Sylvan Tutor
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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

Sylvan Tutor

Sorcery

Search your library for a creature card and reveal that card. Shuffle your library, then put the card on top of it.

Tur on Hidden Power - Crop Rotation

3 months ago

Hello everyone! This will be a trial forum post for a "Commander - Hidden Power" series. My goal is to show relatively inexpensive cards which are often overlooked by commander players in semi-competitive and casual play. (This post is not designed for competitive play.) If you enjoy the topic, please provide positive feedback and I will consider creating similar posts.

The powerful card I plan on discussing here is Crop Rotation.

This card under five dollars and is one of the most powerful mono-green tutors. Period. Yes, I'm counting all mono-green tutors. This includes: Worldly Tutor, Finale of Devastation, Green Sun's Zenith, Survival of the Fittest, Chord of Calling, Natural Order, Tooth and Nail, Sylvan Tutor, Time of Need, Scapeshift, Hour of Promise, Tempt with Discovery, Reshape the Earth, Boundless Realms, Traverse the Outlands, Rampant Growth, Harrow, Cultivate, Harvest Season, Explosive Vegetation, etc.

It's one color, one mana, instant, searches for any land, you can sacrifice a tapped land, and puts the land onto the battlefield untapped (unless otherwise specified).

Although, Crop Rotation is often overlooked by players because of the very expensive cards it can search and not being "flashy" enough. Yes, Crop Rotation is ideal with any of the following cards: Gaea's Cradle, Mishra's Workshop, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Serra's Sanctum, Bazaar of Baghdad, and Diamond Valley. However, suppose we don't have a one thousand dollar mana base and cannot play the land cards above. Is Crop Rotation worthless? No. It is still one of the best mono-green tutors. There are so many utility and theme lands which are excellent targets. Ramp lands and color-fixing are also viable options. Here are a few categorized ideas:

Utility Lands:

Theme Lands:

Ramp Lands:

Color-Fixing Lands:

There are many more unlisted cards in each category which could fit your specific deck.

Some of the cards listed above have some pretty cool synergies with Crop Rotation here are a few:Urza's Saga, you can let the saga get to chapter III, then with the ability on the stack sacrifice it to Crop Rotation to get both the artifact and land. Field of the Dead is ideal in every two or three color commander deck with a sufficient mana base (in fact some of my win conditions are given by Field of the Dead). You can also use Field of the Dead as a combat trick. Scavenger Grounds and Bojuka Bog are fantastic for graveyard combo disruption. Maze of Ith and Glacial Chasm will hurt your lands, but sometimes it is needed to stay alive.

Simply having the ability to greatly effect the board state using a one-mana instant speed spell is impressive: life gain, damage prevention, removing steal effects, getting around blockers, denying counterspells, combo stoppers, unlimited hand size, sacrifice engines, haste, recursion, ramp, creating token blockers. The list goes on-and-on-and-on. If fact, if you're playing 3-4 of the lands listed above you should really consider Crop Rotation in the ninety-nine.

All in all, I'm always surprised the number of deck lists which do not play Crop Rotation. This is a fantastic card and one of the best mono-green tutors. It has so much hidden power. Ask yourself if there is a nonbasic land which you are playing (or would play) that would do well with Crop Rotation.

Forkbeard on Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm: Double Dragon

9 months ago

For sure, repeatable tutor + Sneak Attack effects are great. Thinking about it further though, you're paying 5 to bring out Zirilan and unless you have a haste enabler, Zirilan isn't tutoring for another turn, giving the table a chance to respond. If someone spot removes Z, you've essentially wasted a turn.

It could be great if the conditions are perfect; I've got Miirym out + Lightning Greaves on Zirilan giving him haste and protection, allowing Z to tutor right away and netting me another token copy of whatever I bring up. That's still an 8 mana investment. To play devil's advocate again, would it not be better at that point to just run something less setup heavy like Dragonstorm or Tooth and Nail for 1 more mana? Not repeatable, but if either of those resolve it's a big problem for the table.

In terms of mana efficiency (funny to talk about mana efficiency in a big derpy dragon deck but we can try), there's the 1 mana creature tutors like Gamble, Sylvan Tutor or Worldly Tutor. So yeah, there's a few options that exist in RUG.

AstroAA on [EDH][Primer] Sythis Enchantress Prison

11 months ago

Hello SynergyBuild! Thank you for your comment, I really appreciate it!

