Archelos the World Turtle *Primer*

Commander / EDH* Battlecruiser BUG (Sultai) Casual Landfall Lands Multiplayer Primer Tap/Untap

Ziabo

Land (39)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dimir Aqueduct
• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 1x Field of the Dead
• 2x Forest
• 1x Ghost Town
• 1x Golgari Rot Farm
• 1x Guildless Commons
• 1x Holdout Settlement
• 1x Island
• 1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Rimewood Falls
• 1x Simic Growth Chamber
• 1x Snow-Covered Forest
• 1x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Survivors' Encampment
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Vesuva
• 1x Wasteland
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Witch's Cottage
• 1x Woodland Chasm
• 1x Zagoth Triome

Creature (26)

• 1x Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait
• 1x Ancient Greenwarden
• 1x Avenger of Zendikar
• 1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking
• 1x Coiling Oracle
• 1x Courser of Kruphix
• 1x Cultivator Colossus
• 1x Dread Presence
• 1x Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
• 1x Loam Dryad
• 1x Lotus Cobra
• 1x Meloku the Clouded Mirror
• 1x Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
• 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1x Patron of the Moon
• 1x Ramunap Excavator
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Scout
• 1x Scute Swarm
• 1x Skyshroud Ranger
• 1x Stone-Seeder Hierophant
• 1x Tatyova, Benthic Druid
• 1x The Gitrog Monster
• 1x Tireless Tracker
• 1x Walking Atlas
• 1x Yarok, the Desecrated

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Abundance
• 1x Cryptolith Rite
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Retreat to Coralhelm
• 1x Retreat to Hagra
• 1x Squandered Resources

Artifact (4)

• 1x Paradise Mantle
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Springleaf Drum
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots

Commander (1)

Instant (12)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Deadly Rollick
• 1x Growth Spiral
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Return to Nature
• 1x Roiling Regrowth

Sorcery (12)

• 1x Bala Ged Recovery  ^Flip
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Genesis Wave
• 1x In Garruk's Wake
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Reshape the Earth
• 1x Scapeshift
• 1x Skyshroud Claim
• 1x Splendid Reclamation
• 1x Three Visits
• 1x Torment of Hailfire
• 1x Villainous Wealth

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Maybeboard

Land (5)

• 1x Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1x Hedge Maze
• 1x Rath's Edge
• 1x Scene of the Crime
• 1x Underground Mortuary

Creature (2)

• 1x Nadu, Winged Wisdom
• 1x Titania, Voice of Gaea  ^Meld

Artifact (1)

• 1x Crucible of Worlds

Instant (1)

• 1x Archdruid's Charm

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Spelunking
• 1x Undergrowth Recon

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I have focused this deck more than any other deck I currently have built. Archelos has turned into my pet project that I want to be as powerful as possible. Lets get started!

Archelos, Lagoon Mystic can be a staxy commander but instead we want to use him to keep our "Enter the battlefield tapped" abilities null and they come in untapped specifically our lands.

We will want to have him tapped on our opponents turn so we have ways to do that.

Tap/Untap

Crptolith Rite is one of the more obvious turning all of our creatures into a Birds and we have the weaker versions Springleaf Drum, Loam Dryad, Survivors' Encampment and Holdout Settlement which all tap themselves and a creature (Mainly Archelos) for a rainbow mana.

If we happen to now have any of those we can always use Boots or Legs to swing at an open opponent to get him tapped down.

The Ramp

We are a very heavy ramp deck obviously most of our wincons are either landfall based or critical mass mana spells. Early ramp will consist of: Farseek, Nature's Lore, Three Visits and Skyshroud Claim most of our lands are Forest so we'll never fall short on finding one. We're running a low basic land count so instead of Rampant Growth, Kodama's Reach we're sticking with the Sakura-Tribe Elder, Fabled Passage and Terramorphic Expanse to find our basics and with cards like Ramunap Excavator and Ancient Greenwarden we're able to dig out all of our basics at ease.

With Gitrog cards like Crop Rotation and Roiling Regrowth come valuable leaning toward card draw and ramp such as Growth Spiral or Coiling Oracle. Speaking of which they could be considered as cantrips / ramp since we have so many lands in the deck.

We have a couple of combos in this section:

Scapeshift + Splendid Reclamation: This was one of the main reasons I wanted to build Archelos in this manner. You cast Scapeshift with Archelos out and sac 4 lands. You put 4 lands on the battlefield untapped with Archelos, cast Splendid Reclamation to put all lands in your grave OTB untapped. Massive landfall triggers off of this.

Reshape the Earth + Archelos = 10 Landfalls with netting 1 land. Nasty ramp. Not to mention you can find your Golgari Rot Farm or Simic Growth Chamber for additional mana + Future landfall triggers.

Sakura-Tribe Scout, Walking Atlas or Skyshroud Ranger + Retreat to Coralhelm + Golgari Rot Farm & Simic Growth Chamber will equal infinite Landfall triggers Sakauta-Tribe Scout taps to put one OTB Coralhelm untaps her bouncing your other Bounce Land abusing stuff like Retreat to Hagra or Scute Swarm

Our additional lands per turn come in the typical Dryad, Azusa, The Gitrog Monster & Aesi just additional lands stuffs.

