Lathril, Blade of the Elves | Upping the Average
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- čas přidán 24. 02. 2021
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I like the greaves because it’s not just protection for a single creature, it also gives haste to your mana producers.
Agreed, thought about taking it out but it was just too good at getting the ball rolling faster
@@newworldsound Yes, getting lathril down with haste is a significant difference, since she will most likely always find something to hit.
Yeah I threw greaves in thinking of the dorks and commander protection as gravy
Greaves is a must in Elves imho. It not only protects att key Elves but it also makes elves like Priest of Titania, Immaculate, Archdruid that much better.
Agreed. I run Greaves and Crossroads for this reason.
The origin of the "Elfball" name comes from elf decks that won using Fireball as a finisher, not because elves snowball out of control, as far as I know
Right, mana generation with elves for the Fireball X cost. Makes sense.
As far as I know, it's kinda both. Fireball was an effective finisher for elves because mana generating elves meant you can play more mana generating elves next turn, dump your hand and ending with a Fireball to finish.
Correct
Huh, and I thought it was because you’re creating a “Ball” like a party for all your elves to attend
@@mrlynchify you can be correct. This is a swag take
With these card choices and the cuts it seems like Joey is gearing towards building the deck to an old school "elf ball" strategy. Yeah I know that strategy is tried and tested but I believe it's not what Lathril is meant to be build. There are other better commander options that is more suited for "elf ball" strategy. Might as well go mono green. If I were to build the deck I would lean towards a semi "voltron" pumping up Lathril's power and abuse hus activated ability by including more untappers and cards that double activated abilities.
Blackblade Reforged FTW!
Which is EXACTLY how I've built Lathril.
The strategy is as follows (and what I won with in a pod last night):
1. Dorks.
2. Buff up Lathril
3. Hit with Lathril, create tokens.
4. Cast Wound Reflection or Throne of the God-Pharaoh and token doublers such as Parallel Lives.
5. Cast untappers such as Quest of the Renewal, Seedborne Muse and Awakening, or one shots like Vitalize etc.
6. Start tapping and untapping.
7. Win
If I win by combat damage I've failed as far as I'm concerned. There are better Commanders for Elf-ball, and Lathril is interesting due to her second ability, not the fact that she produces Elves to smash face with.
@@LTJ Hey could you share your deck? i like your strategy!
Elvish guidance is litterally make your own cradle
Alpha Authority is great in this deck. Protects your Commander and makes it unblockable.
A little surprised not to see tyvar kell, as it is an absolute bomb of a planeswalker that definitely does work.
Ive noticed that the best thing about the crown is that it provides reach, while there are permanent effects like gravity well and "instant speed until end of turn" effects like tower defense, ive seen that having one big body with reach held back as a blocker does deter people from swinging their big flyer at me, while also not getting hated on like a gravity well would do nor just a one turn save like tower defense. Great video, cant wait for the next one!
Disagree with the seedborn. Ive played several games with Lathril now, and its silly easy to get out 10 elves with her menace and a couple early attacks.
wirewood symbiote is better imo
I think that quest for renewal does a better job, you can get counters by attacking or tapping in any other way, it only costs 2 mana and is an enchantment, is harder to take it down comparing it with a creature IMO
I do so appreciative this video. I bought the precon the day it came out and optimized the list right away
EDH players need to give harvest season more respect. It's amazing in mana dork decks.
One of the big reasons I love Lathril is she gives your team, in theory, pseudo vigilance and haste. While yes, with some anthems coming out and elves swinging in will do damage, you won't be getting in that 30 damage and will lose some key elves while Lathril's ability guarantees 30 damage to your opponents, even if you just spammed in a bunch of elves. Elvish Promenade is excellent, but those elves just sit on the field and do nothing. And I think that's my big argument for Nullmage Sheperd, Heritage Druid, Birchlore Rangers, etc. These cards don't require your Elvish Mystic to have haste to do an effect. And because of all these tapping shenanigans going on--including something like Tyvar Kell, as well, although to less extent--I think it pairs really well with Harvest Season. Harvest Season is awesome and you should be using it when you can tap 3 or four elves. early on--not the possible 11 that your commander asks for.
