Thranduil, the Elvenking EDH Deck Guide: Three Builds, Bracket 2 to 4

Thranduil, the Elvenking is a Sultai Elf commander who has every activated ability of every Elf card in your graveyard, and the right way to build him depends on how far you want that engine to go. We built him three ways and ran each list through the bracket calculator: a Bracket 2 elfball that costs about $71, a Bracket 3 upgrade with tutors and a second win condition, and a Bracket 4 list that turns a graveyard full of mana dorks into infinite mana. He is one of the four legends we singled out in the best new commanders in The Hobbit, and he is the one with the strangest engine.

Thranduil costs for a 5/6 with two lines of text. First, he has all activated abilities of all Elf cards in your graveyard. Second, whenever another legendary Elf you control enters, you draw two cards, then discard a card.

An activated ability is anything with a cost and a colon, like the ": Add " on Llanowar Elves. Elves happen to be the creature type with the deepest pile of those abilities in the game, so a dead Elvish Archdruid turns your commander into a 5/6 that taps for per Elf you control, and a dead Devoted Druid lets him put a -1/-1 counter on himself to untap. On a 5/6, that is five extra activations before he is in any danger.

The draw trigger is the other half. Draw two, discard one is card advantage, but for this deck the discard is the point: the card you throw away is an Elf with a good ability, and it is live the moment it hits the yard.

Two things matter more at a four-player table than on paper. The engine lives in your graveyard, not on Thranduil, so a removal spell on him costs you tempo and nothing else; he comes back and the abilities are still waiting. And almost every ability he borrows starts with , which a commander who just entered cannot pay that turn. The two higher builds spend real slots fixing that, and it is the first upgrade to make if you brew your own.

The Bracket 2 list audits at Bracket 2 with zero Game Changers, zero tutors, 37 lands, and a total price of $71.42 (see the audit). It calls itself a legendary elfball, and that is exactly what it is: as many cheap Elves as fit, a stack of legendary ones to keep the draw trigger firing, and combat as the way to win.

A big chunk of the list comes straight out of The Hobbit. Thranduil, Sindarin Liege shows how the deck wants to play: cast the Adventure half first, Silvan Rally, which mills four cards and lets you pick up two lands from among them, then cast the 2/3 lord later as a legendary Elf that triggers the loot. Thranduil's Company gives you an extra land drop as long as you control another Elf, and its landfall puts two +1/+1 counters on a creature. Elvenking's Halls is a common land that taps for or and can later be sacrificed for to put two +1/+1 counters on an Elf.

Those counters are more than a pump. A +1/+1 counter and a -1/-1 counter cancel each other out, so every counter you put on Thranduil is another Devoted Druid untap he can afford.

The legendary Elves are the fuel: Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen, Lathril, Blade of the Elves, Abomination of Llanowar, and the Sindarin Liege each draw you two when they land. Abomination is the quiet best card here, because its power and toughness count Elves you control plus Elf cards in your graveyard, the same two piles Thranduil is built around.

The kill is honest: Overwhelming Stampede over a wide board, or Lathril's tap-ten-Elves ability draining each opponent for 10, which Thranduil can borrow once Lathril is in the yard. With 37 lands, a 3.16 average mana value, and a mana base of budget duals, it plays at precon speed on purpose. If you want to trim the lands further, our under-$20 Commander mana base guide covers the same tradeoffs.

The Bracket 3 list lands at Bracket 3 with zero Game Changers, four tutors, 35 lands, a 2.83 average mana value, and a $125.90 price tag (audit). The extra money buys consistency and speed rather than raw power.

Consistency means stocking the graveyard on purpose. Buried Alive puts three creature cards straight into your yard, and Archdruid, Devoted Druid, and Marwyn, the Nurturer is the pile you want: Marwyn's ability taps for equal to her power, which on a 5-power Thranduil is five. Jarad's Orders finds two creatures, one to hand and one to the yard. Fauna Shaman discards an Elf to tutor for another, and both halves of that are upside here.

Speed means haste. Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots let Thranduil use abilities the turn he lands, and Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler does the same job as a planeswalker: you may activate abilities of creatures you control as though they had haste, his +1 untaps Thranduil for a second activation, and his -2 mills three cards then returns a creature with mana value 2 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.

