This deck is the final culmination of a lifetime of loving Tribal Decks. Building them, playing them, and soaking in all the synergistic wonder that is Tribal. It started out with Tribal Thallids back in 94' at age 11, but of all the tribal decks I have created over the years since then, this is the deck that I am the most proud of. A deck made to show the overwhelming might of synergy. All the pieces of a society working together to achieve infinitely more than they ever could have on their own. Every time I play this deck it is far more than just a challenging game experience. It's the story of a people's struggle, that's always different but usually ends the same. Win or lose, playing this deck never ceases to entertain me.
DECK BREAKDOWN
This is probably the 40th iteration of this deck, which started out as an aggro elf token deck many years back, and has evolved into a huge ramp/combo deck. The fairly low overall CMC of the deck means that it always has something to do each turn, and it ramps so quickly that in both goldfish testing and actual gameplay, it often goes off on turn 3. It has some differen't goals than standard combo elves. This decks biggest goals are to play huge genesis waves to change the state of the board, or to get out it's infinite creature tap/creature untap/life/card draw/mana comob.
The most important combo to understand in this deck is the following:
5 Elves, on the board, under my control. 1 of which is a Priest of Titania or Elvish Archdruid
1 Staff of Domination
With 5 elves on the board under my control, tapping Priest of Titania or Elvish Archdruid produces 5 mana. The Staff of Domination can then be tapped by feeding it three mana to untap that creature. Then the tap for x=Elves creature taps again, creating 5 more mana. Then pay 1 to untap the Staff of Domination. Thus repeating the cycle ad infinitum, and gaining 1 additional total mana each time it cycles.
Now the staff itself has many interesting abilities that can be put to great effect utilizing the ability to produce infinite mana. With that resource, the Staff has the ability to tap or untap any and all creatures as many times as you want, immediately draw as many cards as you wish, play them all, and gain infinite life. Now none of those abilities in and of themselves is an immediate game ender, but when paired with Ezuri, I can give trample and infinite P/T to all my creatures and then untap and attack with whatever creatures were already on the board that turn for the win. The sideboard has Shaman of the Pack as an alternate for decks with ways to lock out my attacks. It can do direct life loss and with Wirewood Symbiote, it can be played multiple times on the same turn in case it needs to be.
Previously this deck had a great many different potential game ender cards. ATM I am testing with Ezuri, and Shaman as the switchout but any of the win conditions I have tried out still work well. Viridian Longbow can ping for infinite damage, Emrakul paired with Helix Pinnacle for instant win, Joraga Warcaller paired with Immaculate Magistrate to make all your creatures infinitely strong (Ezuri does it with less cards), Imperious Perfect for infinite tokens, or Nullmage Shepherd to have infinite Artifact and Enchantment removal.
Although the version I had with so many different endings was extremely interesting and also fun to play, it was also to slow to go up against the top 30 tournament legacy deck staples and win with consistency. So I recently made a huge number of changes and overall I think the deck is much more up to par then it formerly was.
MAINBOARD
- Priest of Titania and Elvish Archdruid: These cards or course require no explanation. They make huge amounts of mana and are core to the central combo, hence why I run 4 of each. Also Archdruid's Anthem ability helps get your other elves out of the range of things like Engineered Plague.
- Deathrite Shaman: We all know why this little guy is good. A 1/2 elf that can make mana, or do life loss/gain, and clear out GY. He is known across the format for many good reasons.
- Elvish Visionary: Just another low cost Elf that helps contribute to the 5 elf sweet spot, but also replaces herself with another card draw. Plus when paired with Wirewood Symbiote, it can become a draw mechanism for when you have mana, but not the right cards to go off yet.
- Heritage Druid: Another one drop elf, but most importantly it allows you to make mana from elves you played that same turn, including elves put onto the board by Genesis Wave.
- Quirion Ranger: A great little untapper elf. He can bounce forests/bayou/arbor, in order to untap a priest/archdruid. He can bounce your lands as an alternative to them getting destroyed by land hate. He can untap elves on your opponents turn for you to get a chump blocker up. He can even be used to get more mana when your land base is running short. Say you only have two lands in your opening hand. T1 Land and Ranger. T2 Priest of Titania. T3 Tap both lands and priest, then bounce a land to untap priest, then replay the land and tap it again for mana. There are many possibilities with this card.
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Wirewood Symbiote
: One of the most important cards in this deck, even though its not an elf. You can use it to bounce your elves on your turn or your opponents turn which means you can make creature destruction into bounce instead. At the very least it forces them to take out the symbiote first. It's untap ability is fantastic though with the Priest/Archdruid. When you are tapping them for 4 or 5, you can tap one, then bounce a one drop elf with Symbiote to untap the Priest/Archdruid, play the 1 drop again and then retap for more mana. It's mana ramping capability is the same as wirewood lodge in that sense but it also has the removal protection. Hell if you make Quirion Ranger the target of the bounce, you can even use Rangers ability more than once in a turn to have even more mana to dump into a big ass Genesis Wave.
- Craterhoof Behemoth: The turn it enters play it can do 20 damage either with itself, and 3 other creatures on the board and attacking. With only it and 2 other creatures attacking it can do 20 damage with just 5 total creatures on the board under my control. With only it and 1 other creature attacking you need 7 total creatures on the board under your control, but even that number is easily doable with the sheer ramp of this deck. It's not the most unique finisher for elves, but it is just the best right now.
