I figure it's about time to get discussion rolling on the core of the elf deck. We don't have any mana elves, and we only have two lords. Every time I look at the elf cards I lose some of my hope that elves will actually be top tier. Elf interactions in this set favour creating free elf tokens, and using the massive number of elves we eventually create as a weapon itself. Our finishers are Might of the Masses and Shaman of the Pack, in addition to swinging with our full board. I don't think a full on aggro elf deck will work very well, and it will have to be a bit more grindy. It seems very weak to board wipes to me. The one saving grace is Evolutionary Leap. With a Leap resolved we can attack without worry of losing our elves to blocks. We can block any massive threat with a 1/1 and draw a card. If we suspect a board wipe incoming we can spend our black mana every turn and hold up our green mana, then draw a ton of cards in response to the wrath.

With that in mind, I've created this as a base list:

2 x Bone Splinters
4 x Thornbow Archer
4 x Might of the Masses

2 x Despoiler of Souls
4 x Elvish Visionary
2 x Evolutionary Leap
3 x Dwynen's Elite

2 x Deadbridge Shaman
1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
3 x Jagged-Scar Archers
1 x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1 x Reclamation Sage
3 x Shaman of the Pack
2 x Wildsize

4 x Lys Alana Huntmaster
2 x Dwynen, Gilt Leaf Daen

2 x Gilt-Leaf Winnower

1 x Woodland Bellower


There are too many cards in this list, and we need to make cuts. I'll start discussion by going though my thought process on some of the borderline cards and suggesting possible cuts.

Bone Splinters: It kills our elves, and that pains me a bit. But we'll be making a ton of random 1/1s in this deck, we want to be spending a lot of mana every turn to cast more elves, and we want to be attacking with our little 1/1s if possible. Bone splinters lets us attack and prevents bombs from crushing us too. Honestly I could actually see including a third or fourth copy, but maybe this card should be cut?

Thornbow Archer: It's got 2 toughness, deals 2 damage when it attacks, and it's something proactive to do on turn 1 or a second spell to play any other turn we're forced to play behind curve. I feel like this card should be in the deck, but it's such low value including it makes me vomit. Not sure what to do here.

Despoiler of Souls: Spencer, that's not an elf! Yes, I know. But it's 3 power for 2 mana, and if it dies we can still play it again for 2 mana. There's no better 2 drop for attacking and resiliency against board wipes, so I feel like it should be in the deck if the mana can support it.

Deadbridge Shaman: One of the few elves with high power and lets us be aggressive early. It's usually a 2 for one. I kind of want 4 in the deck, but we have so many more important 3 drops we might just have to cut these guys.

Liliana/Nissa: I've never played with these guys, so I've got no idea how good they are. Do they deserve a slot?

Wildsize: We're going to have a lot of elves on the battlefield, but we're going to have a hard time attacking if every creature our opponent has is bigger than the one we have. We could drop this card and depend on our Might of the Masses to push damage though, but I feel like we might want to be using might of the masses as a finisher. is that too greedy?

Lys Alana Huntmaster: I can see cutting 2 of these pretty easily.

Woodland Bellower: 6/5 for 6 and it fetches our choice of Jagged-Scard Archers, Shaman of the Pack, or Reclamation Sage. Seems fantastic, but I guess we could cut this guy.

Reclamation Sage: We could cut this guy too depending on how many artifacts and enchantments we see.



Are there any cards you guys would rather cut than the ones above? Did I miss anything that should have been included? How do we actually build this elf deck?

Black
4 x Thornbow Archer
4 x Bone Splinters
2 x Reave Soul
2 x Read the Bones
2 x Gilt-Leaf Winnower
1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer

Green
4 x Elvish Visionary
3 x Dwynen's Elite
3 x Might of the Masses
3 x Jagged-Scar Archers
2 x Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen
2 x Lys Alana Huntmaster
2 X Wildsize

Multicolour
3 x Shaman of the Pack

Land
10 x Forest
7 x Swamp
4 x Golgari Guildgate
2 x Woodland Cemetery

I'm planing on making Tribal Elves my go to deck based on the launch card pool, and this is the rough draft I've started with.

I'm running 4 Bone Splinters as we have some nice token generation and I have no problem trading off a visionary to remove a threat. It also helps us transform Liliana. I'm backing this up with 2 Reave Souls, because you can never really have enough removal, right? I want to keep the field clear early while I build up board presence and go wide. I may tweak the numbers once I've play tested and got a feel for the early meta.

Read the Bones was an auto include because, well, it's Read the Bones! 3 mana to scry 2 then draw 2? Hell yeah. I naturally think of this as a control card but it has too much upside not to run. Shame it's not an instant (I feel I could say that about half the spells in the game, especially black) but that would break the card. Lets us dig for finishers like Shaman of the Pack.

