As popular as typal decks are in Magic: The Gathering, they rarely make much impact in terms of serious tournament results. Occasionally, something like Goblins will do well in an event, but for the most part, these decks are for kitchen table use only. For this reason, it’s great to see an Elves deck doing well in MTG Modern this week, and with a nifty combo addition to boot.
This deck comes via Musagete, who took it to a 5-0 finish in yesterday’s Modern League. It features a classic core of powerful Elves, capable of swarming the board and winning via combat. It also includes a powerful combo line, which synergizes surprisingly well with everything else going on. While it’s not totally new, this list has enough innovations that it could bring Elves back into the Modern meta.
The MTG Devoted Druid Combo In Modern Elves
The most interesting aspect of Musagete’s Modern Elves deck is undoubtedly the infinite combo it contains. Their list features both Devoted Druid and Vizier of Remedies, which famously come together to produce infinite mana. With both out you can activate Druid’s ability as many times as you want without actually putting any -1/-1 counters on it. This allows for infinite untaps, and therefore infinite green mana.
Once you’ve achieved this, there are multiple ways for Elves to win the game. Elvish Warmaster, Ezuri, Renegade Leader, and Joraga Warcaller all serve as outlets that you can pour as much mana into as you want. They all let you pump your creatures up to infinite power and toughness, allowing you to easily swing for the win. Ezuri even grants Trample, which gets around the chump blocker problem.
This isn’t a new combo by any stretch. It’s been around for a while, and it even made a bit of a comeback in a different Modern deck around the release of Tarkir: Dragonstorm. This was due to the release of Nature’s Rhythm, a new green creature tutor that could grab the combo pieces from your deck. Musagete plays Nature’s Rhythm too, as well as Chord of Calling. Both serve as great ways to grab either Druid or Vizier, or one of your infinite mana outlets, depending on what you draw.
Musagete adds a fun new wrinkle to proceedings in the form of Agatha’s Soul Cauldron. The scourge of Standard does a ton of work here, letting you access your combo pieces even if your opponent removes them. It also works well with the rest of the deck: turns out Elves, in general, have a lot of great activated abilities.
A Tried-And-True Backup Plan
While the above MTG combo is potent, it’s only one aspect of Musagete’s Modern Elves deck. The rest is a much more traditional typal strategy. It aims to put a ton of Elves on the board as quickly as possible and swarm your opponent to death.
This all starts with the deck’s six mana dorks. Between Llanowar Elves and Elvish Mystic, the deck has plenty of ways to get ahead on mana turn one. Quirion Ranger can serve a similar purpose too, if you already have an existing dork out. These cards give you the resources to drop more Elves, which cards like Heritage Druid and Priest of Titania can then leverage to make even more mana.
All the mana in the world is no good if you’re out of cards, of course. To this end, Musagete includes plenty of flood protection here. Leaf-Crowned Visionary and Eladamri, Korvecdal both serve as potent draw engines for the deck. You can also funnel your mana into the infinite outlets described above. Even without the combo in place, one activation of these with a decent board is often enough to get you the win.
In many games, this is the core strategy you’ll end up pursuing with this list. It’s easy to build up a ton of Elves and just play aggressively, without worrying too much about the combo. What the combo offers, however, is an instant-win button, easily accessible due to the various tutors in the deck. Typal decks on the whole tend to be pretty fragile, and this one is no exception. The ability to explode and win out of nowhere, however, gives it a leg up on its peers.
Here To Stay?
It’s great to see Musagete’s Modern Elves combo deck doing well. The last meaningful result for the archetype was back in March. Even then, that was a 4-4 split at the Modern Spotlight. Yesterday’s 5-0 could well spell the start of a comeback for the deck, but it has some tough competition to overcome first.
Right out of the gate Boros Energy, the current best deck in Modern, is a tricky matchup indeed for Elves. Not only is it fast enough to challenge Elves on board, but it also has a lot of ways to kill small creatures. Between Goblin Bombardment, Phlage, Ajani, and Galvanic Discharge, none of your Elves are safe here. Things get even worse post-sideboard. Here, Wrath of the Skies comes in to clear your board, and Clarion Conqueror comes in to shut down your combo. It’s still possible for Elves to pull off lucky wins against Boros Energy, but it’s pretty unlikely.
Goryo’s Vengeance is also a pretty tough matchup. This is a deck that can easily outvalue you on board, even without the big, swingy Goryo’s Vengeance plays. You’ll find yourself struggling against the likes of Psychic Frog and Quantum Riddler, for example. It also plays plenty of countermagic and removal, so your combo will be tough to land, especially after game one.
Belcher may be the deck’s saving grace. While it also plays a lot of countermagic, it’s also very slow on board, so there’s a good chance you can get underneath them and win early. It’s very possible for Elves to combo off on turn three. Belcher typically needs until turn four, so there’s a definite window there.
Overall, the current meta is pretty rough for Elves. Yesterday’s results are encouraging, to be sure, but it’s unclear whether a non-interactive deck like this can really thrive in current Modern. As always, the weeks to come will tell.
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