Have you considered Lightning Greaves? It seems like a good inclusion in a control heavy meta and has the added bonus of letting you bounce/sac and recast selvala as a poor man's untap. It also allows you to utilize your tap effects that you draw when you are going off, like Yisan and Priest of Titania. I apologize if you have already addressed this.

PyreStarter yes we did try lightning greaves but we didn't find ourselves needing it often. It curves awkwardly. However, if your meta is high on removal, I think you can try to find room for it. Greaves and crossroads are great for getting you back into the game by letting you cast selvala and go off the same turn. You may also want to bring vines of vastwood and/or blossoming defense over some of the other pump spells. This list optimized for speed and explosiveness.

asm Gotcha, that makes sense. I have to say, great job on the deck and primer. I've actually been playing this list to great success in the few metas that I have access to. Against the other dedicated combo decks in my meta (Scion Hermit Druid, Tefferi, and Git-gud Frog), this deck is faster 9 times out of 10. Against more control/stax heavy decks, it still sits a t 25% rate in a 4 man pod. I do have a few questions, though:

If you are trying to optimize the list for speed and explosiveness, why are you running cards like Yisan and Sylvan Library? These seem to be way better at playing the long game and digging you out of bad situations and don't lend themselves at all to the (absurdly consistent) turn 3 win.

In my list made the following changes:

• Carpet of FlowersThis has yet to contribute to a turn 2 Selvala for me and is too often a dead card. As such, I have deemed it too slow in my meta.

• Sylvan LibraryThis does not lend itself to the explosive fast win at all, and has done very little for me in the later games, as I am generally finding myself just wishing it was another tutor.

• Hunted TrollThis card has done good things for me, but the 4 mana became a very relevant restriction in trying to go off on turn 3. I felt that each creature that was in the deck as a pseudo ritual needed to be useful as the first ritual of the turn.

• Lightning GreavesFor reasons listed in previous comment

• Mwonvuli Beast TrackerI wanted another tutor and while it isn't the best, it hits Great Oak Guardian and Phyrexian Dreadnought, so I thought I would give it a test run.

• Brutilizer ExarchIt is an answer for the stax cards that aren't hate bears while also being a creature tutor and it itself is tutor-able by Fierce Empath. Another card I thought was worth testing in my meta.

And this is not be disagreeing with your choices, I just thought I would let you know how the deck is performing for me and what changes I am making to adapt to my meta. Let me know if you think I am making any huge mistakes, as I am pretty new to the cEDH scene.

So in addition to my various typos, I didn't even review my formatting like a scrub. What I meant was

OUT:

-Carpet of Flowers-Sylvan Library-Hunted Troll

IN:

-Lightning Greaves-Mwonvuli Beast Tracker-Brutilizer Exarch

Sorry for any confusion

PyreStarter those are some astute observations re: library, yisan, troll. In the original list published with this primer we did not have Sylvan Library or Troll. They are indeed a little awkward ... and while they dont usually contribute to the turn 3 kill they are small concessions to the long game and the observation that we wont always have the pieces we need when we start. When you do fail to fire, its usually because you didnt find a cheap fatty and troll is the next best thing. Yisan gets us around stax and sets up a clean turn 4 kill by going t2 yisan, t3 selvala, t4 dreadnought and go off.

PyreStarter you are spot on with your observations. I'll tackle each point you bring up:

Yisan - You are correct that Yisan is not fast, but he is explosive. He helps you get around stax, and he is effective at setting up t4 wins by fetching dreadnought. Additionally, when you fizzle or someone stops your combo, landing a Yisan lets you win in 1 turn cycle by fetching a series of untappers and chaining up to a fatty + temur sabertooth + removal for stax pieces without casting a single spell. This is becomes more important when there are multiple stax pieces out, as you don't have easy way to get rid of more than one.

Sylvan Library - Yep, we don't love this card, and indeed it wasn't in the original list in the primer. However, there aren't many good cards left lending to powerful starts, and library is very good at helping you recover when you get shot down or someone lands a linvala.

Carpet of Flowers - A hasty t1 elf. It's a meta choice. Great where I play, maybe not so much in your playgroup. Can sometimes be a ritual by playing it main1 and passing to main2.

Hunted Troll/Mwonvuli Beast Tracker - I had tried the beast tracker before with the same dream line of getting dreadnought. However, it is the same speed as Hunted Troll in terms of making you wait to turn 4 to go off, but unlike troll, it telegraphs your plans quite loudly. I don't love troll, but he's the next best fattie.

Lightning Greaves - If you want to fit greaves in, I actually prefer defense grid. It's a card I've been trying to find a way to fit back into the deck. It was in many iterations of the list and I was always happy to have it but ended up cutting it for crossroads.

