I've had this list for almost two months and I never bothered posting it here. It's one of my 8 decks I actually use, too. I think the big issue I was having is hesitance on spell slots, because this is basically shifting my old Tolsimir shell around and tweaking some of the slots that felt weak to make room for a lifegain package.
Okay, so even though I'm a Johnny/Spike at heart, I still have a soft spot for white/green lifegain, and I'm a huge fan of the Soul Sisters archetype. When they tacked the ability onto a general, I knew it was the general I really wanted for the colors. Rhys the Redeemed is obviously better at making tokens, but Trostani's lifegain is unmatched. I can get over 200 life easily with this deck.
How does one play this deck?
Don't let the flashy spells fool you; this deck is difficult to pilot in a multiplayer game. Pulling the trigger on a card like Parallel Lives or Phyrexian Processor too early will draw you large amounts of hate, and you have to be conservative in when you choose to be proactive. Despite my generally aggressive and proactive style when playing EDH, I find myself having to sit back until someone else becomes threatening and begin unleashing aggression upon them. Typically, most opponents will be so focused on keeping the board state of that player honest that they tend to let whatever you try slide. Take advantage of this to pull the trigger on some of your flashier spells, but of course, don't overcommit when an opponent could trigger Sorin Markov or Wrath of God against you.
Nuances of the Deck
-You typically want to get use out of Trostani when you cast her; don't think of getting her out right on turn 4, think of playing her when you can get mileage out of either (or both) of her abilities.
-Be reactive with the cards that can draw you attention, like Intrepid Hero, Nullmage Shepherd, and in general your spells that mess with your opponents' board states. You're not a blue deck, you can't answer everything your opponents will inevitably throw at you when you draw attention to yourself.
-For being an aggressive deck, this deck can play the passive game extremely well. Trostani, Shattered Angel, Rhox Faithmender, and two Soul Wardens can net you literally hundreds of life points throughout the course of a game and keep you healthy vs. most non-Sorin Markov assaults.
-Cathars' Crusade is excellent when you can pump out multiple creatures at once, but be prepared to have a lot of dice to put on your creatures to keep track of your triggers and +1/+1 counters. Play the card with Twilight Drover, Sprout Swarm and your manlands for great value.
-Despite how insane Phyrexian Processor is in this deck, never overcommit to it. Getting Wrathed out or having Trostani eat a timely piece of spot removal can be the death of you. (I tend to pay either all but 10 of my life or enough life to kill someone after their next turn when playing it. Usually I can afford to pay more than 40 life)
-Updated the format of the decklist.
-Updated the Nuances of the Deck section.
Gatecrash update has brought us Frontline Medic, which is basically one of the silliest creatures ever. You attack with three guys, and just like that, token decks can now run 4+ Wraths. Ridiculous card overall, was really excited to see it when it was spoiled. Sad that it'll be $5 because of the fact that it's a Standard card for kicking Sphinx's Revelation in the ol' 'nads, but hey, sometimes you've gotta push an EDH card over the top.
Giant Adephage is beautiful. I had Spawnwrithe in the initial list, and now that they printed a good one, I'm happy to include it =D
As far as the Wildfield Borderpost -> Selesnya Keyrune change, that was something that needed to happen when you have Cathar's Crusade and Craterhoof Behemoth in your deck. Having a mana rock that can be a creature is just straight-up better than
one that's vulnerable to many types of sweepers if played for its cost of 1.
To explain the cut for Avenger, while he's a fantastic card, nobody in my meta has him. My LGS doesn't have them, nobody in my playgroup has them - the card in general is absurdly hard to find. It's the one card out of the 100 I'm missing, so I'm cutting it instead of hoping my LGS magically comes across one. ~_~
Mayor is a pet card of mine, but in the advent of Dragon's Maze bringing us the most busted hatebear not close, he needed to bow down to the queen bee. Mayor never reliably flipped anyway despite my meta being almost all control, which is just sad to be honest.
Honestly, I'd been meaning to update the deck more thoroughly for the longest time and I've never gotten around to it.
The big one is removing VoR - it's climbed $4 to $50 (!) over the course of just today, for a damn good reason, but still a reason I can't really agree with overall. It's not worth that kind of money, and until I magically open one, I'm not going to be including it in the list. If you have one, however, go ahead and run it.
M14 brings us a bunch of goodies, chief among them the Archangel of Thune. Stupidly broken in this deck, she just makes even the tiniest Saproling token a huge threat, and adds a ton of pressure to your board state. Kalonian Hydra compliments the secondary direction this deck is going in - the +1/+1 counter theme - by making your army titanic the moment he turns sideways. Play with Mycoloth for great success! Garruk is a trial card - 1.5 creatures per +1 is pretty decent. Primeval Bounty is my favorite card of the set and has a lot of synergy with the deck overall, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on one.
