Creature (41)
Land (15)
Sorcery (4)
Sideboard
Creature (6)
Artifact (3)
Instant (6)
breathing intensifies ELFBALLLL!!!!!!
So seeing Reid Duke build and play Elfball got me back on brewing this masterpiece. There were a buncha things he was doing that convinced me the elf build was worth an update in Modern. One of those was that Eladamri, Korvecdal was looking real good. The other was that he was on Green Sun's Zenith, which has been unbanned since I last brewed this deck.
However, there were other choices he made that I think could be improved upon. For example, Elvish Visionary is a card I'm not a fan of when Dwynen's Elite is right there for your Wirewood Symbiote walue. I also thought it was insane not to include Ezuri, Renegade Leader
and Elvish Warmaster, and I don't think there's space to play actual Craterhoof Behemoth even if it does admittedly open up some t2 kills. I want my cards to be playable and useful even if I am not ramped up/storming off.
However, the biggest thing that got me about his version was the mana base. He used a ton, just a lot a lot, of utility lands. But I think you need an almost all forest man base. I think they enable Quirion Ranger really well, they allow you to run Arbor Elf as a 9th Llanowar Elves, they insulate you from land destruction in a world where that becomes more relevant every set, honestly, one of the best things about the elf deck is that you can run a mostly Basic Forest mana base.
This is basically a ramp/storm deck that floods the board with elf bodies, turns em sideways, and pumps em for lethal, all while having a handful of value loop enablers.
So, my old elf build had the simplest mana base I've ever built - 13 Basic Forests. I do think you need those 13 Forests in the mana base, but I opted to include a couple utility lands to bring the count up to 15. Since Dryad Arbor doesn't have haste it's effectively a tap land, so I didn't want it counting towards my land count. Arbor is mostly here to turn toolbox card/redundant combo piece Green Sun's Zenith into a mana dork. Boseiju, Who Endures also fits in as flexible artifact hate with some relevance against Urza's Saga and utility lands. I think the arbor is still worth running without fetches, and that fetches are counterproductive to the goals of the mana base.
The absolute heart and soul of the deck is casting dorks t1 and getting the ramp started early.
1x Arbor Elf
4x Green Sun's Zenith to fetch Dryad Arbor
You should be inclined to keep 1 landers in this deck, and while there is a risk/reward to it the deck also is built around playing around with very few lands, and can gain advantage in looping them. You should be trying to save Zeniths for the right moment, which is part of why I like 9 mana dorks on top of the Zenith.
However, the deck really scales off with it's other mana engine, which will be involved with most t3 wins.
The Druid, especially alongside the Nettle Sentinel and/or token producers allow you to create incredible amounts of mana in the very early game. Combine these with Eladamri, Korvecdal and you end up with a "storm" style play pattern where your creatures net you mana which enables you to cast creatures off the top which nets you more mana, until the board is filled with little elves which rapidly become big elves and suddenly you're attacking for game.
These untappers help to produce even more mana. The Ranger capitalizes on the low land count to allow you to repeat land drops while generating mana, and the Symbiote does double duty as a repeatable self-bounce engine.
So full disclosure, Reid was on Badgermole Cub in this slot, and I'm not sure that's incorrect. Certainly the cubs can ramp you significantly on the turn you play them, and aren't bad on future turns either. However, the huge burst of mana you can get from these 2 will just win you the games you untap with them. I also wanted at least one Lord to tutor out with Zeniths, but the priest is a significant mana reduction for the effect, so I think the split makes sense. But maybe you're a badgermole believer, honestly the tiebreaker for me is these are actually elves. Since you kinda/sorta technically have 6 of these if you squint, I think 1 each is the perfect number if you want to run these.
So, in a very real way your best win condition is creating a ton of bodies using mana producers (primarily Heritage Druid loops) alongside Eladamri. But we gotta actually close, so I decided to run a buncha pumpers.
Ezuri is preferred here over Tyvar, because with enough mana he can protect all the elves on your board. However, the split with Tyvar allows you to pump out even more damage if you pair them together, and Tyvar has the advantage of protecting himself. Zenith gives you even more access to these.
These token producers allow you to flood the board, and combo with Wirewood Symbiote to increase that output dramatically. While the Warmaster is a better card on the face of it, the Symbiote loops make it the card you want to run less of - I was initially running all 8, but I felt like I needed to make space for a 15th land. Warmaster is also a back-up pumper, although it is remarkably inefficient in most circumstances. Still, it does come up, and gives us effectively 11 pumpers provided we have the mana, and Deathtouch has a way of helping your board trade up. I like these much more than Visionary, because they help fuel the aggressive green aggro mode of the deck that I think is an important plan A-1. Like ideally you storm off and win t3, but I want to consistently reliably put enough bodies on the board turn after turn to have plays into slower decks, or decks that run sweepers.
1x Reclamation Sage makes the maindeck, and looping this with Symbiotes is a valid strategy in some matchups and board states. It's the main toolboxy card in the main deck, but post siding there are plenty of green creature "silver bullet" style cards you can search with Zenith.
Sideboard was just sorta thrown together. I wanted tools against the combo decks of the format, ways to gain life against aggressive red decks, graveyard hate, artifact hate, and a lot of creatures I can search with Zenith. However, I'd probably math out a more optimal sideboard plan if you wanted to take this to an event, one suited to your meta rather than the more broad meta trends. For example, a lot of people at my locals play aggressive red decks, so I probably need a little more lifegain if I bring this to locals. There are also a pair of Dismember because, get this, cheap removal is... good?
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| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 7 months |
| Last updated | 2 months |
| Legality | This deck is Modern legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 5 - 2 Mythic Rares 16 - 12 Rares 13 - 1 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 1.62 |
| Tokens | Elf Warrior 1/1 G, Storm Counter |
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