The Ethos of Ishigami Village

Commander / EDH Elves Mono-Green Tribal

Pal00ka

Elfball (30)

• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Beast Whisperer
• 1x Boreal Druid
• 1x Elvish Archdruid
• 1x Elvish Clancaller
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Elvish Pioneer
• 1x Elvish Spirit Guide
• 1x Elvish Visionary
• 1x Essence Warden
• 1x Ezuri, Renegade Leader
• 1x Fauna Shaman
• 1x Fierce Empath
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Gaea's Herald
• 1x Generous Patron
• 1x Imperious Perfect
• 1x Joraga Warcaller
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Multani's Acolyte
• 1x Oakhame Adversary
• 1x Priest of Titania
• 1x Quirion Ranger
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Seeker of Skybreak
• 1x Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
• 1x Shaman of Spring
• 1x Viridian Shaman
• 1x Voice of Many
• 1x Wood Elves

Interaction (12)

• 1x Bane of Progress
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Dosan the Falling Leaf
• 1x Gaea's Herald
• 1x Hurricane
• 1x Lignify
• 1x Natural State
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Tectonic Edge
• 1x Viridian Shaman
• 1x Wasteland

Mana (30)

• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 23x Forest
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Tectonic Edge
• 1x Wasteland
• 1x Wirewood Lodge

CA (20)

• 1x Beast Whisperer
• 1x Duskwatch Recruiter  ^Flip
• 1x Elvish Visionary
• 1x Garruk, Primal Hunter
• 1x Generous Patron
• 1x Guardian Project
• 1x Harmonize
• 1x Lifecrafter's Bestiary
• 1x Multani's Acolyte
• 1x Oakhame Adversary
• 1x Regal Force
• 1x Return of the Wildspeaker
• 1x Rishkar's Expertise
• 1x Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
• 1x Shaman of Spring
• 1x Shamanic Revelation
• 1x Slate of Ancestry
• 1x Soul's Majesty
• 1x Veil of Summer
• 1x Voice of Many

Ramp (15)

• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Boreal Druid
• 1x Elvish Archdruid
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Elvish Pioneer
• 1x Elvish Spirit Guide
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Priest of Titania
• 1x Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Utopia Sprawl
• 1x Wild Growth
• 1x Wood Elves

Untap (10)

• 1x Great Oak Guardian
• 1x Instill Energy
• 1x Mobilize
• 1x Quirion Ranger
• 1x Seeker of Skybreak
• 1x Thousand-Year Elixir
• 1x Umbral Mantle
• 1x Vitalize
• 1x Wirewood Lodge
• 1x Wirewood Symbiote

Commander (1)

Support (18)

• 1x Autumn's Veil
• 1x Concordant Crossroads
• 1x Elvish Archdruid
• 1x Elvish Clancaller
• 1x Ezuri, Renegade Leader
• 1x Finale of Devastation
• 1x Gaea's Herald
• 1x Great Oak Guardian
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Imperious Perfect
• 1x Instill Energy
• 1x Joraga Warcaller
• 1x Return of the Wildspeaker
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Thousand-Year Elixir
• 1x Umbral Mantle
• 1x Veil of Summer
• 1x Vines of Vastwood

Utility (12)

• 1x Essence Warden
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fauna Shaman
• 1x Fierce Empath
• 1x Garruk, Primal Hunter
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Imperious Perfect
• 1x Reap
• 1x Shamanic Revelation
• 1x Temur Sabertooth
• 1x Woodland Bellower
• 1x Worldly Tutor

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Maybeboard

Other (3)

• 1x Elvish Lyrist
• 1x Elvish Scrapper
• 1x Kenrith's Transformation

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Flavor

• When I first saw Marwyn my thoughts immediately flew to one of my favorite mangas, Dr. Stone, and the character Kohaku. A girl who is fiercely protective of her friends, works hard with/for the greater good, and brings out the best in those around her. All of which are, in my opinion, the ethos of Marwyn and what makes elfball so effective.


• With my newfound time at home and the desire to learn the basics of digital altering (I like painting cards in acrylics too) I decided to completely "alter" this list, inspired by Dr. Stone. I welcome feedback but please keep in mind I am self-taught, I did my best to choose characters/scenes that made sense to the card in question, and all are in gray-tone to reduce my ink costs and easily highlight they are alters.


• With all that said and the desire to not be sued I want to make clear that I did not create, nor own any of the Dr. Stone images that these alters contain. They are the property of Riichiro Inagaki, Boichi, Weekly Shonen Jump, and Viz Media. I am just a fan desiring to show and share my enjoyment of this series with others.

Goal

• Take advantage of having a high density of Elves to produce a lot of mana to fuel both combat and non-combat wins.

Categories

• Elfball when building tribal I strive to find creatures that not only fulfill that subtype but do something useful, or at least relevant to our game-plan. Thus we have a bunch of Elves that either care about other Elves Elvish Archdruid, support other Elves Elvish Clancaller, or are just good at specifically doing something Beast Whisperer.


• Card Advantage I have always believed in the saying "whoever draws the most cards has the best chance to win the match" and thus we have consistent outlets Guardian Project, one-shots Elvish Visionary, and scaling one-shots Soul's Majesty because Marwyn (or others) can get pretty big if not dealt with.


