Angry Elf Mother

Commander / EDH Mono-Green

Laurentian

Creature (24)

• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Birchlore Rangers
• 1x Boreal Druid
• 1x Duskwatch Recruiter  ^Flip
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Elvish Visionary
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fierce Empath
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Gaea's Herald
• 1x Generous Patron
• 1x Heritage Druid
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Multani's Acolyte
• 1x Nettle Sentinel
• 1x Priest of Titania
• 1x Quirion Ranger
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Somberwald Stag
• 1x Sylvan Safekeeper
• 1x Temur Sabertooth
• 1x Wirewood Symbiote
• 1x Woodland Bellower
• 1x Yisan, the Wanderer Bard

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Exploration
• 1x Instill Energy
• 1x Nature's Chosen
• 1x Survival of the Fittest
• 1x Utopia Sprawl
• 1x Wild Growth

Instant (16)

• 1x Autumn's Veil
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Benefactor's Draught
• 1x Berserk
• 1x Blossoming Defense
• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Embiggen
• 1x Emerald Charm
• 1x Groundswell
• 1x Invigorate
• 1x Might of Old Krosa
• 1x Summoner's Pact
• 1x Vines of Vastwood
• 1x Vitalize
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Artifact (8)

• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Memory Jar
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Staff of Domination
• 1x Sword of the Paruns
• 1x Thousand-Year Elixir
• 1x Umbral Mantle

Land (30)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Deserted Temple
• 25x Forest
• 1x Gaea's Cradle
• 1x Wirewood Lodge

Commander (1)

Sorcery (13)

• 1x Eldritch Evolution
• 1x Genesis Wave
• 1x Glimpse of Nature
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Harmonize
• 1x Natural Order
• 1x Primal Command
• 1x Rishkar's Expertise
• 1x Scale Up
• 1x Soul's Majesty
• 1x Tooth and Nail
• 1x Uncage the Menagerie
• 1x Weird Harvest

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Garruk, Primal Hunter

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Maybeboard

Creature (8)

• 1x Allosaurus Shepherd
• 1x Beast Whisperer
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Briarhorn
• 1x Dwynen's Elite
• 1x Elvish Pioneer
• 1x Elvish Spirit Guide
• 1x Tajuru Preserver

Instant (7)

• 1x Avoid Fate
• 1x Burst of Strength
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Shared Summons
• 1x Tamiyo's Safekeeping
• 1x Veil of Summer

Sorcery (4)

• 1x Finale of Devastation
• 1x Hunter's Prowess
• 1x Mobilize
• 1x Sylvan Tutor

Artifact (3)

• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Diamond

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Marwyn Elfstorm

Hello everyone and thanks for looking at Marwyn. In this author's humble opinion, Marwyn is an overlooked Legend from Dominaria with some real potential. Easily castable turn 2 (or even turn 1), she can lead to explosive followup as we pump her p/t to enormous levels. Her biggest weaknesses are well timed removal, which we are packing defense against in the form of various Hexproof effects, and Cursed Totem effects. If you like combo decks, playing lots of spells and drawing cards then read on!

p.s. This list has not been updated to reflect anything from Guilds of Ravnica onwards. I liquidated most of my Modern/EDH collection and bought into vintage while I take a hiatus from the game.

p.p.s. this list is slowly being reviewed and updated on moxfield

Pros and Cons to Marwyn

Pros of playing Marwyn and elf tribal:

• cheap, low barrier to entry aggressive combo deck capable of the speed of more widely accepted 'good decks' i.e. flash tnt, and cvt; the most expensive card in this deck is Gaea's Cradle which the deck can win without but is immensely helpful to have. 29 Forests and a Wirewood Lodge would be a perfectly acceptable mana base.

• long term scalability as new elves and various forms of +4/+4 pump spells and creature tutors become available

• few if any 'dead cards' that don't contribute anything on their own

• a unique deck to play, and enjoyable play experience.

Cons:

• low amount of interaction, vulnerability to disruption and few ways to tutor your artifacts mean you can fizzle sometimes

• mulliganing can be punishing, mono green can just lose to itself.

Winning the Game

The primary goal of this deck is to get Marwyn in play turn 2 (or turn 1 on the nut draw with Mana Crypt), with some kind of pump and draw spell in hand. There's a suite of spells and creatures to get 3 mana on turn 2, and you want to mulligan somewhat aggressively for these cards. Next, once you can tap Marwyn for mana you want to get her p/t up by playing elves, and using the cheap pump spells and untap effects. From here you want to be drawing as many cards as possible and using cheap untap and pump effects to create more mana, and then draw more cards. Our goal is to get Temur Sabertooth + Wirewood Symbiote + and Elf in play with 1 counter on Marwyn, or the ability to use any of the untap artifacts to make infinite mana.

I'm not going to detail all the ways to make infinite mana because there are numerous lines. The ones that come up most frequently are:

1: Temur Sabertooth + unused Wirewood Symbiote + {G} cc elf + and an untapped Marwyn (minimum 2 p/t).

