MTG Salvation

Hi everyone.

I am interested in an Elf commander deck that feels as close as possible to the old Modern Elves / legacy elves (as in, amass a decent amount of elves quickly and use mass pump effects like Overwhelming Stampede, Craterhoof Behemoth, Ezuri, Renegade Leader to finish the game.

Regarding the commander of the deck, I was thinking between Ezuri, Renegade Leader and Rhys the Redeemed (although, in the case of Rhys, I would still like it to be kept as green as possible with the exception of a few removals such as Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares etc).

Below is a list I compiled by basically gathering together the most decent elves I could find around.



Edit: Final list added. 'Legacy' list here:

Replaced:
Soul of the Harvest with Sylvan Library
Slippery Karst with PendelHaven

So, I built my wife an Ezuri Commander deck to get her into the format and she loves it. I really don't feel like typing out the whole deck list (and it's a multiplayer deck anyway), but there are a few cards you're missing that I think you could cleanly take full advantage of:

Staff of Domination: If you control Priest of Titania, Elvish Archdruid, Wirewood Channeler, or Karametra's Acolyte with this while you have 5+ Elves/mana symbols on the battlefield, you generate infinite mana. You have a mana outlet in the Commander zone, meaning you do this and you immediately win that same turn. Staff requires 1 more Elf/mana symbol than Umbral Mantle would require, but has the added functionality of allowing you to gain as much life as you want and draw your library in response to removal, Fog, or combat skipping effect (Stonehorn Dignitary and the like), which can potentially give you the out to remove a permanent causing you problems that you otherwise couldn't just attack through. Honestly, I think it would be a better use of a slot than Masked Admirers, whom I've always found to be too slow to actually do anything useful.

Why Civic Wayfinder? Yavimaya Dryad pulls Forests out of the library, which is the only card Wayfinder could pull, too, but it at least puts it directly onto the battlefield. Unless I'm missing something amazing, I don't see much purpose in tutoring basic lands to your hand. On that note, I'd drop something for Crop Rotation, probably Sylvan Ranger, as it didn't make the cut in my wife's deck but Rotation did.

Natural Order is a great little sorcery you're missing (which, if you're proxying Cradle, why not this too). You can use it to swap a mana dork for a Craterhoof, allowing you an Overrun effect on command. I'd actually suggest cutting Overrun for Natural Order for this reason alone.

So is this a French 1v1 deck? 'Cause Cradle is banned in French, but Rofellos is banned in the multiplayer ban list. Swap Rofellos for Sol Ring or something if multiplayer ban list, drop Cradle if French. Right now I don't think this adheres to either ban list, lol, but if you're 1v1 using the multiplayer ban list, Cradle, Natural Order, and Sol Ring are all okay to run.

Hey,

Thanks for the great reply.

1. The only reason I had Civic Wayfinder was because I didn't know about Yavimaya Dryad so thanks for the tip :).

2. I completely forgot about Natural Order so thanks for the reminder ^^

3. I was thinking of swapping out cards regarding on what mode I will be playing at that moment which is why I have a few banned cards. I will be playing multiplayer mostly though I think.

4. I really like Crop Rotation , but from a little play-testing I've done, I also liked Sylvan Ranger as he can usually draw 2 cards (if not more). Is there any other card you would suggest for me to remove? I think you are right though that Crop Rotation is better

5. I completely agree about Masked Admirers. I'll swap them for Staff of Domination

If you're interested in keeping Sylvan Ranger, then perhaps swap Crop Rotation in over Rofellos, since the largest target for Crop Rotation is Gaea's Cradle, and in French 1v1, where Rofellos is legal, you can't play Gaea's Cradle.

Then, if you do French, just switch Rofellos back in and drop Order/Cradle/Rotation for 2 other cards since you can gain quite a bit of acceleration off of him and they're not legal alongside him, lol.


I hope I explained that right. I don't exactly have the most concise manner of speaking when it's this late, and right now it's 6AM and nearing end of shift, lol.

Yeah that makes sense. Thanks for the help

Edit: And I just noticed you said Sylvan Ranger and not Sylvan Messenger ^^

You might like Yisan, the Wanderer Bard as your commander. He's not an elf, but he can sure poop them out. He's straight up card advantage all the time, and an excellent mana dump. Turn 1 elves get him out on turn 2, and then he can start dumping things into play.

Quote from SAUS_9001 »

You might like Yisan, the Wanderer Bard as your commander. He's not an elf, but he can sure poop them out. He's straight up card advantage all the time, and an excellent mana dump. Turn 1 elves get him out on turn 2, and then he can start dumping things into play.

That's a good suggestion actually.
At the same time, I find Ezuri's regenerate really useful (let's me save my board in many cases).
I'll try Yisan as a commander and if I don't like him, I'll try to fit him somewhere in the mainboard

Deck works pretty nicely and manages to pull some insane stuff from time to time. Pretty fun for casual playgroups.

Added the pretty much final list to the initial post.

Thinking of replacing Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary with Aluren or Collected Company

Rofellos is banned in commander.

Yeah I haven't my list yet. Not sure what to replace him with yet.

Maybe another dork or a utility card. Maybe Pattern of Rebirth to help with board clears

Replaced Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary with Rishkar, Peema Renegade