Wirewood Symbiote

Creature — Insect

Return an Elf you control to its owner's hand: Untap target creature. Activate this ability only once each turn.

Discussion (51)

SynergyBuild on Understimated Commanders

1 week ago

Well, I am a fan of Selvala, Explorer Returned . A group-hug effect tacked onto a name more recognizable in its mono-green form, however, I found that Selvala, Explorer Returned gives roughly 3-4 mana on tap. That is an amazing advantage.

Take abuse of this, with effects like Smothering Tithe , Well of Lost Dreams , or Paradox Engine , use more untap-effects like Instill Energy , Quirion Ranger , Scryb Ranger , Wirewood Symbiote , Vitalize , Nature's Chosen (A favorite), Emerald Charm , and numerous other green untap effects that cost less than the tap on Selvala herself, and you can storm off through your deck, just trying to find Paradox Engine , Well of Lost Dreams , or another payoff, and you will draw your deck.

Run any number of wincons, a favorite of mine being Altar of the Brood , Cloudstone Curio , Instill Energy , and Nature's Chosen , or whatever you want, and you get to mill out each opponent.

How do you do this when you have to draw your opponents ~20-30 cards when going off? Silence or Autumn's Veil , Grand Abolisher , City of Solitude . Whatever you want!

This list is just an unbudgeted variant: Selvala Hugstorm (Semi-Competitive Combo)

Inkmoth on Yeva Draw-Grow

3 weeks ago

ZendikariWol:

• Soul's Majesty / Rishkar's Expertise : What's wrong about these cards in the context of my deck is that the strongest creature in the deck is Woodland Bellower and Regal Force . Best case scenario it's a 5/6 drop to draw 6/5 cards at sorcery speed (Rishkar possibly cheating something out, which is the only reason it's enticing). Otherwise, it's more often than not going to draw 4 off of Yeva.

• Harmonize : Something about this is super unappealing. The sorc speed, it leaves no body. It also hurts my curve and cost too much to leave me open and incapable of responding to stuff going on in my opponent's turn, which is why I avoid sorc speed cards unless absolutely necessary, in favor of cards like Sylvan Library .

• Bear Umbra : I can see why you would want me to try this in the deck, but it's out for the same reason I wouldn't want to try Wilderness Reclamation . I used to care about untap effects, but now I prefer them in the form of an instant or at the very least a creature that can do it for a very low cost like Wirewood Symbiote . Last, but most important reason is the fact that I have a super low amount of lands in the deck. Most times I win with 3-4 lands at most, meaning the deck depends on its creatures and rocks for mana more than it does on the lands. In fact, I usually make it to 3-4 lands before the deck outright stops giving them to me.

Thanks for taking the time to comment, and I hope I was able to answer your questions.

CyborgAeon on Yeva Draw-Grow

1 month ago

YMMV Show

Ymmv is "your mileage may vary"

Sounds like the pod is kinda 75%-y if he's banking on mld... but I'd like to see it, as I imagine a staxy divergent build would be cool in Windgrace. Abusing Defense of the Heart into kiki-conscripts / into a hulk based win seems simple with a good value engine in the cz.

Yeva isn't just an orrery in the cz. Yeva represents the same threat that 2 untapped islands shows, while acting as a form of "protection" for your combo, as you don't have to decide whether you're going to play interactive or try to combo in your turn as it's then available across all turns! That's like... a huge buff! For this reason I feel Yeva is stronger than Yisan, as Yisan is in front of your opponents and your steps to winning are broadcast - despite any protection you may have.

I'll have to test out Shaman in Yisan, as a win con at 3 verses seems strong. Below are some questions and suggestions I have from reviewing your creature base.

Generous patron

Pros: patron can be used time & again with Wirewood Symbiote to generate the CA you need to win - that's pretty nuts; Cons: patron requires your opponents to be using creatures.

patron can find you a win condition by being flickered via cloudstone curio repeatedly until you draw a win; furthermore he can be used to flicker & buff your board until you are able to swing for lethal - win con, divination and half of an engine.

