I recently put myself up to the task of designing an EDH deck for every Return to Ravnica legendary creature, the only restrictions are that the deck must somehow play off the guild's new ability, no infinite combos, and must contain at least one of the following:
- a board wipe,
- a "suprise" win con,
- a late game "bruiser,"
- a card from the original Ravnica block.
This is the first one: Selesnya.
Trostani, Selesnya's Voice is a great card, really. Wizards, I applaud you for making a perfectly niche guildmaster, one that seamlessly complements the new guild mechanic for G/W. Uncle Landdrops even put her in the top 25 greatest guild-colored generals.
Populate is nice, especially if you can pop out multiple populate effects per turn. The result of unmitigated population is a deck that populates like rabbits, which can really make you pop out as a threat. Anyway, this mechanic gives a deck built around Trostani a heavy creature token flavor, naturally.
The three headed dryad's first, static ability, though, is really something to envy. Essence Warden, Soul Warden, and Soul's Attendant are all great life gain, but gaining life equal to a creature's toughness? Granted that this only triggers on your creatures, but even so, this type of life gain is absurd. How absurd? Enough to make me throw a Conjurer's Closet in my deck design.
Now, I'm not trying to make Trostani into some kind of crazy infinite-life-gain-combo-I-win-con. She is merely going to be one of many tools, certainly one of the sharpest tools in the shed, that will make the most out of the new populate mechanic, as well as increase the benefits of blinking. (But if you're interested in an infinite life gain combo, think about this: Parallel Lives + Spawnsire of Ulamog).
As much as a token/blink deck would be fun, I decided to place more emphasis on tokens and leave recurring "enter the battlefield"s to just the Closet and a Roaring Primadox.
Unfortunately for my blink design, most of Selesnya's creature token generation is instant or sorcery based, with only a few creatures capable of spitting out little dudes. The only creatures in the new set that can create more creatures are the Armada Wurm, Centaur's Herald, Precinct Captain, Seller of Songbirds, Trostani, Wayfaring Temple, and Worldspine Wurm. Although that seems like plenty, the Worldspine Wurm is actually quite negligable since his ability only triggers on his death, and the Precinct Captain needs to deal damage in order to create soldiers.
Most of the token spells in RTR are pretty high cost (4 or more), the only exception being Call of the Conclave, which as many say, is essentially a Watchwolf. Only the Call is much more overpowered combined with the new populate mechanic.
Mana ramp was hardly a question. This deck would employ many of the all-star EDH ramp cards, like Solemn Simulacrum, Boundless Realms, and Kodama's Reach. Also, several creatures with mana abilities were employed: Avacyn's Pilgrim, Llanowar, etc, etc.
I figure that this deck could really only have two win cons here, considering the track I built it on: crazy armies of centaurs or Felidar Sovereign, which is hardly a suprise win con, more of a backup plan in the event of a Sphere of Safety or other severe shutdown.
Many drafts of this deck appeared. I was semi-comfortable after coming up with this layout:
General: Trostani, Selesnya's Voice
Ceatures (24):
Armada Wurm
Avacyn's Pilgrim
Centaur's Herald
Elvish Visionary
Felidar Sovereign
Gatecreeper Vine
Llanowar Elves
Overgrown Battlement
Phantom General
Rhys the Redeemed
Roaring Primadox
Selesnya Guildmage
Seller of Songbirds
Solemn Simulacrum
Soul's Attendant
Steward of Valeron
Sunscape Familiar
Tolsimir Wolfblood
Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage
Wall of Blossoms
Wall of Omens
Wayfaring Temple
Wilt-Leaf Liege
Sorceries (12):
Boundless Realms
Call of the Conclave
Conqueror's Pledge
Cultivate
Explore
Harmonize
Hour of Reckoning
Kodama's Reach
Martial Coup
Overwhelming Stampede
Rampant Growth
Storm Herd
Instants (10)
Congregation at Dawn
Druid's Deliverance
Giant Growth
Harrow
Mercy Killing
Rootborn Defenses
Selesnya Charm
Sigil Blessing
Sundering Growth
White Sun's Zenith
Enchanments (8)
Doubling Season
Growing Ranks
Intangible Virtue
Parallel Lives
Primal Rage
Privileged Position
Rest in Peace
True Conviction
Artifacts (4):
Conjurer's Closet
Druidic Satchel
Selesnya Signet
Well of Lost Dreams
Planeswalkers (2):
Elspeth Tirel
Garruk, Primal Hunter
Land (40):
Arctic Flats
Bant Panorama
Elfhame Palace
Evolving Wilds
Forest (x13)
Gavony Township
Graypelt Refuge
Grove of the Guardian
Krosan Verge
Nantuko Monastery
Plains (x10)
Razorverge Thicket
Selesnya Guildgate
Selesnya Sanctuary
Stirring Wildwood
Sunpetal Grove
Terrain Generator
Terramorphic Expanse
Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
The first problem with this deck, coming from a broke college student mind-set, is that it's far from a Dollar General price. What's even worse is if it were a Dollar General deck, I don't forsee being able to play around with the Populate mechanic as efficiently as I would by incorporating many of the more expensive cards into the deck. With an estimated cost of $188.01 (estimate courtesy of Tappedout.net), this deck is painfully expensive; however, there are a few reasons why the deck may be worth the cost.
