I'd kill for an Eternal Witness, that would be amazing. I could come a lot closer to building the *real* Endless Waltz if we had her.

Dungrove Elder... lol

Heh...

Four Winnowers?.. But they're rare

My Golgari Control deck that was 8-1 last week and mentioned in my Duels Diaries - Week 3 post.

3 Perilous Myr
4 Gatecreeper Vine
3 Elvish Visionary
2 Evolutionary Leap
3 Gather the Pack
1 Liliana, Heretical Healer
1 Nantuko Husk
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1 Jagged-Scar Archers
3 Reclamation Sage
3 Gravedigger
1 Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen
1 Priest of the Blood Rite
1 Gilt-Leaf Winnower
3 Cruel Revival
1 Woodland Bellower
1 Gaea's Revenge
7 Swamp
7 Forest
2 Woodland Cemetery
4 Golgari Guildgate
4 Evolving Wilds

13 Black, 20 Green, 3 Colorless
28 creatures, 8 spells, 24 lands
15 two drops, 10 three drops, 4 four drops, 5 five drops, 1 six drop, 1 seven drop

The deck tries to work like this -
(a) Find a creature card that works best against your opponent (gather the pack, evo leap)
(b) Use gravedigger and cruel revival gravedigger to play that creature over and over and over.
(c) Win with with whatever creatures you happen to have around.

[ngacard] tags are for nga constructed cards.
Use [card] tags for actual mtg cards.
Also, when you number the cards, you can use [deck] tags so you don't have to card each individual card.

Thanks, I'm basically an idiot with using these forums so I appreciate the help

CovertGo Blue i think your golgari control deck is missing 3 cards

Interested in this deck so fixed the quotes to see it better.

TL;DR - Awesome deck is awesome

I might have to try out this deck too. I'm curious how well creatures like the Archer and Dwynen perform when they are so conditionally dependent on a lot of Elves to be fully utilized. I like the graveyard interaction base in this deck, and I might try to rely on that mechanic with the sac ability off Evolutionary Leap. Personally, I would opt for Fleshbag Marauder for early game board control. With Perilous Myr it can often give you a 2-for-1 trade and it makes a decent Cruel Revival target after an Evolutionary Leap dig; it also works well with Liliana's second ability. The other card I'm not completely sold on is Elvish Visionary because I've definitely pulled one up in the mid-late game off Evolutionary Leap when I needed something much more substantial. I look at Bitter Revelation for a draw engine and to get the graveyard going. Basically my philosophy with Leap is that I want every creature I pull to give me some sort of board advantage through utility. I also consider Necromantic Summons to be a viable option. It's just too awesome in a deck with Gaea's Revenge, and it having +2/+2 with a protection from everything not green is a huge advantage in this format. Lastly, Reave Soul is an amazing early game removal option. Languish simply decimates aggro decks, and with the revival tech in this deck doesn't completely leave you stranded. It can also put big creatures within Reave Soul range if Cruel Revival isn't available. That would round out the removal package to be Perilous Myr Reave Soul Fleshbag Marauder Cruel Revival and Languish with graveyard interaction and card draw. Here's what I put together:
Creatures
4 x Perilous Myr
4 x Gatecreeper Vine
1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
3 x Fleshbag Marauder
1 x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
3 x Reclamation Sage
3 x Gravedigger
1 x Kothophed, Soul Hoarder
1 x Gaea's Revenge

Spells
3 x Reave Soul
4 x Read the Bones
2 x Languish
3 x Cruel Revival
1 x Necromantic Summons

Enchantments
2 x Evolutionary Leap

Lands
12 x Swamp
6 x Forest
4 x Golgari Guildgate
2 x Woodland Cemetery


Creatures: 21
Spells: 13
Enchantments: 2

Mana Curve (starting at 2CC): 13-12-5-4-2

Basically, I want a control deck that can counter aggro, thopter, and elves. I main UR Thopter and it's pretty much the standard I use to create any other decks against because it presents as aggro and transitions to control in the mid-late game. Other aggro decks can't keep pace and control decks tend to die before they can set up. This deck has the removal for the early game, big board clear, and finishes with strong creatures that can't be hit easily with burn damage. Also, the fact that a lot of the creatures' abilities trigger when they hit the board means that burn/bounce isn't as punishing. Even if they're countered/killed, the revival mechanics will likely kick in. Reclamation Sage will ruin artifact decks that rely on Thopter Spy Network and can act as creature removal against key cards like Chief of the Foundry. One I see with this iteration is when it comes to flyers, but hopefully, with 15 removal effects in the deck, it will be manageable. I also am looking at Shadows of the Past to counter the loss of life cards and stabilize in the mid game against aggro (interacts incredibly well with Evolutionary Leap, making Perilous Myr and Fleshbag Marauder amazing; sac, scry 1, deal 2 damage or force your opponent to sac a creature, and fetch a replacement). Also, with it on the board and a well timed Languish I've definitely benefitted from the Scry mechanic for huge numbers. Hopefully I get a chance to see how it does in this matchup at some point today.

