Why not run Living Plane over Nature's Revolt?

SynergyBuild Because Living Plane is $400 and I don't have that kind of money to drop on a single card that I'm gonna use in a single deck. I would rather run it, but it's expensive.

You can run Gauntlets of Light with Sanctum Weaver for the same infinite mana effect assuming you have your commander and one other enchantment on the board.

Azdranax my one problem with Gauntlets of Light is that it is only truly useful with one card in the deck, Sanctum Weaver Now, I will admit, there are some other niche cards in the deck (Nature's Revolt is a good example) but I have multiple cards to combo with it (Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Linvala, Keeper of Silence).

No Satyr Enchanter is a bit confusing, tho I also run Argothian, as well as a lack of the Parallax Wave / Opalescence combo.

SynergyBuild Huh, I've never seen that combo before. Interesting. So you abuse the stack to pretty much exile every creature you want to? That should be rather fun. I'll look into it.

As for the Satyr Enchanter , this is gonna sound weird; he was in the deck but I dropped him for Verduran Enchantress because I wanted the 'may' ability rather than the 'must' ability. I know Setessan Champion and Sythis herself are 'must' abilities, but Setessan offers a tad more than the Satyr does in buffing itself and Sythis is, well, the commander. Can't do much about her.

Earthcraft , Altar of the Brood , Eternal Witness , Setessan Champion , Eidolon of Blossoms and more cards with the Opalwave combo can go off too, as the combo can cause infinite etbs and flickers of other non-aura enchantments and creatures.

Earthcraft on its own is insanely powerful, and Opalescence makes it even better, Squirrel Nest goes infinite creatures, and cards like Altar of the Brood go infinite mill with that.

Earthcraft is another one of those cards that is outside my budget sadly, otherwise I'd of already included the Earthcraft + Squirrel Nest combo. For some reason I always thought Altar of the Brood was just creatures. Since it's permanents that's far better than I expected.

Hello, seems like a pretty cool deck you've put together. I'm trying to put a deck together for someone new to Magic and Sythis, Tuvasa and Karametra have all caught my eye. I have a few questions I hope you'll see and can respond to. 1. Is this deck fairly easy to pilot? The player would grow into the full potential of a deck like this, but I want them to at first be able to learn and still have fun without the need to always make the most optimized play that may be too complicated for them to see. 2. Do you have fun playing this style of deck? I personally gravitate towards other styles of play and am not familiar with how a deck like this feels. 3. Any comment on the competitiveness of this deck. I know it's subjective, but maybe a rating of 1-10?

Hello Dudebob589!

I piloted a Karametra, God of Harvests deck for a couple years, which that list can be found here: [EDH][PRIMER] Karametra's Garden of Eden. However, keep note if you end up reading that deck I purposefully did NOT build her as an enchantress commander, and instead a storm-esque combo commander abusing her land-fetch ability. That deck in general though is outdated and I would definitely change it if I wanted to play it again.

Anyways, for your questions:

1) I will admit, I did make this list kind of complicated, or rather it has a lot of niche interactions, and I think a newer player would have trouble getting the full value of this particular list. However, I think in general Sythis, Harvest's Hand is indeed a rather simple commander; you play enchantments and draw cards. I think most of the difficulty in this list - and most lists to be fair - is decision making. When do I play this card? Do I respond to this particular threat now or later? How can I possibly win the game this turn? Etc. As I said previously, ultimately Sythis - and pretty much all enchantment-based decks - want to establish an engine with a creature that allows you to draw cards per each enchantment cast and then play a bunch of cheap enchantments, such as Utopia Sprawl to draw your deck and win the game via card advantage.

2) My main playstyle in commander is typically incorporating the commander into the strategy. For enchantress-based decks, I think undoubtedly Sythis, Harvest's Hand is the best commander because she does exactly that - she herself IS an enchantress. I will also say, this deck does have more of a stax-theme, meaning denying your opponents resources. After playing combo for ~5 years, this is something I've found myself rather enjoying as a break from combo, (my Karametra deck for example is one of the combo decks I played for a while). I find the deck fun to play due to the ability to easily incorporate the commander into the deck's strategy and having a playstyle that I find fun to play.

3) While I do think the deck is rather competitive, I do not think it is cEDH level, and if it is, it would be fringe at best. I do think the deck is stronger than the average EDH deck though. If I had to place it on a scale, where 1 is a pre-con and 10 is something like Oracle Consultation or Flash Hulk - I would probably place it at a 6 or 7. It definitely is beatable, but can preform fairly consistently.

Hopefully these answered your questions. If you have any others, feel free to message me and I'll try to answer to the best of my abilities!

I like the land base and versatile style that's going on here!

