Deck Rating: 7 out of 10
Deck Strategy: Tokens, Stompy
Most of my decks are designed with the idea of accomplishing something mechanically a little unusual, especially in their color space. This is not, strictly speaking, one of those decks - large token creature boards in Selesnya are par for the course. However, I'd like to think that I gave this one my own spin, by combining the interaction of various mechanics from different eras of Magic.
Convoke (as debuted in Ravnica block in 2005) is the core mechanic of this deck; tap creatures to get other, bigger spells out quickly. Supplementing this are cards with the Conspire (Shadowmoor, 2008) and Escalate (Eldritch Moon, 2016) mechanics, also allowing us to tap our creatures without attacking. All of this tapping serves to enable cards with the Inspired (Born of the Gods, 2014) mechanic, giving us value when they untap again.
As a commander, Emmara, Soul of the Accord exemplifies this deck's strategy. Cheap at only , she exists as a nonthreatening 2/2 which will nonetheless make you a 1/1 lifelinking Soldier every time she becomes tapped. With the amount of Convoke cards in this deck, you can reliably keep 2-land hands without a mulligan. If you can just play Emmara, you can get in the game.
This deck can win in a number of ways, but like a true Selesnya deck, an enormous army is usually the deciding factor. We have many cards to accomplish creating lots of creature tokens: Aura Mutation, Sprout Swarm, Call the Coppercoats, March of the Multitudes and Devout Invocation make us an army, and if we have Divine Visitation out, that army becomes a mighty airforce. If many tiny creatures are insufficient to secure victory, we have Overrun and Overwhelm available to us. Lastly, we run Throne of the God-Pharaoh to make sure every creature we tap ends up diminishing our opponents.
When piloting this deck, there are two key objectives to keep in mind:
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Always Be Building. Swinging out aggressively with this deck is usually not the way to go. Big boardstates are already scary (even if they aren't the biggest threat), but an aggressive one will get auto-designated as Archenemy, much to the joy of your Combo-playing opponents. This deck will want to win by swinging out, but only when it can do so in one decisive strike. Therefore, on any turn where we aren't attacking, we want to be building. Play creatures/enchantments/artifacts to increase our own presence, a little more every turn. Now you might ask, isn't that a prime target for a boardwipe? Glad you mentioned it! Let's look at Objective #2:
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Look After Your Own. Big creature boards always fear getting 'wiped. Fortunately for us, we are in the right colors to thumb our noses at them. If one of your smirking opponents tosses down a Wrath of God, we have Heroic Intervention and Join Shields to wipe that grin right off their face. Though you may be tempted to use these cards for value-plays, keep them close to the vest. The creature board is everything to this deck; if you lose it, getting back into the game will be a long shot.
To support this deck's tapping/untapping shenanigans, I have added in a number of support pillars:
- Ramp, glorious ramp. Never to be ignored, our access to green allows us to get significant amounts of mana, fast. The standard complement of Sol Ring, Arcane Signet and Commander's Sphere are here, of course. Alongside it we have a Wayfarer's Bauble, Talisman of Unity and Nissa's Expedition to smooth our colors out a bit. On the more powerful end of the scale, we have Harvest Season synergizing beautifully with our tapped-creature objective - with a good boardstate, you will straight-up fetch all 19 basic lands in the deck. For further value, we have Growing Rites of Itlimoc
to benefit off our many creatures, and Perilous Forays as an efficient creature sac outlet. Last but not least, as a deck featuring Convoke, our creatures can also serve as ramp!
- Removal we have as a necessity, for pesky things that shut down our creatures. Path of Exile, Devouring Light and Collective Effort take care of individual creatures; Hour of Reckoning wipes the slate while keeping our token army intact. Gleeful Sabotage gets rid of (2) artifacts or enchantments; Sprouting Renewal and Sundering Vitae provide redundancy for it. Meanwhile, Conclave Tribunal will put any pesky nonland permanent in timeout.
