the thing with forces videos is that he always seems to play bad players. how can a deck be accessed properly if you constantly play bad players. his first game his opponent plays 1 creature in 6 turns being in red with no removal? then plays 2 triplicate spirits in a deck that should not have that. game 2 is exactly what its like facing izzet although that izzet deck seemed kind of bad. I lost most if not all my games against izzet players. counter spells and burn are rough on this deck. game 3 he has a hand with 2 timberwatches. timberwatch is what makes this deck work if you don't draw him early then the deck falls apart as its suppose to nuke quickly. many of my games yielded no timberwatch until it was too late. and look at the player in game 3. does not know what he/she is doing, why would you not block the 4/3 and sac wall and kill spire? the games he played excluding game 2 were slow as hell and the opponents didn't do anything they technically just sit there. this is why I don't watch this stuff.

pioneer would allow you to get your elfs out faster, especially timberwatch. and when I say pump yes I mean more combat tricks. not to mention they aren't mana sinks and produce soo much value in green. I too gravitated to other cards other than paragon. paragon is good when you can go wide but a lot of times I couldn't. what am I going to go wide with swing with 3 1/1 elfs? for 4 and lose 2? the trample effect of paragon is sweet and synergizes with timberwatch well. maybe gods willings would be a good addition as if timberwatch is gone what is there left to do. swing with a bunch of 1/1?

decks that hurt me were any decks with removal that would blow up timberwatch. when I lost him I lost the game. mid range hurt this deck as well as there are no flyers except spire. by the time you can make spire a threat its around turn 4 by which time if opponent is on the play has 5 mana is thus is starting to play bigger things. also by turn 4 in a perfect scenario I can have 6 elves on the field. spire on t1, spire and spire on t2, timber on t3 and 2 elvish visionaries on t4. we all know this would be very very unlikely to obtain and realistically I have been able to get around 4 elves out by t4. t1 spire, t2 visionary, t3 timber and t4 something else. so on turn 4 I can theoretically swing and get in 5 damage. that's only going to work if I don't face any removal what so ever and nothing to block my creatures. most of the time by t5 players will take the damage as well and hold off blockers when it becomes fatal while doing what they do to kill me. where as in mono green by t4 you could swing with primal bellow for a 1cmc +4/+4 and titanic growth for another 4/4 on top of timber to yield +3/+3 and swing for 12 on t4. now that's how an elf deck is suppose to run. like an infect deck where winning by t4 is a real thing. with no removal in this deck other than making blocks and pumping up with timber and sigil you are screwed if your ever in a position of being on the defensive, if ever your not swinging your losing. maybe im playing thie deck wrong and im trying to play it too much as an aggressive swing or die but I don't see this deck lasting in the late game.

as for curving out most of the time I would get mana flooded. and when I don't have a spire what good is hunters prowess on a 1/1 that is going to get chump blocked. when I hit with a full prowess on an unblockable spire and pumped with timberwatch hell yea it was great but you need all the pieces for these things to work. and not every game is going to yield all the pieces. or they might and they get removed.

my final thoughts are, to go white for the addition of mentor is too slow, sigil blessing is good pump when you have a lot of tokens not a few elves and evangel is good but not good enough to jump ship from mono green, its too bad she didn't make elf tokens . good luck with further testing.

Would God's willing be a solution to that problem? Protecting timberwatch for 1 turn seems like all you need to do vs red. I haven't tested the deck yet to know what to cut.

Also would mycoloth be any good here?

This list is crying out for Wandering Wolf.. you can just spin it as if the Wolves are the trusty pets of their elven masters. That way.. it can still be called a tribal

I know Hakeem was intending to spin the deck and give some feedback and based on your comment here, I'd appreciate it if you could spin it too? I'd be glad to hear your input as well.

I bumped my old posts again to update the list (especially since Force linked to the older version). I added the last Sigil Blessing and 1 Genesis Hydra for flood (cut a land and a Paragon).

I've dabbled with the Gods Willing option and the protection is nice but it doesn't help the deck speed up or make much of a difference in winning. As Stag said, it's basically a watered down version of tokens and has the same limitations (but not as fast therefore not as threatening).

elk

I will do this tonight, elk, because I am off work tomorrow. I think what I may end up doing, though, is blending this deck with eon's Wolf Tribal concept and go for an unblockable concept with Timberwatch Elf to support it. Wheels are spinning and I may keep it monogreen for Primal Bellow. Your only white cards are Evangel, Blessing, and Mentor and I think we can play without them.

