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Gaea's Wish, Elvish Wave

Legacy Combo Elves Infinite Combo Mono-Green Tempo

Mythrilia

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Creature (26)

Instant / Interrupt / Sorcery (13)

Artifact (4)

Land (16)

Enchantment (1)

Sideboard

Creature (10)

Land (5)

Maybeboard

Replace Coat of Arms / Slate of Ancestry (6)

Need to add somewhere (4)

Replace Masticore (2)

This description is a continual work in progress and will be regularly updated.

Overview

So you're going to have to forgive me from the outset. I took a break from Magic back in '00-'01, and even then I was playing rarely. The rules have seriously changed since I stopped. Back then decks were often built around a single expansion block, and mechanics like banding, echo, flanking, and landwalking were still commonplace. "Newer" mechanics like annihilator, energy, phyrexian mana, soulbound, and storm didn't even exist. So why am I talking about old mechanics? Manaburn. Manaburn was once a major concern of this deck, and it doesn't even exist anymore! While this deck went through a number of iterations "way-back-when," it has also gone through a number of changes more recently now that I've been tinkering with my collection of older cards and seeing what has been released over the last 15+ years.

The deck routinely meets win conditions on turns 4 through 6. The most common way to win is by playing a sizable Genesis Wave that dumps a dozen or so elves onto the field alongside a Coat of Arms and Concordant Crossroads , but there are plenty of other ways to win as well.

MANA!?!

This deck can generate infinite mana. Read that again, infinite mana. Nowadays that may not be such an impressive feat, but that was insane back then (especially when you could do it on turn three)! Argothian Elder + Gaea's Cradle + Wirewood Lodge + any other creature = Infinite Mana. Seriously, infinite mana!

Casting a large Genesis Wave is one win condition, another is with a large multi-kicker to Joraga Warcaller . Each of these are highlighted below, and neither actually rely on generating infinite mana. While these are the two most common win conditions, there are others:

  1. Genesis Wave allows you to put huge portions of your deck into play in a single turn. This means that a whole slew of elves, a Coat of Arms or two, and a Masticore (as a mana dump to help clear the battlefield) all just miraculously appear. Ohh, did I mention Concordant Crossroads ? Because what's more fun that plopping down 20 elves into play in one turn? Having your newfound elvish friends charge into battle on the same turn they were played! Imagine about two dozen 25/25ish (or 45/45ish if you drew the second Coat ) creatures with Haste. Just make sure that you don't overdraw your deck and lose due to Elvish Visionary's mechanic.

  2. Joraga Warcaller lets you give your other elves +∞/+∞. Even with only a few other elves on the board, the massive multikicker is just plain scary.

Even without infinite mana, you can still use the cards above to win. Imagine four untapped elves in play on turn three and you drop a Warcaller for 15 mana giving them all +7/+7. Check the example below.

Non-Infinite turn three win Show

Sideboard Rationale:

You'll notice that the sideboard only contains Creatures and Lands. This is by design. Why? It enables you to use Living Wish to fetch any of these cards on demand. Having the flexibility to pull the "perfect" card into the player's hand to win the game or stymie the competition is not something to be trifled with. Gaea's Cradle , Wirewood Lodge , and Argothian Elder are the more obvious examples to select because of the infinite mana combination, but every card in the sideboard is there for a specific purpose.

The primary rationale for sideboard cards were to facilitate a win condition. However, other cards were included to deal with the particularities of your opponent's deck or in case board control is slipping out of your grasp. The section for Living Wish will help clarify how this works, and there is more detailed information about the specific rationale for these cards in the Sideboard Exclusive section near the end of the deck's description.

Deck Breakdown

Card Criteria

The cards in this deck center around overwhelming your opponent by getting enough elves onto the battlefield to power your win conditions. Therefore, synergy is extremely important, but the loss of any one (or two or three) cards should not prevent any of the other win conditions from being achievable.