In other formats, elves only need 1 or 2 mana to actually function. This is true in commander, until they get board wiped. Big mana getters solve that issue. I also run a lot of untap abilities as well that allow me to double up on mana and do a huge combo. I think in certain metas, combat is difficult to navigate through, so some sort of drain spell would be good--although I run Skemfar Shadowsage and Shaman of the Pack, already.
One card I think is a sleeper that is new, but I don't see anyone using is Nightshade Harvester. She doesn't do much, but it punishes your opponents for playing lands, and combats all the land decks that have surged since Zendikar. It also gets bigger. At worst, it deals 3 damage a round and gains 3 counters. It is an elf so benefits from any tribal effect you want, too. It also draws hate cards, too, and may make people hold off on using large ramp cards...such as a Harvest Season!
Love the harvester, though I dont runt it at the moment in my Lathril list
You are so close to making Ghave, Guru of Spores. You're one colour off. And you're still doing fantastic work Joey.
I personally built this deck a while ago and it was called Abonimation of Llanowar, weird though it's still called that. I'm glad to see a video on this deck. There was a lot I learned here and a lot I can improve on.
I hope to see a mono-white Angel tribal upping the average.
If you’re going to ignore Lathril’s abilities in favor of aggro swarm why not just use abomination of lanowar, it costs one less, still has menace, and adds vigilance.
Yeah. I really don't feel these "improvements". It's like "here is an Elf commander with a unique ability. Let's entirely ignore that and just build generic Elfball."
They also seem to not realise, that the ability drains EACH opponent for 10. You can't attack all opponents at the same time. Attacking also puts your creatures into the danger of getting blocked to death. Or maybe your opponent has put a card down, that makes it difficult to attack them.
That ability gives you an option to kill your opponents when attacking isn't an option and is unique and they are neutering it. Pretty meh.
My 2 favorite elves by far are lys alana huntmaster and poison tipped archer. Anyone not playing them definitely should be
I used this precon as a chance to bolster the Abomination of Llanowar deck I’d been wanting to try, now adding Lathril as a main general. It’s definitely given me more perspective on how to clean up the deck a good bit
I really love this serie, I'm currently working on my Lathril deck and once my prototyping is done, I'm always looking for this kind of video to hear debate about specific cards. Overall, I agree with all the point made here; I took the same decision for my deck.
The only card I think is undervalued here is: Nullmage Shepherd:
- 1: it's an elf (not a cheap one.. true; still a good elf)
- 2: it can tap all the summoning sickness Elf you have and at instant speed to decimate your opponent board.
- 3: it can be done more than once / turn and at instant speed.
Considering Lathril and a few other Elves are gonna make tokens; this is a great way to use them while waiting for your pump spell to show up :D
Thanks for the video. In my opinion Lathril last ability is amazing and should be exploited otherwise its just an Ezuri deck with a splash of black cards.
I definitely like your idea it's actually similar to one I'm working on for my own lathril deck. I actually added in thunderfoot baloth which as a lieutenant which pumps up all creatures plus 2 and gives trample. So I focus more on token generation and pump spells.
Love Lathril, I use her as a secret best friend in my Belbe deck. And while I’m so glad to see an uptick in Golgari elves, I’m so sad that Belbe Elftocrats has been so overlooked this winter :( the mana politics make spelltable games with my playgroup so much fun!
I really wish the box art was the card art
one of the best decisions I made for my lathril deck is adding a monarch subtheme. always a fun mechanic and plays into elfball's aggressive strengths to give us good, consistent draw.
Spicy. I like.
Not enough Elf puns. ;)
Great video, though I agree with the other comment that Tyvar Kell was a surprising absence here.
A good budget draw selection elf I think gets over looked is Underrealm Lich. It was a pet card I was running when Abomination as the Commander. Of course this is only a good card if you are focusing more on the yard.
