Following the release of M14, while everyone else was buzzing about Kalonian Hydra, Archangel of Thune, and Mutavault, I was gleefully acquiring a playset of Elvish Mystic since I figured a second one-drop alongside Arbor Elf would give Elves, my fav tribe, a brief window of playability until rotation. I built a janky-ass Biomancer Elfball combo deck that relied on Beck / Call and Soul of the Harvest, every dork in Standard, and cheap tricks like burning-tree emmisary, Village Bell-Ringer and
Faerie Imposter
to hopefully draw a good deal of my deck leading up to a giant Craterhoof Behemoth. When I played it at my local shop, which imho (and many others') is the most competitive in the great state of AZ, and it surprisingly went 5-3 over two tournaments, I realized I may be onto something and decided to give the deck a competitive retooling once I acquired a few of the new Garruks. That time has arrived, and sure enough, some Mono-Green and Selesnya Elfhoof decks (I think I've seen Gruul too) have shown up on the Pro Tour in the meantime that provide a good reference. But none of them are Simic Elves.
After a 3-0 debut at a small ~20 person Tuesday tourny and coming a game short of winning the much-more-legit Wednesday tourny, it's clear this deck is for real. FILTHY is more like it. And I get to use many of my favorite Standard cards in the process, which is a definite plus. Now I realize Simic sounds bizarre for a competitive deck and there are cards on this list you may have never heard of. And of course I would love to hear ideas for improvements, especially for the sideboard which I'm always terrible at. But before you sound like one of my Tuesday opponents and bash Simic in general after getting Hoofed (seriously, 2 of the the 3 were giving it tons of flack considering the ass-kicking they had just recieved with their copy/pasted Top 8 decks), at least hear out the thoughts behind the splash of Blue:
-Simic Charm is probably the strongest case for Blue I can make to the average Spike. No Selesnya or mono options I can think of give you the ability to protect Garruks from Helixes & other burns, Huntmaster or Reckoner triggers, etc. plus it protects ALL permanents which is a great setup if you're ready to Craterhoof next turn. I like the Pro Tour builds' Ranger's Guile too for the sideboard since it's only a 1-drop mono and comes in handy against decks like Golgari Mid that have creature-heavy removal, but Simic Charm is SO much more flexible, and seriously you're running Elves so 1 more mana isn't that big a deal. It can also be a mini-Fog or save a fattie from a wipe with its bounce (or give Thragtusk another go-round), and its Giant Growth can save a creature in combat, push across 3 more damage, draw 3 more cards w/ Primal Hunter or Prime Speaker, or pump a Biomancer before an Elf dump. Never a dead draw, unlike Ranger's Guild which is why most of the Pro builds have no hexproof on the mainboard.
-Civilized Scholar, on the other hand, is pure Johnny self-indulgence. But you know what? He's a beast too. One of the things I don't like about the Pro Tour Elfhoof builds is the lack of draw power outside of Caller of Beasts. So you're basically counting on everything going according to plan, because if God forbid one of the 500 cheap removal spells in Standard shows up for your Archdruid and you were hoping to ramp into your disgustingly good hand of 5- and 6-drops or a Craterhoof, you could find yourself doing nothing for quite a while. This guy is a cheap draw engine himself and is a sneaky way to get some early utility out of Prime Speaker Zegana or Primal Hunter's draws. He also is a fearsome t3 attacker against control, and finally, he has got to be the biggest diva in the game (in a good way). Every turn, you get to tap him, flip and untap, maybe attack, if not tap and flip back. A total attention whore. I've already baited Dreadbores and other good removal out of my opponents with this guy just so they could put his antics to an end even while I have Elves on the board, and he tips his gentleman-like hat to Wolfir Silverheart on his way to the grave. One funny random story was that I won a casual game against Junk Aristocrats when my opponent sacked his last 2 creatures to make Cartel Aristocrat pro-Blue and Green, forgetting that the Scholar becomes Red when he flips. If there's a better bag of tricks in Standard, I don't know of it.
Other Pro Tour builds have Loxodon Smiter or Predator Ooze as their 3-drop to compliment Archdruid, but what good are those cards without 4 Rancors? Smiter is a good defender vs really fast aggro, but chumps are plentiful in this deck plus Scholar can trade with their biggest creature too if left untapped, and while I love the Ooze he requires a deck built around him. Neither one will win you the game in this build. I'll take the cards AND a creature with more power than either of them, thank you very much.
