The Theory of Elves

Many of you may not know this, but Elves is one of my favorites, and if not my favorite, deck in modern. However, I have always been one of those people who enjoyed very out-there strategies over proven-to-be-good strategies (It’s a hard life for the tier 2 deck lover). I can’t exactly tell you why I have always been attracted to Elves, RG Tron, and Kiki-Jiki combo decks, I just kind of am. The satisfaction of winning with a less-than-adequate deck is certainly a selling point, along with the fact that many of these decks reward you for being familiar with them. Elves, unfortunately, has yet to quite cross over into the tier 1 category. It has put up results before, but never consistently got there. A good Elves player can certainly dominate a tournament, as we saw with Liam Lonergen who took his Elves deck all the way to first place in the recent New Jersey invitational. But, Elves has always had a big problem with the fact that it is easily disruptable along with being easy to hate out. However, today I would like to take a moment and show you why this deck has the potential to be great. I want to show you what the deck is, the different variations of it, and the things people are overlooking for it. I hope by the end of this article you see why I love this deck and why it has such huge potential.

Alright Levi, what is Elves?

Well I’m glad you asked strange internet person! The main goal of Elves is to play a bunch of little idiots that cost 1 or 2 mana and then kill your opponent. Ok that’s the really simplified version of it (the version you use to explain it to all your non-magic playing friends). The real goal of Elves is to abuse and create advantage from the immense synergy that each elf card presents. When playing Elves, you want to set up and create an advantage for multiple turns until you eventually make an alpha strike once you build up enough synergy and power. The strategy is pretty straightforward, but it comes with a lot of risk and decision making. It takes a lot of thinking and work to figure out which turn you want to go grab your Ezuri, or when you want to tap your Elves to generate enough mana but lose the power of them being able to attack, or something as simple as using Ezuri to regenerate a specific elf when you only have that 1 green mana. It may not seem like the deck has this happen too often, but trust me, it happens a lot. The skill of timing and math is extremely important in Elves, along with your sequencing. Sure, you could play your Llanowar Elves on turn 1 because you need 3 mana on turn two so you can be super explosive, but what deck are you playing against? Are you playing against a bolt deck where it is much better to jam nettle sentinel on turn 1 so they have to waste a bolt on the less important creature or take more damage? Is it better to play Heritage Druid because you have 2 of them and need your Llanowar Elves to survive much more? Even the first turn can be a huge decision that changes the whole course of the game. One of the key aspects of the deck is forcing your opponent to make a decision, and if you play your cards right (literally) you can force them into the wrong one. The deck is surprisingly complex, and one of the main reasons is the cards in it.

Well then tell me, what are the key cards?

These are the cards every elf deck needs. They are the cards almost every single person will tell you needs to be in Elves. Let’s take a look.

Mana Dorks (The Kids Who Get Swirlies)

Elves is an originator of the patented “8 birds strategy” (Ok fine, patent pending). Now, they aren’t actually birds of course, they’re Elves (duh). But, every single elf deck is going to need these 8 cards, 4 Llanowar Elves, and 4 Elvish Mystic. Many people will tell you to “Always bolt the bird”, and they are completely right. One-mana 1/1’s that produce a green are not super broken, but they are incredibly good and incredibly important to the Elves strategy. A deck like Elves relies heavily on its mana advantage, even if it’s creatures are less efficient. These 8 creatures really give you the best option on turn one. They get you from 1 to 3 (3 is a very important number as you will see later), they develop your board, and (arguably most importantly) they develop your mana, which are essentially the only things you want to be doing before you kill your opponent. I’ll take 8 of them please.

Nettle Sentinel/Heritage Druid (The One-Mana Meme Dream Team)

I am putting these two card together because they synergize so incredibly well, and because of that you’ll never see a deck with one and not the other. They are like peanut butter and jelly, ham and cheese, my uncle and his incessant drinking problem, they define each other. Now, if you cannot tell by looking at the text, the cards create this weird semi-infinite combo where with 2 nettle sentinels and a heritage druid, you can play every green spell in your hand with cost 3 or less. You can attempt it with one Sentinel and a Druid, but it’s harder to pull off. In legacy, these combined with Glimpse of Nature spells trouble for your opponent (If you spell trouble C-R-A-T-E-R-H-O-O-F). In modern, however, it’s pretty impossible to draw your whole deck, but you can certainly get pretty deep into it as long as you chain together a few Collected Company’s (spoilers: that card is in the deck) and Elvish Visionary’s. These cards essentially enable your extremely explosive starts and get you the setup you need to eventually execute the destruction of your opponent’s life total. You’ll need a playset of each.