Armada Wurm is broke, plain and simple. For six mana, you get a total attacking power of 10, and if you play around with blink effects, you'll double the returns of this card. Simply magnificent.
Garruk, Primal Hunter has always been a great planeswalker, but populate turns great into ridiculous. If ever you're able to pop off Garruk's ultimate, your opponent has to play some kind of sweep effect,or else he may as well call game.
Doubling Season was from the original Ravnica, and it belongs in the revisit to Selesyna. With this enchantment, populate becomes twice as good and Gavony Township becomes twice as annoying.
Wilt-Leaf Liege has insurance against discard decks, but also proves to be a badass 4/4 that can buff your other creatures up substantially.
Well of Lost Dreams works especially well in this deck, considering Trostani's life gain ability. As long as creatures are entering your battlefield, and you have open mana, you can replenish your hand.
White Sun's Zenith: because I like cats. And because if this won't force that board sweep out of your opponent's hand, then you may have the game.
Storm Herd is better than White Sun's Zenith in two respects: you get flyers, and with Trostani, you've a greater chance of getting fifty tokens for ten mana. I put both in for the novelty of having ridiculous amounts of tokens. Both are definitely late game bruisers.
Hour of Reckoning is a perfect board sweep for this deck and Convoke (old school Selesnya) can be utterly abused in any token deck.
Martial Coup is another great board sweep, but I'd reserve it for tight spots. Unless you're facing a Stormtide Leviathan that was Rite of Rep-ed or an army of Angels, this one should stay in your hand.
Elspeth Tirel is terrible compared to Elspeth, Knight-Errant. That being said, Elspeth Tirel is still a great planeswalker, especially for the purposes of this deck. She provides excellent life gain (she likes the Well of Lost Dreams), token generation, and more importantly, a board sweep that encompasses artifacts, enchantments, and other planeswalkers while leaving creature tokens safe.
Privileged Position gives a broader range of protection than Asceticism, though it lacks a regenerate effect. But in all honesty, I can easily forgo regeneration if it means that my enchantments and planeswalkers are hexproof. Also, hybrid cost makes this card a tad more flexible than the 3GG needed for Asceticism.
Boundless Realms for me is less about mana ramp and more for bettering the odds of a game-winning draw. The cost of this card hardly makes it a "ramp" card. As much as I like having tons of land, I love not drawing lands after turn ten.
Felidar Sovereign is more than just a backup win con. It's a life saver. The 4WW mana cost is worth every bit for a 4/6 Vigilance, Lifelink cat beast.
Rhys the Redeemed can not only spit out elves, but he can double your creature tokens, making you an exponential threat on the board.
Tolsimir Wolfblood is the original Selesnya badass, with a liege-effect, and the ability of creating a badass legendary wolf token. 'Nuff said.
Rest in Peace was actually put in this deck due to my severe disdain of most graveborn decks and to take care of pesky flashback spells.
Gavony Township, Intangible Virtue, Selesnya Guildmage, and Phantom General all have board-wide buff effects, as far as tokens are concerned.
True Conviction turns Centaurs into life-gaining monstrosities.
Now let me go on a rant about why Selesnya Charm is possibly the greatest G/W instant... EVER! First of all, it is an instant, something that green and white don't have too many of. Second, it has three possible effects. All of the charms, save for the Rakdos Charm, are exceptional cards, but in EDH, Selesyna may have my vote. First of the possible effects is giving one of your creatures a crucial +2/+2 boost and trample, which is completely worth GW. The second choice is what makes this so EDH worthy: exile target creature with power 5 or greater. Thundermaw Hellkite? Bye bye. Ulamog? Not on my list of worries. Worldspine Worm? A joke card to begin with. The third of the charm's choices is also a game saver, or an early start to some population. 2/2 knight with vigilance? Yes, that is quite splendid.
Now that I've justified some of my choices, I have to point out the deck's weak points. That's right, a deck this expensive has many a fault. Burn damage will usually wipe me or my creatures out if it gets to me before I can buff up my creatures. The fact that there's no damage prevention in this deck means no possibility of protecting myself from burn, and Mark of Asylum is the only effective with creatures, so direct damage could be catastrophic. Luckily, I haven't seen many EDH burn decks.
Another issue is very little trample. Granted the Armada Wurms have trample and there's always the possibility of popping off an Overwhelming stampede, that doesn't make up for the fact that six 3/3 centaurs can easily be stopped by six 1/1 spirits, Kamigawa spirits of all things. Primal Rage is the perfect fix, albeit a one-in-ninety-nine patch to this problem.
This deck has very little protection against flyers as well, the only responses being a Seller of Songbirds, Stirring Wildwood, or a Storm Herd, and if you're forced to pop off a Storm Herd for defense, I'd say there are worse things to worry about than your opponent's flyers.
The fact of the matter is that this deck is great at what it does: create a bunch of ceature tokens, buff them up, and gain crazy life. Distinctly Selesnya.
The deck has a lot of great cards that work well together, making this deck independent of a specific card combination, and best of all, Trostani is not really necessary for the win condition (although you'll really want to have her out to gain more life).
The deck has planty of card draw, plenty of creatures, but nothing particularly awe-inspiring. The deck, like many green/white builds, is well balanced. And there's nothing wrong with a well-balanced deck. In fact, it's an admirable trait in an EDH deck.
Hope you enjoyed the deck idea, and stay classy.
-V J
No comments:
Post a Comment