Master Oogway's Guide to a long life

Commander / EDH BUG (Sultai) Combo Control Landfall Lands Tap/Untap

seshiro_of_the_orochi

Lands (39)

• 1x Blighted Woodland
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dakmor Salvage
• 1x Dimir Aqueduct
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 6x Forest
• 1x Golgari Rot Farm
• 1x Guildless Commons
• 1x Hinterland Harbor
• 5x Island
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Mortuary Mire
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Otawara, Soaring City
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Simic Growth Chamber
• 5x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Mystery
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Waterlogged Grove
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Witch's Cottage
• 1x Yavimaya Coast
• 1x Zagoth Triome

Recursion/Recycling (8)

• 1x Ancient Greenwarden
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Perennial Behemoth
• 1x Quirion Ranger
• 1x Ramunap Excavator
• 1x Scryb Ranger
• 1x Splendid Reclamation
• 1x The Mending of Dominaria

Ramp (15)

• 1x Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait
• 1x Blossoming Tortoise
• 1x Case of the Locked Hothouse
• 1x Drift of Phantasms
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Jaspera Sentinel
• 1x Lotus Cobra
• 1x Moonsnare Prototype
• 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1x Paradise Mantle
• 1x Rampant Growth
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Springleaf Drum
• 1x Wayward Swordtooth

Value (11)

• 1x Abundance
• 1x Augur of Autumn
• 1x Avenger of Zendikar
• 1x Commander's Insight
• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Meloku the Clouded Mirror
• 1x Rampaging Baloths
• 1x Read the Bones
• 1x Tatyova, Benthic Druid
• 1x The Gitrog Monster
• 1x Tireless Tracker

Protection (3)

• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Saryth, the Viper's Fang
• 1x Whispersilk Cloak

Commander (1)

Interaction (13)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Consuming Tide
• 1x Devastation Tide
• 1x Ezuri's Predation
• 1x Final Act
• 1x Flood of Tears
• 1x Jwari Disruption  ^Flip
• 1x Mystic Confluence
• 1x Negate
• 1x Putrefy
• 1x Return to Nature

Combo/Wincon (10)

• 1x Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
• 1x Llanowar Scout
• 1x Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar
• 1x Patron of the Moon
• 1x Retreat to Coralhelm
• 1x Retreat to Hagra
• 1x Ruin Crab
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Scout
• 1x Scaled Herbalist
• 1x Tideforce Elemental

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Maybeboard

Other (1)

• 1x Koma, Cosmos Serpent

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Archelos, Lagoon Mystic is magic's answer to Master Oogway from the Kung Fu Panda series. An ancient turtle person who wants to teach us that speed isn't everything. You only have to be less slow than your opponents. And by that, I mean that this deck can be very fast while heavily slowing down opponents.

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You come to a crossroads

There are two general paths to building Archelos. And as Stax is something I don't like too much, Landfall it is here.

And what a Landfall deck this is. As Archelos allows every cheap fetchland to put lands onto the battlefield untapped, a simple Evolving Wilds becomes a powerful card, and even more so with ways to play additional lands and/or play lands from the grave.

With all this ramp, there's a multitude of ways to win a game, from milling everybody out to draining everybody to death to attacking with an infinite amount of 1/1 flyers to a win with Jace, Wielder of Mysteries and even just combat damage from the various big creatures, this deck will hardly find itself in a place where it can't manage to squeeze out some terrific lines of play.

Circle of growth and regrowth and regrowth and regrowth and...

I can do some pretty cool shenanigans thanks to Archelos:

With him, Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds become even greater cards. There are multiple cards with Landfall abilities and quite a few which allow me to play additional lands. With The Gitrog Monster, Ramunap Excavator and Ancient Greenwarden, these become actual ramp.

Spinning in the shell

The Wincon is a combo:

If we control an untapped Archelos, a Sakura-Tribe Scout and Retreat to Coralhelm or Tideforce Elemental, a simple bounce land gives us infinite mana: We put out the bounce land with Scout. Thanks to Archelos, it enters untapped. With both the triggered ability of the land and the trigger from Retreat/Elemental on the stack, we tap the land to produce two mana. We bounce the land to it's own ability and untap Scout. Rinse and repeat while netting infinite life drain via Retreat to Hagra, infinite mill with Ruin Crab or infinite beast tokens from Rampaging Baloths. This should usually get the job done. When using Tideforce Elemental, it's important to always use its {T} before its landfall trigger resolves. If you forget, you disrupt the combo.

This also works with Archelos, Patron of the Moon and a bounceland. Did I mention we have four of those?

Another combo in here is this: Tatyova, Benthic Druid + Retreat to Coralhelm + Sakura-Tribe Scout/Llanowar Scout + Abundance: Play a land, use Aesi or Tatyova to dig for another land with Abundance. Put down the land with either of the Scouts. Use Retreat to untap the Scout, find another land with Abundance, rinse and repeat to put all lands from your deck onto the battlefield. Use the final land to fail to flip a land with Abundance and stack your deck in any way you want. This basically results in letting you tutor for any card from the deck every single turn. This also works with Archelos and Patron of the Moon instead of a scout and Retreat.

More combos found:

In a recent game, I controlled (among others) the following cards: Archelos, Patron of the Moon, and Meloku the Clouded Mirror. In hand, I had exactly one card: Guildless Commons. So, what did I do?

I made infinite mana with Patron + Commons, and turned that into 7 trillion illusions with Meloku. That was fun.

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The description is going through a makeover to explain better what'sup here. Until that is done, there will bemany parts where I'm repeating explanations. Still, thanks to everyone who takes the time to go through the list and maybe leave a comment. Each and every feedback is massively appreciated.

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Planned changes:

In:

Out:

Top Ranked	Achieved #12 position overall 4 years ago Achieved #9 position in Commander / EDH 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH BUG (Sultai) 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Landfall 4 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	1 week
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 34 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 21 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.34
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Beast 4/4 G, City's Blessing, Clue, Illusion 1/1 U w/ Flying, Phyrexian Beast 4/4 G, Plant 0/1 G
Folders	Inspiration, My EDH, builds, EDH decks, Land Lord, decks, Decklists, wishlist, Flavorful, A Very Cool EDH Folder