PLEASE UPVOTE IF YOU LIKE THE DECK
So this is the more casual budget version of my Tribal Elves Ramp Combo deck led by Momir Vig, Symic Visionary.
PURPOSE
In the early turns the goal is to play as many mana producing creatures as possible, preferably Elven ones, in order to ramp up the mana production potential. Then play Momir Vig as soon as possible and begin tutoring up combo pieces. Then play out the combo pieces and once the primary combo is done, you just choose how you would like to end the game from the available options.
WARNING
This deck can win the game as early as turn 3, and usually ends the game on turn 5-7. This kind of a consistent early win can very quickly become very unfun to play against, especially in a primarily multiplayer format like Commander. So feel free once you have shown off the absurd power of this deck to your friends, to actively avoid your game ending combos, and instead play the deck as if it were just a aggro Tribal deck, because even without the infinite combos, this deck is still very strong. If you make your friends too frustrated, they won't want to play against you anymore, and then you'll have nobody to play with. After all, winning isn't everything, especially if you no longer have people to play with.
COMBO #1 - INFINITE EVERYTHING
- 4 elves. No specific ones are necessary.
- 1 of the following: Priest of Titania, Elvish Archdruid, Wirewood Channeler.
- Staff of Domination
What you do then is tap one of the Tap for X Elves in order to gain 5 mana, either green, or any color depending on which one of the three you have. Then spend 3 of those mana to tap Staff of Domination in order to untap the Tap for x Elf. Then spend 1 mana to untap Staff of Domination. Then you can repeat this series of events infinitely, gaining 1 floating mana each time you do. With this infinite mana you can use Staff of Domination to gain Infinite Creature Tap, Creature Untap, Card Draw, and Life gain. So now you can draw and play your entire deck. There are several other cards that can be used to run variations of this combo.
VARIATIONS COMBO #1
- Instead of having 4 elves and a Tap for X Elf on the board, you could use Gyre Sage, Viridian Joiner, or Marwyn, the Nurturer and play enough elves after playing them to get their mana production up to 5 mana per tap. Immaculate Magistrate could also help get them up to the 5 mana sweet spot as well and can accomplish the same thing when paired with Devoted Druid.
- You could use Karametra's Acolyte in place of the all of the elves as long as you have devotion to green of 5 or higher.
COMBO #2 - INFINITE TURNS
COMBO #3 - PLAY DECK FOR FREE
- Enough lands and mana producing creatures to be able to generate 10 mana in a single turn.
- Primal Surge
This combo is very simple. You build up your mana production. Then you draw into Primal Surge. When you play Primal Surge you exile and then play the top card of your deck, and then you repeat this for every card in your entire deck. This is because there is only one non permanent in the entire deck, and that is Primal Surge itself. The trick with this combo however is that you have to finish the game on the turn you play primal surge, but trust me, it's not even an issue because of how many ways this deck has of ending the game on that same turn. The one potentially serious danger in this combo however, is if you play your whole deck, and then an opponent forces you to draw a card, which mills you out. With that in mind, it is usually much safer and easier, to just use it to play cards until you have one or more of your game ending combos out, and then stop, since even though you exile the card, you can choose whether or not to put it onto the battlefield, and if you don't, the effect doesn't continue repeating.
COMBO #4 - JUST INFINITE ELVES
- Any creature that can tap for 1 green mana
- Imperious Perfect
- Intruder Alarm
Tap the mana dork for 1 green. Use that one green and tap Imperious Perfect to make a 1/1 Elf token. The elf token coming into play untaps all your creatures, and you repeat this as many times as you want. It's just a more direct way of getting infinite elf tokens, but hey, that's still enough to kill your opponents.
TUTORS
So obviously Momir Vig, Simic Visionary is an amazing creature tutor machine. Every Green Creature you play, lets you tutor up a creature of your choice to the top of your library, every Blue Creature gets you a free draw, and every Blue Green Creature let's you tutor a creature to the top of your deck and immediately draw it. This is of course the core of what makes this deck a fast, and reliable combo tribal deck. Not all the combo pieces are creatures however, which is why we have a Trophy Mage to find the Staff of Domination when it's time.
COMBO FINAL EFFECTS
So once you have your Infinite Mana and Draw set up, you have a variety of other combos that can be chosen from in order to end the game.
- With Imperious Perfect you can create an infinite amount of 1/1 elves.
- With Immaculate Magistrate you can give all of your creatures infinite power and toughness.
- With Prodigal Sorcerer you have an Infinite Damage to target creature or player combo so you can just outright kill your opponents, or if they have out something troublesome like a Platinum Angel, you can kill it, before you kill them.
- With Nullmage Shepherd you can destroy any number of troublesome Artifacts and Enchantments.
- With Akroma's Memorial on the board all your creatures get Flying, First Strike, Vigilance, Trample, Haste, and protection from Black and Red, which is amazing. The haste is the most important parts of this. The haste allows all the creatures that come into play the turn that you play your deck, to attack or use their tap abilities immediately. Of course Akroma's Memorial is also just an amazing artifact to have out at any point in time.
- Beguiler of Wills stealing big or useful creatures for ourselves, or if it's the end of the game, we're comboing out, and we're feeling cheeky, you could use Beguiler of Wills to steal all the opponents creatures and kill them with their own creatures. As far as ending the game is concerned though, if you wan't to be kind of flashy, what you do is use the infinitely untapping Beguiler of Wills to steal everyone else's creatures, then you play a Shaman of Forgotten Ways and pay it's formidable cost to set each opponents life total to 0 since they have no creatures. Mostly this card is for use during the game however, before the end comes, as you can steal their Commander. This of course means they can't recast it, because it hasn't been removed from the board, so until they kill their own commander, which is under your control, their Commander deck, has no commander lol.