I can see why your commander is getting nipped: you've got a lot of really niche protection here and are missing a bit of the more encompassing protection like hexproof, indestructible and shroud

Overall you've got some real value in here! From where I'm sitting she will need more of a direction to run before you start seeing her place in anything, but I like the toolbox you're starting with here and I'll be sure to check in to see where you take her :)

H-E-N-R-Y I appreciate the comment, although I don't know what you mean by missing protection. As well, the deck does have a defined direction - stax'ing out the opponent and preventing them from playing Magic while still working on assembling our own win-con.

I do admit, I don't run a large amount of direct permanent-based protection. All I really run is:

• Lightning Greaves
• Sterling Grove
• Greater Auramancy
• Flickering Ward
• Alseid of Life's Bounty

However, I do run more spell based protection, namely being:

• Silence
• Veil of Summer
• Autumn's Veil
• Heroic Intervention

However, I also do run pieces that counter ETB abilities, which is what has been primarily used against me, (things like Acidic Slime and Reclamation Sage).

• Hushbringer
• Torpor Orb

I know in your version of Sythis you run a lot more aura spells. I'll be honest, I just don't like aura spells. I don't particularly have a good reason beyond that.

Great List! A buddy of mine runs a very similar shell here except his commander is Tuvasa the Sunlit. His main goal is to establish Solitary Confinement in tandem with his enchantresses to always have enough cards in hand to keep the confinement around! He plays Privileged Position Greater Auramancy and Sterling Grove to establish a soft lock for removal on his pieces. Eventually he will find and use cards like Idyllic Tutor and Enlightened Tutor to grab Helm of Obedience or Rest in Peace to mill us out. As far as a win-con goes, it is also not "efficient" as it only shoot one player. I would recommend solitary confinement though. That card can buy you a lot of time. Even though you cannot play cards like rhystic study I feel like you still draw enough cards to supplement it well! Hopefully this quick synopsis helps and if not, the deck looks incredibly solid here! Nice work!

3n3rgy2 thank you for the comment! I appreciate it!

I've thought about running Solitary Confinement, but in the end I've never actually gotten around to doing anything with it. As for Privileged Position, in my opinion the CMC is too high for this deck. As for Helm of Obedience, I'm not a particular fan of it due to it having an activated ability, and I'm trying to limit myself on artifacts and activated abilities. I'm even getting a Null Rod from a friend hopefully soon to add an additional source of hate against artifacts with activated abilities.

I appreciate the compliments about the deck! Honestly my favorite thing in Magic is fine-tuning decklists, and while I definitely think this deck needs some optimization (namely Living Plane in place of Nature's Revolt and Savannah in place of Scattered Groves just to name a few), I think it's pretty much as close to done as it's going to get without spending several thousand dollars on getting four to five cards.

Again, thank you!

Rightfully earned #1 position in numerous categories in my opinion! No tips nor comments from me.

I just have a question concerning the deck design (perhaps more in general, concerning low CMC cost EDH Commander decks):

How do you -land- :P on that specific land total? (Being 28 in this case.)

For when I see decks like these I always wonder how often you must get land screwed? Especially with a quite some no-colored mana providing lands on top of the low land count (Homeward Path, Stripmine, Reliquary Tower, ...).

And when do you keep your hand? When are u satsfied concerning the land count in your hand?

Thank you.

Willborn thank you for the comment!

Honestly really the only thing I look for in a starting hand land-wise is a green and a white source, whether that be through basics, nonbasics, or fetches. I've kept far too many two land hands and it's worked out mostly well for me. I'd say I'm satisfied with my hand 75% of the time. With the lower land count with not many backup sources of mana such as dorks and rocks, there is a greater chance of being mana-screwed. However, in my opinion the greatest part of running a low-CMC deck is you are still able to cast spells and you don't need to rely on getting to that fifth or sixth land drop; you're able to work with just three to four lands. The deck is designed to lock out opponents, meanwhile having the ability to constantly be playing two to three enchantments a turn, if not more. If every enchantment was four to five mana, we couldn't do that, however we're able to because 50% of the deck is less than two mana.

I will admit, I should probably look at replacing Ancient Tomb with either a basic or a fetch, as it honestly hasn't done much for me in the long run and there have been times where I wished it was a forest or a plains. However, I do love the utility having many of the lands you mentioned gives us. Deserted Temple pairs great with Serra's Sanctum and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. People in my playgroup do run troublesome lands such as Maze of Ith, Glacial Chasm, and even Dark Depths so being able to deal with them with ways such as Strip Mine and Wasteland is super nice. People also run Insurrection-esque cards, so being able to get your own stuff back is a must with Homeward Path. Emergence Zone is more niche, but it can allow us to flash in an enchantment that would screw someone over if we didn't cast it on our turn.

All in all, I suppose in the end it comes down to personal preference. I've been playing EDH with 30 or less lands for years at this point and it just feels natural to have a land count around 28 to 30, especially with lower CMC decks. If you want a higher land count, you could probably cut a few cards here or there in order to get to that point. However, 28 lands works for me just fine, so I roll with it.

Hopefully this answered your questions! If you have any more, feel free to ask.

