Build of the Week: Trostani Maddness

Inspired by the insanity at GP Miam, I decided to do some G/W hilarity.
G/W has a few different bents that it can take. It lends itself to Stompy, Enchantress, Tokens, and Value. To most closely mirror the board states seen on coverage, I decided to go with Trostani, who can build giant boards and gain tones of life and mixes all of these archetypes together. I give credit to my friend David Clark who gave me his Trostani list to work off of.

The categories I see available for her are Token Abuse, Life Manipulation, Mana, and Kill Conditions. Some cards listed will cross categories, so if you see something in multiple slots there aren't more than 1 of them, its just a happy coincidence.

Token Abuse in most instances is pretty straightforward, you have token makers and sacrifice outlets. Trostani is unique, which is one reason I picked her, in that the qualities of the token matter significantly. Populate makes exact duplicates of the Token. So Mimic Vat, a fine to good card elsewhere becomes a great card in this deck.

Token Abusers:
Mimic Vat
Soul Foundry
Phyrexian Processor
Minion Reflector
Sundering Vitae
Phyrexian Rebirth
Perilous Forays 
Skullclamp
Natural Order
Martyr's Cause

Unfortunately the rest of the Populate cards are not that great. If we find that we really make more of the mechanic beyond having our general as Trostani there we might include Rootborn Defenses or Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage.

On a similar note, there are the creatures that we want to put on Mimic Vat in order to gain access to their effects repeatedly.

Enter the battlefield dudes:
Eternal Witness
Karmic Guide
Sun Titan
Regal Force
Avenger of Zendikar
Woodfall Primus
Kitchen Finks
Whisperwood Elemental

There are a selection of creatures under mana that get lands into play that could also be under this heading, but repeating them seems redundant and their primary purpose is to find land and smooth our draws, not generate advantage through repeated etb effects.

The next category is Life Manipulation. Trostani is adept at generating heaps of life for us to take advantage of. The category deals both with gaining life, paying life, and effects that trigger on life gain.

Life Manipulation:
Sylvan Library
Serra Avatar
Phyrexian Processor
Well of Lost Dreams
Cradle of Vitality
Mastery of the Unseen

I could just keep adding cards to this, but I think this encapsulates the point well enough. Manifest is a strong mechanic in these colors. Its drawing some percentage of a card. Its worth noting that you can't populate manifest since they aren't tokens. Manifested cards are a magic card. Mastery is particularly good though since its effect is repeatable and it both "draws" a card and gives you another source of life gain for various effects.

The mana category is for accelerants.

Mana:
Mana Crypt
Sol Ring
Gilded Lotus
Mana Vault
Selesnya Signet
Earthcraft
Mana Reflection
Mirari's Wake
Gaea's Cradle
Serra Sanctum
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Wood Elves
Oracle of Mul Daya
Farhaven Elf
Sakura Tribe Elder
Yavimaya Elder
Solemn Simulacrum
Stone Seeder Hierophant

Probably the only one here that needs explaining is Serra's Sanctum. Its capable of producing some really insane amounts of mana and Enchantments tend to hang around longer than most permanent types. We don't need to go full Enchantress in order to produce a significant amount of mana from it. We do want to include some extra enchantments to power it up.

Enchantments:
Aura Shards
Luminarch Ascension
Primeval Bounty
Doubling Season
Courser of Kruphix

That should be sufficient to ensure that our Serra's Sanctum taps for 3 mana or more. It also supports our Nykthos by having permanents remain in play. None of them are particularly color dense, but Nykthos also doesn't need a lot of support since it taps for colorless mana. Courser pulls quad duty here as it is an enchantment for Serra's Sanctum, double green for Nykthos, has 4 toughness for Trostani, and it gives you a steady stream of life on its own on top of playing well with Sylvan Library.

Kill Conditions:
Overwhelming Stampede
Craterhoof Behemoth 
Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

These cards are in the deck to end the game. To a one they are massive creature pumps that turn your horde of value dudes into lethal attackers.

Of course that leaves us with quite a few slots to fill. The cards that we've put in so far lend a pretty unique flavor to the deck, but it would be foolish not to include the backbone cards of EDH, tutors and removal.

Tutors:
Enlightened Tutor
Eladamri's Call
Chord of Calling
Idyllic Tutor
Natural Order
Tooth and Nail
Birthing Pod
Sensei's Divining Top - Not a real tutor, but works really well with our Manifest dudes and shuffle effects.

Removal:
Martial Coup
Terminus
Austere Command
Swords to Plowshares
Relic of Progenitus
Oblivion Stone

Other:
Cultivate
Genesis Wave
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Worldspine Wurm - This is our huge dude for Natural Order.

Lands:
Gaea's Cradle
Serra's Sanctum
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Ancient Tomb
Kor Haven
Gavony Township
Grove of the Guardian
Mosswort Bridge
Windbrisk Heights
Krosan Verge
Thawing Glaciars
Horizon Canopy
Selesnya Sanctuary
Wooded Bastion
Brushland
Sunpetal Grove
Temple Garden
Savannah
Wooded Foothills
Windswept Heath
Misty Rainforest
Tranquil Thicket
Secluded Steppe
6 Plains
10 Forest

This mana base is a bit safer on colored sources since Trostani costs GGWW on the first turn. We want lots of colored sources that come into play untapped. We also want to ensure that we don't get bottlenecked on white mana for our Mastery of the Unseen. I like how the deck turned out. The full list is here: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/07-03-15-trostani/

It feels both flexible and powerful. There are many things you could do to this list to speed it up and make it meaner. The list I got from Dave recently made it to the semi-finals of a multiplayer EDH tournament. I also wanted to include the cards that made the SCG match so insane with Whisperwood Elemental, Nykthos, and Mastery of the Unseen making prominent appearances. Various direction to go include making the deck more grow wide like a Rhys deck, making the deck revolve more around the lands, upping color counts for Nykthos, upping Enchantments for Serra's and pushing the deck into more of an Enchantress role, or dropping some of the cutesy stuff and pushing Trostani to be really mean, which includes adding Crucible and Wasteland/Dustbowl/Titania. This base feels like a 3 on the BS scale, a good starting point.

I'll be back next week with some sweet dragon action!