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Atra esterní ono thelduin. Mor'ranr lifa unin hjarta onr. Un atra du evarínya ono varda.

Howdy, all! This is a deck concept I've been sitting on for a while now, and to preface it, have yet to completely assemble. I began brewing this variant of Selesnya Elves with Selvala, Explorer Returned at the helm initially due to the card draw offered, but ultimately it was an opportunity for me to just play a bunch of cool elves. I've been trying to construct it on a limited budget, but I admit it got away from me at points.

Categories for Convenience

I've elected to lean into the "group-hug" aspect of Selvala and limited my removal to a bare minimum number of removal spells. The spell slots were dedicated more spells to protection of an established board-state. This may be subject to change once this deck plays against more decks.

Combat Damage

Craterhoof Behemoth or Ezuri, Renegade Leader are the obvious choices, though Ezuri will necessitate more resources than the Hoof.

Critical mass of elves can be massed through fair play or Nissa Revane. Triumph of the Hordes and any of the pump effects should do the trick as well.

Other

Windstorm serves in an Anti-Air role as well as being a large mana sink to dome the entire pod. In theory, the symmetrical effect should be offset by the consistent life gain provided by CMD Selvala, Explorer Returned or less reliably Nissa Revane. Staff of Domination and any mana dork producing 5 or more mana should go infinite, which also gains infinite life. However, the infinite mana produced has more pressing repercussions.

The Staff can go infinite with Elvish Archdruid, Priest of Titania, Marwyn, the Nurturer, or Wirewood Channeler. From there, you could draw the majority of the deck with Selvala or Staff itself, though I suggest using staff to limit opponent responses.

This section is dedicated to interactions between cards I've noted during play testing or construction for future reference, and thus a work in progress.

Selvala, Explorer Returned and Trelasarra, Moon Dancer work excellently with each other. The primary benefit of this interaction is the scry trigger on Trelassara fires before Selvala's draw trigger. Trelassara getting large may end up being a political detriment, as it paints a large target on your board state.

Weaknesses

This deck is notably more creature-heavy than other lists I've found, thus susceptible against removal heavy decks and edict effects. I've included more protection cards in an attempt to offset this, trading out my own removal. The second weakness of this deck is the lack of interaction with other players. It has little in the way to stop faster, more aggressive decks.

The low power/toughness possessed by the majority of the creature pool means that this deck in theory will have difficulty melding in the mid-late game. Reliance in anthems and lords to keep pace leaves room for inconsistency with deck performance. Furthermore, beyond generating mana, many of the elves are rather vanilla in nature and will be out-performed by creatures with more impactful abilities or triggers.

Understanding all of this, I built this deck due to my love of elves, from fairy-tales to grand epics. Thus I tried to stick as closely to the elf tribal theme, which did limit some spell choices. My personal tastes in this regard don't necessarily align with what is optimal, but I hope that it will in the very least be decent and most importantly: fun!

Thank you for your time! Namárië!

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Date added 6 years
Last updated 1 year
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

5 - 0 Mythic Rares

39 - 0 Rares

21 - 0 Uncommons

18 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.94
Tokens Copy Clone, Elf Druid 1/1 G, Elf Warrior 1/1 G, Elf Warrior 1/1 GW, Soldier 1/1 W
Folders Commander/EDH shenanigans
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