Brutalizer Exarch - We've considered exarch but haven't playtested much with it. I don't think it is good enough. Woodland bellower does a similar job in relation to fierce empath, by empath chaining for bellower for reclamation sage.

I don't think you are making any huge mistakes, since we walked the same path in considering those cards. These changes have very small impact on the deck overall, making it difficult to evaluate which is better, so if your preferences lean one way, go for it. We don't claim that our list is perfect. Lastly, I am glad you are finding success in your metas :)

tw0handt0uch asm Thank you for giving such detailed responses. I am really enjoying this deck and the relatively low cost has allowed me to join in the cEDH community, which I greatly appreciate. As for your suggestions, I am not necessarily disagreeing, just being sure that we understand each other.

Yisan / greaves- I actually really like Yisan, and owe multiple games to his existence. I just thought that since Lightning Greaves were not included because of the curve making them slow, I figured the same logic would apply here. After testing, I actually like Yisan a lot more with the include of greaves. The greaves lend themselves only slightly to the potential protection from removal and their power seems to come a lot more from being a pseudo crossroads.

Hunted Troll / Mwonvuli Beast Tracker - So, the idea behind the Beast Tracker was that it is usually pretty easy to draw the top card of my library with Selvala when I am going off. I will say, however, that I did not consider that the troll is the biggest mana ritual on a GREEN creature body, which turns out to be way more relevant than I thought it would be. I am actually kind of torn between these now.

Brutalizer Exarch - I think the main reason I liked this is that it completed a chain for turning my narrow tutors into unrestricted tutors i.e. Bellower > Empath > Exarch > that thing you really want like Dearblade or Sabertooth. The non-creature removal was just icing on the cake.

Again, I can't say enough how awesome this deck is. Literally everyone I have shown the deck to has been incredibly impressed and appreciative of it's uniqueness. You guys rock.

This decks a beauty was going to suggest Omnath but he is a win more card so decide against it.

Blackshadow415 Thank you! We did test Omnath at one point and while he has some neat utility - he doesn't let you start the combo so you need another fatty or pump spell and if you have those you're probably going off anyways... so you're right - win more

So usually I am opposed to recommending staples as they usually aren't used to their full potential cause, every one runs them not because there good but because people say their good (an example is your sol ring and mana crypt which I agree are good enough to include but are actually a bit lackluster).

Skullclamp, this card seems like it would have crazy amounts of utility now, before you start yelling about weenie packages or to slow let me explain:

1. this card, once cast will increase cards drawn by Life's Legacy and co. FOR FREE here is how: eg without skull clamp, cast Lupine Prototype draw a card, tap selvala for 5, cast life's legacy, drawn 6, float 3 eg with skull clamp, cast lupine draw a card, equip skull clamp, tap Selvala for 6 cast lifes legacy, drawn 9 (lupine has one extra power plus 2 for dieing, float 4 (but we had to use one extra mana to get started so we break even)
2. Let's say we have started storming, now are skull clamp helps keep it going... You have a grand total of 14 creatures that will die by having skull clamp equipped, and every critter would be more than glad to have skull clamp equipped before being Greater Gooded things like Elvish Spirit Guidewould go form saccing for 2, to saccing for 5!
3. and now we have squeezed every thing we can out of skull clamp, Just kidding! skullclamp is an, albeit clumsy, way to draw our deck if we have assembled infinite mana but no card draw:Cloudstone Curio, Eternal Witness/Skullwinder, and a creature with 1 toughness. cast the other critter, equip skull clamp (draw 2), cast Eternal Witness returning the other critter to your hand, cast the other critter, bounce eternal witness etc... of course kind of hard to believe that you can't already win if you have cloud stone curio, infinite mana, and a eternal witness, still... think of it as a fringe benefit and judge the card on my first two points

also I assume Harmonize is two lack luster when compared to Soul's Majesty?

Dunadain We used to have it in there way in the beginning. It might be worth revisiting - but we thought it was too few cards for too much mana.

And Myr Superion is too many hoops to jump through? seems better than Hunted Troll at least

Superion doesn't quite cut it because it's very hard to cast it without tapping Selvala to help pay... which will get us a card but usually pass the turn. We really need fatties that can enter and use Selvala immediately. Troll isn't perfect - it's on of the last 5 in the 99, but it does the trick most of the time and gives us our biggest natural order, gsz, and summoner's pact target.

Sounds reasonable, weirdest game I've had yet (I'm practicing because I am the worst storm player ever)

1. Gemstone caverns, forest, Mana dork
2. Selvala, forest, mana dork
3. invigorate on selvalva, Umbral mantle, infinite pump selvala, and my two dorks, swing at three open opponents, the look on all of our faces =D

That works too lol. I have yet to win by inf mantle and swinging with some dorks.

