Discussion Forum

Elves are a powerfull tribe and fun to play. Your list is nice but elves have become even more efficient since. Also I've always thought of wirewood symbiote as one of the best cards in an elf deck.

These days Green Sun's Zenith, Glimpse of Nature, Heritage Druid and Nettle Sentinel have become the core of elves decks.

Seth,
First off with all due respect I find doing elves that way is boring and bland and not very efficient at all. With that deck I consistently win no later than turn 5 95% of the time and I can do it several differnt ways. The way you suggested is the way that everybody else does elves and that isn't fun to me. And as far as the cards you suggested they suck. Green Sun Zenith let's you bring one creature out where I can Genesis Wave and bring out tons of elves.

yeah well, I took that blad and boring list to a 7 round tournament a few weeks back and it was serious fight to win every round. Every round lasted close to the 50 minutes time limit or went over it. I won 3 rounds, 2 where a draw and 2 I lost. I can't say it was boring, nor straight forward or easy in any way. It was about tactics, strategy, trying to outhink my opponent and all the hate they all seem to be packing. I played around Chalice of the void, Umezawa's Jitte, Batterskull, Sword of Feast and Famine, Force of Will, Fire//Ice, Lightning bolts, Daze, Chain lightnings, Trinisphere, Grafdiggers Cage, Glacial Chasm, Mealstrom Pulse and many more

Maybe an optimized elves build (and lets name it what it is) is boring in casual play, and I agree it is, I would never play elves in casual play because it's just to easy, it is quite a challenge winning tournaments playing such a deck. It's a very good but difficult to play deck that takes a lot of skill piloting it well. This is not a deck you rip from the web, sleeve up and win tournaments with.

You asked us what you think of your list, well it's not optimal. Does that mean anything, no, as long as you have fun with it the list is fine, it was just the answer to your question.

As for Genesis wave I actually concidered it because in formats like EDH it is broken but in competitive play and in this case competitive elves it's win more. If you have enough mana to play genesis wave it means you can already win without it as well but it's those many situations when you don't have enough mana, or you don't even have any elves in play because your opponent keeps shooting them down genesis wave is a dead card.

Green sun's zenith is one of the most powerful tutors ever printed, to say that it sucks means you don't understand its potential.

Elves is about drawing cards and while glimpse of nature clearly is a no-brainer you don't always have it or it gets countered. Simbiote + Visionary is a very potent draw engine and Green Sun fetches both pieces.
Also an optimized deck can win turn 2, that is pretty powerfull.

I've come to hate elves, not as much as Slivers but still hate them. Before you explode on me for saying it, i KNOW that its being way to harsh, But i cant help it. I've had a great deal of friends that come up with "new" elf decks, which are the same 10 elves over and over. It gets really annoying. Yeah they can be beastly decks....but its almost as bad as a sliver deck. Anyone can just toss a few slivers that share a color into a deck and call it done....Once you break it down, Elves are only slightly better because you have to understand timing for things like Wellwisher and Elvish Promenade. Sliver decks take no timing. I guess all im trying to say is that elves seem played out to me. But of course anything that makes you happy to build, Go for it, its YOUR game, not mine. :)

Played to death or not tribals are a deck type that is pushed by wizards R&D and is easy for new players to get into. It's easer to just take a bunch of elves (or whatever creature type) and make an elf deck rather then to look at all available cards and try to find synergy in what can be quite overwhelming.

I personally don't mind playing against tribals because they all share the same weakness and that is a weakness to board control and sweepers.
Slivers are the perfect example. A single sliver is never much of a problem, the sliver player has to over commit by playing multiple slivers in order to make them good, we can exploit that by sweeping the board and gaining card advantage by doing so.

Its only during these later months that i have ever played against a Tribal deck that isnt Elves, Slivers, or Goblins. Now humans seem to be the most easily accessible to beginners. I love to see weird decks that pick the strangest thing to go Tribal on....My wife has a pretty mean Merfolk Tribal, and one of my new players in our circle has expressed the desire to make a Fey deck. I can remember years ago, just at the end of Kamigawa, that a couple of my friends started playing alot of Tribal stuff, and it was always Goblins vs Elves....The Elf player wasn't quite as good as the Goblin player, but yet they still had massive epic battles that we loved to watch.