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Minstrel’s Tale of Forest Gates PRIMER

Commander / EDH Bracket 3 Forest Gate Landfall Lands Multiplayer Primer Ramp Scapeshift

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Commander: The Wandering Minstrel

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Minstrel’s Tale of Forest Gates

"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness." — Wilderness World of John Muir

Primer updated: 18.07.2025

Hello Hivemind,

first of all I want to introduce myself. My name is Christian and I'm from Germany. I'm playing Magic the Gathering since 2006 and especially like the Elder Dragon Highlander Format. My Playgroup is Semi-Competitive. We played different Powerlevels - from casual to cEDH - but enjoy making the best out of Bracket 3 the most.

In the following sections I want to explain the general idea of this Primer. Feel free to comment and to suggest cards. If you do, please let me know, why you would recommend them and which cards should be cut.

If you like my deck, don't hesitate to ring the bell ;)

Why should you take The Wandering Minstrel over any other 5-Color Lands Matter Commander?

My first 5-Color-EDH was Jodah, Archmage Eternal. The deck was quite strong in my former highpower casual meta and played around Jodah's ability to constantly cast cards like Omniscience, Zacama, Primal Calamity or Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger in the Midgame (turn four) instead of the Endgame.

But because of that, he got targeted every time I played him. So in the end, I played the control game and casted my creatures without him. Long story short: I stopped casting him at all.

For obvious reasons I searched for a new leader for my deck and I didn't find one.

So I started out different ways with other 5-Color-Commanders. Because I didn't want to play a tribal deck, I finally brewed some Golos, Tireless Pilgrim decks and I realized, how many possibilities he holds while using him as a commander.

Time went by and our Metagame shifted to Semi-Competitive. So I came up with a "Lands Matter" idea, which doesn't rely on uncastable things like Avenger of Zendikar or Omnath, Locus of Rage. Don't get me wrong. I don't say those cards are bad for a casual meta, but they are to mana intense to play in my Metagame. Over the years the deck grew into an unconventional Combodeck with stuff like Jeskai Ascendancy + Bloom Tender, which was so much fun too play.

But then it happened... the "Ban Hammer" dropped and Golos, Tireless Pilgrim was its target. After that I couldn't really find a new leader for the deck I enjoyed so much and invested so much time into. Until now I should say, because the new cool guy - The Wandering Minstrel - arrived with new possibilities :)

So let's wipe away the tears and come to the facts!

The Wandering Minstrel is a green/blue 1/3 Legendary Creature - Human, Bard. That being said he can block some of the important threats in the format - e.g. Tymna the Weaver *f-etch*.

A Commander should be either providing card advantage, generate value in general or be/enable your wincon. The Wandering Minstrel doesn't draw cards, but he generates value with bringing in lands untapped. E.g. cards like Ranger's Path bring two Forest cards like Zagoth Triome untapped, which let's you surveil as well. Mystic Sanctuary should be unplayable in a 5-Color-Deck, but it can offer its value even without the three other Island. I could give more examples, but you get the point.

Furthermore this General is a Combo-Piece in different ways. We can win as a "Two-Card Mid- to Lategame Combo" with Scapeshift or Reshape the Earth which will be explained in detail later. And combo of in some other ways too.

An additional upside is, that he is very cheap. is easy to achieve and we can bring him out turn 2 in every single game if we want to.

The big downside as already said is he provides no card advantage. And sadly at the moment there are not enough towns which are playable and generate value or a wincon. So we can't play for his second or third ability, which is really upsetting. Maybe there will be a way to add some nasty towns in the future.

Let's get back to the facts. When I weigh the pros and cons I come to the conclusion that he's definitly worth to play as my General.

As I already said in the Introduction my playgroup is Semi-Competitive. We want to make the best of our decks. In Bracket 3 we try to play unique ideas like the Gate concept in this deck, which wouldn't fit in Bracket 4 or 5. But the main aspect is of course: having fun :)

Short: Reshape the Earth + The Wandering Minstrel

Thats's easy: You just need your Commander in play. Search for up to nine Gates and Maze's Endfoil. Because the Lands come in untapped because of your Commander you have enough Mana to activate the last ability of Maze's Endfoil, search for the tenth Gate and win the game on the spot! (If you already have ten Gates on the battlefield and it fails to find, you still win the game :) )

Note: Check that there are no Gates in your Graveyard when you try to go for the win, because there are only ten Gates in the deck!

