A Gentleman's Once-Over [[Elves Primer]]

Modern Aggro Combo Competitive Elves GU (Simic) Tribal

thuzra

Creature (33)

• 4x Arbor Elf
• 4x Coiling Oracle
• 1x Craterhoof Behemoth
• 2x Elvish Archdruid
• 4x Elvish Visionary
• 1x Essence Warden
• 4x Heritage Druid
• 4x Nettle Sentinel
• 2x Sages of the Anima
• 2x Scryb Ranger
• 1x Temur Sabertooth
• 4x Wood Elves

Land (19)

• 4x Breeding Pool
• 2x Dryad Arbor
• 5x Forest
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Temple Garden
• 3x Windswept Heath
• 3x Wooded Foothills

Instant (4)

• 4x Chord of Calling

Sorcery (4)

• 4x Beck / Call

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Sideboard

Creature (12)

• 1x Elderscale Wurm
• 1x Essence Warden
• 2x Joraga Warcaller
• 3x Kitchen Finks
• 2x Reclamation Sage
• 3x Scavenging Ooze

Instant (3)

• 3x Simic Charm

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Have a taste of the finer aspects of dicking around.

Elves has always been one of those staple decks, those tribal decks that never really die, but in Modern, never really stick, either. It's gotten better, but it'll never have the same grandeur that the Legacy version commands. I, though, never one to just takes someone else's list, have devised my own version of Combo Elves based on Legacy.

The Core

We long ago lost Glimpse of Nature and Green Sun's Zenith, but we have their weaker counterparts, Chord of Calling and Beck / Call. Beck, of course, is the engine that drives this deck, and like all engines, needs fuel.

Fuel and How to Get it

You can't get gas for free, so you need a way to afford this. Heritage Druid + Nettle Sentinel provide practically unlimited mana over the course of a turn. They also double as fuel (since all creatures do). There's also the capacity for Ritual-style mana-bursts in Elvish Archdruid + Scryb Ranger , made infinite with Temur Sabertooth. Wood Elves also is a tasty morsel, being a two-edged ramp spell; it fetches almost 70% of my land-base and can help pitch to the cause. You may also notice, I only run Arbor Elf in the one-drop ramp spot. Llanowar Elves and Elvish Mystic don't produce , and my only resource for it is Breeding Pool.

The Uncomfortable Reach-Around

So, we come to the trick: How do we pull off the kill in a quick manner? Well, there's a way to kill as early as t2, but that requires the stars to be right and all to be well. More realistically, t3 and t4 are the kill turns, and if by t5 you haven't killed them, you may as well throw in the towel (circumstances depending).Ultimately, it comes down to what we Combo specialists sometimes call the Fundamental Turn (tF). You will generally start with Beck and begin the chain. To help whittle down the number of whiffs, there are two of the best cards in the deck - one of which I think is one of the most underrated cards in Modern - Elvish Visionary and Coiling Oracle. In fact, by the end of a good chain, Oracle is one of the only ways to authentically draw a card with Sages of the Anima on the field (one of the best card-advantage machines in the deck).

TO BE CONTINUED

Date added	10 years
Last updated	8 years
Key combos	Heritage Druid + Nettle Sentinel Elvish Archdruid + Scryb Ranger
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	1 - 1 Mythic Rares 24 - 5 Rares 13 - 8 Uncommons 17 - 1 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.85
Tokens	Bird 1/1 W
Folders	Weird Tribals