This deck is not a cEDH deck, but close.
I do not currently have the money to make a true cEDH deck, I cant buy things like Gaea's Cradle or the expensive mana rocks like Lion's Eye Diamond. I know some cards in the deck are suboptimal but honestly this deck is not very far off. Yisan is a very powerful commander played in cEDH a lot and with the lower verses being the most important and less expensive cards Yisan, the Wanderer Bard is great for a very powerful budget deck. Since this deck is mono many of the very expensive lands needed for multicolor decks aren't necessary making it more budget friendly. In my opinion for under $300 you can really get involved and have a good chance to win the game sitting at a table of tuned cEDH decks that spared no expense. Yisan, the Wanderer Bard is mono but a lot of people say he plays like mono because the correct play pattern is to tutor your creatures as responses or on opponent's end steps. The deck does play like a control deck slowing your opponents until you get to verse 4 or 5 and then you either lay out a combo or simply reach your Seedborn Muse and verse into Craterhoof Behemoth to swing for lethal on your next turn.
If you don't want to build Yisan, the Wanderer Bard in a competitive light be aware he will still be very powerful because he is a repeatable tutor. Your games will not play out the same every game despite being able to tutor all your creatures because you will need different responses for different opponents you may even want to sub in some cards from the maybe board depending on your meta. This deck is a toolbox deck made to be able to answer threats from opponents and disable their combos until you can assemble a combo or just swing in huge or even infinite damage for a win.
Double Versing
Double versing is an important concept to grasp with Yisan, the Wanderer Bard and once you understand it it's very simple. Lets say Yisan, the Wanderer Bard has 2 verse counters with 6 or more mana available to you and an untapper on the battlefield. You can activate Yisan, the Wanderer Bard moving his verse counters up to 3, then maintaining priority untap Yisan, the Wanderer Bard and activate him again moving his verse counters up to 4. Because adding a verse counter to Yisan, the Wanderer Bard is part of the cost for his ability this will allow you to tutor two 4 CMC creatures instead of a 3 mana and a 4 mana creature. This is important for assembling the first combo of the deck because you need two creatures that are both at 4 CMC. This can be handy at any verse count as you may need two creatures at the same CMC to win the game or stop an opponent from winning the game. If you want to tutor two different CMC creatures simply pass priority in-between Yisan activations.
Notable Combos
Infinite + untaps + ETB effects
Wirewood Symbiote + Karametra's Acolyte + Temur Sabertooth + any elf
This combo will give you infinite , infinite untaps and infinite enter the battlefield effects, here's how it works. As long as Karametra's Acolyte taps for 5 or more mana you activate her for 5 mana, then you use Wirewood Symbiote to untap Karametra's Acolyte, returning an elf to your hand, you then spend 2 of your 5 floating mana to use Temur Sabertooth's ability returning Wirewood Symbiote to your hand. You then use 2 of your remaining 3 floating mana to replay Wirewood Symbiote and your elf that was bounced to your hand with his ability. You have now netted 1 and can repeat this infinite times for infinite mana. The reason you must bounce Wirewood Symbiote is to get around his ability only being available once per turn, if you bounce him and replay him he is technically considered a new Wirewood Symbiote and can be used again, this also gives you infinite untaps on your other creatures, most importantly Yisan. From this point you can use Yisan to tutor your win conditions, which are usually getting infinite Craterhoof Behemoth Enter the battlefield triggers or infinite Triskelions for direct damage using Temur Sabertooth's ability. This combo seems tough to assemble because you need 4 different creatures but with Yisan it is easy and reliable to assemble around turn 5. Note that another creature may be subbed in for Karametra's Acolyte as long as it taps for 5 or more mana, usually the backups are Priest of Titania or Selvala, Heart of the Wilds but it is most often Karametra's Acolyte that I like to use if I can because she almost always taps for more than 5 mana.
Weaknesses of this combo:
This combo is done at sorcery speed which is a weakness if your opponents have interaction. This combo can not be pulled off can not be done if Karametra's Acolyte or similar overgrown mana dork has summoning sickness, in a perfect world we would give her haste with an effect like Lightning Greaves, Crashing Drawbridge or Swiftfoot Boots. We do not live in a perfect world so this is not always possible.