Dwynen’s Elite/Elvish Visionary (Aka Converted Mana Cost 2: The Sequel)

These two occupy the 2-drop slot in the deck. They are certainly important to the game plan simply because they’re basically pure value. Dwynen’s Elite is two bodies for 2 mana and Elvish Visionary draws you a card. Ok I’m gonna repeat that because I don’t think you heard me, it draws you a card. If that isn’t value, I don’t know what is. One-mana dude into Dwynen’s Elite is fantastic, and Heritage Druid into Elite is back-breaking. Elite is great because it serves a million purposes. It develops your board so you can go wide, combined with Heritage Druid it develops your mana and gives you explosive starts, and it’s all around really good to have 2 bodies (especially at such an incredibly efficient rate). Of course, all of those points are moot when you look at Visionary’s text. I mentioned Visionary draws you a card right? Because it does, it does that. In all seriousness, there isn’t many things better in magic than drawing cards, and Visionary does it so well. Visionary is essentially in every elf deck because it is nothing but value combined with the words “Creature - Elf Druid”. It develops your board (inefficiently, but still relevantly), it helps you dig through your deck to find key cards, and it slots really well into each Elves deck. If you can, fit four of each.

Elvish Archdruid (The Queen Bee)

ALL HAIL THE ARCHDRUID. ALL HAIL THE- Oh I forgot I was writing an article, I was just in the middle of my daily Elvish Archdruid worship-sesh, but I’ll take a break for now. This is the kind of card you live for in Elves. This card is the main reason you can overkill people by hundreds of points of damage (the best kind of overkill) and it’s the reason 3-mana is so important to get as soon as you can. Archdruid is the reason Heritage Druid into Dwynen’s Elite can ruin a persons day, because this card comes down on turn 2 and now you have a bunch of 2/2’s and a 3/3. This card doesn’t mess around either, it’s not only a lord for Elves (aka the literal “all of our creatures are 1/1’s” tribe), it also adds mana equal to Elves, so it essentially does double duty. It once again serves the two biggest purposes in Elves; developing your board (by making it bigger) and developing your mana way past your opponent’s. While it is not always the card you’ll need to win, it is one of the most efficient ways to kill your opponent quickly and easily, and for that it deserves all the fame in the world. Don’t play Elves without 4.

Ezuri, Renegade Leader (Big Papa)

 

Ezuri is the main (and sometimes, only) win condition in Elves. It is pretty obvious why. It literally says “Make all your Elves huge bro” right on the card (well, not exactly, but essentially). It is the best card to draw after you played a giant Archdruid and a great card to coco/chord into. The one problem is drawing it in your opener or drawing it really early when you can’t possibly kill your opponent. The card is extremely awkward, but certainly necessary. It’s better than craterhoof because it costs significantly less mana and you can reasonably chord into it (along with coco being a huge synergy with it). The card has certainly given me some help in my years of playing Elves. I have had many a time where my opponent kills/counters/makes me discard the first Ezuri, only to draw the second one and jam it with a huge smile on my face (I’m a dick by the way, if you haven’t noticed yet). It’s too awkward to run 4, but too important to run 2, throw in 3 of them and you’ll be good to go.

