MTG Salvation

Yisan, the Wanderer Bard

Alright, so this dude's jank as hell and more than a bit slow, but I like the flavour here and have been meaning to give mono green a try. Any ideas?

1CMC ramp like Sol Ring, Llanowar Elves Wild Growth, etc. look important for getting him out on turn 2, at which point I feel like he can get an engine going before things get going for your opponents.

Aura Voltron

Activation 1 => Gladecover Scout or maybe Glistener Elf
2 => Argothian Enchantress or maybe Spellwild Ouphe
Then start playing auras.

Or maybe
1 => Dork or something
2 => Silhana Ledgewalker
3 => Verduran Enchantress
Then start playing auras.

Infect

1 => Glistener Elf
2 => Blight Mamba
... etc. And hope to draw what few proliferate cards green & brown has access to. Should also be noted you can proliferate his verse counters.

Anyone thought of anything?

Only thing I thought of is how much work it takes to make the poor bard do much of anything. If he just used +1/+1 counters it would be a whole new ball game.

Note that he only finds creature cards and thus no sol ring, auras or whatever.

I can't think of a really consistent way to abuse him, but you can run out a bunch of ramp, Concordant Crossroads/Lightning Greaves, Creatures like Wirewood Symbiote/Quirion Ranger/Scryb Ranger, untappers like Seedborn Muse/Quest for Renewal/Awakening, and finally drop (hopefully) a turn 5-6 Kozilek/Ulamog. It seems really clunky, but an engine is an engine.

Didn't mean to imply he was tutoring for those, just that you'd start playing auras from there. Will edit.

He's a bad Birthing Pod, but you can play him as a commander. Also interacts nicely with Proliferate. I can see him, tutoring for creature in monoG is powerful enough to do some interesting stuff.

Panglacial Wurm is always fun to consider in decks that are going to be searching for something nearly every turn. Though expensive to get out, Patron of the Orochi gives you an additional Seedborn Muse to get the most out of your tap effects. If you want to keep his verse counters in check, you can make use of Ferropede and Power Conduit.

That said, I think Yisan needs to be built around getting 1-3 cost creatures primarily unless you can take every precaution in protecting him. For that reason, he really wants to be GW to go along with cards like Ranger of Eos and Reveillark. Considering his color identity won't spontaneously change, he seems like a decent tutor-general for an elf/mana-dork tribal deck.

Quote from Black Megatog »

I can't think of a really consistent way to abuse him, but you can run out a bunch of ramp, Concordant Crossroads/Lightning Greaves, Creatures like Wirewood Symbiote/Quirion Ranger/Scryb Ranger, untappers like Seedborn Muse/Quest for Renewal/Awakening, and finally drop (hopefully) a turn 5-6 Kozilek/Ulamog. It seems really clunky, but an engine is an engine.

Hmm, well, wasn't aware of Quest for Renewal as a third Muse option, especially handy in enchantress. Muse effects are pretty absurd with him. Thanks Black Megatog!

You might just go tribal elf. After the third activation, he should have tutored up a healthy board state to go aggro with. Four gets you masked admirers for a draw engine and if you ever make it to five there is brawn.

Quote from happier »

You might just go tribal elf. After the third activation, he should have tutored up a healthy board state to go aggro with. Four gets you masked admirers for a draw engine and if you ever make it to five there is brawn.

This doesn't sound like a bad idea. When I thought of using the bard of the general, the first thought that came to mind was "don't count on getting more than a few counters on him." So if I were to make a deck with it at the helm, I'd be looking for a strategy revolving around low-CMC creatures, keeping your toolbox capabilities in mind. Elves could be one way to go about that.

Seems like another toy for Vorel. Obviously Doubling Season mention. Clockspinning spam perhaps.

Use Vial with him?

What about illusionist's bracers and Rings of brighthearth to get multiple triggers?

People are saying elf tribal for him, but I don't think that will go well. The biggest obstacle, of course, being that Yisan is a human. A deck of all elf minions with a human sitting there ordering whichever ones he wants onto a battlefield to do battle? Way too many racist undertones.

I agree Elf Ball is probably the most effective way to go about things. Even from the lower CMCs it can go logarithmic pretty quick. I find the strategy to be a bit straightforward to be interesting, but it's likely the most competitive. That said,

1 => Wirewood Symbiote
2 => Elvish Visionary

is a pretty nice one-two play with Yisan. Return Visionary to untap Yisan or someone else, play to draw a card; lather, rinse, repeat. I mentioned before that one-drop dorks are important for getting him out turn 2, so elves will probably be common regardless.

