John Carpenter’s The ELF!
This thing doesn’t want to show itself, it wants to hide inside an imitation.
Elves have been a mainstay in magic since the dawn of its creation. Not only long lived, Elves have broad appeal reaching formats as old as Legacy and as new as standard. And Commander is no different. With the advent of Commander Legends we were given a whole batch of Elf cards, but there was one that stood out. The Commander called out to me as if it wanted me to join it. Trust it. It seemed oddly familiar yet deeply unsettling at the same time. Let’s take a look at the literal Elfball: Abomination of Llanowar!
Keep Your Eyes On The Ball
Elfball is a term used to describe a specific type of elf deck. Elf decks when played tend to spiral out of control and ‘snowball’ into an unstoppable force that if allowed to gain numbers and momentum crushes their opponent’s under a torrent of freshly cobbled shoes and manufactured cookies.
So I suppose it was only a matter of time after getting cards like Myr Battlesphere that someone would be assigned the term as an art direction and run with it. Not gonna lie, didn’t expect it to be so…sphincter-clenchingly graphic.
Vincent Proce has once against managed to both stun and horrify me with his twisted style of painting and a frankly twisted vision of what I can assume was a simple nudge of where to take the art. This Madball (™) is the thing of nightmares. Yet, there is something distinctly human, distinctly real within the eyes of some of the elves and an unrelenting hunger in the others. It’s this distinctly human anguish that makes the art truly ****ed up and adds a weird sense of unease around the accompanying flavor text.
“Run!” screamed its living mouths. “Come!” cried its dead ones.
As if it’s actual existence is an affront to Nature and what elves should naturally be doing. And the deck built around this monstrosity is no different.
Some Deck in This Pod Ain’t What It Appears To Be
Most of the time when people build elves there is one simple goal. Make a lot of mana and go big. Often the way that manifests itself in EDH is for the Elf player to have a commander that:
pumps the entire team like…
…make a lot of mana and slam a chonk like Craterhoof Behemoth
…Or go very wide with tokens
Now this all makes sense. It’s almost natural with Elves. How else would a tribe heavily centered around community win? You want to rally your team and crash in!
Abomination of Llanowar turns that idea on it’s head. It’s only interest is using your mass of elves to add to it’s already oversaturated power and toughness. While the elven agony sphere does care about having a large board it has no interest in really pumping the team up or using it in order to power out a helping Hoof. It is all that you need.
All are welcome in it’s warm dessicated embrace. It doesn’t really care if it’s living or dead. They are safe inside. They are one. They are…family.
That THING Wanted to Be Us!
While the commander and end goal of this deck is very different it shares a lot of similarities with pre-existing elves decks. Almost as if it was trying to blend in among the other elf commanders.
It has the full crew of 1 mana elves in order to power out your deck as fast and as consistent as an alien infection. Long time classics like Llanowar Elves, Elvish Mystic and Arbor Elf are stationed inside as a way to keep adding to the terror of Lllanowar’s already formidable girth while advancing your board.
Other cards like Golgari Findbroker and Izoni echo of standards past and the menace that was GB adventures allowing you to utilize you graveyard as more than a body pile for Llanowar Abomination.
The Abomination also mimicked some tech from pauper elves adding Lead the Stampede and Winding Way so that it can continue to spread and pretend like it’s a normal elf deck.
Elves Are the Warmest Place to Hide
What really sets this deck apart from other ElfDH builds is that it doesn’t really rely on it’s commander to power through for a win. Don’t get me wrong, Abomination of Llanowar will be swinging for 10+ (more like 20+ if people aren’t eating your graveyard) most of the time and will routinely kill someone with commander damage due to it’s raw power.
Overall though, Elves inherently have always had such a strong synergy with themselves to the point that whether or not you cast your commander is more of a secondary concern.
With traditional synergies like
To make your board wider every time you cast an elf
Or
In order to make a simple mana dork immensely large.
It’s not hard to see how this deck can get out of hand very fast with or without your commander.
The other thing I like about this deck is the surprising amount of lords and anthems that clock in at under $1.00. Dwyden, Gaeas Anthem and Obelisk of Urd do a phenomenal job at pumping up your team and destroying your opponent with a mass of elves that isn’t just one fat*** Commander.
