Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines Token Blink

Commander Overview

Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines, one of the most hated cards in the game, is here! To stop your opponents’ ETBs and truly be a thorn in your opponents’ sides. Since Elesh Norn interacts so well with our ETB triggers, I found that a token/blink deck was a great option, doubling cards like Beza, the Bounding Spring or Overlord of the Mistmoors is just so powerful and can allow us to flood our board. Elesh Norn is an amazing commander and someone we want on the field, but the deck can totally function without them if needed. They are firmly in a support role within our deck. I had a lot of fun with this one, but my opponents sure didn’t, and because of that, Elesh Norn was targeted a lot. We don’t explicitly need them, but you will get targeted when you sit down with this one.

How to Play the Deck

The overall gameplan for this deck is pretty simple, as it typically is when you are playing mono-white, all we really want to do is play out our support cards and blink them as much as we can with Elesh Norn out so we can reap the benefits, stopping opponents from ETB’ing as well which can be great against a ton of decks and sneaky strong against others. Playing the deck is extremely straightforward; there aren’t a lot of complicated interactions. I would say this is good for novices and up. I wouldn’t hand this deck to someone who has never played, but it is pretty good for people who have a few games under their belt.

Synergy’s in the deck

The whole deck is centered around re-ETB’ing our best creatures, and with Elesh Norn on the field, we can do it twice! Additional triggers of cards like Evangel of Heliod or Overlord of the Mistmoors can be extremely strong and allow us to fill up our board quickly. We also have some support pieces that interact well with Elesh Norn, like Loran of the Third Path. Being able to blow up an additional artifact of enchantment is very strong. We also have a great blink package that we can use offensively and defensively, whether we are protecting our stuff from a board wipe or want to re-ETB our best creatures. These can be strong for our deck.

Phases of the Game

Early-Game: It truly feels like we are in mono-white at this stage of the game, we don’t do a whole lot at this stage of the game but we take what comes to us, being able to put Ghostly Prison or Windborn Muse early can make us very hard to attack and allow us to avoid some early-game damage from aggressive strategies.

Mid-Game: The mid-game is where things start getting better for us, hopefully by this point we can stick Elesh Norn on the battlefield and start getting additional ETB’s this is also when we begin to flood our board with tokens, since we can make so many i tend to be pretty aggressive with blocking since they can simply come back pretty easily.

Late-Game: We thrive in the late-game and it is our favorite part of the game, this is when we typically have a pretty full board and can easily drop a huge creature like Moonshaker Cavalry and end the game, we are also pretty good at combat at this stage of the game especially if we were able to drop an earlier Cathars’ Crusade. The late-game is when we get it done and hit our opponents hard.

Card Breakdowns

Ramp

Ramping is not something we do a lot of; we do have staples like Sol Ring, which is great if we get it, but overall is not something we can count on. It’s not all bleak, though! One of the biggest benefits of being in mono-color is that we can run cards like Extraplanar Lens, which is a decent early-game card that accelerates our game plan a ton. We do have Caged Sun and Gauntlet of Power, which are both very helpful but are a little pricey and don’t help us ramp, especially in the early game. We aren’t great at ramping, but we are okay with a slower-paced game. Ramp isn’t something that we are amazing at, but it doesn’t change the game that much for us.

Card Draw/Card Advantage

Card draw isn’t definitely hard to come by, especially in mono-white, but with our focus on Elesh Norn and blink effects, we can use cards like Wall of Omens or Inspiring Overseer as ways to draw multiple cards in a turn. While certainly not cheap, Throne of Eldraine is an additional source of card draw in the deck and is pretty strong, and since we are in mono-white, we take what we can get. We are not great at drawing cards, but we do draw enough to get by.

Removal

We are carried here by Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile, which are arguably some of the most efficient removal spells in the format! But beyond that, we are not very heavy on removal. This deck is far more selfish than a lot of decks, as we care much more about our game plan than what our opponents are doing. We do have some board wipes in the deck like Farewell, which can be extremely strong if we fall behind or if we need to slow the game down to our pace. We aren’t amazing at removing stuff outside of extremely critical things, but in my experience, that wasn’t a huge deal.

Protection

Elesh Norn is a natural removal magnet, which comes as no surprise, as opponents really don’t like having their ETBs stopped, and Elesh Norn certainly doesn’t make our opponents happy. Hence, they tend to get targeted, we are uniquely equipped to deal with single-target removal and board wipes, whether we protect Elesh Norn with cards like Shelter or Loran’s Escape we also have many blink effects like Guardian of Faith or Eerie Interlude as ways to protect our board and our commander! Protection is something we are pretty great at; it can be quite hard to kill our board. Leaving mana up for spells like Eerie Interlude is pretty important in this deck, and waiting to drop big creatures can be correct if we fear our opponents might try to disrupt our board.

