Building Around Yedora, Grave Gardener in Commander

Posted on April 29, 2021

The first deck I ever brewed up myself was Doran, the Siege Tower. I watched my first draft right at the tail end of Lorwyn/Lorwyn/Morningtide draft, and I loved everything about the creature.

Many players loved Doran - and so when Arcades, the Strategist was printed, they finally got the ultimate version of Doran, right? Except that wasn't what drew me to Doran. I loved it as a Treefolk! My first deck was Treefolk Tribal, and I still have it sleeved up even though no one plays 60-card casual any more.

So Yedora, Grave Gardener from Commander 2021 caught my eye as I began to process the set. I've never thought about turning Treefolk Tribal into an EDH deck, but the recursion ability of Yedora, Grave Gardener terraforming your creatures into Forests reminded me of Timber Protector - I was always struck by the possibilities opened up by the line giving Forests indestructible. It immediately begged the question: why would turning my Forests indestructible matter? From there I was lost to Magic forever.

Yedora, Grave Gardener isn't exactly the new end-all, be-all Treefolk general (that title belongs to Doran), but it does offer a unique twist by turning all your creatures into Forests upon their death, so today I want to explore that concept with a deck!

It stands to reason that if we're going to pump out creatures that can later be turned into Forests should things go awry, we'll want to start with other cards that look at Forests. For instance, Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar is just such a card, and Ambush Commander is just the tip of the iceberg after that.

There's definitely a temptation to go in an Elfball direction here, but I want to stick to the Treefolk theme as much as possible. I love Timber Protector and want to make it good here, even if most of our wins will come via something like Kamahl, Heart of Krosa.

To that end, we're starting at the bottom of the curve with Treefolk Harbinger and Bosk Banneret, which will help us power out our big Treefolk threats later on - plus the Harbinger can grab any Forest card out of your deck in a pinch! We'll also be eschewing a bunch of Assault Formations in favor of more 'Folk.

There's more interaction than you might expect in a mono-Green deck, and some of it even comes with Treefolk flavor. Lignify is a always a solid choice along with the 'Folk-centric Rootgrapple, and Song of the Dryads comes in as well. We want to lean toward creatures as much as possible since we have cards like Heartwood Storyteller and Ezzaroot Channeler, but there's room to squeeze in a few cards like Krosan Grip and Beast Within. Wickerbough Elder helps both by being a creature (and a Treefolk to boot) and removing problematic artifacts or enchantments.

We can also force the Forest token scheme a bit further. Landfall creatures like Sporemound or Tireless Tracker can draw out a ton of value, and Scryb Ranger is a build-your-own convoluted Eternal Witness. Slab Hammer does the same thing. And Dauntless Dourbark and Kalonian Twingrove are a heck of a great attacking pair once you've incidentally filled your board with Forests. And if we've managed to turn our Forests into 1/1s via one of the mana ways to do so, Overwhelming Stampede and Triumph of the Hordes will close a game out fast.

As for the ramp - we're a Green deck, after all - Treefolk offer a surprising amount of applicable ramp cards. The theme of "ramping at the 4-6 mana value spot" didn't really work out great in either Limited or Constructed, but it actually fits in perfectly in Commander where no amount of mana is too much.