2005 was a particularly tumultuous time in my life. In the span of only a few brief months, my family made a move from Buffalo, New York to Tampa, Florida. I'd lost most of my friends as a result of this and was struggling in a new environment. I wasn't even able to keep up with Magic the way I had over the previous years due to a lack of interest among my new classmates and peers in Florida. Still, that wouldn't dissuade me from trying.

That fall, the newest expansion for the game was about to come out: Ravnica: City of Guilds. Despite not having much of a local group that played Magic, I still kept up with the news and couldn't wait to check out the game. I managed to find a shop 40 minutes away and got my parents to take me out to the release event (the modern day prereleases of the time, when true prereleases were massive events held in select locations). Like many others, I fell in love with the set quickly, being initially enamored by the Dimir thanks to my affinity for Blue-Black decks at the time.

With the chaos of the move, though, I wasn't able to get cards often. I didn't get an allowance and was too young to get a job, so it often fell to special occasions for me to receive new cards. So for Christmas of that year, I woke up to find an old standby: a bit of Magic cards in my stocking, this time in the form of a Ravnica preconstructed deck: Selesnya United.

When I got that deck I could not stop playing it. It changed the things I loved doing in a game of Magic quickly, going from playing more controlling style decks to falling head over heels with doing all kinds of token nonsense. It's the reason why Selesnya is my favorite guild by far, and why I always try to force them in Ravnica set drafts wherever I can. Hell during my sole Ravnica Remastered draft thus far I even first picked the classic Selesnya Guildmage!

I'll always remember the cards from that precon that got me most excited though. Scion of the Wild was like Heedless One (and the rest of that Onslaught cycle) but for all creatures! Selesnya Evangel made so many tokens! What do you mean Watchwolf is just a 3/3 for mana with zero downside?! Then, there was Tolsimir Wolfblood, the guild champion legend inserted into the deck.

Tolsimir was just everything I wanted to be doing with Selesnya. You got to make all these small tokens and make them big. It felt like I was taking what I was trying to do with Slivers and Elves a few years earlier and able to do it stronger and more consistently. Tolsimir felt like the crystallization of this, and it was only made better by the fact that he himself made a token over and over again. It was awesome, and I continued to use him in decks, cubes, you name it wherever I could as the years went on!

Though we saw less of him in the Return to Ravnica block, he reappeared in War of the Spark as Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves. Now he returns again as Tolsimir, Midnight's Light in Murders at Karlov Manor. Unfortunately, though - SPOILERS - he kinda takes a big ol' tree trunk through the chest. While his fate remains unclear at this point in time, it's clearly had an impact on his companion, Voja. Enter Voja, Jaws of the Conclave.

Oh boy, this wolf is MAD. No doubt enraged by what has happened to his companion, Voja is ready to bring the beats. He's a huge beater in his own right but once you actually build him around both elves and wolves, he goes truly off the chain! It just so happens I've done exactly that, so let's dive in and check out a list!

Voja's Forces | Commander | Paige Smith

• Commander (1)
• 1 Voja, Jaws of the Conclave

• Creatures (36)
• 1 Arwen, Weaver of Hope
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Cemetery Prowler
• 1 Child of the Pack // Savage Packmage
• 1 Conclave Guildmage
• 1 Druid of the Anima
• 1 Elvish Mystic
• 1 Elvish Warmaster
• 1 Emmara, Soul of the Accord
• 1 Fyndhorn Elves
• 1 Hollowhenge Overlord
• 1 Huntmaster of the Fells // Ravager of the Fells
• 1 Imperious Perfect
• 1 Incubation Druid
• 1 Jaheira, Friend of the Forest
• 1 Jinnie Fay, Jetmir's Second
• 1 Joiner Adept
• 1 Joraga Treespeaker
• 1 Kessig Cagebreakers
• 1 Llanowar Elves
• 1 Master of the Wild Hunt
• 1 Nullmage Shepherd
• 1 Priest of Titania
• 1 Primal Adversary
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Rhys the Redeemed
• 1 Selesnya Guildmage
• 1 Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
• 1 Shalai and Hallar
• 1 Sylvan Ranger
• 1 Tolsimir Wolfblood
• 1 Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves
• 1 Tolsimir, Midnight's Light
• 1 Tovolar's Huntmaster // Tovolar's Packleader
• 1 Wolf-Skull Shaman
• 1 Wren's Run Packmaster

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 1 Arlinn Kord // Arlinn, Embraced by the Moon
• 1 Arlinn, Voice of the Pack
• 1 Arlinn, the Pack's Hope // Arlinn, the Moon's Fury
• 1 Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury

• Instants (6)
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Flawless Maneuver
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Krosan Grip
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (5)
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Three Visits

