Yisan and Her Wandering Friends (Craterless)

Commander / EDH* Budget Mono-Green Ramp

PIZZ_PAZZ

Creature (40)

• 1x Acidic Slime
• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Bane of Progress
• 1x Boreal Druid
• 1x Caustic Caterpillar
• 1x Collector Ouphe
• 1x Duplicant
• 1x Elvish Archdruid
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Elvish Pioneer
• 1x Elvish Visionary
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fierce Empath
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Gigantosaurus
• 1x Great Oak Guardian
• 1x Hornet Queen
• 1x Karametra's Acolyte
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Manglehorn
• 1x Nullmage Shepherd
• 1x Pathbreaker Ibex
• 1x Phyrexian Revoker
• 1x Priest of Titania
• 1x Primalcrux
• 1x Quirion Ranger
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Regal Force
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Scout
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Scryb Ranger
• 1x Seedborn Muse
• 1x Seeker of Skybreak
• 1x Shaman of Forgotten Ways
• 1x Skyshroud Ranger
• 1x Somberwald Stag
• 1x Soul of New Phyrexia
• 1x Sylvan Safekeeper
• 1x Temur Sabertooth
• 1x Woodland Bellower

Instant (10)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Naturalize
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Reap
• 1x Reclaim
• 1x Unravel the Aether
• 1x Veil of Summer
• 1x Vitalize
• 1x Wrap in Vigor

Artifact (6)

• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1x Oblivion Stone
• 1x Perilous Vault
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Creeping Renaissance
• 1x Regrowth
• 1x Restock

Commander (1)

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Instill Energy
• 1x Kenrith's Transformation
• 1x Lignify
• 1x Utopia Sprawl
• 1x Wild Growth

Land (35)

• 1x Blighted Woodland
• 33x Forest
• 1x Hickory Woodlot

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Maybeboard

Sorcery (2)

• 1x All is Dust
• 1x Collective Voyage

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Quest for Renewal

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This is my Yisan, the Wanderer Bard list that I've been playing for about 2 years. Due to budget reasons, I've tried to build this deck as cheaply as I could, and it still maintains a modest price tag of $150 at the time of writing this. I've been constantly updating this deck for a while to add cards from new sets, and changing it to make play smoother, and wins more consistent.

The deck after many iterations has become quite strong, and performs remarkably well in competitive settings given its cost. If you're going by the Commandzone 1-10 competitiveness scale, I would call this deck an 8.5 or a 9. Without interaction, the deck can quite consistently win on turn 6, but like traditional Yisan decks is chock-full of tutorable interaction and removal that will help disrupt your opponent's combo, and last to the long game where the deck thrives.

Overall the deck is unlike any I've ever built and is a blast to play. It's very rewarding to get to know the deck and the pieces within it, and it makes every game like a puzzle where you have to figure out exactly what to tutor, and how to win.

Overview

The Card Itself

I think at least for me, you need to look at this card a bit before you can truly understand how good it is. See it? Probably, I'm probably the only person that ever thought this card was less than what it actually is. A tutor on a legendary. I hope R&D learns their lesson from putting tutors on legendary creatures, because it's no coincidence that Yisan, and General Tazri are both tier one decks. Don't even get me started with Protean Hulk. Having a commander that can tutor can make your deck incredibly consistent, since you'll get the same cards out of your deck every time. And that's exactly how, and why this deck works. Every game can be nearly identical with minor changes since the same creatures will usually hit the battlefield at the same time each game. Also 3 mana is a very minor price tag for an ability like this making the deck able to go off very quickly.

History

I found out about Yisan about a year ago, but it took me a bit to fully comprehend what she can do. This deck started as a sub-$100 deck that was based around using Yisan to slowly fetch out huge 10, and 11 drops. However over time I've sacrificed a bit of that budgetness for a lot more speed and efficiency. The next iteration focused more on devotion type things, using Karametra's Acolyte, Gigantosaurus, and Primalcrux to get a bunch of mana, and make Primalcrux huge. While my deck slowly became less reliant on these cards, I really like them and they can be very powerful when used (this speaks to the fact that I'm still running all 3.) In my next version things got a little spikier, as I learned that I can use Quirion Ranger, and Scryb Ranger to untap Yisan and get a lot of things really fast, as well as use Priest of Titania, and Elvish Archdruid to get faster mana on the early turns. The strategy here is again combat based but this time used Gigantosaurus in tandem with Pathbreaker Ibex which was a hell of a ride. While it took a bit to assemble, once it got going you would swing for hundred's of damage (as a side note, I once got a Blade of Selves attached to Pathbreaker Ibex, and swung for 150,000.) Finally however the most recent version of this deck is a bit more combo-centric, aiming to disrupt opponents until you can assemble a combo, and win the game on the spot. The deck now runs at a turn 5-6 win, a speed pretty bonkers for it's only $130 price tag (Alright it's been a few months since writing this, and the price is now closer to $150 without the sideboard cards, but my point remains.)