EDIT/UPDATE: Went 12-1 in ranked games. I made some changes that helped with the longer games:
-1 Gatecreeper Vine, -1 Read the Bones, +2 Shadows of the Past. It gives you a late game finisher with a lot of life swing to recover against aggro/RDW; the scry goes nuts with this deck and ensured I wasn't either mana screwed in the early game, or mana flooded in the late game. Even against high spell count/low creature decks, enough of my board is bouncing in and out of the graveyard it somewhat operates independently of control decks and still gives me a lot of card advantage. It scales so nicely in every stage of the game and works well with Kothophed, Soul Hoarder (which I found is a nice alternative to Elvish Visionary. I got lucky and Nissa, Vastwood Seer hit the board quite a bit, and when she flipped, gave me huge card advantage. Her 4/4 token is awesome after a board wipe too. I even used her as a chump blocker against aggro knowing full well she would drop mid-late game off revival tactics. Languish is simply amazing in this deck. As I suspected, the 'comes into play' triggers off creatures meant that early game trades with aggro gave me an advantage; especially against White where so many of their creatures have Renown. The winners for me were Fleshbag Marauder and Reclamation Sage; they just don't stay dead... and in a meta where people like to run artifact tokens with enchantments on em, the Sage would often nab 2-for-1 when it dropped. You'll definitely want to run Reave Soul because it stops early aggro and shuts down essential creatures like Willbreaker, Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen, and Lys Alana Huntmaster; it also hits every single Planeswalker before they flip. Super happy with this deck and excited to keep playing it.

I like the deck wildchild. You have the standard black control / card advantage package plus a splash of green for mana / artifacts and enchantments / and the almighty evolutionary leap.

One suggestion I would make would be to at least test bitter revelation instead of read the bones. In a deck with 3 gravediggers and 3 necromantic summons, I think the option of binning a creature for later use would be attractive. Hard to tell if the CMC increase would make a difference.

That's something that I plan on testing. To be honest, I really didn't use Read the Bones too much. In the early game I felt like I had enough options through opening spell/creatures where those 3 mana were better spent elsewhere. By the late game, I had enough board control and card advantage anyway. The one advantage I give Bitter Revelation over Read the Bones is that it gets Shadows from the Past online much faster and the spell mastery in Summons; in an aggro matchup, that might make a huge difference and gives the graveyard enough targets to rez. Also, it's a 4 drop in a deck saturated with crucial 3 drops. The only other 4cc I have is Gravedigger and Languish, which early in the game are entirely situational, so Bitter Revelation makes more sense because it's not competing with the opening utility creatures. Turn 5 opens up Revival and Summons which I might want at that point, especially if I can drop a 10/7 Gaea's Revenge or 8/8 Kothophed (OK in the middle of writing this I realized this scenario would be awesome). I'm definitely going to test it; it fills a much needed role and I think the 1 casting cost more doesn't hurt the curve considering the potential threats that could be dropped on turn 5. I'm only running 1 Necromantic Summons right now as an alternative win condition. Against a mono-black matchup I fetched a Priest of the Blood Rite with it. I want to play around with ways to possibly run 2-3 if it can drop a t5 win condition and give it +2/+2.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll let you know how it turns out.

So, after playing with the (lame) default BG deck I've stumbled upon the situation where Lys Alana Scarblade actually performed well and helped me to get rid of 2 or 3 pretty dangerous creatures I wouldn't be able to kill otherwise. I had never considered running her before and didn't notice her in any presented deck lists so, I want to ask your opinion on that card. Certainly, it seems counter-intuitive to discard and elves when you're trying to amass them on the table but taking in account that we're usually running light on removal in aggro-oriented decks (and BG elves are 80% 'trying' to be aggro) and killing creatures with elves using elves is kinda convinient. It's instant speed and you still have an elf on the table.

Downside is, of course, discarding some valuable lords or having no way to retun them (except for Lili, if you're not running any 4 or 5cmc GY recursion). But, this enables mind games during the combat - your opponent will guess whether or not you will weaken his guys to kill them off. This trick requires more elves than you have at the start though.

So a few of you may remember a couple pages back when I was wondering if running Black was even worth it in an elf deck. Well now that I've had a chance to play the game some I would like to say I was wrong. Like hilariously wrong. B/G elves are pretty lethal and I'd honestly run that colour combinations just for access to Shaman of the Pack alone. She turns up and wins duels. Here's my current list.

Elven Supremacy
x3 Dwynen's Elite
x2 Evolutionary Leap
x3 Gather the Pack
x4 Deadbridge Shaman
x3 Eyeblight Assassin
x3 Jagged-Scar Archers
x1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
x3 Shaman of the Pack
x3 Elemental Bond
x2 Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen
x4 Lys Alana Huntmaster
x2 Gilt-Leaf Winnower
x3 Necromantic Summons
x24 Assorted Lands (with an obvious lean towards Forests)

It's been proving brutally effective thus far. It's slow as molasses going up hill in winter (I'd charitably call it mid-range) and it folds if a Languish even looks at it funny (then again so do most decks that don't run counters) but it's capable of holding it's own. Strategy is pretty simple - mostly I hold my guys back using there bodies are ablative armour, swinging in for what little damage I can hear and there all the while raking in cards and building numbers until I drop a Shaman for the kill. Let's talk about a couple of key cards.

Evolutionary Leap: By no means essential it allows me to cycle all my dying elves (or more often then not just my 1/1 elf tokens) into something more useful. Best case scenario I hit Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen or a Shaman of the Pack and krump the enemy right then and there. Worst case I get another elven body - which helps me out anyway.

Gather the Pack: I wasn't a big fan of throwing away four cards but I made some efforts to compensate for the discard and the ability to quasi-tutor up whatever elf you need for a given situation is a powerful ability. Retains usefulness both early and late game to fish me up a lord to build my forces or a Shaman to finish the game off.

Elemental Bond: 16 cards which trigger this (+3 for Jagged-Scar Archers) which increases to 25 cards once Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen turns up (which with Gather the Pack isn't a difficult thing). It's card advantage all over the place. My biggest gripe is the fact the card isn't a 'may' ability so I've occasionally found myself drawing far more cards then I actually need. Still more cards means more elves which means more victory.

Necromantic Summons: For getting back that key elf that just died or was discarded by Gather the Pack. Not much else to say.

Not to mention the excellent other options.. The 1 cost black elf is great! The winnower is amazing! How you didn't see that black was probably the most viable other half of the elf build is beyond me! (no offense, all in fun!)

I ran her for a while but in my particular version of this deck she just didn't make the cut. She was too small to trigger Elemental Bond even when buffed which meant she would have to perform brilliantly to find a place in the deck. Unfortunately I found it to be an exceptional rarity that her ability would do something I couldn't have achieved by just throwing other elves at the problem. If her ability didn't require her to tap or was a 'Sacrifice an Elf; etc' effect I'd run her in a heartbeat but as is she just doesn't make the cut.

I can see her being more effective in an aggro-ish elf deck but honestly if you're running your elf deck as an aggro deck you're doing it wrong. Or at least I think so anyway.

I know. I still think there is something to be said for a U/B/G elf deck with counters for Languish and other sweepers but I didn't really realize just how brutal the deck could be.

Though for the record I'm not a fan of Thornbow Archer - though that's probably because I run this deck while barely ever attacking.

Give him a fair shot.

With him, turn two has the potential to see you with 3 elfs on board. (plus his extra damage can add up some games and his 2 toughness can help vs many early plays)

Opinions on this one?

4x Perilous Myr
3x Undercity Troll
4x Reave Soul
3x Gather the Pack
2x Graveblade Marauder
3x Fleshbag Marauder
1x Reclamation Sage
4x Undead Servant
2x Languish
2x Bitter Revelation
2x Cruel Revival
3x Necromantic Summons
1x Woodland Bellower
2x Gaea's Revenge
11x Swamp
11x Forest
2x Woodland Cemetery

I had something pretty similar, but not as well done, i m pretty new to magic and learning, last time i played was 15 years ago when i was 15 and i m glad i m back on it, wasted 30 dollars on the biggest coin pack to get some cards, and now i built a "similar" deck, cause i don't have all the cards works pretty well i love it

If you don't mind updating that set, if you make changes to it, i m following that

Thanks a lot for the great work man