The Swarm by T_automaton

Format: Commander

Commander: Vrestin, Menoptra Leader

Bracket: 2

Deck overview

This Selesnya deck is a go-wide +1/+1 counter swarm built around Vrestin, Menoptra Leader, an X-cost commander who arrives with a burst of flying Insect tokens and doubles as the team's pump engine: every attack with one or more Insects makes the entire flying crew bigger. The plan is to ramp hard in the first turns, cast Vrestin for a large X, then snowball the Insect attack triggers with token doublers like Parallel Lives and populate effects (Growing Ranks, Wayfaring Temple) while anthem-style finishers - True Conviction, Odric, Master Tactician, and Court of Garenbrig's counter doubling - convert a wide board of evasive 1/1s into a lethal one. There are no infinite combos; the deck wins by sequential combat, chipping each opponent down with an ever-growing flying army, backed by Hardened Scales and Nissa, Voice of Zendikar as support engines. It is a classic battlecruiser: resilient in a long game, but vulnerable to board wipes and completely without stack interaction.

Decklist (100 cards)

  • 1 Ainok Bond-Kin
  • 1 Alive // Well
  • 1 Ambush Krotiq
  • 1 Angelic Exaltation
  • 1 Arcane Signet
  • 1 Azor's Gateway // Sanctum of the Sun
  • 1 Barkform Harvester
  • 1 Blossoming Sands
  • 1 Blunt the Assault
  • 1 Bond Beetle
  • 1 Bounding Felidar
  • 1 Bountiful Harvest
  • 1 Caravan Vigil
  • 1 Command Tower
  • 1 Court of Garenbrig
  • 1 Crowned Ceratok
  • 1 Cultivate
  • 1 Deadbridge Goliath
  • 1 Drudge Beetle
  • 1 Druids' Repository
  • 1 Drumbellower
  • 1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
  • 1 Evolving Wilds
  • 1 Farseek
  • 1 Fauna Shaman
  • 1 Forced Adaptation
  • 13 Forest
  • 1 Game-Trail Changeling
  • 1 Giant Mantis
  • 1 Growing Ranks
  • 1 Growth Spasm
  • 1 Guardian Kirin
  • 1 Gutter Grime
  • 1 Hardened Scales
  • 1 Invasive Species
  • 1 Irregular Cohort
  • 1 King Darien XLVIII
  • 1 Kudo, King Among Bears
  • 1 Living Hive
  • 1 Manalith
  • 1 Marshal's Anthem
  • 1 Molt Tender
  • 1 Moogles' Valor
  • 1 Myriad Landscape
  • 1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
  • 1 Odric, Master Tactician
  • 1 Parallel Lives
  • 1 Path of Ancestry
  • 13 Plains
  • 1 Portal to Phyrexia
  • 1 Primal Bellow
  • 1 Prowling Serpopard
  • 1 Rampant Growth
  • 1 Ring of Kalonia
  • 1 Ring of Thune
  • 1 Rising Populace
  • 1 Rust Scarab
  • 1 Sakiko, Mother of Summer
  • 1 See the Unwritten
  • 1 Seedling Charm
  • 1 Sigil of the Nayan Gods
  • 1 Skylasher
  • 1 Solemn Simulacrum
  • 1 Sphere of Safety
  • 1 Starry-Eyed Skyrider
  • 1 Sunpetal Grove
  • 1 Tablet of the Guilds
  • 1 Terramorphic Expanse
  • 1 Three Tree Mascot
  • 1 Tranquility
  • 1 True Conviction
  • 1 Unruly Mob
  • 1 Vault 75: Middle School
  • 1 Veteran Beastrider
  • 1 Vrestin, Menoptra Leader
  • 1 Wayfaring Temple