Collected Company (Our Heavenly Father, Who Art In Heaven)

Welcome to heartbreak, Jund players. Before March 27th, 2015, Elves players all around the world cried as their deck essentially didn’t exist. Then, all of a sudden, like it was a train you didn’t see coming (i’m not good at analogies), Collected Company came out of nowhere. Elves wins a GP, Melira Company arises, and it starts to sit in with everyone that this 4 mana instant is not something to mess with. This card literally makes the elf deck. An elf deck without Collected Company is like a Bant Company deck without, uhh, Collected Company (As I said, not good). This card is the reason Elves is even tier 2, it’s the reason us Elves players have hope, it is our life. But, why is it so good? Oh, sweet, innocent, stupid strange internet person who keeps asking questions in the middle of my article (you know that’s like, rude, right?), you have no idea. This card is an almost automatic 2-for-1, which is key when you want to develop your board and mana at the same time. It’s card advantage inherently because you get two creatures no matter what. It’s also mana advantage in the sense that you easily get 4-6 mana worth of creatures out of it (that will sometimes also produce mana). And don’t forget that it’s also a combat trick. The day you Collected Company into two Elvish Archdruids during combat is the day you have truly lived. This card does essentially all of it. It digs through your deck to find Ezuri/Archdruid, it gives you board advantage, mana advantage, and also it is sometimes terrible because you just looked at 6 forests. It does it all I tell you! If you’re deck doesn’t have 4 of them, you’re probably not playing Elves.

Decklists

There is a surprising amount of different ways to build Elves. It ranges from the streamlined most consistent versions with Chord of Calling and the main elf cards, to combo Elves with weird things like Beck//Call and Cloudstone Curio. The diversity of decklists for Elves is interesting and really makes sense. The core of Elves feels extremely abusable constantly so everyone is trying to “break” Elves (which isn’t gonna happen unless we get Glimpse of Nature back) so people will try pretty much anything in the deck.

Chord/Company “Elfball” (The Classic)

Creatures (34)
1 Spellskite
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Mystic
3 Elvish Visionary
1 Eternal Witness
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader

Lands (18)
5 Forest
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Horizon Canopy
4 Razorverge Thicket
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Pendelhaven

Spells (8)
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company

Sideboard:

1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Elvish Champion
1 Essence Warden
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Fracturing Gust
2 Path to Exile
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast

This is the typical Elves deck you’ll automatically think of regarding the deck. This list in particular is the one Liam Lonergan ended up winning the invitational with. This version of the deck is easily the most consistent as it has 4 Chord of Calling combined with the 4 Collected Company. Chord also opens up a lot of avenues for there to be a few “Silver Bullets” scattered throughout the main deck and sideboard. Things like Eternal Witness, Spellskite, Reclamation Sage, Burrenton Forge-Tender, and Phyrexian Revoker can really help the deck get over some of it’s harder matchups. While it is not shown in this deck, there are plenty of versions of the deck that play Shaman of the Pack. In my opinion, Shaman is really slow and obviously ridiculously hard to cast. There may be a new argument for Shaman with the new G/B fastland but I would argue the mana is still way too awkward especially when you can’t play Horizon Canopy. The deck has pretty normal numbers on each essential card for the strategy and the mana base is also pretty stock. This version is the basis you’ll want for most elf decks as this is a good starting point. Budget cuts can be made for things like cavern of souls and horizon canopy without hurting the deck to a point of being unplayable.

Lead The Stampede (The Outcast)

Creatures (34)
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
3 Sylvan Messenger

Spells (7)
4 Collected Company
3 Lead the Stampede

Lands (19)
4 Cavern of Souls
6 Forest
4 Horizon Canopy
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Pendelhaven
2 Razorverge Thicket

Sideboard:
2 Chameleon Colossus
1 Choke
3 Dismember
2 Fracturing Gust
3 Kitchen Finks
2 Rest in Peace
2 Spellskite

