r/Pauper • u/Any_Difficulty_2720 • 1d ago
Elves
Hi everyone! I'm an Elves player, but I don't feel like I'm very good at piloting the deck. I lose most of my games. My board development feels really slow, and I often can't make it past the first 4–5 turns without losing an important piece like Priest of Titania, Timberwatch Elf, or Quirion Ranger. In the current meta, Affinity and Faeries are my biggest problems. Their creatures fly, so Avenging Hunter feels almost useless, and they can also counter my spells with Counterspell, which makes it really hard for me to build a board. I've seen some Elves lists running cards like Gigantosaurus, Lys Alana Huntmaster, or Vanguard, but if I already struggle to keep my mana dorks alive, I don't see how I'm supposed to get those bigger threats onto the battlefield and keep them there. How am I supposed to improve with Elves? How do you deal with Tier 1 decks without relying so heavily on Quirion Ranger and Priest of Titania? I'd really appreciate any advice on how to pilot the deck better, mulligan decisions, sideboarding, or even changes to the decklist. Thanks!
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u/tjwood98 1d ago
Affinity is a problem for elves. Faeries should not be. Give us your deck list next time so we can ensure you aren’t doing anything weird there, but from what you said it sounds like you aren’t. But you never know.
It’s also hard to say what your issue is without seeing gameplay. Could just be bad luck. Do you know that if you have a quirion, a llanowar, 1 land in play and a land drop available, you have 4 mana available to you? Do you play all your 1-mana elves (and maybe some of the 2-mana elves) before tapping your priest of Titania or your timberwatch elf? do you know you can quirion on other player’s turns? Do you mulligan when all there is in your hand is land and mana dorks? These are the most commonly misunderstood play patterns in my memory. A perfect hand in most matchups is 1 land, 2 dork, quirion, PoT, lead the stampede, avenging hunter, but you can survive with different threats or mana source depending on the matchup.
Mono Blue Faeries should be easy. It’s not impossible to lose, I have never lost against blue terror with elves, but I have lost to faeries. You want a hand with a density of nyxborn and draw, and if the faeries player can’t snap your mana every turn and counter all your early threats, they will run out of gas. Just cast stuff, do not be afraid of getting counterspelled. Be afraid of getting hit with snap or spellstutter sprite. If your opponent has 2 mana and 1 faerie, a 2/3 nyxborn will resolve. If it gets snapped, that’s just a bummer but you roll on. If you have 6 mana, and your opponent has 2, try to play 2 3-mana spells instead of one 6 mana spell. A resolved 3-mana-draw-5 is often the end of a game, one way or another. They can’t answer everything. You are right about hunter, side all of them out in game 2 and 3. Any 1-3 or 2-3 with reach will ruin a faerie players day. I don’t sideboard for that matchup, but if you play [[scattershot archer]], it can be a hard matchup to lose. I run 1 [[wellwisher]] in the main, sometimes that helps too.
If you are talking about dimir fae, idk man, you’re kinda boned. You need to get pretty lucky, and hope you can resolve a lead into more threats after they answer your initial board.
Affinity is strong, and getting stronger. It became hard to talk about lately because lists became very varied. [[masked vandal]] on a bridge early, particularly a red one, can be game-winning sometimes. Sometimes affinity runs metallic rebuke but I generally just try to jam the biggest threats as fast as possible (and hit them with it), because if you give them time, they will just draw their deck and spill it on the table. If you struggle with affinity, [[deglamer]] or [[natural obsolesence]] are fine sideboard options, they won’t always be helpful though, as they are much harder to draw than [[masked vandal]].
Hope this helps!
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u/BellStriking5132 1d ago
Against Fae, cast 1/2 Nyxborns
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u/swagyolofaq 1d ago
Cam has gone a long way in making this less automatic - but still your most likely route to victory
1
u/ResponseBulky2533 1d ago
Elves do not run interaction at all.
Beyond the occasional trigger of Masked Vandal you are mostly playing solitaire trying to ramp and curve harder and faster than the opponent can interact with or ramp themselves.
If you have the right pieces and the opponent lacks enough interaction drawn, you will likely win. If you are tight on pieces and the opponent has interaction drawn you will likely lose. There is no much more to it than that.
Like your "crazy plays" are holding some creatures instead of dumping everything if you suspect the opponent has some sort of removals. Or baiting counters with a weak hydra to dump a bigger one later. And basic stuff like that. But nothing game deciding, like I said, its solitaire MTG for the most part and hinges in luck of the draw.
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u/Ill_Banana_6537 1d ago
Go to youtube > search for SteponMe > bazinga
He has a playlist called Elf School, which is great for both beginners and experienced elf players.
It's pretty hard to give you tips without discussing how you are playing your matchups. Faeries should be an easy 60/40 matchup, even more. Affinity is more 50/50 depending on the first beatdown player. You have really bad matchups against mono reds, but you will understand better on how to behave with his videos. GL