The Green River

Commander / EDH Elves Mono-Green Ramp

TurtleZoom

Creature (30)

• 1x Allosaurus Shepherd
• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Archetype of Endurance
• 1x Beast Whisperer
• 1x Bramble Familiar
• 1x Bramble Sovereign
• 1x Circle of Dreams Druid
• 1x Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1x Defiler of Vigor
• 1x Devoted Druid
• 1x Elvish Archdruid
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Pathbreaker Ibex
• 1x Priest of Titania
• 1x Psychosis Crawler
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Seedborn Muse
• 1x Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
• 1x Silverback Elder
• 1x Temur Sabertooth
• 1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
• 1x Ulvenwald Tracker
• 1x Vorinclex  ^Flip
• 1x Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
• 1x Woodfall Primus
• 1x Yeva, Nature's Herald

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Bala Ged Recovery  ^Flip
• 1x Finale of Devastation
• 1x Genesis Wave
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Last March of the Ents
• 1x Rishkar's Expertise
• 1x Skyshroud Claim
• 1x The Great Aurora
• 1x Tooth and Nail
• 1x Turntimber Symbiosis  ^Flip

Artifact (10)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Caged Sun
• 1x Doubling Cube
• 1x Emerald Medallion
• 1x Extraplanar Lens
• 1x Jeweled Lotus
• 1x Staff of Domination
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x The Great Henge
• 1x Thousand-Year Elixir

Land (31)

• 1x Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 26x Forest
• 1x Mosswort Bridge
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Rogue's Passage

Commander (1)

Instant (9)

• 1x Archdruid's Charm
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Force of Vigor
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Momentous Fall
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Return of the Wildspeaker

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Bear Umbra
• 1x Concordant Crossroads
• 1x Garruk's Uprising
• 1x Greater Good
• 1x Virtue of Strength

Planeswalker (4)

• 1x Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury
• 1x Garruk, Primal Hunter
• 1x Nissa, Ascended Animist
• 1x Vivien, Champion of the Wilds

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Maybeboard

Artifact (5)

• 1x Akroma's Memorial
• 1x Commander's Plate
• 1x Lifecrafter's Bestiary
• 1x Rhonas's Monument
• 1x Umbral Mantle

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Helix Pinnacle
• 1x Tribute to the World Tree
• 1x Zendikar Resurgent

Creature (5)

• 1x Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant
• 1x Grothama, All-Devouring
• 1x Ojer Kaslem, Deepest Growth  ^Flip
• 1x Soul of the Harvest
• 1x Surrak and Goreclaw

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Awaken the Woods
• 1x Shamanic Revelation
• 1x Soul's Majesty

Instant (2)

• 1x Legolas's Quick Reflexes
• 1x Summoner's Pact

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Welcome Back everyone!! I know I have been away for quite some time now, on a rather long journey of self discovery. Today, I bring you the fruit of a very long labor, my newest, and most proud deck I have ever created. I bring you: The Green River!

Now I'm sure for some, an Omnath, Locus of Mana deck is nothing new, however I like to think what I have created is a slight spin on things. You see, in my time off from this site, I have still played and loved Magic the Gathering, and have learned quite a lot. I've come across some tough opponents, most of which I now call good friends, from which I have gathered some new knowledge on the the metagame behind Magic. For instance, I've learned how important the inclusion of removal spells and/or counter spells are in a deck. It's important to make a deck that can win a game, but at the same time, prevent your opponents from doing that themselves. Removal and counter magic are the best ways to do this. One problem with this however, is that those cards take up space that could be used for other spells in your deck. For some decks, this is just an acceptable loss, but for other decks, removal and win condition can go hand in hand. Let's break it down guys :)

The Green Battery

Our commander for today is one I have used before, but in a much less effective way (I used him as a +1/+1 counter deck commander, it didn't really work). Omnath, Locus of Mana is one of the best Mana ramp commanders in all of Magic. His ability makes it so your mana pool does not drain, for as long as he is on the battlefield, on top of that, for each instance of green mana in your pool, he gets a passive +1/+1, making him not only great for ramping early, but as a damn dangerous beatstick. This deck mostly centers around this mechanic: ramping green mana quickly, buffing Omnath, and start swingin'. The best ways to do this, why, ELVES of course.

Elves R Us

Elves have always been an effective mana ramp source. While not quite as fast as artifact Mana Rocks, they are ideal for creature based decks such as this one. Mana Dorks as they're called, will be slower ramp (due to summoning sickness), but provide creature utility as bodies. For instance, when I land a Craterhoof Behemoth, having more elves than artifacts will get better value.

However, in the early stages of this deck, I had far more of these Mana dork elves, including Druid of the Cowl, Devoted Druid, and Greenweaver Druid. I thought the more of these I had, the better. I even included Ezuri, Renegade Leader in the deck as well for an outlet to use some of the stored mana, and swing with a bunch of Elves. However, upon testing, this proved to be really inconsistent, so those cards were scrapped. I kept however, the best and most effective mana dork elves there were:

• Karametra's Acolyte
• Priest of Titania
• Elvish Archdruid
• Marwyn, the Nurturer
• card:Selvala, Heart of the Wild

These are the best examples here. The mana dorks I kept were ones that could produce more and more over time, or the one drop mana dorks:

• Arbor Elf
• Elvish Mystic
• Fyndhorn Elves
• Llanowar Elves

Elves are one thing, but to win with this deck, we're going to need two things, card draw, and some bigger bois.