Now with the M14 cards comes a shift in the focus of the deck. I need to solidify the theme of this deck - Saproling tokens with a lot of +1/+1 counters, and I feel the deck doesn't do a very good job of that in its current state. There are random slots everywhere from the spells to the lands, and I really don't know why I put half of these cards in there. Regardless, I feel I got most of what's important for the deck - feel free to add your input if you think I messed up somewhere!
I did some trades last night before the prerelease - I didn't realize the $10-25 stuff that got MMR reprints dropped so low. In light of that, I picked up a Valkyrie for this deck.
I also got a hold of the Garruk for this deck. Super excited to try him out!
-NOTE: A lot of tenative changes are going here. Despite the inaccuracy of the date, a lot of minor changes are rapidly happening, and I don't want multiple sections in the changelog to represent them all.-
Just 'cause forcing your opponents to attempt to grind you down can be annoying. Put them out of their mercy. Otherwise, really solid list. Luminarch's Ascension is a tried and tested card too.
Lovely looking deck - I've been putting together Trostani myself, so being able to see something like this is always useful. Only two wonderings at the moment:
Well of Lost Dreams - worth it? While Staff of Nin doesn't require any more effort to get an extra card a turn, the Well seems like it could do a good job of refilling your hand even after something like a Garruk token hitting play.
Doubling Season - Draws a lot of hate, obviously, and the counter making ability only works with Garruk, Cathar's Crusade and Twilight Drover. That said, do you think its worth it to have another token doubler?
Epic Struggle and Test of Endurance aren't worth the slots because you actually need to put work into it.
Felidar Sovereign is nice but I don't have any idea what to cut for it.
Luminarch Ascension draws too much attention, imo.
Well of Lost Dreams was tested initially and it wasn't very good. At all stages of the game, there are better things to do with your mana. You have huge mana sinks in your lands, as well as Trostani.
Doubling Season is waaaay too non-budget for me, and even if I had one, this isn't the deck for it because it's not running enough Planeswalkers. The idea of having the Corpsejack Menace portion of the effect is a nice thought, but I would want to commit more to Doubling Season if I had one.
Those are metagame calls. Our metagame has Kaalia of the Vast, Edric, Spymaster of Trest, and Consecrated Sphinx on the high-end. Utility dorks are extremely common, so having Tracker to keep them honest is always going to be extremely helpful.
Shattered Angel fights Boundless Realms really well, and our multiplayer games have 4 people, so gaining 9 life a turn is really nice.
Forgive me for Necro-ing this ancient list, but I noticed you were online earlier today and was wondering if you'd done anything new with the deck. The budget stuff is actually super cool and gives me something to play while I'm collecting the harder-to-find stuff like Elspeth and Privileged Position.
Aside from a general curiosity, I was also wondering what bigger cards you would absolutely want in here if you were forced to spend ~60 bucks on singles for this deck.
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Standard BBlack AggroB Modern CAffinityC Legacy RBlood Moon PainterR EDH WBRKaaliaRBW RWTajicWR GWTrostaniWG WGRBUSliversUBRGW RUGRiku, of Two ReflectionsGUR
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4 Trostani, Selesnya's Voice
Creatures - 27
1 Essence Warden
1 Soul's Attendant
1 Ulvenwald Tracker
1 Utopia Mycon
2 Selesnya Evangel
2 Selesnya Guildmage
2 Suture Priest
3 Dauntless Escort
3 Frontline Medic
3 Intrepid Hero
3 Psychotrope Thallid
3 Twilight Drover
4 Emeria Angel
4 Nullmage Shepherd
5 Ant Queen
5 Archangel of Thune
5 Garruk's Packleader
5 Kalonian Hydra
5 Mycoloth
6 Adarkar Valkyrie
6 Nemata, Grove Guardian
6 Rampaging Baloths
6 Sun Titan
6 Wurmcoil Engine
7 Giant Adephage
8 Craterhoof Behemoth
3 Cultivate
3 Growth Spasm
3 Kodama's Reach
7 Hour of Reckoning
Instants - 4
2 Sprout Swarm
3 Oblation
3 Rootborn Defenses
Artifacts - 5
1 Sol Ring
2 Lightning Greaves
4 Phyrexian Processor
5 Eldrazi Monument
6 Caged Sun
Enchantments - 15
2 Intangible Virtue
2 Night Soil
2 Sylvan Library
3 Aura Shards
3 Awakening Zone
3 Curse of Predation
4 Glare of Subdual
4 Marshal's Anthem
4 Parallel Lives
5 Cathars' Crusade
5 Doubling Season
5 Mirari's Wake
5 Primal Vigor
6 Collective Blessing
6 Pollenbright Wings
6 Primeval Bounty
4 Ajani Goldmane
5 Garruk, Primal Hunter
6 Garruk, Caller of Beasts
Basic Lands - 22
11 Forest
11 Plains
Nonbasic Lands - 18
0 Arctic Flats
0 Brushland
0 Evolving Wilds
0 Gavony Township
0 Graypelt Refuge
0 Grove of the Guardian
0 Khalni Garden
0 Krosan Verge
0 Mistveil Plains
0 Reliquary Tower
0 Selesnya Guildgate
0 Selesnya Sanctuary
0 Stirring Wildwood
0 Sungrass Prairie
0 Terramorphic Expanse
0 Treetop Village
0 Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree
0 Windbrisk Heights
Why Trostani, Selesnya's Voice?
