Hello this is Elfie, starting on an article for pojo.com. I've been playing Magic
for some time already, and as such I've decided to start writing. If you have any
problems with anything I write, please email them to defiranth@gmail.com. These
include deck fixes as well. So now, onto the article!

We've definitely all seen how insane the Elves! deck was in the recent Berlin Pro Tour.
The crazy draw from Wirewood Symbiote/Elvish Visionary which ALSO allows for mana ramping
courtesy of Heritage Druid and Llanowar Elves is really something to admire, as can
be seen from the eventual champion, Louis Scott-Vargas. Furthermore, his Elves! variation
also ran a single copy of Grapeshot in main, with the Shock ability in Grapeshot really
setting up for a Grapeshot Kill. With the awesome draw, awesome mana ramping, AND awesome
big creatures( flash to Predator Dragon in certain variants of Elves!), whats there
not to like?

And so, being the somewhat inspired player that I am, I decided to embark on a rather unique
take on the Elves deck; in Standard! ( Note: I call it unique because in where I play, there
are virtually no Standard Elves players. I don't know about your metagame, so forgive me
if I'm wrong.)

But before that, lets set a rule. Most people can't afford expensive cards. Most people want
good decks for as cheap as possible. So therefore, as a rule, every deck I do from now on
will only have, maximum, 1 mythic rare and 3 rares. If people want to send in their fixes,
please try to respect this rule as well? If not, I will enforce it for the good of the people
reading this article. Yes,that means your decks get raped. *Cackles evilly* WIth that dealt
with, moving on...


So now. What characterizes an Elf deck? Firstly, they've got to be mostly Elves(duh.). Also,
its got to be quick, with a good mana ramp,setting up for more elves and more elves and more
elves and... Well yeah you get the idea. And lastly, its got to have SOMETHING to do with all
those spare elves lying around. So, to meet all these conditions, lets see the cards we will
DEFINITELY maindeck.

So firstly. Mana Ramp.

.....Wait for it.....

...Yup, you guessed it...

LLANOWAR ELVES!

<Llanowar Elves
Cost: G
Card Type: Creature - Elf Druid
P/T: 1/1
Rules Text (Oracle): Tap: Add Green Mana to your mana pool.>

This baby is the maindeck in an elf deck. Always. First turn land, drop this elf, second turn
another land, and bam! You've got three mana. Awesome. :D


<Heritage Druid
Cost: G
Card Type: Creature - Elf Druid
P/T: 1/1
Rules Text (Oracle): Tap three untapped Elves you control: Add GGG to your mana pool.>

This guy over here is another superb first turn drop. Get him out early, play more elves, get
more mana,play more elves. Get more mana, play more elves... Yup. Sexaye.


Note that of course, there would be other creatures in the mana department, but for now these
are the ones that I think are worth noting.


So now, to the next department. To get out more elves into play, you need to get Elves into
your hand first. And so, cards that do this well...


<Elvish Visionary
Cost: 1G
Card Type: Creature - Elf Shaman
P/T: 1/1
Rules Text (Oracle): When Elvish Visionary comes into play, draw a card.>

I think this card was designed to make elf-lovers happy. Elf + draw = OWNAAAGE. Yup, this is
definitely a good card for draw mechanic. Cheap, 1 card draw. And its an elf! So. DEfinitely
4-of.



<Regal Force
Cost: 4GGG
Card Type: Creature - Elemental
P/T: 5/5
Rules Text (Oracle): When Regal Force comes into play, draw a card for each green creature
you control.>


This card's mana cost might first look a little prohibitive, but it really is nothing to laugh
at. For 5/5, and insane draw ( 8 or more, if you play your cards right), maindeck. FIRST RARE!



<Elvish Harbinger
Cost: 2GG
Card Type: Creature - Elf Druid
P/T: 1/2
Rules Text (Oracle): When Elvish Harbinger comes into play, you may search your library for
an Elf card, reveal it, then shuffle your library and put that card on
top of it.

Tap: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.>

Mm, this might seem a bit off-tangent, but this card is the It. It fetches you and elf which you might
desperately need to pull off a combo or two, and you can tap it for any color of mana. Its mana cost, again
not too big a deal.



So now, what do you do with all the extra Elves out in play?


<Jagged-Scar Archers
Cost: 1GG
Card Type: Creature - Elf Archer
P/T: */*
Rules Text (Oracle): Jagged-Scar Archers's power and toughness are each equal to the number of Elves you control.

Tap: Jagged-Scar Archers deals damage equal to its power to target creature with flying.>


This guy is what all your elves go to help toward. A big, badass monster. Look, it also can handle flying creatures!
Cheap cost too. All good.