Double Versing

One more important thing about Yisan is the ability to get two creatures of the same CMC. I'm not that good at explaining, but if you activate Yisan and maintain priority you can untap her and activate her again letting the first activation resolve then you can get two creatures of the same of the same CMC rather than two creatures of different CMC's. This ability very important for getting combos on line and is important to know as a player.

Why Play This Deck

This deck is absolutely one of my favorite decks I've ever built. Not only is it incredibly consistent, but it performs remarkably well in competitive settings. It is incredibly resilient, and can pull wins out of nowhere. However it can also play very nicely in less competitive settings, without completetly blowing out other decks due to the versatile nature of Yisan's ability. It also is somewhat beginner-friendly. I've let a few friends that are new to the game, play this deck and they remarked that it was incredibly smooth to play. That's not even mentioning how low cost this deck is compared to other decks in the format.

Verses

Temur Sabertooth Line

This line along with the next line are both combo-ey wins. Sometimes this can get boring, so I use the other two lines for non-insta win strategies. This one's pretty simple, so here's the line of things I get.

The line goes Quirion Ranger for a 1 drop, Priest of Titania or Scavenging Ooze, and then double versing for the four drops Karametra's Acolyte, and Temur Sabertooth. From their onward, you can do a bunch of things to ensure your victory, as long as you get Great Oak Guardian. Acidic Slime, Somberwald Stag are one's that will destroy creatures, artifacts, or enchantments that threaten your win. Similarly you can also double verse to get Woodland Bellower, which can fetch Manglehorn, Reclamation Sage, Sylvan Safekeeper, or Dosan the Falling Leaf if nothing on the board directly affects your win yet.

From here you can tap all of your mana dorks before great oak guardian hits the field, so he can untap them. Then bounce him to your hand before tapping your dorks again to replay the guardian. You can loop this effect to gain infinite mana.

Pathbreaker Line

For this line you wanna get Quirion Ranger, Priest of Titania, Elvish Archdruid, Karametra's Acolyte, Gigantosaurus, and Pathbreaker Ibex. Alternatively you can also get hornet queen as a 7 drop for more creatures to pump.

Normally this is enough to swing game, since all of your creatures are getting pumped +10/+10 and gain trample. There are a lot of variations of this that also work pretty well. You can use Fierce Empath to get Primalcrux just to be completely overkill. Regardless, the main strategy is to use Pathbreaker Ibex to swing for a lot of damage. While this works very well when it works that's just the thing. It usually doesn't. Pathbreaker Ibex will rarely stay on the table long enough because it's such a massive threat that your opponents will do whatever they can to get it off the table. Normally if you have a Swiftfoot Boots, or Lightning Greaves it's worth it to go for, but otherwise I would prefer the other three strategy.

Shaman Line

This is probably the best non-combo line, and is even more fun when people don't see it coming. The line goes like this.

Quirion Ranger, Priest of Titania, and Shaman of Forgotten Ways.

From here you can do a couple things depending on what's in your hand, but basically you wanna activate Shaman before taking people out with big creatures like Gigantosaurus, and Primalcrux. But if you wanna win with more style you can use Soul of New Phyrexia, and boardwipe before your turn giving you creatures indestructible. Then on mainphase you activate shaman making everyone else's life total zero. I like this line a lot (it might even be my favorite) since you can take games out of no where and it's very hard to stop.

