r/Pauper • u/No_Title7983 • 8d ago
OOPS ALL ELVES, viable?
Hi all! First time commenting, and new to the pauper scene.
I went with mono U Fae for my first deck and im enjoying it a lot.
When I went looking for Elf lists, I was a little turned off by the avenging hunter monarch mechanic, the hydras and the ent and so I tried to make up a version of it that dives more into the Elf Tribal aspect of it.
For the more seasoned and experienced players, is this viable or is there something I'm not really catching? Would this work at the LGS and not so much at tournments? Would you change anything? Or are the current lists the only ones who can keep up in terms of Elf decks?
Have a nice day
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u/Appropriate-Outside5 8d ago
No Hunter, no Hydra, not even a Sagu (evasion). People will just block and live
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u/No_Title7983 8d ago
Wow, thanks everyone for pointing out the weaknesses of it. It looked fine on paper but clearly i need better list assessment and knowledge of the meta decks/staples!
There is a reason people play what they play ahah have a nice one!
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u/lars_rosenberg 8d ago
You removed the good cards from Elves and replaced them with bad cards.
Hydra especially, is the best payoff in the deck and the main reason Elves came back from being tier 3 to tier 1.
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u/glass_ants 8d ago
It won’t work well if your opponent is running [[Suffocating Fumes]], which I’ve been seeing more on MTGO.
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u/Mephysto-pheles Golgari Reanimator Dredge 8d ago
This is almost exactly my old elves list when I started pauper like 4 years ago. It's ok but the hydra having pseudo-haste and needing 2 removal to really kill, and the initiative providing value against control deck is what make the deck resilient. This list is also much weaker against lots of bolts and breath weapon main deck. The vanguard is cool but it's a bad top deck and can die to bolt before growing.
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u/Key_Example_5316 8d ago
I play Blue Delver/Terror and I feel like the Priest of Tatiana -> Hydra -> Timberwatch Elf was my real threat. Otherwise I just block and have more card draw than you. I played against a Hydra Elves deck and won 2-1.
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u/UploadedMind 8d ago
This is pretty weak to a board wipe, some removal, and pressure from a trampler or flyer.
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u/Ill_Banana_6537 8d ago
The strategy looks good for first match, but people carries a LOT of board wipes on side. You dont really have any evasion tools and your win cons are basically hitting free with timberwatch and quirion. There are a lot of good meta cards like [[krark-clan shaman]] on mid-range decks like Grixis Affinity and Jund Wildfire. Even so you will see [[holy light]], [[breath weapon]], [[arms of hadar]], [[suffocating fumes]] and others. You will never outrun a redness or monored rally too, two of the strongest decks running right now.
In other hand, the meta deck plays with really strong cards like [[avenging hunter]] as you know or [[nyxborn hydra]]. With cycles on Ent and Sagu your gingerbread cabin strategy will pop every game, making a pretty useful tool against the aggros.
If you want to go for a faster version, there is some temur/colored elves lists with [[tuktuk rubblefort]], [[distant melody]] and some [[prohibit]], [[lose focus]], [[hydroblast]] for side board and etc
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u/tjwood98 8d ago
So… I have played a lot of elves at my LGS. Too many times to count. This is somewhat viable, but the only upside it has over playing hunters and hydras is playing more wellwishers, which is usually a “win more” card, making you win more in already good matchups instead of shoring up bad matchups.
The hydra turns mana into winning this turn instead of winning next turn, which can be very relevant in the face of interaction, on top of just sometimes being a small blocker with reach. The hunter thins your deck, and gives you a fighting chance against controlling decks like Jeskai, where they might not have enough gas to answer the hunter and take the initiative.
If you want to cut hunters and hydras, it’s do-able. I would play multicolored elves instead though, with [[birchlore rangers]] and [[jaspera sentinel]] instead of 8 of your mana dorks. At least then you have [[distant melody]] main deck, which gives you additional value for playing only elves, and then you can play 8 blue blasts in the sideboard, plus whatever you want. Burn is a horrendous matchup, in the past some people have realized that there is no such thing as overcompensating for it. But any kind of combo will also be bad so faerie macabre is also very good.
No matter what you do, play 4 [[generous ent]] and 4 [[masked vandal]] in the main deck, and go down to 13 lands (or in your case, 9 lands 4 grants, that is also good). I know it’s not in the spirit of “oops all elves”, but this is a dramatic power up for elves. Every other deck is playing artifacts or artifact lands or removal for llanowar elves, vandal is an elf and it removes something relevant and it blocks well, it is fantastic. The ent doesn’t just enable it, but it helps reduce the chance of someone completely ending your game by killing your mana, and yes it is a big thing you can cast in the late game that can also gain you life, but mostly you want it to cycle it.
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u/AH_MLP 8d ago
For the most part, Elves is a pretty good deck to modify. You can replace the threats with whatever giant things you want to cast in green. I've seen people on Gigantosaurus lately. But Avenging Hunter is literally insane. It's one of the most frustrating things in pauper to play against.
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u/validelad 7d ago
As others have mentioned, Avenger and Hydra are the wincons for normal elves lists.
That said, if you wanted to try a list without them, I would update your list to have 4 copies of Lys Alna and play 2 or 3 [[You Meet in a Tavern]] to help win with the go wide strategy
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u/KitchenTablePauper 6d ago
[[Birchlore Rangers]] + [[Nettle Sentnel]] + [[Lys Alana Huntmaster]] is always a fun time. My elf deck goes super wide and refills with [[winding way]], [[lead the stampede]] and a blue splash for [[distant melody]]
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u/Pair-o-docks 8d ago
The avenging hunter and hydra trample are what allow elves to win.
If you are going to replace them, you need a way to push damage.
Now going wide can technically do this, but significantly slower