Cool things: repeated uses can turn off a tymna/edric deck by buffing everybody's creatures to stop the advances. If opponents are mostly creatureless (ie: divergent / storm), then this card is dead. This could be fixed by using Forbidden Orchard with excess land untaps...

Thought-Knot seer

pros: Thought-Knot Seer hurts opponents & makes hands their public knowledge - acting as a permanent stax effect & as a free way to convince the table who the threat is (great for removing suspicion for yourself

TKS is a win con - by bouncing & replaying he can exile all relevant cards from their hands as they come in & force opponents to deck.

Cons: Requires 1 waste (from a colourless rock/boreal druid/1 of very few lands that help with this) Can't be flashed from yeva (big oof)

Lys Alana huntmaster

pros: Lys Alana Huntmaster enables many combos & provides a good field of fodder for other effects ie: natural order; EE; clamp; earthcraft; curios for bouncing repeatable hatebears (ie Manglehorn ) & buffs ( Generous Patron ; Elvish Visionary ). cons: clunky at 4 mana;

does nothing on it's own.

doesn't win the game.

heritage druid

pros: turns your 7 non-mana elves into mana elves sometimes.

On combo turns this removes the need for haste enablers with PE

cons: Not always online. Does nothing on it's own. Not a fantastic engine on it's own - but a semi-efficient elf at 1 mana.

Drathro on [Primer] Momir Vig Hackball

2 months ago

If I'm not mistaken, there is a way to use Glimpse without Gaea's Cradle that uses only core cards available even to the budget builds. Apologies if somebody already posted a solution. I'll outline my thoughts. Let me know if I'm missing something here.

Given that you are generating mana and drawing through your deck, let's assume you reach the point where your library is empty. Let's further assume that because you've seen your library that you have played out the subset of permanents necessary to combo (all with summoning sickness), and you have destroyed or bounced any taxing effects. You have at least Green Sun's Zenith in hand, floating, and once-per-turn resources that could be activated have already been used.

In play:

• Momir , tapped
• Nettle Sentinel , tapped
• Phantasmal Image , copying Nettle Sentinel, tapped
• Heritage Druid , tapped
• Birchlore Rangers , tapped
• Wirewood Symbiote , already activated for the turn
• Temur Sabertooth
• any 1-mana Elf ,tapped

(starting with mana floating)

1. Pay and Temur-bounce Wirewood Symbiote. ( mana floating)
2. Put GSZ in the library for net zero mana. ()
   • Pay
   • Play GSZ for X=0.
   • Two Nettle Sentinels untap; Birchlore-tap them to add .
   • Fail to find. Shuffle GSZ in.
3. Play Wirewood Symbiote for net zero mana (regain via Sentinels/Birchlore). ()
   • Draw GSZ
4. Put GSZ in the library for net zero mana (see step 2). ()
5. Symbiote-bounce mana elf , targeting and untapping Heritage Druid. ()
6. Play mana elf for . (0 mana)
   • Two Nettle Sentinels untap
   • Draw GSZ
   • Resolve mana elf.
7. Heritage-tap mana elf and Sentinels for . ()
8. Repeat steps 1-7, except at step 5, untap Birchlore Rangers. ()
9. Birchlore-tap Heritage Druid and Birchlore Rangers for (or ). ()
10. Repeat all steps, gaining one mana for each full cycle.

In this way you can generate arbitrarily large amounts of and . Now you execute the rest of the plan, making sure to play/reshuffle GSZ only after you play Winds of Rebuke and before you replay Nantuko Tracer .

mamomanamatt on Rhys' Elvish Conclave

2 months ago

Desti702 Glad the reddit post is sending folks here, I love Wirewood Symbiote , I run it in Legacy, it is a worthy add, I'll play around with it! Your deck is dope too! I just picked up a Mirri's Guile , I think it will up my potential in this deck... also thinking about Hall of Gemstone

Desti702 on Rhys' Elvish Conclave

2 months ago

Came here from reddit! Nice deck you got there! I just finished My take on mono green elves but with this list I am already changing things up to splash black!

