TheForum

First off I really like this deck and boy can it be annoying to play and difficult to deal with. We have a Concealed Courtyard that I don't know why I never mention before but I'll bring it next time we play so that can be put in.

I think there is better removal than Battle at the Bridge. If you really want the -/- effect than grasp of darkness is way more efficient. 2 mana for -4/-4 instead of 5 mana for that effect plus 4 life. Or Never//Return can also kill a planeswalker and later get you a token to chump block or crew something.

Skysovereign is now less than 3 bucks and is really good and I wonder if there is a spot for one or two as a way to finish a game that stalls (which doesn't happen a lot for this deck I know).

And final thought is more of a question, I'm just curious about not including red? I'm not saying it needs red because the deck is already really good but Veteran Motorist is awesome and Built to Smash might be better for you than Built to Last. Just a thought.

This is a good one.

-Bill

While I like the go wide and buff your creatures strategy in general, two things worry me about applying this strategy to the Elf deck.

1. This becomes incredibly dependent on having Ascendancy out. With the number of decks running early disruption or just better early creatures Sam would have to have ascendancy to keep the pressure up. Plus, the spirit tokens are almost better than his Elves if he doesn't get a Shaman because of their evasion. So, I'm worried it becomes get out Ascendancy and win or don't and lose.

2. I'm also worried that building this deck around this Aggro Ascendancy strategy could be better achieved without the Elf tribal aspect. Dwynen and the Messenger are great but at 4 mana wouldn't he be better off playing two 2 drops than one of them (especially since messenger only puts creatures in his hand not onto the battlefield like Collected Company). Dwayne's elite is great for this, being 2 creatures for two mana, and the Advocate is an awesome 2 drop, but wouldn't creatures like Blood-soaked Champion, Consul's Lieutenant, Kytheon, Hero of Akros, or any of the many 2 power one drops that white has in this standard be better than the other Elf creatures, weakening the likelihood that Dwayne's Elite is 2 creatures. Plus in conjunction with Ascendancy, Avatar of the Resolute could be a monster and could be better than any other 2 drop he could get. In the same vein as the Avatar wouldn't something like Abzan Falconer be a better 3 drop than the Shaman with Ascendancy? The Shaman does chunk damage sure, but doesn't work if all he has are a bunch of spirit tokens.

So, I don't know, while I do like the go wide strategy I'm not sure it is best served by the elf tribal shell he has. And I disagree on Rally being a dead draw often, I think it all depends on the matchup. Great Teacher's Decree or Might of the Masses can be just as much of a dead draw if he is getting slaughtered by Anger of the Gods or Supreme Verdict without Ascendancy out. I think the best thing this deck has going for it is the chunk damage that the Shaman can do and think building around doing that as many times as possible might be better for the deck than hoping he gets an ascendancy out before his creatures die.

Anyway, I hope it doesn't seem like I'm trying to pick a fight or anything since I keep coming back to this deck and disagreeing with you. Though, I would like to get other peoples opinions on this deck so it feels less like Boyf and I arguing about it, especially Brother's since it is his deck.

-Bill

15 random cards. This may seem a little unfair at times, if you somehow got an all common pack, but the fact that it's completely random and the fact that if you get an awful pack, you still get the best card from that pack, and everyone after you gets an even worse choice from it actually balances the experience quite well.

Are the 15 card "packs" constructed in any way. Like, are there a certain number of rares, uncommons, and commons, or any 15 random cards?

-Mike

This deck was honestly never supposed to be good. BUT, I think it could be, with the following list. 4 Nibilis of the Urn, 4 Daring Skyjek, 4 Gesit of Saint Traft (I have 4 copies from a modern deck I'm not using that Sam can borrow), 4 Lyev Skyknight, 3 Dungeon Geist, 4 Feeling of Dread, 4 Sleep, 4 Pacifism, 4 Hands of Binding, 2 Oblivion Ring, 4 Glacial Fortress, 10 Island, 9 Plains. Combines making their creatures useless with a pretty fast clock, and Hands of Binding is bonkers with fliers.

Great call on Sylvan Advocate, Bill; that's got to go in. And Rally is SWEET, except it's unreliable in a deck that isn't built around it. It's only good here after a board wipe of some kind, and even then, only if like two Shaman of the Packs are in the graveyard. Granted, then it's REAL good, but it would often be a dead card. I think the list should be: 4 Gnarlroot Trapper, 4 Elvish Visionary, 4 Dwynen's Elite, 4 Sylvan Advocate, 3 Sylvan Messenger, 3 Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen, 4 Abzan Ascendancy, 4 Might of the Masses, 3 Great Teacher's Decree, 23 lands.