Elrond, Moon-Reader ties it together. Elrond draws you a card the first time each turn you activate a creature's ability, mana abilities included, so every Thranduil tap is also a draw. And if Elrond ends up in the yard, Thranduil borrows his ability: exile up to two of your other nonland permanents and return them at the next end step. That saves two creatures from a board wipe, or resets a legendary Elf for another loot trigger.

The new win condition is Simic Ascendancy, which wins the game at your upkeep once it has twenty growth counters, and it gets one for every +1/+1 counter placed on your creatures. Thranduil's Company, Immaculate Magistrate, and Elvenking's Halls all feed it. Genesis Wave and Exsanguinate are the sinks for a big Archdruid turn, and Genesis Wave has a bonus here: every creature it reveals and does not put onto the battlefield goes to the graveyard.

The interaction gets real too: Counterspell, Assassin's Trophy, Putrefy, Beast Within, and Culling Ritual, a sweeper for permanents with mana value 2 or less that pays you or for each one destroyed. It kills your own mana dorks, which in this deck is a feature, since they go exactly where Thranduil wants them.

The Bracket 4 list is Bracket 4 with five Game Changers, five tutors, 36 lands, a 2.8 average mana value, and $361.40 of cards (audit). It is the same engine, pointed at infinite mana.

The pattern is simple: an untap effect on a Thranduil who taps for a lot. Umbral Mantle gives him ", : Untap this creature. It gets +2/+2 until end of turn." With Marwyn in the yard he taps for five, pays three to untap, and comes back bigger, so every loop nets mana and grows him. Staff of Domination does the same job through its untap abilities and, once the mana is infinite, its , draw mode draws your whole deck. Freed from the Real untaps him for , which is infinite mana of every color alongside the ability he borrows from Selvala, Heart of the Wilds: , for X mana in any combination of colors, where X is your greatest power.

From there the graveyard supplies the kill as well. Ezuri, Renegade Leader in the yard gives Thranduil ": Elves you control get +3/+3 and gain trample until end of turn," repeatable forever, and Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord in the yard gives him ", Sacrifice another creature: Each opponent loses life equal to the sacrificed creature's power." Pump one Elf into the stratosphere, sacrifice it, done. Exsanguinate is the plain version.

The tutor suite grows to five, including Worldly Tutor and Gifts Ungiven. Gifts is unusually good here: name four Elves with strong abilities, and whichever two your opponent puts in your graveyard are live immediately. The interaction is the free kind, Fierce Guardianship and An Offer You Can't Refuse, plus Cyclonic Rift and Heroic Intervention, and the five Game Changers include Rhystic Study, Rift, and Guardianship. Paste the list into the Combo Finder and it will show you every line it detects, including a couple this post does not have room for.

Graveyard hate, and it does not take much. One Bojuka Bog from any of three opponents deletes every ability Thranduil has, and none of these lists can stop it: Ground Seal in the Bracket 3 build shuts off targeted graveyard abilities, but Bog does not target. Removal on Thranduil himself hurts less than you would think, because the yard survives him. The two things to actually fear are exile aimed at the graveyard and a table that recognizes the deck early.

So the pod-level advice: at Bracket 2 and 3, do not loot your whole hand of dorks into the yard on turn three. Discard the two abilities you actually need, keep the rest on the board as creatures, and let the graveyard fill through combat and wipes. At Bracket 4, the tutors mean you can rebuild once, so the first Bog is survivable. The second is not.

Build the Bracket 2 list if your pod plays precons and lightly upgraded precons, or if you want to learn the engine before you spend on it; it is the version where the table gets to watch the trick happen. Build the Bracket 3 list for a typical upgraded pod. It has real interaction, a second way to win, and haste, and it is the one we would hand to most people. Build the Bracket 4 list only if your table already sees infinite combos and free counterspells, because it is a combo deck that happens to be Elves, and it should be introduced as one.

Whichever one you pick, the audit link sits next to each list so your pod can check the bracket before you shuffle, and every list imports from its deck page. Then record the games and find out whether a graveyard full of Elves actually wins at your table.