Hold up, Can you explain how this loop works with Memory Jar and Scroll Rack works again. I don't know why I am having a hard time understanding it completely I am usually fine with this weird stuff, but i feel lost lololol...

buuchuu

There are several ways to do it but no matter the method you must have the ability to draw your deck and have infinite mana (staff of domination or flickering a fatty or flickering ewitness and a draw spell). So you go ahead and draw your deck.

One easy way:

• Play all your non-land permanents (now your hand is a bunch of lands / spells and you have memory jar in play. Let's say you have 50 cards in hand and none in the library.

• Tap scroll rack to set your whole hand of 50 cards aside (normally you'd take that same number from your library into your hand but since there is nothing in your library you don't take anything to hand). Note: you won't die from being unable to draw a card here because scroll rack doesn't "draw". Also note: your opponents can't kill you by forcing your to draw because Dosan is on the field. Now the 50 you set aside go to your library so you hand is 0 cards and your library is 50 cards.

• Now tap and sacrifice memory jar. You will set your hand of zero cards aside in exile and draw 7 from your library of 50. Your opponents will all set their hands aside in exile too and draw 7. Note: they can't cast any spells with these new cards because Dosan is on the field. So now your library is 43 and your hand is 7. Redraw your deck with Staff or Domination or whatever. Your hand is now 50 and your library is 0.

• Bounce ewitness with sabretooth or curio to get memory jar back from the graveyard. Replay it untapped.

• Use Nature's Claim or Reclamation Sage or something like that to blow up your tapped Scroll Rack. Bounce ewitness to get back Scroll Rack and Nature's Claim. Replay Scroll Rack.

• Now you're back at the start. You have a hand of 50, a library of 0, an untapped Scroll Rack and Memory Jar. Restart the loop by racking 50 from hand to library. Hand is now 0 and library 50. Crack Memory Jar to set aside hand of 0 and draw 7. Opponents exile their hand of 7 and draw 7 more. Repeat this loop until they have exiled all their hands and library.

@tw0handt0uch Thanks a bunch I understand where I was getting confused, its easy enough haha. Having tons of fun with the deck though! Going to treat myself to a Cradle for Christmas to finish up this list.

This deck is sick. Someone in my group plays it a lot. I don't see him win too often because this deck really sucks against hatebears (which is what I tend to play), but it's really neat to see this deck and it's really intrigued me. Suggestions:

You absolutely need to find room for Prey Upon. Prey Upon is pretty great in your deck since you're playing so many big cheap things.

You're already running Scroll Rack which is sick. So cut 4 forests, add Windswept Heath, Wooded Foothills, Verdant Catacombs, and Misty Rainforest. It's a marginal upgrade, literally the last things I'd add to this deck, but it can make a huge difference sometimes. Plus if you figure out how to fit in Sylvan Library and Sensei's Divining Top, they become even better.

Lightning Greaves.... definitely think it should be in the deck. But that's just me and my meta.

p0megranates we explain in the primer why we don't like the fetches in this deck. We don't run much synergy with them to make it worth the drawbacks.

As for prey upon, it's a fine card to add if you have a hate bears heavy meta. I'm used to a more artifact-based stax meta but definitely tune the removal suite to what you see in your local playgroups.

Greaves doesn't actually work very well as a piece of protection. It's a combo piece like crossroads as well as helping you recover. The thing is, you have to move the greaves off in order to untap Selvala with rangers and symbiotes, so people just remove her then.

It is very much up to the pilot to tune the list to suit their playstyle. For me, if I can go for a turn 3 and the coast looks reasonably clear, I'll go for it. But if it looks dicey or people are dropping stax pieces, I'll usually wait and take my time to be ready to pounce when the opportunity arises.

Prey upon is pretty sweet tech for creature metas. I like it quite a bit, sapecially since selvala herself can fight down most little bears like ethersworn canonist and teeg.

We updated the original list to include sylvan library (see update 1), and we've both been testing top in the flex slot. It's fine - not amazing but solid. I'm pretty confident we still don't want the fetches (at least for our meta) where we see a lot of blood moon, new thalia, and deathrite shaman.

I mean, I understand it's all meta dependent. I don't personally buy that the downsides outweigh the upsides in the typical EDH meta, and I think the reasons you guys give in the primer do not give a thorough and appropriately critical overview of the situation. Even the most popular cEDH Yisan list, Wanderer's Song, has a commander that literally shuffles the deck every turn and the deckbuilder decided to include the 4 fetchlands for additional Top/Library/Rack synergy.

