Just elf a little - Oops All Elves 2-2-1 - 32th @ Lega Pauper Lipsia 26/27 Day 1

The Idea

I played a lot of Elves in the months leading towards the new league. This is new for me, liking a tribal theme. It usually seems so boring to me, but the Mono Green Elves list just plays very nicely and can win in an overwhelming fashion early, but also play a long game thanks to really good card advantage. When I played Spy, the card advantage always felt a little useless: you drew all your defenders that do nothing on the board, but with Elves, it feels like you can draw 4 threats with one 2 mana spell. I also like the fact the deck uses non-elves to win.

I used to be an Arena player, and the only real Elves deck on Arena was Historic Elfball, where you just put all your Elves onto the board and hope to win with one big attack. Everything was an Elf, except for your Craterhoof Behemoth. I just always thought tribal decks were boring simply because of that, the deckbuilding aspect just didn’t seem very interesting, just filter for your tribe and click the best ones. I was not a fan. But I am a fan of Pauper Elves. And because of that, for the first Lega day, I’d like to play a deck that is only elves.

I also am not the most competitive player. While I do enjoy the game and winning, my aim this league is not to make top 8. It would be nice, but the one thing that in my mind is even more fun is winning those trophies at the end of the league. "Best Brew" and "Most beautiful deck" and such.

And to have even more fun with the league, I decided to go with a theme. Elves. Play elves, every league day, but a wholly different deck every time. I think the card pool is deep enough to make different lists, while still having enough Elves in the deck to call it that.

For the first deck of the league, I want to play WUBRG “Singleton” Oops All Elves. Every single card in the deck, even lands, should have elves in it. It has all 5 colors. And I try to play as many different Elves as possible. It’s a celebration of the tribe. And hopefully, a reasonably playable deck. It’s also a little ironic that I mentioned not liking tribal decks that only put the best cards of their tribe in. But this is not a good card pile, this is a bad card pile.

How to build a “singleton” deck

I want to put as many Elves as possible in this deck. I want to show off cards that I have seen and thought “these could randomly win games”. I want to show off different artworks too. So how do we make sure this list is still kind of usable? The solution I chose was to have a “core” of the deck, that are still four-ofs. I chose Priest of Titania , Timberwatch Elf and Quirion Ranger and, luckily, with an elf in the artwork, Lead the Stampede . That way the deck can still function under the constraint of “every card in the deck has to have elves in it”

Then, I basically added all the Elves, that were in some way, mechanically or artistically, interesting. My deck was over 100 cards, every one of them either depicting an elf or being an elf, so I had to make a bunch of cuts.

Sad to say, I did cut a lot of cool cards that just weren’t quite good enough. Here are some honorable mentions:

Greenseeker : Beautiful Rebecca Guay artwork. The ability looks interesting for a 5c version that cares about having every basic land. But there’s better options to just get colored mana.

Elvish Eulogist : Very cool ability and flavor combo to gain some life. I don’t know why she has to sacrifice herself though, when Wellwisher can just gain life for free.

Heart Warden : Urza’s Destiny had some evocative artwork and interesting mechanics, like this mana dork who is also a clue token.

The List

I can’t get into every card choice, but this is the “singleton” Oops All Elves 5 color list I played. Bask in its glory, for I have never built a more beautiful deck! … Until the next Lega day, of course.

Now here’s two bangers that I really like but didn’t get to play with in the matches:

Moonglove Extractor While everyone should be aware of my love of Lorwyn elves, this meme-ish card from Lorwyn Eclipsed Limited makes a decent card advantage engine with the threat of Timberwatch Elf pumping it. Is it better than Winding Way ? No. But it is an Elf. And that is what matters. Just be an Elf. Then you’re better than anyone else. That’s what the Lorwyn Elves taught me.

Selesnya Evangel : Fat Elf! Fat Elf! FAT ELF!!!!

And here are some fun facts about this deck!

Fact 1 Every card is an elf, depicts an elf, or has elves on it, making it Oops All Elves. Yes, even the Forests.

Fact 2 It’s WUBRG colors. At this point, I thought, why not make it all colors. There’s even a colorless Elf.

Fact 3 It really is just Mono Green Elves but remove the non Elves. You can find 8 different mana dorks. You can use bigger Elves as threats.

Fact 4 Mana will be an issue, but I refuse to put more lands into the deck (Commander mindset, some might say).

