Karona - Rogues and Shifting loyalties

Commander / EDH Prowl Rogues Unblockable

Sicktoid

Land (38)

• 1x Arcane Sanctum
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crumbling Necropolis
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 2x Forest
• 1x Frontier Bivouac
• 1x Grand Coliseum
• 6x Island
• 1x Jungle Shrine
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Murmuring Bosk
• 1x Mystic Monastery
• 1x Nomad Outpost
• 1x Opulent Palace
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Plains
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Sandsteppe Citadel
• 1x Savage Lands
• 1x Seaside Citadel
• 4x Swamp
• 1x Tarnished Citadel
• 1x Vivid Crag
• 1x Vivid Creek
• 1x Vivid Grove
• 1x Vivid Marsh
• 1x Vivid Meadow

Instant (7)

• 1x Abzan Charm
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Despark
• 1x Rakdos Charm
• 1x Silumgar's Command
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Tear Asunder

Creature (28)

• 1x Anowon, the Ruin Thief
• 1x Black Market Tycoon
• 1x Cold-Eyed Selkie
• 1x Corpse Appraiser
• 1x Disciple of Deceit
• 1x Edric, Spymaster of Trest
• 1x Enigma Thief
• 1x Ghostly Pilferer
• 1x Hoard Robber
• 1x Jhessian Thief
• 1x Kamiz, Obscura Oculus
• 1x Looter il-Kor
• 1x Master Thief
• 1x Mistmeadow Skulk
• 1x Neyam Shai Murad
• 1x Nezumi Graverobber  ^Flip
• 1x Notion Thief
• 1x Schema Thief
• 1x Scroll Thief
• 1x Soulknife Spy
• 1x Spawnbroker
• 1x Stinkdrinker Bandit
• 1x Sygg, River Cutthroat
• 1x Thada Adel, Acquisitor
• 1x Thieving Skydiver
• 1x Tin Street Hooligan
• 1x Vedalken Heretic
• 1x Zareth San, the Trickster

Artifact (6)

• 1x Key to the City
• 1x Mask of Memory
• 1x Mask of Riddles
• 1x Skeleton Key
• 1x Sword of the Animist
• 1x Whispersilk Cloak

Commander (1)

Sorcery (12)

• 1x All Suns' Dawn
• 1x Boundless Realms
• 1x Bring to Light
• 1x Chronomantic Escape
• 1x Growth Spasm
• 1x Hostile Takeover
• 1x Knowledge Exploitation
• 1x Legerdemain
• 1x Notorious Throng
• 1x Rogues' Gallery
• 1x Role Reversal
• 1x World at War

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Bitterblossom
• 1x Ghostly Prison
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Rhythm of the Wild
• 1x Teferi's Moat
• 1x The Trickster-God's Heist
• 1x Vow of Flight

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Tamiyo, Field Researcher

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Maybeboard

Creature (1)

• 1x Chromeshell Crab

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Shifting Loyalties

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Many years ago, this deck started out as a casual budget deck with one goal: I won't play any staples or cards I have in other decks. While I've certainly deviated from that plan and included cards like Cyclonic Rift there's still plenty of strangeness to go around. While I call it a "budget deck", there are some mildly expensive cards too which I just happened to have lying around. I never want to set an arbirtrary limit like a strict budget for my deck building, but I'm probably not ever gonna go out of my way to get something like shock- or fetch lands for this deck either.

Karona, False God has two very unique things going on. First one is that she attacks a lot. Usually every combat. With her own +3/+3 pump she can kill people in three hits with commander damage. So in a 4 player game, if everyone cooperates, you can take down one dude who has left himself open without him ever getting a chance to react. It's kind of ridiculous. Second thing is that she really doesn't care if she switches controllers. No matter who has control of her, the current player will still get control at the beginning of his upkeep. I tried to find some clever ways to take advantage of these two abilities.

First, I included a bunch of cards that give me benefits when Karona either attacks or deals damage. Note that Sword of Fire and Ice etc would be good here, but I don't have any extra copies and I'm not planning on getting them specifically for this deck either.
- Skeleton Key, Mask of Memory & Mask of Riddles - Skeleton Key and Mask of Riddles also double up as evasion providers for my saboteurs
- Sword of the Animist - Can get me quite a few lands.
- Tamiyo, Field Researcher - The key thing here is that the +1-ability lasts until your next turn, which can obviously be very good with Karona.

Second, I tried to take advantage of "donating" Karona for benefits. She will change controllers anyways, so you don't really care if you have to temporarily give her to someone.
- The Trickster-God's Heist
- Legerdemain
- Role Reversal
- Spawnbroker

One thing that I had to pay close attention to, was the fact that my opponents could always use my own commander to attack me. I dedicated a number of cards in attempt to discourage or prevent my own commander from killing me. Seems like a weird thing to do, but Karona is a very weird and unique commander. Most of these cards have other applications as well so including them is really not that big of a deal.
- Growth Spasm ramps my mana while providing a nice body to chump block with.
- Vow of Flight not only prevent Karona from attacking me, but also boosts her commander damage.
- Mistmeadow Skulk will block Karona all day long.
- Propaganda and Ghostly Prison are pillow fort staples.
- Chronomantic Escape has become this deck's signature card. It flows kinda nicely with the deck's game plan. Suspend it on turn 3, play Karona once it resolves and enjoy your peace.
- Teferi's Moat is my absolute favorite card from this category, especially since it's widely regarded as being just a crappy version of the original Moat. With Teferi's Moat you can choose the most oppressive color at the table (usually green) and get protection from Karona as well, since she is all five colors.

Oh... and there's a rogue sub-theme as well, that I worked into the deck after playing it for years. I was originally playing just bunch of saboteur creatures ala Scroll Thief and Shadowmage Infiltrator. I started to realize that a lot of those creatures were rogues and I wasn't currently doing anything with Karona's tribal synergy. The deck isn't super creature-heavy - I didn't want to go all out. But having two or three rogues sneaking in there with Karona isn't exactly uncommon.

Date added	8 years
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 34 - 0 Rares 38 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.31
Tokens	Copy Clone, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Emblem Tamiyo, Field Researcher, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Treasure
Folders	Disassembled Commander Decks