MTG Combo: Evolving Wilds + Terramorphic Expanse

jakerman999 on Olivia Voldaren - EDH

8 years ago

--Evolving Wilds + Terramorphic Expanse , ++Bloodstained Mire + Temple of Malice

MagicMerlin on

8 years ago

Intro

This is the first real EDH deck I made... At first I wanted to take Riku of Two Reflections as a commander, thought he'd be a very funny guy. I like the options you got with the temur-combination (): you got ramp and fat creatures in green, you got control and annoying stuff as well as card-draw in blue and red... well in this case you don't have tons of spells to take your cards and throw them in your enemys face to deal damage, but red is still nice :)
While experimenting with Riku I saw how funny this guy can be, but I had to admit, that Animar, Soul of Elements is much stronger... by far. I guess this deck is not perfect at all, but it has strong combinations and seems to work quite well and Im gonna guide you throught my thoughts about it :)

Fixing Mana Problems

First of all: you got 3 colors. A nightmare to create a base that behaves stable without taking the possibility to draw strong cards. But hey, will help us a lot here, and it's still a slower format where you got 40 life and a bit more time than in constructed, where elves and goblins try to kill you while you still draw your first card...

Lands

There is nothing special to say, we got a couple of basic lands (mainly Forests, because our spell and creature support for mana will be based on green). Then there are some cards designed for this format, like Command Tower - nothing more to say, it's perfect! Evolving Wilds + Terramorphic Expanse are the classical guys to give us what we need. Green allows us to build a nice mana-base, but I could not resist to take fetch-lands combined with lands that got two basic land types in addition to the land-type (e.g. Wooded Foothills can still get you Steam Vents to be able to produce when you need it.) Similar to the two lands mentioned before there is an advantage of them that might not appear to be obvious if you look at it first: by playing this combination, you take 2 Lands instead of 1 out of your deck. That means you decrease the probability of drawing them later!
You will be able to produce every mana of our required colors very soon, so the Reflecting Pool, even if it is in your opening hand, is a very powerful land here.

Spells, Creatures and Artifacts

Even if the lands appear to be the fundament of every game, they are nothing more than that! The ramp comes from obvious sources like Cultivate or Kodama's Reach. Bloom Tender or Birds of Paradise are classical choices (with the birds you can call your commander in your second turn!!!), and we got a nice usage of Rattleclaw Mystic: Morph him in your second turn and face him up in the third to call Animar!
Animar himself does something which is just as nice as ramping: he decreases the cost of your creature spell and this is insane. For the start you have some little guys like Elvish Visionary or Farhaven Elf and soon you get 2 or 3 counters on your commander and if everything goes right the following combinations will give you the possibility to get an army of fat creatures onto the battlefield in no time.

Synergies, card draw and more

So after you got your commander as fast as possible let the show begin: Let's have a look on our possible turns after the third, we got a couple of creatures with cmc around 4 and 5 which are able to boost us into a late-game-like state very fast:
- Oracle of Mul Daya: a very nice creature to help us to have even less lands in our deck and more mana to use every turn
- Bloodbraid Elf: oh, her ability is amazing: Cascade says: ...cast it without paying... oh yeah, if we get a creature like Birds of Paradise next, we will trigger our commander's ability twice by only playing one card. Even if we get a land or an artifact we can still take a big advantage of this.
- Fathom Mage: Don't underestimate the card-draw she can give to you: she starts with a 1/1 body, hilariously low, so nearly every creature is able to trigger her evolve-ability and you can draw a card. If you got Doubling Season or Hardened Scales you can draw even more cards!
Mulldrifter is perfect for us! Even if you call him for evoke only (what still got the value of a Divination) he'll still put a +1/+1-counter on Animar. If Animar already got a couple of counters you got a 2/2 guy swimming around for only who lets you draw 2 cards (guys, this is almost comparable with the value of Ancestral Recall!!!). Cards like Shaman of the Great Hunt, Consecrated Sphinx or Temur Ascendancy can give you a huge number of cards later on during the game.
Vigor ohhhh, the first creature I (kinda) fell in love with, and - even if Vigor will require at least to cast - here it is and it's powerful! Beside the fact that Vigor is a nice fat creature to have in general (protect your other creatures from burn-spells and make combats nearly impossible for your foes), it can get you an early win: If you attack with Animar while Vigor is chilling it's body-weight your enemy really has to think about what he wants to do: he can let Animar pass thought, but he can't do it too often, because Animar will grow strong and he only need's to deal 21 damage to your enemy to win the game OR he blocks and - in many cases - he gives your commander more +1/+1-counters, making summoning creatures and snowballing in the game even easier for you. Summoning Vigor in your 5th turn is normal, so don't be afraid to keep it in your opening hand!

