Frank Lepore
8/1/2012 10:42:00 AM
Recent Video Articles:
Video Deck Tech - Wolf Run RUG (Standard)
Video Deck Tech - Faithless Rites/GRITES! (Standard)
Video Deck Tech - Junk Superfriends (Standard)
(A note from the author: Hey guys. I just wanted to ask for a quick favor from all of you. I don’t do this often, so I hope you’ll humor and oblige me. As you may or may not know, the Magic Online Community Cup is currently accepting nominations. For some information on what the Community Cup is, check out this Wizards article here. I originally wasn’t going to campaign for this, but I’ve had some close friends suggest that I would be a perfect fit. After a good amount of coaxing (five days to be exact), I inevitably figured what could it hurt?
That being said, what I’m asking you to do is this: if you believe I would be worthy of the role, direct your browsers here and nominate me for your representative at the Community Cup (if you don’t have an forum account, feel free to make one; it’s pretty simple). Fill in the “Nominee MTGO User ID” field with “Frank Lepore” and then write whatever your heart desires. That’s it. I would be absolutely honored to represent the community that has become such a large part of my life and I appreciate any help you guys could provide me to get there. Thank you for your consideration…
-Frank)
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Before we get started, I'd like to give a super large thanks to Alvin Armas, who not only supplied me with a
Thragtusk for this week's videos, but gifted it to me as well! This is one of the first times a reader has ever offered me something, and I have to say, it was incredibly humbling. So thanks, Alvin. I sincerely appreciate the awesome gesture!
Elves has been making a heckuva comeback recently, thanks in no small part to two additions from M13:
Arbor Elf (the 5th through 8th one drop) and
Elvish Visionary. Not only has the little green tribe finished in the Top 8 of both the
TCG Open in Providence and
SCG Open in Buffalo this past weekend, but two weeks before that, perennial ringer and good friend John Cuvelier took Elves to the Top 16 of the
TCG Open in Orlando!
Heck, I even managed to lose to a very elf-like deck last week in the first round of my videos, as my opponent pumped out creature after creature, only to culminate into a massive
Craterhoof Behemoth trigger! While M13 wasn't legal on Magic Online at the time (so the deck didn't have the luxury of the aforementioned
Arbor Elf and
Elvish Visionary) there were some similar cards like
Avacyn's Pilgrim and the like. Either way, he made it work.
Last week, when I lost to the “Elf” deck, everyone was clamoring for me to get the list and play it myself. They wanted to see me cast
Craterhoof Behemoths and trample over my opponents, it seemed. Well the list I'm going to play today was one of the more interesting Elf lists to pop up in the past couple weeks. It was played by Kurt Crane to a second place finish and it splashed white for one simple card:
Restoration Angel.
The deck is very streamlined as you can clearly see. There is very little chaff and mostly a bunch of four-ofs. The exceptions are one
Ezuri, Renegade Leader, one Cratherhoof Behemoth, two
Village Bell-Ringer, and three
Soul of the Harvest. Everything else? Four-ofs! But don't take my word for it! ...no, seriously, don't; you can just look above at the decklist I posted! Or you could check out the following videos of the deck in action!
GW Elves vs. Junk Pod
GW Elves vs. Lingering Spirits
GW Elves vs. Uh...GW...Token...Control? (Your guess is as good as mine.)
GW Elves vs. UG Infect
As you can see the deck can have some really explosive draws, and the deck can also draw dead for quite a bit. I don't feel like I played against any match-ups that were particularly bad for the deck, but I don't know if the deck has all the tools it actually should. Basically, in case it wasn't extremely apparent the goal of the deck is to land about a million tiny creatures - elves, elf lords, elf friends, etc. - and then roll it all into a huge
Green Sun's Zenith or a
Genesis Wave in an attempt to hit the singleton
Craterhoof Behemoth.
There are definitely ways to play intelligently with the deck, but unfortunately it's still kind of susceptible to cards like
Day of Judgment, or - dare I say it -
Mutilate. This is compounded by the fact that the deck, by nature, is meant to unload its hand; after all, you want as many mana sources in play as you can get, and that means just dumping elf after elf onto the table. Hopefully you can either go off before they can wipe the board or you can avoid the matchups where sweepers are prominent, but this is nonetheless something to be aware of.