Agree with Sam about the Satchel. Really not doing anything for you. I’d also suggest that the Llanowar Elves aren’t helping either. Ramping isn’t terribly important, and the mana it gives doesn’t help with Dungrove Elder. If you really want more ramp than the Emissary, I’d suggest Dawntreader Elk instead.

I know you experimented with it before, but the more I look at this list, the more I like Wolfir Silverheart in it. It’s a 4/4 (or 8/8) body that pumps another creature (that can likely attack) for +4/+4. And if the target has Rancor…
I’d use these over Asceticism, Thrun, and Acidic Slime. I also think the deck is somewhat fast, and the immediate impact from 5-mana cards should be welcome. I might also recommend Wandering Wolf as a cheap pressure creature, if you need one. He’s a great compliment to Rancor and the Silverheart.

I understand the want for Ratchet Bomb and Beast Within, but I’m not sure they’re all that useful here. Ratchet Bomb is slow and can destroy your own stuff, and Beast Within gives your opponent a decent creature (and one that can block after Tanglewurm, no less). If you tuned the rest of the deck to just pour on pressure, wouldn’t Fog or Prey Upon be just as, if not more useful?

Sam is also right that the deck has natural resistance to control (hexproof, indestructible, undying). I think the deck is best if it maximizes the use of these cards, or the likelihood of getting them. Perhaps a couple Hunter’s Insight would be worth considering as well?

-Mike

I actually really like the addition of white to this deck. It would make it much more resilient to board disruption except mass bounce spells. Although now that I think about it bounce spells would be letting you recast Shaman so that would still hurt them. Abzan Ascendancy is really great in this deck and is a fantastic answer to creatures being destroyed. Even better, in my opinion, is white lets him use Rally the Ancestors. This would be a major swing after getting board wiped, for 5 mana you could return most of your creatures to play and you get to stack the ETB triggers allowing you to get the most life change from a Shaman out of your graveyard, or crazy amounts with more than one in your graveyard. This also would allow you to run your own board wipe so if you are being out-gunned by a larger creatures you can reset the board then Rally your elves for a big swing in game state. You won't have access to Shadows block but there isn't anything you'd need from it anymore.

Definite Adds: (All around .20 cents each!)
Sylvan Advocate, Abzan Ascendancy, Rally The Ancestors, Sandsteppe Citadel, Other Dual Lands

Maybe Adds:
Duress, Board Wipe (End Hostilities, Languish, Planar Outburst, etc.), Harsh Sustenance (An instant speed Shaman effect that could be cast in response to having your board destroyed), Nissa, Vastwood Seer (can be returned by Rally easily, gets you a land to play which then you play and flip her and she doesn't get exiled on your next turn)

Fringe Consideration:
Dragon Throne of Tarkir (repeatable Overrun effect), Dark Deal (Causes everyone to dump their hands which with Rally wouldn't hurt you as bad), other card draw effects (Altar's Reap, Read the Bones)

I think the addition of white could make this deck really hard to play against. Rally the Ancestors and Abzan Ascendancy means you can easily trade with Aggro decks, chump block Mid-Range decks and handle most control strategies. The biggest weakness would be exile effects but I'm not really sure what you could do to combat them other than running Naturalize or maybe Altar's Reap your Shaman in response to an Oblivion Ring so you net 2 cards and keep the Shaman somewhere you can utilize it. Or if Exile effects are a huge problem you go backwards to Theros/M15 instead of up to Battle and gain Back to Nature and/or Reclamation Sage though you would lose the Advocate.

-Bill

So my read on this deck is that it's a collection of sweet cards that don't play super well together, mostly because the identity of the deck is sort of confused. For example, it's set up to be a control deck, but the threats that it runs don't play like that; a control deck wants one card, like Aetherling, that can close a game out, where as this runs too many threats (meaning the deck is shorter on removal than it could be), and each one individually is unlikely to close out the game. You are also running a lot of sorcery speed discard, which can be real bad when they just aren't keeping cards in their hand on your turn. A card like Rakdos' Return is best when you have any aggressive board state, a bunch of Rakdos Cacklers going to pound town, and then you cast it as a curve topper (x equals 3) to empty their handof the cards they were about to use to stabalize. The deck is using AWESOME cards, but they are not synergistic.

Board wipes are a legitimate concern, but I think the answer is in how you play. If you're facing the likelihood of board wipes, you should plan to build up your board state with populate BEFORE the board wipes, saving as many cards in your hand as possible to rebuild with.

Since populate only works when you have a token already on the field, you would want to prioritize populating over casting cards to create more creatures whenever possible, generally speaking.

When I look at the suggested list, you should have enough to come back from a board wipe if you keep some cards in hand to hedge against that possibility. And cards like Voice, Parallel Lives, and even Trostani and Entreat to an extent should help you rebuild. The strength of the deck is its tokens, and I think you're best option for dealing with board wipes is to play more conservatively. This deck can definitely hang in a longer game.

