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"My Retirement Fund" (Primer)

Commander / EDH Aggro Competitive Druid Elves Infinite Combo Mono-Green

PhoenixWombat

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Creature (40)

Land (30)

Artifact (8)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Seton, Krosan Protector

Enchantment (9)

Instant (6)

Sorcery (6)

Welcome To My (Potentially Unhinged) Chase Of Perfection


A Quick Note On My Deck Choices Show

I present to you my foiled out Mono-Green Druid Elf Ball!


Welcome to my very first Primer! If you clicked on my deck and made it this far I thank you greatly for your visit.

So this Seton deck was the second EDH deck I ever built. And, I believe, inspired me to be a better player. Only I didn't start with Seton at the helm of this deck, oh no. You see the first version of this deck used Rhys the Redeemed as the commander. Wait, what's that you say? An elf Commander, at the head of an elf deck, piloted by someone who likes elf cards. I know... truly shocking. And, in case you're wondering. Yes, I completely and willingly ignored the white aspect of Rhys' color identity.

Now don't get me wrong, I had fun with with the deck. But it was far from absolutely any semblance of optimization. That is until, on one fateful day, I stumbled upon a Seton, Krosan Protector in the "dollar bin" box at my LGS. I wasn't aware of any cards off the top of my head with a similar effect to Seton and so I thought to myself Why in the hell does this exist? is this only for druids that don't tap for green? If so that seems almost hilariously niche. Like, I had been playing Magic for a while at that point and I knew most (elf) druids already tapped for a mana. So I went to the store owner and asked him what is up with this card?

How naïve I was. Little did I realize that once I actually understood how Seton's ability worked, that it would send me down an obsessive spiral of never-ending improvement. A self-imposed, 10+ year long quest resulting in the deck you see now. I've tuned this deck to the point where it can reliably go off by turn 5-6. But it can even win as early as turn 3 with a really good hand!

I ultimately chose to use Seton, Krosan Protector as my commander for one reason, his ability. Seton's ability is composed of one single line of text. Tap an untapped Druid you control: Add to your mana pool. I know what you're thinking. STOP THE PRESSES, WE HAVE YET ANOTHER DRUID CARD THAT TAPS FOR A MANA. But it's OK. I don't blame you. As I already mentioned above, I too thought the same thing at first.

You see Seton's ability is deceptively complex. As it fundamentally breaks the way magic players are taught the game works. Notice how Seton's ability contains no symbol. Seton's ability ignores summoning sickness. Not only that. He allows other druids to tap for a in the same way. Essentially ignoring summoning sickness (but only for the sole purpose of generating that one ) via Seton's proxy ability. Let me repeat that. He allows any druid that you have on the field to tap for at any time. Hopefully I don't have to explain why this is is a gamechanger (both literally and figuratively.) I'll pause for a moment to allow time for the gear's in your head start turning... Good? Ok let's continue.

If for some reason you didn't want to use Seton, as blasphemous as that might seem, then here are a handful of other legendary creature that I think could mesh pretty well with the rest of my deck list.

1. Marwyn, the Nurturer
Honestly if I wasn't running Seton, she would be my go to commander for this deck. You could honestly even think of her a a soft secondary commander for us, assuming that we are unable to use Seton as intended. She gets stronger for every single elf that enters your battlefield while she's in play (even tokens if relevant) and makes mana equal to her power. Which means she can easily go infinite with untap enablers. The only two problems I can immediately identify with her is that A. she's considerably more known than Seton and because of that, she's more likely to get targeted. And B. She's subject to summoning sickness which means including more cards to either give her haste, evasion, or both.