A couple of cards I wished the deck had access to, being that you have a full set of
Green Sun's Zenith and a million mana to cast them with:
-
Acidic Slime. I know we have one in the board, but is having one in the main really that difficult? I don't think there's a deck out there that doesn't have a viable target.
-
Brutalizer Exarch. I've loved this guy since BG
Birthing Pod. My reason is the same as the Slime. This guy costs one more, but in addition to annoying
Oblivion Rings and lands, he will also get rid of...PLANESWALKERS! This would be a great addition if Bant Pod with
Venser, the Sojourner picks back up since you're
almost completely cold to a Stonehorn Dignitary/Venser lock. In addition, this can guy can search up an
Ezuri, Renegade Leader, or your lone
Craterhoof Behemoth.
-
Thragtusk. Again, there are two of these guys in the sideboard, but I can't imagine having one in the maindeck to combo with
Restoration Angel and
Green Sun's Zenith is really going to take a lot away from the deck.
That's pretty much it as far as the things I wanted. I think those three cards would give the deck a good amount more reach than it has now. Maybe that could even make some room in the sideboard for something like a
Silklash Spider or a
Stingerfling Spider, which I think have a lot of merit right now.
The deck definitely has a kind of “critical turn” where you win, and everything up to that point is kind of irrelevant. You'll play a lot of guys, get in some damage, and ultimately try to flood your board. At this point you can either alpha with a bunch of large Elves and flying creatures, or you can try for a huge X spell that will put you over the top.
I think the deck was built very conservatively, and I know I loved boarding in the single
Gavony Township. I feel along with the changes to the
Green Sun's Zenith package, I wouldn't mind having a couple of Townships in the main deck, and I don't think they would actually hurt the mana base all that much. What they
would do, however, is make a lot of your late game guys much more live than they currently are. Board was just wiped?
Elvish Visionary into
Arbor Elf onto an empty board is suddenly a much more potent combination.
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Additionally, this would leave more room in the sideboard for cards that might be quite useful to the deck, such as
Oblivion Ring. I would even be tempted to try something like
Faith's Reward in the sideboard as maybe a two-of. This card seems awesome, and to be able to not only recover after a
Day of Judgment, but al trigger all of your “draw a card” effects and Restorations Angels once more is huge; this would also give you a little more confidence about overextending, especially when the deck is easily able to generate an extra four mana to keep up for the
Faith's Reward.
This deck was a blast to play, but it did feel like it was missing something. Most notably some reach, I think, since as I said, the strategy is
very linear. And by “reach” here, I mean a way to get out of some stickier situations. I really liked
Soul of the Harvest, but I think I would probably cut one for the
Brutalizer Exarch. I would also cut the two
Village Bell-Ringer. While they were cute and had some favorable interactions, they usually...didn't do much. I think if I had to run it again, my changes would be as follows:
-1
Soul of the Harvest
-2
Village Bell-Ringer
-2 Forest
+2
Gavony Township
+1
Acidic Slime
+1
Thragtusk
+1
Brutalizer Exarch
For the sideboard, I would look at the following:
-1
Thragtusk
-1
Gavony Township
-1
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
+2
Oblivion Ring
+1
Faith's Reward
Like I said, the
Faith's Reward would simply be a trial and we could see how it goes. I'm not sure if these changes would be correct or if Kurt Crane would laugh at me for considering them; after all, he did take second in the event...
Either way, that's about all I have for this week! Thanks for reading and watching, and maybe next week I'll be playing something with either
Trading Post or
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker in it! Maybe Monoblack Control (Dubbed “Black Market” when it's running
Trading Post...). Let me know what you think, and I'll see you all next week!
Frank Lepore
@FrankLepore on Twitter
FrankLepore on TwitchTV
(PS. Did you hear Cedric Phillips won a PTQ with a
Mist Raven in the main deck? And a
Deadeye Navigator in the sideboard? I could have sworn I'd written about that interaction before. Apparently those two go together pretty well...)
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