The Ultimate In Budget Terror
One of the main reasons I got excited about brewing this deck wasn’t about the challenge of brewing an EDH deck archetype with a new unconventional commander. Because, let’s be honest, there’s too many writers or creators saying they have a ‘fresh’ new take on an old archetype that’s ends up about as fresh as the rating of Problem Child on Rotten Tomatoes
So why bother discussing such a tried and true archetype now? Well with Commander Legends there’s a bevy of new and exciting Elf cards!
Pride of the Perfect
Pride of the Perfect while not showy is still very effective. Giving a flat +2/0 static boost to all your elves it gives your dorky 1/1s a little more bite when they swing or defend the hearth.
Elvish Dreadlord
Elvish Dreadlord makes quite an impact the moment he hits the graveyard. Acting as a pseudo one sided board wipe his real strength is utilizing his Encore ability to power out one final hurrah. 3 opponents, means 3 tokens which means 3 instances of -3/-3 hitting all non elf creatures. Very little can survive a -9/-9 one sided board wipe and those that did will wish they were dead themselves.
Miara Gladethorn
Miara is a legendary partner who could easily have led this deck on her own. Being a draw engine stapled onto a body that can be cast at any time from your Command Zone has its uses. She can acts as boardwipe insurance by letting you leave up a lot of mana (something elves have plenty of) and replace most of your destroyed Keebler Crew as cards in hand.
There’s plenty more to go over but these three stood out for me as being particularly strong for the archetype. But even looking at old cards we see a lot of undiscovered gems that I couldn’t help but add to make the deck look and act more like an elf deck.
I Know You Elf Players Have Been Through A Lot, But When You Find The Time CAN YOU PLEASE RUN THIS CARD!
For a lot of people the most iconic card for Elves is Gaea’s Cradle. It can’t be an Elves Deck without Gaea’s Cradle, right? Ever since the last price spike, a lot of green EDH players have been struggling to find substitutes for the iconic land and Growing Rites of Itlimoc has been happy to fill that void!
And why not for 2G you get a sell that digs for a creature and turns into a slightly better Cradle at end step. However, one Elf players often overlook is Elvish Guidance.
While not as widely applicable as Growing Rites it does an amazing Cradle impersonation without having to jump through any hoops to get the big mana payoff. When looking into it though something seemed slightly off.
Number seems low right? And you’re probably going “Yeah well that’s because it only applies to elves.” And you’d be right. However, when you look at EDHrec’s numbers for the Elf archetype its the TENTH most used enchantment!
It’s behind both Growing Rites of Itlimoc and Leyline of Abundance showing up in only 32% of Elf-DH decks. That’s wild to me! Don’t get me wrong, I love Growing Rites of Itlimoc. It’s always been an amazing card and I’m glad it’s finally getting the respect it deserves. That said, in Elf decks it seems like Elvish Guidance should be an auto include. In addition to tapping for a lot of mana the fact that it can be enchanted onto a Forest means cards like Arbor Elf and Llanowar Druid can easily untap it for even more shenanigans.
Clocking in at only $ .43 (11/14/20) compared to Growing Rites of Itlimoc ‘s $15.96 (11/14/20) it seems like a no brainer to include in an Elf deck especially if you’re on a budget!
Why Don’t We Just Wait Here for a Little While…See What Happens…
Grasping and reaching, the Abomination of Llanowar continues to drag itself through the darkest of the wood. It’s drooping and flailing arms simultaneously waving people away and beckoning more towards it. It moans and screams demanding more and more. With an elven yell it cries More, More, More!
Abomination of Llanowar is a commander that looks to invert the traditional line of play for Elves but still utilizes a lot of the same strategies to get there. It’s this unconventionality from Abomination that makes for a distinctly similar yet uniquely different gameplay style and why I found it to be more compelling than any of the other Elf legendaries to brew.
Coupled with all the new powerful budget and reprint cards in Commander Legends, Elf tribal becomes more and more affordable of an archetype for players of all skill levels!
Clocking in at under $32 a for the whole deck (as of 11/14/2020) I’d highly advocate building this deck as an entry point into the format or if you’ve always wanted to play Elves but been too afraid to commit several hundred to build it! Not unlike the Elfball itself there’s plenty of room to upgrade the deck and add to its mass to make it run both faster and more efficiently!
What do you think of Abomination of Llanowar? Am I fool for not running Miara and Numa instead?
Let me know in the comments below!
Tune in next week when I discuss NINJAS the only tribe that matters!