I love the deck, and I'm wanting to build something similar. I'm just wondering what cuts you'd make for Burgeoning, Karmic Justice, Smothering Tithe, and Sylvan Library... possibly Solitary Confinement as well. I'm a little leary of SolCon in my meta, as Notion Thief seems to show up a bit often.

Hello KyleWynne22! Thank you for the comment!

I know this is kind of a shitty answer, but I would say the cards you ask for are very situational and meta-dependent.

• Burgeoning - I will be completely honest, I do not really like this card because we only run 28 lands in the deck. The only reason I'd ever really consider it would be because it's a 1cmc enchantment. It would be a different story if we were running say, 36 lands in the deck as you're more likely to be able to make use of it.
• Karmic Justice - Another card I'm rather iffy on. The main reason I don't particularly care for it is because most of the removal in my meta is creature based, such as Swords to Plowshares, Deadly Rollick, Unsummon, or Rapid Hybridization. You might could get away with cutting Manglehorn for it, as all it does is really add redundancy to the artifact hate we already run, such as Stony Silence and Collector Ouphe.
• Smothering Tithe - The main reason I don't run this is we run a bunch of things that shut down the activated abilities of artifacts, such as Collector Ouphe, Stony Silence, Root Maze, and I'm even considering adding a Null Rod for even more redundancy. All of these do not allow the treasure tokens to be used. If you absolutely wanted to use Smothering Tithe, I'd say probably _maybe_ replace one of the aforementioned anti-artifact cards, but we generate enough mana with things like Sanctum Weaver or even Cryptolith Rite I feel as if Smothering Tithe is completely unnecessary.
• Sylvan Library - This is probably the easiest of the bunch you asked about for me to justify including. I'd cut Ground Seal, as really the only reason I run it is due to the fact it draws a card itself upon ETB. The graveyard hate is negligible, as we run Rest in Peace for that. Really only reason I don't run it is due to the fact I don't have one and can't be bothered to go track one down.

Hopefully this answered your questions! If you have any more, or need help building your list, feel free to ask!

That wasn't a shitty answer. That would have been just telling me not to run them and leaving it at that. You have solid reasoning behind your input, which I appreciate. I own a Library, so I don't have to worry about tracking one down. The other 3 I own, but you make valid points as to where they don't really fit into the deck. There are really only 5 cards that I have to find a true swap for, being Wheel of Sun and Moon, Survival of the Fittest, Greater Auramancy, Deserted Temple, and Serra's Sanctum, as all of them are difficult to find for me or simply outside of my budget. Once again, thank you for your response!

KyleWynne22 if that's the case, you could probably get away just fine with cutting the Survival of the Fittest for Sylvan Library. Of the others you mentioned, the only one of them that I'd say is most needed is the Serra's Sanctum, but then again it's price alone is more than the other three combined. Wheel of Sun and Moon is super nice, but something like Library of Leng is a really budget substitute; only real reason we run Wheel over it is because Wheel is an enchantment. Greater Auramancy just provides additional redundancy that Sterling Grove provides, and you're probably fine with most cards in the maybeboard as a substitute. Deserted Temple you could probably just throw in another basic land. Really it's only purpose is to untap Serra's Sanctum and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.

I know I already said you could replace the Survival of the Fittest with Sylvan Library, but another option is Congregation at Dawn, as it's a more direct tutor.

How do you feel on Regrowth versus Bala Ged Recovery? How often are you using Regrowth? Is the one mana a big difference versus a possible extra green source?

KyleWynne22 I admit, I don't use Regrowth all that often, as half the time I exile my own graveyard with Rest in Peace or stop all interaction with Ground Seal, however, I do think it deserves a place in the deck just for the sake of having the chance to recur things.

As for Regrowth vs. Bala Ged Recovery  ^Flip, it does the exact same thing as Regrowth but for one more mana as you said. I think the point of interest for the card is the fact it can be a land, but I despise lands that enter tapped. If you look at the mana base for the deck, nearly all the lands either enter untapped or have a condition for entering untapped. The only reason Scattered Groves is in the deck is because it can be fetched for and I can cycle it if I need to draw a card. The fact that Bala Ged Recovery  ^Flip is a simply worse Regrowth or a simply worse Forest makes me dismiss the card completely.

There seems to be a misunderstanding of card interactions in your "Noteworthy Interactions" section. You say that Greater Auramancy + Sterling Grove prevents Cloudstone Curio from activating since you can't target using Cloudstone's ability, but its ability doesn't require you to target anything so it should work fine.

MrDigdigdig Sorry for getting back to you so late!

Oh wow. I did not know that. After you brought it to my attention, I went to the Magic Judge IRC chat and asked because I was still skeptical, but you're right. Thanks a ton!

I just recently got back into MtG and want to copy your Sythis Deck. I like who it works! Maybe a stupid question, but: why do you play Meekstone? Do you use it to protect yourselfs in the early game? And how do you act when your bigger creature are on the board? Hope for removal? Thanks in advance!