• Ramp HUGE focus on getting Marwyn out on T2 so our ramp is 95% CMC1 Arbor Elf, Wild Growth, and even Elvish Spirit Guide. The other 5% are back-up Marwyns that can also generate increasing amounts of mana with the right board state Priest of Titania.


• Interaction ways to mess with our opponents. We can nullify a nuisance creature/commander Kenrith's Transformation, take care of fliers Hurricane, and destroy other problems Viridian Shaman / Natural State.


• Support ways to protect a creature Veil of Summer, creatures Heroic Intervention, and enable our Elves in both their abilities Thousand-Year Elixir and/or stats Joraga Warcaller.


• Utility are our token makers Imperious Perfect, life-gaining Essence Warden, recursion Eternal Witness, and tutors Fauna Shaman.


• Mana mainly but we have some utility lands that give us extra options to deal with problems Wasteland, punch through blockers Rogue's Passage, or do my favorite play in all of MTG and Green Sun's Zenith for Dryad Arbor on T1!

Themes

• Elfball it was already mentioned (and will be again when talking about Marwyn) but Elves are our tribal focus so nearly all of our creatures are such with rare occasions for creature who fulfill an essential role in the deck that an Elf does not currently. Examples like Regal Force can draw us a ton of cards if we have a full board, Eternal Witness recur anything from the bin, and Woodland Bellower can grab us nearly any creature in our deck and put it to field, bypassing counter magic.


• Speed I am aiming for this deck to be an 8 on the power level scale. Thus our card choices (from mulligans to tutoring) aim to gain a large amount, if not infinite mana, by T5-6 that will enable us to draw into our deck for a win condition.


• Resiliency this deck aims to either be answered or lose. We have many redundant pieces in effects that we need to win, like untapping, but are limited in our answers to stymie opponents. Practice and knowing the decks you are against will help you know when to play or save our limited removal.

Commander

• Marwyn, the Nurturer is an amazing enabler for Elfball. I have done Elfball before but with themes of kicker Hallar, the Firefletcher and +1/+1 counters Rashmi, Eternities Crafter so for this one I wanted to go big mana. The part most people forget about Marwyn is her ability to tap for is not based on the number of +1/+1 counters but her power. So stat boosting effects from our lords Joraga Warcaller, spells Vines of Vastwood, and even artifacts Umbral Mantle all make her generate even more mana!


• Marwyn will be a magnet for removal so we have multiple Elves that can step in for her if she is absent. With a full board both Priest of Titania and Elvish Archdruid can make lots of mana while Selvala, Heart of the Wilds can take advantage if we have a larger creature out, like Woodland Bellower to make a decent chunk of mana.

Game Plan

• Never keep a hand that cannot put Marwyn out on T2. We have 10 CMC1 sources so ideally we have one of those, an Elf or two, and a way to draw cards. This will get the ball moving quickly and efficiently.


• The "easiest" way to generate infinite mana with Marwyn is to find Umbral Mantle and for her have at least two +1/+1 counters. For example, we tap her for three , untap with Mantle so her power goes +2/+2, tap her again and now we will generate five . Each activation and untap nets two extra .


• The other loop is finding Temur Sabertooth, Wirewood Symbiote, and utilizing an Elf (a CMC1 Elf is the most mana efficient Elvish Pioneer). Tap Marwyn for x , activate Wirewood returning Pioneer to hand and untapping Marwyn. Bounce Wirewood with Sabertooth, cast both Pioneer and Wirewood to trigger Marwyn once, and repeat since you will gain one extra every time with this loop.


• Add to the above loop Guardian Project or Beast Whisperer and each time we cast our creatures we draw cards so we can begin finding a win condition. Or after gaining sufficient we can switch to Multani's Acolyte, Masked Admirers, etc. to double expedite finding a win condition.

Winning

• Going wide via Finale of Devastation / Concordant Crossroads + Ezuri, Renegade Leader / Joraga Warcaller / Great Oak Guardian.


• Non-combat damage via Hurricane if we are above in life, which should be easy with an early Essence Warden or finding it with tutors and making sure we are higher with bouncing and re-casting our creatures if a draw outlet is absent.


• Voltron via Marwyn, the Nurturer + Rogue's Passage in a pinch but we really want to kill everyone at the same time so we can begin the next match.

Musings

• While Wirewood Symbiote is our premiere untapper it may get exiled Swords to Plowshares or killed Fatal Push so we have a lot of redundancy Quirion Ranger to ensure that if we cannot go infinite we can at least generate a lot of mana.


• A favorite mana-sink of mine is Duskwatch Recruiter   with a close second-place going to Slate of Ancestry. Both and more let us see a lot of our deck to find more Elves, interaction, and protection in order to quickly overwhelm our opponents.


• While Marwyn can be played on the competitive level I cannot currently justify buying the better CMC0 mana rocks Mana Crypt, tutors Natural Order, or lands Gaea's Cradle to make that leap. And it is mainly because I do not play with people who play cEDH. This deck is meant more for if the pod wants to play a higher-powered match or a quick one before the LGS closes.


• While I know it may slow the deck down I am very interested in finding room to run the Aluren + Recycle combo but am unsure how to make it work. Guidance in that respect would be very appreciated.

Thoughts to improve are welcome and appreciated!

Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Exclude colors	WUBR
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 26 - 0 Rares 24 - 0 Uncommons 22 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.60
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Elf Warrior 1/1 G, Wurm 6/6 G