So I'm in the deck editor wondering why no one has been talking about Advocate of the Beast in Elf Tribal? You have to run a lot of bad elves to make Timberwatch really good so I think we can mash up the Elf and Beast themes into a single deck. I'm going to brew it up now and play a few games.

It was why it started out green (I didn't think they were entirely worth it until I found out how much card draw I wanted). Elvish Pioneer actually was one of the catalysts for why I needed so much card draw (in a turn or two your hand was just gone) and why I felt Mentor was such a necessity. It was mentioned that Elvish Pioneer was just a 1/1 and not really worth it but then again the deck is basically just a collection of little 1/1's (more or less). If the deck could keep up with Pioneer than it may not be a bad idea to include again (it would give the deck 8 one drops and 8 two drops which could help get out faster?). Running Hunter's Prowess has really helped though and the original version did have Primal Bellow; which in conjunction with Prowess, is insane card draw and a great win condition (it appears in my mono green stompy deck).

Having said that, Selesnya Evangel, Mentor of the Meek and Sigil Blessing have been quite successful (especially Blessing) in this deck. Mentor and Evangel are slow overall but they help get wide (or critical mass for Beastmaster) and create infinite draw.

Regardless, it would be nice to hear your input on the deck(s) (preferably on the original tribal theme before getting into a meshed variation where the elves have pet wolves )

elk

I played the deck for five games, elk, and here are some thoughts.

Spire Tracer and Reclamation Sage felt really, really bad (especially Sage). Evangel plus Mentor is known to be awesome but Evangel plus the Green Paragon was really sweet. I was iffy on Beastmaster Ascension, but it worked and I generally wanted to draw it. Sigil Blessing as a four-of seemed excessive, but it was good when I didn't draw too many of them. I drew Hunter's Prowess a few times and it wasn't that great for me, probably a product of sample size, though. I ran into mostly aggro decks on this tour. I didn't draw Elder of Laurels and I'm not sure he's necessary here, but mana sinks are always good so I can't really evaluate him based on such a small sample size. Genesis Hydra was really weird, what are you digging for? I suppose the Paragon can give him trample, but I think I'd rather just have Baneslayer Angel or some other dumb Mythic Rare card. I think Mycoloth would have been good here.

The games were pretty quick overall, either I got going and won or I didn't and didn't. There's no interaction so it can feel a bit helpless at times, but I don't think you want to water down the deck's aggression for interactivity. I think Stag was pretty close when he said that this is just a slightly slower version of Selesnya tokens, but it still wins games. I don't think you want to be in the business of playing bad elves to support Timberwatch, though (cough, Sage, cough).

Well that was a collection of random thoughts, haha! Hopefully it doesn't read too poorly. If you have any specific questions let me know.

The biggest thing for me was Evangel plus the Paragon, pooping out one-mana 2/2s at instant speed is pretty insane.

After much time in the deck editor and some field testing, I've come up with a deck featuring Timberwatch Elf. Any deck with Timberwatch needs a certain density of elves to make him work, but I didn't want to build so heavily around him that it was the sole focus of the deck. To that end I included Advocate of the Beast, which provided the deck with another avenue of card choices to explore.

The main theme of the deck is evasion plus pump.

Here is the manchild of the Timberwatch/Advocate union:



Spire Tracer is a cheap Elf that fits the curve and evasion plan.

Elvish Visionary is pretty much a no-brainer in any Elf-themed deck because it's cheap and cantrips.

Selesnya Evangel is really here just because of the curve and creature type, but she is very solid and provides a lot of long-term advantage if not removed.

Advocate of the Beast has solid stats in this Shock-heavy metagame, is an elf for Timberwatch, and has tremendous value if you can stick a Beast next to him.

Battering Krasis isn't the greatest card, but it has trample out of the box and grows via Evolve and Advocate. Evasion is key here.

Timberwatch Elf is the build-around card and works wonderfully with the flying and trample to push through damage. The 1/2 body is actually pretty decent, too, because it evolves Battering Krasis.

Brimaz because yeah.

Primal Huntbeast is really good here because the hexproof makes him a fairly safe target for the Advocate counters and it makes sure you don't get blown out when you cast a Hunter's Prowess. If nothing else, it's a ton of lifegain with a Battlegrace Angel on board.

Baneslayer Angel because yeah.

Battlegrace Angel is insane here, take my word for it. With the deck's evasion and access to pumps from Timberwatch, you will be pushing through a ton of damage while gaining a ton of life. Crazy card in this deck.

