Testing: One, Two, Three (A 100 Card Singleton Experience)

The problem with that GWB elves list is theirs too much faffing around. Elves biggest single strength is its speed and consistancy.

The real problem is that people try to play elves like they play other beatdownish decks. Its actually an aggro combo deck, doesn’t matter if that combo is just throwing out a turn 3 geddon, forestwalking in past blockers on turn 5 or generating unbeatable amounts of life or tokens.

Against 90% of creature decks you will have long game superiority (unless their all running mass sweepers nowadays) the synergies of elves overall are stronger than the individually powerful options other decks run (and that your diluting the deck with).

Less cuteness, less bending over backwards to include “more powerful” cards (because obviously that’s objective and dependent on deck/game state etc), more tribal synergies, speed and face beating please.

I like a couple of the black additions (mind twist and confidant mainly) but I am still not convinced that the added “power” is worth the cost to the rest of the deck.

In summary, Elves shouldn’t (in my opinion) be played as a rock deck, if you try to do so you will find the little guys lacking.
I agree that SOFI is lackluster in my experience with little green men, SOLS is awesome though =)

The other consideration is that elves might just not be a good choice now, when i was playing it most other decks were pretty horrible and it took huge advantage of those flaws.

re: Vigor – Yes, it would be great vs burn decks that snipe your dudes away.. If you can resolve it (bearing in mind your ramp is probably being sniped away your looking @ roughly turn 11 to naturally draw 6 mana sources with a 34 land deck)in time.
Steely Resolve, Mark of Asylum, Sylvan Safekeeper, Dense Foliage,Seedcradle Witch etc do practically the same job just alot faster.Vigor does nothing that matters that any of these cards also do in a more relevant time scale. I can see it being moderately decent against GW aggro decks that lack removal, but even then I think i would rather have Eldrazi Monument, Mycoloth, Constant Mists, Ranger of Eos, Wellwisher, Glare of Subdual, Bathe in Light, Eladmri or Elvish Champion (all of which are incredibly hard for them to beat without a timely removal spell).

RE: Confidant/Mind Twist – i know they are in the list, i mentioned them because there the only two black cards that really excite me there.

As before, disclaimer that i haven’t played this deck in a few months and things might have shifted enough for any suggestions i make to be totally incorrect.

The format was basically
(in order of importance)
RDW
GW Aggro (sometimes splashing red)
5 colour greed
UG tempo
U based control (RBU, UW and mono blue)
some reanimator and other random stuff.

when i was playing alot. Not drastically different to today, but obviously their are some changes (like the RDW decks leaning more towards “repeatable” burn (creatures) now). The biggest difference is the comparitive paucity of forests in your average opponents list now, forestwalking was borderline broken at the time.

Remeber suggestions were only that, i put a ton of work into my later lists (first one was pretty bad) digging out random tech (bathe in light and elvish skysweeper are my favorites, but there were many others) to gain % points here and there.

The deck definately rewarded familiarity back then more so than any other deck i have ever played, theres alot of non obvious intereactions that should be considered when devising your gameplans on a turn by turn basis, this makes it a hard deck to just pick up and pilot and is also probably why most people complain that the decks massively inconsistant/weak etc.
If your just trying to throw out dudes fast as you can and beat face then your missing alot of the power that the elf synergies bring to the table.

Pretty much agree on your assessment of elves in the current meta, but then not playing gobbo’s or a deck that stomps the little red folk is probably a mistake also.