<Skullmulcher

Cost: 4GG
Card Type: Creature - Elemental
P/T: 3/3
Rules Text (Oracle): Devour 1 (As this comes into play, you may sacrifice any number of creatures. Th
is creature comes into play with that many +1/+1 counters on it.

When Skullmulcher comes into play, draw a card for each creature it devoured.>


Devour. What an awesome mechanic when you have a lot of creatures, don't you think? Look, ma, you also get draw!



So with those 2 big boys out, you realise that even though your deck is full of elves. You want more. MORE. How
does that work?


ELVISH PROMENADE.

<Elvish Promenade
Cost: 3G
Card Type: Tribal Sorcery - Elf
P/T:
Rules Text (Oracle): Put a 1/1 green Elf Warrior creature token into play for each Elf you control.>

Mmhrmm. This guy doubles your elf count! Isn't that just exciting. JAgged scar gets absolutely PIMPED, and Skullmulcher
got more prey. Yay. :D



So with all of that out of the way, let us unveil the deck!


THE SELVES!( Standard Elves! Get it get it...hahha. Sorry my puns suck. ): )


Forest x 12
Swamp X 6
Devoted Druid x 4
Farhaven Elf x 3
Llanowar Elves x 4
Heritage Druid x 4
Elvish Visionary x 4
Regal Force x 1
Skullmulcher x 1
Elvish Promenade x 3
Prowess of the Fair x 3
Wolf Skull Shaman x 2
Jagged Scar Archers x 4
Nurturer initiate x 2
Elvish Harbinger x 3
Nameless Inversion x 2
Naturalize x 2


Hows THAT! Prowess of the Fair when your elves die, Nameless Inversion for some easy removal, Naturalize when theres
a threat. I dunno about you, I just kind of like this deck. :D


So without further ado, lets playtest it!


GAME ONE: Green/White Creature-based


First turn of this deck is the most important. You NEED a first turn drop. And so, a first turn Llanowar. :D He answered with a birds of paradise. A second turn wolf-skull Shaman kind of puts the game in my favour, or so I think. He drops a turn 2 wooly Thoctar.( an obscenity here would be lovely.) I didn't think his deck was THAT fast! On my turn I played a Llanowar.
On the next turn, he got out 2 bloom tenders and attacked with the thoctar. I took the hit with my Llanowar, and hoped he didnt have anything else up his sleeve, because if he didn't i could get out a Jagged-scar hopefully and save the day. I dropped a Prowess of the Fair. From the looks of things, I was going to need it. ( NOTE: I KEEP FORGETTING TO CHECK FOR
KINSHIP. IF I DID THE GAME COULD HAVE EASILY WENT THE OTHER WAY.)

And damn right I was. He had a turn 4 Wilt-leaf Liege, and Wooly Thoctar could qualify for BOTH conditions, the green condition and the white condition, making it a monstrous 7/6. I coudn't deal with it. The answer in this situation?
Chump block. And chump block I did, with my awesome tokens generated from Wolf-skull, I managed to hold him off. But within turn, he dropped ANOTHER wilt-leaf. Kind of puts things in perspective. Thank god the turn after that I managed to get out an Elvish Promenade, which pimped my already existing Jagged-scar archer to 10/10dom. Things were looking up. But then, he dropped a Regal Force the turn after and got a bunch of cards in his hand.( 5, to be exact.) Back on my turn, i played a quick slew of elves which got Archer up to 12/12. He tried a Shield of the Oversoul on his Thoctar, but thank God I had a naturalize in my hand to counter that threat. Bam he dropped a wilt-leaf cavalier, and with it being white and green, it got up to 7/8.

So for the next 4 or 5 turns he bided his time, considering I had a big threat on my side of the field. WHilst I, with a little help from Wolf-Skull Shaman, got out a slew of wolves. Good for chump-blocking, eh? ANd io and behold, after a few turns. BAM.
Another JAgged Scar Archer! Both of them were 15/15 now. :D So for the next 2 turns, he bided his time again, obviously waiting for a card, when I bided my time for his attack too. And it came, when he realised his card wasn't coming(oh, the suspense as to what it is), he went for it. And I was more than prepared to answer, and when things looked grim on his side; BAM. WRATH OF GOD.

That completely killed all my hopes of winning. I had to get back on track. Thank god i still had Prowess of the Fair in play, which granted me 9 tokens. So I went for it with the 9 tokens, bringing him down to 11. Guess what? ANOTHER WRATH OF GOD. I was really screwed. And you know what made it 10 times worse, after his wrath, he had 2 bloom tenders and a woolly Thoctar.