Breakdown

The card descriptions below include the total number of cards in the deck, the number of cards in the main portion of the deck, the number in the sideboard, a link to the card itself, and a short explanation of why the card is in the deck. You can see what this looks like in the example below.

  • 4x ( 3 | 1 ) Wirewood Lodge
    • There are a total of 4 cards in the deck. 3 Lodges are in the main portion of the deck, and 1 is in the sideboard.

Land

The whole purpose of the land in this deck is to generate gobs of mana as fast as possible, with a few additional lands added into the sideboard that can provide some much needed support in certain circumstances.

  • 3x ( 3 | 0 ) Cavern of Souls
    • This deck is all about speed, but ControlDecks can toss a major wrench into your well laid plans. Enter the Cavern of Souls. Choose "Elves" (obviously) and you'll have a significant leg up. The Caverns won't prevent creatures from being bounced back to your hand, but at least they won't be countered and sent to the graveyard. Plus, once you're able to get a few elves onto the board, the minor limitation of the Caverns colored mana generation won't matter. There's an added bonus that this land generates mana of any color for elves, which opens up a lot of non-green potential.
  • 7x ( 7 | 0 ) Forest
    • You need to start somewhere, right? Originally this deck had 10 forests. While that number might seem low, it worked fairly well given how much mana the rest of the deck can generate. However, three were removed and replaced with Cavern of Souls to counter Control issues. Without a Forest or Cavern in your initial hand, nothing else can occur, but these cards lose value once you get one or two onto the battlefield. Their initial value is so crucial that I would strongly encourage mulliganning if you don't have at least one Forest or Cavern in your opening hand along with another land.
  • 4x ( 3 | 1 ) Gaea's Cradle
    • Because yes. Seriously I'm not going to write anything else here.
  • 4x ( 3 | 1 ) Wirewood Lodge
    • The primary reason for the Lodge is to combo it with Gaea's Cradle and Argothian Elder to enable infinite-mana generation, but you can also use it to untap one of your Priests of Titania or Elvish Archdruids . It is worth noting that only three Lodges are in the main portion of your deck, and one is kept in the Sideboard - same as the Cradles. This actually increases your likelihood of playing the Lodge (or anything else in your Sideboard) which is discussed in more detail in the section covering Living Wish .

Creatures

Artifact Creatures

  • 2x ( 1 | 1 ) Masticore

    • I think this has to be one of the strangest artworks ever, but shoutout to Paulo Parente for doing a great job of accurately illustrating the capabilities of this card! With the deck's ability to generate so much mana, you need some places to dump it all. Using Masticore's ability to "machine gun" down your opponents creatures enables your own to swarm over the battleground unopposed. Moreover, activated abilities which don't require a creature to tap aren't impacted by summoning sickness, so you can pump as much mana into this thing as you want on the same turn that you play it. As if you needed another reason for this card, you can use Masticore as a fairly beefy blocker and regenerate it!

    Now that we've talked about all the positives of this card, lets highlight the obvious downside to Masticore: in order to keep it in play, you need to discard a card during your upkeep. But my question to you is, does it need to stay in play? You only need to discard a card during your upkeep if you want to keep the Masticore around longer. I've often already gotten the use out of Masticore on the turn it hit the playing field and will choose to willingly sacrifice it because I didn't want to discard anything in my hand during the next upkeep. One of these is in the main section of the deck to draw naturally or place onto the battlefield via Genesis Wave while the other is placed in the sideboard in case you need to retrieve it via Living Wish .

Green Creatures

  • 4x ( 3 | 1 ) Argothian Elder

    • The Elder is a key component of this deck, combining it with the Cradle and Lodge to create an infinite amount of mana as long as there is one other creature you control. Here's how that works:

    1. Gaea's Cradle
    2. Wirewood Lodge for one colorless mana
    3. Argothian Elder => Gaea's Cradle and Wirewood Lodge
    4. Gaea's Cradle
    5. Wirewood Lodge => Argothian Elder
    6. Repeat steps 3-5. A lot.