Short: Scapeshift + The Wandering Minstrel

Works like Option 1. You just need to have ten or more lands on the battlefield and sacrifice all of your non-Gate lands.

Short: Knight of the Reliquary + Retreat to Coralhelm

Here you need to have ten or more lands and the two named cards in play as well.

Step 1: Sacrifice one of your many Forest with Knight of the Reliquary and find Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth. Let Retreat to Coralhelm untap your Knight of the Reliquary.

Note: If the land is untapped, tap it for Mana first!

Step 2: Sacrifice any non-Gate land exept for Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth and find Gond Gate, while generating mana again. Let Retreat to Coralhelm untap your Knight of the Reliquary.

Note: You can even tap Fetchlands for because of Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth.

Step 3: Repeat Step 2 until you have exactly nine Gates in play.

Step 4: Cast your Commander if it's not on the battlefield. Otherwise skip Step 4.

Note: You need to produce in step 1-3.

Step 5: Sacrifice Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth after tapping for and find Maze's Endfoil

Step 6: Activate Maze's Endfoil

Note: You need at least 3 Mana floating while in step 1-5.

There is an alternate way as well if you have exactle nine lands in play and one "two-land-ramp-spell" like Ranger's Path in your graveyard. If someone really wants to know, I can add this way to the Primer.

Short: Retreat to Coralhelm + Wight of the Reliquary + Bloodghast or Scute Swarm or Springheart Nantuko

You only need the two cards and one of the enabler cards in play.

Step 1: Sacrifice Bloodghast or an Insect 1/1 G and find Gond Gate. Let Retreat to Coralhelm untap your Wight of the Reliquary.

Step 2: Repeat Step 1 until you have exactly nine Gates in play.

Step 3: Cast your Commander if it's not on the battlefield. Otherwise skip Step 3.

Step 4: Repeat Step 1 and find Maze's Endfoil

Step 5: Activate Maze's Endfoil

Note: If you have seven or more lands, The Wandering Minstrel and any other creature in play you don't need an enabler. Just sacrifice the random creature and search for Field of the Dead. Afterwards start the combo with the Zombie 2/2 B.

Short: Field of the Dead + Vesuva + Thespian's Stage

When you have seven lands in play Field of the Dead will trigger, because we don't have the same land twice in the deck. Afterwards you can copy it with Vesuva and Thespian's Stage to generate even more Zombie 2/2 B. When you have enough Tokens to go for a win. Search your library for Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite with one of your creature tutors and swing your army like a Timmy.

Note: When Field of the Dead and Vesuva enter at the same time (e.g. with Hour of Promise) and with them entering you have eight or more lands in play you will generate four Zombie 2/2 B when you let Vesuva enter as Field of the Dead. This won't work with Thespian's Stage because it doesn't enter as a copy.

Short: Knight of the Reliquary + Retreat to Coralhelm

Wait a minute! We already had this as a wincon under "Gate to win". Why do you point it out another time?

Because if you don't have ten lands into play you can't win on the spot with this combo - BUT you can generate massive value and try to win desparatly in the next few turns, if the state of the game forces you to do so.

So the combo works like I already mentioned. What can we try to do now?

  1. Play your whole hand, with the mana you generate from tapping your lands, before you sacrifice them.

  2. If you have Dread Presence you can tutor for Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth first. And shoot minimum one opponent to death with like 30 land drops.

  3. If you have Valakut Exploration you can shoot all opponents for 30 with 30 land drops.

  4. If you have exactly seven lands in play, you can generate like 30 Zombie 2/2 B when you tutor for Field of the Dead. Go for Dark Depths as your last tutored card and spend the 30 mana you produced to remove all ice counters. If you have eight lands go for Vesuva as well.

  5. If you have another Landfall effect, you can try to generate value that way. But if you have draw triggers with cards like Tatyova, Benthic Druid or The Gitrog Monster put them all on the stack an let them resolve after you searched for all the lands you wanted. That is so you don't draw lands from your deck, which you can't tutor into play afterwards.