As far as Garruk goes, he would also be great here. I was mostly excited that the Entreats had dropped in price that I forgot about him. I would, however, suggest limiting the number of Garruks, Entreats, and Monks. I wouldn't recommend including more than 3 or 4 cards total among this group. Intangible Virtue would probably be the low man out if you wanted to make more room for these cards, but I still like Virtue.

The beauty of this deck is its crazy value from its synergy. With fewer high cost cards, you're likely to put pressure on the board and set up populate early without emptying your hand, and late game pressure is more about Parallel Lives and repeatable populate from Trostani than high cost cards. But Garruk, Entreat, and the Monk are all good options and you should have a couple.

-Mike

So the problem with this deck is that the creatures can be too small to attack into mid-sized blockers, and that if the creatures die, it runs out of gas. The one card that fixes this? Abzan Ascendancy (and they stack!). Yes, it means splashing white, but that also opens up cards like dromokas command and some pump all creature spells. Could be great. -Boyce

So here is what I'm most afraid of with this deck, board wipes (As with any creature based deck). Since it's a token deck even cyclonic rift and Engulf the shores or Awoken horror are board wipes. Sweepers used to wreck me with things like Call of the Conclave and gather the townsfolk, because they are one-off token creators. I know they make tokens more consistently than precinct captain but that is the reason I went in the more creatures less token spells direction with the deck. Now I know I won't have (Hopefully) spent all my spells when wipes are a possibility but I don't know if the populate spells are enough to rebuild the board especially if I'm only able to use half of those cards. Do you guys think Growing Ranks would be worth reconsideration for inclusion? To have a repeatable populate effect as well as Trostani so I make sure I have one every game.

Also, and this is more directed to Mike, is Garruk no longer a "must add" in your opinion? You were pretty high on him when we discussed this deck a the beach. Just curious about your possible change of heart on him.

I like this deck for more reasons than it having the greatest deck name of our group. It uses a lot of cards I really like but never got around to doing anything with. I do have a few thoughts though if you wanna take any under consideration.

I think Mogis is the better control creature/god and maybe use more over the Primordial and/or Erebos, though Erebos does have cool abilities.

My other idea is that with access to M15 you gain the ability to use one of my favorite cards that I have never used because I don't know how to build around it. It would cause you to have to change your control shell a little more and it may necessitate more changes than you'd wanna make but if i didn't bring it up I don't know when else the card may ever get used. Waste Not. The crazy, it could be truly crazy, combination of Rakdos' Return and Waste Not is awesome. Deal some damage, empty the opponents hand, gain some life, maybe get a couple zombie tokens or some mana to drop a Demon. The mana portion of Waste Not does only really work with mono black cards unless you're casting mind rot but it's still cool. The only thing it doesn't work with is Slaughter Games but that card is awesome and you should use it no matter what. Obviously adding Waste Not may force too many changes but I just wanted to suggest because I love the card and think someone should use it.

-B

So Brother, I'm not sure you gain all that much from having Khans and Fate over Battle, Oath, Shadows and Eldritch available to you. You would only lose Murderous Cut and Roar (Which admittedly is a win con). With the new(er) sets you'd have Sylvan Advocate (which is probably the best elf available to you). Grasp of Darkness is better than murderous cut in my opinion. You'd also get possibilities like cryptolith rite which combined with draw engines like the messengers, maybe gather the pack back in, or something like read the bones (or ideally Collected Company but that is like 15 bucks). Aside from those something like Duress might be a way for you to protect yourself from this decks biggest enemy, the board wipe.

So things I would consider:

Out:
Murderous Cut
Roar of Challenge
Titanic Growth
Ultimate Price (maybe)

In:
Sylvan Advocate
Nissa, Vastwood Seer (Maybe)
Duress
Cryptolith Rite (Maybe) with some more draw cards.
Beast caller Savant (Maybe)

In general I wonder if discard related control would work better for this deck than targeted creature control. Discard is the only way you can really deal with disruption and if this deck gets disrupted (board wipes are especially bad) you have a tough time recovering. So maybe even something like Mind Rot or Pick The Brain would be better for this deck than A lot of targeted destroy cards. I still think you should have someway to deal with the big creature that bulldozes your wall of elves but maybe that is ruinous path or murder instead of ultimate price, higher CMC but more versatile.

Long I know but just some thoughts I had for this deck. I love the Shaman and think this deck is really cool it just certainly can be better. If anyone else has thoughts on this one?my comments about it feel free to join in.

-B

I’ve got some recommendations for this one. I think these make the deck more versatile and synergistic at the same time.