Hunter's Prowess is a very strong card but weak to disruption. Primal Huntbeast mitigates the risk, though, because now you can play it when your opponent is tapped out or just slam it on your hexproof dude without worry. I hear drawing cards is good, too.

Terra Stomper is a Beast. Enough said.

Criticism is welcomed.

Hakeem. What do you think about Aura Gnarlid in place of Primal Huntbeast or Battering Krasis.

It is a Beast for Advocate of the Beast and while you don't have Aura to pump it up, I could see Timberwatch Elf, Hunter's Prowess and Battlegrace Angel working well with them because of the pseudo unblockable.

ATM it just feels a bit like a slower version of Selesnya tokens. I'm finding the lack of removal situation hurts big time in this meta game where there is a lot I want out of the way (particularly with aggro or Naya mid-range) and it just doesn't heft late game like it feels it should.

I'm not a huge fan of white-green for the removal side anyway. Now your Grixis decks, those I can get behind (control sucker at heart <). Just thought I'd give this a few rounds to see how it handled, the only matchup I beat was mono-green elves due to his muligan to 3.

I'll try:

-1 Triumph of Ferocity
-2 Battlegrace

+3 Divine Verdict

The draw doesn't seem as frequent against mid-range or needed against aggro, but this deck needs something for the early Rune Scared Demon or Baneslayer.

Krasis could easily become Gnarlid, I will certainly test that swap.

BBF, I changed the deck after a few rounds because the curve was a bit too high so I got rid of the Triumph of Ferocity along with the Paragons for Spire Tracers. Again, the theme here is evasion plus pump so she fits that plan while lowering the curve significantly.

I wouldn't cut the Battlegrace Angels, they are just amazing here. If you want removal you should probably look at Arrest, but I think the options in WG are so weak that generally it's better to just load up on threats. I could be wrong, though.

Just had another example of Izzet burn just wiping me out. Had 3 Advocates, a Battlegrace and Visionary. All for naught against a 7/7 Chasm Skulker with repeat Artful Dodges. Seems every deck I'm facing has that one faster, more persistent threat and removal for mine.

Hakeem, what about Reprisal combined with Timberwatch? A bit of a stretch but instant speed removal all the same.

I mentioned that earlier in the thread and I thought about it. Perhaps it is the way to go? I was actually thinking about the synergy between Arrest and Aura Gnarlid, but Reprisal could just be better because of the instant-speed and cheaper casting cost.

OMG you guys.. seriously.

Just put in Wandering Wolf. Krasis, Huntbeast and Advocate are slow and lame. Just put in the Wolf, Masked Admirers (elf, draw and a decent body) with Prey Upon. Pump up the Wolf, swing, Prey Upon whatever scares you. I still like Terra Stomper a lot in this list.. if he gets to attack.. with Timberwatch help.. its likely GG in 1 or 2 turns.

Edit: You can also pump Masked Admirers if you need a little more front end power, Prey Upon something, then recur him. Also.. Vengevine.

I actually still want to try eon's Wolf Tribal theme, so I stayed away from the Wolves. I don't feel like there's enough pump in this list to consistently make Wandering Wolf good, though. Without an active Timberwatch he really wouldn't do much here.

Advocate may be slow, but it's inevitable. Huntbeast is a safe outlet for Hunter's Prowess, as well.

And Masked Admirers is pretty bad IMO.

Good input, though, everyone. How about this?

I posted in that 'lets talk about cards' thread about Masked Admirers bc I think its worth discussing when and why he's bad or isn't. I think it warrants discussion.. and I'd like to not clog up another decklist with off topic banter. I think he'd be good in this list.. he chumps well and typically removes blockers when he attacks while keeping your hand stocked. Also.. he's an Elf.

I also feel Prey Upon is better in this list, as it hits the obnoxious Izzet creatures, paragons, and various other 2/2s.

I don't think this is a workable archtype. Elves are currently a few key cards short of viability, and I don't think making a hybrid archetype works, especially when the other tribal option is lacking too, and you're in arguably the most powerful colour pair.

I'm all for trying to make something thematic work, but I think this is as dead an end as the Zombie/Vampire hybrids people attempted before the MoM DLC made Vamps viable on their own.

I agree that it's certainly not going to be topping any tier lists, but I think Timberwatch is a powerful card that's worth building around because it's a common and therefore a reliable draw.

My other thought is to go Gruul and add the Marauding Maulhorns along with Fling. Pumping up a creature with Timberwatch and then throwing it at someone's face seems like it could be fun.