Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Tyvar, the Bellicose!

Tyvar is a four mana 5/4 who gives Elves you control deathtouch until the end of turn whenever they attack, and each creature you control has “Whenever a mana ability of this creature resolves, put a number of +1/+1 counters on it equal to the amount of mana this creature produced. This ability triggers only once each turn.”

Elfball is a classic archetype and one I have delved in way back when I talked about Nath of the Gilt-Leaf several months back, but that was around the time when I started the blog, so I thought that it would be a good time to talk about another avenue for an Elfball Commander.

For those unfamiliar with the strategy, the term Elfball means that the goal of the deck is to get as many Elves on the battlefield as possible, ideally ones with mana abilities to work with Tyvar in this case, and swarm the board with Elves until we hit an Overrun effect to win us the game or pay a massive amount of mana for a huge X spell to win the game. A classic strategy, and Tyvar helps get our Elves bigger before the Overrun or X spell.

Since this is going to be an Elfball deck, it makes sense that we start with choosing our Elves.

Some of the best Elves we can pick are ones like Elvish Archdruid, ones that give boosts to our other Elves and ones that can add multiple mana. Elvish Archdruid does both in that they give our other Elves +1/+1 and can tap to add green mana for each Elf we control, which can become huge when combined with Tyvar.

Priest of Titania is another classic choice in that they also add green mana equal to each Elf we control, Circle of Dreams Druid adding green mana equal to each creature we control, and Wirewood Channeler adds X mana of any one color where X is the number of all Elves on the battlefield.

We can also use Elves that add multiple mana equal to their power like Marwyn, the Nurturer who also adds a +1/+1 counter on itself when another Elf enters the battlefield under our control or something like Gyre Sage who adds a green mana equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on itself while also having Evolve, which means they get a +1/+1 counter whenever a creature with greater power or toughness enters the battlefield under our control.

Dionus, Elvish Archdruid is an Elf that helps with Tyvar’s playstyle in that they give Elves the ability to put a +1/+1 counter on themselves whenever they get tapped as well as untapping it once each turn, which means that any of our mana producing Elves can tap to add mana to add counters from Tyvar’s ability and Dionus’s ability and can untap so we can tap them to add more mana for later.

Next we need to consider our utility cards, primarily other Elves with solid utility abilities or removal spells given to us because of our access to black.

Shaman of the Pack is a great way to either bring the lowest life player down even lower or to bring the highest life player in or to have them much more equal, because when they enter target opponent loses life equal to the number of Elves we control.

Glissa Sunslayer is also a great utility Elf in that she has first strike and deathtouch to deal with a good chunk of creatures while on the defense but also let’s you choose from either drawing a card and losing 1 life, destroy an enchantment, or remove up to three counters from a permanent whenever she deals combat damage to a player.

Harald, King of Skemfar is also a solid choice because when he enters we look at the top five cards of our library and reveal either an Elf, Warrior, or Tyvar card from among them and put it into our hand, putting the rest of the cards on the bottom of our library in a random order.

This opens us up to using Tyvar Kell which has the passive ability to give Elves we control the ability to tap for black man, put a +1/+1 counter on an Elf we control while also untapping it and giving it deathtouch until end of turn, make a 1/1 Elf Warrior creature token, and has the ultimate to give an emblem that whenever we cast an Elf spell it gains haste until end of turn and draws us two cards.

We should also take a look at other utility cards to help us like Assassin’s Trophy which can destroy any permanent an opponent control while letting its controller look for a basic land and put it onto the battlefield, Abrupt Decay to have an uncounterable way to destroy a nonland permanent of mana value three or less, and Atomize to destroy a nonland permanent and then proliferate.

There are also some unique typal cards we have access to like Return Upon the Tide which returns a creature from our graveyard to the battlefield and if it was an Elf then we make two 1/1 Elf Warrior creature tokens, Eyeblight Massacre which gives non-Elf creatures -2/-2 until end of turn, and Prowess of the Fair which makes an Elf Warrior token whenever another nontoken Elf is put into the graveyard from the battlefield.

Now we come in with how we win the game, and like I said earlier we have a couple of avenues to go about this.

Empty the Pits is what would normally be an extremely expensive spell to get a couple of Zombie, it suddenly becomes a way to get a potentially huge board of 2/2 Zombie creatures that we can cast at instant speed, while also having Delve as a backup way to get a bit of extra mana to get another Zombie or two.

If we have access to it, Torment of Hailfire is an excellent way to close the game since we can pay a massive amount of mana to force our opponents to either lose a whole lot of life or to discard their entire hand or to clear their board for us to swing in with our creatures.

Exsanguinate can drain our opponents by a whole bunch of life while giving us a massive life swing, Black Sun’s Zenith to give X -1/-1 counters to clear the board while our massive creatures can still stay in play, and Diabolic Revelation to tutor for any other cards we need to help us swing the game.

If we want to go for the more aggressive route then we can go with Craterhoof Behemoth to give our Elves a massive power boost and trample, Overwhelming Stampede to give creatures we control +X/+X and trample where X is the greatest power among creatures we control, Fangs of Kalonia to put a +1/+1 counter on a creature or each creature if we Overload it and then doubles the number of +1/+1 counters on each creature that had a +1/+1 counter put on it this way.

If we want to find a particular creature and put it into play we can play Nature’s Rhythm which can search for a creature card in our library with mana value X or less and put it onto the battlefield and we can also cast it from our graveyard with its Harmonize ability to search for basically any creature we want.

Tyvar as a Commander can help set the theme of the deck as well as helps make our Elves bigger, and potentially more effective in potentially adding more mana or at the very least a big body to help us swing for the game.

Elfball is a consistent archetype, and Elves are among some of the most well supported creature types in the game, so you will more than likely be able to win a decent number of game. What the deck needs to watch out for is continuous target and mass removal, which not all decks have, but too much removal can add up.

Even though we have decent access to recursion, targeted and mass recursion, if our graveyard is exiled when we have a ton of Elves in the graveyard, then we are dead in the water.

It’s always prudent to be aware of a deck’s weaknesses in order to tune the deck to be aware of what to watch out for when playing against other decks, and how to potentially counter any issues that we may face.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual