Wait wait wrong egg WRONG EGG (HUGE UPDATE)
Commander / EDH Creature Cheat Eggs Primer RGW (Naya) Sacrifice Stompy Tap/Untap Tokens
Land (38)
- 1x Bloodstained Mire
- 1x Bountiful Promenade
- 1x Bridgeworks Battle Flip
- 1x Brushland
- 1x Canopy Vista
- 1x Cinder Glade
- 1x Command Tower
- 1x Fabled Passage
- 1x Flooded Strand
- 8x Forest
- 1x Grove of the Burnwillows
- 1x High Market
- 1x Jetmir's Garden
- 1x Lazotep Quarry
- 1x Mana Confluence
- 5x Mountain
-
1x
Mutavault
- 4x Plains
- 1x Prismatic Vista
- 1x Sacred Foundry
- 1x Stomping Ground
- 1x Stump Stomp Flip
- 1x Temple Garden
- 1x Windswept Heath
Sac-Outlet (9)
- 1x Altar of Dementia
- 1x Ashnod's Altar
- 1x Fanatical Devotion
- 1x Goblin Bombardment
- 1x High Market
- 1x Lazotep Quarry
- 1x Skullclamp
- 1x Spawning Pit
- 1x Thermopod
Protection (8)
Extra-Triggers (13)
- 1x Determined Iteration
- 1x Irregular Cohort
-
1x
Jaxis, the Troublemaker
- 1x Moraug, Fury of Akoum
-
1x
Mutavault
- 1x Nesting Dragon
- 1x Palani's Hatcher
- 1x Preston, the Vanisher
- 1x Samut, Voice of Dissent
- 1x Saryth, the Viper's Fang
- 1x Seedborn Muse
- 1x Strionic Resonator
- 1x Summoner's Egg
Draw (11)
- 1x Brainstone
-
1x
Cavalier of Flame
- 1x Elemental Bond
- 1x Garruk's Packleader
- 1x Guardian Project
-
1x
Jeska's Will
- 1x Scroll Rack
- 1x Skullclamp
- 1x Soul of the Harvest
- 1x Sylvan Library
Fixing/Cheating (8)
- 1x Brainstone
- 1x Brutalizer Exarch
- 1x Congregation at Dawn
- 1x Kodama of the East Tree
- 1x Protean Hulk
- 1x Scroll Rack
- 1x Summoner's Egg
- 1x Worldly Tutor
Wincon (6)
Commander (1)
Ramp (13)
- 1x Arcane Signet
- 1x Boros Signet
- 1x Farseek
- 1x Fertile Ground
- 1x Gruul Signet
- 1x Nature's Lore
- 1x Rampant Growth
- 1x Selesnya Signet
- 1x Sol Ring
- 1x Talisman of Conviction
- 1x Three Visits
- 1x Utopia Sprawl
- 1x Wayfarer's Bauble
Interaction (9)
Hi there! Welcome to a fathoms-deep analysis of egg-themed fantasy magic as represented by wildly overpriced cardstock! So glad to have you here. Let's jump straight ahead...
THIS PRIMER WILL BE STEADILY EXPANDED, ENJOY THIS ABRIDGED VERSION :)
I liked the idea of an Atla Palani deck pretty much immediately after seeing C19 released, but I didn't convince myself to build it until after the pandemic started. My initial idea was to spend exactly $100 on some big fancy Naya-colored cards I wanted to play with, top it off with whatever jank I had laying around, and call it a deck. That first Benjamin went towards some strong cards I've since replaced for efficiency's sake such as Anointed Procession and Zacama, Primal Calamity, some cards that remain in the deck like Ashnod's Altar and Congregation at Dawn, and some more... interesting choices like Verdurous Gearhulk and Sentinel Totem (I could not explain this one to you if you whacked me over the head with it).
