Yisan is a deck that's meant to flood the board and win as soon as possible. In a 4 person game, on turn 5-6 Yisan can consistently close out the game. I prefer to start with a turn one Elvish Mystic or the like, so that turn 2 Yisan is out, and turn 3 he can search for a Sakura-Tribe Scout. Turn 4 I grab a Scryb Ranger, and then you can start untapping lands by returning them to hand with the ranger, and putting it back down with the scout, and untapping with the ranger again. This should net you one more activation before your next turn. Depending on the board state you can go plenty of different directions, though my favorite is to race to a Pathbreaker Ibex, Avenger of Zendikar, and then Craterhoof Behemoth. Usually at this point, you can swing at all your opponents and win the game.

Never forget that you can respond to threats at instant speed with Yisan.

One downside to the deck is that a board wipe at a later stage sets you back a lot. Temur Sabertooth's ability to bounce things to your hand can save you a lot of aggravation in these situations, though it also can cause some shenanigans with creatures that produce at least 2 more mana than they cost. Board wipes putting things into your graveyard is the worst since they're no longer available to Yisan and his magical chord of calling. An idea I have for fixing this is to get those things back with cards like Seasons' Past or Eternal Witness.

The deck's biggest weakness is targeted removal and early counters. To protect Yisan we have Sylvan Safekeeper to give shroud and put us behind a turn if removal happens early.

There’s land destruction in the form of Strip Mine & Ghost Quarter, and Crucible of Worlds & Ramunap Excavator for a nice combo there. Plus there's the alternate win con of infinite mana + Temur Sabertooth + Terastodon and destroy everyone's lands while having a better board state, and the Crucible of Worlds and Strip Mine combo lets you knock out two lands a turn if you have an Exploration out.

I put in the Budoka Gardener because if the Sakura-Tribe Scout/Scryb Ranger combo got picked off AND I lost Yisan, I liked to have another way to the combo in deck before having to fish out of the graveyard with Seasons Past or Bow of Nylea. So Quirion Ranger and Budoka Gardener serve as an alternate path to a 4 turn stampede.

Also, Shaman of Forgotten Ways usually can get a Biorhythm kill out on certain opponents because people forget about his Formidable ability.

Trinisphere is an interesting include because it can slow your opponents down which gives you enough time to go off.

With Ashaya and Scryb Ranger/Quirion Ranger Out, and a creature that makes at least two mana, you can make infinite mana. This creates another line of quirion ranger > 2 mana mana dork that makes two mana > Rhonas > 4 drop > ashaya which allows you to make infinite mana by returning quirion ranger to your hand because Ashaya turned it into a forest. Then you Untap the mana dork to make mana which you can sink into Rhonas’ ability. You can then swing out with infinitely large trampling creatures. If you are worried about counterspells, grab destiny spinner in the two slot and karametra’s acolyte at the four slot.

Update: Sylvan Scrying out for Veil of Summer

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Date added 7 years
Last updated 1 year
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

18 - 0 Mythic Rares

28 - 0 Rares

18 - 0 Uncommons

8 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.09
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, Copy Clone, Elemental X/X G, Elephant 3/3 G, Insect 1/1 G w/ Flying, Deathtouch, Plant 0/1 G
Folders EDH Big Swing, EDH Ideas, Green, edh
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