Just my personal thoughts on fierce empath: I like it for a very specific, but very helpful and relevant interaction. At 6 verse counters, you can go grab a woodland elemental, which can then use fierce empath to grab a 7 or 8 cost creature (usually terastodon in my case) so you can avoid worrying about missing your finisher to get a utility card. The empath also pulls a big card out of your deck, so if you start with the quirion ranger>priest of titania start you have most of your late game threats way earlier than is fair. Also, have you considered ant queen?

Great looking deck. Wondering if you can provide a card by card breakdown. Also i was wondering if there is a replacement for gaias cradle. Its a bit much for my wallet to handle atm.

Revenantmike The budget Gaea's is Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. Check my profile for my budget deck. Primer in the works!

Do you have any plans on doing a primer for budgetless?

I'd be very interested in seeing your in depth views on inclusions.

Also, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on Regal Behemoth in versions of Yisan that are running Shaman of Forgotten Ways.

(Since you can omit your 5 and get two 6s being Bellower, Shaman, and Behemoth then untap and you would have mana to activate Shaman and Yisan for a 7 and Hoof for trample)

Shaman just isn't worth it in Yisan. I've test him over and over again and he is usually just useless.

Regal Behemoth is an interesting choice, but it seems to be a bit too slow. Just my 2 cents.

The thing about shaman is I never yisan @3 him. I woodland bellower him at someone's end step.

The thing about doing that is you can literally untap and kill the table no matter how much life has been gained.

What do you think of Cloudstone Curio? (to go with Wirewood Symbiote, any mana dork and anything that taps for three.)

Any thoughts on the new Selvala heart of the wild at 3. Sabertooth at 4 and maybe the new green gearhulk at 5. Just thinking about being able to go infinite. sometimes elves are hard if you don't have the five elves for Sabertooth or staff of domination.

@shiftdopp in my Yisan I added Selvala. She combos with Great Oak Guardian which would get a place over Gearhulk.

@RedRevenge3 have you see an improvement in the deck with that combo? what did you remove? I was thinking archdruid and Regal force?

Just getting into competitive play with my own Yisan, the Wanderer Bard deck, I'm just wondering, is there any advantage to running Snow-Covered Forest over normal Forest?

@shiftydopp. Regal Force is a staple in Yisan. Great way to gain infinite draw. I run a much different list then Shaper (No Craterhoof or Hornet Queen). Both of the cards are unnecessary and I have faster win cons. So I guess you can say Selvala/Great Oak take their places.

@thesen210 Yes there is. Snow-covered allows you to run Mouth of Ronom which gives you additional removal against hate creatures like Linvala and Aven Mindcensor. Both of these creatures shut Yisan down.

@RedReveng3 Ah I see now, thank you for the clarification

I play Yisan myself, my list being a little different though. I have been really happy with Lodestone Golem, whenever you have the opponents on the back foot, you can grab it with Yisan and it basically timewalks them. That gives you time to set up Seedborn Muse, which is usually game winning.
The way i see it, Thought-Knot Seer plays a similar role to Lodestone Golem in your list (the 4-drop you get when you need disruption). How has the card performed for you so far? It has been on my radar for a while, but i haven't tested it yet, partly because it seemed too low impact for multiplayer. It's also tougher to cast, but harder to remove than Lodestone.
I also noticed you don't run Earthcraft. Any thoughts on that card? It usually generates 2-3 mana per turn, with potential for much more once Wild Growth or Utopia Sprawl get involved.

@Emzed

Lodestone Golem just seems like win more. I feel like Temur Sabertooth or Karametra's Acolyte are better options then an extra tax effect.

I tested Thought-Knot awhile ago and cut it due to it not interacting well with the deck. Usually we are ahead of everyone else and go for the combo with Temur Sabertooth, or we are far behind and are unable to reach enough counters to fetch up Thought-Knot. Who knows though because it synergizes well with Eldritch Evolution and can be tutored by Worldly Tutor/Survival. The plus side is being able to instant speed Thought-Knot can help us get rid of combo pieces like Food Chain/Naus.

I haven't left home without Earthcraft. This card is filthy strong in Yisan and hasn't let me down yet. Great Oak Guardian makes this card even better. Temur + Great Oak + 9 mana = infinite mana / untaps / power and toughness.