Infinite + untaps + Infinitely large creatures
Priest of Titania OR Karametra's Acolyte OR Selvala, Heart of the Wilds + Umbral Mantle
If you have a creature that taps for 4 or more mana, again usually Karametra's Acolyte or Priest of Titania or Selvala, Heart of the Wilds + Umbral Mantle you may tap the creature for 4 mana and use 3 mana to activate umbral mantle giving the creature +2/+2 each time and untapping it, you simply do this infinite times to generate infinite mana and consequently giving your mana producer infinite power and toughness. You can use this infinite mana in conjunction with Umbral Mantle's equip ability to pass it around to other creatures and untap them as well assembling a similar finish to the previous combo. although this combo is only two cards it is actually a little harder to assemble than the previous combo because you have to draw into the Umbral Mantle instead of tutoring but still that's very hard at all. If the creature produces just 3 mana you can still give it infinite power and toughness. It is also notable that when using Umbral Mantle with Selvala, Heart of the Wilds the +2/+2 effect of Umbral Mantle will make Selvala, Heart of the Wilds bigger and thus make her tap for more mana. This will push her over the threshold to generate infinite mana. Sometimes it is wise to sink some mana into this to pull off the combo and for this reason the preferred creature for this combo is Selvala, Heart of the Wilds but all three work.
Staff of Domination can be used similarly to Umbral Mantle. If you are using Staff of Domination then your creature must produce at least 5 mana to generate infinite mana and it will allow you to draw your entire library and gain infinite life.
Weaknesses of this combo:
This combo has the same weakness as the previous combo being that if your mana producing creature has summoning sickness then you'll just have to wait. This combo is a little less likely to draw suspicion and interaction if you hold the Umbral Mantle in your hand and continue to control your opponents until your mana producer is ready. Once the Umbral Mantle is played and equipped the rest of the interaction can be done at instant speed to generate infinite mana, but equipping is sorcery speed so we will not get the infinite untaps at instant speed.
Infinite plus Infinite untaps.
If you have Quirion Ranger and Ashaya, Soul of the Wild and any creature that taps for 2 or more mana you can tap that creature for 2 mana then use Quirion Ranger's ability to untap it but because of Ashaya, Soul of the Wild's ability we return the Quirion Ranger to hand because she is a forest. Then we can use one mana floating to replay Quirion Ranger and because she left and reentered the battlefield her once per turn restriction is gone so we can keep looping this for infinite mana. once you have the infinite mana floating you can also use Quirion Ranger to untap Yisan or whatever else you need and just bounce and replay her.
If you are interested in learning these combos better than I can explain them I would recommend you take a look at some YouTube videos on Yisan, the Wanderer Bard, the visualization available on YouTube can help clarify a lot.
Stax package and control.
Stax
In this deck you will be using stax to slow down your opponents. At no point will you ever hard lock the game but you will put speedbumps in the way of opponents trying to combo out. If you are familiar with your opponent's deck and know what combo piece they are looking for you can shut them down with Pithing Needle or Phyrexian Revoker. This can even be used to shut down many commanders who use activated abilities. Sneakily with Pithing Needle you could name a fetch land, since fetching is not a mana ability, remember you do not need to name a card until these cards resolve, so don't give away what you're naming until then.
If you know your opponent is playing a deck like Urza, Lord High Artificer or similar artifact based combo decks then Collector Ouphe and Null Rod will buy you enough time to pull off your own win conditions. These can also be useful when your opponents have a lot of mana rocks and you do not, even the playing field by shutting those rocks down.
Trinisphere is another very useful stax piece against decks looking to use combos such as Elsha of the Infinite + Sensei's Divining Top + Foundry Inspector, this and other similar cost reduction combos will have to get past Trinisphere before they can get the ball rolling. Trinisphere is also great against storm strategies and will cause a gigantic loss of tempo for any deck looking to play multiple cheap spells meanwhile once Yisan is on the battlefield you wont be playing much of anything from your hand.
Winter Orb is another great stax piece in this deck because you will be able to get your mana from mana producing creatures while your opponents are slowed to a crawl. you can even get ahead of winter orb by using things like Wild Growth and Utopia Sprawl making the one land you do untap each turn worth twice as much as your opponent's.
All of these stax pieces will slow your opponents down and if they want to get going again they will have to use removal spells, this is great for you because not only are your opponents losing tempo while you are simply building your verse count but you are exhausting all of their removal so that they wont have much left when you go to combo out.
Control
If your opponent is playing a graveyard strategy or a graveyard combo like Worldgorger Dragon + Animate Dead then Scavenging Ooze is the perfect card to stop them before they ever get started, if they do manage to get started we could grab Reclamation Sage or Caustic Caterpillar or Viridian Zealot to destroy their win condition.
With the banning of Flash in EDH I'm not really sure if there will be new Protean Hulk strategies floating around but if there are we can grab Ravenous Slime from our maybe board to shut them down as well.
