Last updated 27 April 2018
Mono Green Elves is an aggro weenie deck built around the Elves tribe. It uses mana ramp to fill the board with creatures and then hit for legal.
The deck's main win condition is
Ezuri, Renegade Leader
. Most of games won by Elves are won on the turn that
Ezuri, Renegade Leader
resolved as the mana generated by the deck is atleast enough for an Ezuri activation if not infinite activations.
Collected Company
is the deck's namesake card. A full playset are run in the Mainboard due to its incredible ability to dig through the Elves player's library to fill the board with creatures or find silver bullets.
The ideal first two turns with this deck would be:
| Turn 1 - Make a land drop, play either
Llanowar Elves
or
Elvish Mystic
which are functionally the same.
|| Turn 2 - Make a land drop, then cast
Dwynen's Elite
(receiving a 1/1 Elf token because of your mana dork)
Then cast Elvish Archruid (EMA) using a
Cavern of Souls
if possible.
Once it resolves, activate
Heritage Druid
's ability by tapping itself,
Dwynen's Elite
and the 1/1 Elf token (giving you three green mana), and then use the three green mana to cast
Elvish Archdruid
or
Elvish Champion
.
Keep in mind, the ability can be activated at instant speed if a less experienced opponent casts a removal spell on it once it resolves. This means losing it will have no effect on turn 2 because the ability can still be activated for the three mana.
However, if the turn 1 mana producer is hit with a removal spell before your untap step, the
Heritage Druid
with
Dwynen's Elite
combo can't be activated because there's no longer enough mana available. Similarly, if either
Dwynen's Elite
or the token gets removed before
Heritage Druid
resolves, there aren't three elves in play so
Heritage Druid
can't generate the three mana. ||
3-4x
Cavern of Souls
are essential for a Tier One version of
Collected Company
Elves (a budget alternative can replace the 4x
Cavern of Souls
with 4x
Forest
but at the cost of a huge drop in the deck's strength). Running 3x allows for extra green mana to cast
Chord of Calling
and the beloved
Collected Company
while 4x allows for your Elves to become uncounterable, making Control's
Logic Knot
and Grixis Shadow's
Stubborn Denial
borderline dead-weight for your opponent. For players that run 3x
Cavern of Souls
in the Mainboard, the additional copy is to be run in the Sideboard to improve match ups against decks with counterspells such as Grixis Delver, UW Prison and Jeskai Control (just to name a few).
Despite being mono-coloured, 2-3x
Verdant Catacombs
are run to create better draws as a result of deck thinning. They also allow splashing Black by adding 2-3x
Overgrown Tomb
to replace the same amount of
Forest
s.
As most Modern fans are aware, the most appealing trait of running B/G Elves is the access to
Abrupt Decay
, which all B/G decks run a playset of.
Fatal Push
is also available, but amazing as
Fatal Push
is, Elves is not a deck that it has much of a place in. Only run
Fatal Push
if you're playing in a creature-heavy meta, with a build that is already running the 4x
Abrupt Decay
and even then, 2-3
Fatal Push
should be the maximum amount. This is to avoid: decreasing the strength of
Collected Company
by risking not hitting two creatures, getting poor top-decks or risking using
Elvish Visionary
's draw on removal at a time when removal isn't necessary.
Collected Company Elves has 6 essential play sets of creatures in the form of 4x
Elvish Mystic
, 4x
Llanowar Elves
, 4x
Heritage Druid
, 4x
Dwynen's Elite
, 4x
Elvish Archdruid
and 4x
Nettle Sentinel
.
The remaining 9-10 creatures are able to be run in amounts that vary by local meta but usually include 3-4x
Ezuri, Renegade Leader
, 1-2x
Eternal Witness
and 1-2x
Essence Warden
(this is explored in detail further down in the description).
One of Elves' weaknesses is the vulnerability to board wipes such as
Anger of the Gods
and
Supreme Verdict
. This is why 1-2x
Scavenging Ooze
in the Mainboard is very common in Elves deck lists as it's able to turn a graveyard of dead Elves into a powerful creature, alongside some extra life to cover the Elves player's back until they can re-establish a solid board state.