After messing around with that embryo of a list, I started to reeeaally see the potential for the commander. I continued honing in on what the deck was asking for to work smoothly, and made improving on it my primary focus among my other MTG projects (as it has remained.) My initial gimmick was to only include creatures with mana value greater than 3--to avoid whiffs on Atla's trigger, and keep things unique--and that has stayed present throughout all the upgrades of this deck, truly to what I think is no sacrifice in power level.
This deck has come a long way, and I can confidently say it sits right around at the top of the casual power level for EDH. Without facing heavy interaction, it presents hundreds(!) of damage by turns 5-6 and is pretty resilient to many different types of opposition. I hope you enjoy this breakdown, and please let me know if you have any questions comments or concerns! :)
If you have any questions besides these, never hesitate to ask! There's a good reason for everything in this deck, but often times that reason isn't super obvious. I'll try to explain everything in the remainder of this primer, but my perspective isn't the best for noticing what does or doesn't make sense from an outside view ;)
For being a smashy smashy boom boom deck, this list runs a little more on the intricate, value engine-y side of things, as far as gameplay goes. Essentially, we want to ramp on turn 2, play Atla on T3, play a sac outlet and chuck an egg to it on T4... then things get a little harder to explain. At this point in the game, even though it seems like the only things we've done are play a kind-looking, hat-wearing, dino-loving lady and then hard boiling her friends, we're actually just about ready to take things over. This deck has enough ways to get extra Atla triggers/enough additional redundancy for cheating in creatures that by T5 we're generally welcoming 3-4 extra creatures onto our battlefield--and with the quality of Pokemon ahh mfers that we run, that usually either snowballs into more horsepower from our library or just an impenetrable boardstate from which we can repeat the process (probably amplified) the following turn.
But I'm getting ahead of myself and making some pretty bold claims here. Let's talk about the details of how exactly this process works...
How about an example game for some clarification? Let's use a game I had recently with a pretty simple and balanced opening hand of a Mountain, Plains, Forest, Arcane Signet, Fanatical Devotion, Determined Iteration, and Jetmir's Garden. The game broke down like this:
T1. Draw > land > pass T2. Draw > land > Signet > pass T3. Draw > land > Atla > pass T4. Draw > land > sac outlet > make an egg > sac the egg > hit a Samut, Voice of Dissent > pass T5. Draw > land (that's why we run 39, I kind of need to draw another by this point) > Iteration > make an egg > use Samut to untap Atla > make another egg > move to combat, Iteration makes another egg > sac the eggs > get Shalai, Voice of Plenty, Kodama of the East Tree, and Pathbreaker Ibex > Kodama triggers, drop a Port Razer that I had drawn > move to attackers > swing for what ended up being around 150 damage (extra combats work really well with Ibex--we'll explain that later).
Now, you could say that was a lucky game that worked unusually towards my favor, but the fact of the matter is that most cards in this deck are geared towards that sort of outcome. We pretty much only play cards to either perpetuate the engine or close out the game once we've generated sufficient value, and a lot of the time the games will look something like this. Note also that getting Shalai in the example game protected us from a nasty Chaos Warp an opponent was packing, so it's definitely not a glass cannon either.
Altar of Dementia: Low mana cost, free to activate, repeatable. This card hits all the criteria for what we want in a sac outlet, plus providing a valuable alternative win condition should we face something like a Ghostly Prison.
Arcane Signet 2-drop, provides multiple colors of mana, repeatable. Exactly what we want in our ramp. The fact that this card ETBs untapped is absolutely busted.
Archetype of Endurance: For some reason, people really like murdering my friends. In MTG. Like, my creatures. Idk why I worded it like that. Anyways, protection is super important for this deck, and board-wide hexproof is a must. De-glamouring our opponents' creatures is a really nice plus too.
Ashnod's Altar: Albeit I prefer 2 MV sac outlets, this card is an absolute HOUSE. We can honestly just hardcast a lot of our creatures when this thing is online with how much mana it produces, and that is a pretty lovely effect to have.
