TAP TEN ELVES. drain the table.

Lathril, Blade of the Elves strategy guide

Lathril, Blade of the Elves is a Golgari Elf Noble who costs {2}{B}{G} as a 2/3 with menace, and her card is the whole gameplan in two lines. The first: “Whenever Lathril deals combat damage to a player, create that many 1/1 green Elf Warrior creature tokens.” The second: “{T}, Tap ten untapped Elves you control: Each opponent loses 10 life and you gain 10 life.” Every other card in the 99 exists to make that second line fire on time, then fire again.

The plan is a count. Dorks start it on turn one and double as bodies toward ten. Priest of Titania, Elvish Archdruid, Marwyn, the Nurturer, and Wirewood Channeler turn the count into mana. Beast Whisperer and Lys Alana Huntmaster turn every Elf you cast into a card or an extra body. Elvish Promenade and Elven Ambush double the count in one spell. And once the count clears ten, the math stops mattering: tap ten, each opponent loses 10, you gain 10, untap, do it again.

You do not pick a wincon at sleeves-on. You count Elves and take whichever lane the table leaves open.

Wincon 1 · The Lathril drain, tap ten and take thirty

Ten untapped Elves plus Lathril is the signature kill. Her ability reads “{T}, Tap ten untapped Elves you control: Each opponent loses 10 life and you gain 10 life.” One activation is a 10-point drain on every opponent at once: across a three-opponent table that is 30 life gone and 10 gained, no attack declared, no blockers in the math. And it repeats every turn you can reassemble ten untapped Elves. Elvish Promenade and Elven Ambush each make a 1/1 Elf Warrior for every Elf you control, so one spell rebuilds the count; Lys Alana Huntmaster and Elvish Warmaster grow it passively; Wolverine Riders adds a token on every upkeep, not just yours. The ability is also instant speed, so if a board wipe is coming and the ten are there, drain in response and take the 30 on the way out. Two activations plus incidental combat is most of the table’s life, which is why the kill window sits at T8 to T10.

Wincon 2 · Coat of Arms or End-Raze, one wide swing

When the drain is a turn short, go over the top instead. Coat of Arms gives each creature +1/+1 for each other creature that shares a creature type with it, and on a mono-Elf board the math runs away fast: with ten Elves out, every 1/1 token attacks as a 10/10. End-Raze Forerunners is a 7/7 with vigilance, trample, and haste that hands the rest of the team +2/+2, vigilance, and trample the turn it lands, which turns a stalled board into a lethal alpha strike from nowhere. Under those sit the lords: Elvish Archdruid, Imperious Perfect, Canopy Tactician, and Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen each give your other Elves +1/+1, Pride of the Perfect adds +2/+0, Timberwatch Elf taps to give one attacker +X/+X for the number of Elves on the battlefield, and Elvish Warmaster’s activation hands the team +2/+2 and deathtouch. One caution: Coat of Arms reads each creature, yours and theirs, so against another tribal deck it is a finisher you cast on the kill turn, not a value drop.

Wincon 3 · Drain bursts, reach for the seats combat cannot touch

The black half closes out players who hide behind blockers. Shaman of the Pack enters and a target opponent loses life equal to your Elf count, a burst of direct life loss aimed at exactly the player you need gone. Skemfar Shadowsage enters and either each opponent loses X or you gain X, where X is your biggest shared-type count, in this deck your Elves. Poison-Tip Archer bleeds each opponent for 1 whenever another creature dies, so token trades, Skullclamp draws, and even the board wipe aimed at you all cost the table life. Elderfang Venom stacks a second death drain, each opponent loses 1 and you gain 1 whenever an Elf you control dies, and gives your attacking Elves deathtouch on top. The rebuys make the bursts recur: Return Upon the Tide brings an Elf back to the battlefield plus two tokens, and Patriarch’s Bidding returns every Elf creature card in your graveyard to the battlefield at once, re-firing Shaman and Shadowsage the same turn.

Bank tokens, then drain

One sequencing rule decides more games with this deck than every clever line combined.

Opening hand

Keep hands with two to three lands including a green source, a one-mana dork, and one engine piece. Lathril is always on time from the command zone, so the opener’s only job is the board around her. The deck runs 37 lands, 16 of them Forests, so green comes easy, and it is the hands without it that you ship.

Snap keep: land, dork, engine. Two lands with a Forest, Llanowar Elves or Elvish Mystic, and Beast Whisperer, Lys Alana Huntmaster, or Skullclamp. That is the exact curve the deck is built around.

Snap keep: Priest of Titania into payoffs. Priest on turn two is worth four-plus mana by turn four in this deck, and any hand that follows it with a lord or a token maker snowballs.

Keepable: three lands, removal, and a mid-curve engine. Slower, but Harald, King of Skemfar and Sylvan Messenger dig you into the Elves you are missing, and Abrupt Decay or Putrefy buys the time.

Keepable: Sol Ring plus a green land and bodies. Sol Ring opens a turn-two Beast Whisperer or a double-dork start. Keep it if the hand still casts its green spells.

Ship back: no green sources. The first three turns of this deck are green: the dorks cost green, the engines cost green, the commander needs it. A hand of Swamps casts removal and nothing else. Black is the splash here, not the base. Mulligan it, no exceptions.

Ship back: zero or one land, or all payoffs. Coat of Arms and Patriarch’s Bidding in the opener win nothing if the board never develops. You need a play by turn two.

Mistakes this deck punishes

These are the errors that cost games even when every card is played to its oracle.

Note on the list. Zero Game Changers: Skullclamp is not a Game Changer and Sol Ring is exempt. No infinite combos, no two-card kills, no mass land destruction, no extra turns. The two non-Elves in the deck are End-Raze Forerunners, a Boar that carries its own finish by pumping the rest of the team the turn it lands, and Super Shredder, a two-mana menace that gains a +1/+1 counter whenever another permanent leaves the battlefield, so the steady churn of token deaths, Skullclamp sacrifices, and trades grows it into an evasive second clock even though the Elf lords and Coat of Arms never touch it. The deck says exactly what it does at rule zero: it makes Elves, and once ten of them stand untapped, everyone else loses 10.