I beg to differ about Nullmage Shepard. I was playing a game of commander that I would've lost if not for it. My opponent played a Bell Borca deck and locked me out with Knowledge pool. I had the nullmage out and several elves. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to play my Craterhoof from my hand lol.
Nullmage Shepard is meh, but in this deck specifically, your ability to tap even freshly created tokens with summoning sickness with that ability make it probably something you'd want to keep mainboard, because selective far reaching removal on a stick can be powerful, and prevent something terrible (which is often the case with artifacts and enchantments that resolve that didn't get countered or have an answer). Note that the ability is actually usable on the turn that creature enters, and has interrupt/instant speed!
The more I vibe about it the more I insist that you keep nullmage shepard in (and you should be mainboarding reclamation sage as well).
I also agree. Being able to remove a key artifact or enchantment is so powerful.
Just finished my version, time to see if you have some good upgrades for me
Would illusionist bracers be a good card to add to for lathrils abilities? Or sword of the paruns?
Most recent elves are warriors, so I added:
- Mindblade render
- Raider’s spoil
Other draw triggers happens when a creature dies, so:
- Yavimaya Granger
Cutting Greaves & Boots: BLASPHEMY! lol
Probably a archetype of endurance, hexproof for everyone
Disagree about reanimation. Sure most elves are not unique, and individually weak, but not all reanimation is single target. Mass reanimation and repeatable reanimation is good in any creature focused deck for the exact same reasons that board wipes are bad for them. The only real difference between this style of necromancy and what you're probably more used to is that we aren't looking to generate value by getting our creatures killed or discarded. This deck wants reanimation so it can bounce back from board wipes and outlast it's opponents.
I'm running the new Haunting Voyage, and I've enjoyed it. I wouldn't say it's amazing, but given I opened one in Kaldheim, I felt I had to throw it in. It's already won me games. Some mass reanimation does just as much work (or more when it puts a Shaman of the Pack on the battlefield) than board protection.
I disagree with the hate on Seedborn Muse. That card combos with lathril excellently. I’ve one tons of games because of that card. Also, I added Sorin Markov to my list. His minus three is just nutty for this (Target opponents life total becomes 10). Six mana: target player loses the fucking game.
Probably not the first person to mention this, but if you put Crown of Skemfar on Cultivator of Blades, your attacking elves will gain ridiculous and massive buffs. All of them. It's a solid card to keep around because it allows to both pump a single elf, like Lathril, but also allows for other buffs to the entire attacking team. Just something to keep in mind.
PS: Another big recommendation is the sorcery Kindred Summons. Costs a whopping 7 mana but with all the mana dorks you should be able to get it within a reasonable time. If you have a decent boardstate, let's say 15 elves, tokens included, just use this. It allows you to reveal card from the top of your library until you reveal X cards, where X is the amount of elves you control (given that you chose elves, which you should in an elf tribal). It then allows you to put all of them onto the battlefield. For free. With all the ETB trigger from cards like Wolverine Riders to gain a lot of life and cards like Shaman of the Pack and Skemfar Shadowsage to deal X damage straight to face, where X is the amount of elves you control. You'd be surprised how early on in a game you can actually pull this combo off if you play your cards right.
The last time I was this early for an Upping the Average, the only elves in Magic were Llanowar.
This was during alpha play testing, before elvish archers was conceived.
Sylvan Anthem from MH2 is a great addition!
Will y'all be tackling the Ranar-Fortell/Blink deck as well?
I found the enchantment deadbridge chant was a good replacement to sol jar, thou I also use Abomination of Llanowar and wanted a way to get back my instants and sorcery cards that make me more elf tokens
First, nice job as always! I only disagree about the Greaves, they're just too good in this deck since they allow elves to be tapped the turn they come out for ludicrous mana at later turns whilst still providing protection for the key elves. Also, where is Tyvar Kell? ;)
I like Quest for Renewal, and I also run it in my list. In most cases it is faster and more efficient than Seedborn in this deck, though I do not mean to say that Seedborn does not fit into this deck aswell in most cases. I love Species Specialist, it is one of my favorite cards from Ikoria, and I've been looking for a deck to put it in since my Humans Tribal was disbanded.
