a 3rd piece of hate.
Game 1: Opening hand had 3 of the 4 combo pieces and I drew into the last piece off of a Visionary play. I easily Combo'ed out, found Ezuri and attacked for several million damage.
Game 2: This game started with a turn 2 Torpor Orb from the Ironworks player. With that I moved to a beatdown strategy. Even using my own Beast Within on my Forest instead of a Tron land or the Orb. There was an Academy Ruins + Engineered Explosives combo this game too, but with the token, Visionary, and Nettle Sentienl It was too many varying CMCs
1-0
vs Living End
Game 1: Started off with a Root Maze and the opponent opened up with 2 fetch lands. I got the full combo off, but was stopped by a Simian Spirit Guide that made a 3rd mana for Violent Outburst. Fortunately I was able to get Heritage Druid + Essense Warden + One Drop down after that to get three billion life. Opponent conceded.
Game 2: Wasn't able to put any Lords or Combo pieces down. A quick cascade into Living End and I conceded.
Game 3: Started with a weak land hand. It had two Arbor Elves, one Archdruid, and only one Forest. On turn two, Arbor Elf one was dismembered. Turn three, Arbor Elf two was dismembered. I couldn't put much together and even forgot to bring the two arbor elves out of the yard with the living end.
1-1
vs Pod
Game 1: Very grindy with the boardstate. After some back and forth the Pod player was able to find Chord of Calling for 3 into Orzhov Pontiff.
Game 2: Mulliganed to 5 cards with two Forests, an Arbor Elf, and an Archdruid. I was able to get 3 Archdruids in total in play and it just made my creatures too efficient vs theirs. Won with beatdown
Game 3: This I counted wrong and was 1 mana short of comboing. I used Weird Harvest to get my pieces, but I couldn't play the cloudstone Curio first enabling triggers. My Weird Harvest allowed the Pod player to have Orzhov Pontiff available and I lost 2 out my 4 combo pieces.
1-2
vs Quest for the Holy Relic + Argentum Armor
Game 1: The player quickly plays Quest and some memnites. By turn 3 with some memnite bounces he's up to 5 counters and pulls out the Armor. I'm down 1 of my two lands and can only chump for so long and concede.
Game 2: I'm able to combo off early.
Game 3: I was able to Beast Within the Quest, but that only allowed the 3/3 Beast to come at my 1/1 and 2/2 elves. I got Ezuri out and was able to chump/regen for a bit vs the opponents creatures, but just before having enough mana for trample damage all of my opponent's artifacts got +2/+2.
1-3
vs Gifts Tron
Game 1: My opponent is able to Gifts for Iona, Shield of Emeria naming Green. I quickly concede and move to game 2
Game 2: My opponent has to mull to 4 cards. I start the game with a Lord and enough beats to make quick work of the opponent's life total. They were able to cast Detention Sphere on the Lord, but I had a Vines of Vastwook in my hand and ready.
Game 3: I get an early Weird Harvest in for 2 of the combo creatures. I don't mind if my opponent has Emrakul in their hand. I was able to combo off and deal 400 points of damage with Squall Line.
2-3
vs Twin
Game 1: The opponent top decks Splinter twin on turn 4 and we quickly go to game 2.
Game 2: Neither of us combo-ed, but without a Lord my 1/1's weren't a match for flying 3/1's.
2-4
vs Mono White Control
Game 1: Combo-ed on turn three on the play so I didn't get to see much of the deck.
Game 2: My opponent got stuck on 3 plains with Linvala, Keeper of Silence in hand since the start of the game. I was able to combo later.
3-4
vs Goblins
Game 1: The goblin player gets multiple lords out and beats me down very quickly.
Game 2: I'm able to match 2 lords to 2 lords with the Goblin player. At that point I had 5 elves in play I top deck a Weird Harvest. With that I can generate 10 mana and grab 5 creatures on of which is a regal force. I'm able to draw ~10 cards and draw into the combo and easily win.
Game 3: I get an early Essence Warden out which negate a lot of the beats by the Goblins player. Then a kicked Vines of Vastwood helped make a Lord for Lord trade into a one sided affair. At that point my larger elves were able to win the war of attrition.
4-4
vs Delver
Game 1: I was on the ropes with a fast start from the opponent. Turn 1 Goblin Guide, turn 2 Young Pyromancer followed by a Gitaxian Probe. Next turn saw a Delver. I got down to 4 life with no damage inflicted on the opponent, when the top deck grabbed the last combo piece. 1,000,000/1,000,000 Nettle Sentinel.
