Yisan, Wanderer Bard

Commander / EDH Combo Competitive Midrange Mono-Green

lanshark

0 drop (38)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 1x Elvish Spirit Guide
• 26x Forest
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Wasteland
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

1 drop (23)

• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Autumn's Veil
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Boreal Druid
• 1x Burgeoning
• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Caustic Caterpillar
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Quirion Ranger
• 1x Root Maze
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Scout
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sylvan Safekeeper
• 1x Utopia Sprawl
• 1x Vitalize
• 1x Wild Growth
• 1x Wirewood Symbiote
• 1x Worldly Tutor

3 drop (16)

• 1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Eldritch Evolution
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Manglehorn
• 1x Marwyn, the Nurturer
• 1x Ramunap Excavator
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Runic Armasaur
• 1x Seeds of Innocence
• 1x Song of the Dryads
• 1x Tangle Wire
• 1x Trinisphere
• 1x Umbral Mantle
• 1x Wood Elves

8 drop (1)

• 1x Craterhoof Behemoth

4 drop (4)

• 1x Karametra's Acolyte
• 1x Nullmage Shepherd
• 1x Temur Sabertooth
• 1x Thought-Knot Seer

2 drop (12)

• 1x Kraul Harpooner
• 1x Lignify
• 1x Phyrexian Revoker
• 1x Priest of Titania
• 1x Quest for Renewal
• 1x Regrowth
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Scryb Ranger
• 1x Sphere of Resistance
• 1x Thorn of Amethyst
• 1x Wall of Roots
• 1x Winter Orb

7 drop (1)

• 1x Regal Force

5 drop (3)

• 1x Seedborn Muse
• 1x Somberwald Stag
• 1x Whisperwood Elemental

6 drop (1)

• 1x Woodland Bellower

Commander (1)

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Sideboard

6 drop (1)

• 1x Bane of Progress

3 drop (2)

• 1x Choke
• 1x Ravenous Slime

4 drop (1)

• 1x Lodestone Golem

1 drop (1)

• 1x Ulvenwald Tracker

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Maybeboard

5 drop (1)

• 1x Acidic Slime

0 drop (4)

• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Mouth of Ronom
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Yavimaya Hollow

6 drop (1)

• 1x Duplicant

3 drop (3)

• 1x Elvish Archdruid
• 1x Fierce Empath
• 1x Tireless Tracker

2 drop (1)

• 1x Heroic Intervention

7 drop (2)

• 1x Hornet Queen
• 1x Meteor Golem

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My current main EDH deck. This deck can play a midrange game by casting stax pieces, tutoring out disruption and value creatures, and winning the game with a Craterhoof Behemoth , or more like a combo-style gameplan utilizing Temur Sabertooth . This deck is based heavily off of this excellent primer. All the info you could ever need is in that document, but I'll cover a few main points here.

Budget concessions:

-1 Gaea's Cradle , +1 Forest
-1 Exploration , +1 Elvish Spirit Guide
-1 Mana Crypt , +1 Mana Vault
-1 Mox Diamond , +1 Lotus Petal
-1 Natural Order , +1 Vitalize
-1 Null Rod , +1 Nullmage Shepherd
-1 Staff of Domination , +1 Quest for Renewal
-1 Survival of the Fittest , +1 Eldritch Evolution
-1 Sylvan Library , +1 Runic Armasaur

Since I'm not playing Gaea's Cradle , I also do not play Crop Rotation or Sylvan Scrying . I've tested these as ways to search for Strip Mine to go along with Azusa, Lost but Seeking + Ramunap Excavator but was unimpressed. These have been replaced with Marwyn, the Nurturer and Wall of Roots to try out out Marwyn's T5 win line.

Gameplan

Step one is to play out Yisan as soon as T1, but normally on T2. On turns 3-6 you tutor out untappers, protection, disruption, and combo pieces to set up for a win. Along the way, you can cast any answers or stax pieces you happen to draw.

Core cards

Untappers:
Quirion Ranger , Scryb Ranger - The bread-and-butter untappers. Quirion Ranger is commonly the go-to on verse 1, with Scryb Ranger being a backup in the case you need to grab a different 1-drop or Quirion Ranger gets Removed.
Wirewood Symbiote - Another 1-drop untapper that is usually tutored out on verse 6 by Woodland Bellower . Much weaker in the early game since returning an elf to your hand is a significant cost.
Seedborn Muse - The last untapper for the mid- to late-game. Since it untaps everything, it can quickly accelerate you to a win or help you rebuild rapidly after a wrath.

Mana Producers:
Priest of Titania - An early dork that produces lots of mana. This deck does happen to run lots of elves, but Priest also counts the elves of all other players. Probably the most common creature to search for on verse 2 as a follow up to Quirion Ranger. If you started with a mana elf on t1, she'll produce 3 mana from just your creatures as soon as you untap.
Karametra's Acolyte - Easily produces the mana needed for Temur Sabertooth and Umbral Mantle combo wins.
Marwyn, the Nurturer - Allows for a T5 win along with Wall of Roots. You'll find details in the "Winning the Game" section.

Protection/Disruption:
Sylvan Safekeeper - Incredibly efficient way to protect Yisan or any other key creatures. Get this on verse 1 if you expect lots of spot removal.
Autumn's Veil - For only one mana you can force through a key spell or protect a creature from spot removal.
Nature's Claim - The best answer to Cursed Totem and Grafdigger's Cage and basically never a dead card given the huge number of artifacts and enchantments that are worth blowing up.
Lignify - Direct answer to Linvala, Keeper of Silence , Aven Mindcensor , and Containment Priest . Like Nature's Claim, there's pretty much always something worth removing.
Beast Within / Song of the Dryads - A bit more expensive, but can answer any problem permanents.
Phyrexian Revoker - Incredibly versatile piece of disruption available on verse 2.

