Today’s deck comes out of the recent Bazaar of Moxen event in Europe, an event with a strong pedigree. The name behind it is also notable, as Pierre Canali won Pro Tour Columbus back in 2005 with an innovative Affinity list that incorporated Meddling Mage into the maindeck. Years later, he’s still going deep into the tank by using Opposition in a more midrange-oriented Elves list.
Opposition is one of my favorite cards of all time. It was part of a top-tier Standard deck when I first started playing competitively, at the time being paired with Squirrel Nest so you could pump out tokens and eventually lock your opponent out of the game by tapping all their lands and creatures each turn. It takes a certain level of sadism to want to do that to your opponent, but to each their own, right?
Elves is a great shell for Opposition since it can spew creatures onto the battlefield that would otherwise be ineffective. Coiling Oracle teams up with Elvish Visionary to ensure you have a steady stream of pointy-eared Vindicates. Shardless Agent similarly serves to flood the battlefield with creatures.
Green Sun’s Zenith and Craterhoof Behemoth are still around to serve as a win condition, especially in conjunction with Gaea’s Cradle. But the real gain of moving to a fairer list is the ability to have some maindeck disruption. Abrupt Decay and the Gitaxian Probe / Cabal Therapy engine are both excellent, and this list has enough blue cards to support some Force of Wills in the sideboard to attack from multiple angles.
Canali finishes the deck off with three copies of Garruk Wildspeaker. Garruk combines nicely with Gaea’s Cradle, can generate creatures for your Opposition, and can threaten a game-ending Overrun on the next turn. Despite this versatility, I’m unsure that it’s better than Natural Order, or if you want to play more four-mana spells after Opposition and risk flooding on them in the early game.
The reality is that, with fewer slots needed to support a combo plan, this deck has a ton of deckbuilding options. Reclamation Sage and Scavenging Ooze could make their way into the maindeck, as could other removal spells or even something like Brainstorm, which would allow you to play Natural Order with only a single Craterhoof Behemoth.
Elves has always been viewed as a good deck that doesn’t overlap with other decks in the format, but between this deck and Chris Andersen’s Vengevine–Intuition list, we’re seeing the shell of cheap green creatures and Gaea’s Cradle become increasingly more versatile.
Creatures (20)
- 1 Wirewood Symbiote
- 4 Coiling Oracle
- 4 Elvish Visionary
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 1 Craterhoof Behemoth
- 3 Shardless Agent
- 3 Deathrite Shaman
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (19)
Spells (18)
