Elves has been an archetype in Legacy for many years now, though the composition of the deck has changed quite a bit over the years. There was a time where people played Priest of Titania hoping to ramp into Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, and Natural Order was a cute way to cheat Progenitus into play. The proliferation of Liliana of the Veil caused that to change, and the printing of Craterhoof Behemoth fundamentally changed how the deck played. Elves is explosive and powerful, but is fundamentally vulnerable to a huge swath of cards, including Terminus, Umezawa's Jitte, and much more. But some recent printings may be changing that story:

Elves - Legacy | Julian23, 5-0 Legacy League

• Creatures (30)
• 1 Dryad Arbor
• 1 Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
• 1 Llanowar Elves
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 2 Birchlore Rangers
• 3 Heritage Druid
• 3 Quirion Ranger
• 4 Deathrite Shaman
• 4 Elvish Visionary
• 4 Nettle Sentinel
• 4 Wirewood Symbiote

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Nissa, Vital Force

• Instants (2)
• 2 Abrupt Decay

• Sorceries (8)
• 4 Glimpse of Nature
• 4 Green Sun's Zenith

• Lands (18)
• 2 Forest
• 1 Cavern of Souls
• 1 Pendelhaven
• 1 Tropical Island
• 2 Bayou
• 3 Wooded Foothills
• 4 Gaea's Cradle
• 4 Windswept Heath

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Abrupt Decay
• 2 Cabal Therapy
• 1 Gaddock Teeg
• 1 Null Rod
• 2 Pithing Needle
• 3 Surgical Extraction
• 3 Thoughtseize
• 1 Umezawa's Jitte

Buy This Deck

This is, for all intents and purposes, a straightforward Elves deck. The plan is still to ramp out a ton of mana early on, comboing off with Nettle Sentinel and Heritage Druid to fuel huge Glimpse of Nature turns or Natural Orders for Craterhoof Behemoth. You can still grind out games with Wirewood Symbiote and Elvish Visionary, and use multiple activations of Deathrite Shaman to stop your opponent from doing anything too degenerate out of the graveyard.

The difference is two cards. The first is Leovold, Emissary of Trest. This card does two huge things. First, it shuts off cards like Brainstorm, Ponder, and Preordain. There are many decks that are purely fueled by cantrips, and this gives you the ability to shut them down. Critically, this makes it much more difficult for Miracles to find and set up a Terminus with Brainstorm and Sensei's Divining Top. The second function that Leovold, Emissary of Trest serves is letting you fight through removal. Elves is vulnerable to decks that play some combination of Lightning Bolt, Swords to Plowshares, and Snapcaster Mage to do it all again. Leovold, Emissary of Trest lets you fight through some amount of removal, and particularly Umezawa's Jitte.

The second card of interest is Nissa, Vital Force. Unlike decks of every other color, each of which have access to powerful Planeswakers like Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Liliana of the Veil, and now Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Green hasn’t ever really had a defining Planeswalker in Legacy. Nissa, Vital Force could just be spectacular. She gives you an alternate angle of attack for when your opponents are prepared to fight against swarms of small creatures. She also lets you rebuy key creatures or permanents, particularly combo pieces or hateful haymakers that your opponent may proactively board in removal for.