Elves and Wolf Companions: Standard Cabaretti Voja

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

Before We Start

At the Murders at Karlov Manor prerelease, we had a chance to get three mythic rare legendary cards that can’t be found in regular booster packs: Melek, Reforged Researcher, Tomik, Wielder of Law, and Voja, Jaws of the Conclave. Among them, Voja has a sturdy body and excellent tribal synergy, and the Standard card pool has plenty of quality Wolves and Elves too. What sparks can they make together?

Card Analysis

As usual, let’s first see what Voja can do:

Voja, Jaws of the Conclave

Vigilance, trample, ward {3}
Whenever Voja, Jaws of the Conclave attacks, put X +1/+1 counters on each creature you control, where X is the number of Elves you control. Draw a card for each Wolf you control.

Judging by the body and keyword abilities alone, Voja is a five-mana war god. Besides standing tall to attack and having trample, it also has ward 3, second only to Iymrith, Desert Doom, so it’s a tough customer that won’t be removed casually. On top of that, when it attacks it draws cards equal to the number of Wolves you control and puts +1/+1 counters on your whole team based on the number of Elves you control. Even on its own it draws at least one card, and with Elves your whole team’s stats balloon quickly; if you can swing a second time, that usually decides the game.

Based on Voja’s dual tribal synergy, I made the following build:

Decklist

First, let’s go over the Elf choices. Although Voja comes from the White-Green guild Selesnya, its colors are actually Red-Green-White, and the cards in Standard that satisfy all three colors and the tribal requirement are naturally the Cabaretti Elves of New Capenna. Brazen Upstart and Fleetfoot Dancer are good choices among them. Brazen Upstart’s 4/2 vigilance body can trade head-on with Graveyard Trespasser and Preacher of the Schism, and when it dies it looks at five cards and takes a creature to make up the card disadvantage, which makes it a very capable filler for an aggressive deck. As for Fleetfoot Dancer, there’s nothing to complain about: it has haste, trample and lifelink, and is useful whether you’re racing for life with haste or in a life-total race. I also bring along a Cabaretti Ascendancy as a source of staying power.

Besides the Cabaretti Elves, I also brought in Llanowar Loamspeaker and Yavimaya Iconoclast from Dominaria, and Werefox Bodyguard from Eldraine (yes, you read that right, it’s an Elf!) to fill out the curve. Llanowar Loamspeaker is not only solid two-mana ramp but can also animate a land to add to your damage, and the key point is that it works well with the Restless lands in Standard, letting you trigger their attack abilities without paying mana. Werefox Bodyguard is a Banisher Priest with built-in flash. I often use it at instant speed to exile an opponent’s strong creature and clear the way; against a swarm of tokens attacking it can even make a clean one-for-one removal, and it can also exile my own creatures to dodge removal or sweepers. Yavimaya Iconoclast is just a curve filler, and the bonus of being able to kick it for haste to help race is a big plus.

For the Wolves, we turn to the wolf packs of Innistrad. Although there are mythic and rare options such as Primal Adversary and Cemetery Prowler, after testing I kept only the one-mana Ascendant Packleader and the four-mana planeswalker Arlinn, the Pack’s Hope, mainly as supporting players that increase how many cards Voja draws and as attack-line reinforcements. Arlinn herself can be seen as two 2/2 Wolf tokens; after surviving a turn, use the +1 flash to build a tactical advantage, and at the same time flip to her night side, Arlinn, the Moon’s Fury, for a powerful attack. At five mana I additionally include the true partner Tolsimir, Midnight’s Light and his own token Voja Fenstalker as extras (the 2-1 split is my personal habit; that slot could also hold a third Voja, Jaws of the Conclave). For removal I chose Lightning Helix and Depart the Realm to broadly answer threats of all sizes, and to finish off damaged creatures.

Gameplay Demo

These two videos are demos of a midrange matchup and an aggro matchup respectively. In the Black-Green midrange game, I curved out, and Voja’s first swing gave my whole team +2/+2 and drew a card; that turn two creatures alone dealt 12 damage, and the second swing decided the game. Along the way the opponent seemed to try to use Path of Peril followed by a bail-out play to deal with Voja, but luckily I had Werefox Bodyguard in hand to step in in time and foil the opponent’s attempt. The other game was against red aggro. While I was stuck on lands, I flashed in Werefox Bodyguard to disrupt the opponent’s offense, which let me stall until my fourth land arrived; after slamming Fleetfoot Dancer the situation turned around, and in the end lifelink won the life-total race.

Conclusion

Most of the components of this Voja deck come from the 2022 Standard year, a limited-time product that only came together after Standard was extended. Judging from the upcoming Standard sets previewed so far, there doesn’t seem to be much room for reinforcement, so if you’re interested in Voja, you’d better seize the chance to build it.