Dirt-Cheap Elf Stax

[i7ironwolf]

Hi, a little about me before I drop down the deck list I saw for a Legacy Elf Stax deck.  I'm playing a T1 format with friends, none of whom own the expensive (I define expensive as anything that ebay's over 10$ per card) and saw this list that looks like a lot of fun.  As a college student, and broke, I can't afford too much, but are there any cheap Type 1 revisions that would make this more effective?

Elf Stax (from helghast101's post on http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=779441)
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Living Wish
4 Priest of Titania
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndhorn Elves
3 Wirewood Hivemaster
4 Wirewood Herald
3 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Smokestack
4 Tangle Wire
4 Winter Orb
14 Forest

Sideboard: 15
1 Timberwatch Elf
1 Wirewood Hivemaster
1 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Troll Ascetic
1 SquallMonger
2 Viridian Zealot
3 Eternal Witness

Thanks!
-Dane Leach

[hauntedechos]

Hey Dane,

I'm going to be blunt...don't ever bring this deck to a Vintage tournament.  It's not viable and you'll lose your entry fee money and never win a match...ever.

Here's the positive news I'm going to give you.  Spend about $50 and buy all the cards you need for Manaless Ichorid, this is aside from Pithing needles and Chalice of the voids.  Look at posts here on The Mana Drain, and go build the deck.  Then read Steve Menendian's primers on how to play the deck and rejoyce that you never went and took anything with an elf in it, to a tournament.

Right now Manaless ichorid is the cheapest deck in vintage to build (Bazaar of baghdad's are expensive, but you can proxy them) and it's also considered very hot right now with the release of Future Sight.  Please look into the deck and it's cards and the primers on how to play, you'll be glad you did.

cheers
Mike

[Bill Copes]

Perhaps remove some of the non-mana producing elves for a few copies of chalice of the void and sphere of resistance.   Remove 4 forests for elvish spirit guides --  maybe even remove a couple for simian spirit guides as well.   Add some Root mazes -- they'll be hot in conjuction with winter orb and tangle wire.

If you can survive the first few turns, the lock you can establish with this is actually pretty good.  It's a shame your budget is so low.  If it wasn't, i'd suggest splashing red (taigas), so you can run goblin welders and gorilla shamans. (shamans are cheap, and come to think of it, you might want to try to get them in there).

You could add choke to the sideboard and some tormod's crypts as well.

I think splashing a second color is probably necessary, because you don't have any form of creature removal with the exception of tabernacle.

city of brass and gemstone mine are cheap ways to add other colors.

i'm not trying to dillute your deck.  It's just that, i've played against something similar to this before.  Other decks will simply overpower this.

[i7ironwolf]

Thanks for both replies!  I guess I'll look into multi-coloring this deck or going with a cheap version of Ichorid.
-Dane Leach

[Judge_Julez]

I'm going to be blunt...don't ever bring this deck to a Vintage tournament. 
It's not viable and you'll lose your entry fee money and never win a match...ever.

...It's a Legacy deck.
I've got 3 Elf decks built up and one resembles this one,
Vintage is a very different matter with 20+ Restricted cards in most Vintage Builds

-Judge-Julez-

[desolutionist]

This guy was at the top tables for a while this past Waterbury.  You might want to start here.

[Grand Inquisitor]

While the list desolutionish points to looks promising, I think you should move more towards the comments by AbdullahTheButcher.  I think if you want to be 'competitive' in T1 with elves, you should look more towards a lock-style deck that can swarm for a slow win, or pull something like recycle/biorhythm/staff of dom for a combo win if it builds to critical mass of mana/cards.

I'd focus on chalice, root maze, and maybe even tormod's crypt as lock cards that bring everyone else playing broken blue and black (e.g. dread return) down to your level.

Also, you probably have a great opportunity to pull green tech (something like elephant grass) out on your opponents who forget about this color.

[The Demon]

I also think that you should be looking at ichorid for a cheap deck to play, but if you where dead set on playing an elvish stack deck I think there are a few things that you could do.  For starters I think that four wellwishers would server you well.  Yeah I can't believe that I said it but when your gaining that much life on turn two or three your opponent may want to punch you in the throat.  The second thing that you could do is run chalice of the voids and the root mazes that where previously mentioned.  If you make those changes then I actually think you could steal a few rounds and send someone home crying that they where undefeated in round three and then lost to an el..yeah you get the point.

