Ele-Mental (EDH / Commander) [Revision 83]

I love my WUBRG elemental tribal with Horde of Notions. This is probably my favorite deck I own. There is actually so much to do, it feels very thematic, and it is generally interesting.

Basic premise is to abuse Horde of Notions' amazing WUBRG "get out of graveyard free" ability. This can get elementals out of our graveyard at instant speed. All we need is to have great big elementals in our graveyard. Oh, and we will. A variety of looting effects, graveyard tutors, mill, and the like, it will not be too hard to get all the biggest, bestest boys in there. A host of removal spells (alongside evoke for that cool elemental removal) means you will be rolling in powerful value from the graveyard, and can protect it, too. Keep in mind Evoke is at the speed you would cast the creature, which means the elemental-based removal can only be done on your turn, basically (unless they are cheated with HoN, see below). This deck is also a tribal deck with only elementals, for flavor reasons.

Second feature of this deck is the amazing graveyard-based landfall. Since we are milling so much, it would be a shame to put all our lands in the graveyard and keep them there. Muldrotha, the Gravetide, Ancient Greenwarden, Lord Windgrace, and Life from the Loam make sure it doesn't have to stay that way. We want to make our graveyard like a second hand to us, and so we have a variety of ways to extract value from it. Here's a fun fact: every card can be recurred in this deck. Don't be scared to let things be destroyed or used up, they can come back! >:)

Our card draw has a major emphasis on looting. Some cards are dead in our hands and much better in the graveyard. There are some other effects which are in no small part to fill our grave. We want a chunk of our deck in the grave, it helps us win. A lot of our permanents focus on ETB effects, so they can scale with Panharmonicon, Yarok, the Desecrated, and Ancient Greenwarden. Our only planeswalker, Lord Windgrace, is primarily around to enable looting, and can discard lands for more value, after all, he can just play them out of graveyard later.

This deck is pretty goodstuff-y. Like, elementals just kinda lean that way. You will very likely outvalue your opponents in the long-term. The beginning part of the game is basically just avoiding a lot of attention. Play dorks, ramp, exist. You want to be a non-threat for the early part, and once you get some kind of value engine out, then you can be a menace. Early interaction/control can be nice. This is more just basic commander advice, but take the early turns to figure out who else is moving, this deck performs better at outvaluing after turn 5/6, so a deck with aggro focus can be a huge threat. Once this deck gets going,it tends to be extremely threatening. Once we reach a certain point, turns are almost always very explosive, where we might suddenly gain 5 lands, 5-6 permanents, draw a bunch of cards, etc. The useful part is that much of this value is stored in lands, where we can keep a relatively permanent advantage.

There are elements of group-hug in this deck. This is because we have such a powerful array of elementals to which the cheap and easy group-hug spells can really enable. Awakening may untap everyone's lands / creatures, but it's unlikely most will be able to have nearly as much to do with their mana every turn as we do. Rite of Flourishing may be drawing everyone cards and letting them play lands, but we have landfall creatures, and bigger creatures to boot. Same goes for Avatar of Growth. Powerful ability that is pretty easily breaking symmetry in a 5 color landfall deck.

Our creatures are comically large, and are therefore a touch more difficult to get out reliably. You may find yourself starting slowly with a lot of tapped lands and expensive cards. Luckily this deck is chock-full of easy ramp to surge ahead. Multiple elemental mana dorks, mana doublers, and most good ramp spells should mean you are always ahead of the curve on mana, and can take full advantage of all these giant elementals and their powerful effects.

Yasharn, Implacable Earth is a controversial pick I recently made. It revolves around the premise of slowing down a lot of the fast decks that rely on life loss and sacrificing for great value. We have a few pieces it disables, but you can generally expect Yasharn to be killed before it's a big issue, given how absolutely ubiquitous sacrificing is. Bonus points for also disabling fetch lands. Extra bonus points if you have Ashaya out and suddenly all your creatures are lands, and so you can safely ignore the "sacrifice nonland permanents" clause.

