Anthousa (Land Animation) w/ *Primer*

Commander / EDH* Mono-Green

Lord_of_Shadows

Mana Base (37)

• 1x Bonders' Enclave
• 1x Cascading Cataracts
• 1x Crawling Barrens
• 1x Darksteel Citadel
• 1x Dunes of the Dead
• 1x Emergence Zone
• 1x Gingerbread Cabin
• 1x Hashep Oasis
• 1x Inkmoth Nexus
• 1x Lair of the Hydra
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 24x Snow-Covered Forest

Protection (9)

• 1x Alpha Authority
• 1x Blossoming Defense
• 1x Canopy Cover
• 1x Saryth, the Viper's Fang
• 1x Snakeskin Veil
• 1x Spider Umbra
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Verdant Rebirth
• 1x Vines of Vastwood

Cantrips (7)

• 1x Aggressive Urge
• 1x Charge Through
• 1x Irresistible Prey
• 1x Rune of Might
• 1x Setessan Training
• 1x Viridescent Wisps
• 1x Warriors' Lesson

Ramp (13)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Into the North
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Rampant Growth
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Three Visits
• 1x Wood Elves

Interaction (9)

• 1x Bane of Progress
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Blizzard Brawl
• 1x Kenrith's Transformation
• 1x Khalni Ambush  ^Flip
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Nature's Way
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Return to Nature

Finishers (3)

• 1x Kamahl, Heart of Krosa
• 1x Sylvan Awakening
• 1x Triumph of the Hordes

Land Matters (2)

• 1x Sylvan Advocate
• 1x Wilderness Reclamation

Recursion (2)

• 1x Ramunap Excavator
• 1x Seasons Past

Commander (1)

Card Advantage (10)

• 1x Courser of Kruphix
• 1x Endless Atlas
• 1x Garruk, Primal Hunter
• 1x Harmonize
• 1x Hunter's Insight
• 1x Hunter's Prowess
• 1x Rishkar's Expertise
• 1x Season of Growth
• 1x Soul's Majesty
• 1x Tireless Tracker

Buffs (7)

• 1x Blackblade Reforged
• 1x Hydra's Growth
• 1x Inscription of Abundance
• 1x Ordeal of Nylea
• 1x Rancor
• 1x Talons of Wildwood
• 1x Vastwood Fortification  ^Flip

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Maybeboard

Target (4)

• 1x Karametra's Favor
• 1x Keen Sense
• 1x Prey's Vengeance
• 1x Sixth Sense

Target Matters (2)

• 1x Gargos, Vicious Watcher
• 1x Wild Defiance

Land Matters (3)

• 1x Harvest Season
• 1x Splendid Reclamation
• 1x Titania, Protector of Argoth

Other (3)

• 1x Blossoming Bogbeast
• 1x Elemental Resonance
• 1x Verdant Confluence

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Overview

Objective

Our objective is to ramp as fast as possible in order to amass a large enough land creature army to overwhelm our opponents.

Game Plan

1. Ramp as quickly as possible.
2. Set up the board via cards like Ramunap Excavator
3. Play our commander with some protection in hand or on the battlefield such as Saryth, the Viper's Fang
4. Continue to build up our board state by playing more lands and accruing card advantage.
5. Activate our commander's Heroic ability to animate our lands and swing for lethal after casting a finisher such as Triumph of the Hordes

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Can be built on a budget.
• You get to animate your lands. Who just wants to tap their lands for mana?
• Core strategy is easy to understand.
• Offers a fresh experience that incorporates underutilized cards that you probably won't find anywhere else.

Cons

• Weak to very aggressive decks.
• Can seem very punishing when your animated lands get blown up.
• Can seem linear and repetitive at times.

Deck Breakdown

Ramp

We have our standard green ramp spells and mana dorks like Llanowar Elves and Rampant Growth. We've also included a few 3 CMC ramp cards to help set up for future explosive turns. Most of our ramp leans towards spells that fetch lands to the battlefield since we will be needing a lot of lands to animate.

Card Advantage

This deck omits the standard green card draw spells like Guardian Project and Beast Whisperer because we don't run too many creatures to take advantage of those cards. Instead we run:

• Hunter's Insight, Hunter's Prowess, Rishkar's Expertise, and Soul's Majesty can all be similarly used to target Anthousa, Setessan Hero to draw us cards while also triggering her heroic ability.
• Courser of Kruphix isn't technically card draw but it does allow us to play lands off of the top of our library which helps thin our deck. The incidental life gain is a nice bonus. The only downside is that we have to play with the top card our library revealed which can draw unnecessary hate.
• Endless Atlas allows us to keep mana up to draw a card at instant speed.
• Garruk, Primal Hunter is primarily in this deck to help us draw more cards but it has the added benefit of creating Beast tokens to build our board state.
• Harmonize is just burst card draw.
• Season of Growth basically turns all of our auras, instants, and sorceries that target our creatures into cantrips. The scry ability doesn't trigger too often but is still helpful.
• Tireless Tracker's converts our land drops into Clue tokens which we can sac to draw cards.