Wildsize and Might of the Masses finish the spell count. Pump, pump, pump. Oh and some additional draw.

Creature wise we're black so Liliana is in. The best planeswalker in the game, no explanation necessary. No Nissa despite the fact she's an elf. The deck tops out at 5CMC so ramp isn't needed (not that there is any decent ramp anyway): I just don't think she fits the deck very well.

The rest is just the best of the elves. Considerations I'm thinking of:

* Running 22 lands and throwing in Evolutionary Leap.
* Speaking of land is Rogue's Passage worth looking at? With the pump and say Jagged-Scar you could get some nice dmg through.
* Adding Deathbridge Shaman. If this was 2 in the ass then it would've made the cut. As it is I have better 3 drops, but putting 3 dmg on the board turn 3 with discard added isn't shabby.
* Gather the Pack.

So I'm kinda starting to hate Shaman of the Pack. She's pretty solid but she is the only reason I can see for running B/G elves - the other black elves just aren't doing it for me. Given the pools I'd rather run G/R and maybe G/U elves if not for the Shaman - and I'm torn about running a three colour deck to include three cards. Frustrating.

Garren, I think that the removal and draw that black brings to the table in conjuction with the shaman is more than enough of a reason to run Golgari.

Black does indeed add some good support but it's nothing I couldn't get from Blue or from Red. The only thing back gives me is a massive sweeper and with an elf tribal deck there are few situations where a massive sweep wouldn't hurt me as much as it hurts he opponent.

Elves

1 drop (7)
1x Might of the Masses
2x Sunblade Elf
4x Thornbow Archer

2 drop (8)
3x Dwynen's Elite
4x Elvish Visionary
1x Evolutionary Leap

3 drop (12)
2x Jagged-Scar Archers
1x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
2x Reclamation Sage
3x Shaman of the Pack
4x Yeva's Forcemage

4 drop (8)
2x Chorus of Might
2x Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen
4x Lys Alana Huntmaster

5 drop (1)
1x Gilt-Leaf Winnower

Lands (24)
10x Forest
4x Golgari Guildgate
8x Swamp
2x Woodland Cemetery

Manabase
86% to see by Turn 4
84% to see by Turn 5

Manacurve
10-8-12-6-4

Kind of rough but it’s not bad.

Ideal opening is something like this:

Turn 1 Thornbow Archer
Turn 2 Dwynen's Elite
Turn 3 Yeva's Forcemage
Turn 4 Lys Alana Huntmaster
Turn 5 Elvish Visionary + Shaman of the Pack
Turn 6 Chorus of Might

Other cards

Sunblade Elf– bad but it enables the Dwynen's Elite

Evolutionary Leap – helps the control match-ups

Reclamation Sage – helps against thopter spy network & sac w/ flameshadow conjuring

Jagged-Scar Archers – Late game win condition with Chorus of the Might

Nissa, Vastwood Seer – Alternate win condition

I could see trying to splash White for Valor in Akros. That card is insane with Lys Alana Huntmaster on the board. The manabase would take a pretty big hit though to accommodate that.

Honorable mentions

Eyeblight Assassin - a good way to kill a perilous myr if you don’t commit anything else to the board.

Deadbridge Shaman - a good way to two-for-one aggro decks or trade up with other mid-range decks.

Lys Alana Scarblade - decent removal. The problem is that it works against our plan of putting elves on the board to kill our opponent.

Gather the Pack - a good way of ‘digging’ for win condition elves like Shaman of the Pack or Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen. The problem is that we’ll likely only be getting 1 elf out of it due to the lack of other spells in the deck.

Llanowar Empath - help with card advantage. He essentially says “draw a card” with all of the creatures. He can also help prevent flooding by scrying useless lands to the bottom.

Liliana, Heretical Healer - can help bring back a lot of important elves that may have been removed. The problem is that it deludes the deck and discarding early can be a problem for us.

Sigil of Valor can turn any elf into a Jagged-Scar Archers when it attacks.

Since there's only two copies of Dwynen lord and there are few other specific elves that can win you the game(Shaman of the Pack), it might be worth it to run a little recursion. Gravedigger doesn't mesh with Elf tribal flavourwise, but it might be okay here. The other option is Necromantic Summons, but it doesn't play into the whole 'dump many creatures on the board and add incremental value' plan.

Honestly Nissa just isn't worth running. You're not putting her down until turn 7 assuming you have the 7th land available to play (lest she be dealt with) and it's going to be anther 5 turns until you can get the ultimate off: you should have won already. Even if you play her on curve you've put a 2/2 on the field for 3 mana to fetch a land: I mean at least let me me play an additional land for the turn or something. I do see her potential, her +1 thins the deck and lets you dig, her -2 is great, but she comes online too late. Liliana has instant board presence, is very easy to transform and creates advantage just by doing so. Her only downside is the 2B casting cost. Well, I suppose her +2 isn't brilliant for us as we want to play our hand, but you only need 3 to get her ult.

