Hi all, I've been following this thread for a while now and thought I would contribute. I recently won a small (~20 people) modern tournament at an anime convention with the Elves list below:
This build is mostly inspired by Jeff Hoogland, but I've previously experimented with many different builds and iterations. This list is very consistent and resilient (at least compared to other Elves lists) while maintaining the signature explosiveness of the archetype.
A few notes on card choices:
4 Elves of Deep Shadow: I think this is a necessary adaptation, as having the full 16 mana dorks really improves the consistency of your first few turns. I love Nettle Sentinel as much as any other Elves player, but its so incredibly important to develop ahead of curve on turns 1-3 that I no longer think it's a playable card. The last time I had Nettles in my deck, I was playing against UW control and was stuck on two lands with one each of Nettle Sentinel and Heritage Druid on the battlefield and a bunch of 3 and 4 drops in my hand. Truly painful.
2 Scavenging Ooze in the main: This is a concession to the rampant graveyard decks in modern such as UR Phoenix and Dredge. I see some other people in this thread have also made this adaptation, but if you haven't yet I strongly encourage you to. The opportunity cost is very low and Scooze can be an absolute lifesaver against the aforementioned decks.
2:2 Split of Lead the Stampede between main and sb: Lead is very powerful, but I also never want to see multiples of it in my opening hand. There are diminishing returns to CoCo and Lead where adding more of them into your deck has the effect of giving you fewer hits from each. Given that I want to be as linear and powerful as possible in game 1, but also want access to the full 8 non-creature card advantage spells in the slower matchups, the 2:2 split feels right to me.
Overgrown Tomb: I recently added this as I wanted another land that could help cast Shaman of the Pack and also make green mana for Scooze activations. I plan on cutting this, Horizon Canopy, Pendelhaven, and 1 Blooming Marsh in favor of 4 Nurturing Peatland once they are available (I have already sold my Horizon Canopy in anticipation). I would also like to strongly recommend against running any land that does not produce G, such as Westvale Abbey or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, as they have a very adverse effect on the deck's consistency. They make 1-land hands unkeepable and can't even cast 20/42 of the spells in the deck. The times these cards were good for me when I tried them far outweighed the times I wished I had just run another basic Forest instead.
Please feel free to ask me about any other cards included (or excluded) from my list if you would care for my opinion.
I feel Elves are positioned reasonably well in Modern presently and am excited by the additions we might see from Modern Horizons. To any newer players reading this thread and looking to pick up Elves in modern, please be aware that Elves is not a tier 1 deck and will probably not be in the foreseeable future. It is, however, a very fun and powerful deck that can be surprisingly competitive and even take down a tournament once in a while in the right metagame.
1
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elves of Deep Shadow
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Mystic
2 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Shaman of the Pack
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Elvish Clancaller
4 Collected Company
Lands (18)
4 Blooming Marsh
3 Cavern of Souls
4 Forest
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Pendelhaven
Sorcery (2)
2 Lead the Stampede
3 Damping Sphere
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Reclamation Sage
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Dismember
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Lead the Stampede
This build is mostly inspired by Jeff Hoogland, but I've previously experimented with many different builds and iterations. This list is very consistent and resilient (at least compared to other Elves lists) while maintaining the signature explosiveness of the archetype.
A few notes on card choices:
4 Elves of Deep Shadow: I think this is a necessary adaptation, as having the full 16 mana dorks really improves the consistency of your first few turns. I love Nettle Sentinel as much as any other Elves player, but its so incredibly important to develop ahead of curve on turns 1-3 that I no longer think it's a playable card. The last time I had Nettles in my deck, I was playing against UW control and was stuck on two lands with one each of Nettle Sentinel and Heritage Druid on the battlefield and a bunch of 3 and 4 drops in my hand. Truly painful.
2 Scavenging Ooze in the main: This is a concession to the rampant graveyard decks in modern such as UR Phoenix and Dredge. I see some other people in this thread have also made this adaptation, but if you haven't yet I strongly encourage you to. The opportunity cost is very low and Scooze can be an absolute lifesaver against the aforementioned decks.
2:2 Split of Lead the Stampede between main and sb: Lead is very powerful, but I also never want to see multiples of it in my opening hand. There are diminishing returns to CoCo and Lead where adding more of them into your deck has the effect of giving you fewer hits from each. Given that I want to be as linear and powerful as possible in game 1, but also want access to the full 8 non-creature card advantage spells in the slower matchups, the 2:2 split feels right to me.
Overgrown Tomb: I recently added this as I wanted another land that could help cast Shaman of the Pack and also make green mana for Scooze activations. I plan on cutting this, Horizon Canopy, Pendelhaven, and 1 Blooming Marsh in favor of 4 Nurturing Peatland once they are available (I have already sold my Horizon Canopy in anticipation). I would also like to strongly recommend against running any land that does not produce G, such as Westvale Abbey or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, as they have a very adverse effect on the deck's consistency. They make 1-land hands unkeepable and can't even cast 20/42 of the spells in the deck. The times these cards were good for me when I tried them far outweighed the times I wished I had just run another basic Forest instead.
Please feel free to ask me about any other cards included (or excluded) from my list if you would care for my opinion.
I feel Elves are positioned reasonably well in Modern presently and am excited by the additions we might see from Modern Horizons. To any newer players reading this thread and looking to pick up Elves in modern, please be aware that Elves is not a tier 1 deck and will probably not be in the foreseeable future. It is, however, a very fun and powerful deck that can be surprisingly competitive and even take down a tournament once in a while in the right metagame.