pie chart

Adaptive Elsha cEDH

Commander / EDH Competitive RUW (Jeskai, America)

Kylenano

Edit Live Edit
Edit
Upvote 0
0
Deckcycle Feature Queue
Feature Queue
Playtest v1
Similar Deck Space Card Recommendations

Artifact (32)

Enchantment (4)

Land (28)

Sorcery (12)

Planeswalker (1)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Elsha of the Infinite

Instant (20)

Creature (2)

Welcome to my personal favorite EDH deck: Adaptive Elsha artifact storm! While I was initially uninspired by Elsha's abilities at first glance, building and testing has quickly turned her into my favourite commander. I built the deck to be structured around quick mana ramp via artifacts, countering/controlling opponents' plays with countermagic, static effects and targeted removal, and then casting Elsha of the Infinite and storming off into a deck manipulation line leading to drawing the deck and deploying one of the deck's wincons. The deck maintains resiliency through its graveyard recursion in Buried Ruin, Academy Ruins and Elixir of Immortality and ability to create opportunities to safely storm off with low-cost, on-theme protection from cards like Counterbalance.

Deck Update - Commander Legends

With the release of Commander Legends, a veritable Christmas gift basket of cards have been introduced into the format to play with. Of course, the deck will be adding card:Jewelled Lotus, replacing Welding Jar, but there are also other contenders here too. Wheel of Misfortune and Jeska's Will are 2 examples of other cards that are on my radar to be tested. Once they are, I will update the results here!

It is important to approach this deck with the appropriate mindset in order to get the best mileage out of Elsha. While the deck can explode very quickly, attempts to storm off while opponents have potential threats/counters ready or before sufficient protection and mana is available to you will result in setbacks which can really slow the deck down. Before casting Elsha of the Infinite, be sure to have at least 1 counter in hand or an alternative strategy to recover as having her countered or destroyed on the turn she is cast can put the deck on its heels. Control the board where necessary while leaving some available counters to protect the storm win, establish a mana base and protection via cards like Pithing Needle if necessary, and strike when the moment is right. Sometimes this means a race to drawing the deck as quickly as possible, and sometimes it means being more strategic - everything depends on the matchup.
There are a number of lines to consider from the opening hand, which are:

  1. Elsha of the Infinite + Sensei's Divining Top + (Helm of Awakening or Cloud Key) - This is the primary board state to work toward achieving in a game. With these in play, the deck can be drawn for free, accruing prowess triggers on Elsha, and any combination of the wincons detailed below can be executed. With Elsha as a piece of this combo in the command zone, the other two pieces can be gathered directly through cards like Fabricate, Enlightened Tutor, or Transmute Artifact with an existing artifact on board.

  2. 0-1 CMC mana rocks, 1-2 lands and Wheel of Fortune or Windfall - Players typically don't start games with a terrible hand, so wheeling turn 1 or 2 can be surprisingly disruptive and effective. And, starting with a hand full of cheap mana rocks, lands and wheels is beneficial since they can be played early and drawing a new hand of 7 bears few consequences while increasing the odds of drawing one or more of the deck's wincons, or at least increasing the odds of drawing one sooner.

  3. Thassa's Oracle - This is generally the primary method of winning the game after the Sensei's Divining Top combo is assembled. Nothing particularly fancy here - draw the deck and cast the Merfolk. However, since Elsha of the Infinite will generally be in play here, your devotion to blue will be at least 3, so casting Thassa's Oracle with 3 cards remaining in the deck is usually a good move to prevent you from losing on your next turn if an opponent is able to dismantle the win.

  4. Grim Monolith + Power Artifact + Walking Ballista - This is the secondary win condition for the deck, and can even be assembled without the Sensei's Divining Top configuration mentioned in (1). With infinite mana from the powered monolith, Walking Ballista can be cast with infinite +1/+1 counters which can then be removed at instant speed to reduce your opponents' life totals to zero. New pilots of this deck might be surprised at just how quickly this wincon can be assembled with Walking Ballista in hand by casting Transmute Artifact on a 2-CMC artifact to tutor Grim Monolith to the battlefield and then enchanting it with Power Artifact. to deal infinite damage is pretty nice!

Before detailing the wincons, it is worth noting some smaller synergy pieces within the deck.

  • Elsha of the Infinite + Any fetchland - Fetchlands are even better than usual in this deck, as they can be cracked mid-storm to remove a top-decked land, lower the land count in the deck, and spin the wheel for another good top-deck card.

    • Suggestions

    Updates Add

    Spoiler Timeline
    Card Odds v1 Draw hand
    Add to folder Copy
    Download / Export / Embed Code

    Comments

    Attention! Complete Comment Tutorial! This annoying message will go away once you do!

    Hi! Please consider becoming a supporter of TappedOut for $3/mo. Thanks!

    Important! Formatting tips — Comment Tutorial — markdown syntax

    Please login to comment

    Date added 4 years
    Last updated 3 years
    Legality

    This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
    Rarity (main - side)

    11 - 0 Mythic Rares

    41 - 0 Rares

    22 - 0 Uncommons

    16 - 0 Commons
    Cards 100
    Avg. CMC 1.46
    Tokens Ape 3/3 G
    Folders Ideas
    Votes
    Ignored suggestions
    Shared with
    Views