For example, consider this deck: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=290704 It can win on turn three almost very time. And since you have not a single counterspell, you would lose every single time.

@mozerdozer Nice, that's one deck that does actually combo out before most Elves can goldfish. Unfortunately, Legacy does not consist of Breakfast and Elves.

I'm embarrassed to even have to point out these facts to you. I'm sorry for blowing up the notifications of everyone who is interested in actual discussion, and I'll stop responding to mozer from now on.

Fine one, just one tournament deck that ever won after turn 8. I'm trying to tell him turn 8 isn't competitive and you are just some stupid troll who is terrible at MTG judging by the quality of that video series.

That deck was on example. GO look up legacy elves on Google and find how many decks won tournaments that did not have Glimpse of Nature in them

Yes, that deck you mention there is a fine combo dredgy deck, and when played by a good player it will beat this deck as it is.

That being said, the deck that you nentioned can win by turn 2 if things are perfect

If it has to tutor or search it costs a turn.

If it searches and misses, it costs a turn.

If it fails to find a land drop it costs a turn.

It is a clock similar to Hybrid Elves. (2 on perfect, 3 when good, 4 normal, 5 is bad.)

Your deck wins by turn 4 half the time and turn 5 half the time, which is fast enough to win some of the times

Also, there are plenty of sideboard cards that will ruin this deck's day.

Surgical Extraction on Narcomoeba , and the deck is done, unless they run Ichorid , which will dilute the deck down, and make the combo harder to achieve.

Better yet, Surgical Extraction on Dread Return , you broke the deck agiain

Dismember on Cephalid Illusionist stalls them at least a turn, probably more.

Noxious Revival an important combo piece in response to the casting of Dread Return , and they're stuck.

Mental Misstep will also stall them.

Leyline of the Void just shuts any and all graveyard based decks down.

And finally, if you're looking for an elf, Taunting Elf can kill Cephalid Illusionist if you have a lord in play. This is considerably slower than your other options though.

By the way, Control decks win after turn 8 all the time.

Counter-top, Team America, lands, "stone"-blade all of them decks that often win after turn 8.

You may have heard of the aggro > Control > combo triangle. control has difficulty answering all the threats of aggro, aggro has difficulty outracing combo, and combo has difficulty getting the combo off against control.

Yeah but this isn't a counter deck. It's supposed to be aggro or something. And about the triangle, this deck would lose to control,c ombo, and aggro.

I wasn't trying to say Cephalid Breakfeast is amazing. I was simply pointing it out as one of the many legacy decks that would destroy this deck. If you'd actually like to make a counter argument, show me one pro deck that this would beat.

And none, not even one of the cards you mentioned, is in this deck. So a lot of your article just goes to show this deck is terrible in legacy.

Those are all things that can be put in the sideboard.

This deck is a work in progress, as solomon keeps changing it, I agree with you that their are things that can be done to make it better. (like cutting about 8 lands)

That being said, I'd say This deck as it is would be able to beat Merfolk, Affinity, Enchantress, caw-blade, lands, counter-top, and natural order some of the time.

My main point is that it would lose to the normal Elf deck basically every time. And every single combo deck as well.

Im going to cry... excellent deck, but how did you do that epic description, I really need to learn how to do this : ) I thought I was the king of epic descriptions : ( lol +1

@Malekor: Tappedout supports html editing for all posts. You can read up on some html coding at w3schools.

you can definitely run 22 lands or even 20 with the amount of mana producing creatures you have. 24 lands is a lot for this deck.

for all the energy put into the description and the deck this deck is actually pretty damn bad. This loses to board wipes like Day of Judgment . I have plated standard elf decks that are stronger than this one. THey include cards like Nissa Revane and Garruk Wildspeaker which both withstand board wipes along with card:Nissa's Chosen. I am surprised that all of you people on tappedout will simply see a really cool description and +1 the deck before actually realizing how bad it is.

That's what I've been trying to say...

You've been trying to say that he should run Nissa and Garruk?

No just that his deck is rather weak which no one else seems to notice. A lot of standard decks would beat it. And I have no idea why you think this deck would beat CaW. First game he would have 0 way to combat the birds than next game they'll just tutor Feast and Famine with SFM and he's be on a short clock. He'd have to pull a Krosan Grip really quickly.

A great card for this type of deck is Glimpse of Nature , but I think it's pretty expensive...also, Nissa Revane as a one-of could be pretty good to gain back lots of life in case of a super aggressive deck...lastly, infinite mana is achieved with Wirewood Lodge and Krosan Restorer =infinite mana, although it isn't an elf, and you really don't need infinite with this type of mana

Wait, shoot, scratch that infinite combo, newb mistake embarrassed face

haha Superllama12 there is an elf that untaps two lands, So as long as one is a cradle itll work

Yes. It is Argothian Elder . However it is used with Maze of Ith ]] usually. For it to work here, a land would need to provide at least two mana, one of which is green. The only land that does that is Gaea's Cradle, which Solomon only wants one of for some reason.

Thanks for all of your wonderful suggestions!Your comments are important to me, and I take them all into much consideration.

A quick response to the recent discussion. I will follow up with an update soon this week.

