Elspeth is Pretty Strong
Standard forum
Posted on June 23, 2015, 12:28 a.m. by Scott_Anderson
I'm seeing a lot of decks that have sufficient white run Elspeth put her in the sideboard, and then only use one or two copies of her. Three dudes a turn for 0 mana seems like a pretty good investment, plus she kills dragons. Decks using Rabblemaster and Hordeling Outburst should probably find some room for her to sit in the main deck.
Why do you think we don't see her main board more frequently, and in bigger numbers?
Basically what omnipotato said, except you can run certain planeswalkers as 4-ofs. Elspeth, Sun's Champion is not one of those. Mainly because she's a 6 drop and you can't really run 4 copies of a six drop.
June 23, 2015 12:52 a.m.
Elspeth got a LOT worse after RtR and M14 rotated. With traditional wraths and Doom Blade rotating, decks started leaning more towards Drown in Sorrow and Bile Blight, both of which mop up after Elspeth tokens like nobody's business. What's more, three 1/1s on the ground doesn't stop creatures like it used to back in RtR/Theros standard. Those soldier tokens now have a field of Mantis Riders, Siege Rhinos, Stormbreath Dragons, Dragonlord Ojutais, Dragonlord Atarkas, etc. that can go straight over or through them. As someone who leaned heavily on Elspeth pre-rotation, I can tell you that her power greatly declined once decks started leaning more on Bile Blight, Drown in Sorrow and massive flying threats.
June 23, 2015 1:14 a.m.
ppledger most of that is accurate, except that bile blight was always heavily played. In fact bile blight is probably being played the least since it was printed. Bile blight was always wayyyy more prominent than doom blade because of mono black's oppressiveness.
June 23, 2015 7:52 a.m.
Chubbub Huh. That's actually a valid point. I kind of forgot about monoblack devotion. I guess the reason I didn't bring that up is that, oddly enough, I can't remember ever encountering a single monoblack devotion deck at an FNM. At the places I played, the meta could be broken down as follows: 70% esper control, 10% jund midrange, 5% monoblue devotion, 5% boros burn, 5% other WU/x control, 5% rogue decks. Pretty much the only person consistently mainboarding Bile Blight and Drown in Sorrow there was yours truly. :P
June 23, 2015 8:38 p.m.
Wow I don't know if 70% control or 70% mono black would've been worse hahah.
omnipotato says... #2
Most Abzan control lists have Elspeth mainboard: example
In general you don't want to have more than 2 copies of a planeswalker in the deck because they're really bad in multiples. The reason that it's usually relegated to the sideboard is that it's really good against some matchups (like Abzan Aggro) and really bad against others (like Esper Dragons, especially ones with Silumgar, the Drifting Death). You definitely don't want Elspeth in an aggro deck alongside Goblin Rabblemaster and Hordeling Outburst since you're usually trying to end the game before you even get to 6 mana
June 23, 2015 12:44 a.m.