    As long as there is at least one other creature that you control on the battlefield in addition to the Elder, you'll generate at least two green mana every time you tap the Cradle. Since it only takes one green mana to untap the Elder using the Lodge, you can create an infinite loop by repeating steps 3-5.

    You'll notice that just like both the Cradle and Lodge one of the Elders are in the sideboard. This enables you to fetch the card with Living Wish . For a more detailed explanation on how this works, scroll down to the Wish's description later.

  • 4x ( 4 | 0 ) Elvish Archdruid
  • 4x ( 4 | 0 ) Priest of Titania

    • Can't pull that Gaea's Cradle? Living Wish missing in action? These elves have your back! They can generate enough mana to power the rest of your deck. Remember, you don't need infinite mana to win, just enough mana generation to overpower your opponent. They also make great targets for your Wirewood Lodge . While the Priests are preferred earlier in the game because of their reduced cost, the Archdruids have the bonus of making your elves just a little beefier for one more green mana. This can be all the difference if you're still searching to drop a Joraga Warcaller or Coat of Arms .

  • 4x ( 4 | 0 ) Elvish Visionary

    • An instant addition to this deck once I learned about this card. These elves help replenish your hand and get to more of the cards in your deck faster. to draw another card? Yes please! The fact that it is an elf and synergizes with everything else is even better.

    There is one small catch though, the Visionary's ability triggers when it hits the playing field, regardless of whether you cast it from your hand or if it got there some other way. Make sure you don't accidentally run out of cards by dumping too much mana into Genesis Wave , drawing the rest of your deck, and then having one of these guys hit the battlefield forcing you to draw a non-existent card from your library and deck yourself.

  • 4x ( 4 | 0 ) Fyndhorn Elves
  • 4x ( 4 | 0 ) Llanowar Elves

    • Oldies, but goodies. These guys never go out of style and are central to providing an early boost to mana generation. Need I say more?

  • 3x ( 2 | 1 ) Joraga Warcaller

    • Two are in the main section of the deck, and one in the sideboard. The multikicker is the whole reason the Warcallers were added, because even without infinite mana it makes the rest of your elves HUGE. Having two in the deck means there is enough of a chance that you'll draw it while having (at least) one in the sideboard means that it is available to grab via Living Wish . Either of these scenarios allow you to play the Warcaller from your hand with the multikicker.

    So why not have more? Frankly, I just didn't think a third in the main was needed. Having more Warcallers in the main section of the deck increases your likelihood of drawing it, but also increases the likelihood that they will be put onto the battlefield via Genesis Wave . If they are placed onto the battlefield this way, you won't be able to trigger the kicker. Without the kicker, the Warcaller is only 1/1. More importantly, the rest of your elves won't get pumped up. As a reminder, there are two Coat of Arms in the deck, and each acts like the Warcaller on steroids. If you spend at least 5 extra mana on the Wave , would you rather draw a Warcaller, or a Coat of Arms? Finally, what would you remove from the deck for a third Warcaller?

Artifacts

  • 2x ( 2 | 0 ) Coat of Arms

    • When this hits the battlefield all of your elves get beefier. A lot beefier. Be careful though, because Coat of Arms will affect your opponent's creatures too. If you're playing against another tribal deck you should be mindful of when you play this (unless you have a Masticore and infinite mana, in which case I encourage you to laugh maniacally).

    As mentioned when discussing the Warcallers , this card works great with Genesis Wave . You only need to spend an 5 mana on a Wave to enable it to be played onto the battlefield, something that shouldn't be too hard in this deck. If for some reason you decide you need a "smaller" Wave (which could be possible in the early game), there's a second in the deck just in case the first is sent to the graveyard. Remember, the Wave doesn't force you to play this card if you draw it with the Wave, but it does give you the opportunity to. Choosing not to place this card onto the battlefield can be useful if you're playing another tribal deck and are in the unlikely situation where you're behind in the creature count.

    With the release of Timespiral Remastered, I've thought about replacing these with Vanquisher's Banner to help with card draw (just about the only drawback of this deck is you can quickly burn your hand). Thoughts?

