GB Rhys - Gravepact Elves

[ISBPathfinder]

Well, sometimes you get close and just have to run off so this is me posting this idea real quick. I had been playing from a naya elves list recently and I wanted to shift to something a little more interactive rather than just trying to race as fast as I can go. The downside of my change in design to this commander an my approach is that my win conditions feel a bit more lacking but the control goes way up. I wanted to be something that felt a little more scrappy like it could survive being swept which I didn't get the impression of from my naya build and I also like being able to control my opponents with several of the golgari tools that I didn't feel I could really utilize with the naya build.

Starting out with this build I was thinking about ETB and Dies trigger elves and then recurring them a bunch. I still have some recursion in my list but I also didn't find aristocrats that appealing of a direction as a lot of the support for that fell outside of the elves domain which pushed me away from that a little. I also think that giving mass forestwalk and crunching in on a player might be reasonable especially with Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth in the list.

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

COMMANDER (1)

1 Rhys the Exiled

CREATURES (38)

1 Deathrite Shaman

1 Elvish Reclaimer

1 Heritage Druid

1 Skyshroud Ranger

1 Wirewood Symbiote

1 Eladamri, Lord of Leaves

1 Elvish Visionary

1 Elvish Warmaster

1 Masked Vandal

1 Miara, Thorn of the Glade

1 Priest of Titania

1 Skemfar Avenger

1 Wellwisher

1 Wirewood Herald

1 Wirewood Hivemaster

1 Elvish Archdruid

1 Elvish Champion

1 Elvish Rejuvenator

1 Farhaven Elf

1 Harald, King of Skemfar

1 Llanowar Visionary

1 Realmwalker

1 Reclamation Sage

1 Springbloom Druid

1 Wood Elves

1 Beast Whisperer

1 Erebos, Bleak-Hearted

1 Golgari Findbroker

1 Immaculate Magistrate

1 Lys Alana Huntmaster

1 Nullmage Shepherd

1 Oracle of Mul Daya

1 Poison-Tip Archer

1 Toski, Bearer of Secrets

1 Elvish Dreadlord

1 Ruthless Winnower

1 Thornmantle Striker

1 Wolverine Riders

ARTIFACT (6)

1 Nihil Spellbomb

1 Skullclamp

1 Sol Ring

1 Pyre of Heroes

1 Birthing Pod

1 Bolas's Citadel

ENCHANTMENT (8)

1 Earthcraft

1 Prowess of the Fair

1 Growing Rites of Itlimoc

1 Journey to Eternity

1 Necropotence

1 Grave Pact

1 Guardian Project

1 Dictate of Erebos

INSTANT (3)

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Urborg Justice

1 Corpse Dance

SORCERY (9)

1 Green Sun's Zenith

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Diabolic Intent

1 Finale of Devastation

1 Pact of the Serpent

1 Crippling Fear

1 Eyeblight Massacre

1 Living Death

1 In Garruk's Wake

PLANESWALKER (1)

1 Liliana, Dreadhorde General

LAND (34)

1 Bayou

1 Bloodstained Mire

1 Cavern of Souls

1 Command Tower

1 Deathcap Glade

9 Forest

1 Gilt-Leaf Palace

1 Marsh Flats

1 Misty Rainforest

1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

1 Opal Palace

1 Overgrown Tomb

1 Polluted Delta

1 Rogue's Passage

1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse

4 Swamp

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

1 Verdant Catacombs

1 Volrath's Stronghold

1 Windswept Heath

1 Wooded Foothills

1 Woodland Chasm

1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

Approximate Total Cost:

Considering:

• Pattern of Rebirth
• Nylea, God of the Hunt
• Rhonas the Indomitable
• Bolas's Citadel

[Ulka]

Needs more Lich effects such as Lich's Mastery to turn the elfball swing into massive card draws

[Shabbaman]

I made Lathril because I always wanted to turn my old 60 card Prowess of the Fair deck into an EDH deck. So, yay Golgari Elves! My personal preference is not to run Grave Pact though, but having played Pact for ages... I think you could need a few more sacrifice outlets. I like Vampiric Rites (another lifegain trigger) and Evolutionary Leap. Fallen Ideal can be brutal (but it can suck most of the time as well). My favorite? Plumb the Forbidden.

For a finisher you could look at Throne of the God-Pharaoh.

Needs more Lich effects such as Lich's Mastery to turn the elfball swing into massive card draws

This is a nice idea.

[Ruiner]

I run a GB Abomination of Llanowar deck (list in my signature if interested) and while my list is very much of the full of aggro style which you are not really going for, I think there are a few cards I run that you aren't currently that would be rather useful.

Ezuri, Renegade Leader really helps when you have tons of mana going as a way to push through some significant damage. This could easily be a finisher option.

Tyvar Kell has a mix of just generally useful abilities.

Immaculate Magistrate, if it sticks it can get out of control pretty quick with anything that gets evasion/trample. Also fun to use on opponent's creatures when someone decides to not block (although thats risky when it decides to come for you).

Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord is another sac outlet that can do some damage. Might be a decent backup if your commander gets taxed out but you still need a sac outlet.

[ISBPathfinder]

Ok, I made some adjustments to the list to get it down to 100 cards. Unfortunately I can't remember exactly what I cut but I did add Immaculate Magistrate and Numa, Joraga Chieftain to add a little bit of a potential wincon to this list as it was feeling maybe a little bit not great before. I think I still need to test and see some more things as I wasn't blown away by these ideas especially given that my commander doesn't gain much for evasion in most cases. I still think some of the green pump gods could be an option but I am going to explore some more options.

I played my first game with the deck tonight and I think I got really lucky in that game. I ended up with Skemfar Avenger in my opener and drew Oracle of Mul Daya on curve so my curve out play was looking really good. I got an early Journey to Eternity and setup to abuse some stuff with Prowess of the Fair which was fun. I got really nice and set up but then an opponent with a Grave Pact got another player to play Ryusei, the Falling Star which I thought I was fairly well defended from with Prowess of the Fair but my opponents ganged up and spot removed it and then chained all the removal off. I ended up drawing like 24 cards thanks to an opponents Fecundity and my Skemfar Avenger.

The next turn I just shot out a tonnnn of elves using Heritage Druid to play out a bunch of cheap elves and then Nykthos to finish it off. I played out Guardian Project just to keep things going mid turn but I ended up putting something like 10-12 elves into play this turn with Elvish Warmaster and Wolverine Riders which side note I missed that the warmaster creates tokens from the riders but the following turn a mix of mass forestwalk from Eladamri, Lord of Leaves and I 4x activated Elvish Warmaster to turn my elves into a bunch of massive beaters to murder my enemies.

Sooooooooo that was just one game but I was reasonably impressed with things. I think I want a few more winconditions and perhaps a tad more draw options but I really don't have a good enough baseline to push too much around yet.

Needs more Lich effects such as Lich's Mastery to turn the elfball swing into massive card draws

I think I am a bit leery of the all in nature of these cards as well as the fact that elves don't seem to defend that well in general often lacking size and flying. I want to use my commander's lifegain as a resource mostly but also something to buffer me against decks with a lot of chip damage like opposing aristocrats.

Slightly unrelated but I actually quite liked my commander choice for this list. He gained me something like 20 life in I think just three attacks before he got swept out by a combination of sweeping my board and edicts following it. If not for the fact that both things happened I think him staying in play and being sticky is really nice.

I made Lathril because I always wanted to turn my old 60 card Prowess of the Fair deck into an EDH deck. So, yay Golgari Elves! My personal preference is not to run Grave Pact though, but having played Pact for ages... I think you could need a few more sacrifice outlets. I like Vampiric Rites (another lifegain trigger) and Evolutionary Leap. Fallen Ideal can be brutal (but it can suck most of the time as well). My favorite? Plumb the Forbidden.

For a finisher you could look at Throne of the God-Pharaoh.

Needs more Lich effects such as Lich's Mastery to turn the elfball swing into massive card draws

This is a nice idea.

Grave Pacts - I am a bit undecided. I just really like going a little more control based especially given how proactive elves can be I really wanted to take an approach that wasn't just racing as fast as I could. I am not saying I couldn't get off of the pacts but I think a big selling point of going for disposable elves with a sac outlet commander is being able to trigger cheap sac effects.

I do think I want to look a bit more into some of the non elf stuff that could support what I am doing. Lifeline for instance might be a card that makes a lot of sense just looping the hell out of things like Wood Elves. I really haven't done nearly enough looking into the support cards and its on my to do list but it might also take me playing the list a few more times to really figure out what is and isn't working. This is a bit off topic but I went into a side note after talking about Grave Pact about support cards.

Throne of the God-Pharaoh - Yea it could be something to explore. Its nice in that it plays well with some of the tap for mana effects but I also don't think I am scaling my creature counts up as high as I really want for this. Its also hard to justify some things like this where the point is going super wide on a non elf card just from the standpoint of how many cards I could look at that fall into go wide non elf cards. I think something like this also competes against overrun effects and if I really wanted to go into making this work I would possibly want to scale up some of the support cards to make my things tapped like getting more Cryptolith Rite type effects.

I run a GB Abomination of Llanowar deck (list in my signature if interested) and while my list is very much of the full of aggro style which you are not really going for, I think there are a few cards I run that you aren't currently that would be rather useful.

Ezuri, Renegade Leader really helps when you have tons of mana going as a way to push through some significant damage. This could easily be a finisher option.

Tyvar Kell has a mix of just generally useful abilities.

Immaculate Magistrate, if it sticks it can get out of control pretty quick with anything that gets evasion/trample. Also fun to use on opponent's creatures when someone decides to not block (although thats risky when it decides to come for you).

Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord is another sac outlet that can do some damage. Might be a decent backup if your commander gets taxed out but you still need a sac outlet.

