Those are the cards that I remember from a deck that beat up a MW.
Some great cards. I have tested a lot of these. Space is tight in this deck.
Here's a breakdown of why I'm not running some of these.
These cards fit better in a combo version of Yisan. If your game plan is to always force yisan and chain up to a craterhoof behemoth, these cards are great; But if our opponent knows whats up and is able to remove yisan or wrath the board, your going to be in trouble.
I don't currently have Wasteland, Gaea's Cradle, Crop Rotation, or Rofellos. These cards are great. I would probably replace 3 forest and joraga treespeaker.
Plow under is nice, but this deck really needs answers and threats more than tempo plays.
I've tried garruk wildspeaker, but it never was that great at putting me back in the game or keeping me ahead. I replaced it with coercive portal.
The creatures with abilities that untap yisan are fine later in the game when trying to rebuild your board. For most games I've played I've always just wanted to fetch a threat every time I activate Yisan; usually your secondary chain starts with Scute Mob and Tarmogoyf and then the game is probably over by then. Out of all the untappers, Scryb Ranger is the best one as it can block jenara.
Currently the deck is set up to play a superior game over other creature decks like Marath, will of the wild/Doran, the siege tower while still having a solid gameplan against control decks. The Craterhoof version with untappers is better against decks that go over the top like Maelstrom Wanderer and Prossh, skyraider of kher but weaker against tempo style decks and control.
Yisan functions as a tutor engine that draws you cards. The deck might seem complex, but here's how you tutor your way through most games.
Plan A
Your opener contains a 1 drop mana accelerator and 2 lands. Gameplan Established.
T1 play elf and land.
Play Yisan T2 and say "This city needs me...".
T3, play a land and pass, you can do everything on your opponents turn.
Your opponent's Turn- Your first opportunity to tutor something. Wait for your opponent to do something stupid like try to kill Yisan. In response activate Yisan and put out out Sylvan Safekeeper, sacrifice a land to fizzle the spell. Safekeeper is the Alfred to your Bruce Wayne, he is the 1 drop you get always. This is why we play 41 lands so we can always afford to sac them.
T4, draw your card, play a land, reveal no emotion, pass turn.
Their Turn- They are like "Okay, so we can't kill their stuff, guess I'll attack with my Doran/Marath/Some Dude, No way they can fetch a 2 drop that can punish me". They thought wrong. Activate Yisan before blocks, putting Myr Superion into play, then eat their creature. Superion is the Bat mobile, the firepower to take down any threat.
T5, congratulations, you now have a board state that is really annoying to deal with, and you still have like 5 cards in hand. Just tutor answers to your problems.
Plan B
“Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up.”
So we don't have our 1 drop accelerator. The deck is a bit slower, but not less powerful. Only keep non 1drop hands that are threat dense and have a good 2 drop as now we are going to play a good old midrangy game of magic.
Or
You get Yisan out t2. Your opponent is able to remove Yisan before tutoring or in response to tutoring on their end step. The game is not lost if this happens. The deck can still play a fine creature beatdown game when your not setting up broken board states. Also, when you replay Yisan later and tutor again, you get Scute Mob, as by then you have plenty of lands.
Or
Your opponent knows whats up and will not fall for your batman analogies and is ready to kill yisan always. This is where Vines of the Vastwood and similar effects come in handy. You just wait a turn to play yisan with the trick to back him up.
Some tools of the trade
Let's learn about random cards and why they are here.
Hall of Gemstone- It's like a mono green blood moon that messes up multicolor decks. It also has the added functionality of stopping counterspells since on your turn everything makes green mana.
Spawnwrithe- an effective t2 play thats kind of like a pack rat where if your opponent doesn't have the answer they lose to a hoard of these. This brings me to another point. This deck plays a couple of decent 3 drops to force our opponent to use removal on those rather than yisan.
Ulvenwald Tracker- against other creature decks, you fetch this guy then superion and proceed to wipe out their board. you can even use tracker and Yisan to clear smaller stuff off of the board. Also, you can use this guy to fight stuff against predator ooze and grow it.