I also went more elfball with my list, despite Lathril allowing for some golgari recursion! My main deck is Orzhov Aristocrats with Teysa, and I didn't want to make the decks too similar. I have tried to work more around the tap / untap strategy of Lathril though in order to make her not only a classic "tap sideways" elfball.
I really love how this deck can win with a big mana finisher, Voltron, drain or aggro without really skimping on any of them in a significant manner. The only downside may be that Lathril is too important for the deck, which is why mass protection spells and cards like Lightning Greaves are that much more important.
Tips from my own list: Another really good non-elf card draw is the new Toski, Bearer of Secrets. With the amount of elves this deck puts out Toski is bound to draw you a new grip in no time! Also, even though you don't want to risk putting too many eggs in one basket I really recommend Stoneforge Masterwork and Wirewood Pride in this deck! Wirewood Pride is a combat trick Timberwatch Elf, which totally makes up for it being a one time use most of the games. Stoneforge is just a more efficient Crown of Skemfar imo, without the reach. I also like Trailblazer Boots in order to make 100% sure that Lathril gets through late game aswell. I also want to put a word out for Vines of Vastwood, a really good protection spell for Lathril which can also boost her in order to suddenly flood the board with lots more tokens.
I have only played one game with this deck (in which I stomped my enemies on turn 6) so I'm still tuning, but here is the list:
I have a few sideboard cards which I will probably test in future games.
archidekt.com/decks/1191873#Lathril,_Tap_&_Drain
Would Garruk, Caller of Beasts and Lifecrafter's Bestiary a good addition ? Because there are mainly creatures in the deck and in late game you can nearly always draw a card.
My suggestion is maybe sliding in Lurking Predator. Can you imagine the chaos that could come from that? 🤔
I'm surprised that Thousand Year Elixir isn't in the average deck listing. It's even being reprinted in the Lorehold Legacies precon. Solves the haste problem for tapping Lathril and all your elves too. I guess untapping and tapping again would mean you needed 20 other elves though ...
I like this upgrade, but I'm a big fan of the story and lore behind the Commanders, and I don't mind losing some power or efficiency in exchange for flavor. I don't play competitive obviously, so this isn't a problem in my play group. Maybe you could make some videos focused on the lore in a commander deck. Just a suggestion, great video and fantastic finds for cost
I would add one card that let you recover from mass removel, like Grim Flowering or Caller of the Claw.
I was thinking about Rise of the Dread Marn to respond to wipes myself
Eldrazis monument really helps out with flyers since you are pooping out at least 2 elves with the commander
Might Harald unites the elves be a good thing to put into the deck? Or life rafters bestiary?
I love your decklists. I might give this deck another chance. I tried to play it and I found it so boring that I dropped it really fast. The deck I built felt like a one trick pony and was boring.
I put skull clamp in for easy card draw, lots of elves to throw around
I found Skullclamp to be lackluster once you start playing lords.
Looking back is exactly what you should be doing with Patriarch's Bidding
Harald is already in the deck, I think you meant the addition was Skemfar Avenger.
Can u make an updated version of this commander 🙏
I think a copy of Haunting Voyage could be a viable tool for this deck.
Call me crazy , but I love the saga Harold unites the elves as a excellent budget friendly value card , that can act as a game ender ...
With elves having many ways to untap each other might as well put in colossification
A little bit janky but definitely doable in this deck with its amount of mana generation and cards like Wirewood Symbiote
Why not add Tyvar Planeswalker? He makes all elves tap for black, creates new elves, pumps an elf & untaps with deathtouch & his ult gives haste to each elf cast & draws 2 cards...!?!??
Agree
Untapping Priest of Titania or Elvish Archdruid is just...*chef's kiss*
Agree: the crown and soul jar. These cards are too limited at what they do. If you're worried about losing your elves go big with praetors counsel or something like that.