Winning the Game With Infinite Mana

While the pathbreaker and shaman lines win you the game (or at least sets you up to do so easily) all the first one does is get you infinite mana. While this is very good it doesn't win by itself unless you know what to do. First you can untap Yisan to get Regal Force as a seven drop depending what's in your hand. Basically what you want to do is loop Regal Force with Temur Sabertooth until you get one of the following cards;Elvish Visionary, Fierce Empath, Woodland Bellower, Genesis Wave, Green Sun's Zenith, Primal Command, Lightning Greaves, or Swiftfoot Boots. Every card in this long list eiter fetches Elvish Visionary, allows you to fetch for Elvish Visionary, or does something else to get Elvish Visionary to the field (Swiftfoot Boots, and Lightning Greaves give Yisan haste so that we can bounce her, and get up to three drops in the same turn.)

Once we have our Visionary in play, we can loop it to draw out our deck (Regal Force would most likely have us draw extra cards, and thereby lose the game.) However before we win, it's usually fun to exile everyone elses creatures and destroy all their other permenants (card:Terastadon, and Soul of New Phyrexia+Nevinyrral's Disk combo.) Now that our deck is in our hands, our oponents have no permenants, and we have infinite mana there are a whole bunch of ways we can win.

The Boring Way

In this one, you just swing with all your creatures that are all infinitely buffed up because of Great Oak Guardian. If you don't have enough creatures then you can play some down, and give them haste with Lightning Greaves, and Swiftfoot Boots.This one's really boring but technically works.

The Fun Way

There is a very obvious reason this one is my favorite, and that's because it uses Shaman of Forgotten Ways Shaman makes wins very clean and this is no different. Give it haste, activate it, win because your the only one with creatures. I really don't have a lot to say beyond that, it works really well.

Card Choice Walkthrough

Some of my card choices for this deck are... odd. My friend noted that I was running a lot of cards that he'd never heard. To this day I'm not sure if he meant it as a compliment, but I'm gonna take it as one. Because of this I thought I'd go through cards in my deck, and explain why I'm running them, and their synergies

Ramp

I'm not gonna explain this that much since it's probably really self-evident that this deck relies on heavy ramp. So here are my choices for ramp.

• Arbor Elf, Boreal Druid, Elvish Mystic, Fyndhorn Elves, Llanowar Elves,Skyshroud Ranger, Jeweled Amulet, Wild Growth and of course, Sol Ring. Cards that let you play Yisan on turn two may be the most important cards in the deck because of how fast people can react to Yisan hitting the table. Once you get a one drop you can get the ball rolling and even if your opponents destroy Yisan you'll already have one or more huge threats on the table.

• Priest of Titania, and Elvish Archdruid. These card are just very powerful early turn ramp that synergize well with the other elves in the deck.

• Karametra's Acolyte. Not very practical for normal ramp given it's steep mana cost, but goes infinite with untappers making it very powerful.

• Shaman of Forgotten Ways. Decent ramp, but mostly used for its second ability, and use of combo wins.

Swaps

While this deck functions very well with just these cards, if you play on a bigger budget you can run some of these other cards to make it more powerful.

• Gaea's Cradle, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Ancient Tomb, Yavimaya Hollow, Dryad Arbor, and Strip Mine (replace forests)

• Green Sun's Zenith can work well as a tutor, and can fetch a turn 1 Dryad Arbor onto the field.

Utility

I'm gonna be honest Utility means Extra in this deck. That's not to say they aren't needed, but most of the "Utility" cards are groups of cards too small to form their own categories. The groups of Utility cards are Protection, Removal/ Boardwipes, Recursion, and Stax

Removal/ Control

Due to the nature of green as a color, you're never going to be interacting with the board as much as say blue. Many deck strategies will shut off your deck, or commander, so with no way to stop, you will probably lose every time.

• Acidic Slime. Removal on creatures is pretty handy in this deck since you can get it through Yisan to answer a threat. Also hard casting this is also not bad, and it's versatility definitely makes up for the steep mana cost.

• Duplicant. Similar to Acidic Slime, you answer threats at instant speed with Yisan, and it's very hard to get a creature out of exile. Plus with Temur Sabertooth can exile a LOT of permanents.

• Phyrexian Revoker. Can shut off commanders, and stall for time.

• Reclamation Sage. Blows up an artifact or enchantment, and can be fetched with Woodland Bellower, or Yisan.

• Scavenging Ooze. Acts as a one way Rest in Peace, and can be come very big, and gain a lot of life (although it usually never matters at that point).

• Primal Command. Putting a permanent on top of an opponents library is good, but also being able to shuffle it is insane. It's also really fun to cast after someone put their commander on top of their library. Plus it can be very versatile, and useful in a lot of situations.