  • 2x ( 2 | 0 ) Slate of Ancestry

    • I was torn adding this to the deck, and it might not be needed, but every time I've used it I've had a ton of fun and it almost guarantees a win. The benefit is really obvious: this deck generates so much mana that you can easily play your entire hand in one turn, so why not draw a new one? It is also important to point out that you won't just draw 7 new cards - you draw a number of cards equal to the number of creatures you control! This also acts as a potential alternative to Genesis Wave ; while it doesn't enable you to place the cards drawn directly onto the battlefield, it lets you play your Warcallers and their multikicker, and it won't send all Instants, Interrupts, and Sorceries straight to the graveyard like the Wave does.

    So a question: should this stay in the deck? Removing these could enable a few other cards to drop in, but it'd be a sacrifice on card draw, which is where this deck can get stuck. Potentials are in the Maybeboard. Thoughts?

Enchantments

  • 1x ( 1 | 0 ) Concordant Crossroads

    • This card basically just speeds everything else up (including your opponent).

    If the Crossroads enter the battlefield via Genesis Wave , it will likely be put into play in conjunction with 10-20 other creatures and a Coat of Arms (or two). This will give everything that just hit the battlefield haste. Your opponent(s) will almost certainly have no time to react to the sudden onslaught of a massive elvish hoard.

    The second use case is to play the Crossroads from your hand. This enables mana generation combos a turn before they would normally occur - Argothian Elder , Elvish Archdruid , and Priest of Titania are the most impactful, but even a freshly played Llanowar Elves could mean the difference between victory and defeat. Just remember that this enchantment applies to your opponent's creatures as well, so be mindful when you choose to play it.

Instants / Interrupts / Sorceries

  • 4x ( 4 | 0 ) Genesis Wave

    • With some serious mana generation powering this card, you can place large portions of your deck onto the battlefield in a single turn. Pulling Concordant Crossroads and Coat of Arms as part of the Wave means there is a pretty good chance that you'll go from a few wimpy elves to a dozen or more, each bristling with attitude and able to attack the turn they hit the board.

    Important Note: Don't accidentally deck yourself!! It has been said a few times, but it is worth saying it once more, if you try to draw a card from your library and cannot, you lose the game. This is especially important when factoring in Elvish Visionary's mechanic. The Visionary's mechanic doesn't only trigger if you cast it from your hand, but rather whenever the Visionary enters play. You're also forced to draw the card, you don't have a choice on this one. If you really want to go "all in" subtract the amount of mana that is dumped into the Wave by the number of Visionaries that are still left in the deck to avoid this being an issue. In all seriousness though, 10-15 mana into a Wave is normally enough to spell the end of an opponent, 20+ all-but guarantees it.

  • 3x ( 3 | 0 ) Glimpse of Nature

    • Drawing additional cards is often the key to generating an advantage over your opponent and can be the difference between victory and defeat. Considering the relatively low cost of this deck's creatures coupled with their high percentage (43% of the cards are creatures), it isn't uncommon to chain drawing a number of extra cards during a single turn.

  • 4x ( 4 | 0 ) Living Wish

    • Living Wish is a key component to this deck - I really cannot stress that enough. Moreover, by having four Wishes in the deck you significantly increase the likelihood of having the right cards exactly when you need them. This is done by moving one of the instances of your combo cards from the main section of your deck into your sideboard.

    As an example, there are four (total) Argothian Elders in the deck. If all four were in the main section of the deck, you would have a 7.5% chance to draw the card if it didn't start in your hand to begin the game (with steadily increasing likelihood the longer the game goes). On the other hand, by including 4x Wishes and placing one of the Elders into the sideboard, you almost double your chances of "drawing" the card, up to 13.2%. What's more, is that you can use the Wish to draw the specific card you need, whether it is an Elder, Gaea's Cradle , or anything else in the sideboard.

