Beneath crashing waves lies an ocean of secrets waiting to be explored.
This is a landfall combo deck which came about by adjusting my deckbuilding philosophy and striving to create a unique deck which won through individually powerful cards working together to create an engine, while avoiding truly infinite combos ad attempting to win in the late midgame (turns 5-6) because I play with groups of varying power level so I don't want to be too cutthroat, or dead in the water.
The Story
This deck actually began as a Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper deck shortly after the release of The Gitrog Monster, because I wanted to build a deck that could use that overpowered draw engine in conjunction with effects like Seismic Assault to kill my opponents and draw into gas. The deck was very combo oriented, but was sort of all-in on a single strategy, and felt like it was extremely inconsistent. I got frustrated and took the deck apart, then rebuilt it as a 4-color landfall deck without blue (headed by Dune-Brood Nephilim). I was intrigued by the Nephilim's ability to turn my lands into creature advantage, but his total lack of evasion and pitiful body made him pretty weak - the deck ended up turning into a living death style deck that wanted to use Emeria Shepherd, Prismatic Omen and Scapeshift to get back a bunch of creatures and punch in for a ton of damage. It was fun, but it felt like another reanimiator deck with a land theme which just wasn't very exciting. The deck also had a brief stint as a The Gitrog Monster deck but it felt like the deck was doing what every other frog monster deck was doing, so I took it apart. I sulked for a while, wishing for a commander that could let me play a bunch of sweet cards while also feeling directly related to my land theme. Then, we got the blessing of Partner Commanders. I went through a lot of drafts of this deck, jamming in 4 color combo pieces to try to snag a quick win, and after a while I came to a conclusion: I wanted to change the way I built decks entirely, and to do that I had to change my philosophy. Eventually, I came up with a new mantra.
Build The Worst Deck You Can With The Best Cards Possible.
This concept has a few things behind it: first of all, "the worst deck possible" - this means that no matter how janky your idea is, if you think it can even be remotely possible, push for it! If you love 8-Rack in modern and you want to play it in commander, try to make it work by researching, finding similar effects, and finding a commander to help you make it happen! You might have to push a certain theme: 8 rack might be hard by itself, so maybe you can play politically by dealing with problematic cards and permanents using black control cards and being open about your goals. While landfall is an extremely powerful keyword, there isn't exactly a critical mass of powerful landfall cards, certainly not enough to have every card in my deck use the mechanic. Avenger of Zendikar is a format all-star in green, but without red, I don't have haste, AND that card puts a massive target on my head which often calls for a boardwipe. In a metagame with developed decks, it's unlikely I'll be able to use such a powerful card to its full effect. This brings me to the second part of the mantra: card quality.
Card quality is the concept that each card can be compared to others, and relative power is a very real thing in deckbuilding. For instance, Demonic Tutor is a strictly better Diabolic Tutor and Dark Petition is more of a side-grade that can be equivalent (or sometimes better!) One way I like to measure card quality is asking a simple question: Would I rather cast this spell, or cast a Ponder to look for something stronger? You'll notice I'm not playing Ponder - if I was focused on a single combo, playing such a powerful cantrip would probably be a good idea. However, I like to diversify my strategy so I've currently omitted both it and Brainstorm. Perhaps a mistake. Prove me wrong!
Part of my card quality philosophy is something which I call Best Case/Worst Case. This is a concept I try to apply to every card I play, to minimize the amount of Dead Draw cards vs. Win More cards. As an example, Demonic Tutor makes a strong argument for my Best Case/Worst Case strategy: at best, Demonic Tutor finds me my game-winning combo piece that I might be missing. Worst case, it finds the answer I need for an opponent's problem. Obviously, this generically strong card falls in the category of "goodstuff", so as a better example I'll use cards that have been or are currently in my deck: Emeria Angel vs. Retreat to Emeria - The best case scenario for these cards is pretty similar- I have an explosive land-dropping turn and I get to untap with huge amounts of little nugget creatures. While Emeria Angel's birds have flying, going wide enough may be enough to clinch a game. In addition, without mass haste (an effect which I don't want to spend a card on, due to my low amount of creature cards) Emeria Angel does very little with my run-of-the-mill land drops I make during my turn. On the other hand, Retreat to Emeria allows me to invest lands once I have a few nuggets to power them up with the team pump mode, which is extremely powerful! It's also slightly easier to cast, which makes a difference in a 4 color deck. Also, I tend to think that creatures are more vulnerable than enchantments, due to the prevalence of boardwipes in a creature-heavy format. Because of this Best Case/Worst Case, I decided to start playing Retreat to Emeria over Emeria Angel. I went through this for almost every card in the current iteration of the deck, and I feel like constant card evaluation has made me a much better player.
The Deck: Why Play It?
This deck is my brain child - perhaps it's weaker in more competitive metagames, perhaps you'd have to change out some cards. However, if you're looking to be the midrange player of the table, creating incremental value through activations of Thrasios, Triton Hero and finishing the game with an explosive combo which requires a bit of luck and a bit of skill to pull off, this may be a deck for you!