This is the more “All-In” version of the deck. It has its moments for sure, but it really is just completely and 100% all the way in. The main goal of this deck is slightly different, it is less about consistency and more about explosivity. The thought process when playing this deck is more like “throw literally my entire hand on the table and hope that’s good enough” than “be consistent and kill as soon as you can”. The Chord of Calling versions obviously take more turns to set up before eventually slamming Chord or Company into the game winning play/turn. The Lead the Stampede version is typically faster, but only when it works out. That is my biggest problem with the deck: it’s the variance with Lead the Stampede. Stampede is a great card, don’t get me wrong, but it is a very all-in strategy that can blow up in your face a lot easier. It’s the whole “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” thing, by playing this version you literally rely on Lead the Stampede to be good enough and not only is it sometimes just not good enough (*cough* Damnation *cough*) it also just doesn’t do anything sometimes. I have gone Lead into zero creatures a bunch and that is really rough. While you could say the same thing about Collected Company, I would argue that not only do you see another card (which is huge in high creature count deck) but since the cards go straight to the field you don’t mind getting random Nettle Sentinels and Llanowar Elves. The deck is still fine, and in matchups like Jund and UWR where you really need to be able to recover from a board wipe or just simply get ahead on cards, the card does a ton. It’s also the version of the deck that suits itself to Shaman of the Pack the most, considering it generally can get a lot more Elves out sooner, but it is still less consistent in doing so (and the mana is still bad, did I mention the mana is bad? It’s really bad) I just think it is way worse against the rest of the meta and that is a big problem.

Combo Elves (The Callback)

Evolutionary Elves By Chris Vanmeter

Creatures (30)
4 Arbor Elf
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Essence Warden
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Regal Force
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Lands (17)
5 Forest
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Temple Garden
3 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Pendelhaven

Spells (13)
4 Cloudstone Curio
4 Evolutionary Leap
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Weird Harvest

Sideboard:
2 Spellskite
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Eternal Witness
2 Ranger of Eos
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Back to Nature
3 Chord of Calling
3 Dismember

The first thing you’ll notice about this section is that there are two decklists, the next thing you’ll notice is that they are both ridiculous and hilarious. Both of these decks are almost assuredly just worse than the streamlined and consistent versions of Elves we have already looked at, but I have to include them because they are so much fun. They are two of the most ridiculous and complicated combo decks I’ve ever seen. My first reaction to them was a lot like my first reaction when someone shows me an infinite combo that doesn’t actually go infinite. Both of these decks should just never work in any capacity (Unless you’re LSV, but like of course it works for him he’s LSV). The first deck is Chris Vanmeter’s “Evolutionary Elves” which utilizes the elf synergy with Evolutionary Leap and tries to kill you by casting Emrakul (Yes, I also don’t know, please stop asking). The deck also throws away any normal conventions for Elves and just jams 4 Arbor Elf and 4 Essence Warden, because of course it does. The actual combo is going sort of infinite with Nettle Sentinel, Cloudstone Curio, and Heritage Druid. The combo is that you have 2 Nettle Sentinels and a Druid, you tap all three for mana, then you play any elf with cmc 2 or less, then you bounce the heritage druid with the Curio trigger after adding more mana. It's extremely confusing but it essentially means you get to play Druid plus one other elf infinitely, or you can bounce some of your other Elves to just keep the chain going. You get infinite ETB’s and infinite mana. I am not sure why he decided Evolutionary Leap and Emrakul were the two things he wanted to be doing with that power but I can’t argue with that beautiful CVM beard. The combo confuses me because you have to go through a lot of hoops just to get the value out of it. It’s a weirdly complicated combo (Requires 4 cards and then a way to abuse it), you can draw your whole deck but all you can do with it is cast emrakul, and you can gain infinite life. I think the Curio combo is a good start, but I’m really confused why this was the direction he decided to go and I would like to see a little more variation on it.

Beck Elves by Matt Nass

Creature (26)
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Llanowar Elves
1 Boreal Druid
1 Regal Force
1 Eternal Witness
1 Shaman of the Pack
1 Essence Warden
4 Dwynen's Elite
1 Dryad Arbor

Spells (13)
4 Beck // Call
1 Manamorphose
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Cloudstone Curio

Land (17)
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Forest
2 Breeding Pool
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Stomping Ground

