Serpent's Soul-Jar

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Serpent's Soul-Jar

Artifact

Whenever an Elf you control dies (is put into the graveyard from the battlefield), exile it.

, Pay 2 life: Until end of turn, you may cast a creature spell from among cards exiled with Serpent's Soul-Jar.

Guerric on Lathril's Relentless Elves

2 years ago

As for things to cut, here is my list-

Cards to definitely cut- 1) Abomination of Llanowar he's just a big, dumb of elf with a target on his back for removal. There are better options. At least Drove of Elves has hexproof, but I wouldn't even play that. The only one I'd play is Jagged-Scar Archers, and that's because of its utility against flyers.

2) Elvish Rejuvenator He gets a land, but doesn't actually ramp you. And that is if you get a land- you might whiff. You have better options. If you really want this effect Sylvan Ranger costs one less mana and is guaranteed to not whiff.

3) Eyeblight Cullers 5cmc is just too much for something that only gives you three tokens on its death, and you have no mill synergy.

4) Golgari Findbroker This card was made for draft. It just costs too much for what it does. Its not just the four cmc, 2 and 2 is a high opportunity casting cost.

5) Harald, King of Skemfar He's basically a 3/2 with menace that replaces himself. The clause on Tyvar might seem good if you add him (which is good idea, btw- he'll be worth it even if he doesn't stick around too long), but even then you have to remember that he won't find Tyvar the majority of the time. Again, its nice he replaces himself and gives you some selection, but there are better options.

6) Jaspera Sentinel Dorks are great, but you have to tap two creatures for one mana, which is a bad rate in elves. There are better dorks suggested above.

7) Masked Admirers This is one of those cards that Wizards stuffs into every precon conceivable, even though its bad in most of them. We don't need it here.

8) Thornbow Archer He's only draining one life for each time he attacks. That isn't enough to justify his slot.

9) Voice of Many You get maybe three cards for four mana at most? He's not the worst and he does draw cards, but I've never liked him.

10) Voice of the Woods This might sound like a good use of your elves, but its better to pump your elves than to use them to summon elementals. Plus he costs five to cast.

11) Tergrid's Shadow We have a joke about this card in our playgroup, but in general it isn't what we want. Letting your opponents pick what they sacrifice means you'll rarely hit the thing you need to get rid of. You might as well just play Doom Blade or any other premium removal card in these colors. There are a lot!

12) Poison the Cup They just put this in the precon because foretell was a Kaldheim theme, but there are so many cheap (both in real world and mana cost) black removal cards that this one shouldn't make the cut.

13) Roots of Wisdom You're better off just playing Harmonize or getting one of the consistent draw pieces I suggested. This card won't do a lot for the slot in your deck.

14) Return Upon the Tide This just costs too much mana, and you have other better recursion pieces out there.

Cards to think about removing

1) Serpent's Soul-Jar This card could be good, but could also be a trap. Your graveyard is a resource, and exiling everything from it prevents mass recursion. Also, your opponents can target this with removal and you'll never get your stuff back. I'd probably just play Haunting Voyage, Patriarch's Bidding, and Living Death to get your goodies back for more fun!

2) Twinblade Assassins He does draw cards, and is probably at least as good as Phyrexian Arena while he lives. So you might keep him, but he costs 5cmc, so if you have enough card draw you might want to cut him.

3) Numa, Joraga Chieftain He can pump your stuff. But Kindred Summons, Genesis Wave, or the above mentioned Torment of Hailfire and Exsanguinate are much better ones!

4) Nullmage Shepherd This can allow us to remove problematic stuff. But tapping four elves is a bigger cost than we often want to pay. Something to think on.

5) Sylvan Messenger Again, this card does get us some draw, much like Lead the Stampede which I used to play does. I've just never found it good enough to include though. Nonetheless, you want at least ten pieces of draw, and this does count as that!

6) Eyeblight Massacre This will kill a lot of stuff, but will often leave what you most need to kill alive. Ezuri's Predation is a recently reprinted board wipe that is now more affordable and will wreck your opponents while leaving your stuff intact. In Garruk's Wake and Plague Wind cost a 25 cents each and will hose everyone but you, and because you are playing elves you can afford their cmc!

7) Ruthless Winnower Having played against this card I can attest that it is annoying, but your opponents will often kill it before it can have too much impact. If it were a lower cmc it would be a guaranteed in, at least it will take the heat off of more important cards. It is high at 5cmc though. Keeping it might be the right choice, but I'd at least consider it.

orenrahat on Lathril Casually Competitive

2 years ago

If you are going with elf token theme, Presence of Gond might synergize well. You may also want to look at combos that utilize Devoted Druid (if you attache gond to devoted, there are a few ways to get infi elf token using ETB effects, like Ivy Lane Denizen or Coat of Arms.