If an opponent is using a Thassa's Oracle or Laboratory Maniac strategy to win You, the player can respond at instant speed by putting Selvala's Enforcer onto the battlefield with their Thassa's Oracle on the stack, forcing them to draw a card with an empty library and lose the game.
This deck has the answers to every other powerful strategy played in EDH available, the challenge in piloting this deck is to know what your opponents want to do with their decks and be ready to shut them down either before they even have a chance to try or while they think they're winning. This is a lot of what makes this deck fun to play, it will play out differently every single game depending on what you're up against. This deck will reward you for knowing opponent's strategies. Many players will not expect the player to have instant speed responses because Yisan, the Wanderer Bard is really the only commander that can enable this.
This deck, like all decks, has some weaknesses. If you find yourself up against Yisan, the Wanderer Bard then you can exploit these weaknesses to give yourself the advantage. Yisan's biggest weakness is board wipes, especially board wipes that do not "destroy" creatures. These board wipes, specifically Toxic Deluge and Cyclonic Rift are near impossible to respond to in , your Heroic Intervention doesn't help at all here. Wiping the board will set back the Yissan player at least a turn or two. By wiping the board you are disproportionately effecting the Yisan player because a lot of the mana you rely on in this deck comes from creatures. Another weakness for Yisan are simple cheap cards like Unsummon, resetting Yisan's verse counters can be a huge setback and while there are ways to stop targeted removal using cards like Sylvan Safekeeper or Heroic Intervention these are often unreliable. Even in the best case scenario if an opponent casts a removal spell targeting Yissan or another important creature you will fall behind in mana spent compared to your opponents. As a player going against Yisan, the Wanderer Bard you should barrage him with board wipes and removal spells if you think he is going to pull off the win, even if it means using your Demonic Tutor to find a Toxic Deluge or similar card this will always be worth it and will set back the Yisan player much more than you might expect. This deck is resilient and can lose some of its pieces and still combo out if left alone for too long, so keep that in mind. Don't forget to progress your own win conditions when facing this matchup. To win you must know what to remove and when to remove it, let the Yisan player put out all of their pieces and then wipe their board for maximum impact, but be careful Yisan operates at instant speed and you have to know when to stop the Yisan player the turn before their combos are available.
You like a very powerful deck that plays consistently but not the same every game.
You like to make a lot of decisions in any given game, this can be what to tutor, how to stop an opponent, which opponents need stopping first, or how you plan to win.
You like being able to adapt to your opponent's playstyle.
You like playing control or toolbox commanders.
You want everyone to be confused when the mono green player says "In response" and then actually shuts down an opponent
You want to win some packs at your LGS when they open back up.
You want to shut down your friends if they have a powerful deck that frustrates you.
Your playgroup wont be salty if you sprinkle in some stax effects.
Trimming to Fit Your Budget
I've been updating this deck over time and will continue to do so, as a result the price is creeping up generally. Some expensive cards I've chosen to use but can be trimmed without weakening the deck too much are:
Yavimaya Hollow is much nicer than Pendelhaven but also expensive and reserved so only getting more expensive, you don't need it.
Pendelhaven especially the legends print one is expensive and its saved me maybe 3 times in 2 years playing the deck. I just happened to have a copy and its a little better than a basic forest.
Mirri's Guile its great but I almost never want it turn 1 and its expensive cut this card if I don't first
Strip Mine and Wasteland are good additions to your deck and allow for some brutal plays sometimes but you wont be disappointed to just get a forest
most of the time. *I would be much more hesitant to run these lands if I wasn't playing a mono color.
Mana Crypt, great in every deck but not necessary. Trimming this card will save u a big chunk of money, like 20% of the budget of the deck. It's nice to have early as it enables turn 1 Yisan, the Wanderer Bard but this is rare to achieve and can be a dead draw later in the game because of cards like Collector Ouphe or Null Rod. In a lot of situations in order to stop others you will destroy or cripple your own mana crypt around turn 2-3, this is the first card id trim to save some money.
Null Rod is now an expensive $50+ card but it wasn't always so I had a few copies lying around my collection. you don't need it, it's not worth its price unless you're really being competitive however it is reserved list so it'll only go up in the future.
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, she's honestly not a star outside comboing in this deck. The reason I got her at all is I found a good deal, she works well but isn't needed.
Craterhoof Behemoth, he costs over $40 and does the same thing as Great Oak Guardian in your combo (wins the game). He is great but we don't really need him so if you want to run lean cut him.
Do not cheap out on the stax package, you need it to have any chance at a competitive table.
