Turn 1 Essence Warden, turn 2 Trelasarra, turn 4 kill somebody. Sometimes it's just that easy. Welcome to Trelasarra, a deck that fires off a massive voltron threat on turn 2 to kill those annoying combo and control players, then gets to spend the rest of the game happily durdling with green and white's most fun value creatures. Ever cast a Ranger of Eos for Heritage Druid and Wirewood Symbiote, make 6 mana and bounce a Voice of Many to draw 3 cards right away? Yeah, our Selesnya voltron deck is doing that. Let's go over the core groups of cards in the deck and how they all add up to a cohesive gameplan:
THE SOUL SISTERS. Essence Warden, Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant, Authority of the Consuls, Spectrum Sentinel, Lunarch Veteran
, and Leonin Elder all curve perfectly into Trelasarra to get multiple scries and counters before you even untap on turn 3. These cards are the lifeblood of the deck and the focus should be on mulliganing or tutoring to find them. Some other cards you can play are Leyline of Vitality, Ajani's Presence, or even something like Soulmender, but I prefer playing the ones that trigger on your opponent's cards too because that makes a huge difference to Trelasarra.
THE PROTECTION. Yes I'm playing Skrelv, Mother of Runes, and Giver of Runes, but no, I'm not particularly happy about it. You don't want to play these cards on turn 1 because the Trelesarra you cast on turn 2 won't get nearly as large and this deck has a LOT of better turn 1 plays. But even when you develop them late, they can protect Trelasarra after you recast it, and all of them can give her evasion in a pinch as well. I'm also playing Wild Shape which can give sneaky evasion and Tamiyo's Safekeeping to also protect other permanents and save Trelasarra from boardwipes. I don't play the white protection spells just because you'll often have Wirewood Symbiote untapping a Llanowar Elf as your only mana during an opponent's turn. Shout out to Benevolent Bodyguard as a highly tutorable one-shot pinch evasion effect.
THE EVASION. Elves are easy to tutor for and Eladamri, Lord of Leaves just so happens to be absurd in this deck, giving Trelasarra the best protection and evasion possible (with a little help from Yavimaya). We also have Kodama of the West Tree and Seasoned Dungeoneer to give evasion and sweet sweet value. We don't play a lot of evasion enablers, but we can find them easily with...
THE TUTORS. Obviously we're playing all the good creature tutors (though Worldly and Sylvan aren't so much worth it because I'm afraid of running out of cards and often tutor and cast a card on the same turn). This deck isn't a combo deck and has a deeply diverse set of value tools, meaning the tutors are finding a wildly diverse set of targets - I've tutored for almost every creature in this deck. We also play Ranger of Eos and Ranger-Captain of Eos since they have 21 targets and the Soul Sisters are crucial to our deck, and Ecological Appreciation is often cast for x=1 to put 2 soul sisters onto the battlefield on turn 3 or 4 and get the ball rolling with Trelasarra. Speaking of onedrops...
THE ONEDROPS. We're playing more than 25 onedrops so don't keep a hand if it doesn't have one! Mana dorks help a TON in getting your value engines online a turn quicker, and we play all the best multicolor lands so you can curve Elvish Mystic into Soul's Attendant plus Trelasarra. We also want a bit of a toolbox at 1cmc to find with the rangers, so we have Ulvenwald Tracker, Haywire Mite and Giant Killer as removal that can kill Elesh Norn/Torpor Orb style cards, Heritage Druid for powerful acceleration, and Speaker of the Heavens for an easily accessible army of fliers. And of course...
THE BUG. Wirewood Symbiote is a major cornerstone of this deck, giving us acceleration, value, and sweet utility. We play every ETB value elf we can get our hands on, all the way down to Multani's Acolyte and Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves, and we tutor Symbiote quite often to double up their value while untapping our mana dorks or Mother of Runes or Speaker of the Heavens. It can also bounce Trelasarra in response to removal to offset commander tax, help get more creature casts for our Soul Sisters or The Great Henge, and can untap mana dorks on enemy turns to hold up protection spells.
THE VALUE. The rest of the cards in the deck are value engines designed to help us keep up in cards and mana. Augur of Autumn is a current personal favorite, as Trelasarra turns on Coven easily and lets us manipulate our topdeck to keep going. The Great Henge is also super busted in this deck, castable as early as turn 3 and tutorable with Captain Sisay. The Sisay package changes a lot but Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth and Eladamri, Lord of Leaves are key for giving Trelasarra evasion, Heliod, Sun-Crowned acts as a backup commander, and Vivien, Monsters' Advocate is a draw engine that can also tutor anything else in our deck. I'm currently testing Trostani Discordant as an answer to Gilded Drake effects that also puts 2 lifegain enablers in play and can help us put out damage when Trelasarra gets removed too much. Sanctuary Warden is another fun one that can take a counter off Trelasarra then give her 2 counters back right away, and gives us game against boardwipes.
When I first started building this deck I assumed I was making a crappy budget version of Karlov, but now it's the most feared thing in my playgroup and an absolute blast to play. I would highly recommend giving Value Voltron a try if your playgroup is ready for it, or if you're just sick of greedy combo players waiting til turn 10 to take 40 minutes to win.
