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Elves have long been one of the most popular creature types to play in Magic the Gathering tribal themed decks. And for good reason.
Elves have absolutely great effects in numbers.
Many Elves of the past have had effects for the number of elves you have in play. And many Elves have had effects that make it easy for you to acquire more elves. Elves usually have very good synergy which is why I'm excited for what the future holds for Elves in Standard.
That's what this deck is all about. Swarming the battlefield with Elves!
Not sure if we currently have enough good Elves to make this deck viable in Standard but we could be getting more post rotation. As Standard evolves this deck will evolve with it.
We do got some nice enough pieces to get started though...
The game plan of the deck is fairly straight forward. Collect a bunch of Elf creatures. What are you to do with this board presence full of Elves?
Just Win.
The main win con of the deck is Shaman of the Pack.
It can be recast to retrigger it's ETB damage effect thanks to Invasive Species , Roaring Primadox , or Temur Sabertooth. Any of those three are key cards because they repeatedly bring back your ETB creatures (Shaman of the Pack mainly) to be reused. Sabertooth can do it multiple times for which is cheap enough you can usually recast them the same turn for double effects. And he protects himself in the process of doing so.
Use Dwynen's Elite to flood the board. When it enters you get two elves for the price of one. Bounce it back to your hand via Invasive Species , Temur Sabertooth, or Roaring Primadox and recast it again. It won't be long after you've filled up the board with 1/1 elf tokens that you cast (and recast thanks to bounce effects) Shaman of the Pack as many times as you need for lethal damage.
Roaring Primadox is one of our main combo pieces for a lot of cards in this deck because it doesn't cost us anything to bounce cards over and over again. You get one of these into play with Shaman of the Pack and it's game over as long as your not being board wiped out of control. It allows you to return your ETB creatures to your hand for free each turn only so you can replay them and get the effects over again. This means more Elves over and over again with Dwynen's Elite.
Once you filled the board with Elves it's only a matter of a couple of turns before you win because you've set up another returnable option in Shaman of the Pack for bigger direct damage blasts turn after turn.
(If the game goes on long enough where you can play higher converted mana cost creatures then maybe you might wanna include the sideboard one-off Sandsteppe Mastodon . Combined with Roaring Primadox you can play it over and over again for massive amounts of +1/+1 counters.)
The Best of the Rest...
Since we need for the main win condition you could include Demonic Pact and it's companion cards like Reclamation Sage as well as Invasive Species which we wanna use anyways. They go a long way to ensure you don't lose the game. Even if you don't have them in your hand there are other cards (Collected Company, more on this below) which can pull them out from the top of your deck and put them into play getting rid of the Demonic Pact just in time. ( Reclamation Sage would also do good vs those pesky Ensoul Artifact | U/R Ensoul decks that we are seeing plenty of right now. They use a lot of artifacts.)
Demonic Pact just offers too much advantage to not include it. Card Draw helps you replenish your hand so you have cards to play. Yeah it's built-in risk means you gotta build around it a bit but we were already including it's main running mate and combo card Invasive Species anyways so it's good to go. All you gotta do is have a plan on how to remove it or, preferably, return it to your hand to be recast later.
There is one other 4 mana card for this deck that might be even better though...
Collected Company
The ideal scenario would be to get to 4 mana and cast Collected Company to boost out 2 more Elves and then follow it up with a hastily casting of Shaman of the Pack for a bunch of direct damage. Then bounce it back to your hand and replay it with all the elves still on the board for more direct damage and rinse and repeat until they succumb to lethal damage.
Use your creatures to attack and just keep swinging where it makes sense or save them to block their advances. It's essentially a race to who can do the most damage and you should have the upper hand.
I'm thinking about taking the Demonic Pacts out for even more Collected Companys and supported creatures. That would make the deck way more synergistic. Or maybe I'm wrong and should use Collected Company alongside Demonic Pact since it's especially useful for getting a much needed Invasive Species in time for ridding Demonic Pact before you lose the game. They kinda work together in that way.
More C.C. could be sideboarded in though. It's a great card for this deck but if your going to run it then you might as well go all the way and build the deck around it. Where most creatures are low enough CMC to be played for free when you cast it. (Take out most of the 4CMC creatures.) You want to hit on as many as them 6 cards as possible for it to be worth it.
