Stasis Elves

[MaximumCDawg]

Playing with Elves for awhile, I've come to the realization that untapper cards like Quiron Ranger and Wirewood Symbiote are really, really good.  Right now I'm trying to abuse them in a big mana shell, but I wonder if they give you an opportunity to play Stasis again.

Here's kind of what I'm thinking of.

Untappers (9)
3 Quiron Ranger
3 Scryb Ranger
3 Wirewood Symbiote

Elves (18)
4 Arbor Elf
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Nettle Sentinel
3 Heritage Druid
3 Priest of Titania

Tutor / Card Advantage (8)
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Glimpse of Nature

Win Con (3)
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Umbral Mantle

Lock Package (5)
2 Stasis
3 Root Maze

Mana (16)
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
4 Forest

The concept here would be to lead with either Root Maze or mana dorks.  Maze slows down your opponent, but  is less effective against you because your dorks tap for mana.  You eventually want to drop a status while you have an untapper in play and go to town.  Stasis gets paid for indefinitely under a Root Maze with Arbor Elf + Tropical Island + any Ranger (untap the elf by returning Island, replay tapped Island and untap with elf). 

This shell is probably all kinds of wrong -- paying for stasis here is kind of cumbersome -- but has anyone experimented with this blend in the past?

[xouman]

Interesting idea. I toyed in the past with the idea of 4 root maze, but never played them (I found elves! to be quite quick and aggressive, so why slow it?). So what is the idea of the deck? Stasis lock? Root maze tempo win? Let's start the deck from these two cards:

4 root maze
4 stasis

Now we need some synergy, otherwise we are playing symmetrical cards that won't win anything. Creatures for root maze, and as few fetchlands as possible (with a root maze a fetchland is sh*t). No artifacts if possible. Blue mana for stasis, untapping permanents, bounce effects, free spells.

Green
Nettle sentinel -> Heritage druid, birchlore rangers
Quirion ranger,wirewood symbiote -> priest of titania/archdruid, mana elves

Blue
Counterspells -> daze, fow, misstep, misdirection, mindbreak trap
Nice effects -> Gush, intruder alarm

Artifacts
umbra mantle, staff of domination, cloudstone curio


And now? Do it a combo deck? control deck? Aggro deck? If i had to play both root maze AND stasis I'd play something like:

control 23
4 root maze
4 stasis
4 fow
4 daze
3 misstep
2 misdirection
2 back to basics

business 20
1 ancestral
2 intruder alarm
4 nettle sentinel
4 birchlore rangers
3 heritage druid
4 quirion rangers
2 green sun's zenith

lands 17
4 tropical island
4 breeding pool
4 misty rainforest
2 blue fetchland
3 island


Very poor deck, good at nothing. Feels specially bad on the draw. But it is something, always assuming the use of both root maze and stasis.

I'd personally play just root maze. maybe is a decent card against combo/control decks...

[Soly]

I guess what I need to ask is, why is this better than any other existing Archetype?  I know Elves! isn't really something big-name vintage players, have really experimented with, but my thought is that the best-developed have already been explored in Legacy.    BUT*  it is interesting in that there are certain cards that are legal in Vintage (obviously) that make this deck insane. 

Skullclamp comes to mind, as does Ancestral Recall.    I think the best way to build this deck is an incremental aggressive deck that has a potential for a combo finish.

I would definitely play UG and forget stasis.  You run the risk with Root Maze, Stasis, Back to Basics, and such of running into NO Actual way to win the game.  In a deck like elves, you need to make sure to keep drawing threats.

I would play UBG and only have thoughtseizes and/or Therapies in black, and also Beck/Call, Ancestral, Time Walk, and MAYBE twister in Blue.  Other than that, I'd be playing Fetchlands and Cradles, similar to Legacy.


Not having Skullclamp is downright wrong though.

[MaximumCDawg]

Ive been running a big mana elves deck for awhile without clamp, and actually I have not missed it.  Look, Enemy No. 1 in Vintage for Elves is Chalice of the Void (well, that and Oath).  That sonofabitch absolutely murders the legacy build, which cannot function without its one-drops.  (And good luck getting to 4 mana for a GSZ to get a way to kill the artifact before you die). I prefer in Vintage to not rely on storming out to win, but instead having access to more tutors and 2-cc elves.  Its been more successful for me, too.

[xouman]

I'd also prefer combo elves to stasis-elves (at least on paper), but this thread was about playing stasis along root maze. Those 2 cards are quite unique and though they are symmetrical mabye a dedicated deck would take profit of them. The first brew I found looks crap, but better minds could arrive to a decent deck, who knows.

About "combish" elves, ubG does not appeal attractive to me. Surely is more resilient and plays more broken cards, but you are probably lighten manabase and elves density. I can accept uG to play call/beck, ancestral and time walk, or bG to add discard and decays (great cards against oath, worst matchup probably). monogreen is probably faster, has more density and it's cheaper for sure, thus more appealing

About skullclamp, I started playing 4 of them, but now I don't play any and I also don't miss them. I never played wirewood hivemaster, so I had to clamp my beautiful elves, and it didn't start until I had one heritage and 2 nettles,otherwise my mana flew away too quickly. Well, gsz would help a lot so it's probably viable, but gsz and clamp are prone to be countered. It's a version really worth trying.

Instead I chose glimpses, and 7 big mana elves (priests+archdruids) plus some expensive threats (regal force, genesis wave, emrakul, staff of domination -and I would try others in the future). Really different approach, can't say if better or worse.

[MaximumCDawg]

Yeah, the only reason I went with Elves in my opening suggestion was because Wirewood Symbiote and Quiron Ranger exist.  Those are probably the most efficient ways to go infinities with Stasis.

Other options include:

Hidden Strings + An evasive beater, probably True Name Nemesis
Ral Zerak
The original Garruk
Heriarch/Bird + Instill Energy/Nature's Chosen
Forsaken City

And I would argue none of these are as fast or reliable as Ranger and Symbiote.  They all either require more pieces (Strings), cost more (Walkers), or require you build your whole deck around it.  (City)