Omnath Primer
Omnath, Locus of Rage has been a special endeavor and requires a certain attitude when piloted. It's fast, aggressive and at times oppressive. While there are quite a few awesome synergies, raw power is the main win condition along with some impressive hard and soft locks. Landfall in addition to extensive land drops becomes an abusive power. Add in a sacrifice outlet and opponents are dying quickly. Of course, we need some control elements and a few ways to steal the game.
Before we begin, I'd like to explain a few core concepts I've adapted when playing MtG. In a game of Commander it is important to understand your role throughout the entire game. This role will change often and cycles between the following: Aggressive, Controlling, Winning, Losing. Yes, winning and losing are considered roles. Understanding the board state is imperative, but more important still is knowing which role each opponent is playing. When we play CMDR, we often forget to acknowledge who is actively winning. Who is the control player, or the player who will stop us from winning? Control players can take on many roles, like being defensive or disrupting our plays. You should understand that control is not always in the form of . It is also worth noting that aggressive players are not always winning. Sometimes you have to make attacks to accomplish other goals, such as killing a Planeswalker or attempting to kill an opponent that is winning the game. Role assessment will help you to make informed decisions throughout the game and carries over to all formats. Any who...
Below I have provided an extensive Primer, explaining each card choice. I detail why each card belongs in the 100, and offer insight into how to pilot the build. Let it be known that I am open to constructive criticism and feedback is welcome. With that, let's dive into the thang.
Ramping is a fundemental aspect of almost any CMDR deck and for us, it's absolutely imperative that our opening hand has at least one piece of ramp. Two or three ramps spells are ideal. Fortunately, we are playing 22 cards that functionally increase our land drops.
Zero and One CMC
Temple of the False God is an amazing land and has the potential to be active as early as turn three with an opening hand that includes Exploration, a 2 CMC ramp spell and at least three other lands.
Crop Rotation ramps us one with Temple of the False God and allows us to perform an abundance of plays. See 'Utility' for more on Crop Rotation.
Exploration (Spoiler Alert!) allows us an additional land drop each turn! I cannot stress enough how powerful this card is. Exploration is amazing at all stages of the game. We will continue to add additional lands to our hand (or virtually) with things like Gruul Turf, Ghost Town, Life from the Loam, Cloudstone Curio, and Crucible of Worlds.
Two CMC
Because ramping early is so important we want to start as early as turn two, so we're playing some cheap spells like Rampant Growth, Explore, Farseek, Into the North, Nature's Lore, and Sakura-Tribe Elder. While these might seems likes bad top decks later in the game, adding the text "put a 5/5 Elemental onto the battlefield" to each card makes them much more playable. Our four mana ramp is much more powerful than three, so hitting four on turn three is very good.
Three and Four CMC
Our three and four mana ramp is much more powerful, and in some cases, extremely versatile. Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Nissa's Pilgrimage, Far Wanderings, Harrow and Farhaven Elf round out our three drops with simple, yet effective ramp elements.
Explosive Vegetation, Skyshroud Claim, Solemn Simulacrum, and Blighted Woodland act as our four mana ramp.
All of our three and four CMC ramps spells have the ability to act as a two-for-one, which is very important in CMDR. As a ramp deck, we need to find a way to gain card advantage, so obtaining extra lands helps in the arms race.
Azusa, Lost but Seeking and Oracle of Mul Daya give us additional land drops. Again, additional land drops are out of control. We have the ability to have up to 6 land drops each turn with Exploration and Explore.
The Business
Ashnod's Altar allows us a large amount of colorless mana. We have four X spells in Genesis Wave, Kessig Wolf Run, Starstorm and Animist's Awakening. We also have a bunch of big spells and eldrazi. Sacrificing 5 elementals deals 15 damage and gains us 10 .
Crucible of Worlds in combination with extra land drops allows us to utilize fetch lands for mana and Landfall triggers. It also gives us access to some mean land destruction with Wasteland, Strip Mine and Ghost Quarter.
Animist's Awakening is a great mana sink and offers the potential for a mass number of 5/5 elementals. With spell mastery (which you usually have) it allows for explosive turns and casting multiple spells. The ideal cost for X is 10 or more. I've cast is for 3 successfully, but it's a bit risky that you might miss.
Boundless Realms doubles your mana. Do this on time and we are at 14. It's pretty straight forward. We do this with Omanth, Rage of Locus on the field and make a bunch of guys! We play 26 basic land which is plenty, however late in the game we might be slim on basics in the deck.
Genesis Wave lets of go crazy after we ramp. Ten is the sweat spot as that is the top of our curve. We do play 25 non-permanent cards, so we will miss 1 in 4 cards. Do this for 15 for the greatest affect.
