This is my main Modern deck I run in paper. Elves have always been one of the big flavorful tribes in Magic. The printing of Collected Company last year pushed the power level of the deck far enough that it started winning tournaments and even a GP. Magic Origins brought two new important pieces to the deck: Dwynen's Elite, which can lead to explosive starts and
Shaman of the Pack
, which single handedly makes it worth to run a BG deck list.
The goal of Collected Elves is to swarm the board with mana dorks and other small creatures, then pump them with Ezuri, Renegade Leader's overrun ability and attack for 50+ damage on turn 4. Chord of Calling allows us to fetch the missing pieces for our attack or find answers to artifacts, enchantments, infect and more. If our opponent manages to remove Ezuri we can still use
Shaman of the Pack
to deal massive damage and attack with our elves that are boosted by Elvish Archdruid's anthem effect.
The Elves
Llanowar Elves and Elvish Mystic are the classic 1 drop mana dorks. They provide us with mana and become huge with Ezuri's Overrun.
Elves of Deep Shadow is another mana dork that produces and helps fix our mana.
Elvish Archdruid is a classic lord who boosts our elves with an anthem effect and produces tons of mana once we have a couple creatures on the board.
Imperious Perfect is another lord that is worth considering. Elf tokens are always welcome and can be sacrificed to Westvale Abbey
.
Heritage Druid is a center piece of the deck that gives us explosive starts. With Heritage Druid on the board all our elves become mana dorks, although only in groups of three. The ability is not affected by summoning sickness. That way, freshly played elves can instantly produce mana to play even more elves in one turn.
Dwynen's Elite works fantastically in combination with Heritage Druid. For we get two new elves that basically pay for themselves as long as we have another untapped elf.
Nettle Sentinel is another combo piece for Heritage Druid. Since it untaps every time we play a green spell it can produce a lot of mana in a single turn.
Win Condition - Ezuri, Renegade Leader is our main win condition. Being able to regenerate other elves is huge and his overrun ability leads to game winning attacks since we often have enough mana to activate it three times at once.
Elvish Visionary provides card draw. It's not a four of since our other elf Dwynen's Elite leads to more explosive starts.
Win Condition -
Shaman of the Pack
is the reason to splash . It's a target for Collected Company and usually deals a big blow to our opponents health even before it attacks.
The Demon
Ormendahl, Profane Prince
is a massive flying demon with lifelink, that can strike the same turn you play Westvale Abbey
and is hard to remove without spells like Path to Exile. Getting 5 token creatures or mana dorks is not a problem in this deck, so it works really well. It can also be used as an insurance against Pyroclasm or Anger of the Gods.
Non-creature spells
Collected Company is fantastic value and a great surprise that can be cast mid combat. Finding Ezuri, Renegade Leader and Heritage Druid after the declare attackers step can completely foil your opponents attack. Two
Shaman of the Pack
are also a nice surprise that will severely hurt your opponent or win outright.
Chord of Calling is a tutor spell at instant speed. Usually it finds us Ezuri, Renegade Leader, but it can also be useful to fetch utility creatures, especially after sideboarding.
Lead the Stampede often finds 3 or more creatures and fills our hand back up again after we dumped all of our elves on the battlefield.
Mana Base
Besides basic Forests I run two legendary lands that are basically Forests with an upside, Pendelhaven and
Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
. Pendelhaven can be very useful in the early game, or later if we have no lords on the board. Okina is very situational, but it comes into play untapped, so there is little reason to not play it.
Another legendary land in the deck is Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. It can provide tons of mana for Ezuri, Renegade Leader's abilities, as long as our devotion to green is 4 or higher. It can also produce if we need to play another
Shaman of the Pack
.
Four Gilt-Leaf Palace are the tribal lands that produce mana for
Shaman of the Pack
. The downside, that we need to reveal an elf card, only comes into play late in the game when we top deck it. Since Elves only needs 2-3 lands this is not a problem. Additionally there are two
Overgrown Tomb
.
Westvale Abbey
produces tokens and can flip into a powerful demon.
Sideboard
Elvish Champion is a lord that gives all other elves forestwalk. This works well against a lot of decks like Jund and Zooicide, but unlike the other two lords it also grants the ability to elfs our opponent controls. This is especially bad against Infect, which runs
Glistener Elf
.
Reclamation Sage can be tutored up with Chord of Calling at instant speed when we need it. Depending on the meta it can also be played mainboard.
Essence Warden provides us with quite a bit of life gain against aggressive decks.
Melira, Sylvok Outcast is a great answer against infect or Abzan Company, but sadly she's not an elf.
Phyrexian Revoker turns off activated abilities of our opponent and unlike Pithing Needle it can be the target of Chord of Calling.
Scavenging Ooze
is a great help against decks like Abzan Company or Snapcaster Mage, but it can also be a nice answer to creature removal.
Eternal Witness allows us to cast Collected Company a second time or return an Ezuri to the hand after it was removed. Sadly she's not an elf.
Removal
Beast Within can target any permanent, at the cost of giving the player a 3/3 beast token. This drawback isn't too bad though, since we should have the upper hand in creatures. You can also target one of your own lands and turn it into a creature.
Dismember is the main removal spell against creatures. It kills about anything in the format, even through indestructible and regeneration.
There's a surprising amount of creatures with toughness 1 in modern that are susceptible to Golgari Charm, for example Infect and Goblins. Just make sure that there's a lord on the board for us that's not in danger of removal. Alternatively it can be used as protection from sweepers like Pyroclasm or destroy another enchantment.
Fracturing Gust is perfect removal against artifact and enchantment decks like Affinity / Robots and Bogles. You can also add another Reclamation Sage if your meta requires it.
Stain the Mind can remove threats before they hit the board and also lets us see our opponents hand and his entire deck.
Upgrade options
2 Cavern of Souls against counter spells.
1 Spellskite against a whole variety of decks.
It might also be worth it to add 4
Razorverge Thicket
and maybe Temple Garden and Windswept Heath to add white sideboard cards like Selfless Spirit, Burrenton Forge-Tender, Kataki, War's Wage, Aven Mindcensor, Eidolon of Rhetoric and Path to Exile.