BIG EFFECTS
- Archetype of Endurance gives all of your many many creatures Hexproof, which considering they are the backbone of the deck, is really important.
- Eternal Witness is here, so that when you go to combo out, if one of your opponents destroys a combo piece, such as Staff of Domination, you can tutor up Eternal Witness with Momir Vig and immediatly get the Staff back, and your game ending combo is back online.
- Gaea's Herald was added in order to provide some protection against decks that play a lot of counterspells.
- Lys Alana Huntmaster can help you create chump blockers, and can help you grow your elf army at an exceptional rate.
- Intruder Alarm is amazing, because although it may not be "infinite combo piece" important, with a bunch of mana dorks, you can tap them all, play a creature, untap them all, and then repeat it while you stack up mana. With a Soul of the Harvest, Primordial Sage, Beast Whisperer, Zendikar Resurgent, or Vizier of the Menagerie on the board, as well as Momir Vig, you could even play every single creature in the deck, which would lead straight into your game ending combos.
- Silent Arbiter is a defensive card. This deck is a combo deck, and not really an aggro based deck, so we do not want to be trading creatures with our opponents to keep them from killing us, because our creatures are small, and every one we lose slows down our ability to win. Silent Arbiter may not stop their attacks completly, but it does limit them to only being able to attack with one creature at a time, so it can severely slow down aggro decks. Decks designed to make their commanders huge and then trample in to kill you are still a problem though for sure.
- Wellwisher is just outright insane. The amount of life you and get from this amazing little Elf really is astonishing.
DRAW/TUTOR EFFECTS
- Regal Force can be a great, tutorable way of drawing a crapton of cards all at once, for when you need to refill your hand.
- Beast Whisperer, Primordial Sage, and Soul of the Harvest, and Zendikar Resurgent each make it so whenever you play a green creature with Momir Vig on the board, that you don't just tutor a card to the top of your library, you tutor it straight into your hand. This is of course SUPER POWERFUL.
- Vizier of the Menagerie's ability to look at the top card of the deck, and play it if it is a creature, also achieves the same effect as the previously mentioned cards. It also allows you some mana fixing which can be useful.
- Coiling Oracle is essentially a creature tutor card, when paired with Momir Vig, Simic Visionary, since it is both blue and green, plus it draws you and extra card or plays you an extra land, and it remains on the board as an elf when its primary job is done.
- Rashmi, Eternities Crafter is another creature tutor due to it being blue/green, but it also gets your some sweet free to play on each turn, as well as being an elf.
- Nissa Revane gets you lots of life, and may even let you play all the elves from your deck. Generally with this deck, you don't want to be sacrificing creatures to block your opponent attacks, so you usually just end up taking the hits to your life total. Nissa Revane's first +1 ability may be literally useless, but as our best friend Wellwisher Elf can tell you, getting life for each elf you have adds up FAST!! Even more so when it's +2 life per Elf. As far as her ultimate goes, it may take 5 turns to go off, but commander does tend to run slower than other formats, and even if it doesn't go off and play most of your deck, you are still getting huge chunks of life to keep you alive long enough to wipe your opponents out. Plus she is THE ELF PLANESWALKER. Its a huge flavor win no matter what, and that matters to me.
- Skyshroud Poacher and Prime Speaker Vannifar are good for a few reasons. With these I can tutor even without Momir Vig, and the creature goes straight to the battlefield. I can even drop a "Tap for X" elf or other combo piece elf during my opponents end step, right before its my turn, so that none of my opponents will see the Elfsplosion coming and therefore wont have the opportunity to use sorceries to mess up my combo.
IMPORTANT NOTES
Some of the elves in this deck that are labeled as just being elves in the types section of their actual cards, were made into Elf Druids, when Wizards of the Coast wen't through their card backlog and edited the subtypes on so many of their cards. If you check them out on gatherer you should be able to see which ones were changed. Currently this list consists of the following as far as I know
Fyndhorn Elder, Heart Warden, Fyndhorn Elves, Wirewood Elf and Wirewood Channeler.
STATISTICAL NOTES
- Version 11 contains 41 elves
Anyways, if you enjoyed checking out this deck, and reading my write up to explain its mechanics, please show your support and upvote my deck. Enjoy
ELF MANA DORKS I DON'T PLAY
Elvish Pioneer
Arbor Elf
Birchlore Rangers
Elvish Aberration
Wild Wanderer
Skyshroud Troopers
Argothian Elder
Wood Elves
Silhana Starfletcher
Mul Daya Channelers
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
Llanowar Envoy
Lifespring Druid
Servant of the Conduit
Nomadic Elf
Llanowar Scout
Bloom Tender
DREAMS FOR THE FUTURE
These are cards that I hope they print one day that would go a long way towards empowering this deck and the things that slow it down at times.
1) A green or blue or hybrid creature that gives mass haste. This would mean I wouldn't need to wait a turn to combo out when I play the appropriate "tap for x" creature. Sure it would require another tutor through momir vig and more mana to accomplish, but just having the option to would be more than enough to warrant a slot. In addition, playing before combo time would still be useful because this deck has so many mana dorks, so it would speed things up.
2) A green or blue or hybrid creature that can tutor up a sorcery. This would be used to go straight to Primal Surge when enough mana is available. For instance in cases where I lack a draw mechanic to be paired with momir vig to get the remaining cards I need into my hand to use one of the other combos. I could tutor straight to this creature, play it, it gets me primal surge, and primal surge gets me everything else I need.
