Panik8

Very nice, thank you for taking the time to do this. :)

Very nice, reminds me of my own, except I use Food Chain instead of Aether Vial, and you use way better lands... :P
Check it out @ http://www.mtgvault.com/panik8/decks/panikgoblin-vintage/

I agree, great deck for this style and for standard.

As far as sideboards go, I like to have Tormod's Crypt and Pithing Needle in pretty much any Standard deck. Homing Lightning or Sever the Bloodline could also work in this deck, to defend against token legions, if you play against them often.

I get it. It's always fun to build "what-if" decks without a budget limit. I like the changes you made since my last comment. 12k deck FTW! :P

It makes me want to see what's the most expensive deck I could build with all the "power 9" cards and whatever other crazy banned out-of-print and out-of-price cards out there.

Ok, let's start with the obvious... No Black Lotus? What's the point of Mycosynth Golem when all your Artifact Creatures already have Affinity for Artifact? Only 12 cards can possibly give you U mana, while some of your cards require UUU to cast..?

And what's fun about it? If you get lucky, you can probably win on Turn 3 or 4, while if you don't get lucky, you can't play anything... My idea of a fun deck is a deck that's responsive to what's happening, that can adapt to whatever situation that's thrown at you, etc... In this case, all you can do is drop as many cards as you can and hope for the best, fingers crossed. Broodstar and Chromescale Drake are pretty much the only cards that can make this work and the odds you can play them are somewhat limited.

Considering it's an Affinity deck and considering it's valued at over $7,000+, I think you could've done way better. I wish I could find something good to say about it, but I can't think of anything. Actually I can't think of a reason why anyone would play a 7k illegal deck that's not that good.

I mean, even if you manage to start with 7x 0-CCM artifacts (incl. Affinity) AND Broodstar, you'd need 3 of those Artifacts to be able to produce mana, 2 of which would have to produce U mana, so you can play a 7/7 Broodstar on 1st turn and the odds of that happening are very low.

Now, add 1x Platinum Angel, 1x Darksteel Forge, 4x Seat of the Synod, 4x Tinker, etc... and this could turn into something very good and a lot more reliable. And even then, anyone who knows how to sideboard will dominate you easily.

Sorry.

I agree you need Plains (or more Dual lands or Fetches), there's no way you can consistently play Cathar's Crusade, Growing Ranks and Sundering Growth, all of which have WW in their mana cost, with only 4 W sources. If I remember probability % right, I think you have less than 50% chance to get 2 Boros Guildgates by turn 12, while Goblin decks usually rely on aggro...

Yeah, I'm a big Elf fan and I ordered a few Green/Black cards and I'm thinking about splashing into Blue too. Seems like Mono-Green Elf is about to die...

Great Standard Elf deck, no room for Zameck Guildmage, though? Seems to synergize perfectly with Master Biomancer and, along with the Visionaries, would make this a very fast deck.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that dragon77 posted about his new deck 26 times within a 16 hours period, something he seems to do with every new deck he creates, apparently.

I'm pretty new here, so I don't know about rules and stuff, but I'd assume people don't like a spammer.

Further, I don't see how his comment was positive, considering he copy+pasta'ed it on 25 other decks.

Just sayin'. No offense.

And now that I've said it, back to your deck.

It looks great, plenty of cards to fill your GY to take advantage of those threshold abilities. I'd consider using fetch lands (like Evolving Wilds, if you want to stick with a lower budget) to fill your GY even faster and take cards out of your library at the same time.

As far as "cheap" multi-colored lands go, you could run some Simic Guildgates and/or Evolving Wilds, which are pretty cheap. Both will slightly slow you down, since they come into play tapped, however, Evolving Wilds has the bonus of being a fetch, which effectively reduces your library to 56 cards, adding reliability.

In my 5-color Sliver deck, I also run Pentad Prism, which is great since it allows me to cast a 5-color Sliver on turn 3, but I don't think it's necessary here, although it'd still allow you to play 5CCM Slivers on turn 3. Then again, considering everything has a 3CCM or lower, you're probably better off sticking with regular lands and save room for Slivers.

As far as Slivers go, I'd try to add some Brood Sliver (great for raising a large token army), Synapse Sliver (to draw cards, I like it better than Mnemonic Sliver, although Mnemonic does lets you sacrifice Sliver before they're about to die to another source), Might Sliver (to pump your Slivers even stronger) and Reflex Sliver (gives Haste to all Slivers). I'm not sure how much these cost, however, so if you want to stick to the budget, these might not be viable options.