Quote from Flagnine1 »

What about illusionist's bracers and Rings of brighthearth to get multiple triggers?

Those definitely work, just keep in mind that putting an additional verse counter on him is part of the cost, not the ability, so copiers like these will not put out two creatures of cost X and X+1, but just two creatures of cost X. I'm on the fence about whether they're worthwhile. Unless you have other creatures with tap abilities, they're only a way to (not even powerfully) abuse your general. I might just prefer to have more options in those slots.

Quote from happier »

Four gets you masked admirers for a draw engine

Quote from Hallucigenia »

1 => Wirewood Symbiote
2 => Elvish Visionary

I submit defeat sir.

Keep in mind he's not 'Or lower'. Not too detrimental for most purposes, but it makes me question Doubling Season. I like the idea of a deck with him as the general, he's just a bit slow for me to be confortable. He's in a similar place to Triad of Fates. Super cool, but super slow.

Since the verse counter is part of the cost to activate, doesn't that mean that doubling season doesn't combo with him? (Yisan, the Wanderer Bard for reference) It's similar to planeswalkers, if I remember correctly (actvating their abilities doesn't give you double counters with doubling season in play).

There's also Hibernation's End which works more like him than birthing pod does (though you could run all 3 and play some weird, potentially crazy 1-4 drop deck with all the toolboxing you can find). I still have no idea if it will work well, but he looks fun to mess around with.

Quote from SAUS9001 »

Since the verse counter is part of the cost to activate, doesn't that mean that doubling season doesn't combo with him? (Yisan, the Wanderer Bard for reference) It's similar to planeswalkers, if I remember correctly (actvating their abilities doesn't give you double counters with doubling season in play).

There's also Hibernation's End which works more like him than birthing pod does (though you could run all 3 and play some weird, potentially crazy 1-4 drop deck with all the toolboxing you can find). I still have no idea if it will work well, but he looks fun to mess around with.

You're completely right. So it doesn't do something that's potentially a double edged sword, they just don't interact.

Honestly, I would run all three of them because they all Emphasize the same deck structure and operate on the same chains.

Oh yeah, and this deck is actually a situation where Elixer of Immortality wouldn't be a terrible idea.

Quote from DoomedLich »

Quote from SAUS9001 »

Since the verse counter is part of the cost to activate, doesn't that mean that doubling season doesn't combo with him? (Yisan, the Wanderer Bard for reference) It's similar to planeswalkers, if I remember correctly (actvating their abilities doesn't give you double counters with doubling season in play).

There's also Hibernation's End which works more like him than birthing pod does (though you could run all 3 and play some weird, potentially crazy 1-4 drop deck with all the toolboxing you can find). I still have no idea if it will work well, but he looks fun to mess around with.

You're completely right. So it doesn't do something that's potentially a double edged sword, they just don't interact.

Honestly, I would run all three of them because they all Emphasize the same deck structure and operate on the same chains.

Oh yeah, and this deck is actually a situation where Elixer of Immortality wouldn't be a terrible idea.

I'd definitely run all 3 as well And you could also run loaming shaman. I'm not sure how the deck would win, though. At least you can spend each turn gaining a little advantage with your commander - it's very nice for a mono-green deck to be able to do that.

What do people think about Magus of the Library in the 2-drop slot? If all you're doing is dropping lands and getting the Yisan engine going from the beginning, it ought to be pretty common that you'll still be fluctuating around seven cards when you drop him?

Quote from happier »

Quote from happier »

Four gets you masked admirers for a draw engine

Quote from Hallucigenia »

1 => Wirewood Symbiote
2 => Elvish Visionary

I submit defeat sir.

Ha, yeah, that combination ought to be pretty solid.

I like him as a one of in both my Derevi and Animar combo decks but I'm having a hard time figuring out what a win con would be with him as a commander in mono green. He's no help to your typical elf aggro build. Ezuri is strictly better. There's no backbreaking early combos in mono green to fetch. Using him just to get Wirewood/Visionary isn't enough to warrant being in the commander slot. He barely helps ramp. Maybe I'm missing some cool tricks in the one and two slots? I'm just not seeing it.