What i like about Lodestone Golem is its ability to disrupt opposing combo decks. Few combo decks work through stax effects, at the very least they are slowed down by a turn or two. If you assemble multiple stax effects they might be locked out until they find interaction. Having access to a tutorable creature with that effect has been great for me. As you mentioned, decks using Ad Nauseam or Food Chain can threaten to race us, and Lodestone Golem usually prevents that. In comparison to Thought-Knot Seer though, you don't need the perfect timing to stop the combo, you just need the Golem on the board before the opponent starts to go off.
Concerning Great Oak Guardian: What does the card do if your board doesn't tap for an insane amount of mana? If you can assemble Oak, Sabertooth and the ability to tap for 9 mana, it's obviously great, but how realistic is that? Also, there is a more flexible 6-drop already in the deck that enables basically the same combo:Woodland Bellower finds Wirewood Symbiote.

I don't runk Craterhoof in my lists because he is clunky. Instead I run Great Oak because Great Oak gives us infinite p/t and gives us utility.

First Great Oak gives us a flash reach blocker. This surprises my opponents by giving me some combat tricks (Good bye Linvala!)

Great Oak combos with Selvala + Temur. Imagine this: Verse 3 Selvala -> Verse 4 Temur Sabertooth and you have a creature tutor for Great Oak. You basically win the game at this point. Now I normally go for the Woodland Combo, but this requires a creature tapping for 5+. Which means I will a large board state. Great Oak + Selvala gives us another alternative combo that can be assembled.

Great Oak also protects against Toxic Deluge (Like Kamahl). Being able to cast/bounce Great Oak a few times could protect us from a few wrath spells. I used to run Kamahl, but once Selvala was released I figured it was time to remove him from Great Oak.

Great Oak can also give us a much needed untap with Yisan. Maybe this last untap is necessary to untap Yisan and grab Regal Force or untap Yisan and grab Seedborn Muse. It can matter sometime.

Lastly, Great Oak combos with Earthcraft and a board state. If I can get Earthcraft on the field, Great Oak

What i said before is still true, you don't really need Oak: To enable a Selvala combo, finding Woodland Bellower for Wirewood Symbiote does the trick if you have a 1 cmc elf (and the Sabertooth obviously). Bellower with its 6 power makes Selvala tap for 5 net mana.
Concerning the possibility to surprise block with Oak: Yisan represents plenty of instant speed surprises already, so someone actually attacking with a valuable creature like Linvala into your open mana seems rather unlikely. If you need to answer Linvala, Duplicant seems like the more appropriate 6-drop anyway.
Personally, i have been quite happy with just Woodland Bellower, Duplicant and Bane of Progress as my 6-drop creatures. Bellower is perfect if i want to combo, but also offers plenty of utility (Eternal Witness, Fierce Empath, Scavenging Ooze etc). The other two fulfil obvious interactive roles.

You can't Yisan with Linvala in play.

Ok right, that was really stupid :)

@Emzed You are correct in that Woodland Bellower combos with Selvala aswell, but the main reason I run Great Oak Guardian is because Great Oak is my win condition (Way to generate infinite power/toughness). I would rather have GOG in my hand / deck then Craterhoof. GOG also combos with Selvala (added bonus) and can protect against wraths.

Duplicant is great for getting rid of Linvala, but Great Oak just gives us another answer that we can cast from hand (This is usually a big surprise).

I assume you run those 3 six drops and then Craterhoof? From my experience you are better off running 4 six drops (Bane, Duplicant, Great Oak, and Woodland) and no Craterhoof.

I don't understand why you can't run Hoof and GOG. Hoof can win on his own, GOG combos as well, but why can't you run both?

One thing I've found is that I often have to verse 6 for bane or bellower and that means I can't verse 6 for GOG, if I run both then I can have 2 options that accomplish the same thing at different cmcs similar to how you have Q ranger and Scryb ranger at different cmcs and priest of titiania and elvish archdruid at different cmcs.

I plan on cutting hornet queen from my personal list.

@OHTHENOISES You could do that, but I try to keep my CMC as low as possible. They both provide the same role so why would we need both?

Usually once we hit verse 6 we can generate infinite mana and then draw our deck with Regal Force (Verse 7) + Temur Sabertooth. Then cast GOG to gain infinite power/toughness. I don't run Hornet Queen either (To keep my CMC low).

The reason why Q Ranger and Scryb Ranger work is because they cost 1 and 2. Not 6 and 8.

If you run more fatties geared toward winning the game, you lose space for value creatures like Regal Force, Hornet Queen and Terastodon. Maybe that's the right way to go, i think i will adjust my list a little in that direction and see if i like it.