-4 Avacyn’s Pilgrim
-4 Elvish Mystic
-4 Precinct Captain
-2 Wayfaring Temple
-3 Geist-Honored Monk
-2 Alive / Well

+1 Voice of Resurgence (Christmas is coming!)
+2 Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice
+4 Call of the Conclave
+4 Druid’s Deliverance
+2 Gather the Townsfolk
+2 Intangible Virtue
+2 Sundering Growth
+2 Entreat the Angels (these are like, $2 now)

At 25 land, you shouldn’t need mana dorks with this deck. And the Pilgrims and Mystics are dead draws after turn 2.

Trostani, Druid’s Deliverance, and Sundering Growth are cheap, reliable Populate triggers with good utility. Also, between Trostani, Deliverance, Growth, and the Charm, you have at least some means of dealing with a wide variety of threats, or gaining shit loads of life. Also, I don’t hate extra Trostanis in your hand because he should be able to make extra creatures off any tokens you have out, limiting the pain of uncastable extra copies in your hand.

In this deck, I’d recommend cards that make immediate tokens like Call of the Conclave over cards that potentially have more value, but aren’t guaranteed token makers like Precinct Captain. These will be quicker (and better) populate targets early, and late game they can make a bigger immediate impact if you have Parallel Lives out.

Entreat the Angels was always a card worth considering in this deck, and finally the $$$ has stopped being prohibitive. Geist-Honored Monk is a perfectly good alternative, but I like Entreat better for a couple reasons – 1) Entreat creates better Populate targets than the Monk (4/4 vs 1/1); 2) Entreat can be insane value when miracled (and even a 4/4 flying for 5 isn’t terrible).

I’m not even sure the deck needs Intangible Virtue, but it’s definitely a great fit. I can tell you from experience that giving everything Vigilance along with the +1/+1 is really powerful.

In summary – Trostani’s cheap populate plus lifegain makes him one of, if not the strongest card in the deck. Skewing the deck more towards early tokens and populate synergizes with other powerhouses already there like Parallel Lives and Advent, and really, I think it synergizes with everything. And the cheap populate cards give the deck some nice utility. Druid’s Deliverance and Trostani can really elongate the game, which should play really well for a deck full of insane value factories.

I like a lot of these changes, especially the addition of Sorin. Dictate of Erebos could be devastating, but I think it’s probably too situational. I think there are better options for the mana, like Brutal Hordechief or Dictate of Heliod.
I haven’t pored over the possibilities, but here’s some suggestions to your suggestion:
-2 Dictate of Erebos / +2 Brutal Hordechief (cheaper, immediate impact)
-2 Kytheon, -1 Elspeth, -1 Sorin / +4 Raise the Alarm (more cheap token makers)
One thing I think it’s still missing, and this is kind of a nice-to-have, what can the deck do with extra mana?

I agree with what you're saying about split goals, but I don't think you need to split it; Vraska is a good enough card that two of them on the top of the curve is fine, even if they don't strictly speaking for into the game plan. What I see when I look at this deck is a few inefficient cards that could be something better. Slitherhead is synergistic, but in a best case scenario is a card that puts one +1/+1 counter on a creature, which doesn't seem to merit a card slot, and while Loleth Troll is good, Varolz is your only way to scavenge, so in most cases, his "discard to pump" ability is just built in card disadvantage. I think cards like Dreg Mangler that are good and can scavenge themselves might be needed here.

So this deck has always needed some consistency and a way to win via the tokens it Butcher never shows up. I suggest a list that looks like: 24 lands, 4 Dragon Fodder, 4 Hordeling Outburst, 4 Bloodsoaked Champion, 4 Goblin Rabblemaster, 4 Butcher of the Horde, 4 Crackling Doom, 4 Magma Jet, 2 Dictate of Erebos, 3 Sorin, Solemn Visitor, 1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion, and 2 Kytheon, Hero of Akros. It's a rough list, but Dictate and Sorin can make those tokens HURT.

I agree that Rest in Piece is not necessary; if your deck is working, you can handle an Avacyn. Pithing Needle is real good, and Aetherling is probably faster and more reliable than Gideon. But this deck is pretty good already, so it don't need that many tweaks. - Boyf

I think the big thing here is seeing the problem; this deck outscales almost everything late already, but struggles to apply any pressure early or set up defenses. I also think it has too many cards that don't do a lot except in one exactly right situation (pilgrim, mystic, temple, alive//well). I would strongly advocate resisting any more five drops and instead focusing on replacing the early cards you have now that aren't great in the midgame and beyond with one's that are. I would look to take out 2 Alive//Well, 4 Pilgrims, 4 Mystics, and 2 W Temples for adding 1 Voice of Resurgence, 4 Rancor, 4 Call to the Conclave, 1 Trostani, and 2 Pacifism. All of the cards I suggested are good turn two AND turn ten, which seems to me to be what the deck is lacking now. -Boyf