My Commander decks 2: Selesnya Indestructable Tokens

So this is the second in my series about Commander/EDH decks that I have built. This first one was about my red/black Goblin tribal deck, Wort's Goblin Horde.

This second deck was built around differing ideas from the tribal one. First off, it focuses on tokens, and getting them out as quickly as possible, with as many as possible, and making them as big as possible. The second idea this deck is built around is using a Commander that most players consider to be junk, Emmara Tandris. When she was released in Dragon's Maze, I think she disappointed a lot of people, who were expecting much more of the Selesnya guild champion. She suffers from too high a casting cost for her effect, she doesn't protect herself in any way (nor does she extend her protection to herself), and her stats are horribly mismatched to her artwork: she looks like a fragile elven maiden, but has 5 power and 7(!!) toughness. With all that being said, I still love the card (for some reason) and really wanted to build a deck with her as its Commander. As can be seen from the decklist, there is already one card in there which would probably serve as a "better" Commander, but I am sticking with Emmara (even if i acquire Trostani, Selesnya's Voice). So anyway, on to the decklist:

General

Creature (25)

• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Attended Knight
• 1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1x Avenger of Zendikar
• 1x Caller of the Claw
• 1x Courser of Kruphix
• 1x Doomed Traveler
• 1x Geist-Honored Monk
• 1x Gyre Sage
• 1x Herald of Anafenza
• 1x Hornet Queen
• 1x Kalonian Twingrove
• 1x Karametra, God of Harvests
• 1x Mausoleum Guard
• 1x Phantom General
• 1x Rampaging Baloths
• 1x Renowned Weaver
• 1x Rhys the Redeemed
• 1x Risen Sanctuary
• 1x Scion of Vitu-Ghazi
• 1x Seedborn Muse
• 1x Trostani's Summoner
• 1x Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage
• 1x Voice of Resurgence
• 1x Wayfaring Temple

Instant (7)

• 1x Druid's Deliverance
• 1x Eyes in the Skies
• 1x Fated Intervention
• 1x Raise the Alarm
• 1x Rootborn Defenses
• 1x Sundering Growth
• 1x Trostani's Judgment

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Ajani, Mentor of Heroes

Enchantment (16)

• 1x Armadillo Cloak
• 1x Collective Blessing
• 1x Druid's Call
• 1x Elephant Guide
• 1x Fertile Ground
• 1x Glorious Anthem
• 1x Ground Seal
• 1x Gutter Grime
• 1x Intangible Virtue
• 1x Mirari's Wake
• 1x Oblivion Ring
• 1x Ooze Flux
• 1x Parallel Lives
• 1x Primeval Bounty
• 1x Spirit Bonds
• 1x Unflinching Courage

Land (35)

• 1x Blossoming Sands
• 1x Elfhame Palace
• 13x Forest
• 1x Grove of the Guardian
• 1x New Benalia
• 13x Plains
• 1x Selesnya Guildgate
• 1x Selesnya Sanctuary
• 1x Sunpetal Grove
• 1x Temple of Plenty
• 1x Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree

Artifact (5)

• 1x Druidic Satchel
• 1x Ring of Kalonia
• 1x Seer's Sundial
• 1x Selesnya Cluestone
• 1x Selesnya Keyrune

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Alive / Well
• 1x Call of the Conclave
• 1x Captain's Call
• 1x Coursers' Accord
• 1x Devout Invocation
• 1x Gather the Townsfolk
• 1x Gelatinous Genesis
• 1x Miming Slime
• 1x Slime Molding
• 1x Wake the Reflections

Development

 First build

The first thing I realised as I built this deck was that it would probably draw heavily on cards with Populate, the Selesnya mechanic from Return to Ravnica. Since I built this initially from cards that i had in my collection, this was a good thing as I had a decent amount of RTR cards, along with the preconstructed Selesnya Surge deck. I quickly pillaged that for cards that would be auto-includes such as Grove of the Guardian, Wayfaring Temple, Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage and Phantom General. The precon gave me 13 cards to start with, on top of my general, which left me looking for another 86 cards to round out my deck.