There seems to be a pretty lively conversation going on since the update last week. I am not sure that I can address all of the feedback personally in one comment.

I can definitely say, however, that I understand all points of view that people have taken in their feedback. It's true that the strategy presented can be modified and restructured in order to be executed more quickly, such that it can be more competitive in a Legacy event. The sluggishness presents a true problem indeed. However, the one other thing that I noted is that the whole "speediness" of the Elf deck seems to depend on one card, and one card only: Glimpse of Nature . It seems that if that card is not drawn, or if its effect is not exploited to (near) full potential, that the Elf player would simply lose that round.

This is very concerning indeed, as it suggests that Elves in general cannot be played for a beatdown strategy, but relies entirely on a combo-like strategy instead. With this deck, I've tried to integrate some basic, subtler combos (less deck-orienting) in order to foster a more aggro-like approach. However, it would seem that, based on the insufficient pace, this strategy would be entirely useless. Unfortunately, simply freeing four slots and inserting Glimpse of Nature would not be enough to properly orient this deck towards the revered, Elfball result. As such, it's imperative for me to implement the strongest possible aggro/beatdown strategy, as the best alternative to the Combo method. In this light, it would not be as relevant (in my opinion) to compare the deck's strength and speed with the Elfball alternative, or to other speedy combo decks out there (although I am near 100% sure that they would be superior). The goal would be to fit into the triangle (as kindly mentioned by Sam_I_Am) nicely. It would not try and outrace an extremely competent combo deck, but would attempt to defeat Control instead. Still, I would like to keep some of these fluid, less-essential combos as a more different, interesting property of the deck. The focus, though, would be to develop a competitive beatdown-based strategy.

I apologize, but that is all that I can come up with for now. As always, I very much appreciate your input, and I respect your opinions as much more experienced Magic players than I am. I know relatively nothing about the workings of Tournament Magic, and thus am open to any suggestions that you may have to offer. I will address all of these comments in much greater detail in the update coming up later this week. In the meantime, thank you so much your patience.

As I am still relatively new to Magic the Gathering, I would very much appreciate any further suggestions and/or constructive criticism that you may have to offer.

There's a thing that's been annoying me a little bit, It's constant mention of Elfball. The whole association of the word "elfball" with the glimpse combo came from Jimmeh92. Now I've looked "elfball" up in the past. (before I saw this decklist), It's hard to find a specific definition, but I believe the word Elfball refers to a deck that uses elves to ramp up a lot of mana into a very large thing (like a Fireball , thus the name.

Also, Assemble a budget version of this deck and play some Magic the Gathering. If you don't think that you can get all the cards you need for your deck, then playtest it. There's a red button that says "playtest" at the top of your deck page. Click on that button, and get a feel for how your deck fishbowls.

All I can say, barring the people that say the deck sucks and stuff, is that god damn you put some work into this.Give him credit for that at least

9/23/2011-

This update was simplified and condensed to fit into one comment.

This week's update plays with the deck structure in an attempt to increase the speed of the play strategy. The response this week was a little mixed, and the discussion that followed contained a bit too many comments for me to address them all personally. Nevertheless, there was much constructive advice that was offered, and rest assured, I read every one of the comments, and considered every suggestion with utmost attention.

Some minor fixes include:

• The removal of Oran-Rief, the Vastwood due to general consensus of it being a useless card.
• The removal of Slate of Ancestry due to general consensus of it being an inferior alternative to Glimpse of Nature .
• The addition of Immaculate Magistrate to the deck due to its complementary nature with Joraga Warcaller .

The major fix that I made this week was to replace Slate of Ancestry with Glimpse of Nature . As it is common speculation that the latter card is an absolute necessity in any Legacy Elf deck, I have finally decided to actually test the card's effectiveness in this deck for myself. As a result, Glimpse of Nature is the new featured addition this week. For more information, see its respective article in the description for further thoughts regarding the projected advantages of this change.

That is all I can manage to write for now. I am making a conscious effort to condense my thoughts into one comment. I'm sorry that I won't be able to address all of the response that was generated this week, but the large volume of reader comments has rendered the task relatively difficult. I will make every attempt to personally respond to user feedback in my update next week. In the meantime, I am routinely playtesting this deck for speed, structure, and other tangible statistics (thanks for the reminder, Sam_I_Am!).

I will update this deck periodically (weekly or biweekly) until I feel that it has reached its maximum potential. I can see plenty of potential weaknesses in this deck. As I am still relatively new to Magic the Gathering, I would very much appreciate any further suggestions and/or constructive criticism that you may have to offer.

GLimpse of Nature doesn't really work in this deck. You want a lot of Heritage Druid s, Nettle Sentinel s and 1 drop elves with hardly any lands. 40 or more one drop elves is ideal. This allows any elf to replace itself mana wise with Heritage Druid and card wise with Glimpse of nature. The extra 4 creatures in your hand allow to go through any land you may encounter. Nettle Sentinel's untap ability allows you to gain mana on top of the replacement cost. This allows for Elvish Visionary which also goes through land pockets. About half the games, you can put 30 creatures onto the field on turn 2 or 3.