Turn 1:

Most of the time, we want to play an untapped land and a Manadork. We have 15 lands in the deck which are coming in untapped and either produce or fetch for a land that can do so. All your seven Fetchlands find Tropical Island, which can be important to cast your Commander on turn 2, because some Manadorks don't produce , while all of them produce . You can mulligan straight for that opening. If you want to know more about starting hands and mulligans you can read about that in the following section.

Turn 2:

You can play The Wandering Minstrel and bring a land in untapped afterwards to play another 1-Drop. Furthermore you can go for a Value-3-Drop (e.g. Azusa, Lost but Seeking, if you have another untapped land.

Turn 3:

Go for value now. Bring an card advantage engine into play and/or ramp up.

Maybe you can go for an early win here. Read more about that in the "Win Cons" section. Otherwise create value and play the "Ramp Game".

There is not much advice I can give, because every game plays out differntly :P

  1. We want to have at least one Land that comes in untapped and produces .

  2. We want to have one Manadork

  3. We want most of the time one or two other lands

  4. We want to have a value piece which provides card advantage or ramps up fast.

To learn how to mulligan correctly, is an important thing to become a better MtG-Player. In the following I will draw some random hands with the help of tappedout and give you my thoughts about them.

Vesuva, Manor Gate, Snow-Covered Forest, Selesnya Guildgate, Ignoble Hierarch, Sylvan Scrying and Reshape the Earth

Four Lands, one Manadork, one Land-Tutor and a Win-Con.

We can't hold this hand. With the Snow-Covered Forest and Ignoble Hierarch we can't play our Commander on turn 2 because of the lack of . Furthermore we don't have a value engine. The hand is just to slow.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Scalding Tarn, Nissa, Resurgent Animist, Scute Swarm, Skullclamp, Green Sun's Zenith and Skyshroud Claim

Two Lands, one Tutor/Turn 1 Rampspell, one Mana-/Valuegenerator, one Tokengenerator, one Draw-Engine and one Rampspell

This hand is interesting. We could play The Wandering Minstrel on turn 2 by fetching for Tropical Island and tutoring for Dryad Arbor turn 1. But we don't really care about our Commander here, because we can just play a Three-Drop on turn 2 to get a card-draw engine with Scute Swarm and Skullclamp going. The best play would be Nissa, Resurgent Animist on turn two and Skyshroud Claim on turn 3 to generate 5 more Mana that turn and trigger Nissa's second ability. Great hand :)

Maze's Endfoil, Dryad Arbor, Tropical Island, Misty Rainforest, Sol Ring, Valakut Exploration and Hunting Wilds

Four Lands, one Manarock, one Value Engine and one Rampspell

Fetch for Taiga and Sol Ring turn 1, Valakut Exploration or Hunting Wilds on turn two depending on the draw. We can keep that.

Gruul Guildgate, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Arbor Elf, Crop Rotation, Expedition Mapfoil, Tatyova, Benthic Druid and Nature's Lore

Two Lands, one Manadork, two Landtutors, one Draw-Engine and one early Rampspell

This hand looks not too good at first, but even if we don't draw an untapped Forest on turn one, we hold it. Skip turn 1 by playing Gruul Guildgate. Turn 2 Nature's Lore into Arbor Elf and most likely Turn 3 Tatyova, Benthic Druid with two Landtutors in hand. Seems pretty good :)

Verdant Catacombs, Waterlogged Grove, Misty Rainforest, Exploration, Sylvan Safekeeper, Scute Swarm and Reshape the Earth

Three Lands, one "Ramp"spell, one Protector, one Tokengenerator and a Win-Con

All we want right? Sadly not. We miss out on value. If we had a Tutor for Ramunap Excavator, this hand would destroy everything. But like this, we will be running out of fuel on turn 3, exept we have a good draw. We should mulligan I think.

I hope you liked my idea of The Wandering Minstrel. If you did, leave an upvote and/or comment.

Anyways thank you for reading this primer. Maybe you got inspired by it, maybe not.

If you have questions, remarks or suggestions, please point them out! I would really like to discuss about card choices.

I'm looking to constantly update this deck and substantiate my amendments.

That's it so far. See you in the comments :)

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