GLHF !!

The Matches

Match 1 0-2 Versus Steelfin Whale Combo. Not much to do with this little artifact hate and my 1 dimensional gameplan. I got my whole board bounced and two turns later lost to infinite damage. The way to play this with Timberwatches is probably make them block with their whales instead of assembling more creatures and setting up lethal the next turn. Game Two I at least threatened a fast kill before dying to a boardwipe (This deck is really bad against black board wipes). First time seeing opponents deck though! Cool to have a diverse meta. The funniest thing in this match was the Ferocious Werefox raised a Timberwatch Elf’s Toughness to 3, saving it from a boardwipe, and then it could do some trample damage and got my opponent down to 2.

Match 2 1-2 Versus Günni on Mono Blue terror. How can Elves lose to Mono Blue Terror? Not enough Lands or too many Lands, plus Delvers of Secrets bashing in. Not terribly interesting games, but losing against Mono Blue Terror after being up 1-0 is a feat only this deck can achieve. I really miss Landcyclers.

Match 3 1-1 Versus Boros Tribe. This is my first draw in my tournament career. I finally managed to draw a game. Game one I lose to the combo pretty early. Game two is deliciously long. Essence Warden keeps me healthy enough to never be able to lose to the combo, I slowly assemble a huge board with near infinite mana, but draw no good threats. Many turns later, I can present lethal with Timberwatch, but then the Prismatic Strand ing begins. Eventually, My Arcane Investigator finally manages to search the room enough times to find my answers to Strands, which just a bunch of colorless or non-green Elves. They can’t strands all of them! There’s 3 minutes on the clock for game 3, when my opponent finally concedes. Game 3 is a thing of beauty, no other Elf deck could do what I did. I managed to draw the game by making sure they can’t kill me early. Thanks to Birchlore Rangers , I get to be a little racist like my beloved Lorwyn elves, and I Eyeblight Ending my opponent’s Tireless Tribe , which famously is not an Elf, and I manage to draw Match 3. Beautiful. A really fun match, the first time I feel like my deck is doing what Elf decks are supposed to do while showing off my singleton cards.

Match 4 2-0 Versus Dredge. Best game of this deck’s career. Absolutely drew everything I needed. Game 1 I was facing lethal if another Lotleth Giant hit the battlefield. So, I had to win that turn. I had no Timberwatch Elfs on the battlefield, so I had to get a little creative how to deal enough damage. The way it happened was with 2 Priest of Titania , a 1-of Evolution Witness , and the hero of this game, a card I was widely mocked for (in good spirits, of course), my 1-of Naya Sojourners . With enough green mana, you can repeatedly cycle the Sojourners to put a +1/+1 counter on the Witness, which then gets back the Sojourners. So after cycling 18 times, I had a big enough Evolution Witness to attack with. And to finish off the game, the third 1-of, the previously mentioned Ferocious Werefox , came in clutch to give Trample to the Witness, resulting in a 22/21 trampling Elf. This was the game where I really felt my deck was doing fun things. And because I was at the bottom tables, everyone at the table was in good spirits and was enjoying their time with some elf-themed bantering.

Game 2 I had my 1-of Relic of Progenitus (find the Elf!) in my opening hand. That was game. Beyond all expectations, this deck managed to win a match.

Match 5 2-0 vs Boros Bully. This felt like the most normal game of the tournament, I drew a lot of Timberwatch Elf, which reign supreme against red removal spells. Essence Warden and Wellwisher kept me alive long enough to assemble a big board. Game two, I had 3 Timberwatches. It felt like a normal Elves game, which feels fine to finish off the League.

Endstep

I am so thankful for the league to exist. I was looking forward to Day 1 so much and it was such a blast. Shoutouts to Ash in particular for taking me into the fold last year, starting off my Pauper journey. Big thank you to all my opponents who were all great. And thank you to Rae, who walked me home afterwards!

This is actually my best result at the Lega so far. Which honestly, I couldn’t have hoped for more with this deck. What I learned is that you can just play any old deck and as long as you like the deck and playing it, the Lega will be a great experience. Pick up that Zombies deck. Brew around your favorite cost reducing familiar. Just live a little.

I will be playing more Elves. This time, it was the spiciest brew that I had. I really enjoyed the building of the deck while staying true to the theme. I hope everyone is looking forward to more Elf costumes and Elf decks in the coming Lega days :)