Disagree: greaves and boots. These are great at getting your mana dorks to pump the turn you play them. Really speeds up the elfball. Also, nullmage shepherd is repeated removal on an elf body, exactly the kind of thing this deck wants.
My pod has two enchantress players. Nullmage Shepherd is a blowout. Fantastic card, at least in my case.
Sarulf for flavor.
That;s it. I don't have any awesome insight. I just liked that Lathril had a seeing-eye wolf and helped people across Kaldheim for Fenrir.
I do feel like mono green elves is just better, and easier to build
More boring too, everyone knows the cookie cutter elfball recipe. GB elves at least open more options with B. Lathril ability to do damage beside attacking is great too.
If only gaea's cradle wasn't so expensive,
There’s always growing rites
My friend just made this deck
Suggestion: Vaevictis Asmadi the Dire
But it's not 10 damage instead of attacking for with 10 elves...it's 30 (10 to each) plus you gain 10... plus the intent is to use her tokens, no?
My problem with these changes is that even though I agree with like 99% of your logic I'm now left wondering why lathril is the commander. Why not jarad, harald, abomination, izoni, or Numa and Mira?
If we aren't just going to voltron lathril, and I agree it's not necessarily the best elf ball strat, there seems like loads of better options.
Can you do Ranar
Why the last card though???
I agree that 32 lands is one too few. EDHREC average decks in general tend to go a little light on lands, owing, I assume, to the fact that players like to skimp on lands.
I really like the idea of focusing on velocity, Joey, The other day, I was thinking about which second mass reanimation effect (to complement Patriarch's Bidding) to run, then realized, "Why not just run more elves and draw spells?" I think this is the better strategy, "looking forward," as you put it. There really is no one single elf that I need to have, so it seems better to just go with redundancy and density, rather than trying to be cute.
I know you're trying to keep this within budge, but Dana Roach (and other old guys) favorite Concordant Crossroads puts in serious work here. It's not needed, since Birchlore and Heritage Druid effectively give you "mana dork haste"; still Crossroads is more elegant than doing the Greaves dance with all your dorks.
REDUX PLEASE
I made an elf deck that doesnt revolve around the "elfball" tactic. I did more like a reanimator, dark elf assassin type deck. Cause, elfball is boring to play and to play against imo. It's on par to watching someone play solitaire
i win with the staff of domination or hurricane could also bolas citadel
I love the puns. They are elfspecially spelfific
Came here to represent the only true Elf Tribal commander, Ezuri, Renegade Leader.
Why splash black when you can win in 1-3 turns in mono-green?
Ezuri with triumph of the hordes is just nasty. I won that way tonight and I actually felt bad about it lol
next breya plzzzzz
I disagree with putting all your eggs in the mana dork basket, boardwipes exist they are a staple of the format. Going from having 6 mana to 3 because you got boardwiped is not good.
I put in Bala Ged Sanctuary and Malakir Mire because why not? If you need the recovery spells they are there and if you don't you still got two lands. With all the other mana I don't see having two tapped lands will slow this deck that much.
Hey Joey! I love the episode but as an elf player I did feel like a few cards were missing that would of been perfect for the budget.
Chord of Calling, Regal Force, Wirewood Symbiote, Birchlore Rangers, Reclamation Sage and Haunting Voyage.
Chord to find our cards like Species Specialist/Poison-Tip Archer to punish boardwipes.
Wirewood to rebuy, save our elves and generating more mana.
Birchlore just as a 2nd Heritage Druid.
Reclamation Sage to answer dangerous/annoying artifacts or enchantments.
Haunting Voyage as a budget version of Patriarch's Bidding. Depending on what and how many elves can be a wincon with Shaman of the Pack and Skemfar Shadowsage when foretold.
Last thing, I personally do like Harvest Season in the deck. Just having 3-4 creatures tapped is pretty easy and sometimes you want your mana sources spilt when a boardwipe happens.
