Third dork in Elves
Modern forum
Posted on Aug. 26, 2016, 10:56 p.m. by Kizzel
I'm seeing a lot of builds running Boreal Druids in place of Nettle Sentinels. Now my question is, why are people running Boreal when they can run Arbor Elf or Beastcaller Savant? Why run a colorless source when the majority of your cards are 1 mana. Since Beastcaller has haste, it's essentially a 1 mana dork. And Arbor gives you a land back instead which is almost like a Llanowar Elves. I understand it's only forest and not all lands.
I don't know where u are looking but most lists run Llanowar Elves and Elvish Mystic some lists run Devoted Druid
August 27, 2016 4:53 a.m.
also Nettle Sentinel is a very good card in the deck I don't think it would be cut
August 27, 2016 4:55 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #6
We'd have to see the build to be able to answer this question. Do they have any 
costs or activations in their build? Is it an actual build or some uber budget thing using what they already own? Is it possibly a placeholder for something else as they are testing? These are all things we need to know.
August 27, 2016 10:29 a.m.
Here is an example that I copy and pasted.
Lands
2 x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
4 x Horizon Canopy
4 x Razorverge Thicket
4 x Forest
1 x Pendelhaven
2 x Cavern of Souls
1 x Temple Garden
1 x Windswept Heath
Creatures
4 x Heritage Druid
4 x Llanowar Elves
4 x Elvish Mystic
4 x Boreal Druid
4 x Dwynen's Elite
4 x Elvish Visionary
4 x Elvish Archdruid
4 x Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 x Imperious Perfect
1 x Joraga Warcaller
Spells
4 x Collected Company
3 x Lead the Stampede
August 27, 2016 10:58 a.m.
The decks your are talking about are:
If you look closely, you will see, that it's the exact same person playing those two decks. This guy apparently thought it would be better to simply run a third mana dork instead of Nettle Sentinel. Besides Mystic Elves and Llanowar Elves, Boreal Druid is the best 1 mana dork. The deck runs very few forest, and Beastcaller Savant doesn't let you ramp.
August 27, 2016 12:10 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #10
In the context of his deck it is a fine choice to drop Nettle Sentinel for Boreal Druid not a fan of his build of the deck in general though.
August 27, 2016 2:23 p.m.
Another build went 9-0 running Lead the Stampede and Boreal Druid over Nettle Sentinel and Chord of Calling. With all the 1 drops in elves, is it wise to run Boreal??? I feel like you won't ultilize the colorless mana dork much.
August 28, 2016 11:46 p.m.
ComradeJim270 says... #12
Running LtS over Chord is fine. Running Boreal Druid over Nettle Sentinel is silly. Running just about anything over Nettle Sentinel seems silly to me, but some people have gotten ok results that way.
August 30, 2016 12:38 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #14
Because Modern?
Fyndhorn Elves last printing in a block was Iceage. It is not Modern legal.
September 2, 2016 6:09 p.m.
ah. I didn't notice it was modern. So, ignore what i said.
eeee1994 says... #2
Beastcaller Savant doesn't allow for 3 mana on turn 2 like the one mana dorks which is I think a pretty big strike against it
August 26, 2016 11:32 p.m.