    Now, there is a downside to using the Wish - it does cost mana. The "full cost" of playing a card just grew by , meaning that the converted casting cost of playing the Elder from your sideboard is now 6. Honestly, this is a small price to pay though because the purpose of the Wish is to search for the specific cards you need to win the game. Think about this a different way, would you pay to choose to play an Elder or Gaea's Cradle or Joraga Warcaller or Shaman of the Pack or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or Wirewood Lodge ? I thought so.

    Now, there are other cards that are similar to the Wish - Crop Rotation and Green Sun's Zenith are the two that probably come to mind, and each is effectively one colorless mana cheaper than the Wish is. While all of these cards have pros and cons, I think the flexibility of the Wish is worth the one additional mana it costs to play. Not only can you choose either a land or a creature to target with the Wish, effectively combining both the Crop Rotation and the Zenith into one, but the Wish enables you to pull something from your sideboard into the game, saving valuable real estate in the main portion of your deck.

    Final note here, any creatures or lands in the sideboard are targetable; which is why all of the cards in the sideboard are creatures or lands.

  • 2x ( 2 | 0 ) Green Sun's Zenith

    • These two slots were previously held by Naturalize , which could help with some board control. However, as the deck has matured, the need to remove these items dwindled. Reclamation Sages ) are in the sideboard ready to be fetched by Living Wish (more below), and having two Zeniths lets you draw any of the creatures from your deck and put them into play for the added cost of one green mana, which you know, is awesome. I still think that the Wish is more powerful than the Zenith, because it lets you increase the flexibility of your deck without increasing its size. That said, if you need to pull something that is already part of your main deck, Green Sun's Zenith is the perfect card for it.

Sideboard Exclusive:

While some of the cards listed above have a single instance in the sideboard, the following cards are exclusively found in the sideboard.

Land

  • 1x Bojuka Bog

    • While generating black mana enables Wish to also pull Shaman of the Pack , that's not the reason this card was included ( Cavern of Souls lets you do that too). The real reason for this card is its ability to exile all cards in your opponent's graveyard for the cost of one colorless and one green mana. Pretty cool right? This can seriously hamper Graveyard Cycling decks. You've only got one shot at this though, so use it wisely.

  • 1x Halls of Mist

    • The Halls effectively cuts all damage done from attacking creatures (to the player) in half. This enables you to soak damage coming in from creatures for more turns while you build up your side of the board. Given that this deck will go for a one turn kill, there's virtually no downside other than the mana cost, which should be more of a "minor annoyance" than an actual problem because of how much mana this deck can generate.

    While this card currently exists in the sideboard, it doesn't get Wished into play very often because there are often higher priorities. I've toyed with putting it back into the main section of the deck, but then it is just one card out of 60 (so the probability of drawing it is low) and this seems like a response to a specific issue, rather than helping in a majority of situations. I've also thought about removing this card outright and replacing it with something more beneficial, but it fits a nice niche right now so it has persisted all this time.

  • 1x Maze of Ith

    • Like the Halls of Mist, the Maze of Ith is only found in the sideboard. While the Halls were about slowing down mass creature attacks, the Maze of Ith is focused on preventing a single creature from attacking you over and over again. This is especially effective on the now all too common Indestructible cards (back in the day there were only two cards - Consecrate Land & Guardian Beast - that had this mechanic! Now there are hundreds. So frustrating! Indestructible is up there with Storm and Annihilator if you ask me. Just don't get me started!). Back to the Maze, the defensive capabilities here are obvious: you can prevent more creatures from dealing damage to you. However, you can also use this on your own creatures by untapping an attacking Argothian Elder for more mana generation during the combat phase (if you wanted to be super sneaky and wait to play your Genesis Wave until the combat phase started for some reason).

Creatures

  • 1x Allosaurus Shepherd

    • This slot was originally held by Eladamri, Lord of Leaves , as he was one of the original counters to Control Decks, but he came with a mighty cost - your combos slowed way down. The protection that Eladamri offered also impacted your own targeting ability. Case in point, you can't use the Lodge to untap your elves anymore. Nor could you target them with any other spells or abilities. Moreover, his protection only extended to elves which were already in the playing field, so you still had to be on the lookout for counterspells. One other reminder, Eladamri's protections also extended to your opponent's elves as well.