Setessan Tactics- This card singlehandidly destroys other creature decks. I like this fight effect cause it can also pump multiple creatures if your trying to kill a planeswalker.
Coercive Portal- Control Decks won't know what hit them. They think the coast is clear when they deal with yisan, then you drop a portal and proceed with a supercharged midrange game.
Lightning Greaves- This is one of the few decks that can play greaves effectively. It protects yisan with slower hands and you can fetch big beaters on your turn and give them haste.
Bow of Nylea- The initial plan for bow in the deck was to recycle cards if I need to re-tutor them. Instead, it makes all of my creatures threats and gains life in racing situations. Also does fun things with ulvenwald tracker.
The Matchups
Yisan does pretty well against most decks. You have tools to fight whatever they are doing. In addition, you can tailor Yisan towards whatever meta you expect, as there's a couple options for creatures to fetch. The list I have here should be your base. The parts of the deck that should stay intact are the mana elves as t2 yisan is important, and safekeeper to protect yisan.
Jenara is a bad matchup for Yisan. They have tools to slow us down and they have a fast clock that we cannot block. Right now skylasher is the only real way of stopping jenara. Here's a couple things that might make the Jenara matchup better if it's a prominent deck in your area. Scryb Ranger, Thornweald Archer, Deadly Recluse, Maze of Ith.
Combo decks can also be a problem, most notably Prosh, as it has lots of removal and all the time in the world to kill you once they cast prosh since their tokens can chump for days if they don't kill you in 1 hit the next turn. The tokens are the problem here, not really prosh himself, so things that let you get by might be good, like Nylea, God of the Hunt or Bellowing Tanglewurm
Thanks for the replies!
Today, I'm going to head over to galaxy games for fnm, if either of you are going to be there I will be wearing a dragon's dogma shirt and have a black/red backpack with me.
Also, I was at equilibrium games the other day and talked them into hosting a Duel Commander tournament on monday the 14th. I'll be going there next monday to double check with the store owner about prize support and talk with some of the players. I'll post again
I was wondering if there were any tournaments or meetups for duel commander in the San Francisco area. I'm currently visiting some relatives in the area and I'll be around for a couple weeks. I'm willing to drive pretty much wherever. I'm over in San Ramon.
Auriok Steelshaper feels a little weak. His cost reduction effect is powerful, but the deck doesn't always have its equipment.
The major problem I see is that generally when you have a sword, simply having any creature on board to equip it to is good enough. Usually a creature with evasion is the better equip target, as it's much more likely to connect. Without a sword, a vanilla 1/1 for 1W is very underwhelming.
Hey Cuivienen, I've been working on an ephara deck and I'd thought I would stop by and share some of the things I've found.
Flash creatures are not really needed unless they actually do something powerful like aven mindcensor. Just playing a creature on your own turn is enough for the card draw, and generally you don't have enough mana to play a creature on your turn and theirs. Also whitemane lion and stonecloaker are worth keeping in solely for draw triggers.
You need a higher land count to reach your general on time, otherwise the deck doesn't really do much. I see you put in a couple ramp creatures, so that might work, but personally I would play lands over them.
A lot of these creatures you are playing feel too tempo oriented. You won't be able to kill your opponent on time with a couple 1/1's and a 2/2, even with counter spell back-up. At least play a True-Name Nemesis.
The version I have is an aggro build similar to thalia, and so far it works pretty well. Running out of cards is fine, as ephara makes every creature we topdeck good. It also recovers from wraths really well.
Some great cards. I have tested a lot of these. Space is tight in this deck.
Here's a breakdown of why I'm not running some of these.
These cards fit better in a combo version of Yisan. If your game plan is to always force yisan and chain up to a craterhoof behemoth, these cards are great; But if our opponent knows whats up and is able to remove yisan or wrath the board, your going to be in trouble.
