Modern answers to Elemental decks
Modern forum
Posted on Sept. 29, 2021, 8:36 p.m. by wallisface
Hi folks,
Recently on mtgo i’ve been coming up against a lot of Elemental decks (example archtype breakdown here), and been struggling to find an optimal sideboard plan for tackling them.
The decks i’ve been playing are largely irrelevant for this thread, as i’m more interested to hear what other people have been sideboarding against this archtype, and what successes/struggles people’ve been having in general.
Their various evoke-based creatures make running any kind of creature-based deck against them a nightmare. Ephemerate is also a huge issue, as a single well-timed casting of it can often cause a big-enough blowout to snowball the game very quickly.
I had thought Torpor Orb was an optimal card, but then i’ve also come across versions of this deck running Grief, which just strips the card from hand immediately. I do get that Orb (and likely Void Mirror) is very strong versus non-Grief builds.
What have been other peoples experiences playing against this deck? Are there any solid counters to the archtype you’ve come across?
Combining Torpor Orb and Void Mirror can shut their synergies down.
Their manabase can be greedy, so Blood Moon can hurt them. Alpine Moon or Spreading Seas on their Cavern can let you fight them with countermagic. If you're just really, really sick of Ephemerate than Flusterstorm probably shuts it down hard, if they went evoke -> Ephemerate then that's two spells cast already.
If you can only get one thing to die to removal make sure it's the Risen Reef to cut off their card advantage.
So far as specific strategies go I figure UW Control with its interaction and Supreme Verdict would be pretty good. If you have Faerie Macabre or Endurance then Living End would probably also be good, as long as you take out the Evoke creatures in their yard.
None of it's going to be perfect since Elementals of course gets to sideboard against the sideboard cards.
September 30, 2021 12:39 p.m.
Oh yeah and as long as you can manage to not die before it resolves, Indomitable Creativity getting Serra's Emissary should be lights out. Emissary's ability is an as trigger so there's no window to Solitude it.
Omniscience_is_life says... #2
IMPORTANT NOTICE--I do not play this format!
That out of the way, I wonder if a Thoughtseize or similar could be useful; hitting what could potentially be the only pitch for the opponent's Evoke seems like a huge advantage in tempo--suddenly their 0-drop costs 4!
This, of course, requires your winning of the coin flip to stop Evoke>Ephemerate, but I don't see another answer besides the artifacts you already mentioned.
September 29, 2021 11:26 p.m.