Discussion Forum

See title. My main standard deck is elves, and it works quite well, but they never seem to show up in tournaments. I generally match up decently against the big archtypes when people play them at my local game store. For extreme aggro like tempered steel and kuldotha red, I can generally get enough elves out to survive the first 5 or 6 turns, and after that they run out of gas while my elves just keep building up. I win at least 1/2 my games against them, maybe even 2/3. Valukut ramp is simple, I can almost always outrace it. Nearly 100% win chance against it. There isn't a very strong control presence where I play, but when I come against it I can generally eat through their counters with piles of elves, then just throw more out once they've run dry, thanks to stuff like Nissa and Lead the Stampede. Cawblade typically presented a problem, but game 2 I would sideboard in Ezuri's Archers and various other tools, and put up a decent fight. Combo decks like Splinter Twin, I either outrace or sideboard in fun stuff like nature's claim/naturalize/beast within. Killspell-heavy decks like RDW and vampires were much the same as counter, I always have more elves to replace the ones they killed. Now that M12 gave elves a 1/1 hexproof and those amazing hexproof boots, my matchup should be even more favorable vs them.

Despite all that, elves are never considered a serious contender, even at my store where I regularly place highly in tournaments. What makes them inferior to the big, popular archtypes? I've never seen any major weakness in them, except cawblade with pro-green and flying everywhere.