Do you like hilarious win-cons? Fun group hugs for everyone's land? Get ready for a ride
It's back and better than ever. I've made some major updates to this deck recently and it's back to make your playgroup miserable.
This is my old Genju of the Realm deck, it's since become a Golos, Tireless Pilgrim deck just for simplicity's sake. Me and my buddy do a commander lotto every week where we pick a random commander and build an impromptu deck around it. We did a lotto for noncreature legendary cards and I got Genju. I wanted to see what I could do with land creatures because that's kind of a fun mechanic to play around with that I never use. Took me a little while to decide which way I wanted to go with it, and then I saw Living Plane. This is the card that the deck revolves around for multiple reasons. The idea of the deck is to turn everyone's lands into creatures as soon as possible and then ruin their day. Genju isn't the commander anymore, but you can still run him as your commander if your playgroup lets you.
Living Plane is the first building block for anything we're doing in this deck. So we're gonna want to grab that real quick. Golos is the commander just to get rid of the conversation you have to have about your commander before a game starts, but also because he gives you another option to try and find Living Plane off the top of your deck. We have a lot of those in here because this is a deck built around one card, we need that one card. Scroll Rack and Sensei's Divining Top both help us peek at the top few cards and potentially get key pieces off the top, they can also help set us up for Golos activations. Sylvan Library functions in much the same way, Rhystic Study is another enchantment that gives us card draw, hopefully setting us up for what we want to do. There's a ton of tutors in here to try and find Living Plane, I won't list them all but I will touch on a couple that stand out. Plea for Guidance is a bit pricy, but it can ensure we have all our combo pieces whether that be living plane, an anthem, or a -1/-1 for the board. It gets two things, so that's pretty worth the mana in my opinion. Calix, Destiny's Hand can help us find enchantments, which are most of our combo pieces, and he can also help recur Living Plane or any other key enchantments if he's allowed to stay out long enough, he also has some removal baked in so all in all a very flexible piece for us. Academy Rector and Lost Auramancers are both creatures that help cheat out enchantments straight to the field. Finally, Sterling Grove protects our pieces if they're already out, and can also help find key pieces if we need them.
So, Living Plane is the keystone of our strategy, but we need other pieces to ruin our opponent's day. Our main strategy is going be to cards like Night of Souls' Betrayal paired with anthem effects like Gaea's Anthem to buff our lands enough to not die to the other enchantment, but simultaneously wiping all our opponent's lands and preventing them from playing any more, essentially declaring checkmate. There are cards like Ethereal Absolution and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite which accomplish both goals simultaneously, these are some of the best cards in the deck. Those two effects aside, the deck contains 5 permanents that give our team a buff, and 2 permanents that debuff the board. So if you're looking for a checkmate be sure to use one of your tutors to secure Engineered Plague or Night of Souls' Betrayal. However if we just want to wipe all the lands, there are plenty of options for that. Nausea and Shrivel will both accomplish our goal at sorcery speed quite nicely. Rolling Spoil is another way to wipe lands, that's very on brand. Doomwake Giant has that effect on a creature, and it's constellation effect helps you keep a lock on the board. Minister of Pain and Noxious Ghoul both give us this one shot effect on a creature as well.
I'll briefly mention a couple other effects that are fun in here:
Humility is a surefire way to make people mad, but also just additional insurance that our combo won't be disrupted. It also assists in cleaning the board once we apply a debuff. Juntu Stakes is another mean option to use if you don't have a debuff in hand, if you have an anthem it essentially makes it so you're the only player than can use lands. Linvala, Keeper of Silence functions similarly by preventing your opponent's creatures from activating abilities, which includes tapping for mana. Goblin Sharpshooter is another way to wipe all the lands and prevent more from being played since he can just machine gun down any lands that hit the field. Profaner of the Dead doesn't wipe lands, but can bounce them all the hands, which is such a tempo move that it might as well wipe them. Raging Swordtooth and Electrickery are also both options to hit everything for one damage.
Another fun combo is to play Magus of the Tabernacle or Pendrell Mists once Living Plane is out. This one can burn you a little too, so be sure that you have mana rocks out before you put him out. This can also be negated by having Mirari's Wake out so you don't have to go one for one with your lands like your opponents will. Essentially, with all their lands being creatures, at the upkeep they're gonna have to sac every non-land creature and then choose between saccing all their land or tapping it all out immediately. As long as you have a couple mana rocks out, you should be good to go, just swing in with whatever creatures you saved with your rocks. Congrats, you just won.
Want another fun one? Living Plane -> Sway of Illusion -> Llawan, Cephalid Empress bounce all their creatures and lands into their hand. Also do you have more land than your opponent? Hit em with a Peer Pressure after Living Plane comes out. Need I say more? There are plenty of fun shenanigans to pull, and it's easy with all the tutors to pull the combo you want.
So there we have it. This deck was once pretty janky and casual, but I've found I can wipe all my opponents lands and potentially prevent them from playing more for the rest of the game, essentially checkmating them by turn 7 or 8 on a regular basis. It's kind of disgusting and nobody sees it coming. Let me know what you think!
