Budget, Multani, Maro-Sorcerer

[John Cox]

So right now I want to play EDH casually. I thought the best way of doing while still building optimally was to cap the price tag on my deck to 1) give my self a challenge, and 2) guarantee the deck is casual. I chose a mono green elf deck since that meant I wouldn't have to spend a lot on lands and the best part is that if I got the dreaded all elf hand I could just cast my commander.
I've decided to use deckstats.net's north american prices and a price ceiling of $100 for the whole thing.
*The reason behind this idea is that I have a group of friends who play casual kitchen table magic. I would like to play magic with them without using a type one or legacy deck and things being unfair. Since EDH is a casual format this seemed like the right format to play.
**I have some cards like mana crypt, vampiric tutor and other great stuff for EDH, but using them would make my deck expensive and that's counter productive. The deck has to cost $100 or less regardless of whether or not I already own the cards.


Heres my current list,


//NAME: Multani EDH
//general
Multani, Maro-Sorcerer

//acceleration
1 sylvan scrying
1 crop rotation
1 into the north
1 scryb ranger
1 wild growth
1 Llanowar Mentor
1 utopia sprawl
1 Gaea's Touch
1 Scorned Villager
1 wall of roots
1 Heart Warden
1 boreal druid
1 arbor elf
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 birds of paradise
1 green sun's zenith
1 Abundant Growth
1 nature's lore
1 Priest of Titania
1 dryad arbor
1 elvish spirit guide
1 quirion ranger
1 Chancellor of the Tangle
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 rampant growth
1 sol ring
1 mana vault
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Search for Tomorrow
1 lotus petal

//bombs
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 terastodon
1 regal force
1 eternal witness
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Deranged Hermit
1 tooth and nail
1 Fierce Empath

//manipulation
1 Mirri's Guile
1 sylvan library
1 regrowth
1 skullclamp

//disruption
1 ambush viper
1 thorn of amethyst
1 Gnaw to the Bone
1 spore frog
1 fog
1 seal of primordium
1 constant mists
1 heavy fog
1 Dawnstrider
1 spore cloud
1 Moment's Peace

//land
1 ancient tomb
1 ghost quarter
5 snow-covered forest
38 forest


The deck is currently at:
$ 98.58

The idea is to accelerate into a huge multani or some randomly drawn large creature should multani not pan out while buying time with fogs. Once multani hits the board I usually want to team up with the player who turn is immediately after mine and have them take the most collateral damage as we assault each of the other players.
This deck is mainly good for large multiplayer games and less competitive in 1v1, I'm wining against slow opponents in 1v1 and against everything in multi player games where my multani is above 20 /20 for more than a few turns.

Synergies

crop rotation and sylvan scrying find ancient tomb (in an optional version they would find gaea's cradle)
Depending on mana availability tooth and nail finds deranged hermit and regal force or deranged hermit and eternal witness (which gets back tooth and nail) then gets Craterhoof Behemoth and regal force for the win.


Improving

These are the bombs I'm happy with

1 eternal witness
1 Deranged Hermit
1 tooth and nail

These are okay

1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 regal force
1 Fierce Empath

If anyone has ideas for something better in these slots I'm all ears, remember there are price limits involved so eldrazi titans are going to be difficult. The deck also needs more manipulation and more 1cc mana acceleration.

Disruption

I like these

1 spore frog
1 fog
1 ambush viper
1 thorn of amethyst
1 constant mists
1 heavy fog
1 Moment's Peace



I'd like to improve these

1 Gnaw to the Bone
1 seal of primordium
1 Dawnstrider


I would also like to swap 3 forests for disruption.

Notable Exclusions
Lightning greaves, its an interesting idea, I can't equip multani due to shroudedness, I could use it to make my fast mana hasted but the mana investment might not be worth it.
concordant crossroads this has always screwed me over in other decks, it also sucks up a turn one elf drop.
2cc Artifact accel IE felwar stone etc. The creatures are better.
Eldrazis, Mana crypt, mox diamond, exploration, wasteland and things that cost over $10; These have to be really good to get in the deck. currently only Tooth and Nail and Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary are in that category.
Burgeoning, this cost more than $10 but can be extremely broken in multiplayer so may get shoehorned in.

