Hey, love the deck! One thing I recently discovered when building my own Volo deck is that cascade is a cast trigger not an ETB trigger. So Apex Devastator and Sweet-Gum Recluse don't actually get cascade triggers when Volo makes their tokens.

Commander_Olim, yeah, dude, you're absolutely right. It's a killer. Means Recluse almost definitely gets 3 creatures with +3/+3, but not 4, and Devastator yeilds only 6 cards. Good spot.

Do you use anything in their place?

You can honestly run any beefy dorks in their place. there are a million good hydras, (Kalonian Hydra jumps to mind) but there aren't a ton of good spiders, so I'd suggest just using a different creature type. I'm partial to Wandering Archaic  ^Flip, which gives you copies of your opponents spells if you have extra mana, and also has a symmetrical hand refill mode if you need it. I'm also running Berserk, but that's just a pet card and not strategy specific.

Commander_Olim, aw man, I've loved Berserk for the longest time, since I couldn't rationalise paying for the FTV version. How does it scale to Commander?

I think Apex Devastator is still impactful enough, but Recluse could get swapped out without much change

Yeah, you're right. Berserk scales good but not great in commander as far as my experience goes, hence it being a pet card. It works better if you're playing a deck where commander damage matters, although playing it on an opponent's creature as removal also feels great when you pull it off.

Commander_Olim Yeah, it's a beauty of a card. The art alone is a gem. They desperately need a great werewolf commander and I'll be running it. Infect, it's just abusive. And I'd love to play it on an opponent's big green creature and fog it.

just and FYI Dryad of the Ilysian Grove is a Nymth-Dryad creature type and messes up Bramble Sovereign

MrIdKpeoplefood Is that oracle text, as it doesn't say it on the card

You could use Thorn Mammoth if you've been liking Apex Altisaur. Also you mentioned in your primer that Sweet Gum Recluse has a worse case scenario of cascading into Apex Devastator, but that isn't how cascade works. You will always hit something with lesser mana value.

CavemanlyMan Cheers, dude. I've seen the mammoth in Brawl and liked it, so it might be a good replacement for the Recluse. What I mean about feeling bad, is caskading into Apex Devastator, not being able to cast it, and having to put it on the bottom of the deck.

DavidBray its i noticed online, the wizards rule page https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=dryad%20of%20the%20ilysian%20grove

MrIdKpeoplefood cheers. That's going to take some thinking on replacement

Have you considered riptide shapeshifter? It lets you name a creature type then reveal from the top until you get a creature of that type, then it is put into play. No cast trigger from volo by doing this, but it tutors for any creature if you dont overlap their types.

precisionhat Interesting, especially with the tutoring, but I think Stunt Double does more to impact the board in a crisis.

Fleet Swallower instead of sphinx mindbreaker. Its type is rare and you can mill out an opponent in one attack with both copies.

Have you considered Consecrated Sphinx instead of Sphinx Mindbreaker? I feel it would be a much better pick in the sphinx slot for the card draw instead of milling opponents

kasimr Yeah, I get that, but everyone and their mum is using consecrated sphinx. I wanted to try something less like other Volo lists. Definitely a sacrifice of efficiency, though.