Ashaya, Soul of the Wild - The Forests are Alive!

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

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Ashaya, Soul of the Wild - The Forests are Alive!

Creatures (Forest relevant)

Artifacts (nonland removal)

Artifacts (mana)

Artifacts (Other)

Approximate Total Cost:


Ashaya, Soul of the Wild makes all your nontoken creatures into a Forest, so you can get a mana dork from every creature in your deck as well their normal versatility.
Given this the deck is creature utility heavy and just like any decent mono-Green deck it aims to make larges amount of mana and draws lots of cards.

Nonland removal
Because a lot of removal in Magic is specifically worded with "nonland" we are looking to make good use of this.
Oblivion Stone, Boompile, Perilous Vault all specifically say destroy/exile nonland permanents, which means that all your creatures will remain in play while opponents go..Boom!
With this in mind keeping non-creatures to a premium only minimum is beneficial so that you are not destroying your own permanents that much.

Some graveyard recursion with lands to get them back so we can keep putting opponents under the gun with Bala Ged Recovery, Buried Ruin, Sequestered Stash.

Of note opponents trying to play out their own removal like Cyclonic Rift, Devastation Tide, Hour of Revelation, etc will fail to effect your creatures with the "nonland" clauses. Oh God yes!

Infinite mana
You can get infinite mana with Argothian Elder, Krosan Restorer, Ley Weaver as you can simply untap themselves as one of targets to keep looping.

Magus of the Candelabra and Hope Tender can also give you infinite mana but you need a land(s) or creature that provide additional mana from single sources.
Mana doublers in Nyxbloom Ancient, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger, Nissa, Who Shakes the World, Leyline of Abundance, Zendikar Resurgent will enable this.
These land also Gaea's Cradle or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun with enough creatures.
Incubation Druid or Selvala, Heart of the Wilds while providing at least 3 mana will give you infinite mana with Magus of the Candelabra or Hope Tender.

Untapping your Forest Creatures
Other cards that untap Forest/lands are Arbor Elf, Quirion Ranger, Scryb Ranger, Nissa, Worldwaker, Deserted Temple.

Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger are special in that you can use them to protect your creatures by returning them to your hand if targeted for removal. You can also untap one of your creatures to get additional mana as well.

But they are amazing (game winning in fact) as you can also get infinite ETB or cast triggers with them potentially as you can return themselves back to hand (as Forest) to recast.
So if you have Glimpse of Nature, Beast Whisperer, Guardian Project, The Great Henge, Nissa, Vital Force (emblem) then you can just keep returning the Quirion Ranger itself back to hand (as your Forest) and untap a creature to recast it. As it's a fresh copy you can get around the "once per turn" clause.
Scryb Ranger costs more of course so you need a mana doubler or some other creature that produces at least 2 mana to be able to loop.

Any mana doubler with Quirion Ranger will give you infinite mana.

Another great value sequence is to return Elvish Visionary or Wall of Blossoms to untap another creature with Quirion Ranger or Scryb Ranger if you don't specifically have infinite available.

Nissa, Worldwaker not only can provide additional mana, but allow you to untap your creatures for potentially blocking or {t} abilities.

Magus of the Candelabra is able to untap any number of your creatures, so you are at an advantage when it comes to attacking and then untapping for blocks potentially or just using it to get value out of {t} abilities.

Given that there are lots of ways to untap your creatures you can gain card draw through Magus of the Library, Deal Broker, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard multiple if not infinite times in a turn.
For example you can use these with Argothian Elder, Krosan Restorer, Ley Weaver to filter through your deck.

Lands matter, but not needing lands
Because your creatures are Forests, you'll get triggers for cards that have landfall or specifically says lands entering the battlefield, every time you cast a creature.

With Lotus Cobra you can get a mana for each creature you cast.
Similar with Stone-Seeder Hierophant each time you put a creature into play you'll get to untap Stone-Seeder. Imagine this with Gaea's Cradle or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx you are going to have as much mana as you need to keep casting creatures.

Tireless Tracker will give you a Clue for each creature you cast.

Given the importance of some lands, Elvish Reclaimer and Crop Rotation help to make this consistent.

Sylvan Safekeeper can actually sacrifice a creature to provide protection. Often for long-term planning you want to actually keep your normal lands around as creature board sweepers are more common than mass land destruction.
Same with Elvish Reclaimer or Crop Rotation you can sacrifice a creature (say one that is being targeted for removal) to get a land.

Normally I don't play many anthem effects in my decks, but getting +2/+2 to all your creatures with Sylvan Advocate is pretty nice.