Utility / Support

I want to focus on some of our best token producers and the cards that support them! By far two of our best creatures are Evangel of Heliod and Reverent Hoplite we have so much devotion to white in this deck especially since we are running cards like Phyrexian Vindicator and having high devotion is very easy for us, doubling either of these creatures ETB’s is just insane and works even better with cards like Cathars’ Crusade which is one of the main ways we buff up our board, additionally if we have a ton of tokens we can easily end the game with Moonshaker Cavalry. All of our token production is also helped greatly by Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, a pricey card that can totally change the game and devastate other token decks. Lastly, I want to focus on two of the most important creatures in our deck in Mondrak, Glory Dominus and Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation. With any of our token producers and Elesh Norn, we can easily produce an insane amount of tokens; these are both absolute bombs for the deck.

I also want to focus on some of the best creatures in the deck, one of my personal favorites that performed well during my testing games was Luminous Broodmoth, a cheap creature that has an insanely powerful effect and allows us to fight through removal easily, and when our creatures come back, they are more evasive! Just a true slam dunk of a card that works great for our deck. Karmic Guide is another creature that performed well during my testing games, with Elesh Norn being able to recur two creatures, which is just very strong and can allow us to rebuild from removal very quickly. Just a great option for the deck.

Mana Base

We have a pretty cool mana base. In contrast, it does have almost all plains for cards like Extraplanar Lens. We do have some great non-basics that help a lot, like Nykthos, Shrine To Nyx, which is a very strong piece of mana production for the deck, and with so many white pips, even in the early game, can give us a ton of ramp. Castle Ardenvale While it may seem weird to have this, having extra token production can be very nice. I tested this deck with and without encampment, and it saved me a couple of times by letting me get some extra chump blockers! The last land I want to focus on is Emeria, the Sky Ruin. While it isn’t available in the mid-late game, having passive graveyard recursion is pretty good for the deck. Our manabase is quite simple, but it works well for the deck.

Win Conditions

Our only win condition is combat, whether it’s going wide with a ton of tokens and Moonshaker Cavalry or using Cathars’ Crusade to make all of our creatures passively bigger, we end games by turning stuff sideways.

Strengths of the Deck

Elesh Norn is one of the biggest strengths of our deck, being able to trigger our ETBs an additional time is extremely strong.

Other creature decks can have trouble with us since we have a lot of chump blockers.

Weaknesses of the Deck

We can be a lot slower than the other decks at the table

We draw a lot of hate from our opponents because of Elesh Norn. It’s not always removal; sometimes you can get targeted throughout the entire game. Elesh Norn is certainly a vexing commander and will draw some eyes.

Deck Testing/Matchups

I tested this deck against three different decks

Game 1: Vs Yarok, the Desecrated. Matchup Record: 1-3

This was an tough matchup for our deck, they have a lot of removal, access to counterspells and a commander that can be quite tough to kill, combine that with the fact that we are in mono-white and I struggled quite a bit here, Elesh Norn can be great in this matchup but usually gets hated out of the game quite quickly.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Blade Splicer, Moogles’ Valor and Luminous Broodmoth.

Game 2: Vs The Jolly Balloon Man. Matchup Record: 3-0

This is actually a very good matchup for our deck. Jolly Balloon Man thrives on ETBs, and we are easily able to stop them with Elesh Norn. Once we have Elesh Norn out, they can’t do that much, as they can’t gain a ton of value.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Smothering Tithe, Authority of the Consuls and Extraplanar Lens.

Game 3: Vs Zinnia, Valley’s Voice. Matchup Record: 4-2

A winnable but tough matchup, Zinnia is another deck that focuses heavily on ETBs with their offspring from their commander, and preventing them can disrupt their game plan. They can go pretty wide, but with all our token production, we are typically able to keep up.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Angel of Invention, Evangel of Heliod and Moonshaker Cavalry.

Conclusion

Thanks so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed this one. I know your opponents won’t! All jokes aside, Elesh Norn is certainly an interesting commander, great for us, annoying for our opponents. While we may receive some hate and targeting from our opponents, we are still a pretty strong deck. Don’t underestimate the power of Elesh Norn; they are extremely strong and can truly be game-changing.