How does one play this deck?
Nuances of the Deck
-Garruk's Packleader is
probablythe best card draw engine a green deck like this has. Play him with Collective Blessing and Increasing Devotion for maximum value!-Be reactive with the cards that can draw you attention, like Intrepid Hero, Nullmage Shepherd, and in general your spells that mess with your opponents' board states. You're not a blue deck, you can't answer everything your opponents will inevitably throw at you when you draw attention to yourself.
-For being an aggressive deck, this deck can play the passive game extremely well. Trostani, Shattered Angel, Rhox Faithmender, and two Soul Wardens can net you literally hundreds of life points throughout the course of a game and keep you healthy vs. most non-Sorin Markov assaults.
-Cathars' Crusade is excellent when you can pump out multiple creatures at once, but be prepared to have a lot of dice to put on your creatures to keep track of your triggers and +1/+1 counters. Play the card with Twilight Drover, Sprout Swarm and your manlands for great value.
-Believe it or not, your Wurmcoil Engine is better off dead than alive so you can populate its tokens. Intrepid Hero, Ulvenwald Tracker, Nullmage Shepherd and Aura Shards are your best ways of killing it.
-Despite how insane Phyrexian Processor is in this deck, never overcommit to it. Getting Wrathed out or having Trostani eat a timely piece of spot removal can be the death of you. (I tend to pay either all but 10 of my life or enough life to kill someone after their next turn when playing it. Usually I can afford to pay more than 40 life)
Changes Log
Frontline Medic
Giant Adephage
Selesnya Keyrune
-Removed:
Silklash Spider
Avenger of Zendikar
Wildfield Borderpost
-Updated the format of the decklist.
-Updated the Nuances of the Deck section.
Gatecrash update has brought us Frontline Medic, which is basically one of the silliest creatures ever. You attack with three guys, and just like that, token decks can now run 4+ Wraths. Ridiculous card overall, was really excited to see it when it was spoiled. Sad that it'll be $5 because of the fact that it's a Standard card for kicking Sphinx's Revelation in the ol' 'nads, but hey, sometimes you've gotta push an EDH card over the top.
Giant Adephage is beautiful. I had Spawnwrithe in the initial list, and now that they printed a good one, I'm happy to include it =D
As far as the Wildfield Borderpost -> Selesnya Keyrune change, that was something that needed to happen when you have Cathar's Crusade and Craterhoof Behemoth in your deck. Having a mana rock that can be a creature is just straight-up better than
one that's vulnerable to many types of sweepers if played for its cost of 1.
To explain the cut for Avenger, while he's a fantastic card, nobody in my meta has him. My LGS doesn't have them, nobody in my playgroup has them - the card in general is absurdly hard to find. It's the one card out of the 100 I'm missing, so I'm cutting it instead of hoping my LGS magically comes across one. ~_~
4/23/2013:
Voice of Resurgence
-Removed:
Mayor of Avabruck
Mayor is a pet card of mine, but in the advent of Dragon's Maze bringing us the most busted hatebear not close, he needed to bow down to the queen bee. Mayor never reliably flipped anyway despite my meta being almost all control, which is just sad to be honest.
6/5/2013:
Ant Queen
Night Soil
Trostani's Summoner
Fungal Sprouting
Mycoloth
Psychotrope Thallid
Utopia Mycon
Alive / Well
Dauntless Escort
-Removed:
Voice of Resurgence
Order of Whiteclay
Sacred Mesa
Congregation at Dawn
Talisman of Unity
Nomads' Assembly
Path to Exile
Healer of the Pride
Gaea's Anthem
-Updated the Nuances of the Deck section.
Honestly, I'd been meaning to update the deck more thoroughly for the longest time and I've never gotten around to it.
The big one is removing VoR - it's climbed $4 to $50 (!) over the course of just today, for a damn good reason, but still a reason I can't really agree with overall. It's not worth that kind of money, and until I magically open one, I'm not going to be including it in the list. If you have one, however, go ahead and run it.