Avacyn, Angel of Hope: More protection! Diversifying the prot portfolio is also important, so generalized indestructible is really really nice to have. Note that it even safeguards our noncreature permanents!
Boros Signet: You know the deal! 2 mana ramp, and lots, is the secret to an early Atla.
Brainstone: In a pinch, this just lets us dig to a land drop before our card draw engines are active. Later in the game, it sets up our Atla triggers to get things that would have otherwise been stranded in our hand.
Bridgeworks Battle : Unfortunately, we do have to run removal. What a waste of space! In all seriousness, interactive effects that double as things that we already need (like lands) are life savers in a deck like this that has a lot of gas to squeeze in. These MDFCs are amazing.
Brutalizer Exarch: Another instance of removal that shadows as a useful effect! Exarch can tutor whatever creature we need at the time, and it even puts it where we want it--right where Atla can go get it!
Cavalier of Dawn: I guess all my removal is alphabetically condensed lol. This is just a Generous Gift on a stick, but that catch-all effect is pretty great to have in a deck with fairly limited removal. You'd hate to have the one removal card you get in a game not be able to deal with the threat on hand, and this card has no worries of such a problem. It can also revive a fallen sac outlet!
Cavalier of Flame: Besides letting us trade whatever is stuck in our hand for value when we're spinning our wheels, this card is also a haste enabler, and can even provide the last punch of damage needed to take out an opponent in a pinch! We really don't mind having to discard to draw with this card, because excess ramp, overcosted creatures, and extra lands really do us no good when we're trying to grind out a big turn.
Congregation at Dawn: Triple tutor?!?! This card is nuts for Atla. We can go from an empty board state to a full one by getting a Seedborn Muse, Samut, Voice of Dissent, and Saryth, the Viper's Fang for eight eggs by our next untap step! Or finish a game by grabbing Pathbreaker Ibex, Moraug, Fury of Akoum, and Kamahl, Heart of Krosa. "That's a lot of damage" meme plays
Deflecting Swat: There's some really fun interactions you can do with this card, but the most important one is redirecting countermagic. This is the only card in the deck that can protect our cards on the stack, and plays a really important role in our protection package.
Determined Iteration: An extra egg every turn, for the one-time payment of 2 mana, is pretty tough to beat. Add on the fact that this card sacrifices the egg for you, and you're looking at a true keeper.
Elemental Bond: This is the type of card draw this deck ADORES. Almost all of our creatures sit above the 3 power threshold, so this basically draws us a card on every creature ETB. And we have a lot of creatures ETB.
Fanatical Devotion: Sitting comfortably at the crux of sac outlet and protection, this card grants a nice boost of utility without sacrificing (heh) anything we need from it.
Farseek: Farseek is a really interesting ramp piece to me, and I've kind of always liked how it plays an opposite role to Nature's Lore/Three Visits in a mechanical sense. In this deck, however, they basically function in the same way--grabbing a dual 90% of the time and a basic only fringe cases.
Fertile Ground: Another somewhat quirky ramper, this one. We're really just looking for any noncreature 2-drop ramp piece, this card gets the job done.
Flawless Maneuver: Indestructibility is important enough to warrant redundancy, and the amount of times this card will be free makes it too good to not add in.
Force of Vigor: As mentioned prior, we are a little light on removal in this deck. That being the case, a two-for-one deal like Force is an absolute catch--and adding in the option to cast it for free to not jam the wheels of a pop-off turn is an excellent bonus.
Garruk's Packleader: Essentially Elemental Bond on a body, the Packleader and its ilk are what really allow for some of the craziest turns we can have, especially in tandem with Kodama of the East Tree and Nesting Dragon (more on that combo later.)
Goblin Bombardment: if we could have all our sac outlets be this card, we might. Remember those criteria we mentioned for Altar of Dementia? This card fits them all superbly, while also letting us whittle down our opponents' life totals or finish off creatures weary from combat. Definitely a sneaky hidden extra removal piece for this deck.
