MTG Salvation

While I've made multiple decks of every other mono-color, Green has evaded me thus far because, frankly, I think all green legends are boring as all hell.

But luckily Yisan came along and fixed that, and I've just gotten around to making a deck for the guy. He's cool, the deck is pretty toolboxy (much like my favorite card of all time, sunforger), and it lets me show off some of my favorite green critters reliably.

HOWEVER, a few big caveats.

The first is that, as I showed in my other Yisan decklist which I tested out on some unsuspecting players at my LGS over the weekend, you can totally build a Yisan deck that can be very reliable and linear in its plays if opponents don't burn him off the face of the earth ASAP, and wins on turn 5-6 if not disrupted.

But besides that (admittedly fragile) combo, there's other potentially very linear paths for the deck to fall into: Sylvan Safekeeper into Seeker of Skybreak into (whatever) into (who cares) into Seedborn Muse into Soul of New Phyrexia into Avenger of Zendikar into Craterhoof Behemoth - all of which happens pretty quickly since seeker and seedborn muse speed it up considerably - probably only 5 turns of activation. Plus it's protected from targeted removal after the first activation, and boardwipes after the 6th (which is on turn 4 of activation), so it's pretty decently protected. Which means, again, your opponents are basically forced to kill Yisan immediately, or boardwipe before you can get soul of nph online, or just target the crap out of him until you run out of lands.

Neither of those things seem like the sort of games I want to play, but I am obligated to make the best play that I can when piloting, so this deck has been built firmly under the "build casually" mantra by avoiding any silly combos and by cutting everything with cmc greater than 6. Certainly there are still threats, but they're the more reactive, intelligent type, and less the traditional green beatdown type.

Anyway, so keep that in mind when making any suggestions - my goal isn't to overwhelm with a rapid succession of escalating threats that force the deck to become aggressively linear, or with a cheesy combo that does the same.

Mass removal is definitely a problem for this deck, although I don't think I like any of the single-shot solutions like withstand death, and plate is a lot of mana to sink when I'd probably rather be pumping out creatures and, again, only saves 1 dude so it's not ideal. I think this deck is probably just doomed to be bad vs wrath unless I get soul, but I also have Genesis to recur my dudes (which did happen a lot last night).

power conduit (and ferropede) were possible adds. After playing it without them, I feel like they're kind of win-more. If you kick him all the way up to 6, you're doing well. just find a sac outlet and replay him.

beast within is probably worth it. Nature's claim less so, I have a lot of artifact/enchantment removal available, it's just in creature form. Somewhat slower ofc but it's more thematic.

Played 3 games -
game 1 I got wrecked by a (really bad) child of alara deck because most of my mana was in the form of creatures and I didn't draw many lands. Almost recovered, but no.
Game 2 was stupid, reanimator deck had the play and a sol ring, and while I had scooze IN MY HAND I couldn't play the thing out fast enough to use it before jin gitaxias came out. Blurg ban sol ring.
Game 3 was loooong. roon deck came out ahead early (same dude as the reanimator deck) and I was hellbent to kill him. After a bunch of fighting and ganging up he was pretty well neutered, Athreos wasn't going anywhere fast, and balthor was almost dead. I saw my chance and killed balthor and started in on roon with 10/10 polukranos. Athreos boardwipes my creatures but I've got genesis and a ton of mana. I start to rebuild, but I need to close out the game. I suddenly realize that illusionist's bracers and seeker of skybreak go infinite and are in my grave, and I managed to genesis back ewit and hua tuo back seeker. Roon suddenly explodes with ewit and ghostway, and then a glen elendra archmage. I play out the survival of the fittest that's been in my hand all game to bait out his archmage, and he takes the bait. Then, bracers, and he doesn't want to throw away archmage so he lets it resolve. Go to equip - he flashes in qasali pridemate and tries to kill it. In response, soul of nph. He makes a sad face. infinite untaps become infinite counters with immaculate magistrate, all onto soul of new phyrexia, which tramples in to kill him and seal up the game (athreos scoops after failing to topdeck anything).

Overall it's a fun deck, but definitely has its weaknesses. If I do mono-green again, it'll probably be Titania.