Arbor Elf
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pauper Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Arbor Elf

Creature — Elf Druid

: Untap target Forest.

wallisface on Why is Untapping Lands a …

1 month ago

legendofa I have an issue with you contesting my statement of "a large portion of those cards are extremely old" and then deciding yourself what the goalposts should be for my own statement. I never said that only old-bordered cards are old... the current "new" border has still been in use for a ridiculous quantity of time, and the colour pie has shifted numerous times since its creation. For me, anything that was printed 10+ years ago, fits into the "extremely old" category... so if you're going to pull me-up on what's old-or-new, that is the yardstick i'm measuring.

Now, ordering cards by how old they actually are (instead of arbitrary card-frames) yields the following (using only the cards you've already listed):

1993 (31 years ago): Ley Druid

1995 (29 years ago): Juniper Order Druid

1996 (28 years ago): Nature's Chosen, Emerald Charm

1997 (27 years ago): Elder Druid, Earthcraft, Llanowar Druid

1998 (26 years ago): Awakening, Argothian Elder

1999 (25 years ago): Early Harvest

2002 (22 years ago): Krosan Restorer

2004 (20 years ago): Rude Awakening, Nature's Will

2005 (19 years ago): Stone-Seeder Hierophant, Seedborn Muse, Patron of the Orochi

2006 (18 years ago): Magus of the Candelabra

2007 (17 years ago): Woodland Guidance

2009 (15 years ago): Garruk Wildspeaker

2010 (14 years ago): Bear Umbra

2012 (12 years ago): Arbor Elf, Urban Burgeoning

2013 (11 years ago): Voyaging Satyr

2014 (10 years ago): Nissa, Worldwaker

2017 (7 years ago): Initiate's Companion, Hope Tender, Nissa, Genesis Mage, Blossom Dryad

2018 (6 years ago): Ley Weaver, Cacophodon

2019 (5 years ago): Wilderness Reclamation, Rime Tender

2021 (3 years ago): Sculptor of Winter, Saryth, the Viper's Fang, Jorn, God of Winter  Flip

2022 (2 years ago): Likeness of the Seeker  Flip, Civic Gardener

2023 (last year): Rustvine Cultivator, Portent Tracker

2024 (this year): Innocuous Researcher

Using the above data, the below rant is in defense of my claim "From what i’m seeing, the general trend is that this effect used to be quite prominent in green but something that’s slowly being phased out/down for green over time", which may have been the other thing you were contesting??

Now, at face value this paints a picture that indicates an-eb-and-flow of constant printings of green-land-untap effects, perhaps even slightly favoring those printings in the more recent years. HOWEVER - this does not take into account the actual percentage of cards printed in any given year.

For example, in 1996 2 cards exist in our category, BUT only 468 new cards were printed that year. 2022 also has 2 cards in our category printed, but also had 2004 new cards printed into it, meaning those 2 cards represented a significantly lower percentage of what green represented that year.

With Wotc printing an increasingly large quantity of cards every year, this effect has been getting an increasingly lower-percentage-share of cards given to it. The one anomaly I see is 2017, where 4 cards were printed in a year that made 861 new cards, making it about on-par with our beforementioned 1996 example.

legendofa on Why is Untapping Lands a …

1 month ago

wallisface I'm still going to contest that. Scryfall search comes up with 45 mono-green cards with the words "untap" and "land". Ignoring stuff like Blizzard and Chokefoil, there are nine cards in that group with ye olde bordere that untap lands, seven with the Modern border, and fourteen with the 2015 border, skipping those whose primary purpose is to turn lands into creatures like Wakeroot Elemental. Two of them are legal in Standard, and thirteen--about a third of the total, and more than ye olde bordere--are legal in Pioneer. I'm not seeing the dropoff for land untapping in green.

Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "land": Ley Druid, Elder Druid, Juniper Order Druid, Nature's Chosen, Early Harvest, Earthcraft, Awakening, Argothian Elder, Krosan Restorer. total 9

Modern Border, "untap" + "land": Rude Awakening, Nature's Will, Stone-Seeder Hierophant, Magus of the Candelabra, Garruk Wildspeaker, Bear Umbra, Urban Burgeoning, Voyaging Satyr. total 8

2015 Border, "untap" + "land": Nissa, Worldwaker, Initiate's Companion, Hope Tender, Nissa, Genesis Mage, Blossom Dryad, Ley Weaver, Wilderness Reclamation, Sculptor of Winter, Saryth, the Viper's Fang, Likeness of the Seeker  Flip, Civic Gardener, Rustvine Cultivator, Portent Tracker, Innocuous Researcher. total 14

Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "permanent": Emerald Charm, Seedborn Muse. total 2

Modern Border, "untap" + "permanent": none.

2015 Border, "untap" + "permanent": Cacophodon, Rime Tender, Jorn, God of Winter  Flip. total 3

Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "Forest": Llanowar Druid. total 1

Modern Border, "untap" + "Forest": Patron of the Orochi, Woodland Guidance, Arbor Elf. total 3

2015 Border, "untap" + "Forest": none.

So there's 39 green cards that can untap lands in some capacity, with 34 of those being more or less land-specific. Again, these counts ignore cards that untap lands by turning lands into creatures, focusing only on those whose main function is the untap. It also ignores Un-cards.

Analysis of blue to follow.

legendofa on Why is Untapping Lands a …

1 month ago

wallisface Which extremely old cards are you looking at? For mono-green cards with the line "Untap target land", seven out of twelve have the 2015 frame for their first printing. For "Untap all lands", there's five, with all having at least the Modern frame and two having the 2015 frame for their first print.

For "untap all permanents", the only mono-color card is Seedborn Muse. The only mono-blue card with "untap all lands" is Resetfoil, by far the oldest card.

