For me my decks are a living thing. Yes I create them, play with them, but over time you come across new cards (well new to me) from the rich history of thousands and thousands of cards that WotC have released for the game, or from a new set when it gets released. You see the card and think that it would go great in X deck. However you are then faced with the dilemma of what card(s) get replaced. Although on occasion it’s so blindingly obvious you don’t have to think about it. But a lot of the time it’s a very hard decision that involves vision quests, soul searching, consulting mystics and wise men hiding in caves at the top of mountains.

But why am I talking all this crap? I have that very dilemma at the moment with 2 new cards that I have got in. Both would fit in really nicely in my Elf Tribal deck. But that big question remains, what do they replace?

I like both of these cards. Hall of Gemstone is a great land/mana hate card that would cripple non-mono colour decks. Which when you are “tiny” elves trying to build up a nice board state helps a lot. Although it does kind of put a target on you for doing it. Realm Seekers, a 6 CMC Elf that potentially in Commander played at the right time come in as a very big creature indeed. In reality I’d expect to see it come in with between 3 – 8 +1/+1 counters. Play this after I have just put my graveyard back in my hand, with unlimited hand size for the rest of the game, and this becomes insane.

I’m pretty sure I may be revisiting this particular dilemma once I get my hands on Dominaria with one or two of the new elves in the set.

But with this current dilemma how would you fit these cards in? Would you even try? Maybe you know better cards that should be going into the deck. Let me know in the comments below. Remember if you haven’t commented before I need to approve the first comment, then after that you are golden to comment whenever you like without me needing to approve anything. This is a simple anti-spam thing.

If you remember in my ramblings Tuesday I mentioned somewhere on the horizon was a plan to build a deck that abused the etb effect. Well I now have the commander I want to use for this deck.

Yep Brago, King Eternal. I saw this card in an article on the top 10 cards in Conspiracy, and thought wait that’s the perfect Commander for this non-existent deck of mine. Possibly would have liked green in there as well, but you can’t have everything. Naturally the one must have card to go along side this is going to be Panharmonicon. I’d like to say the deck is building itself. But sadly that’s not the case.

What cards do you think I should be considering for this etb abuse deck?