Emmara's Historic Elfball
Ok so maybe the last elfball deck i built was a little bit on the terrible side. Well we're here to make up for that with a tuned-up and way more aggressive strategy! This is Historic Selesnya Elves, and it is here to smash straight through our opponent with a collection of anthems, ramp, and swarms of tiny creatures! So grab your forests sluts, we're going elfballing!
This deck is all about gettings tons of mana ramp early on and then being as aggressive as possible during the midgame with our powerful finishers. By accelerating early we can establish an enormous board quite quickly, which together with our 5 anthem effects should make our little elves into very powerful threats, and if that is not enough we have a few big-boy non-elves here to do their best Craterhoof Behemoth impression. Let's ball.
What Do Elves Do Best?
We gonna ramp HARD baby, woo! Elves gon' do what Elves do best and here we are gonna be loading up on all the mana we can dream of. We have Llanowar Elves, Druid of the Cowl, Elfhame Druid, Incubation Druid, Paradise Druid, AND Woodland Mystic. Together with Marwyn, the Nurturer we will be at ridiculous amounts of mana in NO TIME, allowing us to dump our hand and go straight for the face. As other bits of 'ramp' we run Growing Rites of Itlimoc // Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun to help us also dig for more creatures and become Gaea's Cradle once it flips, which should not take long, as wel as Legion's Landing // Adanto, the First Fort to make use of our early aggressive plays to create a new land which can also add to our board.
Beating the Elf Drum:
Elves are peaceful by nature, but if threatened they can band together and become a fearsome force. We have plenty of early aggression with our elves, starting with the powerful Pelt Collector and the less powerful but still decent Wildwood Tracker as our one-mana 2/2s on average to begin the face beating. Thorn Lieutenant can be a powerful threat with all the mana we can generate, as well as being a pain to remove. Wildborn Preserver can become a powerful threat in this deck as a fantastic early mana sink for all of the ramp we can create in this deck. Steel-Leaf Champion is just the absolute lad of early Elf drops and former mainstay of big green stompy in Standard. Finally, we run Ledev Champion to make use of our smaller dorks and early drops in case attacks aren't in our favor.
Tricky Elves:
Unfortunately we are limited to the historic card pool, so we don't have much in terms of tricks up our sleeve. Elvish Reclaimer can find our utility lands if necessary and become a 1 mana 3/4 with a little bit of work. Reclamation Sage can nuke an artifact or enchantment that is giving us trouble, and Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves lets us remove a smaller threat that might be giving us some trouble. Finally, we can get all our elves to get tricky with it by convoking Conclave Tribunal targeting our opponent's most threatening permanent.
Elf Anthems:
This deck actually runs a total of SIX ways to give all our elves +1/+1. The cheapest one is an elf herself, as Elvish Clancaller will be acting as only an Elf lord in this case, for she cannot make use of her activated ability. Icon of Ancestry will also buff our elves, as well as helping us dig for more later in the game. Radiant Destiny can also buff our elves as well as give them vigilance, and Oakhame Ranger can tap to make all our creatures bigger, making him surprisingly strong in this deck due to our ability to just swarm the board. Vanquisher's Banner will make all our elves draw a card upon entry, as well as also making them huge. Together with the more expensive Immortal Sun, we have the (veeeery unlikely) potential to give all our elves +6/+6 every turn!
Finding those Elves:
We have a lot of ramp and a few good payoffs. We need to make sure we keep the cards coming, and for that we begin with Vivien's Arkbow to make use of all that mana and find either an elf we need or a finisher from our library. Mentor of the Meek is one of the few non-elf creatures in this deck due to its potential to make a lot of tokens and play small creatures, all of which can activate him and give us the chance to use our mana to keep up on card advantage. We run the elf Beast Whisperer to draw us a card every time we cast a creature and Guardian Project to draw us another whenever a nontoken creature enters the battlefield. To finish off we have Finale of Devastation, which can either be used to find an elf answe we might need like Reclamation Sage or to go after either of our big finishers.
Elf Payoffs:
There aren't that many big elf creatures, so we might need some finishers to make use of all that mana and help close the game off early. For that we have the big green God-Eternal Rhonas and End-Raze Forerunners as targets for Finale of Devastation or simply to hit the board and cause immense amounts of damage. March of the Multitudes allows us to 'double up' on our board to create a ridiculous amount of tokens and Camaraderie will let us gain life and draw for each one, as well as also serving as a pump effect on the board to finish off the game. As already mentioned, Immortal Sun will buff our creatures but also turn off all those pesky planeswalkers, drawing us extra cards, and making our spells cheaper, which won't be that relevant but hey it's a dope card.
Lands:
I think my absolute favorite thing about historic is the range of lands we can select to get extra utility and use out of our mana. We run Field of Ruin because Field of the Dead kind of destroys us, as well as being able to hit Search for Azcanta // Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin. We get to run Unclaimed Territory to cast all our elves, and Memorial to Unity in case our draws end up being incredibly unlucky. As non-special lands Castle Ardenvale and Castle Garenbrig are here because both help with this deck's game plan, and Mobilized District to help add even more to the board. We run 3 plans and 8 forests, a Fabled Passage, and all of the dual lands available to us. This does give quite a few tapped lands, but we have a lot of mana dorks to make up for that, and while we are heavy in green, a lot of our spells have some pretty restrictive mana costs.
Creature (23) | |||
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$0.60€0.270.02 | |||
$0.56€0.320.02 | |||
$5.87€3.400.06 | |||
$5.96€1.690.02 | |||
$6.99€6.832.76 | |||
$0.62€0.822.50 | |||
$0.69€0.830.02 | |||
$0.15€0.070.03 | |||
$0.17€0.060.03 | |||
$0.20€0.050.03 | |||
$0.95€1.550.02 | |||
$2.43€0.840.02 | |||
$0.25€0.180.03 | |||
$0.34€0.300.02 | |||
$0.28€0.140.02 | |||
$2.630.01 | |||
$0.20€0.110.03 | |||
$0.35€0.170.03 | |||
$0.20€0.080.03 | |||
$0.240.03 | |||
$3.42€2.730.02 | |||
$0.95€1.170.02 | |||
$0.44€0.210.03 | |||
Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (12) | |||
$0.50€0.190.02 | |||
$4.95€4.200.02 | |||
$0.69€0.740.02 | |||
$28.50€21.032.20 | |||
$3.50€2.720.02 | |||
$0.23€0.090.03 | |||
$0.90€0.760.02 | |||
$13.49€10.770.09 | |||
$10.00€7.500.02 | |||
$4.75€4.240.02 | |||
$0.83€0.420.02 | |||
$0.36€0.210.02 | |||
Land (24) | |||
$0.25€0.080.03 | |||
$5.99€3.500.31 | |||
$0.74€0.840.10 | |||
$0.660.01 | |||
$0.34€0.310.04 | |||
$0.28€0.220.02 | |||
$12.05€9.600.33 | |||
$0.24€0.050.03 | |||
$4.65€3.340.02 | |||
$0.18€0.050.03 | |||
$0.20€0.060.03 | |||
$6.70€4.290.26 | |||
$0.59€0.470.03 | |||
8
Forest
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3
Plains
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$0.40€0.300.02 |
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