So for the rest of the game I managed to hold on, but for the next 4 turns I realised it was going nowhere, so I forfeited, but waited for another turn for him to show me what his ghey card was.

TITANIC ULTIMATUM.


<Titanic Ultimatum
Cost: RRGGGWWW
Card Type: Sorcery
P/T:
Rules Text (Oracle): Until end of turn, creatures you control get +5/+5 and gain first strike, lifelink, and trample.>



If that thing came out earlier, I woudn't have had a chance.


Stuff to change in deck:


-2 Nurturer Initiate. It served completely no purpose.
-3 Farhaven Elf. They were a bit slow for my liking.

As to what to put in...

I would add a skullmulcher, but that would break my policy. So for now just a..

+1 Nameless Inversion
+4 Bone Splinters



Instead of going in detail over the next 20 games I play, I'm just going to leave a summary of all my changes to the deck.

after 3 games: 2-1
The new removal really helps out, but I somehow seem to have land problems. There isn't the crazy acceleration which elves
are known for. So I'm upping the land count to 22.

+2 Forest
+2 Swamp

- 1 Bone Splinters
- 2 WOlf-Skull Shaman
- 1 Devoted Druid


After 5 games: 3-2

More land is awesome, but not til it floods. I barely could draw anything quickly, what with all the crazy land coming my
way. so...

-1 Forest
-1 Swamp

Oh, and one more thing. One of the hottest cards being played around, one of the most annoying things you can find on the
field, one of the cards with the persist mechanic... Behold... Kitchen Finks.

<Kitchen Finks

Cost: 1 G/W G/W
Card Type: Creature - Ouphe
P/T: 3/2
Rules Text (Oracle): When Kitchen Finks comes into play, you gain 2 life.
Persist (When this creature is put into a graveyard from play, if it had no -1/-1 counters on it, return it to play under its owner's
control with a -1/-1 counter on it.)>

I hate him. And since I'm not for the "If you beat them, join them" strategy, I opt for this little bugger:


<Tower Above
Cost: 2/G 2/G 2/G
Card Type: Sorcery
P/T:
Rules Text (Oracle): (2/G Mana can be paid with any two mana or with Green Mana. This card's converted mana cost is 6.)

Until end of turn, target creature gets +4/+4 and gains trample, wither, and "When this creature
attacks, target creature blocks it this turn if able." (It deals damage to creatures in the form
of -1/-1 counters.)


Hows THAT, FInks! No more persist shizz for you, bad boyy. :D

+2 Tower Above

Hrm from what I can see, its starting to look less and less like an elf deck. To deal with threats, I need to completely change everything, and thats just too hard from what I have at the moment. To be honest, this deck needs massive overhaul. From the looks of things... it looks grim. So, I'm going to completely redo this deck, and (hopefully) it gets better. Sooo... A new decklist.

Forest x 9
Swamp x 9
Mountain x 4
Heritage Druid x 4
Nettle Sentinel x 4
Elvish Visionary x 4
Elvish Harbinger x 3
Llanowar Elves x 4
Imperious Perfect x 4
Wolf-Skull Shaman x 2
Bone Splinters x 4
Nameless INversion x 2
Jagged-Scar Archers x 2
Elvish Promenade x 3
Prowess of the Fair x 3
Skullmulcher x 1
Soulblast x 2
Naturalize x 2


The new additions:

<Nettle Sentinel
Cost: G
Card Type: Creature - Elf Warrior
P/T: 2/2
Rules Text (Oracle): Nettle Sentinel doesn't untap during your untap step.
Whenever you play a green spell, you may untap Nettle Sentinel.>

The way I see it, a green spell comes out nearly every turn, and with the nice synergy with Heritage Druid, this is a worthy
inclusion to the deck.>

<Imperious Perfect
Cost: 2 G
Card Type: Creature - Elf Warrior
P/T: 2/2
Rules Text (Oracle): Other Elf creatures you control get +1/+1.
Green Mana, Tap: Put a 1/1 green Elf Warrior creature token into play.>

This thing can boost all your slightly-weeker elves and can generate tokens. Should be added.

<Soulblast
Card Type: Instant
Cost: 3RRR
P/T:
Rules Text (Oracle): As an additional cost to play Soulblast, sacrifice all creatures you control.
Soulblast deals damage to target creature or player equal to the total power of the sacrificed creatures.>

This might seem like a really random addition, but this is essentially your finisher card. Hopefully with Imperious Perfect,
it'll make it much easier to kill the guy, and if you have a Prowess of the Fair in play, things won't look so down.


This is just episode 1, to be continued... ELVES!