Once I had delved into the preconstructed deck, it was time to scour my trade binder to see if I had any useful cards there that would make the cut. This gave me some really useful cards, as I had Scion of Vitu-Ghazi, Parallel Lives, Geist Honored Monk, Caller of the Claw, Gyre Sage, Kalonian Twingrove, and Seedborn Muse in my creatures all of which would either fit well or play a key role in this deck. The  Parallel Lives really was a key find for this deck, allowing me to double the number of tokens I was making. 

 With the two obvious ports of call rummaged through, I went to the bulk of my collection, looking in particular for Populate cards, but also for cards that played well in token creation in other ways, for example Slime Molding, or Gather the Townsfolk. During this search, I managed to turn up a Devout Invocation I had forgotten about so that seemed like a decent fit and was included. This search gave me enough cards to make up the 100, but it was pretty weak at first glance. This is when I remembered that I had one of the Commander 2013 preconstructed decks stashed away in a drawer, Nature of the Beast. This was a Naya deck, so could well feature cards I might want, time to go check it out.

My findings from the precon were surprisingly productive, adding an Avenger of Zendikar, a Druidic Satchel, and a Seer's Sundial to the deck, along with some non-basic lands that would work nicely in this deck (Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree; New Benalia, and a Selesnya Sanctuary). I would have taken the Sol Ring and the Swiftfoot Boots, but they had already been pillaged for Wort's Goblin Horde, and I didn't necessarily feel like I needed them in this deck.

This rounded out my first pass for the deck, and I happily went off to play test this with my play group.the results as expected were somewhat middling, as the deck wasn't really very well developed, and had too much filler in it. I decided I would use the next few months to improve it, to get it to a state where it would play better.

Autumn 2014

So over the course of autumn 2014, I managed to trade for, or open some cards which I thought would improve this deck, with the crowning glory going to opening a Voice of Resurgence in a free booster pack from Manaleak.com! I also got hold of a Karametra, God of Harvests in a booster, and a foil Fated Intervention in the same box. Both of these were added but I didn't record what they replaced. Trading with my play group gave me a Hornet Queen, which came in for a Seller of Songbirds, and I got hold of  Courser of Kruphix, which replaced Sporemound, giving me access to potentially an extra card a turn and helping hit land drops. Khans of Tarkir's release in mid September gave me a really handy rare from a booster in the form of Herald of Anafenza, so that was brought in to replace an Elvish Pioneer who was really only filler.

Scouring eBay gave me some more cards which helped power up this deck. I got a Sunpetal Grove for a good price, replacing a somewhat redundant Vitality Charm. This gave me an extra land which is a good thing with high converted mana cost cards in the deck. I also purchased a Collective Blessing, which along with a Mirari's Wake recovered from an old deck i had built gave my creatures a huge boost, as well as some mana ramp from the Wake.

Late on in the Autumn I was lucky enough to get hold of one of the few cards I considered swapping Emmara Tandris out for: Rhys the Redeemed. In the end I stayed loyal to my junky general, but Rhys was an auto-include without a shadow of a doubt, replacing a Viridian Acolyte (which in all honesty I hadn't read properly. I though it gave multicolour ramping... nope just filtering that I didn't need. Valuable lesson learned on reading cards properly).

Areas for Improvement

I guess the most obvious one would be replacing my general, but I'm keeping her! The really obvious areas for improvement would be the addition of some board sweepers. Something like a Wrath of God, or a Mass Calcify would allow this deck to clear a path, but Hour of Reckoning would really be sweet here I think.

Another thing I have been thinking about is adding more artifact and enchantment destruction in. So far only Sundering Growth has that angle covered, and i think a 100 card deck needs more than that. Perhaps dropping  a token generator or two would be useful?

One card which would really be an auto-include would be Doubling Season, as it does what Parallel Lives does and more. The two combined (along with Rhys the Redeemed) would really make for a crazy deck. Problem is, at the time of writing, that card is £25 when you can get one. Ouch.

There have been some improvements suggested to me from fellow users of TappedOut.net, and they pointed out that the addition of Giant Adephage and/or Armada Wurm would really beef this deck's creature suite up a lot. Those two are definitely on my watch list