• Nevinyrral's Disk, Oblivion Stone, and Perilous Vault. The only board wipes I'm running (there aren't a lot in green or colorless.)

• Beast Within. Being able to destroy a permanent for three mana is powerful, and the drawback is almost non-existent.

• Krosan Grip. Split second is really what makes this card. It ensures that whatever you point this spell at will go to the graveyard.

• Naturalize. Pretty simple, destroys a artifact, or enchantment.

• Unravel the Aether. Similar to Naturalize, and Krosan Grip but gets around graveyard recursion.

• Lignify. Can bring a commander out of the game, and I would say it's better than just a Murder.

• card:Kenrith's Tranformation One of my favorite new cards as it is basically a beat within for creature at two mana that also draws you a card.

• Terastodon. Can deal with a lot of threats at once, and the 9/9 body isn't half bad either

• Manglehorn. A more specific Reclamation Sage that sort of, if you squint at it, kind of looks like something that might be similar to Stax (bear with me here). You would be surprised though how often this can be pertinent.

• Nature's Claim. Cheap removal with a clause that will rarely matter.

Swaps

• Song of the Dryads. This is a very good card that I wish I could run but I'm not. I don't know what I'd swap it for but if you have the ability to run it, do.

• Bane of Progress. Another card that's very good but I'm not running. The only problem is that it misses creatures.

Graveyard Recursion

Kind of strange for a mono-green deck, I know but recursion is really helpful for rebuilding if all of my creatures have gone to the graveyard.

• Restock, Reclaim and Regrowth. Similar effects, they just one-off return things from your graveyard to your hand.

• Praetor's Counsel. Can really launch you back into a game, and gives you no max hand size.

• Creeping Renaissance. Very similar to Praetor's Counsel but is slightly better because of flashback.

Protection

This might need some explaining. This is for protecting my creatures against board wipes, and removal (not that much explaining).

• Soul of New Phyrexia. Protects against board wipes and you'd be surprised how often people forget that you can activate it from the graveyard.

• Sylvan Safekeeper. A good verse 1 that gives all of your creatures virtual hexproof. If you play in a single target removal heavy meta then you usually would want to get this.

• Dosan the Falling Leaf. Makes it so that your stuff can't get countered.

• Heroic Intervention. Possibly one of the best cards printed in green. Two mana screw everyone else if somebody cast board wipe. Also can be pretty versatile as far as just protection for against a creature targeting spell.

• Autumn's Veil. Stops counterspells, and black removal.

Swaps

• Kamahl, Fist of Krosa. If you have the right board state this turns any board wipe into a 1-way Armageddon.

Key Combos, and Synergies

As it turns out having your commander a tutor on a stick is very powerful. This means that I can have some very strong synergies in the deck. Some of these I actually will use most games, others are just fun synergies that happen to exist inside of the deck.

• Nevinyrral's Disk + Soul of New Phyrexia . Very powerful when you can get this out. Becuase of how Nev's disk is worded you can just keep activating this every turn. Add in a Seedborn Muse, and things get nuts.

• Fierce Empath + Woodland Bellower . Another good one that allows the deck to run smoother, as either one of these can fetch the other giving an even wider range of tutoring.

• Gigantosaurus + Pathbreaker Ibex . Again this also works with Overwhelming Stampede, but this is fetchable by Yisan making it more favorable. This will normally end games if no one can respond to it.

• Gigantosaurus + Karametra's Acolyte . Also works the same with Primalcrux. This just gives you a stupid amount of mana.

Now I'm sure there are a bunch more that I can put here, but these are all the things I can come up with for now.

Leave suggestions for the deck I'm always looking for ways to make it better, but keep in mind that your favorite card might be twice my budget. I should also mention that recommended cards don't have to be strictly "good", but cards to just make gameplay more enjoyable are welcome.

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Budget 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Mono-Green 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Ramp 3 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Key combos	Nevinyrral's Disk + Soul of New Phyrexia Fierce Empath + Woodland Bellower Gigantosaurus + Pathbreaker Ibex Gigantosaurus + Karametra's Acolyte
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 0 Mythic Rares 17 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 23 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.88
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Insect 1/1 G w/ Flying, Deathtouch
Folders	References, Green, EDH, want, EDH