Elvish Piper
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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
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Elvish Piper

Creature — Elf Shaman

, : You may put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield.

kamarupa on Uren8

1 week ago

Oh boy. I have... uh... a lot of thoughts.

I'm going to start with ramp and mana base. I've been commenting something along these lines on a lot of decks lately. Ramp isn't much of a ramp if you're missing land drops regularly. Getting to, say 3 available mana on t2 is nice, but if you don't hit a land drop or dork on the next 3 turns, the ramp didn't really help. I'm generally not a fan of spells like Arboreal Grazer and even less a fan when there aren't a substantial number of lands in a deck to start with. At a mere 20 lands, you're going to be have to be very lucky to get both Arboreal Grazer AND 2+ lands in an opening hand. And even if you do, the likelihood of you continuing to draw lands just isn't very high. Basically, any effect that lets you "play an additional land" is just way too conditional to be consistent in my view, and therefore, I prefer to run with dorks and enchantments and rarely, rocks. You do have an enchantment that tutors you 2 lands, but at a pretty steep 4MV, I think it's going to function as much as a 'thinner' as it will a ramp spell. I do see some redundancy there with Prime Time, so I could see it be a useful spell. I should state that Prime Time isn't a creature I have much experience with, so I don't know much about what other spells synergize with it best, but I have a gut feeling that what you've brewed could have better synergy with it. It seems like it might be getting included because it's a well known and feared threat more than being a perfect fit. You also have Flare of Cultivation, which seems like your 3rd best ramp spell after your two dorks. While I like that you can cheat it into play, I don't like the required sac cost to do so as the only really good target is the Arboreal Grazer and that's just too conditional to be consistent. It's not a spell I have lot of experience with, and while I'm not a big deck thinner, I can't deny it has a lot of powerful potential. But I want more good targets for it, preferably ones that actually WANT to be sacrificed. The best part of your ramp is that you have 8 1MV dorks. Given your EXTREMELY high average MV of 4.35, I think 8-10 is probably the right number. To sum up, I would cut Arboreal Grazer and possibly reconsider both Prime Time and Encroaching Dragonstorm, either leaning into Prime Times most classically defined deck elements or cutting it. I'd try to find another 1MV creature for your Flare of Cultivation to target (6-8x 1MV non-dorks that want to be sacced) or I'd look for some other ramp choices. I'd also consider adding in something like Fertile Ground, or maybe Utopia Sprawl, as you do already have a good number of lands with the basic Forest type. If you do go for the Sprawl, then perhaps Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth might be a smart add. Finally, I'd like to see this deck reach for at least 22 lands if not 24. You've just got a hell of a lot of very high MV spells and these days I strive for 22 lands as my minimum. It's just more consistent.

Next, I want to follow up on some of what Balaam__ brought up - disruption. Disruption doesn't do much good in a sidebaord. It needs to be mainboarded or else your deck will not only end up unbalanced when sideboarding, but you'll also be tempted not to sideboard as much as you struggle to choose what spells to swap out of the mainboard. I believe almost all decks need at least 4x disruption spells in the mainboard, with 8 being best. Disruption comes in a lot of forms - counterspell is great, but I don't like tieing up mana playing the waiting game. Removal is classic for reason. Usually half of 8 disruption spells are a form a removal. Sideboards offer us different methods of removal so you can get past all the defenses opponents might use to prevent that removal. That makes sideboarding a lot easier to pull off, swapping removal for removal. I really like protection spells Heroic Intervention - while defensively, it can function like a counterspell, offensively it can do things counterspell can't. It largely comes down to preference, but disruption beyond removal is almost always essential. Of course, there's also discard, which is a solid choice, too, though I don't prefer it because it misses cards drawn after it's cast and so isn't as foolproof as a pre-emptive defensive play. I also like squeezing in 1x Fog spell when I can. I love the comedic flavor of it, but again, that's just my preference/sense of humor. Assuming you cut Arboreal Grazer, Flare of Cultivation, and at least a few copies of Encroaching Dragon Storm, even after adding 2x land, you should have room for at least 4x disruption spells in your mainboard. Incidentally, all these changes should also help bring down your average MV, which will make the deck not only faster, but more resilient as it will be able to respond to opponents.

One thing I do think you have right here is the number of creatures. But I'd like to see tighter choices that play off each other a bit more. I get that Prime Time and Flare of Cultivation support Ureni, the Song Unending, but at 3 copies and Legendary status, I'd want to solely focus on that creature or abandon that whole strategy - it's all or nothing with spells like that - run 4x of Ureni to maximize its odds it comes up when Breaching Dragonstorm when that hits. Maybe even look for spells that let you tutor it to the top of your library - Scheming Symmetry comes to mind, though I don't think that's exactly the right spell for this brew. Brainstorm might be a good option - not really a path to card advantage, but it would be useful in setting up Breaching Dragonstorm.