    All of that made Eladamri an iffy selection. On the other hand, the Shepherd has no drawbacks. Basically, the protection schema has been flipped, so the Shepherd doesn't protect your elves once their out on the board, but will protect them (shepherd them) onto the battlefield. Once they are there, the game ends pretty quickly. Ohh, and did I mention that this protection extends to all green spells? Yeah, all of 'em, not just creatures. Cavern of Souls is great for your creatures (which is why they're in the deck), but if you run into an actual CounterDeck, you might want to fetch the Shepherd from the sideboard to protect your other Wishes and Waves . There was even some thought about having this guy in the main deck, but instead I went with two Green Sun's Zenith instead.

    Ohh, and I almost forgot! It is also worth noting the last ability that this creature has - pumping up each of your elves into 5/5 Dinosaurs. This is great if you can't draw the Coat of Arms or your Joraga Warcaller .

  • 1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

    • Step 1: Infinite mana Step 2: Living Wish Step 3: Profit

  • 2x Reclamation Sage

    • With the removal of Naturalize from the main deck, these guys got a little more important. You can use Living Wish to fetch a Sage from your sideboard. In addition to their obvious destructive capabilities, the Sages work nicely because they synergize with the rest of the elves in the deck. Really not much else to say on these two. I have two in the sideboard in case you need to get rid of two artifacts/enchantments, unlikely, but that's one additional aspect of the sideboard.

  • 1x Shaman of the Pack

    • The addition of three Cavern of Souls opened up a whole new chapter for this deck - the ability to have non-green spells. Now, there aren't many non-green spells that make sense to add into this deck, but Shaman of the Pack stuck out because of its ability to damage your opponent without even needing to attack. This is especially useful if you weren't able to pull the Crossroads while using a Wave but managed to bring a ton of elves into play or just need that final blow after whittling down your opponent earlier on (unlikely, but it has happened).

  • 1x Taunting Elf

    • Earlier versions of this deck featured a few Taunting Elves because they were super fun when paired with Yavimaya Hollow and Venom . This clearing ability was pretty awesome, and even more powerful than the "new" Deathtouch mechanic because with Venom you don't even need to deal any combat damage in order to kill the blocking/blocked creature(s). Over time though, newer cards enabled the deck to speed up, so the need to have a complete lockdown of the battlefield diminished.

    However, there is still a role for this little guy to play. Sometimes using Masticore to clear out your opponent's creatures won't be a viable option due to mana limitations. When you find yourself in that scenario, pluck our annoying little friend from the sideboard using a Wish and have him charge into battle. All of your opponent's creatures will need to block him, enabling the rest of your forces to slide right past them and damage your opponent.

  • 1x Wellwisher

    • This Wellwisher is really around as a stopgap. On rare occasion the deck has started pretty slow, but you have all the pieces in your hand. There have been situations where staying alive for one or two more turns was the difference between victory and defeat, and 5 to 7 life can make all the difference in these cases. If you're playing a burn deck, the Wellwisher is one of your best friends.

Cards removed from the deck

This deck has gone through a number of changes over the years. For a listing of the cards that have been removed, and their reasons why, click below.

Card List Show

______________________________________________________________________________________________________ I'd marked this deck as "Needs help" because, in addition to feedback on the overall setup of the deck, I was hoping for some more focused conversations related to the Maybeboard, and any of the text that is in red, but really any additional insight would be appreciated!

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96% Casual

Competitive

Date added 6 years
Last updated 2 years
Key combos
Legality

This deck is Legacy legal.
Rarity (main - side)

3 - 2 Mythic Rares

28 - 4 Rares

6 - 4 Uncommons

16 - 2 Commons
Cards 60
Avg. CMC 2.23
Folders Inspiration Elves, Copied
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