Interaction

Although this deck doesn't run too much interaction and creature removal, it does make up for it by running fight spells that can trigger our commander.

• Bane of Progress is basically a one-sided boardwipe for all artifacts and enchantments. We do run quite a few enchantments so further testing is required.
• Beast Within can deal with any problematic permanent. It's best to use this card when we absolutely have to.
• Blizzard Brawl is a fight spell that can target our commander. We run 24 snow-covered forests so the creature we target will almost always gain indestructible.
• Kenrith's Transformation helps deal with problematic commanders that we don't want to our opponents to return to the command zone with the added benefit of replacing itself.
• Khalni Ambush   is another fight spell that can also be played as a land when need it.
• Nature's Way is similar to a fight spell except the creature we target doesn't take damage.
• Nature's Claim, Reclamation Sage, and Return to Nature all help deal with pesky artifacts or enchantments.

Buffs

These are the cards that help increase the power and toughness of our creatures including our commander. We want most of our single-target buffs to be instants that cost 2 or less with a few expressions.

• Blackblade Reforged doesn't trigger our commander's heroic ability but its power boost scales with the lands we ramp into, which makes it possible to swing for lethal commander damage.
• Hydra's Growth is a bit costly at 3 mana but it has the immediate benefit of placing a +1/+1 counter on our commander. It exponentially increases the counters on the enchanted creature if not dealt with immediately.
• Inscription of Abundance's modality allows us to place +1/+1 counters on our commander, fight a problematic creature, or even gain us some life in a pinch.
• Ordeal of Nylea is a bit slow but it does help us ramp into two more lands.
• Rancor buffs and gives our commander trample all for a single green mana while being resilient to removal.
• Talons of Wildwood is a poorer imitation of Rancor but it does offer some redundancy.
• Vastwood Fortification   is mostly in this deck for its land modality.

Cantrips

This deck does run a few single-target spells that replace themselves which help us dig deeper into our deck for answers.

Land Matters

We want to include a few cards that reward us for playing lands or get better the more lands we have in play.

Sylvan Advocate buffs our animated land creatures.

Wilderness Reclamation untaps our lands at our end step which helps us keep up mana for our protection or removal.

Protection

Because Anthousa, Setessan Hero is a bit costly at five mana, we tend to spells that protect our commander, some of which can be used to trigger our commander's Heroic ability.

• Alpha Authority and Canopy Cover are both auras that give our commander hexproof.
• Blossoming Defense, Snakeskin Veil, and Vines of Vastwood give our commander hexproof at instant speed.
• Spider Umbra is mostly in this deck for the totem armor ability.
• Swiftfoot Boots a staple for most EDH decks. Because we want to trigger our commander's Heroic ability we're running the boots over card:Lightning Greave.
• Verdant Rebirth offers protection against destroy spells and effects but it cantrips which makes it worth slotting into this deck.

Mana Base and Utility Lands

We are running Snow-Covered Forest which benefits cards like Into the North and Blizzard Brawl. Note: If you're on a stricter budget, you can simply replace the snow-covered lands for basic Forests and swap the aforementioned cards for other cards that fill similar roles.

• Bonders' Enclave helps us draw extra cards when we have our commander out.
• Cascading Cataracts and Darksteel Citadel are two powerful indestructible lands that can safely swing for damage when we target with our commander's ability
• Crawling Barrens and Lair of the Hydra both serve as a late game mana sinks that we can animate even without our commander.
• Dunes of the Dead is a decent land to animate that when it dies, it replaces itself with a 2/2 black zombie creature token.
• Emergence Zone helps us play our deck at instant speed.
• Gingerbread Cabin gives us a food token which can come in handy.
• Hashep Oasis can provide a small temporary buff.
• Inkmoth Nexus can animate itself into a powerful evasive threat that can eliminate a player via poison counters.
• Myriad Landscape provides us with additional ramp.
• Rogue's Passage can make any of our creatures unblockable.
• Scavenger Grounds offers us graveyard hate.

Recursion and Other Utility

We do run a few utility cards to help make sure that if our game plan does fall apart, we at least have a way to recover and rebuild our board state.

• Ramunap Excavator helps us offset any of our animated lands by replaying them from our graveyard.
• Seasons Past is great at refilling our hand once we get into the late game.

Finishers

Once we've played our commander and amassed a large land count, we can play some of our finishers to close out the game.

• Kamahl, Heart of Krosa is one of our strongest finishers. While costly at eight mana, he gives our entire board an Overrun effect on each our turns, with the additional upside of animating our lands.
• Sylvan Awakening animate and buffs all of our lands, which can catch people off guard.
• Triumph of the Hordes is probably the deadliest finisher in this deck, allowing us to eliminate players via infect damage.

Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 19 - 0 Rares 31 - 0 Uncommons 23 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.54
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Clue, Food, Wurm 6/6 G, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	My EDH Deck Ideas