Marath, Will of the Pod

Commander / EDH* Combo RGW (Naya) Toolbox

Scheer218

Creature (29)

• 1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Bloom Tender
• 1x Conclave Mentor
• 1x Cryptic Trilobite
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Drannith Magistrate
• 1x Dualcaster Mage
• 1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Emiel the Blessed
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Faeburrow Elder
• 1x Fauna Shaman
• 1x Felidar Guardian
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Generous Patron
• 1x Harsh Mentor
• 1x Imperial Recruiter
• 1x Karmic Guide
• 1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Ohran Frostfang
• 1x Priest of Titania
• 1x Quirion Ranger
• 1x Ranger-Captain of Eos
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Village Bell-Ringer
• 1x Yisan, the Wanderer Bard

Instant (16)

• 1x Abrade
• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Dromoka's Command
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Reverberate
• 1x Shared Summons
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Veil of Summer
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Branching Evolution
• 1x Hardened Scales
• 1x Sterling Grove
• 1x Survival of the Fittest
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Unbound Flourishing

Commander (1)

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Eldritch Evolution
• 1x Finale of Devastation
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Heat Shimmer
• 1x Natural Order
• 1x Sevinne's Reclamation
• 1x Steelshaper's Gift
• 1x Tooth and Nail
• 1x Twinflame

Artifact (4)

• 1x Birthing Pod
• 1x Conqueror's Flail
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring

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After playing a table-top 60 card version of Kiki-Pod combo I was inspired to build a Kiki-Pod deck of my own for EDH. Marath is a fairly popular choice for the combo because of his Naya color identity, and for his activated ability that can directly damage your opponents

This deck isnt the perfect list, its made of cards I own and a few cards I needed such has Birthing Pod to fit my vision of a Kiki-Pod deck.

Sorry there is no mana base for this list. Here is a good video from TCC on how to build a mana base in your budget https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifig4xSp0kA

Plan A - The Chain

Plan A is to create infinite hasty creatures to eliminate our opponents, we accomplish this by using Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker with Felidar Guardian or Village Bell-Ringer . We have multiple ways to reach this point, I'm going to cover all of them in order of what's easiest to understand not necessarily in order of power

Tooth and Nail

• This simply will put both combo pieces into play and win on the spot, however, it is VERY slow and is a very obvious "I win the game" card that attracts a ton of countermagic

• Total Mana Cost

Survival of the Fittest // Fauna Shaman

• For our first activation we will discard any creature to look for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

• For our second activation we will discard Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker to look for Felidar Guardian

• For our last activation we will discard Felidar Guardian to look for Karmic Guide

• Cast Karmic Guide , when it enters the battlefield return Felidar Guardian , Felidar's ETB effect will flicker Karmic Guide , the guide's new ETB effect will bring back Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

• Note: Fauna Shaman is leagues slower than anything else on the list but still has won me several games.

• Total Mana Cost +

Birthing Pod

• Sacrifice Marath, Will of the Wild or any 3 CMC creature to Birthing Pod to find Felidar Guardian , Felidar's ETB trigger will flicker Birthing Pod untapping it

• Sacrifice Felidar Guardian to find Karmic Guide , the Guide's ETB trigger will return Felidar, Felidar's ETB will flicker Birthing Pod again

• Sacrifice Felidar Guardian a second time to find Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker , use Kiki's ability to make a copy of Karmic Guide , the token Guide's ETB trigger will return Felidar, Felidar's ETB will flicker Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

• Note: This is the only line that can win on the same turn.

• Total Mana Cost + any 3 CMC creature

Yisan, the Wanderer Bard

• For our first verse counter, we will find Quirion Ranger to speed up our verses

• Activate Quirion Ranger to untap Yisan

• For our second verse counter, we will find Bloom Tender to help cover mana costs

• After our next untap phase, with Marath, Will of the Wild in play Bloom Tender will make the mana needed to activate Yisan, the Wanderer Bard . For our third verse counter we will find Village Bell-Ringer to untap Yisan and our Bloom Tender

• Using Bloom Tender make mana, activate Yisan for our fourth verse counter. This will put Felidar Guardian into play, it's ETB will flicker Village Bell-Ringer causing our Yisan and Bloom Tender to untap

• For our fifth and final verse counter we find Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

• Note: This line doesn't use the graveyard and can avoid pesky grave hate!

