Hello and welcome to my
Mayael the Anima
midrange deck. This was the first EDH deck I ever built and it is still my favorite to play. I’m a huge Timmy at heart, and I’ve tuned it quite a bit to keep up with the quality of my friends’ decks.
I’ll start with a little about myself and a little about my metagame to try and explain the reasons why I put in what I’ve put in and didn’t put in what I didn’t. Firstly, I’m a budget player at heart. I cringe to pay more than $3 for a card, and any expensive card I own came through trades, drafts, or was a gift. I love battlecruiser magic and play agro as much as possible, though I don’t really play any format competitively. My metagame is super casual. We don’t even meet every week, and never the same people every time we do. In general there is a soft ban on Mass Land Destruction and, for the most part, infinite combos are frowned upon if they take fewer than four cards.
Now, on to the deck:
What the deck doesn’t do:
Expensive cards: I’m not competitive enough to justify going out and dropping all my cash monies on expensive cards such as
Sylvan Library
or
Sneak Attack
.
Tutors: I lend this deck out a lot, so I avoid tutors to make it easier to play, plus I like the variance of using things like
Genesis Wave
instead of the consistency of
Tooth and Nail
.
Graveyard shenanigans: many decks can use the graveyard as a second hand, this one doesn’t. This deck makes the top of your library into your second hand instead. This functions to blank out my opponents’ graveyard hate so that it doesn’t do anything against me. I’m not even running
Reclaim
or
Noxious Revival
, but if you like recursion in your Mayael deck feel free to run things like
Paleoloth
or
Eternal Witness
. Although, I guess
Sun Titan
would count as recursion? He’s mostly just a beater.
Land Destruction: I already mentioned, my playgroup doesn’t like it. I was playing
Jokulhaups
, but when you resolve that with
Avacyn, Angel of Hope
in play people tend to dislike it.
Big Dumb Beaters: Don’t get me wrong, I love big dumb beaters like
Hamletback Goliath
, but the deck just got filled with them and I found myself not doing things except ramp until turn 6, and I wanted to be a little more aggressive.
What the deck does:
The main things this deck does are cheating creatures into play, top of the deck vision and manipulation, protecting creatures with answers to creature answers such as Hexproof and Indestructible, and ramping.
Mayael Herself: The most consistent access the deck has to cheating creatures into play is the commander;
Mayael the Anima
. As such there are some great support cards to make her even better. If you can equip her with
Illusionist's Bracers
you’ll activate her twice at instant speed, which also functions as a huge attack deterrent. If you can find and plant
Seedborn Muse
you’re activating Mayael every turn. If you can do that you should be in pretty good position by the time it gets back to your turn.
Top of the Deck: Also supporting Mayael is all the top-of-deck vision and manipulation in the deck. Strangely enough I find that I’d rather have
Crystal Ball
over
Sensei's Divining Top
a lot of the time because it allows me to get cards from the top of my library to the bottom. Top is best when you have shuffle effects to see more cards. Other cards that help you with this are
Darksteel Pendant
,
Sylvan Library
, and
Courser of Kruphix
. I also finally saved up for an
Oracle of Mul Daya
.
Cheating Into Play: These top deck manipulations smooth your draw and allow you to abuse
Call of the Wild
and
Lurking Predators
. Plus, knowing what’s on top gives you a better shot of getting something awesome with the hideaway lands;
Mosswort Bridge
,
Windbrisk Heights
, and
Spinerock Knoll
. If large beasties end up in your hand you can always cheat them into play with
Quicksilver Amulet
,
Elvish Piper
, or just play them with all the mana you probably have.
Protecting your Dudes: Once you get your big fatties out it’s important that you don’t get blown out by a
Day of Judgment
effect. The main way this deck accomplishes that is by granting indestructible.
Avacyn, Angel of Hope
is the only way to do this with a static ability. Other repeatable granters are
Deathless Angel
,
Soul of New Phyrexia
, and
Spearbreaker Behemoth
, who is one of my favorite cards. For some one-time indestructibility look at
Dauntless Escort
(who works great with
Sun Titan
),
Boros Charm
,
Eerie Interlude
, and
Valorous Stance
.
If you can’t grant indestructible there are other ways to protect your dudes. Hexproof from cards like
Archetype of Endurance
,
Asceticism
, or just some simple
Swiftfoot Boots
.
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
halves damage and dishes it out,
Sigarda, Host of Herons
stops those pesky sacrifice effects, and
Spellbreaker Behemoth
negates my least favorite things (counterspells). Some more narrow things are like
Angelic Arbiter
, which protects your dudes if your opponents want to attack.
Ramp: As you can see, the deck is a bit mana intensive because go big or go home. As such there is a healthy ramp package to get you to 6 (Mayael activation cost) as quickly as possible. The main ones you’re looking for are the early turn ramps. My favorites are
Search for Tomorrow
, which is criminally underplayed, and
Sakura-Tribe Elder
, which everybody plays.
Explosive Vegetation
is important because it bumps you to 6 mana, and
Sol Ring
can help you out in a pinch. I’m not a big fan of mana dorks in EDH; I find that they get caught up in sweepers and then I’m down mana. It’s important to get six lands into play because my group has no qualms about blowing up creatures or artifacts. I’m also seriously considering replacing
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
, because I find him a bit anti-social and oppressive.
Sweepers: If things start to get out of hand, and you need to hit a reset button, there are some good sweepers around to keep the board from killing you.
Blasphemous Act
and
Day of Judgment
are great because they don’t effect indestructible creatures and they don’t have regeneration clauses. Thus, this should-be-symmetrical effect often doesn’t affect you.
Novablast Wurm
works particularly well when Avacyn’s on the field.
Steel Hellkite
and
Balefire Dragon
are more ways to stop your opponents’ boards from getting too bonkers.
Spot Removal: When sledgehammers won’t do, and you need a scalpel, grab some spot removal. My favorite creature-based spot removal is
Flameblast Dragon
. If you need instant speed answers turn to the old reliables with path to exilw,
Krosan Grip
, or
Beast Within
. If you have some time you can always just kill your opponent.
Aura Shards
is potent in this deck because of the creature density.
The important thing about playing this deck is to not overextend. What that means depends on your metagame. If you can counter a
Wrath of God
with a
Rootborn Defenses
and can reasonably expect that the next person will also have a sweeper then it is a good idea to keep a threat in your hand. If your playgroup runs land destruction don’t run out all your ramp all at once. Get to 6 mana and sandbag your lands. The point being; think about who you’re playing against and make sure you’re not left out in the cold.
So, that’s the deck. It’s a simple one with simple concepts, but boy is it fun to play. Please let me know what you think. I’m always looking to try new cards and take the deck in different directions. All suggestions are appreciated, but I will probably only apply budget tech to my own deck. If I can reciprocate and help you out in any way just let me know. Happy stomping!