Game 2: Again a very fast start from this deck. Goblin Guide, Delver, Delver. Down to 5 life, but was able to Weird Harvest for the combo pieces and win the match
5-4
I mostly have it to get back combo pieces that have succumbed to Slaughter Games
I'm interested in this deck as it seems like a lot of fun, but I must ask how competitive it is. Consider in my case at least that I will be facing a fair amount of control (I'd say mostly American and Urza based counter decks). Does it stand a chance still?
Seems like it's a comparatively inexpensive decks compared to most, and it's doesn't play fair... which is exactly what I'm looking for!
To add to the conversation, would it be wise to play Ezuri, Renegade Leader if I'm expecting a fair amount of control in order to make their bolts and occasional board wipes less useful?
Also feel free to ignore me if this is dumb, but something like Garruk, Caller of Beasts could help keep the hand full and enable you to put in an uncounterable Craterhoof Behemoth at times, which may keep a few of your elves untapped and able to attack that turn.
Ezuri could be worthwhile for regen, yes. Might be too little too late vs control, though.
I've considered Garruk, myself. It's worth testing, though I'm skeptical. Garruk is much, much more about his +1.
Also is this deck competitive as U/R Storm ? (Is the only Modern combo deck I played)
Storm is better. They play somewhat similarly.
On the plus side vs storm this deck does have an aggro back up plan and the deck can be tailored to be more aggro vs combo. So on the aggro-combo elves side they'll run Lead the Stampede. Pure combo goes for Cloudstone Curio.
As for reading the primer to find out more about the deck, the primer still has some errors, but is mostly correct. Basically, there are two things the Curio combo tries to do.
1. Get infinite card draw with Heritage Druid, Nettle Sentinel, and Elvish Visionary. The Curio allows you to bounce the Druid and Visionary to your hand back and forth. So you'll be able to get 3 untapped elves each iteration that can tap for GGG, which is just enough to keep casting Visionary and Druid. So you'll get to draw a card each loop.
2. Get infinite mana with Heritage Druid, Nettle Sentinel, and any one drop. It is the same loop as above, but now the two creatures you are bouncing only cost GG, so each iteration nets 1 extra mana.
From there the sky's the limit. If you are playing at FNM then this deck is fairly competitive and I've had great success with it. Plus it is fairly cheap to build.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
--Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who is up in Heaven now. EDH WUBRG Child of Alara WUBRG BGW Karador, Ghost Chieftain BGW RGW Mayael the Anima RGW WUB Sharuum the Hegemon WUB RWU Zedruu the Greathearted RWU
WB Ghost Council of Orzhova WB RG Ulasht, the Hate Seed RG B Korlash, Heir to Blackblade B G Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer G *click the general's name to see my list!*
Some days I forget theres a combo in there at all. I personally like to run an excess amount of lords to get out of the anger range ASAP, so its VERY often that I just beat some face with elves.
Thirst for Knowledge % to hit artifact
I might just rather run Choke instead, though.
Dismember is a good choice for Linvala and maybe worthwhile for Twin (I don't have much experience against them with this deck; we might be a turn faster and just better off racing), and maybe other stuff.
Damping Matrix is a bomb, although if we run even one Temple Garden we should be fine to run Stony Silence instead (nice choice for people who don't have fetches yet, though).
So, tentatively, I'd run 1x Reclamation Sage 2x Stony Silence 2x Choke in the board.
I'm still looking for more ideas for a full-on non-transformative sideboard.
Think about when you'd want to side it in. Vs decks with fetches. But that is nearly every deck you will encounter.
Lets look at the all of the proven decks in this forum.
The only drawback that I can see is that it makes running Misty -> Pool -> Beck more or less impossible, so you have to choose. While I've been a supporter of the Beck version, I am sufficiently impressed by RM's potential that I will try it out. Should be pretty simple to substitute, and get rid of my fetches and shocks to save life while I'm at it.
--Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who is up in Heaven now. EDH WUBRG Child of Alara WUBRG BGW Karador, Ghost Chieftain BGW RGW Mayael the Anima RGW WUB Sharuum the Hegemon WUB RWU Zedruu the Greathearted RWU
WB Ghost Council of Orzhova WB RG Ulasht, the Hate Seed RG B Korlash, Heir to Blackblade B G Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer G *click the general's name to see my list!*
The other thing is, you're probably splashing a second color - blue for Beck//Call for example. That means playing fetchlands of your own.
If I had to suggest some cards to go with Root Maze it'd be Commune with the Gods and Vengevine. It's common to have 3 mana on turn 2 because of all the mana dorks in the deck, and Commune into Root Maze councidentally costs exactly 3 mana. With Vengevine we can put the incidental milling from Commune to good use. You probably can't fit all those cards AND your engines (Beck//Call, Curio, Stampede) into the deck, so it seems more of a transformational SB kind of thing.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.