-Master Biomancer: Unless you missed my screenname, you had to know this was coming. He & Scholar were the targets of most of the early hate directed at the Simic (not many naysayers after Wednesday I hope). And I'll be honest, I have brewed with this card a lot so I'm well aware of its vulnerabilities in most Standard builds, and thus understood their perception that it would be too slow, easily removed, etc. But I have learned from my previous Biofailures, and I would challenge anyone to find a Standard deck that maxes out his capabilities more than this one. He is the second win condition that kicks the $#!t out of the Pro's all-or-nothing Kalonian Hydra, who btw is just as vulnerable on his first turn in play for one more mana and has no potential for using his ability the turn he arrives.
First of all, Biomancer is an Elf, meaning he's essentially a 3-drop with an Archdruid plus he gets the pump and spreads the wealth. Also, since no other deck can ramp like Elves, it is normally extremely difficult to cast him & another creature on the same turn (probably the main reason he's not played more). But this deck makes armies of Mutant Elves in the blink of an eye; for example, in a game v Selesnya aggro on Wednesday, I started a game with Mystic-Archdruid-Biodaddy + 5/5 Visionary + 5/5 Arbor Elf. Have a seat, Craterhoof. With all the draw power in the deck, you'll have a hard time running out of bodies to put counters on, and the 11 one-drops go from being a disappointing topdeck to a 3/3 at worst. Also, pairing a Silverheart with this guy is just unfair, as is having two of him out at once.
He's already won me a few games, including Game 3 of the Final 4 last night against RWB Tokens Mid in which my opponent pulled a Slaughter Games calling Craterhoof, and Biomancer along with Soul of the Harvest (& a couple lucky Visionary draws) proceeded to make my board look like a Modern game in like 2 turns. He's my homeboy, he's more curve-appealing than other options for once in his damn life (works well with Corpsejack Menace, Huntmaster of the Fells, Talrand, Sky Summoner, Trostani, Selesnya's Voice...etc. etc...) and he has synergy with every single card in the deck.
Cyclonic Rift: This sideboard addition, courtesy ragnil, solves the deck's biggest weakness: flyers. Token flyers especially. In addition, it's great against Junk decks, other token decks, and many other creature decks. Its Overload is practically another Hoof.
Rapid Hybridization: The other splash of Blue on the side is also there to take care of flyers of the bigger variety- Thundermaw Hellkite, Desecration Demon, Olivia Voldaren, etc. But like the Rift, its usefulness isn't limited to flyers. Of course one of their other fatties can get Hybridized, but so can one of your own Elves if you need an instant-speed 3/3. No Undying to abuse here sadly, but I'll gladly turn my Visionary or Pilgrim into a Frog Beast if the situation calls for it.
Other Green cards not found on the Pro decklists:
-Garruk, Primal Hunter: They all run 4 Callers and usually side a Relentless or two, but I've never seen this guy in one and I can't help but wonder why. A 6-drop on t3 is possible with Elves but requires a semi nutty draw (elf-Archdruid or 3 1-drops which is really risky), but all it takes to get to 5 is any combination of 2 dorks out of 15 in the deck. Any time I can get either Garruk out on t3 I'm really happy, and this one is much more realistic. Plus, he defends himself, which is nice since your Elves will have to tap for mana for an early drop. His draw is def not as consistently overwhelming as the Caller, but for one shot it's more effective since it draws everything and 8+ cards is not uncommon. In fact, I don't even feel bad treating him like an insane-value sorcery draw spell sometimes since there are enough planeswalkers for me to draw into. In the end, while the new one is just stupid good, the old one wasn't too shabby either. Why not run both?
-Soul of the Harvest is the third win condition of the deck. It's a 6/6 trampling version of Glimpse of Nature, which is banned in Modern due to its infinite combos with Elves. There's not quite that much power here (no token combos), but get an Archdruid or two out and you'll only be limited by the number of spells you draw. Like Biomancer, he makes the likely event of a one-drop topdeck much less disappointing, even exciting. He's even better than the planeswalkers in some ways against aggro since they can't attack him and he's just bigger than most of their creatures and cheap burn spells. If you can manage to team him with a planeswalker, that's enough ammo to draw a third of your deck and dig up that Craterhoof very quickly while making an army along the way.
-Bramblecrush: Were you surprised to find that an Elf deck is a little low on removal? This covers a lot of bases that Rapid Hybridization doesn't, and I prefer it to Acidic Slime despite its noncreature status since it costs 1 less and can target planeswalkers.
-Thragtusk: I'll make this brief since it's freakin Thrag. This guy has no synergy with anything here, which in most matchups makes him a weaker choice than the other fatties. However, I like him over Soul in the control matchup since he costs 1 less so I don't need to commit as many dorks to the board and he makes Verdicts less painful.