I'll Draw My Deck

Something I learned in my adventures, is that you can NOT understate the importance of card draw. Drawing cards is far more important than one might think. Some decks, namely Grix & Stones, Draw Cards, Break Bones!, even weaponize this effect for maximum value.

Through some time and effort, I've found a way to utilize the translation of Mana pool to high creature power/toughness using Omnath's ability. The way this works is, you take a card such as Soul's Majesty, target Omnath with it while you have say 30 {G} left in your pool after casting, the result is you will draw at least 31 cards (assuming Omnath has doesn't have any other power/toughness buffs at the time from other sources, in which case you would draw ever MORE cards). I included Psychosis Crawler in the deck because this deck is full of draw card potential like this including:

• Garruk, Primal Hunter
• Greater Good
• Grothama, All-Devouring
• Hunter's Insight
• Hunter's Prowess
• Rishkar's Expertise
• Soul's Majesty

The best part, after drawing all those cards, you then still have that 30 mana in your pool to use on all your new cards to cast. Something else to consider, is the fact that once you draw that many cards, you most likely should win that turn. Concordant Crossroads is a key card here to give every creature you cast on this turn the ability to immediately beat face, as well as helping the aforementioned Mana Dorks use their abilities right away for extra mana.

One more thing to consider however, is that once you have all these cards in hand, and you don't just win that turn, discarding all those cards is going to hurt the soul. So I included Library of Leng, and card:Praetor's Council, as ways of helping with that.

Green Meanies

As I mentioned in the intro to the deck, removal and win condition go hand in hand. The majority of removal I have in this deck is creature based. Some of these cards include:

• Reclamation Sage: this card is widely used, as it is a low CMC, artifact/enchantment removal on an elf stick. This card was included here as it not only acts as removal and another body, it acts as another elf to boost Elvish Archdruid, Priest of Titania, and others.
• Scavenging Ooze: this card is necessary in almost any green deck. It's what's refered to as a "Graveyard Hate" card. Some very popular decks revolve around having cards in that player's graveyard, and cheesing them onto the battlefield somehow, or other things. Commanders like Muldrotha, the Gravetide, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Meren of Clan Nel Toth, and Karador, Ghost Chieftain, are some good examples of these decks. The ability to exile cards from graveyards is invaluable because of this(part of that "stopping enemy win conditions" thing I mentioned earlier).
• Terastodon: not much to say about this one, just a big body with a fantastic removal effect.
• Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre: another useful removal creature. The newer version of Ulamog is better removal, having two targets and exiling rather than destoying, upon entering the battlefield, but I chose this one because of that last ability. When this card enters the graveyard from anywhere, your entire graveyard gets shuffled back into your library. This is a useful defense against one of the most annoying concepts in the game: Mill. Some commanders, like Phenax, God of Deception have a win condition which revolves around emptying an opponent's library, and forcing them to lose the game this way. This is a less effective strategy in Commander than in say Modern or Standard, because of the massive difference in library size (100 card decks compared to 60 card ones). Some decks, like my deck:teysas-token-control, can even go infinite mill, and just win the game (each opponent losing the game on their draw step). Having either this card or it's brother Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, can defend against this wincon. That, and Annihilator is just a cruel ability in general.
• Ulvenwald Tracker: a perfect creature removal card for this deck, seeing as how your Commander here is almost certainly going to be the biggest boy on the field most of the time, and can lay waste to any single creature threat of your choice.
• Woodfall Primus: Another useful ETB removal creature with Persist. The persist makes this card especially useful as sacrifice fodder for Greater Good, Natural Order, or as a chump blocker.
• Bane of Progress: This is essentially an artifact/enchantment boardwipe. I had it in the deck at first until I realized it hinders this deck more than most. This is becuase I use many enchantments as ramp. So I've decided to keep it in the sideboard as a "Just in Case". I'd use it for an enchantment heavy deck like a deck one of my good friends uses with Tuvasa the Sunlit as their commander.

The point here is that most, if not all the removal in this deck, centers around creatures which you can then use to attack and destroy your foes.

Well. That was......... a lot of typing. But it felt good. It feels gud to be back on this site, surrendering my creations to you guys, the Magic Community. Thanks for stopping by and be sure to give suggestions if you have any! Until next time......

Leave an Upvote! Leave a comment! Leave some love! Check out my other decks! My name is TurtleZoom and I will see you next time!

Top Ranked	Achieved #10 position overall 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	2 months
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	24 - 0 Mythic Rares 35 - 0 Rares 10 - 0 Uncommons 5 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.96
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Copy Clone, Elf Druid 1/1 G, Phyrexian Horror X/X G, Wurm 6/6 G
Folders	Decks to build, Commander