2. Ezuri, Renegade Leaderfoil
The classic Elf Ball Commander. And it's easy to see why. This dude really has the potential to get out of hand very quickly. His most popular ability is a repeatable Overrun to make all your elves stronger. His second ability is less talked about though no less useful. It allows you to pay mana to regenerate and save any elf (except for himself ☹️) from many of the boardwipes and kill spells in Magic. At a ratio of one per elf you wish to save. And best of all you can cast him as the final piece of a death blow as none of his abilities require that he be tapped. All you need is the 1-5+ mana to throw at either of his abilities.

3. Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
A less efficiently costed Ezuri. Has a built in creature->land till end of turn ability which is good for an emergency blocker or a bit more damage. And he also has a repeatable Overrun ability like Ezuri, only Kamahl's overrun ability more broadly applies to all the creatures you control. But I feel his casting cost holds him back significatly as a commander. Also a random bonus fact: in the magic storyline Seton was Kamahl's druidic teacher.

4. Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury
Pretty decent utility. She makes Llanowar Elves with her +2. She blows up artifacts and enchantments for -2. I feel like her -6 is the greatest disappointment personally. Drawing = to your creatures is cool. But it's not a finisher. And there are similarly costed spells that draw cards immediately: Collective Unconscious, Shamanic Revelation, and even Regal Force without having to survive multiple rounds the way Freyalise does for the same payoff.

* Honorable Mentions *

Rhys the Redeemed
The OG commander of this deck. Obviously adding white opens up the possibilities of what you can do with the deck. Mostly in respect to protection and removal. But I feel it also warps the deck beyond our intended goal of snowballing elves out. While it is almost guaranteed you will have Rhys out turn 1, Rhys himself is remarkably fragile as a 1/1. And his ability's are strong enough that it's likely that he will get hard targeted early on to put a "mana buffer" between his subsequent casting costs and his ability activations. So while it's undeniable that he is a pretty sweet elf, he's clearly meant to be at the helm of a token generation deck.

10/17/2020 Edit: Added Lotus Petal/Removed Fabled Passage

10/23/2020 Edit: Added Allosaurus Shepherd/Removed Skyshroud Ranger

11/15/2020 Edit: Switched out the Khans Wooded Foothills and Windswept Heath foil fetches for the Judge Foil Onslaught versions

11/20/2020 Edit: Added Aluren/Removed Praetor's Counsel

12/06/2020 Edit: Added Elvish Spirit Guide/Removed Reclamation Sage : Re-added Skyshroud Ranger/Removed Rishkar, Peema Renegade

12/08/2020 Edit: Added Jeweled Lotus/Removed Zendikar Forest : Switched out OG Worldly Tutor for newly arrived Commander Green foil version.

1/19/2021 Edit: I purchased a crimped foil Seton to use as my commander! I have uploaded/updated the image to reflect this.

3/11/2021 Edit: Added Masked Vandal/Removed Wirewood Elf : Switched out the foiled Staff of Domination, Cloudstone Curio, and Lotus Petal for their Masterpiece Printings.

4/17/2021 Edit: Switched out one of the foil forest for a newly acquired (coveted) Guru Forest

9/13/2021 Edit: Added 7 full art Judge Foil forests/Removed 7 Zendikar forests, Added Circle of Dreams Druid/Removed Servant of the Conduit

10/25/2021 Edit: Added 4 more Judge foil forests/removed 4 Zendikar forests, Added Emerald Medallion/Removed Sylvan Offering

7/18/2022 Edit: Added Signed Judge foil Forest/Removed Zendikar Forest, Added signed Guru Forest/Removed Zendikar Forest, Added Boseiju, Who Endures/Removed Mana Confluence, Switched out Commander printing of Emerald Medallion for tempest version, Added Hall of Gemstone/Removed Hurricane

11/6/22: Added 30th anniversary Japanese retro Llanowar Elves, added Leaf Crowned Visionary, Added Llanowar Loamspeaker, took out full art Llanowar elves, Llanowar Visionary, and Wirewood Elf

...Work in progess...

AKA "The Retirement Fund" Show

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Casual

94% Competitive

Revision 3 See all

(11 months ago)