- Interference Effects like Chant of Vitu-Ghazi and Glare of Subdual let us mess with opponents' attacking and blocking creature armies. The Chant even has a supplemental use; full-swinging into a large blocking force for a tremendous melee, then gaining a vast amount of life off all the prevented damage. Emmara Tandris also somewhat qualifies for this category, as she severely hampers your opponents' capacity to fight your token armies.
- Anthem & Pump Effects. Gavony Township, Juniper Order Ranger, Shalai, Voice of Plenty and Collective Effort can all pump up our creatures. The permanent-based effects are preferred, as they can be used multiple times. Shalai is particularly potent, as she protects our army and our face, while allowing you to sink all your spare mana into pumping up your creatures.
- Card Draw, limited though it may be, from Court of Bounty, Court of Grace and Arch of Orazca. To not run out of steam in an EDH game, this deck needed some carddraw options. All of the cards included are difficult to stop; land destruction is not easy to come by, while the monarch (when it has entered the game) never leaves again. With the amount of creatures we make, stealing the monarch is not easy, and taking it back a matter of sending a large-enough army.
Combos and Interactions
This deck is not a combo deck. However, some of our cards interact have minor, efficient value-adding effects when combined. Let's take a look:
- Nature's Chosen on Emmara, Soul of the Accord is awesome early value. She gets to untap once on your turn for free, and can also be tapped to untap a land, creature or artifact! With your commander out on turn 2 and the aura on her in turn 3, you can get Nissa's Expedition out on the same turn using Convoke. Ramp is green's game - and it always will be.
- Divine Visitation plus Call the Coppercoats or March of the Multitudes is nuts. Getting tons of Soldier tokens is already spicy; tons of flying, vigilant Angels is even better. If you have all the pieces, you can get an astounding chain going. Let's say you Coppercoats for 16 soldiers. You can then immediately use these fine folk to convoke the March; if you have Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun ready, the spell gets even bigger. With a Visitation, 50+ 4/4 Angels are now yours to command.
Pet Cards
To me, Commander is a format where fun is first, and competition second. As such, almost every deck I make will have some cards that are probably not the best choice for inclusion. They're there to stay, though, for no other reason that I like their art/flavor/design.
- Chant of Vitu-Ghazi - As noted above, the Chant can be used in a number of ways, and it is always a great splashy spell to use. Swinging out big and leaving yourself open to counterattack, only to drop this before damage is one of my favorite things to do.
- Impervious Greatwurm - This one is here just for fun; it can be hilarious to Convoke this one out way ahead of curve. Your tokens can hold the fort; use the wurm to aggress against opponents with poor blocking boardstates.
- Tyrite Sanctum - A bit of a slow-roller, but excellent protection for any of our 3 legendary creatures. The preferred target is Shalai, Voice of Plenty, as it will anchor her protection effect more securely. Second-best is Emmara Tandris, another potent protective effect that can win us the game if used smartly. Our commander Emmara, Soul of the Accord is a possible target, but she is easily recurred from the command zone if removed, as she is quite cheap.
- Nature's Chosen - As described under Combos above, this humble Aura makes all our tap-effect creatures shine a little brighter. Seldom has a card synergized so well with my intentions.
- Glare of Subdual - An excellent creature tapper for our Inspired creatures and other tap effects, while suppressing our foes' boards to boot.
Maybeboard Musings
As ever, I have a number of cards that I'd like to include in this deck which I currently don't own. If you do, though, have at it!
- Secure the Wastes. I own a copy of this, but it has a good home in Piru-Plosions!. If I get another one, it's an auto-include. This deck has too much spare mana not to make use of it.
- Deploy to the Front. Another excellent token-maker. This will always double and sometimes triple or quadruple your creature count. If I find one, will try it out.
- Akroma's Will is redundancy for Join Shields, though it also does work on the offense. If I can get a spare copy, this will replace Ephemeral Shields.
- Volrath's Gardens is a card I've been considering. It's an excellent way to tap our Inspired creatures for cheap without attacking, serves as a mana sink, and also grant much-needed lifegain.
- Seedborn Muse is, quite frankly, the goodstuff card. There is no deck with access to green that would not benefit from her. This deck runs the 'fair and balanced' version of her in Quest for Renewal; at current, I didn't think it needed a Muse to spice it up.
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