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I did not think I'd be building a turn 3 combo deck that cost $33.75 from StarCity's online store when I began to mess around with lists for this article. I mean, how good can a deck possibly be with five uncommons, and no rares? So, I began by making a short list of busted uncommons that could potentially have decent decks built around them, and chose the one that spawned the most ideas for me.
I picked Skullclamp from that list, basically because I had a whopping two ideas rather than the one (or zero) appealing strategies the other uncommons generated. Yeah, I basically chose Skullclamp because it seemed like it would be the most fun. (I love describing banned cards as "fun.")
ElfClamp seemed like a decent enough contender in the Peasant Format - plus, the only other Skullclamp-based strategy that seemed remotely viable in this format was Affinity, and I definitely wanted something a little more enjoyable to play that more Affinity.
I started with the obvious cards, things that would get the engine rolling:
4 Skullclamp
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Priest of Titania
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Birchlore Rangers
Knowing the deck would need more Clamp-able bodies that I wouldn't mind pitching, because generally you keep at least 1 Priest of Titania on the board from when you play it (turn 2) until the turn you win (turn 3 or 4), I added:
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Seeker of Skybreak
4 Multani's Acolyte
2 Wirewood Herald
The deck still needed a decent kill card, and the first that came to mind was Hurricane. I only had room for one, though, since it's an uncommon. Eventually, the kill cards that worked the best were:
1 Hunting Pack
3 Timberwatch Elf
And finally, the last slots were filled in with some utility spells, and a mana base:
4 Naturalize
1 Taunting Elf
1 Lotus Petal
4 Land Grant
12 Forest
Which gives us this for the final product:
ElfClamp
4 Skullclamp (U)
1 Hunting Pack (U)
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Priest of Titania
4 Seeker of Skybreak
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Multani's Acolyte
3 Timberwatch Elf
1 Taunting Elf
2 Wirewood Herald
4 Naturalize
1 Lotus Petal
4 Land Grant
12 Forest
I was pretty happy with how it looked on paper, as well as how it tested the first few matches I threw it down the makeshift Peasant gauntlet I had prepared for this article. I was really already packing all the hate for the commonly-accepted archetypes of the format, so I decided not to make any changes to the preliminary list.
The first thing you probably want me to address are the Naturalizes in the maindeck. I figure if there were actually ever a Peasant Magic tournament, Affinity would be showing its ugly face in pre-ban T2 proportions (there was one, but it wasn't big - The Ferrett), looking something like this:
Atog.dec
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Great Furnace
3 Tree of Tales
1 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Ornithopter
4 Frogmite
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Cranial Plating
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Atog
4 Thoughtcast
3 Fling
4 Chromatic Sphere
Hunting Pack might seem like it's not the best kill for ElfClamp, and you might argue that I should just splash a Viridian Acolyte or something to support a few Fireballs as the kill cards. Well, that just isn't as fun as playing thirty elves in a turn and getting a 4/4 token for each of them is - and what is Peasant Magic about if not fun? Timberwatch Elf is good because it often provides the extra eight to ten points of damage you'll need to alpha strike with all of your elves next turn, if you don't see that Hunting Pack.
I ran the ElfClamp deck up against a few other Peasant decks and was happy with the results. It was able to beat Affinity 3 games out of 5, mostly by taking out Ornithopter via Naturalize. Sometimes, though, Fling is just too much to deal with. I also played against High Tide Combo and the Lightning Rift deck that Spartacvs designed. The Rift deck didn't put up much of a fight, especially with maindeck Naturalize on ElfClamp's side of the table. Sometimes getting your elf pinged in response to a Clamping can be annoying, however.
High Tide, on the other hand, was a little tougher. It seems that this deck really only combos out a few turns later than ElfClamp, plus it runs counters. It's definitely beatable though.
It's a consistent deck, but won't bore you like most combo decks - you don't spend the first few turns playing the same cards to set up the same combo pieces in the same order ad infinitum. Instead, you can pretty much decide when and how you're going to win the game based on your opening hand. If winning is your idea of fun, though, this is still definitely a deck to consider for playing Peasant Magic.