Gruul Signet: I love having access to three Ravnica Signets because they're all so good! We don't play as much white as Gruul in this deck so this Signet hits extra hard.
Guardian Project: More draw! We like to have a balance of important effects being on both creatures and noncreatures in this deck, so an extra draw effect on a stick is a good balancer. Note that Garruk's Uprising would whiff on like a third of our creatures!
Heroic Intervention: Hexproof AND indestructible?? Too good to be true! AND IT'S FOR ALL OUR PERMANENTS??? This card is ridiculous and I love it.
Irregular Cohort: This card is an egg. It's also a vampire, octopus, merfolk, dragon, and efreet, but we don't care so much about those types here. The same is true for the token it creates, and two Atla triggers for this cheap a cost is genuinely insane.
Jaxis, the Troublemaker: Versatility is a huge must in this deck, as we have many different lines of value generation to support with what always feels like painfully few slots in the 99. Jaxis is a supercharged facilitator, either making more eggs with Atla (that sacrifice themselves!), copying a haymaker like Pathbreaker Ibex, churning out value by duplicating a Protean Hulk, handling threats alongside a Cavalier of Dawn, or even just helping dig into the library for gas with its loot function.
Jeska's Will: There are very few cards that are good enough to go into this deck sans any form of synergy. This is the best one of those cards. No seriously, who designed this? From ritual-ing us into hardcasting a big creature to digging into whatever we need next for the turn to run smoothly, Jeska's Will is rarely a bad draw.
Kamahl, Heart of Krosa: As you may have noted, this deck often wins with a combination of extra combat effects and things that pump on combat. While being no Pathbreaker Ibex, Kamahl can still pump out some crazy statlines for our boardstate, and animating our lands is surprisingly useful and should remain in your mind when Kamahl is on the table.
Kodama of the East Tree: This card is a bit of a headache to play with, purely due to the sheer volume of value it generates. To start, every time we make a token, Kodama lets us drop a land for free. Pretty nice huh? That effect actually goes pseudo-infinite with Nesting Dragon, and with a draw effect like Guardian Project we can often put every land and every creature from our library into play. Sound good yet? It also helps with the perennial issue of having high MV creatures stranded in our hand, as now any time we cheat something into play from the library we get to give it a friend from our grip. The real headache-y part comes from stacking the triggers, as often times we want to respond to Kodama triggers by sacrificing an egg, which then gives us a new creature and thereby a new Kodama trigger... this card takes skill and practice to execute properly but the reward is extremely satisfying and powerful.
Moraug, Fury of Akoum: Say it with me: combats combats combats! We have the capacity to put lots of lands into play each turn in this deck, what with our ramp package and various value engines (see above entry), so Moraug can consistently give us enough combats to make calculating our total power a job for a phone rather than a pen and paper. And that's a good thing!
Nature's Lore: Ramp ramp baby! This card snags us a whole bunch of duals, and they don't even come in tapped! What!?
Nesting Dragon: We've already seen some of the potential of this card in regards to other pieces we run, but even just on its own this card is absurd. In conjunction with something like Ashnod's Altar, we're getting FOUR MANA for every land we play, and pulling menaces from the deck every go through. Extra egg generation is always welcome, but this one does it in style.
Palani's Hatcher: Rookie of the Year! Any time they print a card with the name of your commander on it, you have to hope it's an auto-add. And Hatcher is! I actually missed it completely when looking for new cards to add to the deck recently, but man oh man does this card cook. Three bodies for one is already huge for a lot of cards in this deck, but the fact that two of them are eggs is just out of this world. Welcome to the team!
Pathbreaker Ibex: Consistently a game-ender, Ibex is kind of just him. The raw damage output of this card plus any reasonably-sized beater that we run is already pretty high, and the fact that the damage compounds so quickly with extra combats is just the icing on the cake. (If you want to waste an afternoon, try calculating Ibex+Avacyn+Port Razer+5 2/2 Dragon tokens in your head. Remember that the second combat Ibex gives +16/+16, and doubles from there!)