There are eighteen mono-blue cards with "untap target permanent", and only two of them have the 2015 frame. The only mono-blue card with "untap target land" is Oboro Breezecaller.

I'll grant that the number of mono-green cards with "untap target land" is smaller than the number of mono-blue cards with "untap target permanent", but is 12 extremely tiny compared to 18's comparative vastness? And the bulk of those blue cards are older than the bulk of the green cards.

I'll acknowledge that I didn't look at multicolor cards, miscellaneous stuff like Arbor Elf, etc., but I think comparing pure land untapping ability between the colors is sufficient to demonstrate their relative presence. So unless I missed something else in my admittedly quick and simple search, I'm going to stand by my statement. Untapping lands is primary in green, and untapping permanents as a whole is primary in blue. If anything, green land untapping is building up, rather than falling off in recent years.

Vandoren4 on The Brood x Blade (Combo Core)

2 months ago

Murrow

The playtesting went well, but I noticed that its a bit slow. the main reason my version became so expensive is because I was trying to make it go as fast as possible in the hopes that the combo gets onto the battlefield before they manage to establish enough mana to actually deal with it.

I definitely see the vision with Glaring Fleshraker, but I personally don't like it. there's nothing wrong with it, but I don't really like relying on having ANOTHER creature out before the combo starts. it just pushes the combo win a turn later rather than just getting infinite mana and using Walking Ballista or Goldvein Hydra.

if you are set on going the fleshraker route, I would 100% recommend Arbor Elf. it seems super circumstantial, but it comes together much more often than I initially thought it would, and even when it doesn't, you still have a creature that either acts as a mana dork or eats a removal spell to clear the way for the combo.

I printed out my version and played it against Izzet Murktide and it went 2-0 (haven't tried post MH3 decks though...) the second game was super close, relying on 2 topdecks, but it was only that way because of the insane number of counterspells I drew. I'm soon going to try to test it against more meta decks, so I'll say how it goes :)

Murrow on The Brood x Blade (Combo Core)

2 months ago

Vandoren4

No worries for the essay hahaha. I appreciate all of the suggestions and insight. I'm considering Arbor Elf since you've mentioned it. I've built so many variants of this combo already. I have a selesnya build that is using Rosie Cotton of South Lane but I haven't tested it.

As for Endless One and Stonecoil Serpent those are mainly enablers for Glaring Fleshraker. I'm focusing on fleshraker as the main plan/backup plan in conjunction with the Blade of the Bloodchief to hopefully act as a "fair" game plan, while I wait to get off the main combo of the deck. Being able to tutor/dig for the blade with Ancient Stirrings, Urza's Saga, and Malevolent Rumble really appeals to me. That and saga allows me to make something to trigger fleshraker again too.

But your build is quite different then mine and has my mind going in all different directions again! hahaha I love it.

I have a bit of a commander background so I'm honestly looking at Arboreal Grazer and Utopia Sprawl simply as ramp for the deck, but the Arbor Elf really could be a consideration in place of maybe the grazer. I like the grazer because it just needs you to have a forest and another land in hand which is relatively easy. Utopia sprawl, a forest, and arbor elf seems more like waiting for stars to align. That said I haven't played it yet to know how sequencing and everything really plays out in this deck. I'm printing up some proxies now to find out!

Howd your play testing go anyways?

Vandoren4 on The Brood x Blade (Combo Core)

2 months ago

Hey! I just saw your reply from yesterday, so here are a few things that I noticed before playtesting this deck (will add more after)

  1. Endless One is great, but if you can spare 1G, I would replace it with Goldvein Hydra because it has trample and haste

  2. you may want to consider replacing the Stonecoil Serpent with Walking Ballista (it's not very good if you don't assemble the combo though)

  3. Arbor Elf. just Arbor Elf. it would increase the power so much because of the Utopia Sprawl so that if you don't get the combo, you have a ton of mana, but if you DO have the combo, you can get it out super fast

  4. this works super well with mono green, but if you wanted to, you could also add white for Rosie Cotton of South Lane and cards like Surge of Salvation. I think Blade of the Bloodchief is really good, but you need to spend 2 mana on the broodscale, then 1 on bloodchief, then 1 to equip the blade, then 2 more to adapt the broodscale. if you were to use Rosie Cotton, you would need 2 for the broodscale, then 3 for rosie cotton. it's not a huge save on resources but it's better to only need 5 total mana rather than 6. in my opinion it's better to have that extra mana available for a protection spell because its modern. (it should be noted that it will increase the cost by a lot because of the fetchlands)

  5. i'm just now seeing the Cavern of Souls, which might be why the Endless One is in there (naming Eldrazi with the cavern,) but I honestly don't think it's necessary. I would replace them with lands that can be sacrificed to draw cards. again, its a bit different from my version because I'm running 1 Delighted Halfling to cast Rosie Cotton, but I honestly don't think you need that much protection from counterspells. if you REALLY need protection, take a look at Tyvar's

sorry for the essay, I'm gonna playtest it now :)

nuperokaso on Big Boi v2

2 months ago

If you fail to draw a Forest, your 4 Utopia Sprawl and 4 Arbor Elf are dead cards. 10 Forest is not enough to rely on that. I suggest you swap 1 Mountain for Commercial District. That also gives you something to fetch for in a longer game. It would still be better to include at least 1 more.

Gearhead93 on Green Ooze and Ham

3 months ago

Love a good ol' slime list. The Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl package seems like it could really accelerate the game plan. For the sideboard I would also recommend Weather the Storm over Feed the Clan and possibly adding in some number of Ancient Grudge for the affinity matchup.

Overall, really like the list. Might have to show this one around at FNM.

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