yeah, I can see how Bloodgift Demon would be effective. I'll try him for a while.

After testing this EDH deck for a while, I decided to try to up the mana ramp a bit and take out a handful of cards. They were all painful decisions, but I'm trying to help this deck focus on what it does best. I believe that, in general, mana ramping early in an EDH game is extremely powerful and possibly more powerful than many of the combos that I send to the "maybe board." So Cultivate , Golgari Signet , Evolution Charm , and Fertile Ground are all new. Had to take out some fun ones for them... what do you think?

Evolution Charm doesn't actually ramp, it just keeps you from missing a land drop, but that's not a bad thing as it is flexible. Fertile Ground isn't great, IMO, not worth it for 2-color deck. You're creating a target for land removal that's a 2-for-1 or worse. I'd take that out with my Acidic Slime or Terastodon without much thinking. It'd be better to do Wood Elves to stay on theme or use card:Nature's Lore. Both of these give you an untapped forest, which you can use to get your Overgrown Tomb . There's plenty of other cheap, real ramp, too, that get's any basic. card:Traveler's Amulet or Expedition Map wouldn't be bad either if you wanna do it colorless.

yeah the Evolution Charm was just for flexibility and not ramp per-se. Those artifacts you pointed out also only do the same job of putting the land in your hand, and i feel confident evo charm does the job. You make a convincing argument for removing fertile ground. I'm already removing it for Wood Elves (and I feel dumb not doing that earlier btw). I know that the elves I have already help out with the mana ramp too (Heritage Druid , Priest of Titania , and Elvish Archdruid ). So do any of you think any more ramp is needed? Is card:Nature's Lore important enough that I replace something for it (like the Evolution Charm )? Also, I came across an idea... I know that Yavimaya Dryad is not an elf, but can be really fun with forestwalk or mana ramp. thoughts on that?

Bloodgift Demon is freakin sweet in this deck, especially with a lack of fliers in general, but I'm gonna set him aside for now, back on the maybelist, and try to see the plausibility of some other combos. For one, I miss my Cinderhaze Wretch , partially because its a card that probably isn't good in any other kind of deck and also it makes a fun discard combo with Immaculate Magistrate (and Presence of Gond when there's no more cards left).

Now I'm also trying to see if Words of Waste has a place with this deck as per its amazing combo with card:Geth's Grimoire (in multiplayer that can leave you with quite a hand). Its also one of the few cards that can potentially discard your friend's cards on THEIR turn (most are at sorcery speed) even if it may take my Grim Backwoods to do it. not sure what to take out yet for it though.

Idea: I'm toying with putting in Skyship Weatherlight because while I DO have some great tutors for creatures, I don't have many for the amazing artifacts in this deck (like Coat of Arms , card:Geth's Grimoire, Sword of Feast and Famine , Anvil of Bogardan , etc). It makes me drool over all the blue artifact tutors... Obviously Demonic Tutor and Increasing Ambition help with this, but to rock the weatherlight makes my nerd sense tingle like it did back when tempest came out! I know someone can easily kill the artifact and ruin a LOT of subsequent plans... but like I said, I'm merely toying with the thought.

I tried to post yesterday, but it kept failing. I meant to say you're right about the artifacts. I was trying to think of ways to get your swamps and non-basic lands down and forgot about the 'to your hand' thing. card:Nature's Lore is probably the most efficient way to ramp another forest. It's a big advantage to have three lands turn two, and with this, one of them is untapped. The ideal turn one or two play with this is another creature that sorta ramps and definitely fits your theme: Arbor Elf . You just have to decide if it's worth it to you.

I'm getting together another deck now that's mono-green and uses lots of the legends, maros especially, focused on card draw and ramping -- Multiplayer Monogreen card draw that you can see some ideas from green in. The ramp is so strong that I should probably just switch to Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer , but I like the shroud on Multani, Maro-Sorcerer for now. I'm not sure if it'll be very competitively but I think it'll fast-forward games either by giving me tons of mana to work with, or letting everyone go through their deck quickly. But anyhow...

I like the idea of Skyship Weatherlight , but of course it's a huge target for removal as you said, and exile is so much worse than hand or graveyard. It could be fun to play with though. The combos you mentioned above sound really cool, too.

for sure... makes me wish i could just run out and buy a Guardian Beast

Heh, nothing like paying $40+ for a card to protect your <$1 pet card.