Many elf decks can benefit from Skyshroud Poacher

Here are a few more cards that can synergize with an elf token /black deck. Eyeblight Massacre, Gilt-Leaf Palace, Harald Unites the Elves, Prowess of the Fair, Serpent's Soul-Jar, Tyvar Kell

I would get rid of Canopy Tactician it doesn't give that much mana at 3 CMC.

Seedborn Muse is not doing much in your deck, since you don't have a lot of tapping. Bloom Tender can help with color fixing.

Nature's Lore is better than Rampant Growth.

Growing Rites of Itlimoc  Flip is slower Gaea's Cradle and also let you scry 4 and get a creature.

You may want to look at modal lands Turntimber Symbiosis  Flip, Agadeem's Awakening  Flip to name 2.

You might be able to eak 1% bu adding the other fetch lands, at the very least add Prismatic Vista

multimedia on Latty the baddie

2 years ago

Hey, one drop green mana Elves are really good, a big reason to play Elves. They aren't just ramp with Lathril they're also fuel for her activated ability when you don't need them for ramp and lets you get more Elves onto the battlefield quicker.


Staff of Domination does everything as a mana sink for Elves and can be an enabler for Lathril to be a win condition. With Staff you first make infinite green mana by tapping and untapping one of Archdruid, Marwyn(with 5 or more power), Priest of Titania, Circle or Wirewood Channeler. When you have infinite green mana then Staff is the mana sink to draw and cast enough Elves to control 10 or more. When you have 10 or more Elves then Staff can be the mana sink to repeatedly untap Lathril and each one the 10 Elves as the win condition.

Quest for Renewal is another enabler for Lathril and 10 Elves to be win condition. When Quest has four counters which is not difficult especially with more mana Elves, you can untap all creatures you control during each opponents turn. With Lathril each opponent loses 10 life on each player's turn, resulting in all opponents losing 40 life in one cycle of all player's turns if you have three opponents.

Chord of Calling is a helpful instant creature tutor since can tap Elves to help to pay for it's convoke, with enough Elves it's a free spell to cast and it puts the creature you search for onto the battlefield. It has nice interaction with Elf tokens since can tap them to convoke the turn they're created. With Chord get Ezuri or Miara, Thorn of the Glade in response to removal, get Archdruid so you can tap him on your turn, get Magistrate so you can tap her on your next turn, get Varragoth so you can attack with him on your next turn, etc.

Patriarch's Bidding is among the most powerful tribal spells for quick recovery. For five mana it reanimates all Elves in your graveyard. Play a Regrowth just to have another potential Chord or Bidding or recur any other card.


An area to consider improving to help with competitiveness is the manabase by upgrading to Golgari dual lands that ETB untapped.

Cabal Stronghold only works with basic Swamps and there's only 9 here which is not enough to really get much if any ramp making it consistently only a colorless source of mana.


Some cards to consider cutting: Blightbeetle, Mana Bloom, Terramorph, Serpent's Soul-Jar, Return Upon the Tide, Masked Admirers, Wild Pair, Golgari Guildmage, Korozda Guildmage, Rhys the Exiled, Blanchwood Armor, Dowsing Dagger  Flip, Harvest Season

If Blightbeetle is tech in your playgroup than nice, but if it's not then it looks out of place. Most if not all mana ramp sources can come from actual Elves instead of other sources like Mana Bloom or land ramp like Terramorph. I would even play one drop mana Elf or Farhaven Elf over Cultivate or Harvest Season.

Serpent's Soul-Jar is not a good card, exiling an Elf when it dies is not a may you have to do it and hoping to be able to cast many Elves later, one at a time with Jar is not going to consistently happen. Instead most if not all your exiled Elves will be stuck in exile for the rest of the game because Jar will be destroyed or removed another way.

Good luck with your deck.

Arcangelo on Lathirl, Queen of Tokens and Endless Mana

2 years ago

Edit: removed Serpent's Soul-Jar as it wasn't working well in favor of Torment of Hailfire .

The jar was a nice tool but was easily counted and could let you return only a single elf to the battlefield each turn at the price of mana and 2 life. It was also not working well with graveyard mechanics to return creatures to the battlefield like Haunting Voyage or Storrew.

The torment instead will make very good use of mana this deck can produce and potentially close a game by itself if not countered

jicklemania on These Elves Have a Lot of Blades

2 years ago

Though I'm curious why you aren't playing some cards, like Skullclamp Serpent's Soul-Jar Pact of the Serpent Harald, King of Skemfar and Sylvan Messenger , I like your list a lot, and it helped me come across some of the weirder cards like Alpha Authority . I just think you should cut Nissa Revane . At least in my playgroup, Wellwisher , being less vulnerable to flyers, is better, and the life-gain isn't that important anyway.

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