[Davran]

I'd like to improve these

1 Gnaw to the Bone
1 seal of primordium
1 Dawnstrider
1 lull

How about Krosan Grip over Seal? Dawnstrider could easily be Spore Cloud or Tangle. Gnaw to the Bone seems somewhat useless. Maybe run something like Pelakka Wurm to give you a little life gain and another large trampling dude in one convenient package? As for Lull, maybe Blunt the Assault? Either that, or Spore Cloud/Tangle (whichever you don't use for Dawnstrider)...

Another "hidden gem" in terms of green disruption is Bind. No one ever sees Stifle coming out of the green deck.

[John Cox]

spore cloud looks awesome! -added over lull. I'll try krosan grip too, for what it does I don't see it being much better than seal. Dawnstrider will be the last of the crap disruption to go mainly because I can get multiple uses out of it.

[Davran]

The nice thing about Krosan Grip is the split second. It may not be super relevant in a casual meta...but it can destroy a Sensei's Divining Top for good, or stop an artifact/enchantment based combo in its tracks.

If you just want more versatile hate in general, maybe Wickerbough Elder, Indrik Stomphowler or Slice in Twain are more your speed?

**EDIT: Acidic Slime seems to be missing from your list...it doesn't get much better than that in terms of green disruption.

[TsumiBand]

I feel like I see Krosan Tusker in a lot of Green lists, budget or otherwise.

I might be missing part of the narrative, but aren't there just a billion cheap, crappy Green duders you could be playing over some of the mana dorks? Many of them would be fetchable via Mwonvuli Beast Tracker to boot, and it seems that many of your current fatties already are. How often do you just draw tiny dorks against everyone else's giant 6/6s?

[John Cox]

I feel like I see Krosan Tusker in a lot of Green lists, budget or otherwise.

I might be missing part of the narrative, but aren't there just a billion cheap, crappy Green duders you could be playing over some of the mana dorks? Many of them would be fetchable via Mwonvuli Beast Tracker to boot, and it seems that many of your current fatties already are. How often do you just draw tiny dorks against everyone else's giant 6/6s?

The idea is to play crappy mana dorks and then on like turn 3 (because of the acceleration) cast my general from the command zone. In a multiplayer game he'll be like 20/20.

[TsumiBand]

The idea is to play crappy mana dorks and then on like turn 3 (because of the acceleration) cast my general from the command zone. In a multiplayer game he'll be like 20/20.

Well sure I see that, but does Multani get there alone? You might want some kind of trick to get him to have trample or whatever-the-hell evasion Green could potentially grant. Dragon Fangs or Brawn in the yard, somehow? Primal Rage and Roughshod Mentor are both uncommons (so probably quite cheap) I found using Gatherer that give all your guys trample just by being in play.

No I mean, Multani is cool and I'd love to rock a Multani list myself, I'm a budget guy as well and I'd like to add another deck to my backpack. I just feel like with this list once your general is killed or tucked somehow you end up with a hand full of mana dorks that can't get there, and you'll find yourself wanting to drop other fat to finish the job.

[John Cox]

Primal Rage and Roughshod Mentor sound good, I have no idea how to reliably get the others in the yard or if I could even equip dragon fangs as multani has shroud. The shroudlyness is what's stopping him from getting killed/tucked.

[phonics]

What about overrun effects? It could be a way to give multani trample to one shot someone, or could allow you to alpha strike with your mana dorks. Also I think card advantage cards like harmonize and land acceleration like cultivate, kodama's reach, explosive vegetation, yavimaya elder and skyshroud claim are important. Enzuri and Joroga Warcaller could also be another plan with all your elf mana dorks.