Elves have been a strategy in Magic for almost as long as the game has existed. They have been supported heavily throughout all of Magic’s history, so it is no surprise that it is entirely possible to make an EDH deck that revolves around them. While there are many commanders that could be selected to lead an Elves strategy, today we are going to be focusing specifically on Ezuri. While mono green seems like it would be a hindrance (especially in EDH), providing less access to diverse answers, it actually has proven to be quite able to hold its own in many games.
One of the things that I personally really like about this deck is that it is very powerful at times, but it is not oppressive. Meaning that I believe various iterations of this deck could be played and fit into different play groups. It has the ability to steal wins against incredibly powerful and oppressive strategies, but it also has the ability to play entirely fair against less competitive play groups. While yes, once this deck gets really going it can be a bit on the more powerful side, it still has an incredibly fair aspect to it that makes it more fun to play against for a lot of players.
Another note: If you like playing aggro decks than this is about as close as it gets to proper aggro in EDH. While the deck does play more like a toolbox strategy, it generally wins by turning your creatures sideways. Traditionally aggro has never been an incredibly powerful strategy in this format because it is just not efficient to play creatures for the sole purpose of attacking. Especially since in most cases you will be playing against multiple players, it can become very difficult to deal enough combat damage to each player to actually do well. In many situations an aggro deck will either be forced to focus one specific player, or spread its resources far to thin. However Ezuri has the cunning ability to get by this by pumping up creatures to unimaginable power levels. In effect turning them into single creature powerhouses, making it so you do not have to spread your resources incredibly thin or focus one specific player (usually).
First let’s take a look at what Ezuri does:
Ezuri is a base stat 2/2 for three mana (two green and one colorless). He has the useful ability to allow the regeneration of any elf you control for one green mana. This ability can really help a pilot dodge board wipes, have relevant blocks, and get out of very difficult situations. However Ezuri’s most powerful ability is arguably his overrun effect. For just five mana a player can give every single elf they control +3/+3 and trample until the end of the turn, and not only that but this ability can be activated multiple times in one turn! While five mana seems like a lot for an effect like this, the deck itself plays many infinite mana combos and big mana generators which make it very easy to activate Ezuri’s ability three or even four times in one turn (and sometimes a million).
Now let’s get into the decklist:
EDH Mono Green Elves
This deck’s typical strategy is to play lot’s of mana dork elves, and then over time gain the ability to produce blistering amounts of mana in one turn. A pilot then has many options that he or she can partake in to either win the game or answer threats. The deck is chock full of creature tutors and recursion spells to add redundancy to its plays, and allow a player to have answers to various situations. Something that is really surprising about this list is that even though it plays mono green, it has a very large amount of interaction. It has board wipes, removal spells and even a few disruptive cards that try and hinder your opponent’s strategy. While it is nowhere near the level of interaction that a blue or red deck will have, it definitely has a lot more than your garden variety mono green stompy list.
To make this deck tech more organized I’ve divided it down into various sections that you can read to learn more about a specific aspect of the deck.
Mana Generators/Mana Combos
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Priest of Titania, Elvish Archdruid & Heritage Druid
These are some of our most powerful mana dorks, they have the ability to create massive amounts of mana as the game continues on and additionally interact with many of our combo pieces.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx & Gaea’s Cradle
Our most powerful lands. They have the ability to produce boatloads of mana to cast all of our most powerful creatures.
Staff of Domination, Doubling Cube, Gauntlet of Power, Thousand-Year Elixir & Umbral Mantle
These are just a few of our combo pieces and mana extra mana generators. Doubling cube can be used to cast a genesis wave for a huge amount of mana, or it could be used to pump all of your Elves with Ezuri to insane heights. While Umbral mantle and friends can be used to produce infinite mana. An Umbral Mantle equiped to a Priest of Titania with 4 elfs on board can very easily get out of hand quickly.
Turing basic forests into Gaea’s cradle is always good.
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Toolbox Creatures/Interaction
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Prey Upon, Beast Within & Song of the Dryads
These are our main removal spells. While mono green does not have the most efficient removal spells in Magic it does have a few, and these are some of the best. They help allow us to deal with threats that we simply can’t overrun.
Board wipes in green are always very unexpected and impactful. These two cards can do a great job at stopping your opponents shenanigans.
While this is not tutorable and it does not synergize much with the deck, it is incredibly powerful. Jitte can help you stabilize the field and keep everything in check.
Acidic Slime & Reclamation Sage
Targeted artifact and enchantment removal is always very useful as many commander decks play very powerful artifact/enchantment spells.
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Win Conditions
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Craterhoof Behemoth, Ezuri, Renegade Leader & Akroma’s Memorial
Our main goal is to win with creature damage, so many of our win conditions do just that. They either pump our team or make them nigh unstoppable.
While this technically is not a win condition right away, it is pretty close to one. In most cases even getting ten permanents from your library into play will win the game very quickly.
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Support Cards
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Garruk Wildspeaker & Oracle of Mul Daya
Very useful for making extra mana to cast spells. Gurrak also has some other relevant abilities that can help in various situations.
While green is definitely not the color for card advantage, a few draw spells can go a long way in helping us to find answers and win conditions.
Eternal Witness & Praetor’s Counsel
Graveyard reccurssion is a must for a creature based deck in a format that is riddled with board wipes.
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Fun Things (That Do Fun Things)
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DO NOT play this in the early turns of the game. Only play this if you have mana generators out. It can be a huge tempo swing on your opponents to lock them out of mana while still having plentiful amounts yourself. However be weary of playing this in less competitive play groups. It is not exactly an enjoyable card.
In my testing this card has never been incredibly powerful. However it is a fun card to play and we can’t just play all business spells because that’d get boring.
Buffing elves by playing elves to play even more elves?? Sounds good to me.
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In all Ezuri is a (potentially) incredibly powerful and versatile EDH list to be running. It is a very good option for playing an aggro-esc list in the format and can hold it’s own against many strategies you could be facing. Not only that but it can be very fair to play against in less competitive play groups (as long as you don’t go for the combos as fast as possible), but it can additionally hold its own in more competitive environments. This deck has been an absolute blast to develop and play over the last couple months! So feel free to try out the list above if you are considering picking up this strategy.
I hope this article was helpful in some way to you! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to leave them in the comment section below.
And as always, happy gaming!
zebotc
- A swords a day keeps the goyfs away.
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