[i7ironwolf]

Hahaha, aye that would be sweet.  Thanks again for the input!

[twault]

The Wizards board is usually not a good place to get deck ideas for Vintage. As a format, I think Vintage is sort of the "black eye" on the face of WOTC. What I mean is that Wizards doesn't support the Vintage format like they support Standard and other formats.

The best information, decks, and strategy comes from www.themanadrain.com and www.starcitygames.com. Occassionally, I will find good lists on www.essentialmagic.com, but a lot of decks are insanely overrated or outdated.

While playing elves may not be the most optimal deck that you could play, it's not the worst choice that I've seen. I would follow the suggestions of others if you plan on sticking with elves (Chalice of the Void, Root Maze, etc.)

I would also suggest Null Rod, because it won't interfere with Tangle Wire and Smokestack and can screw your opponent big time (especially since you aren't running any Moxes).

Those are your best options to add to the existing deck and they will provide the most useful tools.

Other low-budget decks (unpowered) could include:

Food Chain Goblins  
Vial Goblins

Oath
Fish

Manaless Ichorid

The Goblin decks are by no means "Tier 1" decks, but can be adapted to dominate certain matchups. You can play them in a 10-proxy tournament, as long as you own Duals & Fetches.

Oath and Fish require 4 Force of Wills, which are probably the biggest expense in a proxy environment. You'll need some Duals and Fetches here too. You can get by without Mana Drains for budget purposes...

Ichorid has already been outlined.

If you aren't planning on playing in any tournaments, but want some fun casual deck ideas, search for these:

Dirty Kitty
Kobold-Clamp
Fluctuator (Living Death or Consume Spirt kill) I built this entire deck under $30!
Easter Tendrills

I assume for now you'll be playing unpowered, and these decks are fairly cheap without the power (if they even require power). They are all really fun decks to play, but not tournament-quality.

If you would like to play competitively in tournaments in the future, concentrate on buying "Vintage Staples." I would start with getting all Dual Lands, all Fetch Lands, Force of Will x 4, Wasteland x 4, Strip Mine, Brainstorm x 4, Dark Ritual x 4, etc.

I started playing in 2001, and bought most of my Duals one-by-one. I now possess just about every Vintage staple and 2 Moxes. It takes time, but it helps knowing what cards necessary and what cards are semi-useful.

[i7ironwolf]

Hmm, all interesting ideas.  I actually ran a black suicide deck for a while that I built for 200$ (Sinkholes, Tutor, etc, yes) without the wastelands or mox/lotus but in an unfortunate incident lost that and my U/G madness deck on the Trailways bus coming home from college *tear*.

I've always loved the idea of playing with a stax deck but, never could figure out anyway to make one without resorting to the woeful $T4KS solution, until I saw that elf listing.  So, root mazes and chalices coudl go a long way,a nd I guess I'll figure out how to incorporate those.

Thanks again.
-Dane Leach

[hauntedechos]

Hey people of this thread,

I again suggest that the most cost efficient to potential of wins lies in the building of manaless Ichorid.  There is not doubt that the persuit of this deck will lead to more fun and potential to do well in the Vintage format.  Yes there are things that you can do to try and improve your potentials, but they DO NOT COMPETE with the potential with persuing manaless Ichorid which EVERYONE is metagaming against right now.

Please just do yourself a favour and chase after Manaless Ichorid.

cheers
Mike

[zimagic]

Hey people of this thread,

I again suggest that the most cost efficient to potential of wins lies in the building of manaless Ichorid.  There is not doubt that the persuit of this deck will lead to more fun and potential to do well in the Vintage format.  Yes there are things that you can do to try and improve your potentials, but they DO NOT COMPETE with the potential with persuing manaless Ichorid which EVERYONE is metagaming against right now.

Please just do yourself a favour and chase after Manaless Ichorid.

cheers
Mike

[Apologies for the late Necro of this thread]

Mike, from Dane's post it doesn't seem to me that he's looking to enter tournaments rather to improve his casual deck.

Hi, a little about me before I drop down the deck list I saw for a Legacy Elf Stax deck.  I'm playing a T1 format with friends, none of whom own the expensive (I define expensive as anything that ebay's over 10$ per card) and saw this list that looks like a lot of fun.  As a college student, and broke, I can't afford too much, but are there any cheap Type 1 revisions that would make this more effective?