Port Razer: Oh don't worry, Port Razer WILL connect. There's always a way to get it through somehow, and given the way this deck tends to load our creatures with stat bumps per combat, once you've hit once nothing's stopping it the second time. Or the third time. And definitely not the fourth time.
Preston, the Vanisher: Preston has some really exciting synergies in this deck, as even though we're cheating large creatures into play we often times care more about their text than their statlines. Making a second Pathbreaker Ibex, Protean Hulk, or Soul of the Harvest is a pretty insane buff, even if they're just 0/1s. The added bonus of being able to chuck a bunch of clones to remove something problematic (anything problematic--Preston hits all nonlands!) is just icing on the cake!
Protean Hulk: Abusing the fact that we will almost always have a sac outlet on board, this card is basically just a tutor for whatever we need to go crazy next. Whether it be the other half to the Ibex/Razer combo, Samut, Voice of Dissent for haste, Summoner's Egg to take something from the hand, or Seedborn Muse to start the process for next turn, the toolbox for Hulk is pretty busted.
Rampant Growth: The OG ramp card. Tbh the fact that this card is still completely playable is pretty awesome--basics rule!
Samut, Voice of Dissent: Giving the board haste is pretty necessary when you have the capacity to put everything into play in one turn. It generally becomes a "use it or lose it" type of situation when you possess the power of twin suns at your fingertips. Needless to say, waiting a turn for summoning sickness to wear off is not a great idea. Samut also grants us an extra Atla trigger by letting us untap her, which would almost be good enough by itself! Lastly, Samut has flash so we can cast her during a Seedborn Muse situation (which comes up more than you might expect.)
Saryth, the Viper's Fang: Protection, extra triggers, and an offensive threat. We love modality! Deathtouch really is so nice in conjunction with our trample effects, especially when you have something that needs to hit like Port Razer. The hexproof is a bit limited but does constrict our opponents' options of when to cast their kill spells, and generally once we're turning things sideways we've accrued enough value that other answers are at hand. Again, Saryth can untap Atla for another go at the ol' egg run and that will never be a dead effect.
Scroll Rack: Basically Brain Stone all grown up. Repeatably being able to stack our library with stuff we've drawn and can't cast is great, and you also just need to be able to draw cards without having a whole other engine going at the same time. What with all our shuffle effects from our ramp, fetches, and commander, we're hardly ever Brainstorm -locked.
Seedborn Muse: This is the one card that can take our board from being sad and empty to bursting with bad guys all by itself. Well, plus our commander but she tends to be around. The synergy it has with Samut and Saryth is also quite nice, and letting us hold up interaction after tapping out (a frequent occurrence in a mana-hungry deck like this one) is pretty dang hard to beat.
Selesnya Signet: Three colors is surprisingly tricky to get the right fixing for, even with green on the table. The Signets help a ton with that problem and are more often than you'd expect a huge lifesaver for our manapool.
Shalai, Voice of Plenty: Hexproooof for the team! And our face, notably. Getting domed is a pretty surefire way to lose even over the top of a thick boardstate, so having some protection against that is genuinely useful. Having a relevant manasink is also quite nice in conjunction with effects like Ashnod's Altar, Thermopod, and Seedborn Muse.
Skullclamp: A sac outlet needs to be darn good to go in this deck with a mana cost for activation, but Clamp's intractable propensity to generate nuts amounts of card advantage is hard to argue with. The extra 1 point of power is frighteningly effective when paired with a Pathbreaker Ibex and a full board of things to pump, too!
Smuggler's Stash: More mana and more cards are the pillars of a successful game in commander, and this card gives 'em all. The types of pods this deck plays with (and really belongs in) have a ton of extra card draw and land-based ramp, so if this card is dead then so are our opponents >:)
Sol Ring: This is commander, honey. We have principles.
