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Elves are everywhere.
This is not It's Raining Elves (1st at FNM) by Skwarka, but more of a budget homage to it. I've been playing with new budget decks on MTGO and this one is only .75 TIX online, and only $18 on paper. Playtesting shows a lot of promise. Though it won't be as fast and therefor not as competitive, it is just as deadly and is a bit more accessible to those who want a powerful Elf deck for Standard to play at home or maybe stir things up at their local FNM.
To win all you have to do is play as many elves as possible as fast as possible. The two main win condition pieces are pretty simple:
Drop a Shaman of the Pack to deal a damage for every elf on the board, then attack with everything and cast Foul-Tongue Shriek. If that's not quite enough damage and even a single creature goes unblocked, which is likely, hit it with
Might of the Masses
.
Only need 5 mana to do all 3 in the same turn, but to be the most effective you should wait until you have as many elves as possible and can guarantee lethal. By turn 5 you could actually have quite a few elves out already and at least put your opponent in a really bad place. If you wait too long, you could get burned down and unable to get back up. Too soon, and you might not get enough damage to win first.
Don't be afraid to take damage. You can gain everything back and then some with a single attack from both Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen and Foul-Tongue Shriek. The best thing you can hope for is to be up against someone aggressive that leaves an open table that doesn't think you can kill them faster than they can kill you. They'd be wrong.
Any kind of control or burn that keeps your numbers limited is going to be a problem. There isn't really an answer to that either other than aggressive and relentless re-population. They will run out of control eventually.
The sideboard can be shoved into the deck in full with the inclusion of more land and the control options you might need to disrupt your opponent.
Eyeblight Massacre
can be truly devastating. This is to make decisions easier for new players, of course there are always other options once you get the hang of the deck and know what you will be playing in your local meta.
When you are ready to take the training wheels off of the sideboard, be sure to replace the land with
Warping Wail
. Languish and other board wipe cards are not your friend. Be ready to stop that. Be sure to include
Llanowar Wastes
so you can actually pay for it.
An interesting play for game two would be to play Shaman of the Pack, sacrifice it to Bone Splinters to kill their best creature, drop a
Mortuary Mire
afterwards to put the pack back on top of your library, and then play Elvish Visionary to get it back into your hand. With enough mana perhaps you can do it twice in one turn. More likely, do it the turn after you've already played the Pack and use the other mana to attack with everything and throw out a Foul-Tongue Shriek. Fun tricks :)
And that's it. A cheap and simple Golgari Elf Tribal Deck that is sure to shake things up. Thanks again to Skwarka for the inspiration, be sure to check out It's Raining Elves (1st at FNM) and see the full potential of this great deck :)