Courser of Kruphix means that you also gain life off casting your creatures.

Evolution Sage will mean that you can keep putting counter on your permanents each time you cast a creature. So this makes ultimate your planeswalkers very feasible in a single turn. The Great Henge can give your creatures +1/+1 counters as well. If you've ever played with or against Cathars' Crusade you'll know how out of hand that can get.

Avenger of Zendikar will get more bonuses because your land count is going to include your creatures, and then you get landfall triggers off casting creatures. Trust me your opponents have exactly one turn to deal with the plants.

Field of the Dead is much easier to turn on the "7 lands" and also will get triggered by each creature you cast as they all have different names.

Remember that we have the Quirion Ranger infinite loop, so all of these will get triggered infinite times with this creature.

Tons of mana, Tons of draw
Given that you can produce so much mana with just your creature base and combining with Ashaya, Soul of the Wild it makes sense to have a decent amount of draw to fuel more action.

Because the deck is creature heavy using Vizier of the Menagerie, Vivien, Monsters' Advocate, Glimpse of Nature, Beast Whisperer, Guardian Project, The Great Henge, Zendikar Resurgent, Nissa, Vital Force, Shamanic Revelation, Regal Force, as a way to constantly have cards to cast.
Note you need to get Nissa, Vital Force emblem which only requires surviving a turn, but it says "Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may draw a card." so you'll get the triggers with your creatures as well as your natural land drops.

Also Ashaya, Soul of the Wild can be a huge creature with stats equal to number of creatures you control so Return of the Wildspeaker and Garruk, Primal Hunter can draw you tons of cards potentially.

There are mana sinks in Duskwatch Recruiter and Nylea, Keen-Eyed.
Green Sun's Zenith, Finale of Devastation, Genesis Wave are once off mana sinks as well.

Other fun stuff
Timber Protector will give your creatures indestructible.

If you can get Nissa, Who Shakes the World emblem then all your creatures will have indestructible.

Concordant Crossroads will mean that you can tap your creatures for mana straight away. During turns where you have mana doublers and continuous draw cards you are just going to get massive turns.

Boundless Realms is not only going to allow you to search for more lands with creatures also included in the count, but it's easy to cast as well with the general makeup of creatures tapping for mana.

Yisan, the Wanderer Bard means that you can setup Quirion Ranger combos easily as you can then get say Incubation Druid to get infinite mana. You'll get as mana Yisan, the Wanderer Bard activation's as you want then so Beast Whisperer is going to allow you to draw your deck.

Thespian's Stage and Vesuva can be used to copy one of your creatures. You can hold up Thespian's Stage so that if an opponent goes to say kill Ashaya, Soul of the Wild you can copy it with the Stage and let the real one die but you get to keep the Stage copy around.
Crop Rotation or Elvish Reclaimer can be used at instant speed with Vesuva for this same outcome.

Anything else that could combo with Ashaya, Soul of the Wild?
Manascape Refractor is not in the deck, but is a card that could easily be used to combo with Ashaya, Soul of the Wild in a similar way that Necrotic Ooze is used to combo from graveyard.
So you could have say Grim Poppet and Devoted Druid to get infinite mana and kill all opponents creatures.
Walking Ballista and Phyrexian Devourer to deal as much damage as the rest of the converted mana costs in your deck.
There will be plenty of them, but the deck already combos easily with less dedicated cards, but I just wanted people to know there are possibilities with Manascape Refractor.

Storm Cauldron has what would seem the dubious ability of returning your creatures to hand when tapping them for mana, but with the right combination of a cards this can lead to infinite's.
You'd need continuous haste enabler to get infinite ETB and cast triggers.
You'd need a mana doubler to get infinite mana from any one drop creature, as you can just keep recasting it and as long as it can pay for itself and have left over mana.
Last edited by darrenhabib 3 years ago, edited 5 times in total.

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benjameenbear
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Post by benjameenbear » 3 years ago

Bless you, @darrenhabib for compiling this. While mono-Green isn't my jam, your theory-crafting is always welcome and I think you've got a solid vision for the combo potential that Ashaya brings. Respect.

Why no mana dorks? They serve a dual purpose in accelerating out Ashaya and triggering Landfall effects and are easy to recycle with the return-an-elf-to-hand effects.

Time to run Armageddon again in Kaalia...