6/27/2013:
Doubling Season
-Removed:
Selesnya Keyrune
I got a Doubling Season for my birthday. This deck abuses it more than any other, so it found a home pretty quickly!
7/5/2013:
Nemata, Grove Guardian
Pollenbright Wings
Selesnya Evangel
Pallid Mycoderm
Ajani Goldmane
Mikaeus, the Lunarch
Archangel of Thune
Garruk, Caller of Beasts
Kalonian Hydra
Primeval Bounty
Forest
Selesnya Guildgate
Brushland
-Removed:
Oblivion Ring
Staff of Nin
Trostani's Summoner
Loxodon Hierarch
Martial Coup
Swords to Plowshares
Glorious Anthem
Soul Warden
Kessig Cagebreakers
Condemn
Plains
Mishra's Factory
Tectonic Edge
-Updated the Nuances of the Deck section.
Huge update here, a lot to cover.
M14 brings us a bunch of goodies, chief among them the Archangel of Thune. Stupidly broken in this deck, she just makes even the tiniest Saproling token a huge threat, and adds a ton of pressure to your board state. Kalonian Hydra compliments the secondary direction this deck is going in - the +1/+1 counter theme - by making your army titanic the moment he turns sideways. Play with Mycoloth for great success! Garruk is a trial card - 1.5 creatures per +1 is pretty decent. Primeval Bounty is my favorite card of the set and has a lot of synergy with the deck overall, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on one.
Now with the M14 cards comes a shift in the focus of the deck. I need to solidify the theme of this deck - Saproling tokens with a lot of +1/+1 counters, and I feel the deck doesn't do a very good job of that in its current state. There are random slots everywhere from the spells to the lands, and I really don't know why I put half of these cards in there. Regardless, I feel I got most of what's important for the deck - feel free to add your input if you think I messed up somewhere!
7/13/2013:
Adarkar Valkyrie
Sol Ring
Cultivate
Kodama's Reach
Growth Spasm
Sylvan Library
Selesnya Guildmage
-Removed:
Shattered Angel
Rhox Faithmender
Armada Wurm
Increasing Devotion
Alive / Well
Expedition Map
Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage
I did some trades last night before the prerelease - I didn't realize the $10-25 stuff that got MMR reprints dropped so low. In light of that, I picked up a Valkyrie for this deck.
I also got a hold of the Garruk for this deck. Super excited to try him out!
-NOTE: A lot of tenative changes are going here. Despite the inaccuracy of the date, a lot of minor changes are rapidly happening, and I don't want multiple sections in the changelog to represent them all.-
10/18/2013:
Curse of Predation
Primal Vigor
-Removed:
Pallid Mycoderm
Fungal Sprouting
All input is appreciated as always!
Felidar Soverign?
Test of Endurance?
Just 'cause forcing your opponents to attempt to grind you down can be annoying. Put them out of their mercy. Otherwise, really solid list. Luminarch's Ascension is a tried and tested card too.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
Well of Lost Dreams - worth it? While Staff of Nin doesn't require any more effort to get an extra card a turn, the Well seems like it could do a good job of refilling your hand even after something like a Garruk token hitting play.
Doubling Season - Draws a lot of hate, obviously, and the counter making ability only works with Garruk, Cathar's Crusade and Twilight Drover. That said, do you think its worth it to have another token doubler?
Felidar Sovereign is nice but I don't have any idea what to cut for it.
Luminarch Ascension draws too much attention, imo.
Well of Lost Dreams was tested initially and it wasn't very good. At all stages of the game, there are better things to do with your mana. You have huge mana sinks in your lands, as well as Trostani.
Doubling Season is waaaay too non-budget for me, and even if I had one, this isn't the deck for it because it's not running enough Planeswalkers. The idea of having the Corpsejack Menace portion of the effect is a nice thought, but I would want to commit more to Doubling Season if I had one.
Shattered Angel seems a bit weak, I think that's the slot for the Sovereign. She flies though, and I know you can't underestimate that.
I also see Ulvenwald Tracker as spot removal, but are your men big enough to trade with the Akromas and the like of the Commander table?
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
Shattered Angel fights Boundless Realms really well, and our multiplayer games have 4 people, so gaining 9 life a turn is really nice.
Aside from a general curiosity, I was also wondering what bigger cards you would absolutely want in here if you were forced to spend ~60 bucks on singles for this deck.
BBlack AggroB
Modern
CAffinityC
Legacy
RBlood Moon PainterR
EDH
WBRKaaliaRBW
RWTajicWR
GWTrostaniWG
WGRBUSliversUBRGW
RUGRiku, of Two ReflectionsGUR
Long live the Legion