• Total Mana Cost (with all color identities on the battlefield) +

Plan B - Trilobites

Cryptic Trilobite Cryptic Trilobite Cryptic Trilobite , Trilobite is a newer card and is so great with Marath it could easily be your Plan A, This list isn't meant to be cEDH by any means, so I prefer the bulkier pod lines despite this being very efficient. Marath, Will of the Wild + Cryptic Trilobite + Hardened Scales create infinite mana that can only be used on abilities, and infinite +1/+1 counter on both Marath and our Trilobite, this lets us remove infinite counter to deal infinite damage. This works with

• By removing one counter for from Marath, Will of the Wild , we can put 2 counters on Cryptic Trilobite

• By removing one counter from Trilobite we gain

• We can now remove a second counter from Marath for to put 2 counters back on him

Marath is back at the amount of counters he started with, we are mana neutral, but Cryptic Trilobite has gained a counter. We can then loop this as many times as we need to make an infinitely big Trilobite gaining infinite mana that can only be used on abilities.

• With infinite mana we can repeatedly remove one counter from Marath, Will of the Wild to put two counters onto Marath

• With infinite counters on Marath, Will of the Wild we can remove them to dish out infinite damage

Plan C - Extorting Unicorns

Dockside Extortionist is a great ramp spell, Emiel the Blessed is an okay way to get an extra counter on Marath, Will of the Wild or any of our other creatures. Together, provided Dockside is making at least 4 treasures when it enters, they make infinite mana together. Infinite mana is simply infinite damage with our commander. Remove all the counters, recast, repeat.

Plan D - Shimmering Twins

The classic back up of Dualcaster Mage + Twinflame / Heat Shimmer is a reliable way to make infinite hasty attackers if any of our main combo pieces such as Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Cryptic Trilobite get exiled. Not a combo we actively go for but an tool in our belt none the less.

• Cast Twinflame / Heat Shimmer targeting any valid target

• Holding priority cast Dualcaster Mage targeting our Twinflame / Heat Shimmer

• Have our Twinflame / Heat Shimmer copy target Dualcaster Mage

• When the copy resolves, our Dualcaster Mage token copy will enter targeting the original Twinflame / Heat Shimmer

Plan E - The Grand Finale

Finale of Devastation is a solid creature tutor on its own, great for finding Yisan, the Wanderer Bard or Fauna Shaman but if the game comes down to it, tutoring out an Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and giving all of our mana dorks at least +10/+10 might be enough to close out the game. This is a last ditch effort, and is only in this list of finishers as a joke. If the game comes down to Finale to close things out, its been a rough game you should find a new pod next game

Upgrades Show

My list isnt perfect just like most lists, here are some potential upgrades

• The mana base: Fetches, Original Dual lands, Gaea's Cradle and Ancient Tomb are great inclusions to up the consistency of having the mana needed

• Aura Shards : this infamous enchantment will turn Marath's ability to create creatures into destroy target artifact or enchantment

• Additional combo lines: Heliod, Sun-Crowned + Walking Ballista is a well known infinite life and infinite damage two card combo. This combo is very efficient and often cheaper to activate than the majority of our lines, if your looking to up the power of my list its a great include

• Creatures: Academy Rector , Stoneforge Mystic

• Full Conversion: drop the Trilobite package and move fully into a 4 color pile such as Tana, the Bloodsower / Tymna the Weaver to add black mana and strong tutors, or to Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder / Thrasios, Triton Hero to add counter protection for our combos

Date added	5 years
Last updated	3 years
Exclude colors	UB
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	9 - 0 Mythic Rares 35 - 0 Rares 13 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	66
Avg. CMC	2.38
Tokens	Copy Clone, Elemental X/X G, Treasure