However I suggest you try out Wirewood Symbiote ! It is great in my deck and with black you are even able to play Shaman of the Pack a second time!

multimedia on The Speaker of the House

2 months ago

Hey, you're missing Command Tower :) There's a few creatures who when they ETB can untap a creature this is very good with Vannifar to chain activations a turn.

Consider adding:

• Quirion Ranger
• Scryb Ranger
• Bounding Krasis
• Deceiver Exarch
• Pestermite
• Breaching Hippocamp

Quirion -> Scryb -> Bounding -> Hippocamp -> five drop (Acidic, Mulldrifter , Peregrine, etc.). Quirion and Scryb can be repeatable untap of Vannifar each turn by bouncing a Forest. Wirewood Lodge and Minamo, School at Water's Edge are lands that can untap Vannifar. Thousand-Year Elixir can give Vannifar haste as well as untap her. Fatestitcher is a good four drop here since he can be repeatable untap or be untap when unearthed.

Mana dorks are good with Vannifar. Playing her possibly turn three and then they can be used as fodder to get two/three drops.

Consider adding:

• Birds of Paradise
• Llanowar Elves
• Elvish Mystic
• Fyndhorn Elves
• Arbor Elf
• Kiora's Follower : can untap Vannifar or a land.
• Priest of Titania

With these Elves Wirewood Symbiote can be another repeatable per turn untap of Vannifar that's also good with Sage, Visionary, Farhaven Elf , Coiling Oracle , etc. Woodland Bellower is great to tutor for Witness to then also recur a creature you saced or any other card in your graveyard. Bellower is a good six drop to Vannifar into Hulk.

Mystic Snake and Frilled Mystic are counterspells you can possibly tutor for with Vannifar. This interaction is pretty powerful.

Lands to consider adding:

• Flooded Grove
• Hinterland Harbor
• Forbidden Orchard
• City of Brass

Good luck with your deck.

enpc on Just Stay Dead: cEDH Edition

3 months ago

CyborgAeon: I completely forgot about Runic Armasaur - it is super solid draw and I have added it to the list. I also originally forgot about Arbor Elf as well. So I made some changes:

out: Forest , Sensei's Divining Top , Crop Rotation

in: Runic Armasaur , Arbor Elf , Elvish Spirit Guide

I am also considering finding space for Scavenger Grounds .

Just to quickly touch on the other cards you listed:

• I'm not a huge fan of Sequestered Stash . Funnily enough, self mill is not great in Saffi. Because of her ability, most of the time you want stuff to hit the graveyard via the battlefield. And unless you hit one of a very small number of actual recursion (read "combo") pieces, you have stuff just sitting in your yard where it can get removed pretty easily. Not to mention I don't like the randomness. By all means try it out, but it's not my kind of card.

• Deserted Temple is fun but without packing all the land search cards that the other list runs, I think a colour producing land would do more.

• Wirewood Lodge is cool, but I think it is much more at home in a Selvala deck. There's only really two cards it boosts in the is list.

• Wirewood Symbiote / Scryb Ranger are cool, but againI think are stronger with a tap commander. The beauty of Quirion Ranger was that with Yisan you could go verse 1 then straight into 2 and combo next turn (depending on board state). But with Scryb Ranger it replaces the Priest fetch which is the cornerstone of the combo.

• Angelic Renewal has been excluded as it's basically just another combo piece that only works with Sun Titan / Renegade Rallier . It's not bad but I think I would go Gift of Immortality first.

• As a general rule I have tried to avoid cards like Staff of Domination as there are only a few infinite mana outlets and outside of those they can be clunky. Maybe if I looked to add Vizier of Remedies + Devoted Druid as well, but I don't want to saturate the deck with non-overlapping combo.

Let me know how proxying goes - I have run a bunch of goldfish hands with the other list (I actually have that one in paper) and playing aggressively (because goldfish) I was able to see combo between turn 5 and 7 pretty consistently. The deck will always be slower than a deck with access to blue/black, but that's the price you pay I guess. But I would be keen to know how it goes for you.