Horde of Notions has a couple important factors to remember. Cheating out elementals cannot use evoke costs, so we need ways to kill our guys after they enter from the graveyard with HoN. Muldrotha the Gravetide CAN get them out with evoke, but that's not so reliable. For cast-based effects like Maelstrom Nexus, if you don't NEED your guy out on your turn you can actually wait until the next and enjoy a free cascade trigger. Handy. These casts also trigger Reflections of Littjara, which is extra handy. My advice for legendary creatures: keep the token copy out, and send the other in your graveyard to enjoy a nice cast/ETB/death trigger for later. Awakening ramps the graveyard spells to a billion.

Expect some pretty explosive turns. There can be times of great triggers, so much so that you can draw out your deck with Risen Reef or other draw effects. To prevent this from literally killing you, do not play lands from reefs triggers until the madness stops. Just be REALLY careful to know just how many reef triggers you have so you know when to quit playing lands.

This deck is very capable of drawing basically the entire library. To this end, I added Endurance as a thematic way to refresh the graveyard when we have drawn it out. Instant speed, easily free, and an elemental? yes please!!

These are novel interactions in this deck:
Omnath, Locus of Rage + Risen Reef = usually a lot of landfall triggers, elementals, etc. this is especially the case if you can get out another elemental to get the party started again. Game-ending with Perilous Forays. Be careful that this can deck you with ETB doublers (so stop playing lands after a bit, greedy!!). Be mindful that that is also incredibly hilarious.
Crib Swap + Horde of Notions = is that an elemental spell? Yes. Does that mean Horde of... yes. Enjoy your WUBRG removal spell that you can cast all the time. Better with Reflection of Littjara.
Try using evoke abilities with tortured existence! What's better than one removal? Two! Or three! All for one black mana.
I put in Pyre of Heroes in here. Why? Because it means more big elementals (of your choice) and elementals for HoN to resurrect. This WILL NOT activate Maelstrom Wanderer, however, as cascade is a cast trigger. Cheating out Maelstrom from the graveyard with HoN WILL activate their cascade trigger, however.

A rule of thumb for Omnath + Reef Combos (so as not to deck yourself):
Normally: 1 land = 1 elemental, 1 card.
With 1 ETB doubler: 1 land = 2 elementals, 4 cards.
With 2 ETB doublers: 1 land = 3 elementals, 9 cards.
Landfall doubler only: 1 land = 2 elementals, 2 cards.
Landfall Doubler + 1 ETB doubler: 1 land = 3 elementals, 6 cards.
Finally, landfall doubler, 2 ETB doublers: 1 land = 3 elementals, 9 cards.
This can hypothetically get worse with Ancient Greenwarden copies, but please don't do that to yourself.

Wincons:
The aforementioned Omnath, Locus of Rage. This man, especially in conjunction with other permanents (Risen Reef), can/will literally end games.
Roil Elemental is a fun six mana landfall psycho who can just steal everyone's creatures. Use them to swing at your opponent, or generate winning value, or both. Usually you can get a good amount of landfall triggers to guarantee this man will win the game.
Sometimes elementals can just sorta reach a critical mass point where they will just stomp out the board, no questions asked. Don't be afraid to attack with many of your guys, as they can always be brought back from the graveyard.
Awakening might not seem like much, but it can pretty easily be a one-way ticket to value city. Keep in mind it also triggers on your own upkeep, that's like 2 untaps in one! This will end games with a sac outlet.

Obvious ways to upgrade this deck is the inclusion of proper fetch lands. Alas, I am but a humble college student, so I am using slowfetches. They are okay, but obviously can mess up early curves. But hey, they can really easily fix mana, and extra landfall triggers only hurt opponents.

Enjoy my decklist. It's not perfect, it's probably not even near optimized, but I think it's a ton of fun. Feel free to make your own adjustments or borrow bits from it.