I don't currently have Wasteland, Gaea's Cradle, Crop Rotation, or Rofellos. These cards are great. I would probably replace 3 forest and joraga treespeaker.
Plow under is nice, but this deck really needs answers and threats more than tempo plays.
I've tried garruk wildspeaker, but it never was that great at putting me back in the game or keeping me ahead. I replaced it with coercive portal.
The creatures with abilities that untap yisan are fine later in the game when trying to rebuild your board. For most games I've played I've always just wanted to fetch a threat every time I activate Yisan; usually your secondary chain starts with Scute Mob and Tarmogoyf and then the game is probably over by then. Out of all the untappers, Scryb Ranger is the best one as it can block jenara.
Currently the deck is set up to play a superior game over other creature decks like Marath, will of the wild/Doran, the siege tower while still having a solid gameplan against control decks. The Craterhoof version with untappers is better against decks that go over the top like Maelstrom Wanderer and Prossh, skyraider of kher but weaker against tempo style decks and control.
*Cue Music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0HwDzKoxRg*
1 Jeweled Amulet
1 Wild Growth
1 Utopia Sprawl
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Elvish Mystic
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Joraga Treespeaker
1 Llanowar elves
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Arbor Elf
1 Boreal Druid
Tricks
1 Nature's Claim
1 Vines of Vastwood
1 Ranger's Guile
1 Setessan Tactics
1 Chord of Calling
Non-Creature Permanents
1 Mirri's Guile
1 Rancor
1 Skullclamp
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Survival of the Fittest
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sylvan Library
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Hall of Gemstone
1 Bow of Nylea
1 Coercive Portal
1 Birthing Pod
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Nissa, Worldwaker
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
1 Ulvenwald Tracker
1 Scute Mob
2Drops
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Myr Superion
1 Skylasher
3Drops
1 Yavimaya Elder
1 Eternal Witness
1 Dungrove Elder
1 Boon Satyr
1 Spawnwrithe
1 Ohran Viper
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Predator Ooze
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Heartwood Storyteller
4Drops
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Vengevine
1 Thrun, The Last Troll
1 Polukranos, World Eater
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Vorapede
1 Acidic Slime
6Drops
1 Primeval Titan
Lands
1 Dustbowl
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Treetop Village
1 Homeward Path
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Yavimaya Hollow
34 Forest
How to be a Hero
Yisan functions as a tutor engine that draws you cards. The deck might seem complex, but here's how you tutor your way through most games.
Plan A
Your opener contains a 1 drop mana accelerator and 2 lands. Gameplan Established.
T1 play elf and land.
Play Yisan T2 and say "This city needs me...".
T3, play a land and pass, you can do everything on your opponents turn.
Your opponent's Turn- Your first opportunity to tutor something. Wait for your opponent to do something stupid like try to kill Yisan. In response activate Yisan and put out out Sylvan Safekeeper, sacrifice a land to fizzle the spell. Safekeeper is the Alfred to your Bruce Wayne, he is the 1 drop you get always. This is why we play 41 lands so we can always afford to sac them.
T4, draw your card, play a land, reveal no emotion, pass turn.
Their Turn- They are like "Okay, so we can't kill their stuff, guess I'll attack with my Doran/Marath/Some Dude, No way they can fetch a 2 drop that can punish me". They thought wrong. Activate Yisan before blocks, putting Myr Superion into play, then eat their creature. Superion is the Bat mobile, the firepower to take down any threat.
T5, congratulations, you now have a board state that is really annoying to deal with, and you still have like 5 cards in hand. Just tutor answers to your problems.
Plan B
“Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up.”
So we don't have our 1 drop accelerator. The deck is a bit slower, but not less powerful. Only keep non 1drop hands that are threat dense and have a good 2 drop as now we are going to play a good old midrangy game of magic.
Or
You get Yisan out t2. Your opponent is able to remove Yisan before tutoring or in response to tutoring on their end step. The game is not lost if this happens. The deck can still play a fine creature beatdown game when your not setting up broken board states. Also, when you replay Yisan later and tutor again, you get Scute Mob, as by then you have plenty of lands.