Stax Pieces:
This deck has plenty of ways to generate lots of mana and it's not impossible to play an entire game without casting any spells after Yisan comes down. This makes it a great shell for many stax cards.
Sphere of Resistance / Thorn of Amethyst /Trinnisphere - Making tons of mana means that casting your cards through these is relatively easy, but they also have no effect on Yisan's searching.
Tangle Wire - If you're low on permanents, you can respond to the tap trigger by searching with Yisan. If you're not low on permanents, then this card won't cause you much trouble. Remember to stack the triggers so that you remove the counter before tapping and that you can tap the Tangle Wire itself.
Winter Orb - Excellent card along side mana dorks and Wild Growth / Utopia Sprawl .
Root Maze - A unique effect that slows down every deck to some degree with an extra effect on artifact-reliant strategies.

Winning the Game

Craterhoof Behemoth - The simplest and most common way to win the game is simply to search up Craterhoof on verse 8. You'll have lots of creatures on board from the early game and you can go trampling over everybody.

Temur Sabertooth - Somewhat complex but incredibly powerful combo engine: Temur Sabertooth + Karametra's Acolyte + Wirewood Symbiote + Llanowar Elves . Any mana dork that produces 5 or more mana may be used, as well as any 1-cmc elf in place of Llanowar Elves. It works like this:
- Tap Acolyte for 5 mana - Return Llanowar Elves to your hand with Symbiote to untap Acolyte - Use Sabertooth to return Symbiote to your hand (2 mana) - Recast Llanowar Elves and Symbiote (2 mana) - Repeat This will net you one mana every loop. Once you've made a couple million mana, you can do anything you want. You can untap and activate Yisan as many times as you want to go through the rest of the verses. You can bounce and replay a creature as many times as you want ( Eternal Witness to recur a Beast Within , Regal Force to draw your deck, Craterhoof Behemoth to make your dudes massive). If you have a way to generate colorless mana (such as a Boreal Druid with your infinite untaps, or a Sol Ring that you can repeatedly blow up, recur, and recast), you can use Thought-Knot Seer to exile your opponents' libraries if combat is not an option for some reason. It's recommended to blow up their lands first so they can't cast any of the cards they draw. The example combo line from the primer is the following: T1 dork -> T2 Yisan -> T3 verse 1 for Quirion Ranger -> T4 verse 2 for Priest of Titania -> T5 double verse 4 for Acolyte and Sabertooth -> T6 verse 5 for whatever and verse 6 for Woodland Bellower fetching Wirewood Symbiote.

Marwyn, the Nurturer - A recent addition to my deck that allows for a turn 5 win with the line (assuming you hit land drops on T1-4): T1 elf -> T2 Yisan -> T3 verse 1 for Wirewood Symbiote -> T4 verse 2 for Wall of Roots , untap Yisan returning the elf, verse 3 for Marwyn -> T5 play elf, verse 4 for Sabertooth. From this point, simply execute the normal sabertooth combo. Everytime you recast the elf, Marwyn will grow. The first loop will require the mana from Wall of Roots, the next two loops will won't net you anything, after that you begin to generate excess mana and you can do whatever you want from there.

Umbral Mantle - Equip this on a mana dork that makes 4+ mana and you've got infinite. With infinite mana, you can reequip this to Yisan for infinite untaps.

Staff of Domination - While I don't own one of these yet, this is another 2-card combo with any mana dork making 5 or more mana. Infinite mana, taps, untaps, and card draw.

Piloting tips

Mulligan aggressively for a T2 Yisan. T1's can happen, but don't go searching for them. You can keep a T3 Yisan if your hand includes an incredibly powerful card in the current matchup, such as Thorn of Amethyst against storm.

Double versing - With Yisan, 6 mana, and an untapper on board you can search for two creatures at the same verse count: Activate Yisan, retaining priority -> untap Yisan -> activate Yisan again. Since Yisan's ability checks verse counters on resolution, you'll be able to grab two creatures with however many counters Yisan has on him from the second activation. This can be used to skip verse 3 and grab both Acolyte and Sabertooth on verse 4.

Verse 4-ing for Thought-Knot Seer is one of the best ways to avoid a Wrath.

Use creature tutors to get an early Seedborn Muse down or to grab disruption/answers. This allows you to keep your normal verse chains in tact while still interacting.

Quirion Ranger / Scryb Ranger + Sakura-Tribe Scout combine to allow you to untap a forest every turn. You activate Ranger to untap Scout, then tap Ranger again to put the forest back into play untapped. This trick allows you to squeeze in an extra tutor before T5 in a 4-man pod. Your first four turns should look like this: T1 forest, elf -> T2 forest, Yisan -> T3 forest, verse 1 for Sakura-Tribe Scout -> T4 forest, verse 2 for Scryb Ranger , untap Yisan with Ranger, put forest into play with Scout. This should leave you with 3 mana and an untapped yisan. On your next opponent's end step, get Wood Elves with verse 3 putting a forest into play, then use the untap trick. Repeat the trick on your next opponent's end step to get 3 untapped lands. On your 3rd opponent's end step, right before your turn, tap your lands to make 3 mana, untap Yisan with Ranger, and activate for verse 4.

Date added	7 years
Last updated	5 years
Key combos	Azusa, Lost but Seeking + Ramunap Excavator
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 27 - 4 Rares 26 - 1 Uncommons 16 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.27
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Manifest 2/2 C