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Shanna's Swarm

Commander / EDH* GW (Selesnya)

Odyssey

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Creature (34)

Land (36)

Sorcery (4)

Artifact (3)

Commander (1)

Commander: Shanna, Sisay's Legacy

Instant (10)

Enchantment (9)

Planeswalker (3)

Maybeboard

Creature (28)

Instant (11)

Sorcery (8)

Enchantment (10)

Planeswalker (2)

Land (2)

Artifact (2)

Overview

+Ghalta, Primal Hunger

+Battle for Bretagard

+Ironroot Warlord

+Emeria's Call  

+Felidar Retreat

A fairly optimized Selesnya go-wide deck aimed at a "75%" power level. If you like having more creatures than anybody else and cheating mana costs, you'll like this deck. If you like having more cards in hand than anybody else or higher quality creatures, you probably won't.

Though I do play a few cards that create cute replacement effects for tokens, this deck is not 100% dedicated to the token plan. That's why you don't see cards like Doubling Season and Parallel Lives here. GW has plenty of go-wide payoffs without needing to play those. Early testing showed that relying on tokens too much made the deck fold to a single board wipe, an event virtually guaranteed to happen in a non-cEDH game. It's also awkward that all the best token producers cost less than the token payoffs like Doubling Season. Plus, one of the real incentives to play a token strategy in the first place is that you don't need to care much about targeted removal on your permanents since they're mostly interchangeable. Brewing a deck that doesn't do anything until the turn after you cast a 4 or 5 mana enchantment (which might die before you untap) isn't compatible with that plan.

This deck has great matchups against durdly midrange decks that try to outvalue you. Think Brago, King Eternal, Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Muldrotha, the Gravetide, and so on. These decks have slow clocks and focus on their internal synergies to create a powerful late game, but at the expense of (cheap) interactivity. As long as you're careful not to overcommit to the board, you'll beat those decks before they get to their late game. You seriously abuse the mana system with cards like Cryptolith Rite and Song of Freyalise while creating as many bodies as all your opponents combined. There are so many go-wide payoffs that you will reliably find multiples. Meanwhile you will also gain enough life and chump block well enough to survive aggressive decks.

What the deck struggles against is heavily controlling decks, especially decks that pack 3+ board wipes and multiple tutors to find them. Selfless Spirit and Dauntles Escort help against damage and destruction based wipes, but those based on mass bounce, exile, or -X/-X can shut you down. There are great ways to recover post-wipe (Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Secure the Wastes, Tendershoot Dryad), but the second board wipe is difficult to bounce back from. Target controlling players first and attack them continuously. Shanna excels at this and will enable you to avoid overcommitting to the board. For example, starting on turn 3, it's not hard to produce an average of two bodies per turn without overcommitting--enough for a turn 2 Shanna to kill (with commander damage) on turn 6. Nonetheless, multiple control decks at the table will make things difficult for you. Your best strategy is to get four or so disposable creatures plus Shanna on board, force the first board wipe, then recover with one of the many cards that generates an army by itself.

Detailed Notes

Many GW legendaries could serve as the commander for this style of deck. A few of them are in the 99. I chose Shanna, Sisay's Legacy as the commander above the other options for a few reasons:

  1. She's cheap. Card draw in a GW token deck is hard to come by. Having a proactive 2-drop you can cast multiple times per game helps mitigate that weakness. If she dies (she will) it's no big deal; she'll be back soon.
  2. She grows fast. It's not hard to make her a 5/5 or even a 6/6 by turn 4. Since she grows bigger with each turn, this puts any opponent without blockers on a real clock.
  3. She makes opponents play reactively. The fast clock she provides forces opponents to make suboptimal plays just to stay alive. Whether it's playing an early zero-value Eternal Witness just to chump block, casting a board wipe before this deck is truly committed to the board, or just drawing out targeted removal, Shanna provides a quick enough and strong enough clock to force opponents off their deck's natural cadence.
  4. She's surprisingly resilient. She grows out of range of damage-based and -X/-X removal quickly and her "hexproof from abilities" text covers almost all non-spell forms of removal. Opposing Oblivion Rings, Ravenous Chupacabras, and Noxious Gearhulks do nothing to her. Of course, her unique form of protection isn't as good as true hexproof, but it's still a good deal for 2 mana.
  5. She beats infinite life combos. I wanted to play a non-combo go-wide deck, so relying on Shalai, Voice of Plenty, Trostani Discordant, or Rhys the Redeemed to deal 21 commander damage wasn't where I wanted to be. I wanted my opponents' lifegain to be as irrelevant as possible.

If you like this style of deck but also like combo win conditions, I suggest you try Emmara, Soul of the Accord.

Recruiter of the Guard finds every creature in the deck except:

Generally, the most common tutor targets for Recruiter are:

Followed by the more matchup dependent silver bullets:

If you want to use all the actual tokens for this deck, here's what you'll need:

Fortunately there are no tribal aspects of this deck save Tendershoot Dryad, so it's completely reasonable to use whatever you want for the tokens as long as you distinguish between the saprolings and non-saprolings. I advise proxying the tokens to help remember their colors and abilities.

Card Roles

More competitive metagames will need more of these.

Removal is neither a strength nor a focus of this deck. I really only want enough removal and disruption to stop combo decks. Blockers don't matter much when you can go incredibly wide. Moreover, this deck obviously blocks well and has multiple lifegain sources, so removal as a way of keeping one's life total high is also unnecessary.

Still, it's possible that another source of creature removal like Fiend Hunter or Mangara of Corondor would be helpful. I am hesitant to add one since I can only add so many cards that provide a single body and a useful ETB before this deck starts doing a poor imitation of a midrange deck. More testing is needed.

Only artifact & enchantment removal that leaves a body behind or has other utility makes the cut.

Creature-based ramp is obviously the preferred form, but Sol Ring remains a good card.

There are also conditional ramp spells: Legion's Landing  , Cryptolith Rite, Song of Freyalise, Growing Rites of Itlimoc  .

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Date added 6 years
Last updated 3 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

13 - 0 Mythic Rares

46 - 0 Rares

18 - 0 Uncommons

12 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.94
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, Cat 1/1 W w/ Lifelink, City's Blessing, Clue, Emblem Basri Ket, Emblem Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Emblem Huatli, Radiant Champion, Human 1/1 W, Human Cleric 1/1 BW, Phyrexian Golem 3/3 C, Plant 0/1 G, Saproling 1/1 G, Servo 1/1 C, Soldier 1/1 W, Soldier 1/1 W w/ Lifelink, Spirit 1/1 W, The Monarch, Vampire 1/1 W
Folders EDH Creations
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