With all these creatures in play and an unused Symbiote you tap Marwyn for {G}{G}, bounce the elf and untap Marwyn using Symbiote ({G}{G} in pool). Replay the elf (3 p/t Marwyn, {G} in pool). Tap Marywn for {G}{G}{G} ({G}{G}{G}{G} in pool). Activate Temur Sabertooth on Wirewood Symbiote ({G}{G} in pool), replay Symbiote ({G} in pool).

From here, you have a tapped Marwyn that taps for {G}{G}{G} (3 p/t), and a fresh Symbiote activation. Return the elf to untap Marwyn. Replay the elf (No mana in pool), Marwyn will now tap for {G}{G}{G}{G} (4 p/t). It is critical that you replay the elf before tapping Marywn for mana here, you cannot continue the loop at just 3 p/t.

Tap Marwyn for 4 mana ({G}{G}{G}{G} in pool). Use this to return the Symbiote to your hand and recast it (tapped Marwyn, unused Symbiote, {G} in pool). Return the elf to your hand to untap Marwyn, and replay the elf. You will have no mana remaining in your pool, and get stuck if you messed up the last step. Marwyn will now be a 5 p/t. From here you can demonstrate a loop that adds an additional {G} each time you repeat it, and you generate infinite green mana (and a lethal Marwyn on attack if she can connect). Note that you can shortcut most of this if you have more than the minimum p/t requirement for Marwyn.

2: Staff of Domination, which requires an elf that taps for 5 mana (priest of titania or Marywn),

3: Umbral Mantle, which needs Marwyn and a total of 6 mana after her first tap activation , or 3 mana and an untapped priest of titania which taps for GGGG).

4: Paradox Engine and Heritage Druid plus a bunch of elves can get the job done, even without Marwyn

5: Paradox Engine and Duskwatch Recruiter with a few non-land mana sources can also put you in the driver's seat

6: EWitness + Temur Sabertooth and an untap spell in your Graveyard, with a sufficient P/T Mawryn to loop a mana for each Return + Cast EWit + Untap Marwyn.

We can win a variety of ways, either by looping Memory Jar + EWitness + Primal Command, Beast Within + Somberwald Stag, or just going the combat damage route. Be careful about what you exile with Memory Jar, careless play could leave you unable to combo off. The primary win condition is to destroy all enemy permanents by looping Beast Within, followed by Somberwald Stag to kill the remaining beast tokens (you will recur the stag with EWitness). Your backup plan is loop Memory Jar to force your opponents to lose by drawing their deck. And of course if all else fails, attack with a Berserk elf-lady.

Things will not always go this nicely due to the high variance nature of a singleton format. Often you will need to chain together a variety of pump, untap and draw spells until you are able to assemble enough pieces to generate mana, even a non-infinite amount. The real trick to piloting this deck is successfully navigating your way through these non-optimal scenarios against a field of counterspells and removal.

Discussion

Some tips for playing the deck wrt. your local meta:

• this deck operates at a very low floor in terms of creatures on board, making edict effects disproportionately punishing and therefore Tajuru Preserver is worth meta consideration in the maybe board.

• try not to have Beast Within and Memory Jar in your yard at the same time. Your oppo's can Faerie Macabre and hit both your main loop pieces, which would force you to try to win with combat.

• With Marwyn and Gaea's Cradle in play, all of your elves become a ritual when played, Generous Patron Supporting Marwyn becomes a 'free' draw spell

• Use your 0/1 mana cost spells to trigger Paradox Engine and get some free mana, and use Duskwatch Recruiter to dig for creatures to play to get more untaps

• crack Memory Jar in response to Summoner's Pact to get your creature, and a new mitt of 7 cards

• if your meta is plagued by Tabernacle, you can substitute Deserted Temple and Ancient Tomb out for Strip Mine and Wasteland

• if you face a lot of creature based stax, you can substitute in a Snow-Covered Forest and Mouth of Ronom package however this is a meta choice

• my first choice of cards to cut for Swiftfoot Boots would be Lotus Petal, taking a more defensive posture to develop your board state. Lightning Greaves prohibit you from bursting Marwyn's p/t.

Some prominent stax pieces that pose a problem for this deck:

• Linvala and Cursed Totem as discussed

• Torpor Orb and Hushwing Gryff

• Chains of Mephistopheles

• Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale.

The budget version of this list is available here: Marwyn Budgetstorm

Thanks for looking!

p.s. #FreeRofellos

Top Ranked	Achieved #30 position overall 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 27 - 0 Rares 22 - 0 Uncommons 19 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.17
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Morph 2/2 C, Wurm 6/6 G
Folders	My various EDH decks, cEDH, EDH Good stuff, EDH Resources, Decks I want to finish, cEDH Deck Ideas, Other People's Stuff, Cool Decks, Reference, Heroes