Ele-Mental (EDH / Commander)

I love my WUBRG elemental tribal with Horde of Notions. This is probably my favorite deck I own.

The Vibe

Horde of Notions is at face value an elemental value pile. "Omnath Tribal" in it's brazen desire for maximum value. Interaction with other decks exist, but is relatively under-emphasized. It seeks to ramp like crazy and do very little for the first usually four or five turns before cranking things to ten.

Horde of Notions is not necessary to win. In fact, there are times where the reanimator aspect of the deck is functionally obsoleted by more value-oriented pieces already on board. It does however provide great mid-to-late-game options. In the midgame it can push high-cmc creatures ahead of curve by casting from the graveyard while the lategame has a good level of inevitability when essentially any threat in the graveyard can just come out again. Most pieces here are oriented somewhere on a spectrum of resilience to explosiveness (with some exceptions). Early milling allows for the occasional high-cmc, high-impact elemental to wind up conveniently in the graveyard for use later in the game. Alternatively, with a good landfall / ramp hand the pilot can cast those elementals from hand instead.

I personally opted to keep the deck relatively thematic, which means a couple of things: no non-elementals, no artifacts, high emphasis on natural or primal concepts, and cascade (which I feel is a fundamental primal / elemental concept). For those more competitively inclined this might be a point of adjustment for altering the playstyle, but I prefer the deck to play less optimally and with some novelty.

The Mode of Operation

This deck seeks longer-form games. It will easily fold to fast or aggressive decks, as it usually cannot make much happen until turn 5 or 6. This means boardwipes are extremely valuable. It is worth destroying serious threats just as your opponents are spread the thinnest.

The first portion of the game is usually spent slowly ramping towards larger plays in the mid to late game. Useful early setup pieces like graveyard / draw engines are also worth getting out just as soon as ramp. There are slow fetch lands in the deck (I am not a rich person) with one faster dual land for those interested (stomping ground) that they can all get. Color fixing is a huge deal as Horde of Notions and it's reanimate ability require all colors of mana at once. Especially since I opted to run a high number of basics in the deck.

The Main Cast

Risen Reef is often the star of the show. This is simply fact. A lot of creatures either depend on or are significantly enhanced with the presence of this 1/1 creature. It is ludicrous levels of value in a way only described by its colors. Every elemental cantrips, including those evoked. Landfall triggers are laughably easy, as you get them from just playing creatures. This guy does so much: if you aren't getting this out in early game, it's probably because you can't.

Ashaya, Soul of the Wild is another key player in the landfall side of the deck, but actually has a lot going for her beyond that. A lot of the conditions on effects specify nonland permanents, which is pretty funny when your opponent's cyclonic rift wipes only your opponents' board states. It also evades Yasharn, Implacable Earth's "sacrifice nonland permanents" clause as well, which is kind of neat for those couple in-deck effects that care. It's also just a really big creature, which can go a long way with something like Warstorm Surge in play.

Bramble Familiar // Fetch Quest is the new guy. And what a cute little guy! Oh yea and he can really accelerate you to the endgame. Mills 7, recurs something you milled. It's cool because it gets more things in grave for other effects that care while it does this. And of course in the meantime they are happy to serve as a cute little mana accelerator. You might be thinking "Seems cool, but can we cast "fetch quest" from the graveyard? Doesn't Horde of Notions only cast elemental spells from the graveyard?" To which you would be almost right: Horde of Notions casts elemental cards from your graveyard, and after the ability is activated it doesn't really stop to see what you're actually casting, so long as it was in fact an elemental card.

Maelstrom Wanderer is considerably different than a lot of the other creatures in this deck, in that it doesn't really care about sticking around on the board most of the time. In fact, it actually benefits from being able to loop from the graveyard in the midgame. It's haste enabling is great for ending games, but the most important part of it is definitely the whole "Cascade, Cascade" part. What is really interesting is that Horde of Notions explicitly casts creature cards from the graveyard, which lets them cascade! Cool!

Muldrotha, the Gravetide is pure graveyard value and resilience. Some games, Muldrotha is completely worthless and they are okay with this reality. Why? Because sometimes you have what would be an absolutely terrible game. Nothing really on board, no great cards in hand, no lands to play, a bunch of potentially useful enchantments / creatures in graveyard, you get the picture. With them out, you can play from your second hand. It really flips some games around. You'll know what I mean after playing a bit. Plus it helps you get combo / value enchantments you accidentally milled earlier.

Omnath, Locus of Creation is ultimately just a super-value-piece. Getting WURG for two landfalls in a turn is incredibly powerful, gaining life with good consistency is really good for stabilizing in aggressive games, 4 damage to opponents is admittedly somewhat underwhelming but can be very decent at times. This guy feels great to have on-curve, and enables a lot of explosive turns.