A Bit More Support

You got a lot of card draw in the deck, so you'll need only a few removal and counter cards if everything goes well... Acidic Slime and Cyclonic Rift might give you 1 or 2 turns to finish the game, just like Mystic Snake and Stratus Dancer who can counter something during your enemy's turn while Surrak Dragonclaw protects you from such abilities.
Garruk Wildspeaker and Xenagos, the Reveler seem to be weak choices, because they are no creatures and the beasts the call won't trigger Animar's ability, but they can help you ramp some mana in the early game.
Eternal Witness is nice to get back a fat creature or to get something like Cultivate again if you feel you require some mana-boost
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker is a very interesting guy: he is hard to get, but worth every mana you spent. He can just copy a fat creature of you to finish the game (he also copies all counter of the creatures) or he can support you with a copy of an Prime Speaker Zegana to draw cards or something like Somberwald Sage for mana or Mystic Snake to counter another spell.

Finisher and Wombo-Combos

The finishers are obviously our fat creatures! Ideally you give them haste and trample with stuff like Temur Ascendancy and Nylea, God of the Hunt or Thassa, God of the Sea. These make a creature pass easily and the party might begin. We got a couple of X-based creature costs, you can count Animar's +1/+1-counters as free mana you can spend to cast them and make them fat! Kalonian Hydra is a beast there! While attacking, it doubles ALL +1/+1 counters, making something like Savageborn Hydra a monster to devour your opponents life-points within a split second (Xenagos, God of Revels is a nice addition). Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre is a pain in your enemy's eye, too. When casted you can destroy something and when he attacks and you do not win during this turn, he still damages your enemy's board with his annihilator-ability. If you got none of those creatures Avenger of Zendikar can create an army on his own. Using the double cascade of Maelstrom Wanderer also can upgrade your board surprisingly before you attack and finish your foe off.
Before I come to an end, lets have a look on Palinchron and Peregrine Drake. At first they only seem to be creatures with a bad body which can give you the whole mana back you spent to cast them... maybe viable with some land enchantments. But now, look again: With enough counters on Animar Palinchron becomes a source of infinite mana and +1/+1 counter on Animar (you can use to call a hydra with infinite strength and defense) or just use the mana to deal as many damage as needed with Comet Storm. Temur Sabertooth can do the same thing with Peregrine Drake or Bloom Tender (if he got haste).

Weaknesses

Your deck is full of creatures, but you got a very low amount of counters or other stuff like hexproof to protect them from evil spells like Path to Exile or Murder. Also board removals like Day of Judgment can clear your board after you just got your first big guys. If you have problems because you play against such decks think about playing Counterspell-like cards or something like Asceticism instead of 2 or 3 creatures (you won't be able to play them if you don't react to your enemys deck anyway...)

So all in all this deck is pretty fun to play. Its mana base seems solid to me and you got much possibilities to summon armies of overwhelming creatures in just a few turns. Your win condition is the most classical one: Take creatures and let them damage your enemies to their death. If you should play 2vs2 and get a control deck as partner, this deck is nearly unstoppable \o/
I hope you like my ideas, feel free to leave comments, suggestions and more!

SorcerersBone on Full Automatic

8 years ago

Weird. I like it.

If you're worried about losing life from fetchlands, why not just go with the financially painless Evolving Wilds + Terramorphic Expanse at the cost of them putting lands in tapped (not that that matters, as long as they shuffle) or Ghost Quarter so you don't have to pay life? It might not net you extra mana, but its better than "Pay 1 life: Shuffle" once you have all of your Mountains out.

Both Deranged Assistant + Millikin can generate mana and push themselves out of the way, although Assistant means running a second color.

Sylo on You've Heard of Waterfalls...Now We Have LANDFALL!

8 years ago

I would suggest cutting Blighted Gorge + Blighted Woodland for 4 Rootbound Crag. I understand that you are using Evolving Wilds + Terramorphic Expanse to trigger multiple landfalls but I believe you are better off replacing them with another dual lands like Cinder Glade or Temple of Abandon since your creatures will do that for you. The hit you take from being behind on mana will lose you the game. You are missing one of the best landfall creatures from BFZ, Undergrowth Champion. You could probably cut 2 lands and replace them with Domri Rade since he allows you to draw your creatures. Also, you could replace Animist's Awakening with Cultivate.