You'll Like This Deck If You:
like having a deck which uses its commander often
like manipulating your library and evaluating how strong a card is in any given situation (scry 1, draw makes you do this!)
enjoy having the most lands on the table (where my green mages at?)
like a combo which is not a sure bet, but can certainly misfire (this is the best point of this deck in my opinion. As people learn the deck they get better and better at assessing the threats, and the entire combo is pretty interactive. This means everyone has a fighting chance, which leads to a better game in my opinion!)
you like Scapeshift in Modern, or you liked Amulet Bloom (RIP IN PEACE SWEET PRINCE)
You Won't Like This Deck If You:
prefer a more beatdown based strategy
want something that's a bit easier to pilot
want a guaranteed infinite combo that WILL win you the game on the spot
hate untapping many permanents on your turn
hate tracking your mana pool
Other Options in These Colors
Rights now, 4-color decks are pretty new, so the options haven't exactly been established. However, your other options are:
Atraxa, Praetors' Voice : You know her well already. You may love her. You may hate her. You've probably seen endless superfriends lists, a bit of stax, and a bit of infect already. A powerful choice, but not like this deck.
Witch-Maw Nephilim : I've never seen someone play this thing. Spellslinger-Voltron seems like a cool idea, but it seems pretty weak.
Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker + Reyhan, Last of the Abzan : This is straight +1/+1 counters shenanigans, the deck. I feel like I may eventually make this due to my love affair with Ezuri, Claw of Progress, but the deck is very different from ours.
Silas Renn, Seeker Adept + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa : I guess this is a non-red artifact build, if you're a hipster who wants this instead of Breya? I feel like red brings a lot to that deck though.
Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Tymna the Weaver : You could probably do some neat things with the extra card draw Tymna provides and the mana Kydele makes, but I'm not seeing a ton of overall synergy here.
Common Matchups
Other Midrange Decks:
While Thrasios is very resilient, I've decided to omit counterspells in favor of presenting threats. This means that against other midrange decks, especially blue midrange decks, you have to evaluate what card advantage you can get, and think about what your out is if someone counters your next big spell. Your only regrowth effects are Regrowth and Seasons Past, and while they're strong, you might not have them ready. Thankfully, this deck presents tons of problematic permanents that most decks just can't answer. A caveat to this: if you see an Aura Shards, you should kill it. Many of your roads to winning are artifacts or enchantments.
Aggro Decks:
Without one of your token makers or life gainers, a devoted aggro deck will take advantage of your fetch/shock heavy manabase and run a huge amount of damage down your throat. However, you've got a good amount of removal, so you may be able to deal with the problems they present.
Stax:
This archetype might seem like something that could stop us in our tracks, but for the most part, we can fight through it. Winter Orb on the field? Grab an Exploration and a Crucible of Worlds to keep playing lands. Honorable mention: Suppression Field can REALLY mess us up. Most of our wincons that get us a ton of value are activated abilities (Thrasios, Triton Hero and Knight of the Reliquary). However, a Training Grounds mitigates this effect and you can fight through it.
Control:
Unless the control player has decided to only deal with your threats, most often you'll be able to get something through that can't be answered before it's too late.
Pillow Fort:
These decks are somewhat common, and their favorite cards (Dueling Grounds, Propaganda, Sphere of Safety, Crawlspace do nothing to stop our wincon. We're either getting them with life loss from Ob Nixilis, the Fallen or Retreat to Hagra, or smashing in with a giant creature (or a few) from Retreat to Emeria or Knight of the Reliquary. You can beat this deck.
Creature Hate:
This deck really only needs one creature threat, which can be Thrasios, Triton Hero. I wouldn't be too worried about it.
Strategy
This deck wins through huge mana advantage, and turns that mana advantage into card advantage. It finds a combo piece, drops a bunch of lands (from hand, library, or even graveyard!) and swings in for a punch. Your wincons are cards like these:
Wincons
These cards are the scary ones, the ones that actually help us kill our opponents. Most of these should be pretty straightforward - the strongest ones are the black ones which cause life loss, which is pretty hard to counter. The middling ones are creature damage based, either Retreat to Emeria or Knight of the Reliquary because if they're not summoning sick, they can represent a huge threat. The worst ones, but ones that are still good for helping you win are the two green creatures which make more green creatures. No mass haste in the deck, and I don't think there's room for it, but they can kill people if they cannot answer the monsters.
Supporting Cards
Training Grounds is one of the cards I think you'll see in most Thrasios lists, just because it cuts his ability activation in half and mitigates the damage that Suppression Field can do. In our deck, it does double duty because with a lot of our payoff cards we make mana from land entries.
This card gets an honorable mention between Training Grounds and mana producing permanents because of how valuable it can be- it's sort of in between these types as it "saves" mana (by the second discounted activation with Illusionists's Bracers you've made parity and then some) and with the permanents that make mana from our commander, they become absurd. Another thing people will have to spend removal on.
These cards are the permanents that are easily the scariest to see if you're playing against this deck. That's because each of them creates huge incremental advantage every time Thrasios hits a land, you make more mana and can keep going. If you have some combination of these permanents, you'll often net mana so you can keep going. Even if you miss a land, you still get to draw a card. These permanents just need to be answered. If they aren't you will run away with the game.
The two big green brothers of this deck are 4-mana sorceries which get you lots of lands and get them quick. With a landfall permanent on the battlefield, these cards will make you move extremely fast, normally towards victory. Scapeshift is an incredibly resilient card, especially when combined with one of the mana makers from earlier. If it gets countered, you may have to dig for a regrowth effect, but you also don't really need it to win. Splendid Reclamation has often proven itself to be just as powerful, sometimes moreso when combined with Squandered Resources and sometimes even The Gitrog Monster. If I'm feeling especially greedy I'll throw out an Armageddon with this in hand and speed way up.
**PRIMER ON HOLD DURING FINALS - STAY TUNED!**
