abby315 Wife of Bloodbraid Elf -

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Skyshroud Poacher and Moggcatcher search for any creature and puts it into play. Goblin Recruiter can stack your library with all of your creatures.

You're also going to want the max amount of tutors for the Nexus: Enlightened Tutor, Reshape, Tinker, Transmute Artifact, Clutch of the Undercity, Crookclaw Transmuter, Dimir House Guard.

I'd also recommend some good Shapeshifter cards, so you have things to do/find with these cards even without the Nexus. Maybe Altered Ego, Chameleon Colossus, Crib Swap, Duplicant, Evil Twin, Masked Vandal, Unsettled Mariner, and definitely Mirror Entity and Realmwalker. Morphon himself is also a good include.

Finally, you might want the Kindred cards that are good: Kindred Discovery, Kindred Dominance, maybe Kindred Boon.

Sounds like a fun idea!

I used to be a person who laughed at the "white is always shafted by WotC" common feeling, but to be honest, after this year and after playing a lot of ABU cube (I know), I do think WotC is a little lost. From Alpha to current day, a lot of things they've tried to make part of white's color identity just haven't turned out to compete with the other color identities: damage prevention, lifegain, weenies (for the most part, especially with all of the new power granted to Green and Red for creature aggro).

And, as Caerwyn mentioned, the stuff that does compete, like mass land destruction and Balance effects, WotC thinks creates unfun gameplay, so they don't really do it anymore.

It seems like they've tried to reverse-engineer Balance with cards like Oreskos Explorer and Alms Collector, but white can't always just play catch-up to other colors IMO. And they've tried making life-gain good by making it a supported archetype, but it doesn't change the fact that gaining life on its own just isn't impactful (unlike drawing cards or, arguably, burn).

I'm not so hung-up on white getting access to things other colors can do, although I don't mind that WotC is bending the color pie recently. I'd rather WotC either go back to what white does well and damn the unfun gameplay, or just put new and exciting mechanics in white, try out some new stuff or expand effects like Silence. TBH I think it'd be fun to brainstorm new aspects of the game that white could interact with.

To make cuts, you'll need to pick a lategame plan. In theory, the strength of Elves is that you can snowball a bunch of small creatures which works for an aggro plan without much assistance, and those small creatures also contribute to a combo turn.

Right now you have several lategame payoffs: Ezuri, Renegade Leader; Primal Surge; Elvish Promenade; and Joraga Warcaller. Though you're a combo deck, you also have a few random tribal beatdown cards in Steel Leaf Champion and Elvish Clancaller that don't really fit with your main plan.

You should pick one top-end thing that you want to do and cut the rest. In most modern elf decks that's Craterhoof Behemoth or Ezuri. My suggestion is to cut every lategame piece except for Ezuri and Joraga Warcaller, and maybe add a Craterhoof or keep one Primal Surge (but just one so you can ensure you hit the whole deck). I would also shave Beast Whisperer to 2x.

The following cards I think are too slow or non-impactful for Modern: Imperious Perfect, Steel Leaf Champion, Marwyn, the Nurturer, Elvish Visionary. I also think Fauna Shaman is much worse if you aren't running Craterhoof.

That'd be my starting point for cuts. You can always look at other modern Elf decks for inspiration. GLHF!

I like the emphasis on being able to cast a creature each turn! You might also consider Tidal Barracuda as an additional flash effect.

You'll also probably want to pick up a Fierce Guardianship if able since it also helps protect your board from boardwipes and your commander from removal. Swan Song is cheap protection, too. I find it can be important to stock up on some effects like that if you are relying on your commander/creatures to create value (which almost everyone does). GLHF!

That's a great idea :) I've never played any of those commanders, but an easy upgrade for any EDH deck is Mana Crypt, plus the Battle/Bond lands and Fetches. Maybe not as fun but you'll always find a use for cards like that and they'll ensure you can play all your fun cards on curve and with the right colors!

The other obvious answer is tutors, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, etc.

I love this idea! I think you might be able to build this a little more efficiently if you added tutors for the various effects you need with Hans, rather than have so much redundancy (it's not worth it to have two different pro-creatures effects, for example; you only want the one). So you could cut one of the Auras (I'd recommend Spirit Mantle) for Idyllic Tutor, and a second one for Enlightened Tutor, for example. That would also be a Sunforger target so there's additional redundancy there. Further, I would cut some of the one-time-use effects that don't fit into a combo turn, like Fury of the Horde, Uncaged Fury, and Relentless Assault, and expensive effects that aren't on creatures, like Warstorm Surge.

That would allow you to fit in more creatures to take advantage of Hans, especially ones with a good ETB or static effect: Maybe Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Xenagos, God of Revels, Bane of Progress, Regal Behemoth, and Apex Altisaur are good possibilities? Avacyn is especially good since she gives him indestructible and therefore can't kill him herself. I'd also consider Rhythm of the Wild as a better Fervor or additional haste effect.

Thanks MagicWizard1993! It was a lot of fun to theorycraft. We'll see if I can proxy out the cards enough to play it :)

Mesmeric Orb is newly cheap thanks to the reprint, is an artifact for Armix, and helps basically give you card selection/draw because you can retrieve any of the cards you milled at the start of turn with Ramirez. Ashiok, Dream Render has an incredible static hate ability, plus the mill gives you cards to choose from and exiling opponents' GY can be a way to stop them from winning.

In addition to Cycling, Ramirez is really good with Transmute: Muddle the Mixture and Dimir Machinations turn into free tutors for whatever you need.

Eventually I think you'll need to figure out a better win-con. I run a similar deck with a heavy Zombie subtheme that leaves me with an army of undead most games, and even then I struggle to close out a lot of the time. There's plenty of infinite combos to choose from in U/B, or you can go for a zombie theme, or go for more commander damage voltron with stuff like Swiftfoot Boots, Lightning Greaves, Whispersilk Cloak, and Commander's Plate. Up to you but at the moment it must take quite awhile to close out games.

This is such a thoughtful gesture, Azdranax! I love the TappedOut community! For me, EDH has been the glue that kept myself and my roommates together during COVID - we had some very stressful times between two of them being essential workers and family drama - but EDH has been the flexible time-togetherness we all needed to unwind and destress. I've been really grateful for MTG in general during lockdown. I'm looking forward to much more of that in 2021, and I definitely won't be taking my LGS for granted anymore...

I have a colorless deck and a bunch of other 2/3 color decks I rotate around, but I can never find the resources to build a true 5c deck. I built this Sisay list based on my favorite show, but I just don't have enough cards to build even a shell of it without taking apart all of my other decks. (Though I did buy the main "characters" and I'll be trying to alter them soon!) So that's my new cool idea for 2021. I'm also super interested in the new pirate commanders but haven't been able to figure out what they would do best. Hope you all had a good New Year's!