One of the oldest creature-based themes inMagic: The Gatheringare Elves. These primarily green creatures excel in generating tons of mana, swarming the board, and quickly dishing out tons of damage.
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Among the many Elf commanders that can lead your deck, Lathril, Blade of the Elves is easily one of the best out there. As a 2/3 with menace, Lathril can oftentimes slip through your opponent’s defenses, which is great for you, since Lathril also creates 1/1 Elf Warrior tokens equal to the amount of combat damage she does to a player. Then, you’re able to tap ten other Elves and Lathril herself to make each opponent lose ten life while you gain life.
There’s a lot going on with Lathril, which means there are a few different ways to build a Commander deck with her at the lead. Let’s take a look at some of the best ways to overrun your opponents with the might of Elves.
7Big Spells
One of the best things Elves can do for you is to generate tons of mana after only a few turns. Cards like Elvish Archdruid, Marwyn, the Nurturer, and Priest of Titaniacan add tons of mana to your mana pool, and then do it again if you have ways to untap them.
With all that mana, you’re going to want a few big spells to help secure your victory. The best of these spells is going to be Torment of Hailfire. For two black and X mana, each of your opponents loses three life unless they sacrifice a nonland permanent or discard a card, repeating this ability for each mana you’ve put into X.
Even if an opponent has enough permanents to sacrifice to avoid dying to Torment of Hailfire, you’ve likely put them so far behind that you can easily clean up with your Elves.
6Lifegain
Gaining life is rarely a win condition on its own and is often a trap that newer players can fall in if they’re not careful. Lathril, however, provides a few ways to turn your life into pain for your opponents. Elves have a few ways of generating consistent lifegain, with one of the premiere creatures for this being Wellwisher.
Tapping Wellwisher gains you one life for each Elf in play; both yours and your opponents. Pair Wellwisher up with Essence Warden, who gains life whenever another creature comes into play, turning all those tokens Lathril makes into extra life. You can even play Alhammarret’s Archive to double up on your life gain, accelerating you to even higher life totals.
SinceLathril gives you access to black mana, you can jam in the classic Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond combo to create a loop of infinite life gain for you and life loss for your opponents. Or you could just throw out an Aetherflux Reservoir and blast your opponents away, 50 damage at a time.
5Equipment
Neither Green nor Black are particularly great at Equipment-based decks, but with a strong commander like Lathril loaded up with Equipment, you’ll have a powerful force to reckon with. You’ll, of course, want Commander staples like Swiftfoot Boots to give Lathril haste and hexproof, and Trailblazer’s Boots to ensure you may sneak past your opponent’s defenses.
From there, you can grab all sorts of powerful equipment like the entire Mirran Sword cycle to give Lathril protection from whatever color combination you want. Equipment can turn Lathril into a powerhouse, like Pennon Blade giving it +1/+1 for each creature you control, and Blackblade Reforged +1/+1 for each land you control.
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Once you send Lathril in at your opponents a few times and generate a massive army of tokens, you’ll have an overwhelming board presence at your command.
4Primal Surge
If you want an all-or-nothing sort of deck, then Primal Surge is the way to go. This ten-mana sorcery lets you exile the top card of your library and lets you choose to put it into play. If you do, you get to do it again.
With Primal Surge you may effectively just flip your deck over onto the battlefield if you build it right. Once you’re done resolving enter the battlefield triggers and tallying up how much power you have on the board, you’ll want a few ways to be able to attack immediately. Akroma’s Memorial can give your board haste as well as flying, first strike, vigilance, and trample.
Another great way to do it is with Concordant Crossroads, but keep in mind it gives all creatures in play haste, not just your own.
3Voltron
Similar to the Equipment build of Lathril, a voltron-style deck focuses on loading Lathril up with all sorts of powerful Auras and Equipment to deal as much damage as possible.
There are utility Auras you can play like Bear Umbra, which untaps your lands when the enchanted creature attacks and gives +2/+2 to Lathril, while Alpha Authority gives Lathril hexproof and makes it so only one creature can block it at a time. Considering Lathril already has menace, this effectively makes her unblockable.
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Since you’re going to be generating tons of tokens, throw in an Alpha Status, giving Lathril +2/+2 for each other creature in play that shares a creature type with it. Even better is Crown of Skemfar, which has a similar effect of giving the enchanted creature +1/+1 for each Elf you control, and can be returned from the graveyard back to your hand.
2Elf Token
Flooding the board with tokens is always a fun way to build Lathril, especially given how easily Lathril can create them from an otherwise empty board state. Some of the best Elf token generators include Elvish Warmaster and Lys Alana Huntmaster, which create an Elf token when an Elf comes into play once per turn, or when you cast an Elf card respectively.
With a focus on tokens, you play cards that increase the number of tokens you create like, Doubling Season and Parallel Lives, which both create additional copies of every token you generate. You can also use cards like Second Harvest to double your tokens, and then attack with all your tokens totrigger cards like Beastmasters Ascensionto give all your creatures a boost.
1Elfball
Sometimes the best way to build a deck is to stick with what works best, and for Elves, it’s almost always been hitting a critical mass of creatures in play, and then slamming a Craterhoof Behemoth to win the game.
Between Lathril and your other Elves generating tokens at a blindingly fast rate, you’ll more likely than not have tons of creatures in play after only a few turns. Then all it takes is access to a good chunk of mana, a Fierce Empath to find your Craterhoof (or similar creature), and cast Craterhoof.
If it lands, you give all your creatures trample and +X/+X, with X being the number of creatures you control. If you had 20 Elves in play before Craterhoof Behemoth, you’ll be giving them all +21/+21 and trample, likely more than enough damage to take out all your opponents in one attack.
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