Another benefit of
Scavenging Ooze
is oozing away opponent's graveyards. A majority of Tier One decks use their graveyard including Grixis Shadow, Jeskai Control, Storm, Dredge, Living End and Company variants (through
Eternal Witness
) including Counters Company, GW Hatebears and the mirror match.
While B/G Elves has access to
Abrupt Decay
and W/G Elves has access to the infamous
Path to Exile
, Mono-Green Collected Company Elves lacks the ability to deal with opponent's creatures. For this reason 2-3x
Dismember
are run in a vast majority of Mono-Green Elves sideboards and a full playset can even be run in a creature-heavy local meta (as Modern often has).
One of Elves players' most famous debates is regarding the number of
Ezuri, Renegade Leader
to run. 3-4x is recommended because the Legend rule is rarely a problem (as any opponent that can remove it from the board will and any opponent that can't, will lose in the next 1-2 turns if you have a solid enough board state).
2x
Ezuri, Renegade Leader
can be run if the total number of
Collected Company
,
Chord of Calling
and
Lead the Stampede
is more than 8x (due to being able to tutor for Ezuri more regularly), but this is risky and only recommended for experienced Elves players.
Eternal Witness
is another card that has disagreement regarding the number to run, but 1-2x in the Mainboard is common. This is primarily to allow for reusing the same
Collected Company
. Also, returning a
Heritage Druid
to the field on turn 3 after a
Terminate
or an
Abrupt Decay
resolves on it during your opponent's second turn (assuming that the Elves player is on the play) is also a relatively frequent use of
Eternal Witness
because most opponents will use their removal on the turn 2
Heritage Druid
in attempt to slow down the Elves' mana ramp.
Unfortunately
Eternal Witness
is not an Elf. If its "Human" creature type was replaced with "Elf," then 2-3x would be essential to an Elves decklist. But as
Eternal Witness
does not receive the buff from
Elvish Archdruid
and cannot be tapped for
Heritage Druid
's ability, so 1-2 copies is considered the maximum amount to run in the Mainboard.
Prior to the printing of
Vizier of Remedies
, the most appealing characteristic of a GW Elves build was the access to Sideboard powerhouses such as
Stony Silence
and
Eidolon of Rhetoric
. Nowadays, GW Elves is far more popular than before as the
Devoted Druid
with
Vizier of Remedies
combo is easily slotted into Elves, especially since Druid is an elf.
Infinite mana is useful in any deck but similar to Counters Company, going infinite fuels the major win condition of an Elves deck. Infinite mana with an Ezuri in play results in infinite activations of +3/+3 and trample followed by a swing for infinite damage. Dropping your entire hand into the battlefield factors into the equation too.
With
Devoted Druid
, infinite mana can be generated multiple ways. Taking a page from Counters Company's book, having
Devoted Druid
and
Vizier of Remedies
on the board at once will do the trick. An alternate route involves two
Devoted Druid
and at least one
Elvish Archdruid
being on the board at once. Two
Elvish Archdruid
and one
Devoted Druid
will also achieve the combo.
Running Elves in GW or Abzan colours usually involves only a single copy of
Vizier of Remedies
. The reasoning behind this is that drawing Vizier without
Devoted Druid
in play is a dead draw, which is a huge hindrance on an explosive creature-based deck. Additionally, the opposite scenario of having a Druid in play and wanting a Vizier is manageable through the playset of
Chord of Calling
with the playset of
Collected Company
as a backup.
Shaman of the Pack
is another card whose presence in Elves decklists is debated. Considering the mana cost involved, Shaman lacks a body large enough to warrant a slot in the deck but the reason copies of it have crept into some GB and Abzan versions of Elves is the trigger that it provides.
Shaman of the Pack
's viability is rooted in the nature of Magic: The Gathering itself and how it operates. One of the most important elements of Magic is playing from behind.
Most decks are highly interactive and the to-and-fro of deploying threats while neutralising opposing threats usually results in games that are incredibly even and can shift in favour of one player with as little as a good draw step.