Or
Your opponent knows whats up and will not fall for your batman analogies and is ready to kill yisan always. This is where Vines of the Vastwood and similar effects come in handy. You just wait a turn to play yisan with the trick to back him up.
Some tools of the trade
Let's learn about random cards and why they are here.
Hall of Gemstone- It's like a mono green blood moon that messes up multicolor decks. It also has the added functionality of stopping counterspells since on your turn everything makes green mana.
Spawnwrithe- an effective t2 play thats kind of like a pack rat where if your opponent doesn't have the answer they lose to a hoard of these. This brings me to another point. This deck plays a couple of decent 3 drops to force our opponent to use removal on those rather than yisan.
Ulvenwald Tracker- against other creature decks, you fetch this guy then superion and proceed to wipe out their board. you can even use tracker and Yisan to clear smaller stuff off of the board. Also, you can use this guy to fight stuff against predator ooze and grow it.
Setessan Tactics- This card singlehandidly destroys other creature decks. I like this fight effect cause it can also pump multiple creatures if your trying to kill a planeswalker.
Coercive Portal- Control Decks won't know what hit them. They think the coast is clear when they deal with yisan, then you drop a portal and proceed with a supercharged midrange game.
Lightning Greaves- This is one of the few decks that can play greaves effectively. It protects yisan with slower hands and you can fetch big beaters on your turn and give them haste.
Bow of Nylea- The initial plan for bow in the deck was to recycle cards if I need to re-tutor them. Instead, it makes all of my creatures threats and gains life in racing situations. Also does fun things with ulvenwald tracker.
The Matchups
Yisan does pretty well against most decks. You have tools to fight whatever they are doing. In addition, you can tailor Yisan towards whatever meta you expect, as there's a couple options for creatures to fetch. The list I have here should be your base. The parts of the deck that should stay intact are the mana elves as t2 yisan is important, and safekeeper to protect yisan.
Jenara is a bad matchup for Yisan. They have tools to slow us down and they have a fast clock that we cannot block. Right now skylasher is the only real way of stopping jenara. Here's a couple things that might make the Jenara matchup better if it's a prominent deck in your area. Scryb Ranger, Thornweald Archer, Deadly Recluse, Maze of Ith.
Combo decks can also be a problem, most notably Prosh, as it has lots of removal and all the time in the world to kill you once they cast prosh since their tokens can chump for days if they don't kill you in 1 hit the next turn. The tokens are the problem here, not really prosh himself, so things that let you get by might be good, like Nylea, God of the Hunt or Bellowing Tanglewurm
Today, I'm going to head over to galaxy games for fnm, if either of you are going to be there I will be wearing a dragon's dogma shirt and have a black/red backpack with me.
Also, I was at equilibrium games the other day and talked them into hosting a Duel Commander tournament on monday the 14th. I'll be going there next monday to double check with the store owner about prize support and talk with some of the players. I'll post again
The major problem I see is that generally when you have a sword, simply having any creature on board to equip it to is good enough. Usually a creature with evasion is the better equip target, as it's much more likely to connect. Without a sword, a vanilla 1/1 for 1W is very underwhelming.
Flash creatures are not really needed unless they actually do something powerful like aven mindcensor. Just playing a creature on your own turn is enough for the card draw, and generally you don't have enough mana to play a creature on your turn and theirs. Also whitemane lion and stonecloaker are worth keeping in solely for draw triggers.
You need a higher land count to reach your general on time, otherwise the deck doesn't really do much. I see you put in a couple ramp creatures, so that might work, but personally I would play lands over them.
A lot of these creatures you are playing feel too tempo oriented. You won't be able to kill your opponent on time with a couple 1/1's and a 2/2, even with counter spell back-up. At least play a True-Name Nemesis.
The version I have is an aggro build similar to thalia, and so far it works pretty well. Running out of cards is fine, as ephara makes every creature we topdeck good. It also recovers from wraths really well.