When most animals are backed into a corner, they become very dangerous. Their survival instincts take over, and they fight with everything they have to stay alive. It is that very thing that allows an animal to escape from a hungry predator.

That is exactly how I felt going into the weekend: desperate, cornered, and willing to do anything I could to survive. Unfortunately, the prey doesn’t always make it out of that grave situation. In fact, it doesn’t usually matter how much they struggle—they’re still eaten.

I didn’t really like the thought of being anyone’s lunch, and I wanted to put the odds in my favor. I had been trying to become the predator when I switched to a mono-green deck, but it hadn’t been successful thus far. I needed to be even more aggressive, and I thought I knew a way that I could pull it off: by remembering my roots.

Elvish Heritage

The most important question was whether I could do it without spending any tickets. Fortunately for me, I had a great start to the deck—I was already playing many of the cards in my current deck. The G/W version of the Elves deck would be far too expensive, but I thought I could make a solid attempt with a mono-green build.

After looking at the different versions of Elves that I was able to find on the Internet, I decided on the build I wanted. Unfortunately, I would need to sell one of my Green Sun's Zeniths to make it happen, but I really liked my plans for the deck.

Thankfully, I took some time to discuss my idea with some friends because they gave some great advice and even caught an important item that I had missed. The FNM Hero Jonathan Medina once again came through big time when he caught the fact that I had failed to include Elvish Visionary in my deck plans.

Scotty Mac and Jay Boosh of The Eh Team Podcast also shared their sagely wisdom with me, although most of Jay’s advice was in the form of how bad of an idea it was to play the deck. Regardless of the good advice he had given me in the past, I decided to ignore his Elf hatred. That meant that all I had left to do was trade some cards and build it.

Elves on a Budget

Here is a list of the cards I decided that I wanted to buy and the cost of each:

The cost was going to be more than I hoped it would be, but it was still reasonable for such a large change. I was willing to sacrifice a Green Sun's Zenith to the cause, and fortunately, a couple of my other cards had gained in value since I had last checked.

I was able to sell a Green Sun's Zenith to a trader for 4 tickets. I then sold a Predator Ooze (1.71 tickets), and two Mental Missteps (1.78 tickets each) to bots. That brought my sales total to 9.27 tickets, which gave me 15.30 tickets’ worth of total funds.

I purchased the cards I needed and was left with 6.81 tickets. I had enough for one final Daily Event, but first, I needed to build my deck.

"ElfHero1.0.dek"

• Creatures (30)
• 1 Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1 Soul of the Harvest
• 1 Wolfir Silverheart
• 3 Copperhorn Scout
• 4 Arbor Elf
• 4 Dungrove Elder
• 4 Elvish Archdruid
• 4 Elvish Visionary
• 4 Llanowar Elves
• 3 Adaptive Automaton
• 1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader

• Spells (10)
• 2 Green Sun's Zenith
• 4 Genesis Wave
• 4 Rancor

• Lands (20)
• 20 Forest

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Blunt the Assault
• 1 Champion of Lambholt
• 3 Ground Seal
• 3 Ezuri's Archers
• 3 Witchbane Orb
• 3 Predator Ooze

Buy This Deck

After deciding on the final decklist, I had very little time to practice with the deck. It seemed to perform well in testing, but my time was running short. There was only time to play a few matches in the Tournament Practice room before I entered the Daily Event queue for what might be my final battle in the Standard format.

Standard 4-RND (Event #4182403)

Round 1 vs. W/U Delver

I had an Elvish Visionary, a Copperhorn Scout, an Elvish Archdruid, a Dungrove Elder, and five Forests in play. In my hand, I had a Genesis Wave and a Rancor. I cast Genesis Wave using my Archdruid and all of my Forests for mana. The Adaptive Automaton (which became an Elf) and two additional Forests I gained from the Wave gave me the additional firepower I needed. My Rancor-enchanted Elder and strengthened Elves overran my opponent’s defenses and finished him off.

Game record: 1–0

Sideboard:

+3 Ezuri's Archers

−3 Copperhorn Scout

Game record: 1–1

Sideboard:

+3 Ground Seal

−2 Genesis Wave

−1 Wolfir Silverheart

Game 3 – A Dungrove Elder held my opponent’s Geist of Saint Traft at bay while I was able to quickly lay down my Elf army. My opponent conceded as soon as Ezuri, Renegade Leader joined the fray.

Game record: 2–1

Match record: 1–0

So far so good—any time I was able to pull off a win against Delver, it felt like a success. I hoped it was a sign of good things to come.

Round 2 vs. U/B Zombies

Game record: 1–0

Sideboard:

+2 Blunt the Assault

−2 Genesis Wave

Game 2 – It turns out that two Ratchet Bombs, two Blood Artists, and a Vampire Nighthawk are very good against my primarily-low-costed-creatures deck. I was never even in the game.

Game record: 1–1

Sideboard:

+3 Witchbane Orb

+3 Ezuri's Archers

−3 Copperhorn Scout

−2 Blunt the Assault

−1 Craterhoof Behemoth

Game record: 1–2

Match record: 1–1

This round reminded me that my deck would be very vulnerable to board wipes and timely removal. The combination of Blood Artist and Ratchet Bomb was amazing against me, but I couldn’t waste any more time pondering it. I needed to win the next round or I was done.

Round 3 vs. B/R Zombies

Game record: 1–0

Sideboard:

+2 Blunt the Assault

−2 Genesis Wave

Game 2 – My opponent and I were trading blows with our creatures until he played a Vampire Nighthawk, which slowed my assault. He then added salt to the wound with Phyrexian Obliterator. Fortunately, he attacked with both of them and left only a Blood Artist back to block.

I attacked with all of my untapped creatures: Arbor Elf, Elvish Visionary, Dungrove Elder, and Soul of the Harvest. He took the 12 damage that it totaled and was down to 10 life. I was very comfortably sitting at 11 life. The reason I was comfortable was that I once again held the card that my opponents never see coming: Blunt the Assault.

What can I say? Playing bad cards is how I roll. That is the life of an MTGO Hero.

Game record: 2–0

Match record: 2–1

I had a real chance to win prizes, and I felt very good about my deck as long as I didn’t face too many board wipes. I was feeling the pressure as I headed into the final round.

Round 4 vs. Mono-White Humans

Game record: 1–0

Game 2 – I had to mulligan to five cards, and I kept a relatively slow hand of two Elvish Visionary, Genesis Wave, and two Forests. My opponent’s Champion of the Parish, Knight of Glory, and Ajani, Caller of the Pride were simply too much for me to handle.

Game record: 1–1

Sideboard:

+2 Blunt the Assault

−2 Genesis Wave

Game 3 – I had a nearly perfect beginning with two Llanowar Elves, two Elvish Archdruids, and a Dungrove Elder. On turn five, I cast a Genesis Wave, which gave me more than enough to finish him off.

Game record: 2–1

Match record: 3–1

Wrapping Up

It may not have been the most exciting finish ever, but I was able to achieve another 3–1 finish. I won six Magic 2013 booster packs, which I was able to sell for 18 tickets. I had successfully given myself three more weeks’ worth of Standard events. It was a great day!

Last week, I mentioned that I was going to be playing in a Pro Tour Qualifier with my MTGO Hero deck. Unfortunately, my cards didn’t arrive in the mail in time, and I wasn’t able to piece the deck together.

Also, I want to let readers know that I will be on vacation next week. Check back in two weeks and find out how well I can keep the train on the tracks!

Until then,

–Tangent was here . . .