I'd suggest the following budget options:

Elf Stax (from helghast101's post on http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=779441)
4 Glimpse of Nature
Successful Glimpse of Nature decks revolve almost exclusively around doing something terribly broken once you hit your Glimpse turn. Take a look at the Kobold Clamp deck suggested above where you can theoretically snowball into drawing your deck on the first turn and Tendrils, Bombardement or Brainfreeze your opponent for the win. The biggest advantage of that strategy is that you don't need to pay for your creatures (they are all 0cc) and you get to keep your mana for casting your win condition.

Glimpse is not a "bad" card, per se, but almost always requires extra set-up. Extra set-up requires deck space, less deck space limits your flexibility and really ties you down to a very limited set of strategies. If you do go the Glimpse route (which can be very fun in Casual but isn't realistic in competitive when playing Elves) AND you have budget restrictions, seriously consider playing a continuous source of mana. The best being Tangleroot [Whenever a player plays a creature spell, that player adds  to his or her mana pool.] & Thousand Year Elixir [You may play the activated abilities of creatures you control as though those creatures had haste.  , : Untap target creature.] , despite their 3cc. You get to Glimpse, play a cheap elf and pay the next for free, drawing you an Elf etc etc withe the Tangleroot and the allows you to explode with Priest of Titania while Llanowar Elves & Fyndhorn Elves replace themselves. There's also the untap ability which can be excellent too. Additional Timberwatch Elf activations can get out of hand. If you don't have those cards in hand though it's less impressive.

Add 3x Either one of these [bearing in mind you're building on a budget]

Before we go any further, you cannot build any Elf deck in Vintage without 4x Skullclamp. It should easily fit in under budget and between Wirewood Hivemaster & Wirewood Herald is your main card advantage engine in the deck.

4 Priest of Titania
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndhorn Elves
3 Wirewood Hivemaster
4 Wirewood Herald
4 Quirion Ranger
3 Wirewood Symbiote

These are all givens in the deck. Now this is where your own deck preferences and budget constraints kick in. I really like the Winter Orbs, I also like having a couple of essential one-ofs in the MD to search for with the Herald: Wellwisher, Rofellos, Caller of the Claw, Viridian Shaman, Imperious Prefect or similiar Lord effect. You can probably even change the numbers of Wirewood Symbiote & Wirewood Hivemaster now that you have the Skullclamps to trigger the Wirewood Heralds.

I would look at some forms of mana accelleration that your budget can provide, Gaea's Cradles (two) & Crop Rotation (better than Wishing for a second copy), Sol Ring, Lotus Petal, Elvish Spirit Guide etc. You need to get everything out early and consistantly. Look at the Waterbury list that was suggested, in addition to ESGs he has Lotus, 2 Moxen, Sol Ring and Birchlore Rangers (!) Fastbond & Concordant Crossroads (Rich Man's TYE) on top if Priests, Fyndhorn, Llanowars and the enablers that allow for multiple uses. I'm suggesting adding more to the casting cost of the deck due to your budget restriction (the TYEs/Tangleroots) so you can see how important this is.

Finally you need some different ways to win, Biorhythm or beats seem to be the best ways. Try to fit the big Sorcery in somewhere.

For the land base, you can get away with running sac-lands which have a small synergy with the Glimpse of Nature as each activation reduces the dead cards you draw through.

Your prime objective is to vomit your deck onto the table as quickly as possible because combo and control will both beat you the longer the game goes on and in T1 that can be anywhere from the 2nd turn onwards.

Have fun!

[Masta]

Ironwolf:

I'm getting a headache trying to figure out whomever wrote the information in Zimagic's post, but nonetheless my reply to this thread would be, "yeah, that."  Elves do have a reputation of being violated at any T1 tournament, but given the appropriate meta and a little luck, you could definitely win some games. 

From looking at your list a few thoughts pop up, mostly the same thoughts that are in Zimagic's response:
- Play SacLands
- Play mainboard Viridian Zealots, as your list has zero targeted removal.
- You really do want to slip under the opponents radar with elves before they can get established.  Playing the Stax lock seems inefficient with Elves mostly because it takes you a number of cards and more time to produce the same mana that a Mishra's Workshop can do by itself.
- Maybe try a Slate of Ancestry over the Glimpse if you're trying to extend the game.  If you're going broke and want to win in one turn, then rock the Glimpse w/Concordant Crossroads.

V/R
Masta