Omnath, Locus of Rage is the big game-ender. Landfall: create an army is difficult to ignore, especially for opponents. The incidental lightning bolt from each elemental just seals the deal with this guy. If someone board-wipes, you are entirely within your right to kill them on the spot for it.

Roil Elemental is the very alternative finisher this deck can deploy. Unlike Omnath, Locus of Rage, this creature seeks to create an army out of your opponents creatures. This is quite useful when your opponent has bigger, scarier creatures than you do. This guy is surprisingly capable of really swinging those longer games in your favor, especially if your opponents have only a couple large deterrent creatures.

Titania, Nature's Force is a sort of Omnath Locus of Rage v2. The drawback being she is noticeably worse. I have Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth / Prismatic Omen in the deck to make it so she works with every landfall, plus when Ashaya is out all your creatures are forests, e.g. it's not so hard to get her to work for you. She also enables a bit of cute milling synergy when your elementals die, which can fuel more reanimation later. Definitely requires a bit more conscientious play to win with, compared to her angrier compatriot.

Yasharn, Implacable Earth is not actually a game-ender or a value piece like the rest of the team. He is a pure hate boar (hah) intended to slow down or stop your opponents game plan. We don't rely on paying life or sacrificing many nonland permanents (treasures), and so are able to largely play without him impacting much. His ability to keep other players honest can really matter sometimes. He even gives us a couple lands to play for the trouble. Thanks, Yashy!

Yarok, the Desecrated and his pal Ancient Greenwarden both provide a similar function in-deck, which is pouring gasoline on the fire of the most powerful aspects of this deck. Landfall triggers are the essential part of most all of the big finishers, and so doubling them is just more finisher. Yarok has the bonus ability of doubling creature ETBs, but Mr. Greenwarden can also accomplish this if your creatures happen to be lands...

Be mindful of some of the other permanents and interactions in this deck:

Incandescent Soulstoke isn't just a pretty face and anthem, it's a big-CMC-creature-on-the-battlefield when you need it via it's activated ability. Sometimes a quick Muldrotha, Cavalier, etc. is what you need. Extra neat when you can: untap it each turn to essentially flash creatures / put reanimation targets into the graveyard to play later.

Maelstrom Nexus cascades when you cast the first spell each turn, y'know? Not just yours. So, why not wait to cast some big elemental out of your graveyard. It might be worth the free spell.

Exploration can make some games go turbo. It's a difficult one to get consistently going, though! Valakut Exploration can really assist with hitting each land drop, they can come right off the top of the deck! Whatever you don't play goes harmlessly into the graveyard for later, too. Otherwise, try Life From the Loam, I heard it's decent at getting lands into your hand while also milling.

Other Relevant Permanents / Spells

Awakening kicks ass. It may untap absolutely everything, but when you can cast elementals from your graveyard each turn it somehow doesn't make you feel so bad. This can pretty easily win you the game with a big enough graveyard of elementals.

Crib Swap is an elemental card. Horde of Notions is not too picky about what can be cast from a graveyard. 5 mana exile a creature isn't usually great, but sometimes it really is.

Song of Creation is cool and probably not actually as strong as I feel like it is. You can draw a ton of cards on a good turn, but having to discard hand on end step is a bit of a bummer. Luckily you can cast a lot of your creatures from the graveyard to get the card train started again, so it is a relatively safe thing to just play out.

Warstorm Surge is really powerful since we are tending towards abusing Omnath Locus of Rage in this deck. Incidentally, a lot of our other creatures are also really big, which is a nice touch.

Winning

After we play out half / all the lands in our deck the courteous thing to do would be to end the game afterwards. There are plenty of ways to do so, and I wanted to outline a couple of ways to win that are entirely in-deck:

Omnath, Locus of Rage + Risen Reef: The go-to combo of this deck is continual landfall that creates a massive army to swing at people. This will usually play out all the lands in your deck with Yarok, the Desecrated or Ancient Greenwarden, which is a cool thing to do.

Jegantha, the Wellspring + Warstorm Surge + Maelstrom Wanderer + Horde of Notions: If you can assemble this, then congrats you can loop Jegantha from your graveyard over and over again. If you want to win with this combo, you can use some means of doubling the Warstorm Surge ETB, or use Omnath, Locus of Rage's on-death lightning bolt ability. While this may seem impactical (and it kinda is) if you have drawn through a lot of your deck you can sometimes get here pretty quickly.

There are others, but these are the more "straightforward" approaches that can occur naturally through the game. They use generally useful pieces to good effect.