Elfball is a well-known Commander archetype. Ever since Lathril, Blade of the Elves got printed, elfball has had a lot more support. There are a thousand different ways to build and play Elfball, but it boils down to doing a few things:

1. Play some elves
2. Play elves that pump your elves
3. Play a Craterhoof Behemoth or some other finisher that makes your elves world-ending threats
4. Win the game

Simple game plan, and easy to execute. But what if we spiced it up a bit?

A Mana Generator As a Commander

Marwyn, the Nurturer is a relatively unremarkable card. It shows up in people's 99 as a mana generator and a way for elves to pop off. I've seen a few people use her as a commander but with about 6,000 decks registered on EDHRec, she's not a very popular commander. There are far better Elfball commanders, but we're not building Elfball.

Marwyn, the Nurturer's ability works in two dimensions. Firstly, whenever an elf enters the battlefield (not just on cast) we get a +1/+1 counter on her. Theoretically, we can chain together a few elves and make her into a serious threat that can end the game in two or three turns. But why wait for two or three turns when we can end the game this turn? It will take a bit of setup to get this working, however.

The Lynchpin Of Storm

I mentioned storming off with elves in the title, and so far we only have one piece of a storm combo: a consistent mana generator. However, just like one hand can't clap, just a mana generator does not make a storm deck. No, we need a way to draw more cards, but luckily, Green has a huge toolbox of cards we can use to draw.

Since we'll be casting a lot of creature spells, we want to look at creature-ETB draws. The single best draw spell we have in the deck is Glimpse of Nature, which, for a single Green mana, will draw us a card every time we cast a creature spell this turn. Chances are we only need the draw for the one turn, but even so, there's some resilience in the form of creature-based draw. The rest of the draw package should look familiar to most Green players:

In addition to this draw package, we're also running Abundance, to ensure that we always hit action when we're storming off.

Elves, Elves Everywhere!

Marwyn, the Nurturer gets counters based on playing elves, so why shouldn't we play a lot of elves? We'll obviously have the ever-present Green ramp package including Llanowar Elves, one of the most exciting reprints to come with Foundations. Since this isn't technically Elfball (but most players who haven't seen the deck will assume it is) we're only running a few elf lords, specifically ones that help our game plan. To that end, our Elf Lords will be:

• Ezuri, Renegade Leader (protection for our commander)
• Leaf-Crowned Visionary (more resilient card-draw)
• Imperious Perfect (Sink extra unspent mana into elf tokens to grow Marwyn, the Nurturer and potentially draw us into action)

We could potentially put more lords in here, but I wanted to keep it light on purpose. The rest of the creatures are just utility elves with a few exceptions. These elves are a necessary part of how the deck functions:

These either produce extra elves to make Marwyn, the Nurturer ridiculously large, or perform an important function that helps the deck reach its goals. Which brings me to the next piece of the puzzle.

Untapping Your Marwyn For Fun and Profit

So, let's say you tap your Marwyn, the Nurturer and produce one mana, that's a bit underwhelming for a commander, right? Well, how about you cast a few elves first, then tap her. She could be making three or four mana, which isn't wild, but it's nothing to write home about in a Green deck. There's a case for manaliths in multiplayer, of course, but if your Commander can outstrip even the best, they're redundant. The real power comes from being able to reuse Marwyn, the Nurturer. To help that gameplan, we have a few untap spells that go hand in hand with our existing gameplan, namely:

With this setup, you could theoretically draw into untap spells (unless you run really poorly) and keep drawing cards off the top until you find your game-ending threats. What are those, you ask?

The Thread That Ties It All Together

Some might see this as a cop-out, running Aetherflux Reservoir as a game-ender, but Green doesn't have a lot of options for game-enders that use storm as their mechanic. It is, after all, one of the most impactful four-drops in the game. Aside from the Reservoir, there are a few other storm-based cards included in the deck. The downside is that some of them may require you to wait a turn before you can actually close out the game.

Among the options you have for ending the game are:

Special mentions go to two other "out there" cards that you may be able to get to work, depending on how things go. The first is the last of the Green storm cards, Weather the Storm, which could gain you enough life to keep you alive on the turn you need to finish everyone off. The second one is Helix Pinnacle, which wins on your upkeep if you can stick 100 counters on it, which, with Marwyn, the Nurturer at a decent enough power, only needs a few untaps.

Winning In Green Doesn't Necessarily Mean Attacking, But...

If your opponents are a bit smart and realize that they don't want you getting out of hand, they'll start trying to tie you down. Sometimes the best way to win is the most straightforward and there are a handful of ways to go wide and win through your elf attacks, or go tall with Marwyn, the Nurturer and cream your opponents over consecutive turns. I included a one-off Overwhelming Stampede so you could close out a game if you really need to attack. Here's the full decklist:

Marwyn Storm | Commander | Budget Build

• Creatures (39)
• 1 Arbor Elf
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Birchlore Rangers
• 1 Copperhorn Scout
• 1 Devoted Druid
• 1 Elvish Mystic
• 1 Elvish Visionary
• 1 Elvish Warmaster
• 1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
• 1 Ezuri's Archers
• 1 Farhaven Elf
• 1 Fyndhorn Elves
• 1 Gladecover Scout
• 1 Glistener Elf
• 1 Greenseeker
• 1 Heritage Druid
• 1 Imperious Perfect
• 1 Leaf-Crowned Visionary
• 1 Leaf Gilder
• 1 Lifespring Druid
• 1 Llanowar Elves
• 1 Llanowar Scout
• 1 Llanowar Stalker
• 1 Lys Alana Huntmaster
• 1 Marwyn, the Nurturer
• 1 Patron of the Wild
• 1 Priest of Titania
• 1 Primal Forcemage
• 1 Primordial Sage
• 1 Quirion Ranger
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Scryb Ranger
• 1 Soul of the Harvest
• 1 Spire Tracer
• 1 Taunting Elf
• 1 Voice of Many
• 1 Wirewood Channeler
• 1 Wirewood Symbiote
• 1 Yeva, Nature's Herald

• Instants (14)
• 1 Arachnoid Adaptation
• 1 Biosynthic Burst
• 1 Bull's Strength
• 1 Burst of Strength
• 1 Emerald Charm
• 1 Hunting Pack
• 1 Lifestream's Blessing
• 1 Return of the Wildspeaker
• 1 Savage Surge
• 1 Sheltering Word
• 1 Snakeskin Veil
• 1 Tyvar's Stand
• 1 Vitalize
• 1 Weather the Storm

• Sorceries (6)
• 1 Chatterstorm
• 1 Glimpse of Nature
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Hurricane
• 1 Overwhelming Stampede
• 1 Soul's Majesty

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Abundance
• 1 Helix Pinnacle

• Artifacts (5)
• 1 Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1 Lifecrafter's Bestiary
• 1 Malachite Talisman
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Umbral Mantle

• Lands (34)
• 34 Forest

Buy This Deck Export text

This is my Marwyn, the Nurturer deck, and although it's a budget-ish build, I think that you'll enjoy playing with it. It's won me a few games, and I've lost quite a few as well, but no matter what happens, I enjoy playing it so much that the losses don't hit me that much. Let me know how it works for you!