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Outcryqq
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Post by Outcryqq » 3 years ago

I've been happy throwing Temur Sabertooth into all of my creature-heavy decks with green and have been really happy with how it has performed. He'd be another way to protect your commander. Looking over your list I think you only have 4: Scryb Ranger, Quirion Ranger, Timber Protector, and Heroic Intervention, 5 if you include Sylvan Safekeeper. Sabertooth would give you another way to protect your commander, a source of bounce if you want it for any ETB effects you like, and he comes down before your commander, which is relevant.

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Hawk
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Post by Hawk » 3 years ago

It's very simple but I wonder if Voyaging Satyr has a place here. It only goes infinite with a mana doubler making it a "bad Arbor Elf but every little bit of power matters right?

I also wonder about Crashing Drawbridge as another way to keep hasting your new Forest-men to go all the way in a single turn.

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

benjameenbear wrote:
3 years ago
Bless you, @darrenhabib for compiling this. While mono-Green isn't my jam, your theory-crafting is always welcome and I think you've got a solid vision for the combo potential that Ashaya brings. Respect.

Why no mana dorks? They serve a dual purpose in accelerating out Ashaya and triggering Landfall effects and are easy to recycle with the return-an-elf-to-hand effects.

Time to run Armageddon again in Kaalia...
When Ashaya is in play they become textless cards as far as abilities so I wanted to keep the creature base as interesting as possible.
I actually had land ramp creatures in the original draft with Sakura-Tribe Elder, Wood Elves, Yavimaya Dryad, Springbloom Druid.
You can get double landfall triggers and even with Springbloom Druid triple triggers. The Springbloom can even sacrifice itself as the "land".
But as I kept finding new cards I wanted to include for versatility I ended up cutting these one-by-one as mana is taken care of by the Ashaya itself.
The deck does have a couple of mana dorks with Arbor Elf and Magus of the Library.

It is possible that Joraga Treespeaker and Elvish Mystic are better than Mana Crypt and Sol Ring in this deck, as they are creatures for the purposes of draw, landfall and surviving the nonland destruction cards.
I'm kind of talking myself into it.

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

Outcryqq wrote:
3 years ago
I've been happy throwing Temur Sabertooth into all of my creature-heavy decks with green and have been really happy with how it has performed. He'd be another way to protect your commander. Looking over your list I think you only have 4: Scryb Ranger, Quirion Ranger, Timber Protector, and Heroic Intervention, 5 if you include Sylvan Safekeeper. Sabertooth would give you another way to protect your commander, a source of bounce if you want it for any ETB effects you like, and he comes down before your commander, which is relevant.
Temur Sabertooth was on my radar. I've been a big user/abuser of using Sabertooth in my pseudo Prophet of Kruphix mono-Green decks with Seedborn Muse, Vivien, Champion of the Wilds, Yeva, Nature's Herald, Winding Canyons.
I like to return things like Regal Force and recast for big draw literally each opponents turn once I have the mana. Also nothing more satisfying than returning most/all of your creatures in response to a board wipe and then recasting them all again in the next opponents turn as you've been able to recast the Seedborn Muse.
I guess my point is that I've done this style to death and so I just wanted to avoid going down that path too much. If that makes sense once I put Temur Sabertooth and I already have Seedborn Muse and Winding Canyons in the deck then I'm like tempted to put in Vivien, Champion of the Wilds and Yeva, Nature's Herald and then I fall into my old play patterns.

But interestingly I was looking at Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar as a similar tech card like Temur Sabertooth. You can return two lands (i.e. creatures) at instant speed if he is in your graveyard. So I was looking to combine with Survival of the Fittest and Fauna Shaman.

If I did end up playing Temur Sabertooth and/or Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar then it would be nice to have a few more ETB creatures. This is where I might look to bring back in some land ramp creatures.

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

Hawk wrote:
3 years ago
It's very simple but I wonder if Voyaging Satyr has a place here. It only goes infinite with a mana doubler making it a "bad Arbor Elf but every little bit of power matters right?

I also wonder about Crashing Drawbridge as another way to keep hasting your new Forest-men to go all the way in a single turn.
I did look at Voyaging Satyr, but the thing is that it doesn't go infinite with anything. It can simply just keep tapping to untap itself and you are not adding mana, so a mana doubler doesn't do anything.
If you have Illusionist's Bracers equipped then you can go infinite.

I always forget that Crashing Drawbridge is a card that exists. It's a shame that once you tap it, any new creatures coming into play can't get haste, so it is not as good as Concordant Crossroads as far as getting massive turns drawing and casting creatures.
But it is a creature itself so helps with the whole creatures and lands matter. Could easily be an include.

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Gwathnar
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Post by Gwathnar » 3 years ago

I god this is such an awesome card,

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