All in all, nice deck, UG always seemed like the best 2-color Sliver combo for a deck, since it combines Flying/Haste/Unblockable/Draw/Trample abilities, making it very versatile.

I agree.

I'd also try to find cards that will draw more Elves, like Wirewood Herald, Elvish Harbinger, Skyshroud Poacher or my favorite, Sylvan Messenger.

You might also want to try a few non-basic lands, such as Wirewood Lodge or Pendelhaven, among many other options.

Finally, if you want to invest more $ into this deck, Joraga Warcaller + Immaculate Magistrate make a great combo that's game-changing in any Elf deck.

In any case, there are so many great Elf cards out there for Legacy/Vintage/Casual format, possibilities are endless, have fun! And if you want more ideas/suggestions, just let me know... :)

Artifact that makes all your Artifacts indestructible : Darsteel Forge
Artifact that makes it so you can't lose the game : Platinum Angel
Artifact that gives affinity to all artifact creatures : Mycosynth Golem
Artifact that makes every spell artifacts : Mycosynth Lattice
Blue Sorcery that let's you fetch any Artifact and put it into play : Tinker

In between those 5 cards, an Artifact deck can quickly become an unstoppable force.

Sorry I came off so "bitchy", it's a great deck, no doubt about it, only I *hate* artifact decks with a passion, a friend of mine ran one and didn't understand a few elementary rules and long story short, I ordered a few of the cards I listed in my comment above to neutralize him with any of my decks, but like I said, it's still a great deck. Look for the Artifact Creature that makes all your Artifacts indestructible and another that gives them all affinity, then add that OP Sorcery (blue, iirc) that lets you fetch any Artifact from your Library and put it into play (not sure, at worse, it's still a fetch) and add a Platinum Angel and you're (your brother) pretty much unbeatable, save for the cards listed above.

Cheers.

@LolDragonBorn: http://www.mtgvault.com/benware/

Same here, when we play among friends, we could care less for format legality and rules, as long as no one plays an infinite combo or abuses some broken mechanic (which I'm usually the culprit when it happens..., see some of my other decks, or even the Umbral Mantle + Priest of Titania infinite mana trick in my Modern Elf deck).

Likewise, I've never played a tournament (well, I played some sealed deck tourneys on Magic Online, but nothing live), although many of my friends urged me to. Good luck teaching the game to your kids and beating them ("good luck beating your kid" sounds wrong, for some reason...lol). My best friend has a 7y.o. and he already pwns us in most video games... I'm obsolete already... ;(

Let me know if/when you re-build your deck, I'm very interested to see where you'll take it, so keep me updated too. I realize I've suggested so many cards that you won't ever be able to use even half of the cards I mentionned in a regular 60-card deck... :D

Finally, I took all my decks off "private" yesterday, if you're interested in my other WMDs... :P

Cheers!

You're welcome.

And I'm sure there's plenty more options out there I didn't mention and even that I never heard of like Primal Surge, which I learned about from you, so I guess I should thank you too... Now I'm trying to find a way to play it, somehow, in one of my decks... :D

I just got back into the game a month ago, after a 8 year break from the game, so there are a lot of cards that were printed in between that I've never seen, I'm still trying to catch up.

Well, one awesome Elf you don't have and which I haven't mentionned is Sylvan Messenger. I'm not sure you really need it when you're running Primal Surge, but I love it in my Vintage Elf deck.

As far as Artifacts go, the only one to ever make it in my Elf deck is Lightning Greaves and only if I'm not playing Concordant Crossroads already.

Also, Birthing Pod does exactly what you ask, though it has limitations... "Sacrifice a creature: Search your library for a creature card with converted mana cost equal to 1 plus the sacrificed creature's converted mana cost, put that card onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.", but then again, most cards in an Elf deck are 1, 2, 3 or 4 CCM, so it's probably very manageable. Then again, Food Chain is a thousand times better. Food Chain Elves... /lulz...

Giving Haste to your entire deck, or at least your better cards is incredibly overpowered with a deck like this, although Lightning Greaves' other ability is pretty much a drawback in some cases.

Which brings me to Elvish Pipers. They're great, but not in Elf decks. You generate so much mana, so fast, that a creature that allows you to cast other creatures for free is actually sort of a waste, in the way you can play better cards than that, in my opinion.

If you haven't checked them out already, I really want to bring your attention to three cards which are incredibly great with this type of deck...

Wirewood Symbiote
Wirewood Lodge
Seeker of Skybreak

...untapping Elves is the second best thing after giving them Haste. Actually, it's even better. With cards like Immaculate Magistrate, Timberwatch Elf, Priest of Titania or Elvish Archdruid, a lot of untapping abilities will yield crazy results.