I seriously think Serpent's Soul Jar is overrated. It's good, I can agree, but it's not 5 dollars good.
my GB elves deck uses Numa and Nadier as the partner commanders, because Nadier is a really good way to get a ton of elves without needing to hit the opponent.
I am going to put Lathril into that deck though. Definitely a good card.
I would love to see you make Licia, Sanguine Tribune because she is missing one small thing which she really needs, LIFE GAIN. so I would love to see how you change her to make her deck strat work because she currently doesn't work like she really should and that is sad because she is quite interesting design.
also to the people who look at the list and think there is enough life gain. when I have gold fished the list I was never drawing life gain, and when it was it was only was never enough to trigger the effects that trigger off a certain amount of gained life and that was only when I was swinging out with my board with a war sorin on board. it may draw enough for other, but I count only 11 sources of life gain, and those count the massive x spells which you cannot use early enough to start making the deck run well, so your board is just a few understated creatures waiting to start triggering which would die before ever doing anything.
No one talks about metallic mimic
Rings of Brighthearth. Pay 2, duplicate Lathril ability for 20 damage to each opponent and 20 life gain. Use with Basalt Monolith for infinite colorless mana and then throw an Hurricane X=20 if you want to be an asshole.
Skemfar Avenger isn't that good. You mainly use tokens to defend, which doesn't trigger the avenger. Also, the life drain ain't nice.
Oh god, the elf puns hurt. Joey, you are no Matt, sorry.
Lathril should have been Abzan. Change my mind.
Are there even any white elves?
Yes. Lots from shadowmoor.
@@dakillaklown715 I literally don't know any other from Rhys. Please do enlighten me.
The selesnya conclave elves, like Emmara and Tolsimir
OOoh true I forgot.
alright, I really feel like these videos should be focusing on older more established decks. The decks that need more adjustments. Lathril came out not that long ago and is still being adjusted.
300 dollar price tag. oof.
I don't agree with 40% of the changes he made, but well...
As someone who has spent a lot of time and effort building and playing Lathril I disagree with most of this video. I find the strategy you are chasing boring and a better fit to other elf commanders. I don't want to go on and on about it so I will just say that I am pretty disappointed.
Got an example of what you put in? Just curious
You took a good deck and made it suck more. lol
Gotta disagree with taking out seed born. You can dish out 60 damage on second main and then before your opponents untap step. I don't know how many times it's been in the middle of the game and everyone was hovering around 20 life. I hold up protection for casting seed born. And then i essentially deal 20 to everyone. Can elf ball get that strong? Yeah but they have to go to attack phase and that can always get messy. Sometimes it's nice to just ping for everyone for 20.
I really think you are wrong about crown of skemfar and Nullmage sheperd.
The first one, while being niche, is a powerful self recurring card that you will always have at your disposal and is rather hard to remove.
The second one straight up rapes pillowfort strategies that really hinder the main plan of tokening someone down.
Am i thinking wrong about this deck? It's not meant to be elf ball. It's meant to be voltron and token doublers. Right? The 2nd ability is the key ability. Who cares about any of the other elves in the deck? Pump him up and then create all the elves you need...
I also disagree with your assessment of seedborn. Lathril is 100 percent the most important card in this deck, and there is a reason she is chosen more than all other golgari commanders COMBINED. If you build it right, it's not hard to have enough mana and untap potential to use her ability multiple times per turn.
I agree. Add in the Wirewood Symbiote, and that is a potential victory in two turns.
I'm sorry, but if you're going to build an Elves deck with Lathril as the Commander, and NOT specifically build it around her second ability....why the hell are you using Lathril? That's like using Rhys the Redeemed in an Elves deck that doesn't make tokens. If you aren't going to use her second ability, then just use another general.
Meh. So much more you could have done
deadass the reason i unsubbed from nitpicking nerds, they just go "OH NO DECIMATE IS HORRIBLE 2mana value instant removal its trash pur this instead"
ugh..😒