- Staff of Domination: Key combo piece, but because it is usually not a good draw when you aren't trying to go off, I only run 3. Waves usually find it anyways.
- Genesis Wave: This is actually one of the most important cards in this deck. It is one of the most beautiful, powerful, and efficient uses for the crazy amount of ramp this deck can provide. I have played 40+point genesis waves on turn 4 that ended the game, but I have also played much smaller 6 point genesis waves on turn 3 that won me the game, even after mulliganing down to 5 at the start of the game. It never ceases to be useful. This edition running GSZ and Glimpse has made it so it ends up having more cards that it doesn't play, but that has yet to stop me from winning with it. Being able to take the unbelievably massive amount of mana this deck can produce early on and turn that into drawing and playing that many cards for free is just amazing. Especially since it brings in any lands it hits, regardless of whether or not you played a land this turn which often turns wave into having the infinite combo and closing things out. If you are comparing to normal Legacy Combo Elves, this card took the slot normally held by Natural Order.
- Green Sun's Zenith: Used for finding anything from Dryad Arbor, to Priest/Archdruid, or Elvish Visionary when I am really trying to get a Wave/Staff, or Ranger/Symbiote to ramp harder or for protection, or even one of the many green creature sideboard options that I only run 1 of. Extremely useful spell. Now if they would just release a green creature that gave mass haste or could tutor up artifacts.
- Glimpse of Nature: Although I still think Glimpse is more effective in Standard Legacy Combo Elves, it still works great in this deck. Even if it's just to draw a small amount of cards usually. It has been known to create huge chains though even in this deck that have lead into either infinite combo out, or huge genesis waves that then combo out.
- Gaea's Cradle: Tap for x mana where x=elves on a land? Yes please. More crazy early ramp. I used to run Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx as well, but the devotion in this deck overall is low, so it just wasnt making a profit consistently.
- Wirewood Lodge: Can be used to untap the tap for x elves to ramp even harder, or to repleat abilities on Deathrite Shaman. Makes a huuuuuuge difference in play.
- Dryad Arbor: This is in the deck to be a zero point GSZ target.
- Forest: This is in the deck for matches vs Blood Moon because I really only need one forest to be able to go off. Although the Blood Moon would still slow me down by hosing my other lands, but hey, that's what Abrupt Decay is for.
- Bayou: Obviously this is in there because I need access to black to effectively use my Deathrite Shaman to it's full potential, and because many of my sideboard options require it.
- Verdant Catacombs and Windswept Heath: Gotta find those Bayous some way. Plus they provide gas for Deathrite Shaman to be a mana dork.
SIDEBOARD
So my side board for this deck pretty much consists of 6 slots given over to black destruction/discard type cards, and then 9 slots given over to green creatures that can be brought out with GSZ. Currently I am not running Pithing Needle or Null Rod and the like simply because they cannot be tutored up, and I don't honestly think that 1 card changed out of a deck of 60 is going to consistently make a big enough difference if it can't be tutored. Where as every green creature I sideboard is essentially 5 copies of it because of GSZ, and I would like to maximize on that. So here is the sideboard I have thus far.
- Abrupt Decay: I don't think this card really requires an explanation. It can destroy a huuuuuge amount of different cards that can make trouble for this deck or slow it down.
- Lost Legacy: This card is brand new from Kaladesh and I am using it as a replacement for both Surgical Extraction, Thoughtseize, and Cabal Therapy. Lost Legacy may be higher CMC but it does what all of those cards are trying to do, only better. Game 2, you know what your opponent is playing now, play Lost Legacy, call out their most important combo card or most annoying for your strategy card, BOOM, exiled. All copies from their hand, their library, or their graveyard. Proactive removal. Hitting their combo hard before it even becomes an issue. With the elves ramp it can easily be played turn 2. I have a feeling that this choice is going to be my most controversial but I feel good about it so far. We'll see how it does in testing tonight though.
- Gaddock Teeg: For messing with Storm and some other deck types.
- Eladamri, Lord of Leaves: For those heavy removal matchups. Creature removal can slow this deck down and although Symbiote is very helpful, Eladamri can nix most of the creature hate period. Except of course for board wipes like terminus. The downside to this choice is that to a degree it hoses me as well because it stops certain cards from working correctly. Wirewood Lodge, Quirion Ranger,
Wirewood Symbiote
, and Staff of Domination can't target the Elves that they wan't to untap which is an issue. The Symbiote however can bounce Eladamri off the board since it doesn't have to target him to do so, so you need to make getting symbiote a priority when running Eladamri.
- Reclamation Sage: One of the most well known cards in MTG. Great for troublesome artifacts or enchantments of any kind. It can also be repeat casted utilizing Symbiote.
- Scavenging Ooze: For clearing out GY VS reanimator and the like.
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Gaea's Herald
: I know its not normally a sideboard option in Elves but I have it here because I am not running any Cavern of Souls because I needed to make space for my other lands. Herald is my choice for anti Counterspell instead.
- Shaman of the Pack: This is the card that gets switched in for Ezuri when going up against decks that have ways to lock out my death by massive attack win condition.
- Ezuri, Renegade Leader: For attrition matchups like Miracles, to replace Craterhoof Behemoth.
- Elderscale Wurm: For use against Burn, Lands, etc.
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Skyshooter
: Primarily added for Sneak and Show to take out Emrakul and Griselbrand.
can provide much needed blitz aggro and costs significantly less than craterhoof.