Look no further than Shaman of the Pack and return it to replay with Invasive Species all for just 4 mana. The Shaman will enter resolve and deal it's damage then Invasive Species will bounce it back to hand and you can redo it's ETB burn damage again.
Besides playing more cheaper elves to go with it can only help the tempo of the deck. I'm really thinking about adding more one-drop elves anyways to speed this up and maximize my curve and speed of the deck. You wanna be tapping out your mana every turn and not leaving even one untapped. I could get more elves out quicker if I included Gnarlroot Trapper or Thornbow Archer in greater numbers. Both would improve the decks curve and count for one more devotion towards our Win Con.
23 Lands may be way too many then since you only need to get to 4 mana really to cast anything. Could drop it to 20 and add 3 more one-drop Elves from Sideboard
Elvish Visionary is pretty good too in this deck. A pseudo- Masked Admirers at a minimum it draws a card when it enters and adds 1-devotion for Shaman of the Pack. Usually though you can drop your entire hand by turn two or three. So she helps put another card in my hand when it might be emptied. You just can't beat card draw and extra utility.
Thoughts
You could throw in some removal or tutor cards since you have a solid base of black mana. I like Gilt-Leaf Winnower even though it's a tad bit spendy at 5 mana. It can be abused and reused via the bounce combo cards in this deck to basically remove any major threats they bring out. As long as their power/toughness is not the same and they are not an Elf.
You might wanna run Den Protector to bring back any key pieces the opponent could remove themselves during the course of a match.
Lastly, this deck is particularly weak to flying. I did include Windstorm in the sideboard but the way I view decks are they cannot possibly be good at everything all at once. Like I said though adapt the deck to your liking and change it at will. Add what you think is missing and please share your decks back here if you do make something similar. I want to see! Just glad Elves are back!
My Gameplan
The perfect game involves us just casting a bunch of elves and casting and bouncing our Shaman of the Pack back to our hand over and over. There are secondary ways to win by just attacking wide with the elves (and if you feel you're going to want to do this more then utilize the sideboard for cards like Bow of Nylea to give your creatures Deathtouch and make them think twice about blocking) Just swarm them sending more than they can block or more than they can afford to lose. Might need to experiment with and test out adding in more anthems even if you go that route. Cards like Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen that can pump all your Elf creatures up and there's a few more in the sideboard as well.
Check out my Modern Elf Swarm Deck
The Elven Collective Modernized
Modern
232 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER
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===panel:Creator Notes:
[Upcoming Standard creature from BFZ](http://tinyurl.com/prlq3pz) that might be worth a add even though this deck will look completely different missing some of it's key pieces. Anywhoo it's PWR & TGH = to number of creatures you control.
Another standard creature i was thinking about including... Ambush Krotiq is probably too expensive to include too.
Shaman of Spring is in consideration here too but too expensive.
===spoiler:
RESEARCH/SOURCE MATERIAL/UNUSED STUFF
http://www.artofmtg.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Shaman-of-the-Pack-MtG-Art.jpg
http://www.artofmtg.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Joraga-Invocation-Magic-Origins-Art.jpg
http://www.artofmtg.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Sword-of-the-Animist-Magic-Origins-Art.jpg
http://magic.wizards.com/sites/mtg/files/images/wallpaper/Nissa-Sage-Animist_ORI_2560x1600_Wallpaper.jpg
http://www.artofmtg.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Dwynen-Gilt-Leaf-Daen-Magic-Origins-Art.jpg
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/top-decks/origins-elf-deck-2015-06-26
http://www.gatheringmagic.com/abesargent-120413-top-10-elves-of-all-time/
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/elf-devotion-modern/
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/elf-company-overrun/
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/elf-beatdown-for-saletrade-read-update/
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/elf-pump-30000-dmg-possible/
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/elven-packing-company/
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/green-black-elf-deck/
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/hybrid-elves/
Alot of black green elves come from the Lorwyn block set(s) of cards.
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/14870_Feature-Article--ndash--Elves-in-Lorwyn.html
===endspoiler
===endpanel
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| Date added | 9 years |
| Last updated | 9 years |
| Legality | This deck is not Standard legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 3 - 0 Mythic Rares 7 - 7 Rares 19 - 4 Uncommons 12 - 4 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.70 |
| Tokens | Elf Warrior 1/1 G |
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