Ezuri, Renegade Leader - It might be something I look at. Originally I didn't think my creature count would get that high as I sacrifice some of my count as a means to draw cards so my fear was that I wouldn't be able to make a wide enough board. I need more testing I think before I go one way or the other on this I think.

Tyvar Kell - My fear is my inability to defend it. I don't have much for big elves or flyers / reach creatures so I just don't want to get into walkers much because I don't feel confident in playing defense for them.

Immaculate Magistrate - I added it to the list before playing but I wasn't that impressed with how it turned out. I got to tap it once before getting swept off the board and if it wasn't for the fact that it was a combination of damage sweeping with edicts with removing my enchantment to make elves on death I guess it might have saved something relevant. I need to test more but it did feel slow and clunky.

Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord - my concern is mostly that my creatures are tiny. He might be decent sized but also lacks evasion and sacrificing other elves for his ability doesn't seem very good outside of pairing him with Immaculate Magistrate.

---

Its late and I should go to bed. I don't have much for changes right now but I do want to look more into the enabling cards, maybe a little more draw, and possibly one more win condition for the deck. I think I need to do some looking at cards for a bit and possibly take this deck out for another spin in testing.

[ISBPathfinder]

Ok, I am still not entirely sure what my plan is on win conditions but I don't think its so bad that this deck can't win. I want to do a bit more testing before I really commit to much on that front just because I prefer a deck that functions well over one that has winconditions that sit in hand until the right moment. In my one and only test game I felt like I went through about half of my deck with some luck in that an opponent gave me a Fercundity (I will have to keep it in mind as a potential card for this deck). I want to push my draw a little harder for now and see how that plays out.

DECK CHANGES:

• Numa, Joraga Chieftain → Poison-Tip Archer I think this is a bit of a wincon for a wincon situation. I wasn't expecting to move as many bodies through play as I was so I think I want to see how the Poison Tip goes. I was thinking I was going to be working with a little more control and lower creature counts in play. I think Numa needs a little bit more big mana supporting it than I currently have set up to do.
• Deathrender → Pact of the Serpent I like Deathrender but I think it also has an assumption that I am able to have and maintain card draw. I wanted a little more draw in the list so cutting something a little clunky and expensive that needs to be supported by good draw seems like the way to go. I could possibly see it coming back in later I just need to test with a little more draw for now.
• Agadeem's Awakening → Bolas's Citadel I feel like Agadeem's is a bit of a weird rez spell for this deck while it does work I don't think that the value add is actually that great for this list when comparing it to some of the other non elf enablers I could have. Citadel for instance seems like a good value engine given that my commander has baked in lifegain and the sac 10 permenants thing could help me close out games potentially as well as being a good move mid sweeper. It seems like a reasonable card for what I am doing here and I would love to see how it plays out here. I did see Agadeem's in the game I highlighted previously but it was essentially just not that mana efficient if I was maintaining good draw.

I also need to keep an eye on how the Birthing Pod effects play. I drew a pod late last game and it wasn't impressive but that was also due to having drawn like 20 cards that turn. I want to keep an eye on how they perform because I wasn't that impressed with it so far but that might just be an outlier situation. It does take some mana and a card to move other cards around which mostly only matters for ETB, dies, and powerful utility effects so its just a question of how useful they are vs just playing more to the board. Its something to watch for now.

[Arebennian]

So this is the Archidekt account for one of the Podcasts I listen to religiously. This idea seems to have some legs and you might be able to get some ideas from it:

https://archidekt.com/decks/2803140#Jah ... aunted_One

[ISBPathfinder]

So, this deck has actually done fairly well but also I feel like some of the elements I wanted for it to work with haven't panned out. The Grave Pact tactics have been hard to set up and getting my commander out with a bunch of chaff to sacrifice with B mana per creature to sac on top of casting one of these things has been hard enough that I essentially haven't yet cast one of them. Some of this is a problem that the deck as a whole is so green heavy outside of sacrificing but trying to multi sac after having set up a large enough board on top of casting them is just a lot of work and in a lot of cases tokens have become popular enough that I have had a hard time seeing a good outcome for them.

Moving on from that though I think a lot of the the pay life for draw and then replenish with my commander has been really cool. My concern though is that it feels like I am shifting back to a go wide elf strat that pumps mana and draw which I find..... kind of boring. I did manage to get Bolas's Citadel out once and chain a bunch of cards through it before walking into a Tragic Arrogance and the sac to do 10 to each opponent was sweet in that situation but unfortunately I needed a few more permanents as it left me with like.... one creature to do it but it was my choice of creature which was nice.

So, I have done some updates to this deck but I have sort of done them off the top of my head rather than planning them. I plan to play this deck a bit more and if I see an improvement I might stick to this deck but my issue with a lot of these green decks is that ramp + draw is just..... boring. I could do that with almost any green based deck and I don't currently see this deck as being all that unique in design that I am having copious amounts of fun or interest in continuing the project. For now, its fine I just don't know that this one is going the distance for me.