You've raised some valid concerns, and given me a lot to think about. For that, thank you!

I'll be honest, I don't have that good of an excuse for not including Blind Obedience or Song of the Dryads beyond not owning them and more recently not getting a proxy made of them.

As for Generous Gift/Beast Within, I think their effects of being able to destroy a permanent are really powerful. I do think that I want to replace one of them with Song of the Dryads in the near future. I think I might end up replacing the other with Seal of Cleansing.

As for Sylvan Tutor vs Green Sun's Zenith, I'm still torn on this. I think they both have their time and place - I do find myself tutoring for either Collector Ouphe or Sanctum Weaver most of the time with Sylvan Tutor, so I do think Green Sun's Zenith is a better card in this regard as both creatures are green. However, I really like Sylvan Tutor as I think it's a strong turn one play and I don't run Dryad Arbor to make Green Sun's Zenith a strong turn one play.

After thinking about it, you're right in regard to the number of fetchlands I run. I'm going to replace Misty Rainforest with a Forest.

Finally, as for Regrowth - you're right. In a deck running things like Rest in Peace and Ground Seal it does indeed not make much sense why I'm running it. I just like it because of possibly getting something back. After thinking about it, perhaps I should lean more into the graveyard hate, running things like Grafdigger's Cage or Weathered Runestone, but then those turn off a potential Green Sun's Zenith. This is a deck designed to shut off opponent's resources, and inadvertently we will hurt ourselves; a 100% cohesion rate among cards and interactions is impossible. I just think having access to potentially bringing back something is too strong.

Regardless, thank you very much for your comment! It's gotten me thinking again about the deck, which I had kind of written off as finished. In reality, no deck is ever truly finished. Thank you!

SynergyBuild on [EDH][Primer] Sythis Enchantress Prison

11 months ago

General thoughts:

I find a lack of Blind Obedience quite interesting. You seem to run Authority of the Consuls, which is similar if a slightly edited variant of BO without the artifact hate, but having the consistency to not make Concordant Crossroads nearly as symmetrical seems important.

Wheel of Sun and Moon is a very powerful effect, however it seems strange to run in a list that can quickly ramp and empty its hand as well as a deck with access to Rest in Peace and Ground Seal.

Nature's Chosen is a beast with Cloudstone Curio loops and can oftentimes be looped to untap Sanctum Weaver or other mana producing effects very easily in a way that wins much quicker than Crossroads loops and often not need as many pieces nor as risky of effects.

Green Sun's Zenith seems quite better than Sylvan Tutor, and can be looped to allow you to never deck yourself in the case of Argothian Enchantress or Setessan Champion which is also great utility worst case.

Regrowth doesn't make much sense to me here, your deck has multiple pieces of hate for this card and little to no utility with it.

Song of the Dryads seems like a better variant on Beast Within or Darksteel Mutation combined into one. Just an effect that is able to add enchantment types to your list and replace some of your non-enchantments with the only cost being sorcery speed and the additions being commander hate and card draw.

Krosan Grip, Beast Within, and Generous Gift all are quite expensive for the effects they give, Path to Exile as well seems a little off for this list. I'd try to use threats in the form of Seal of Cleansing/Seal of Primordium/Journey to Nowhere/Parallax Wave which are not only tutorable, Hall of Heliod's Generosity's recursion, etc. all works on them, and many of them support an Opalescence combo strategy, with two of them being infinite combos with it and the other two being able to stop a sweeper from killing your field by removing your own Opalescence.

Shapers' Sanctuary seems quite weak in my opinion, just feels low-value considering how few of your creatures can be targeted/would be targeted anyway given your abundance of shroud effects.

The fetchlands in this number makes both your own Root Maze and Suppression Field field feel as though you are unprepared for your own hate. Maybe take out a Prismatic Vista or some enemy fetchlands?

Profet93 on [PRIMER]Parley Girl cEDH

11 months ago

Homelessguy

I wish I could +1 again, I don't even have any real suggestions to give you aside from my own personal deckbuilding advice which I don't think is warranted in this type of more competitive build. That being said, I wanted to know your input on these cards have worked for your deck...

Mandate of Peace - Do you just go to combat and not attack, cast it, then proceed to Main Phase 2 and activate your commander? Can't they just cast a spell in response?

