My current take on Modern Elf. This is my secondary deck, and so it is less serious than my Main B/W token deck. However, It's elf, so it still packs quite a punch.
Philosophy of the Deck
Point of the deck is to put as many elf as possible on the board as quickly as possible. Little Mana dorks like Llanowar Elves help fasten that process while providing field presence. Once the field is populated, I go for a mix of alpha strike with cards like Ezuri, Renegade Leader and Elvish Archdruid and go for indirect damage with cards like Shaman of the Pack and
Throne of the God-Pharaoh
, hopefully taking my opponent down with their maximized potential. If things don't go fast enough, or I get sweeped,
Lead the Stampede
and Collected Company help recover for a potential comeback, or simply keep the field populated until a wincon show its face.
Name of the game here is aggro. I want my elves to hit the board and either attack or produce a massive amount of mana as soon as possible. Late game is not where you wanna be, We are closer to a combo-deck style of play where if things don't work out for us initially, we're dead. We want to sprint and never let our opponent catch-up with our plays.
Strengths
First of all, the speed. This deck can reliably have three creatures on the board by turn 2 and It can easily produce three mana on turn 2. It's that fast. It can even lead to T3 kills if the planets aligns right. But overlooking the god-hand syndrome, this deck usually become game-threatening as soon as turn 4, which is just the right speed to be modern relevant.
The manabase is also great. All lands enters the battlefield untapped 99% of the time, cost no life to manage and provide the needed colors. We also run a very low amount due to us running a lot of cheap mana dorks, so hands with one land can moderately be kept with the right cards.
It can also be very resilient. With over 30 creatures,
Lead the Stampede
usually grab 2 to 4 creatures and Collected Company Can actually win games on its own.
I would consider my good/favorable match-up being: ...eh... I Did not give that much though into this, being a secondary deck and all. I can say that control/tempo decks usually have a hard time dealing with me. I usually deal pretty well with midrange decks too, but the table gets reversed if things don't go quick enough.
Weaknesses
The deck is not fullproof. One very easy way to deal with the fierce board presence are sweepers (Wrath of God or Pyroclasm). Most sweepers, even the weaker ones, have a potential to wipe the board clean, and can put me in a bad situation quick since I will always be the one with the most creatures when its casted. Getting one of our early mana dork blasted away can also mean a slower game, and that is not good news when it happens. Spot-removal (Other than Path to Exile) can be very backbreaking in the good hands, and a well timed removal on one of our lords can lead to a catastrophic combat phase.
The strategy also falls prey to floodgate type cards (Worship, Ensnaring Bridge) Some are manageable, but a full shutdown can make for a very hard game to win. Thankfully, cards like Shaman of the Pack and
Throne of the God-Pharaoh
can get us out of that bind, but the slowdown can also be deadly.
Also, the lack of removal/Hand-hate or overall cards that interact with our opponent means we either work or don't. Deck like Infect will love the fact that I have no answers to their Blighted Agent, and that similar logic can be applied to almost any important cards a strategy have.
In short, anything that slow me down can lead to defeat if repeated too often, or well placed. Oh, and I hate Anger of the Gods.
I would consider my Bad/unfavorable match-ups being: ... to be honest any deck that runs cheap sweepers or that can deal with my speed. Boggle, burn and affinity can actually outspeed if they're lucky and Grixis can really have a field day with me now that they have Fatal Push. However, god-hands happens occasionally, and when it does, few decks can deal with 20+ Damage on turn 3.
Any comments, tips, recommendations or criticism is welcome!
I'd also like to give my thanks to the folk at MTG salvation. If you're interested in building your own Elf deck, I strongly recommend visiting the primer. It as helped me immensely to build this deck.
Link to the Primer: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/tier-2-modern/767834-collected-company-elves
Editorium
EDIT 1: Trying a playset of
Prowess of the Fair
in place of
Lead the Stampede
to deal with sweepers and spot removals. Plus it can tap for the effect of
Heritage Druid
and counts toward the total damage of Shaman of the Pack and I like that. Also gonna give a try to a 16 lands mana base and see what happens. Also, updating that sideboard completely. It was more like a silver-bullet Chord of Calling type sideboard and it doesn't fit with the new playstyle of "Quantity over quality" I'm going for.
EDIT 2:
Prowess of the Fair
Performed well.
Lifecrafter's Bestiary
did not. It's too slow against aggro, and become a winmoar card. It's pretty good against control, but it really slows down the deck. I'm also dropping Neetle Sentinel. The combo has been very unreliable lately. If I ever want to go speed over quantity, I'll give the card another try. For now I'm going for quantity.
Edit 3:
Prowess of the Fair
is fun, but it's too slow. I'm gonna go for a more classic approach to elf and go for the earliest kill. Updating the list accordingly.
Edit 4: Replacing a
Lead the Stampede
with a Chord of Calling, probably gonna put a second one, but for now I'll go for one. Might try Eldritch Evolution sooner or later. Also, big sideboard update.