Sideboard:
3 Gut Shot

4 Swan Song

1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast

1 Reclamation Sage

4 Ancient Grudge  

2 Outpost Siege

Speaking of variation on it, the second deck here is a little bit weirder and equally as bad. This deck also uses the Curio/Druid/Sentinel combo, but draws its whole deck with Beck//Call. Oh no no no, you did not misread that, this deck has Beck//Call as a 4-of. The thought process behind the whole deck is that the glimpse of nature version of Elves was so incredibly abusable back in the day that even a card significantly worse but with the same basic properties has to be equally as abusable. The biggest problem with Beck is that little blue mana symbol right next to the green one. And no, two mana is not that big a deal (it is strictly worse, but it’s fine), the problem is that it’s blue mana. Blue mana is basically the opposite of what you want to be doing with Elves. Blue doesn’t add anything significant to the deck other than Beck itself, and there really isn’t a good way to incorporate blue mana into the deck without making the mana base wonky. This deck in particular uses Forbidden Orchard because it’s a weirdly cool way to draw extra card off of beck considering it says “When a creature enters the battlefield this turn” instead of “Whenever you cast a creature spell” like Glimpse of Nature does. This also makes it a little more abusable with Dwynen’s Elite. I like this version of the combo Elves strategy slightly more because it feels significantly more consistent and easier to actually go off. Between how many cards you can draw simply by having an Elite and a couple one mana guys is enough that you can get into the groove of drawing your whole deck a little easier, and there are a few more combos in this deck that seem to work better. There is infinite life with Essence Warden, infinite tokens with Dwynen’s Elite, and essentially infinite life loss with Shaman of the Pack (once you draw your whole deck Shaman will probably kill them). This version is not only goofier and more fun, it also happens to be more consistent which is really nice. Overall, combo Elves is fine but not really necessary.

Next-Level Elves (The Tech)

Creatures (34)
1 Spellskite
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Mystic
3 Elvish Visionary
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Selfless Spirit
3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader

Lands (18)
4 Forest
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Razorverge Thicket
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Pendelhaven

Spells (8)
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company

Sideboard:
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Elvish Champion
2 Essence Warden
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Fracturing Gust
2 Path to Exile
1 Kataki, War's Wage

2 Selfless Spirit

1 Phyrexian Revoker

1 Scavenging Ooze

 

So I call this deck “Next-Level” Elves because this deck is centered around literally next-leveling your opponents (basically just catching them by surprise which allows them to play into your tech). One of the biggest and most frustrating parts of playing Elves has always been that something as simple as a Lightning Bolt can really disrupt your strategy. While this deck doesn’t completely solve the problem, it really helps with it. Board wipes and lightning bolts hurt Elves so much and they are so easy to jam into decks that it makes it really tough against certain matchups. A deck like Jund, which can be a really good matchup for Elves if you are explosive enough to start, can be really bad for Elves given the right sideboard cards and right sequencing on the Jund players part. This version of the deck makes Jund a great matchup as you don’t need to be that explosive as long as you can protect your creatures well enough. This version of the deck is the embodiment of a silver-bullet strategy. Selfless Spirit is a complete and utter house when you need it. It does double duty considering how good it is against wrath effects and just creature strategies in general (Your creatures are significantly smaller than most creatures, so this buys you an extra turn without having to sacrifice any creatures to do so). Forge-Tender is another card that can wreck everyone if they don't see it coming. Forge-Tender has been in sideboards all over the place for Elves but in the main deck it gives you such a nice assurance that you'll be able to get the bolt that matters and you don't have to concede game 1 to the UWR deck with 4 verdicts. This is a deck a local player in my area actually came up with and after playing it a bunch I can pretty firmly say it’s what I believe to be the best version of Elves. It uses these unique cards to really play to the weaknesses of the deck and make the bad matchups a little bit better (which can be the difference between winning a surprising amount of the time). Many people will disagree with me of course, but I think this could easily be the best way to combat the main problems with Elves, and possibly catapult it into tier 1 range.

That is gonna wrap it up for my Elves talk (I could talk for like 4 more hours but most people don’t want me to). Elves is such a fun and interesting deck, it has many different ways to be built, it has a ton of cook synergy, it involves a lot of intricate decisions, and it is one of my favorite decks I’ve ever played. Most people will likely not share the same passion for Elves as I do (which is certainly justified) but I will stick to my guns and keep trying to make Elves work! For all my fellow elf lovers out there; I love you all, good luck, and may all your Elvish Mystics survive past turn one.

-L