  • Compared to Silence, do you prefer it given it stops attacks on your opponents combat step? I guess what I'm asking is, how does one use mandate of peace effectively in your deck? Under which circumstances is it ideal, and circumstances that are less ideal?

Savage Summoning - I don't see it's usefulness here as this is a more competitive build. Could you educate me as to it's effectiveness for you and why you run it over another card like Sylvan Tutor?

While not a serious suggestion given this build, one thing to note is if you were to add in Maze of Ith, it gives you infinite mana during the combat step in conjunction with Argothian Elder. You can then use that mana on staff of domination. Limited, yes, but worth noting if your meta is a bit more aggro than I had first thought (given you're running mandate of peace)

Mortlocke on The Queen's Egg

1 year ago

Hey abierto,

Indeed it’s been awhile since you commented, glad to hear from you. Thank you for bringing these cards onto my radar, let’s discuss them - I can easily tell that Survival of the Fittest would dramatically change the way the deck plays – with Survival of the Fittest + Dregscape Sliver on the board, access to at least 3 mana, 1 creature in hand, and at least an additional I can combo out and win the game on that turn. The only drawbacks I can see here are the mana requirements coupled with the more than likely opponent interaction that would be coming my way. Given that Dregscape Sliver’s ability is only sorcery speed – that only solidifies my concern as A simple Bojuka Bog could wreck me If I do not populate my graveyard with care and proper timing. This makes me wish that Paradox Engine wasn’t banned – I really miss that card. The verdict is out on Survival of the Fittest, I want to like to this card but I can’t help but feel hesitant in including it (let alone the investment). I think I’ll maybe proxy it in and see where that takes me. Speaking which, check out this really awesome alter:

Survival of the Fittest Sliver Alter Show

Dregscape Sliver on the other hand I’m considering including. Maybe cutting Patriarch's Bidding, as I do not like the mana investment and the potential added bonus of assisting opponents. In the metas I play in there are a lot of tribal decks – I’m sitting across from at least one or two other tribal decks every game. I’m ordering a copy today, so thank you for mentioning that card again.

Hi Sneuxfox (death by Snu snu?),

Welcome to my deck page! Thank you for posting. I’ve always wanted to work Magma Sliver into this decklist, but I don’t think it would be a good fit – Magma lends itself toward a Sliver deck that compliments a more Aggro strategy where the goal is to hit a “critical mass” of creatures and abuse enough evasion keywords to get a single creature to knock an opponent out. First Sliver's Chosen would be an absolute must include alongside Magma Sliver, as it would solidify a Voltron strategy by stacking Exalted triggers alongside Magma’s ability. I definitely agree that the aforementioned can get out hand when you have just one Sliver be the target of multiple triggers.

I agree that it's criminal that Magma doesn't make it's way into alot of lists, maybe it's due to most decks wanting to lean into the Mid-range Sliver tool box? Or maybe it's because the deck would need to be more Voltron centric? I decided to throw together a quick decklist as an example of what I think the average deck running Magma Sliver would look like:

Budget Aggro Sliver Decklist Show

What're your thoughts on the list, Sneuxfox ?

AstroAA on Selvala CEDH V8.4

1 year ago

Scytec I'm not the maker of this deck, but I do have a Selvala deck that is very similar. Selvala, Heart of the Wilds wins by essentially playing an undercosted high-power creature such as Phyrexian Dreadnought or Phyrexian Soulgorger to quickly generate a ton of mana, get cards like Quirion Ranger or Wirewood Symbiote into play with Temur Sabertooth to generate infinite mana through blinking the Wirewood Symbiote to use it's ability multiple times, and then tapping and untapping Selvala, and then either with through a Walking Ballista for infinite or infinitely bouncing something like Great Oak Guardian to give all your creatures +infinite/+infinite and swing for game.

As for this deck, I would highly recommend adding Concordant Crossroads, Craterhoof Behemoth, or even cards like Berserk. Concordant Crossroads is essential in decks like Selvala, where you can repeatedly bounce your own mana dorks to generate infinite mana, or even flood the board with creatures and quickly swing for game that turn. Deserted Temple is also nice for untapping things like Gaea's Cradle or Wirewood Lodge. Sylvan Tutor is also really nice as it adds more consistency.

lemerac on Temur Energy but it's in EDH

1 year ago

If it is, then maybe Sylvan Tutor + Worldly Tutor can help to get you the creatures you need to pop off.

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