To return to Balaam__'s feedback, I also agree with him that Breaching Dragonstorm, especially at 5MV is too easy a target for opponents to thwart. I do think you've got enough ramp to hardcast some of your threats at least some of the time, but adding in a secondary (or even primary?) cheat-in spell would almost certainly make the deck more consistent. Elvish Piper, for example might be just as fast or even more consistent, though it wouldn't help with your big sorcery spells. Although I think this would be a significant departure from your current brew, Maelstrom Archangel would be a nearly identical backup to Breaching Dragonstorm. I'd probably go for 6-8 total "cheat-in" spells.

Overall, I feel like this deck isn't quite focused enough. It's not clear what it really wants to accomplish and doesn't seem completely committed to any one goal. At the same time, it also seems a little over-gunned - I sometimes say, "you don't need to bring a tank to a water-pistol fight to get a win" - when it comes to successful brewing, it's not the biggest threat that wins, it's the fastest fully effective one. So my broadstroke advice is to try to narrow the deck down to the core you really want to win with and try to support that core as much as you can.

I do love me some card advantage and I can see how Up the Beanstalk could have been useful here. As alternatives, you might consider Garruk's Uprising, Tribute to the World Tree, or even just plain old Harmonize

Sometimes I find I'll start a brew like this and realize I might have tried to squeeze 2 or more decks into one. It might be useful to fork this once or twice and explore different aspects in each fork. Make one with a lot more disruption mainboard, one with different ramp spells, one that really focuses on Prime Time, etc etc.

I hope some of this is helpful. I'm just spitballing off the top of my head. Don't take it as me being too critical. I'm really just throwing out the first thoughts that came to mind and I'm very likely to have missed nuances, etc.

seshiro_of_the_orochi on kona definitely not stax

3 months ago

How about Quicksilver Amulet, Elvish Piper and Howlpack Piper  Flip is Kona ever gets stuck anywhere you can't use her?

Doombeard1984 on Lathril has Elf Ballz

3 months ago

so I kind of find Elvish Piper a little... redundant. Thing with Elves is they can make soooo much many, simply playing a Craterhoof Behemoth is not tricky.

  1. Temur Sabertooth is so good as can bounce your stuff and replay them.
  2. Thousand-Year Elixir and Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler let you use all those precious mana abilities as though they have haste. Can massively increase the speed of your deck. I also run an Akroma's Memorial in mine for full haste amongst the other bonuses.
  3. Am a big fan of Nullmage Shepherd - Means you dont need to worry so much about Enchantment and Artifact removal.
  4. Seedborn Muse gives you an untap in everyone elses turn meaning many more activations of Lathril, Blade of the Elves other ability.
  5. Umbral Mantle and Staff of Domination can mean just win. Umbral makes many infinite mana combos, and staff lets you draw your library.

If youd like to have a look at my deck, here is the link - Golgari Elves

Good luck with the Elf deck, and feel free to hit my up with any other questions. +1

Taida on I wanna play Yu-Gi-Oh but WOTC doesn't let me

4 months ago

BirdieGirlie I will for sure try it. Rn I am struggling a bit with balancing draw/scry effects to find the pieces and the tap abilities to trigger Kona, but I will for sure try it. I was actually considering Hauntwoods Shrieker as an additional way (not a substitute to Kona), but I will also try Elvish Piper, seems like a fair option, especially as you can activate it at instant speed.

BirdieGirlie on I wanna play Yu-Gi-Oh but WOTC doesn't let me

4 months ago

Yo Taida I've been nosing around trying to find some payoffs for you but instead of that I need to tell you that I just found out Elvish Piper exists?? It's kind of like Kona but its ability costs 1 green and it's not phase-dependent. I feel like the tap requirement will make it a removal magnet and replacing Kona with it entirely will make the deck way too slow, but it's really, really good.

Balaam__ on Weird Commune - Piper Toolbox

1 year ago

Great build. I think I have a Piper deck somewhere around here, and I vaguely recall getting good utility out of Fauna Shaman.

You’re creature heavy (in a good way), so odds are you’ll have something to dump in exchange for either Elvish Piper if you need it or else a wincon if it’s already in play.

Not sure if it’ll work in your current setup but I figure I’d mention it.

capwner on Nevermore

1 year ago

Yup, you can name any nonland card. It doesn't matter where the card is being cast from, or whether it's cast as part of a triggered ability like cascade. Your opponents still won't be able to cast it. This won't stop effects that put the card directly into play like Elvish Piper

legendofa on Summon Mechanic - Help?

1 year ago

It definitely feels different, and more distinct from Dash. At this point, I'm going to go back to my first question: is this going to be mostly triggered, activated, or something else? I'm trying to eyeball an appropriate cost or timing for this. Quicksilver Amulet has an activation cost of , and Elvish Piper is , so that's a starting point.

Next thought is that it needs either a timing restriction or a marker on the "if it would die" clause. If it survives for two turns, then dies, do you want it to return to hand? If so, it needs a counter or something. If not, it needs and "until end of turn" clause or similar in there.

It at least feels less easily broken, but it's still potentially pretty powerful, especially with multiple uses for each turn. I'm going to ask for an example card at this point, and gauge off that.

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