Elves 30/11/2016 (Pauper)

I have not gotten to play around with many of these slots yet, most of the deck seems pretty much set in stone for me though. I don't see why anyone would cut down on any of the one-drops (except for replacing Mystics with Fyndhorns for aesthetics).

Four each of Wellwisher and Priest also seem very straightforward to me. Three Timberwatch is something that seems to be in many lists, but maybe that should also just be four. Eight four drops is an easy choice as well, no reason to go down on them.

That only leaves us with the Elvish Visionary and Sylvan Ranger slots. I have not yet played enough to say for sure eleven blue sources is enough, so maybe the deck wants another Ranger. Visionary also helps drawing into blue mana though, and that is something most lists do not have four of, instead opting to play some copies of Elvish Vanguard. I can see value in Vanguard in some matchups for sure although I think most of the matchups where you can expect him to live are not decided on the presence of a big creature.

The original list I copied had a split between Wirewood Pride and Vines of Vastwood (with another Vines in the sideboard), but I don't like Vines. For the purpose of protecting our creatures, Vines certainly is slightly better, plus it also randomly stops opponents from killing us (through Temur Battle Rage, for example). However, Wirewood Pride is so much better offensively and I have killed people by randomly drawing double Pride. It's also a relevant card to draw on big Melody turns where you draw half your deck while your opponent is tapped out but has a sweeper or lethal combat damage waiting for you.

In the sideboard, what probably stands out the most is Thermokarst. I think it's only a matter of time before land destruction gets more widely adopted in the Pauper metagame; Tron is becoming a very common deck. Outside of Tron, Thermokarst is great against control decks as well. Their Cardadvantage engines are usually sorcery speed, so they will often have to spend mana during their main phases, leaving enough lands untapped to cast exactly one Counterspell. You can Thermokarst one of their lands and suddenly they don't have access to countermagic anymore, so you can freely cast Distant Melody. It's really sick on the play, where you can go T1 Llanowar, T2 Quirion Ranger + Thermokarst (https://twitter.com/JonLX/status/803654365349367808).

Moving up in the list we have Tangle. Sometimes you just need to buy time and Tangle is great doing just that against greedy Atogs, Stompy and Blitz creatures.

Magnify is my favourite answer to Electrickery and Shrivel so far because it can actually act as a smaller Wirewood Pride.

Most lists have Scattershot Archer over Bowmaster, but given that the slot is mostly for the Delver matchup, I decided I wanted something that's not awful vs. Spellstutter Sprite. Multiple times I have ended up in a situation where I could draw my deck but would be dead on my opponent's next turn without a way to kill their creatures or gain life. Bowmaster I can draw into off Melody, and then proceed to kill all their creatures. Being able to deal with Spire Golems is especially nice.

Before I had Fangren Marauder, I had Gleeful Sabotage. Then I realised I didn't actually care about Affinity's artifacts. The cards that beat us are Atog and Krark-Clan Shaman. After one of my Affinity opponents had Atog + Disciple of the Vault, I was reminded of how much I feared playing Affinity vs. Tron because of Fangren Marauder. Fangren Marauder is doubly good against Shaman. Not only will they have a hard time killing it, we will also gain a bunch of life if they decide to kill our smaller creatures. Plus the Atog-Fling combination can no longer kill us, which in my experience is the main way for Affinity to beat an Elves player with creatures on the battlefield.

Last we have Viridian Longbow. It's just a very good card in the mirror, which is becoming more common, plus it's a decent thing to draw against many creature decks. It can do crazy things with Nettle Sentinel.