Wirewood Symbiote isn't an Elf, but it synergizes (is that a word?) so well with Elves it's crazy. Either you activate its ability to untap or to bring an Elf that's being targeted into your hand, saving it from death. You'll rarely have to use both sides of its abilities at once, but being able to use either at any time is VERY good.

Then there's Seeker of Skybreak, he just untaps, nothing incredible, but at 2 CCM, he always earns a place in my deck.

Finally, Wirewood Lodge. It's a colorless lands that also allows you to untap Elves, which is good, as was mentionned.

Wait, there's one more... I already mentionned Umbral Mantle earlier, equip that on a Priest of Titania or Elvish Archdruid with 4+ total elves in play and you have infinite mana, since tapping them will give you 4+ mana, you then use 3 of them to untap the equipped creature, rinse, repeat then cast a Joraga Warcaller with 1000 +1/+1 counters...

Your friends will hate you.

Here are links to my two Elf decks.

This one's for my "old" Elves, and is VERY powerful. I've played it 2v1 and won on turn 4...
http://www.mtgvault.com/panik8/decks/panikelf-vintage/

I'm still waiting on a few cards for the other, which is for the Modern format, but I have faith it will be fun to play, although probably not as strong as the first one.
http://www.mtgvault.com/panik8/decks/panikelf-v101modern/

Merging both would yield crazy results.

All that being said, there's endless possibilities, I've tried so many things over time and everything seems to work with an Elf deck. See what works best for you and your budget. All I offer is ideas and suggestions... :P

I've never played with Primal Surge, but see how far you can push it. I'm not sure you need to focus on land as much as I do with that spell, all you need is 10 mana, then it's GG...

Just work on a way to have it in your hand at the same time you reach 10 mana (~4th turn) consistently and you've got a killer deck.

Sorry for the wall of text, I was inspired, I guess.

I'd add 4x Llanowar Elves and/or 4x Arbor Elf to ramp your mana even faster.

First few turns should look like this...
Turn 1: Forest (1 mana total) -> Llanowar/Arbor (1 elf in play)
Turn 2: Forest (3 mana total) -> Titania+Llanowar/Arbor (3 elves in play)
Turn 3: Forest (8 mana total) -> Triple-kicked Joraga Warcaller
Turn 4: Forest (over 10 mana total) -> Primal Surge, win the game.

I'd also add a couple Lightning Greaves to give Haste to the equipped creature and protect it from being targeted. Wirewood Symbiote is also a great card with any Elf deck, since it allows you to return a creature to your hand in response to someone who'd trying to remove it. Finally, Umbral Mantle is also very good to untap your Elves, although you could also use Wirewood Lodge, Seeker of Skybreak or anything similar too.

This is obvious, but I'd try to have 4 copies of most cards and less different cards overall. Many of the cards you play are only useful in very specific conditions, which is why you normally have a sideboard.

Finally, considering you have plenty */* creatures which will easily be 20+/20+ after you play Primal Surge, I think you can do without those Auras, too.

Long story short, I'd play something like...

Creatures (32)
4xLlanowar Elves
4xArbor Elf
2xJoraga Warcaller
4xPriest of Titania
4xElvish Archdruid
4xElvish Harbinger
2xDrove of Elves
2xHeedless One
2xImmaculate Magistrate
2xAmbush Commander
2xAllosaurus Rider

Artifact (6)
2xAkroma's Memorial
2xLightning Greaves
2xUmbral Mantle

Sorcery (2)
2xPrimal Surge

Land (20)
20xForest

...and sideboard something like...

4xWirewood Symbiote (Counters removal, allows to untap)
2xNullmage Shepherd (Removes Enchantments and Artifacts opponents play)
2xJagged-Scar Archers (Kills flyers)
2xGaea's Herald (Prevents from counters)
2xTajuru Preserver (Prevents from sacrifices)
1xYeva, Nature's Herald (Flash to all creatures)
1xRhys the Exiled (Gains life)
1xEzuri, Renegade Leader (Powers-up and gives trample to everything)

...all that being said, there's nothing really wrong with your deck itself, only I'm one who believes in reliability and consistency.

Anyhow, feel free to play it as it is and have fun! If you want more ideas, let me know, I've been playing Elves for over a decade now and I have enough Elf cards to build 4 or 5 decent decks... :)

Vorel of the Hull Clade would probably work good with this, if you don't mind splashing into blue.

Hmm, just noticed at the end of my first comment, I wrote about Recruiters, I was thinking about Ringleaders, my bad. Recruiters are also good, but completely different, and banned, for a reason... :P