I'm also holding of on reclamation sage for the time being. He could be very important, depending on the meta, but until I see there are enough enchantment/artifacts running around I'm not investing 3 mana in a 2/1.

Also, I'd definitely run removal considering how cheap it is. I'm not the biggest fan of Vinebreeder which I think you could sub out and with the token generation we have along with cards like visionary, Bone Splinters can do a lot of work. You said it yourself, you're going to find it hard to get through and if the game does go long you want to have an answer to enemy threats. Winnower just isn't enough. Plus you can flip Liliana on command.

I have been sold on Leap though and it is now in my deck along with one Rogue's Passage for testing. Thinking of dropping Wildsize for Chorus of Might too.

This is just another reason to play Liliana over Nissa.

I think the format is looking slower than many people anticipated, and I think the elf decks looks significantly weaker early on than a W or R rush deck. Paper origins has Eyeblight Massacre, which not only evens the playing field but gives elves a huge advantage over other archetypes.

Early elves are pretty **** blockers, which makes me think elves are supposed to outrace opponents and then finish with a big might of the masses or burn from shaman. But this strategy looks really poor vs. for example a renown deck. If you let their early creatures through in order to preserve your creature count then you will suddenly be facing down a wall of 3/3s or bigger.

Elves also lost the 4 mana 2/2 that draws you creatures... I forget the name. Basically Beast Hunt on an elven stick.

People hate on lifegain, but Wellwisher was a damn powerhouse in 2014. It allowed the elf deck to just ignore aggro while building up elf synergy.

All the paper Origins cards were leaked before we knew what was in Duels: Origins. I thought elves would be a powerhouse... online elves look like a paper tiger to me.

Shadow Elves ()

4 x Thornbow Archer
4 x Bone Splinters
4 x Might of the Masses
4 x Elvish Visionary
3 x Dwynen's Elite
2 x Evolutionary Leap
3 x Jagged-Scar Archers
3 x Shaman of the Pack
2 x Reclamation Sage
1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
2 x Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen
4 x Lys Alana Huntmaster
2 x Gilt-Leaf Winnower


10x Forest
6x Swamp
4x Golgari Guildgate
2x Woodland Cemetery

Without War Horn, I am kind of disappointed with elves.

Evolutionary Leap is almost mandatory to recycle your tokens into more elves to make more tokens. It also protects your elves from mass removal, just sacrifice all your elves for new ones. This will be necessary, because this will not be a very fast deck.

Still an aggro deck, just a slower one.

While I agree that they neutered elves significantly compared to it's paper counterpart, I think you're underestimating the deck if you think of it as a paper tiger, especially playing on curve. Turn 1 Thornbow, Turn 2 Elite, Turn 3 Jagged-Scar prevents white from getting any favourable trades early and stops the enemy getting any renown triggers, not to mention we have removal if needed (because you're never going to be this lucky all the time). This sequence would result in a 4/4 turn 3 with decent back up in the best case scenario. If we are very lucky and get Dwynen turn 4 then I'd say it's game over. Hell, we can still let through a little damage early thanks to Huntmaster.

If you look at the synergy between say Huntmaster and Shaman, creating big swings in life totals, elves can effect the game state dramatically for very little mana cost. I'm not saying that they won't lose to RDW more often than not, as we've yet to see the meta develop, but I still think elves will be one of the dominant forces early on (or at least when everyone has unlocked all the cards - I'm a paper player so I'll be P2W day one, the cost is next to nothing compared to drafting, and then all the gold will go towards the expansion but I digress). There aren't any meta defining cards like Rabblemaster or Brimaz for aggro this time which gives me hope that we'll have a more diverse choice of viable decks. Hell, I ran Abzan 'goodstuff' as my deck of choice last year and still had a 70% + win rate despite the prevalence of aggro which can only mean good things for this year if the meta is slower.

I'm probably more scared of decks running black than anything else. Languish is the answer to all my prayers from Duels 2015 but ironically is now my worst enemy. Hell black is probably the best colour in terms of toolbox full stop. Best draw, removal and fatties. I can really see control decks making an impact even if the blue counter spells are lackluster.

All of this is just speculation until I can actually play the game, but I'm fairly confident that elves will get me where I want to be. Winning. A lot.

