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By: Necropotent, Steven Moody
May 17 2009 1:22am
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Those Little Green Guys

The Extended metagame is wide open. We saw this last year as a wide variety of decks made consistent top-8 appearances with an almost equally diverse set of decks actually taking home the gold. Affinity, Storm, Faerie-Control, Zoo and even Astral Slide were seen with frequency during the PTQs. And, every once in a while, the guys in green would make a surprise showing. Let's look at two of those decks that made top-8 appearances.

Recent Success 

 

Josh's deck uses Birchlore Rangers and Heritage Druid (and the other elves) to generate massive amounts of mana, which is then funneled into a Mirror Entity for the win (if the elves aren't able to do it on their own). He's got a Jitte in there because, well, it's a Jitte. Chord of Calling and Summoner's Pact give him access to those single copies of Viridian Shaman, Ranger of Eos, and Regal Force. The Force and Glimpse of Nature combine for very effective card drawing in a deck that desperately needs it. The sideboard has some goodies, particularly the other 3 Thoughtseizes for those matchups against Control and Storm.

 

 

This build obviously takes a different approach, dipping into red for a very fat Predator Dragon who is quite hasty despite his immense girth. The set up is nearly the same: by taking advantage of Heritage Druid, Birchlore Rangers and the other elves, a lot of mana is generated quite quickly to develop a path to victory. In Martin's case, this occasionally translates into a Predator Dragon who devours a few elves and goes for the juglar. The solitary Regal Force and four Glimpse of Natures help keep the hand replenished while dropping elves left and right. Essence Warden is a maindeck annoyance against Storm and aggro. Elvish Champion is very impressive against "other decks with Forests". The lone Elvish Visionary is... confusing... but whatever.

Where Do We Go From Here

In the opener I mentioned bringing in a new combo to stir things up. The current trend for Elf decks has been to generate large amounts of mana and a ton of small creatures. What if, instead of just a lot of mana, we produced infinite mana? Can Elves do that? You bet! Enter the Witch and the Channeler...

Seedcradle WitchWirewood Channeler

I'm sure you already know, but if Seedcradle Witch and Wirewood Channeler throw a party and only two of their elven friends show up, that's enough to make the Channeler X/X where X is equal to your patience. If a third elven friend attends the get-together, you've got access to infinite mana and, concordantly, five X/X creatures where X is equal to your patience. (I keep saying "equal to your patience" because you'll have to do A LOT of clicking when this particular combo goes off.)

Here's how it works: if two elves are on the board, in addition to the Seedcradle Witch and Wirewood Channeler, you can tap the Channeler for 4 white mana, activating the Witch's ability using a single green mana. Target the Channeler to untap it and give it +3/+3. Then tap it for 4 green, using that remaining white for the Witch's activation cost. Target the Channeler to untap it and give it +3/+3. Simply repeat this process, cycling through green and white mana, until your Channeler is grossly overweight, then swing for the kill.

Bringing it Home

How will this affect the typical Elf deck? By bringing in a consistent infinite combo, we create another threat for the opponent to deal with. The nice thing about traditional Elf decks (like those posted above) is that they beat for decent combat points while setting up another win condition. This combo, in my opinion, is a more useful win condition than Mirror Entity or Predator Dragon because it's infinite and more readily established.

Install New Hardware

My goal is to create a budget deck which incorporates this combo while preserving the deck's ability to present a combat damage threat. In order to do that, we'll shift the focus of the deck toward getting the combo off, then using that combo to win. I like a lot of the original parts because it's creature-heavy mana production. In order to keep it budget, we won't be able to use some of the "better" cards seen in other decks. Unfortunately, Summoner's Pact (at $5.75) and Glimpse of Nature (at $4.50) are going to get cut. I hate it because these two cards would be crucial at finding combo pieces and keeping the deck flowing. Oh well, such is the way of the budget builder.

We do get to keep Chord of Calling (at only $1.90, what a bargain!) which will help tremendously. Regal Force is around the same price ($2.00). Heritage Druid is the next highest costing card at a mere $0.50. With the rest of the cards weighing in at less than 15 cents apiece, we should have a fairly cheap deck.

Here's what I put together:

Elvish Party
 
Creatures
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Elvish Harbinger
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
1 Regal Force
4 Seedcradle Witch
1 Viridian Shaman
4 Wirewood Channeler
4 Wood Elves
34 cards

Other Spells
4 Chord of Calling
4 cards
 
Lands
22 Forest
22 cards

Sideboard
0 cards
 
Chord of Calling

 

Didn't See That Coming

I think this deck is a blast to play with. From scratch, the deck costs $14.24, but I'll bet you already have most of it.

It produces absurd amounts of green mana at an astonishing rate. The most enjoyable games were the ones against opponents who didn't see the combo coming and would let my Channeler pass a whole turn, trying to kill it on my turn, mid-combo, only to discover that it was too late. I'll forewarn you: it takes a lot of clicks, so be prepared. Chord of Calling is the real workhorse of the deck. I used it mainly to put the Channeler into play at the end of my opponent's turn so that he was less vulnerable to removal spells. I had a few turn-4 wins, finding myself surprised at the deck's speed but not surprised at its weakness against mass removal.

Final Thoughts

I didn't add a sideboard because sideboards vary from player to player. You have to know the metagame and what the deck is weak against. With the infinite mana, running a Stomping Ground and several Banefires is a viable win condition (they just don't fit in the budget). As I said earlier, the deck certainly overproduces mana so some of those elves can be replaced. Sure, you could run other X damage spells, like Fireball, but nothing matches Banefire in terms of finishing the game outright. Mirror Entity would also fit in well.

That's all for this episode! Until next time, may all your combos be quick and game-ending.

3 Comments

Smooth Transition by Basic Land at Sun, 05/17/2009 - 08:04
Basic Land's picture
5

Nice job on going from competitive to Budget. The Witch/Channeler deck looks like a fun build. It's even better if we already own Summoner's Pact and Chord of Calling.

Looking at sideboarded by Anonymous (not verified) at Sun, 05/17/2009 - 10:10
Anonymous's picture

Looking at sideboarded finishers, wouldn't Pyromatics serve to replace Banefire as a low-budget uncounterable, also overcoming forge-tenders, circles of protections and such damage prevention effects due to the arbitrary number of damage sources generated with replicate?

Great suggestion by Necropotent at Sun, 05/17/2009 - 19:31
Necropotent's picture

Yeah, wow, Pyromatics is a great suggestion. Virtually unpreventable, uncounterable, unstoppable... all at only 2 cents.