Scapeshift is here to trigger landfall a bunch of times, but the cards has multiple applications when searching for land. Gruul Turf returns a land, allowing another land to play. The same goes for Fetch Lands. If your opponents have some problem lands, we can get Wasteland or Strip Mine. Temple of Abandon allows us a free scry. Troublesome creatures can be dealt with by Maze of Ith or Glacial Chasm. Yavimaya Hallow keeps our general safe, while Kessig Wolf Run helps end the game. This allows Scapeshift to act as a 'tool box' spell which gives us plenty of options.
Drawing cards or finding places to gain card advantage is a core concept of CMDR and MtG in general. They say that the player to spend the most mana throughout the game wins more often. Having cards to play or abilities to utilize at all times improves our game, and managing our spells is important.
Life from the Loam allows us to grab lands from our graveyard while filling it up at the same time for things like Crucible of Worlds. Fetch lands allow us to get a land each turn and assures us lands to get back from the graveyard. Tranquil Thicket allows us to dredge at instant speed or draws us a card. Wasteland and Strip Mine let us to mess with our opponents' lands each turn. Life from the Loam also helps us when our lands become destroyed. It is a powerful engine that accrues card advantage over the course of several turns.
Elemental Bond adds another line of text to our landfall triggers, "draw a card". It keeps our hand full to the brim, which will continue to drive us forward as we draw ramp spells and and more land. We also have some big creatures in Avenger of Zendikar, Craterhoof Behemoth, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger that trigger with Elemental Bond.
Sylvan Library is powerful in CMDR because we start with 20 more life than normal. Paying 8 life during the first couple turns of the game is doable. And when our life total is low, it gives us Sensei's Divining Top levels of card selection.
Starstorm has the ability to cycle at a bad rate, but it still gives us an option to draw when it's useless.
Eternal Witness is more than just a draw spell. It gives us card selection and allows us to play a card twice. Because we can get any card, land is also an option. Cloudstone Curio lets us abuse Eternal Witness when we cast a creature or a 5/5 elemental enters the battlefield. Witness is also a blocker and sacrifice outlet.
Nissa, Vastwood Seer
replaces itself and assures that we can flip her. When she does flip, her +1 can draw us cards or facilitate landfall triggers. Ashaya, the Awoken World happens to be an elemental and is a good body. She also triggers Elemental Bond and Warstorm Surge. Nissa, Vastwood Seer
's ultimate is icing on the cake.
Oracle of Mul Daya is pseudo card draw in that it allows for multiple land drops from the top of your deck. In a way, you are drawing cards, filtering your deck, and getting to the business spells. Oracle helps to make sure you are drawing gas while simultaneously playing lands.
Solemn Simulacrum quietly draws us a card but is not incredibly exciting. The card is fantastic and can be used with sacrifice outlets to great effect but is not particularly great card draw.
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth is one of my favorite eldrazi titans. A draw 4 trigger that can't easily be countered is wonderful. But we also get a 12/12 body with annihilator 4! Annihilator is an absurd ability. Pare Kozilek with Hammer of Purphoros and we are bashing immediately and triggering. A subtle bonus is that Kozilek, Butcher of Truths gives us an out against Mill strategies, which will come up from time to time.
Yavimaya Elder is a 4 for 1. We get a body which is able to block. Blocking isn't the best thing to be doing, but we can sacrifice him to essentially draw 3 cards. The card advantage is real with the Elders!
Removal comes in various forms and can be unconventional at times. Land destruction is removal of sorts and is an important aspect of CMDR that is often overlooked by novice players. Destroying a land can put an opponent's mana situation on tilt. Often this allows you to become Aggressive by attacking from two different angles. The ability to deal with artifacts and enchantments is absolutely necessary in any deck that is trying to play somewhat fare. I believe every deck should have no less than 4-5 ways to interact with artifacts and enchantments. It's that important. Lastly, we need to kill creatures, which is the easiest thing to do in CMDR.
Maze of Ith acts as pseudo removal. It takes a creature out of combat. Note that you can remove your own creatures from combat to protect them. If we attack with Kozilek, Butcher of Truth we get an annihilator trigger and have a huge blocker.
Wasteland, Strip Mine, and Ghost Quarter give us the ability to deal with problem lands or to lock our opponent out of the game with Crucible of Worlds or Life from the Loam. Ghost Quarter gives use mana fixing if needed and additional landfall triggers.
Warstorm Surge, when triggered with 5/5's, has the ability to kill most creatures. If you're really going off with landfall triggers, you might be able to remove players from the game as well. It's not terribly hard to make 6-10 elementals in a turn, which can effectively kill an opponent on the spot.
Beast Within
Krosan Grip
Starstorm
Acidic Slime
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