So here's what I came up with. (posted in Midrange)

Nissa's Rite: Midrange

Black: 13
4 x Thornbow Archer
4 x Bone Splinters
1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
2 x Priest of the Blood Rite
2 x Gilt-Leaf Winnower

Green: 21
3 x Dwynen's Elite
2 x Evolutionary Leap
3 x Gather the Pack
1 x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
3 x Nissa's Pilgrimage
2 x Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen
4 x Lys Alana Huntmaster
2 x Outland Colossus

Multi-Color: 3
3 x Shaman of the Pack

Land: 23
6 x Swamp
7 x Forest
2 x Woodland Cemetery
2 x Rogue's Passage
4 x Golgari Guildgate
2 x Evolving Wilds

Still debating internally on the mana-base (e.g. correct mix of swamps and forests given our ramp capabilities), but I think it's close to correct. Primary goal, ramp on t3 drop a bomb on t4. Secondary goal, board flood with Elves. Sub-theme sac creatures for pseudo card draw.

Some thoughts: Lilliana, Heretical Healer is another possible means to get our bombs out of the GY as soon as she flips. The Ramp is correctly placed for our bombs. Nissa is in here mostly to fetch a land, so any suggestions that remove her are probably welcome. We have 6 ways to remove the Priest. That should be enough - although, I'm not too worried about 2 damage per turn in this deck in any case. Rogue's Passage will allow us to push through damage late game, and provides a safe channel for our elf lords, in case we wish to attack with them.

edits: -2 Swamps + 2 Forrests +2 Golgari Guildgates -2 Evolving Wilds

Simple enough... thoughts?

BiG Reanimator

1x Corpse Hauler
4x Elvish Visionary
4x Child of Night
3x Gather the Pack

1x Liliana, Heretical Healer
2x Graveblade Marauder
2x Fleshbag Marauder
1x Reclamation Sage
2x Nissa's Pilgrimage

4x Bitter Revelation
2x Languish
1x Erebos's Titan

2x Necromantic Summons
3x Rise from the Grave

1x Kothophed, Soul Hoarder
1x Woodland Bellower
2x Gaea's Revenge

Land (24)

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

sources: 18
sources: 12

Mana Curve
6-12-8-6-5-4

Looks fun rattleclaw

Adjusted the mana base on my deck... see edits for explanation. Went 4 out of 5 with it - the one loss due to insane mana screw. Mulliganed down to 5, never saw a hand with even 2 lands. Might need to bump up to 24-25. Still testing.

Recommend the following:
2x Woodland Cemetery
4x Golgari Guildgate
1x Rogue's Passage
10x Forest
7x Swamp
(24 land)
-1 Nissa for additional land

16 sources = 86% to hit double on turn 4
13 sources = 80% to hit double on turn 5

note: You can cut Rogue's Passage to get another green and black with x1 Evolving Wilds which would get you 89% (ideal is 90%) at on turn 4 and 84% at double on turn 5

Thanks... I'm going to give that a run. How are you doing your calculations btw? I'm curious - I've been looking for a good model to use for that.

Here’s a good rule of thumb

Chance of seeing a card in your opening hand (with only one 1 copy)
7/60 = 0.1167 or 11.67%
Chance of seeing two copies = 22.15%
Chance of seeing three copies = 31.5%
Chance of seeing four copies = 39.9%

More than four copies use a hypergeometric calculator
Population size = deck size
Number of success = number of cards in deck (i.e. 23 out of 60 total)
Sample size = time (i.e. turn 3 = 9 on the play or 10 on the draw)
Number of success in population = amount by time given (i.e. 3 by turn 3 or the 9th card seen)
The answer is >= x

Here is a hypergeometric calculator to use http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/h ... etric.aspx

Type in 60 for the population size (total number of cards)
Type 16 in number of success (the number of lands which produce )
Type 10 in sample size (turn 4 on the play)
Type 2 in number of success in population (how many sources of you want to see by turn 4 aka 10 cards)
The answer is Cumulative Probability P(X >= 2 ) = 0.816 (the very last box)

0.816 * 100 = 81.6

convert to percentage 81.6% and round up to 82%

To find on the draw, change 10 to 11 in sample size field

The answer is 0.861

= 86.1 * 100

= 86% rounding down this time

This method is not mine. I read and learned about it in Patrick Chapin’s Next Level Deck Building series so I have to give credit where it is due. If you want to learn more than I highly suggest picking up his book. It covers a lot more than my **** explaination. Hope this helps.

Fury of the Titans ()

4 x Elvish Visionary
4 x Gatecreeper Vine
2 x Evolutionary Leap
1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
3 x Fleshbag Marauder
1 x Reclamation Sage
4 x Nissa's Pilgrimage
1 x Erebos's Titan
2 x Languish
2 x Priest of the Blood Rite
2 x Outland Colossus
3 x Necromantic Summons
4 x Unholy Hunger
1 x Woodland Bellower
2 x Gaea's Revenge


2x Woodland Cemetery
4x Golgari Guildgate
10x Forest
8x Swamp

Nothing really new here. Ramp, ramp and ramp, and then start playing fatties. There are creatures that are hard to destroy, and even if your opponent destroy them. No problem you can bring them back even more menacing.