Landfall Triggers

This is where the fun begins. The main trigger we're looking to get is Retreat to Hagra and Ob Nixilis, the Fallen and to a lesser extent Dread Presence (He has his own combo later). With either Reshape the Earth or a late game Scapeshift + Splendid Reclamation could be game with Hagra

Other fun triggers are Tireless Tracker, Aesi/Tatyova for draws or if you wanna go big we got Avenger of Zendikar, Scute Swarm and Field of the Dead with as many lands we can get a turn could be devastating. We can also ramp harder with Lotus Cobra to help our {X} spells to go mayhem.

The interaction

I play in a pretty proactive play group; everyone typically plays on their toes and more times than not have an answer for something whether it be a Boardwipe or a Counterspell so I have to have a pretty heavy protection suite.

So we run 3 counterspells: Mana Drain, Counterspell and Arcane Denial I prefer hard counters over something like Negate or Swan Song since I can counter anything even if it means them drawing extra cards.

3 Spot removal: Beast Within, Deadly Rollick and Assassin's Trophy: Deadly Rollick will typically be a free exile where as Assassin's Trophy and Beast Within just being able to answer any sort of threat.

Lastly 2 Boardwipes: In Garruk's Wake & Cyclonic Rift just one sided boardwipes if there are any better options please let me know.

As for protection the obvious Heroic Intervention for mass protection, and Boots with the Legs for our commander.

Again let me know if there are better boardwipes for this sort of a set up. Thank you!

The Wincons

We've talked about how landfall triggers can end the game with Hagra pinging everybody or Ob Nixilis draining people one at a time or Scute Swarm scuting all over everybody. But we have yet to talk about the massive mana we can produce for {X} spells!

Squandered Resources is our MVP of the deck. We can get 20-30 lands into play no problem we tap out sac them all for colored mana to double our mana count into any {X} spell making them deadly!

Villainous Wealth has to be my favorite of the 4 {X} spells targeting an opponent with the best "timmy" deck to abuse. We can easily dig 10-15 deep playing any card 10-15 cmc and under (typically most of their spells) against them.

Genesis Wave my second favorite of the suite. This one can actually hinder us if not times properly. I've ran into issues of hitting our combo cards while resolving this spell losing our Reshape the Earth and Splendid Reclamation being reckless. So be careful with this one. It can be absolutely brutal with landfall triggers though!

Torment of Hailfire: With as much ramp as we have in the deck it's not impossible to hit {X} for 10+ meaning they're either sacing a lot of their stuff and/or getting hit hard. Only time this card struggles is against token decks like Lathril, Blade of the Elves or Krenko, Mob Boss

Combo Overview

Cultivator Colossus + Abundance: Cultivator Colossus says "ETB put land from hand OTB if you do draw a card and repeat" with Abundance you choose to draw a land put OTB the repeat until all lands are drawn from your deck.

Sakura-Tribe Scout, Walking Atlas or Skyshroud Ranger + Retreat to Coralhelm + 2 Bounce Lands: with Sakura-Tribe Scout, Retreat to Coralhelm & 1 Bounce Land in play you tap the Tribe Scout playing your other Bounce Land bouncing your Simic Growth Chamber and untapping your Tribe Scout for #Infinite Landfall Triggers & Infinite Mana#

Patron of the Moon, Meloku the Clouded Mirror + Archelos, Lagoon Mystic + Bounce Lands: activate Patron of the Moon to put a 2 bounce Lands OTB Archelos will keep them untapped, respond by tapping Simic Growth Chamber to the Golgari Rot Farm bouncing it. Tap Golgari Rot Farm Generating {BG}{BG} then use one to activate Meloku returning it to your hand creating a 1/1 token. Rinse and repeat for {INFINITY} Sultai Mana, Landfall triggers and 1/1 Flyers.

Scapeshift + Splendid Reclamation W/ Archelos: Talked about this already. Tap all of your lands play Scapeshift search for any combination of lands then Splendid Reclamation to put all sacrificed lands back into play.

Archelos + Reshape the Earth: nets at minimum 1 mana

Dread Presence + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Panharmonicon + Any mass Ramp: with Urborg and Yarok, the Desecrated OTB basically makes Dread Presence into a draw one, drain 2 gain 1 life for a single land drop.

The Gitrog Monster or to lesser extent Ancient Greenwarden + Fetchland: play your Fetchland, (trigger landfall), crack your your fetch, find your land (trigger landfall) play your Fetchland from the grave (trigger your landfall) crack again rinse and repeat.

I believe that is it! this has been way over due but with play testing and theory brewing I think I have found a good balance here.

I know I'm missing the expensive ass cards like Crucible of Worlds and Other expensive fetches, but on this high end budget list I think I did pretty well.

Edits

Dropped Exsanguinate for Mystic Sanctuary as I already have 3 other major X Spells and needed another way to get some spells back felt that was the best option.

Dropped Saruili Caretaker for Swamp in the off chance I haven't got Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and have Dread Presence I need more swamps to trigger his ability. (Never hurts to have more lands anyway)

Top Ranked	Achieved #29 position overall 3 years ago Achieved #20 position in Commander / EDH 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Battlecruiser 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Landfall 3 years ago
Date added	3 years
Last updated	6 months
Key combos	Scapeshift + Splendid Reclamation
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 38 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 23 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.21
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Clue, Copy Clone, Illusion 1/1 U w/ Flying, Insect 1/1 G, Plant 0/1 G, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Decks that have been tinkered with online. (Not accurate to IRL Paper), stolen to tweak and build, 1, Fun EDH Ideas, Good decks, Decks I Want To Play, EDH, Sultai UBG, possibilities, Ideas