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One Elf, Two Elves, All the Elves (Tier 1)

Pauper Aggro Budget Competitive Elves GU (Simic)

Skwarka


Sideboard


Maybeboard


Have you ever wanted to play a deck with obscenely few lands? Or a deck that put out an ungodly number of creatures at a ridiculous pace? Then I got your back my friend. Let's jump down the rabbit hole in to the wonderful world of pauper elves!

Card Breakdown

This is how you get the mana to play your spells.

Forest


Is a tree, it makes mana. I know 9 seems a bit low, but as long as you get at least one in your opening hand you should more or less be set.

Land Grant


It's not a fetch land I know. It is however about as close as you can get to having one. This card esientally functions as a fetch because it thins out your deck and if you need to cast it it is free.

This is a double category, dorks are just one mana 1/1's that tap for mana. Dorks++ all generate mana, but also serve some additional purpose.

Elvish Mystic


Your Standard one mana dork, the reason for the split is to avoid getting blown out by any cards like Echoing Decay.

Fyndhorn Elves


Your Standard one mana dork, the reason for the split is to avoid getting blown out by any cards like Echoing Decay.

Llanowar elves


Your Standard one mana dork, the reason for the split is to avoid getting blown out by any cards like Echoing Decay.

Birchlore Rangers


This is one of the best cards in the deck. It is the only way to make blue mana for Distant Melody. Important note here, this ability is not affected by summoning sickness, and as such is a better late game play as you can drop it and immediately tap it (and another elf) for mana. This will be explained further in the How to Play Section when I talk about the engine.

Priest of Titania


MY QUEEN. This card is by far the best way to generate mana. If you have a Quirion Ranger out it is not hard to generate 30+ mana in a single turn. With her in play you can almost always just spit out your hand onto the field like your hand is a mob informant and the field is the east river.

Quirion Ranger


This f*cking card, oh my god. Okay so you can use this ability to do almost anything, and has more often than not been the key to winning games. And in multiples? Sweet Jesus. You want vigilance, sure I guess. Wanna double up on Titania or Timberwatch Elf activations? Hell yeah you do. Up against burn? This and a Wellwisher left unchecked can easily put the game out of reach. One of my personal favorite plays is to turn one a forest and a dork, then turn two tap the dork and float the forest to play this. Then use this to untap the dork and replay the forest. You just turned one land into four mana.

These just don't really fit into another catagory, but they are still important to the deck.

Elvish Vanguard


Not gonna lie, as far as I have seen this card is only so-so. Like, it isn't bad, but it just feels kinda lacking compared to the other cards. That being said, this in the mirror match is pretty nice because it triggers on any elf, not just your elves.

Elvish Visionary


Eh. Two mana draw a card, relevant creature type, i'll take it sure.

Timberwatch Elf


Aw yis, finally an Elf Boi I actually like. This is very often the card you'll use to win games. Get a single creature through with one of these and a Quirion Ranger or two (or any split really) and you'll close out the game. Also, you should almost never swing with this card. Like, ever.

Wellwisher


This card is very situational and it will make the game go on forever. Like, if you are on MTGO you best play quick if you don't wanna timeout. Although if you can get one of these down against burn and they don't kill it, you pretty much win.

These are how you get the ball rolling and are as close to soft locks as you can get

Lys Alana Huntmaster


This is on of those cards that is really easy to break, if you have one or two of these, or one of these and a Nettle Sentinel as well as a Birchlore Rangers you can infinitely cast one drops, which is not hard to set up in this deck what with having 19 of them. Also, once you stick one of these you'll start pumping out tokens like they are E. Coli and the board is room temperature Canadian beef.

Nettle Sentinel


There is a reason that this card makes up half the budget, and let me tell you, it is worth every penny. You can you this card as a cornerstone of this decks engine, or swing in with it and untap it second main phase no sweat. Also, it's a 2/2 for one, there was once a time cards like this had to be legendary to see print. Buy them, run them, love them.

More elves are always better

Distant Melody


Yeah, so this is a common for some reason? I know what you're thinking, "Skwarka, a blue spell with no Islands or Dual Lands???" Yes. That's what Birchlore Rangers is for. Let me tell you, when you play this card it will not be uncommon for you to draw 4-8 cards. Like if you get this off and you're not terribly behind (though you have to be doing decent to even play it) you'll have all the cards you'll need.

Lead the Stampede


You will, I promise. This deck has 40 creatures in it, if you cast this and manage to totally whiff on it, I'll be beyond amazed. This is a card that is good ahead or behind, because it can catch you up, or it can put too much of a gap between you and your opponent.

Sorry to disappoint, but this area is still under construction :(

How to Play

This deck is pretty straight forward, play elves wreck face. But there are still some basic guidelines to playing this deck as well as some useful play tricks to know

  • If you can't play magic you can't win. Mull any opening hand until you can see a way to get 3 mana by turn three.
  • If you can play a dork turn 1, do it. This helps you get to more explosive plays quicker
  • You can use Birchlore Rangers ability the turn they come into play. You can also use Birchlore on creatures that came into play this turn as the ability ignores summoning sickness.
  • Quirion Ranger can be used both on your turn and on your opponent's turn, so don't be afraid to abuse it as most of your mana comes from your creatures anyway. Also, if you only have one land on the field and none in hand you can tap that land, bounce it with the ranger, and replay it to squeeze out a bit more mana from it.
  • It is also important to note that the abilities of Elvish Vanguard, Timberwatch Elf, Wellwisher, and Priest of Titania count ALL elves, not just the ones you control.
  • Be wary of over-using Distant Melody in those extra long games as it is draw and can mill you out. This is not true of Lead the Stampede however, so use it all you want.

Engine…?

The engine for this deck is pretty simple. It revolves around Birchlore Rangers (the drive) and mixes of Lys Alana Huntmaster and Nettle Sentinel (the fuel). Now this only goes pseudo-infinite by basically making your spells free. Since Nettle Sentinel untaps when you cast a green spell and Lys Alana Huntmaster creates a token when you cast an elf spell you essentially get a refund for mana on green elf spells.

It works like this:

  1. Have Birchlore Rangers in play.
  2. For every one mana in the converted mana cost of the spell you want to cast you will need some mix of two “fuel” creatures.
  3. Cast your “free” spell
  4. Watch your opponent cry
It is best to have this backed up by a Priest of Titania + Quirion Ranger and some draw so you can just spew your whole deck onto the field.

Match-ups and Sideboarding

Don't Just Take My Word For It

Dev over at SBMTG also did a review of this type of deck, and his list is pretty much the same, so if you want another take on this deck check with him and see what he has to say


Now even the professor has added his input, so check that out too!


Thank You For Stopping By!

Help the poor starving elves.

Comments and suggestions welcome!

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Revision 11 See all

(2 years ago)

Top Ranked
  • Achieved #2 position overall 6 years ago
Date added 6 years
Last updated 2 years
Legality

This deck is Pauper legal.

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 2.06
Tokens Elf Warrior 1/1 G, Morph 2/2 C
Folders Elves, Pauper, Green, Budget Decks, Pauper, Ideas, Pauper, Pauper, decks i like, Mοδερν τοπ δεψκ
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