Some believe
Shaman of the Pack
is too extreme in its impact, meaning it's either a game winner or a dead draw. This is supported by the argument that dropping a Shaman on a board in Elves' favour is just accelerating the win slightly while dropping Shaman on a board state favouring the opponent is usually not impactful enough to regain the advantage.
However, there are matchups in which the board state is in the opponent's favour and
Shaman of the Pack
is an amazing play. Board states involving
Ensnaring Bridge
or
Ghostly Prison
are bad news for Elves because they prevent the number of creatures deployed from equating to the amount of damage dealt. Shaman's trigger is amazing here as the creature count is almost certainly high enough to be impactful, as decks hiding behind prison effects allow for the buildup of creatures because they can't attack. This combines to make Shaman's triggered ability very influential against UW Prison, WR Prison and 8-rack strategies.
Most deck lists run 1-2x
Essence Warden
to allow for easier match ups against creature-heavy decks (such as Company variants, Merfolk and the mirror match) in addition to slowing down turn-four one-shot decks (such as Affinity and Burn). Some players run as many as 3-4x while others place their copies exclusively in the Sideboard; this is a decision that differs by the current meta, the Elves player's local meta and the desired speed of the Elves deck.
When it comes to post-board games, Elves is a step ahead of other archetypes due to
Chord of Calling
being able to tutor for solutions to whatever problem is found on the opponent's side of the table.
Running only a single copy of a Sideboard card is safer in Elves than some other decks because the desired solution is able to be tutored for, drawn or dug up by
Collected Company
in a majority of games.
Deck thinning from
Verdant Catacombs
, draw from
Elvish Visionary
and
Horizon Canopy
, the high amount of mana generated by
Heritage Druid
and
Elvish Archdruid
from turn 2 onwards and the return ability of
Eternal Witness
all combine to create a situation in which it is very easy for a hate card to make its way onto the battlefield and stay there.
However, Collected Company Elves has powerful and diverse Sideboard options in Mono-Green as well. 1-2x
Scavenging Ooze
and 1x
Spellskite
are both run in the Mainboard but 1-2x more of each in the Sideboard is bordering on essential.
Spellskite
eats up Modern's plentiful amount of targeted removal so that
Heritage Druid
and
Ezuri, Renegade Leader
can stay on the board (in addition to providing a solution to Burn, Bogles and Infect).
Meanwhile, playing a
Scavenging Ooze
immediately after a board wipe is able to protect the Elves player while they re-establish a board presence. This is achieved by providing Lifegain to slow down opponent's clocks and creating a blocker (or a beatstick in the most desperate of board states).
However, care must be taken in the aforementioned situation, because a fat
Scavenging Ooze
is the ideal target for non-damaged-based removal like
Path to Exile
,
Fatal Push
and
Abrupt Decay
. Strategic opponents will wait for the graveyard of dead Elves to be exhausted, then cast their removal spell to neutralise both the fatty and the possibility of graveyard interaction from
Eternal Witness
or another fat
Scavenging Ooze
.
1-2x
Choke
and 3-4x
Dismember
are also frequently played in Mono-Green Elves Sideboards.
Choke
hits anything from Merfolk to Blue Moon and Jeskai Control; if it's in Blue,
Choke
is a problem for it.
Dismember
is the only removal Mono-Green Elves has access to so 3-4x of them are run in the Sideboard a majority of the time. Infect decks can crumble once a
Dismember
is cast and because Infect is one of Modern's least-interactive aggro decks,
Dismember
becomes essential for an Elves Sideboard.
Most Phyrexian mana cards are banned out of Modern including ex-format-staples like
Mental Misstep
and
Gitaxian Probe
. If
Dismember
ever gets banned in Modern and green doesn't get a decent one mana removal spell Mono-Green Elves will struggle. In this scenario, most playing Mono-Green Elves would probably shift to the B/G version by adding 2-3x
Overgrown Tomb
, 2-4x
Blooming Marsh
and 3-4x
Abrupt Decay
to the Mainboard.
Last updated 27 April 2018
