Yisan, the Toolbox Lord

Commander / EDH* Budget Casual Control Mono-Green

Scathain

Creature (56)

• 1x Acidic Slime
• 1x Arbor Colossus
• 1x Archetype of Endurance
• 1x Bane of Progress
• 1x Boneyard Wurm
• 1x Caustic Caterpillar
• 1x Chameleon Colossus
• 1x Deadly Recluse
• 1x Elderscale Wurm
• 1x Elvish Piper
• 1x Epochrasite
• 1x Essence Warden
• 1x Forgotten Ancient
• 1x Giant Adephage
• 1x Glissa Sunseeker
• 1x Gyre Sage
• 1x Heroes' Bane
• 1x Hornet Nest
• 1x Hornet Queen
• 1x Hua Tuo, Honored Physician
• 1x Jedit Ojanen of Efrava
• 1x Kavu Predator
• 1x Kessig Cagebreakers
• 1x Liege of the Tangle
• 1x Loaming Shaman
• 1x Master of the Wild Hunt
• 1x Mire Boa
• 1x Myr Superion
• 1x Nylea, God of the Hunt
• 1x Oak Street Innkeeper
• 1x Pathbreaker Ibex
• 1x Permeating Mass
• 1x Phyrexian Revoker
• 1x Predator Ooze
• 1x Quirion Ranger
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Scryb Ranger
• 1x Scute Mob
• 1x Seed Guardian
• 1x Seeker of Skybreak
• 1x Silvos, Rogue Elemental
• 1x Skinshifter
• 1x Spore Frog
• 1x Steel Hellkite
• 1x Steel Leaf Champion
• 1x Sylvan Safekeeper
• 1x Taunting Elf
• 1x Thornling
• 1x Traproot Kami
• 1x Ulvenwald Tracker
• 1x Unyaro Bees
• 1x Verdant Sun's Avatar
• 1x Viridian Zealot
• 1x Vorapede
• 1x Wasteland Viper

Land (40)

• 31x Forest
• 1x Foundry of the Consuls
• 1x Haunted Fengraf
• 1x High Market
• 1x Ice Floe
• 1x Khalni Garden
• 1x Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
• 1x Quicksand
• 1x Treetop Village
• 1x Zoetic Cavern

Artifact (2)

• 1x Illusionist's Bracers
• 1x Sol Ring

Commander (1)

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Primal Surge

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Sideboard

Creature (9)

• 1x Cloudthresher
• 1x Corrosive Ooze
• 1x Ezuri's Archers
• 1x Hope of Ghirapur
• 1x Phytotitan
• 1x Rooting Kavu
• 1x Scattershot Archer
• 1x Temur Sabertooth
• 1x Tornado Elemental

Artifact (1)

• 1x Whispersilk Cloak

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Maybeboard

Creature (12)

• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Manglehorn
• 1x Melira, Sylvok Outcast
• 1x Riftsweeper
• 1x Seedborn Muse
• 1x Soul of New Phyrexia
• 1x Spearbreaker Behemoth
• 1x Spike Weaver
• 1x Stonehoof Chieftain
• 1x Tajuru Preserver
• 1x Verdurous Gearhulk

Artifact (1)

• 1x Birthing Pod

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A casual commander deck, built around searching for the answer to whatever your current situation is at instant speed. As such, the creatures are mostly split between removal, defenses, utility, and finishers, and many tend to be rather situational. You want to make it so that people do not want to attack you, without having to slow down your offense if they decide not to attack you. Yisan sacrifices a lot of speed and power in order to achieve this flexibility, but it still makes for a quite enjoyable deck, and it is my personal favorite deck so far. I use it as a control deck, though I'm not sure how much of that is inherent to the deck and how much is just how I like to play. It doesn't have all that much synergy or ramp, let alone combos, focusing more on finding the perfect card to counter whatever the opponent is doing at any given time. That said, I have found that Elderscale Wurm and Archetype of Endurance is a silly combo if no one is running boardwipes, and Heroes' Bane and Pathbreaker Ibex is also a decent combo.

The deck intentionally does not run any instants and runs Primal Surge as the only sorcery, so that Primal Surge can achieve its maximum effectiveness, allowing me to put an arbitrary amount of my library directly onto the battlefield (I usually choose about half, for safety and convenience), which will generally win the game if it resolves, even if there is a board wipe immediately afterwards. However, the chances of pulling this off in any given game are fairly low, so I don't build around it all that much, hence why I don't have anything to give all my creatures haste.

I am largely looking for other important green or colorless creatures at this point, particularly ones that will singlehandedly change the course of the game in the right situation (they can be extremely situational, as long as they are really useful in that particular situation), preferably between 3 and 8 mana (since I have a lot of 1-2 drops I quite like already, and getting more than 8 verse counters on Yisan is usually quite a long shot). Please do NOT suggest instants or sorcery spells, as mentioned above I am intentionally not using any besides Primal Surge.

Potential Additions:

It would likely work slightly better with Stonehoof Chieftain instead of Liege of the Tangle, but I am debating whether it is worth buying it. I am also thinking about putting Riftsweeper into the sideboard to mess with Jhoira and a few other commanders, and putting in Verdurous Gearhulk in as a more aggressive 5 drop, probably taking out Mire Boa to make room for it, since I haven't found myself actually searching for Mire Boa yet, and I have a lot of other good 2 drop creatures. I'll probably also be messing with my lands some more.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	5 years
Exclude colors	WUBR
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 34 - 4 Rares 18 - 3 Uncommons 10 - 3 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.48
Tokens	Cat Warrior 2/2 G, Copy Clone, Elemental X/X G, Insect 1/1 G w/ Flying, Deathtouch, Morph 2/2 C, Plant 0/1 G, Thopter 1/1 C, Wolf 2/2 G
Folders	Green decks, Interesting Decks