Introduction
So do you like elves? Do you like smashing face with as many green creatures as possible? Do you also like abusing the absolute insane and abnormal amount of mana you can produce? Well do I have a deck for you. Introducing Radha, Heir to Keld. A measly 2/2 for 2, that isn't much more than a Llanowar Elf isn't something to scoff at. 2cmc commanders are very good in and among themselves, just because of their cost. While you many not think so now, having a consistent t2 play is very useful, but hey, let her speak for herself. Let's delve (kek) into this build of mine which aims to blow your opponent out with huge spells, or even fall back on aggro to finish off or decimate opponents.
Manabase
Now remember something before we begin; We're playing elves. What are elves amazing at doing? Generating a ton of mana. That's why I suggest we start at 35 lands instead of primers that suggest 38-40. While our x spells might be 30-40 damage, our average cmc is very low. We don't want to be drawing into lands too often. Ive been play testing this deck with land count of 38, 36, and 35. 35 is a sweet spot that hits very well considering just how much mana you can generate off other means.
We use the basic includes for dual colored lands. Wooded Foothills let's us fetch up either or Stomping Ground or our Cinder Glade. Rootbound Crag and Temple of Abandon are great land includes for R/G. Of course we include lands like Rugged Highland and Command Tower because they're good for what they do. I include an Exotic Orchard because green seems to be the most common color I play against, so I can always at least produce green. Opal Palace is great for if you have a hard time recovering from board wipes. I've gotten Radha to a 10/10 before and killed someone with commander damage. Wirewood Lodge synergizes well with our big mana dorks we'll get into later about. Kessig Wolf Run allows us to dump mana into one dork for hopefully a kill if we fail to find a fireball spell. Wrapping up there are 12 Forests and 12 Mountains. Let's move onto the most important part of any Commander deck; The Ramp.
Mana Ramp
Ramp is probably the corner stone of importance when it comes to Commander. Without ramp, you will often find yourself being pushed behind everyone else when they're playing their Turn 6 plays on Turn 4. While most decks worry about mana rocks, you worry more about the board presence. Sure, your 1/1 mana dork isn't gonna do much but it does give you a creature early game. No one wants to swing into someone with a creature early and risk loosing it. For this very reason, we include both the famous Llanowar Elves and the not so famous Fyndhorn Elves. Wood Elves let's us search out either our Stomping Grounds or our Clinder Glade. Joraga Treespeaker turns all our other elves into Greenweaver Druids. Tempt with Discovery let's us pull out our utility lands, while Explosive Vegetation and Skyshroud Claim lets us get more lands directly into play. No "into our hands" crap allowed. We only run one mana rock, and that's Gruul Cluestone. I run this because it can replace itself late game once you have enough mana. Our final piece of ramp is Zendikar Resurgent. Glimpse of Nature + Land Doubler? Heck yeah!
Tutor/Creature Grabs
So a deck isn't gonna do much if it can't get the right creatures to play. What I'm gonna use are actually just what I have, but most creature tutors (like Green Sun's Zenith) are good. Summoner's Pact, Signal the Clans, and Hibernation's End are great tutors. Hibernation is great to go up the ladder and get some of your most important creatures at their respective CMC's. The rest of the tutor package is all creature based. Fauna Shama, Elvish Harbinger, and Skyshroud Poacher let you grab elves from your library. Slyvan Messenger let's you pull from the top 4, and Wirewood Herald provides some reason for your opponents to NOT swing into you. Abundance allows you to stop the land draw later in the game and only hit nonland spells.
Let's put the Elf in Elfball
So what are we gonna do to generate this mass amount of mana? Well I'm glad you asked. The four card's we use primarily to generate massive amounts of mana are Elvish Archdruid. Priest of Titania, Elvish Guidance, and Wirewood Channler. Some other cards to help us abuse this are Seeker of Skybreak and Quirion Ranger. Xegegos also helps us generate a lot of mana and makes casting the fireball spells easier. The "incidental combo" in the deck is any of the aforementioned big mana elves, Umbral Mantle with at least 4 or more elves out. You can generate infinite mana and make a really big elf, or multiple big elves. Swiftfoot Boots helps keep these guides safe. I prefer this over Lightning Greaves because you can't untap creatures with shroud outside of the untap step.
Let's put the Ball in Elfball
So we got the creatures, we got the mana, now we need dumps. For this, I run 7 "Fireball" spells. You can use whatever ones you have on hand, but I supremely suggest that you run Fireball because its the namesake of the deck and Banefire, because an uncounterable Fireball is sometimes needed. I like Comet Storm and Fall of the Titans for their ability to hit more than one player. Rolling Thunder can serve as creature removal, Devil's Play can be cast twice, and Red Sun's Zenith just goes back to the deck. I also run Increasing Vengeance to duplicate our massive Fireball spells, along with Heat Shimmer to give us another copy of a big mana dork. Price of Progress is a great finisher in the right meta. I've done over 20 damage with this card before.
Removal
R/G has it hard when it comes to removal. We really don't have anything in the ways of a boardwipe that isn't damage based. For targeted removal, basic Chaos Warp and Beast Within work. Ancient Grudge, Krosan Grip, and Vandalblast are good non creature removal. Blasphemous Act is really our only easy way to stay alive against some decks that put out dudes faster than us.
Recursion
We have a few different means of recursion. Elvish Soultiller is a creature based way of getting all our stuff back into our deck once it dies. Wildest Dreams, Recollect, and Eternal Witness let us pull things back to our hands and Cauldron of Souls is a great board wipe defense. Be warned, unless you get an anthem dude back, it will kill all your 1/1's.
Utility/Card Draw
With all our tutoring, we have only two ways to draw. Slate of Ancestry refills our hand once we've dumped it and Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury offers us creatures, removal, and card draw. Fires of Yavimaya gives us the ability to use our mana dorks the turn they come in.
Conclusion
So there you have it. This is my elfball list. This deck has been something I've been playing with for a long time and I've changed it multiple different times. I feel like this strategy works well because elves are the easiest creatures to abuse with multiple untap's. Not only do you have the ability to win via the main strategy or the aggro backup. I'll be updating this every now and then with what changes I make. If I find any weaknesses against certain archtypes, I'll be sure to mention them. Thank you for reading!