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Hardened Scales
• 1 Rhythm of the Wild
• 1 Shared Animosity
• 1 Shield of the Oversoul
• 1 Warleader's Call

• Artifacts (4)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Sword of Body and Mind

• Lands (39)
• 2 Mountain
• 2 Plains
• 11 Forest
• 1 Bountiful Promenade
• 1 Brushland
• 1 Canopy Vista
• 1 Castle Garenbrig
• 1 Cinder Glade
• 1 Gavony Township
• 1 Jetmir's Garden
• 1 Jungle Shrine
• 1 Karplusan Forest
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Overgrown Farmland
• 1 Raging Ravine
• 1 Reflecting Pool
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rockfall Vale
• 1 Rootbound Crag
• 1 Scattered Groves
• 1 Sheltered Thicket
• 1 Spectator Seating
• 1 Spire Garden
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Sunpetal Grove
• 1 Temple Garden
• 1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

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What appealed to me about building this deck was the overall lack of solid wolves I expected there to be and the different take on building an Elves deck. I've talked about this quite a bit in the past, but while I'm known for playing Elves in most competitive formats, I find it far less appealing in games of Commander. In a big multiplayer format, a classic Elfball strategy tends to play the same way every time, leading to unexciting gameplay that will end up boring tables and often have you wanting to play something else instead. As such, I welcome commanders that allow you to do it just a little differently.

That's not to say the Elves package isn't still here in force. You've got your mana dorks like Llanowar Elves and Priest of Titania. You even get to make use of some lesser known fixers like Druid of the Anima and Joiner Adept thanks to the amount of colors the deck needs. There's also the likes of Rhys the Redeemed to make more tokens and Nullmage Shepherd to deal with artifacts and enchantments. And, of course, you can draw a ton of cards with a good old fashioned Beast Whisperer.

Thanks to the need to split the deck's base with wolves, though, it's a lot less focused and instead plays into a few more oddball cards. For example, I wouldn't usually find myself slipping copies of Wolf-Skull Shaman and Wren's Run Packmaster into most Elves decks these days. They're pretty outclassed from their uses in the past, but in a deck like this where you want to get more and more wolves on the board, they excel. Most Elves lists also happen to be either Mono-Green or Golgari, so playing an actual Naya list also opens up to cards like Conclave Guildmage and Emmara, Soul of the Accord get to enter the fray also.

What I think really surprised me, though, were the number of cards that did a ton with wolves. When I think of wolves in Magic, I tend to think more of cards like once-great Constructed cards like Wicked Wolf and Nightpack Ambusher or odd draftables like Kessig Wolf. I certainly walked away feeling like I found more cards that did a decent amount with wolves, even if most of them were just good cards that happened to make wolf tokens.

In fact, among all the wolves this deck can churn out, there's only three actual cards with the creature type of Wolf (and, no, that doesn't include werewolves). Those cards are Primal Adversary, Cemetery Prowler, and Hollowhenge Overlord - each of which does something extremely powerful in its own right. The rest make lots of wolf tokens. Look at the likes of Kessig Cagebreakers, Tovalar's Huntmaster // Tovalar's Packleader, and the various Arlinn cards and tell me you won't end up with more tokens than you can possibly count. This all comes to a head when you have a Master of the Wild Hunt on the board that you can tap to take down problematic creatures at a moment's notice.

With the amount of tokens you'll be generating, Voja himself makes the game move at a blisteringly fast pace. With just a handful of elves on the board, you can easily be getting an extra five - if not more - +1/+1 counters on every one of your creatures. At the same time, you can easily draw numerous cards in one swing too. This alone, and more so with his ward ability, makes him hard to topple and he can end games in an instant. Who needs Craterhoof Behemoth when you can just use one angry wolf? If you do need a little more oomph, though, Shared Animosity can have your back.

Despite his might, though, Voja can be a little fragile still. After all, while his ward ability is mighty, your opponents can still target him. I've slipped in some of the usual cards like Heroic Intervention and Flawless Maneuver, and while I didn't put them in here, utilizing the likes of Darksteel Plate or Mithril Coat might help. I have, however, opted to use Shield of the Oversoul here - a fantastic card that not only gives the angry boy indestructible but also an extra bit of evasion in the form of flying. You can even rely on Sword of Body and Mind for a little color protection while also making more tokens. You just need to be mindful of the double-edged sword here that the mill can create.

Voja, Jaws of the Conclave is no doubt going to be an absolute house at Commander tables the world over when Murders at Karlov Manor hits game stores in just a few weeks. He's going to be one of three cards you might find popping out of your prerelease kit, begging to be run at your next Commander night. If you like being aggressive and spitting out tons of tokens, I promise you'll have one hell of a great time with this deck. Take it for a spin and crush all of your opponents when you do. For the Conclave, for Voja, avenge Tolsimir!

Paige Smith

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