Soul of the Harvest: No nonsense draw on a no nonsense body. All around extremely solid card and hardly ever a sad sight to see.
Spawning Pit *list*: I'm dead serious when I say that this card does not need its second ability. I would run it without, and a second one if I could. That being said, having the option to put an extra body into play can be a bonus when you have Kodama, Ashnod's Altar, or Goblin Bombardment.
Strionic Resonator: It's easy to look at this card and dismiss it as a simple extra-egg generator, but there are actually a ton of triggered abilities that are super fun to copy in this deck! Kodama's, Ibex's, Moraug's, Summoner's Egg's, you name it!
Stump Stomp : It kills, it lands. It does what it needs, and we are thankful for it.
Summoner's Egg: I might genuinely play this card even if it wasn't an egg, but the fact that it is is just too good to be true. We can get it back with Cavalier of Dawn, too!
Swords to Plowshares: Unfortunately, not all our removal can be synergistic or modal. Sometimes you just have to get rid of someone's commander, with limited mana or no engine to work off of. Swords is crazy efficient and effective, and I've even used it on my own creature to save myself from lethal damage!
Sylvan Library: Although this card is generally just draw for draw's sake, it can do a bit of topdeck fixing which is not to be ignored. Drawing cards in upkeep with something like Scroll Rack also allows for some fun interactions.
Talisman of Conviction: It's easy to fall into the trap of overrunning your decklist with Gruul mana, but Boros ramp like Talisman of Conviction is often a lifesaver when all you've ended up playing in a game are forests and a Stomping Ground
!
Terror of the Peaks: It will come to no one's surprise that Fling ing all of our huge creatures as they enter without even having to sac them is a pretty nuts effect to have. TotP is another one of those cards that you're extremely thankful to have when you're staring down a Blazing Archon !
Thermopod: Snow slug!!! I love Thermopod, and having a sac outlet on a creature is extremely valuable since it grants us the option to tutor for it in times of need. The mana generation is not to be ignored either, and sometimes we're only able to really pop off because of it.
Three Visits: Literally just another Nature's Lore. If there were a third I would run it too.
Utopia Sprawl: Another slightly offbeat ramp card. I genuinely never know what color to pick! It usually doesn't end up mattering as much as which land to enchant (hint: basics first!)
Wayfarer's Bauble: Although most green players wouldn't let themselves be caught dead with this card, it's basically just another Rampant Growth unless you happen to draw it on turn two. And weee loooveee two mana raaaaamp!
Winds of Abandon: Remember how I said there's always a way to let Port Razer connect with someone's face? Yeah often times it's this card. Because who cares how many lands your opponents had right before they were stampeded by the combined might of the Sun Empire and Naya?
Worldly Tutor: Insane efficient, absolutely game-changing. Practice making sure you know what to tutor for in certain situations or your playgroup will hate you foreveeerrr!
As with anything, if an explanation seems unsatisfactory, let me know! Maybe I forgot to mention something, or maybe the card sucks and I should cut it. You never know unless you ask :)
Thanks for reading! Appreciate you all.
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94% Casual
Competitive
| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 4 years |
| Last updated | 22 hours |
| Legality | This deck is Commander / EDH legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 17 - 0 Mythic Rares 35 - 0 Rares 17 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons |
| Cards | 100 |
| Avg. CMC | 3.45 |
| Tokens | 2/2 C Artifact Creature Spawn, Copy Clone, Dinosaur 3/3 G, Dinosaur Egg 0/1 G, Dragon 2/2 R, Dragon Egg 0/2 R, Egg 0/1 G, Golem 3/3 C, Shapeshifter 2/2 C, Treasure |
| Folders | Borrowed EDH, Dreams, yes, Favorites, yes, Atla decks, Atla, EDH (Good stuff), Cool, Selesnya Cool Stuff |
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