Exactly, no problem! OH and I'll make sure to pick up a Mox Emerald and a Mox Jet too for the mana ramp.

...1st world problems

If you find yourself needing some more battle tricks, how about Gilt-Leaf Ambush ? two chump blockers that are removal sometimes, and since they're elves, there's a chance they could be buffed and not mere chumps.

It's definitely a flavor card at least -- some elf tribe as your general :)

I've thought about Gilt-Leaf Ambush many times... I like it but its hard to decide what to take out.

I'm thinking maybe Diabolic Revelation may fit the bill for the deck as a third black tutor card. OR I even replace Increasing Ambition with it, high cost though. I'm also considering going out and buying a Vampiric Tutor and just adding it to the deck for 3 black tutors. More artifact find ya know? at least it may be a better option than Skyship Weatherlight

After some debate, I decided to try taking out Pulse of the Dross and put in Vampiric Tutor . I don't own it yet, and I won't till next month probably, but I figured it was the right thing to do. Looking at the deck Pulse of the Dross is just about the one card I would think, "I wish this was something else right now" if I saw it in my hand; and Vampiric Tutor would be that card that could become something else.

It depends totally on your playgroup, or local 'meta', but if you play people that do massive draw (which would be an obvious response to your deck), card:Wit's End could be awesome. Seeing someone play card:Praetor's Counsel for like 30+ cards, then using card:Wit's End next turn would totally be living the dream. But if you don't play against card draw it's probably not worth it. By the time you get 7cmc usually the game has advanced to a point where they won't have many cards anyway.

card:Wit's End is sweet. and you're right its especially good for draw. but for now I prefer the Mind Twist because rarely do I have to make my opponents discard more than 6 cards at once (which would be the same cost as card:Wit's End). I'll keep it in mind.

card:Praetor's Counsel is awesome! Its a new card to me. 8 mana is pretty steep price to pay though. I think for now I'll keep Creeping Renaissance around because of the flashback instead but I'll keep the card:Praetor's Counsel in mind.

Latest change: I'm testing out Wild Pair . I took out card:Green Sun's Zenith to try it out for now just cause I haven't decided what would be best to take out for it (that is, if it works as well as I hope it does), so the easiest switch was to essentially swap one tutor for another. Also, if i did swap any tutor for Wild Pair , this one would probably be it for a couple of reasons. For one, most of the other tutors put the card into your hand, which makes me have to cast the card, which would cause Wild Pair to trigger because it has to come from your hand. Another reason is that card:Green Sun's Zenith only works on green creatures, and it would be sweet to put a Sadistic Hypnotist into play after casting, say, a Bramblewood Paragon or something. Wild Pair 's cost is high, but I may end up paying just as much on my card:Green Sun's Zenith ...

oooh... never seen Wild Pair before. Now I've got to look through my deck and see how many pairs I have, if I could play this. I've been playing Predatory Urge as kinduva similar effect.

I've been playing around with my Nath, trying to get something together, but it was a bit if a disappointment when I realized it's only opponent discard. I thought I was gonna get free elves from cycling.

yeah... that would make Nath 10x better if you could get elves for YOUR discards too...

well we're making EDH Pauper decks in my group, I thought he might be good because he opens up card advantage with discard and turns it into creatures, and also black allows me to include some good cheap spot removal while green allows me to go tribal with elves, and get a few beaters. I've never tried EDH Pauper, but my guess is it's gonna depend mostly on the general, and so spot removal should be very good. I'm not sure how I'm actually gonna win, though, since doing 40dmg with 1/1 elves isn't exactly easy. My feeling is that I'd probably be better off doing a Talrand, Sky Summoner deck.

sorry, not Predatory Urge earlier. that is not at all similar. I meant Lurking Predators .

card:Akroma's Memorial?!?! should I?

I pulled an card:Akroma's Memorial that I really wanted to use in my deck, but I couldn't resist trading it for card:Sensei's Divining Top. The memorial is pretty great in EDH, but especially if you can keep spawning 1/1 elves, I think Eldrazi Monument could be even better. no more board wipes! _ Though of course, against black and red, you can't beat Akroma.

Just tested the deck once.. swung for 50 dmg on turn 6 noice!

Just added a really long update about tutor options... what do you guys think?