I'll respond to a few of the reasons given in the outline:

• On Elvish Pioneer: If you have a fetchland, a forest and Elvish Pioneer in your opener, then just play out the fetchland, crack, then play Pioneer for the forest. Adding 4 fetchlands doesn't dilute the chances that you won't have a forest to get off Pioneer t1 to such a significant degree. Seriously, just do the math. The chances of getting 2 forests or more in your starting hand in your current deck, using a hypergeometric distribution with parameters N=99,n=7,K=25,k=2 is 56.8%. If you replace 4 forests with 4 fetchlands, the probability of ONLY getting 2 or more fetchlands and no basics is about 0.6%, and that's before I even throw into the mix the fact that, in the specific situation you're talking about, one of the other 5 or fewer cads needs to be an Elvish Pioneer so approximately multiply the results by 1/97, and almost certainly the number of times that fetchlands turn otherwise good hands into bad hands is so statistically irrelevant (less than 1/1,000) that it's not worth even bothering with.

• On Blood Moon: This deck has plenty of basic forests. Having a couple sources that taps for red isn't a big deal at all. It's only a big deal in that really odd scenario that your whole hand is just fetchlands (unlikely, and if you see a Daretti player then just mulligan that), and they play turn 1 Mana Crypt Mountain Moon before you ever play a land. That's like... really specific. Anyway, what we want to calculate is the probability that, if you're scared of Blood Moon turn 1 opener, that adding 4 fetchlands instead of forests makes an otherwise keepable opening hand really bad. The chances of getting 2 fetchlands in your opener is about 2.4%; but then multiply that by the chances that the other 5 cards in the hand formed an otherwise keepable hand. How many hands with at least 2 forests do you mulligan right now? 30%? 40%? Take 1 minus that amount, then multiply by 2.4%, and that's how often you'll feel screwed by adding fetches assuming you're always super scared of that super elusive turn 1 blood moon. All in all... not really a big deal.

• Speaking of math, deck thinning is.... statistically insignificant. The deck thinning is even less important than Pioneer, (which is already less than 1/1,000 in mattering for t1 hands). It's not a real advantage of playing fetches. For example, playing a fetch with 90 cards in your library increases your odds of getting any single card by.... 0.01%, or by a factor of one additional ten-thousandth.

• If someone responds to your fetch cracking by flashing Aven, they likely have bad threat assessment. If someone has an Aven out already, then don't crack the fetch until someone removes it. I understand that it's a concern, but it's a concern for most other people at the table except the guy who's gonna win. I think this is the most worrisome thing there, but not by so much that it changes whether it's worth running fetchlands.

• I think New Thalia and Deathrite, as you mention in your response to me, are legitimate concerns. Depending on how cutthroat your meta is or whether you're just playing the strongest deck at the table, adding fetches may not make that big of a difference on how much the Deathrite Shaman player can tap for mana? That's a judgment call I wouldn't be able to make. Again though, for the average EDH meta, it's probably not a huge deal.

If you're running Scroll Rack and you're trying to find an answer for my Linvala, Keeper of Silence and you don't see any in the top 5 cards of your library, you're going to wish that one of those Forests was a fetchland. That's all I'm really saying. The dude I'm sitting across from is doing OK but he's losing to Linvalas and sometimes Phyrexian Revokers even when he has a Scroll Rack out, which really shouldn't be happening. Of course, this is all from the perspective of someone who's goldfished your deck and has played against it and also beat it multiple times, but has not actually played it. I might not understand some of the nuances, but I do understand fetch+Rack pretty well, and I know what I would lose to when I'm playing against a mono-G deck.

At the end of the day, it comes down to how you weigh the synergies against the drawbacks. Those drawbacks are rare as you mention, but they happen and I would rather the chance be 0.

I don't have any experience with the deck in a heavy hatebears meta. At most I'll play against 1 hatebears deck in the pod and it is quite manageable. I am happy with the way the deck plays in the metas that I play in, but I have no doubt there are tunings better suited for other metas. Your friend should definitely try the fetches and see how much they help. My suspicion is that even with digging deeper with rack, the deck just won't be able to keep up with growing piles of hatebears from multiple decks. There are too many bears that cripple the deck - linvala, teeg, eidolon, spirit of the labyrinth, etc. If you double or triple the chances of those appearing with a multi-hatebears pod, there's a certain point where you have to concede that the deck is going to perform poorly in a given meta.

Ya i mean you make some good points pom - my sense is that,in total, the degree to which fetches will help is approximately equal to the degree to which they hurt if you look across a wide variety of metas. I'd encourage anyone to throw in and test... but the sample size of games would need to be quite large in order to see if it there is any significant difference.