Have you thought about adding in Boundless Realms and Tempt with Discovery? I think those are perfect fits for the deck.

Hey savagetrooper,

Thanks for your comments! Glad it helped you get excited to create your own take on Mina and Denn! Let me know when your list is up then Ill have a look.

Then, about your questions:

I did consider Boundless Realms and played it at the start. I experiences some issues with the card in my build, which is why I no longer run it.

• It is not a ramp spell that helps with the consistency of the deck. It does not help to go from 3-ish lands to many so it cant be counted as a ramp spell in that sense. If I'd run it I would probably run it in addition to enough other cards that take us to the 7-ish lands consistently.
• Another issue is that it requires a high level of basics to work reliably. In my build I only run 12 basics (and will go to 11 if I ever get my hands on a Taiga). Lets say we play Boundless Realms when having 9 lands in play and 4 of those lands in play are basics; then Boundless Realms can only grab the remaining 8 from the deck which (is still awesome for 7 mana, don't get me wrong, but it) is making the spell less powerful. This gets worse as the game progresses. This means there is a narrow moment in the game (around 7-8 lands) that the card reliably delivers on its potential when running 12 basics. Afterwards it also makes other spells that search for basics completely useless, so youll have to balance the amount of basic-land-search spells with your basic land count. That did not match well for my build.
• A third consideration is that I think other similar cards that compete for the spot are simply better, i.e. Genesis Wave, Scapeshift and Traverse the Outlands.

Tempt with Discovery is a lot of fun, and will create memorable moments, but isnt going to get you what you want reliably. In some scenarios, no one will join you and you pay 4 mana for something that Crop Rotation does at instant speed. In most other situations, the whole table joins. The issue with that scenario is that there will be a few players smart enough to search for Strip Mine or something similar and destroy the one land you actually wanted to get (usually Gaea's Cradle or Glacial Chasm). So, definitely play that card if you enjoy that type of effect and the interaction it creates at the table. It surely is a fun and potentially powerful card. I preferred to use cards that get me the lands I want reliably.

Hope this helped a bit clarifying my thoughts on the cards you mentioned ;).

Cheers,

Beebles

I’ve had some great experiences with The Great Aurora in my M&D list. With so much ramp and big card draw, you always have more permanents+ cards than everyone else. It’s not unusual for me to cast it on turn 4 or 5 with 17-19 total cards to redraw. On one occasion, I cast Avenger, got the 7 dudes and he survived a round because everyone was in recovery mode, so next turn it was Summoner's Pact into Craterhoof Behemoth for the win. On another occasion, my friend was playing the deck and when he cast it, I redrew like 10 cards and only had 2 lands. Since we play 40+, it’s very likely we won’t have that problem, but more likely opponents get boned and can’t recover.

I know it’s a big, wonky spell, but it’s been very effective and actually pretty fun to cast.

Thanks S1ydevi1 for the tip. I will consider it.

I used to run more big wonky spells in this list. However, after a while I realized I wanted to focus on casting combinations of cheaper cards for powerful effects instead of single expensive cards. Those big wonky spells I used to run were often times a dead card, or not advancing my game plan. I wanted to reduce the chance of that happening, so I cut a bunch of them.

Still, the great aurora seems fun to play every now and then. Might throw it in there once and see what happens ;).

Hour of Promise can either grab the full Dark Depths combo, or it can grab Valakut + T-Stage, which gives you a lot of options. It can also pull out any other combination of helpful lands, like Glacial Chasm.

Constant Mists is a way to take advantage of your mass of lands, and can let you stay in the game far longer than you have any right to with this card.

Sylvan Library + Abundance is a pretty sweet little combo that lets you draw 3 cards per turn. Since Abundance "draw" triggers don't actually draw, but rather place the cards in your hand, as long as you trigger Abundance on all three Library triggers, you get to draw 3 cards. Both cards are obviously pretty good on their own too.

Prismatic Omen drastically increases the power of your Valakut combo. Gratuitous Violence also helps with the combo, and drastically boosts the power of your tokens and beaters.

Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger is just a stupidly awesome power-house. Not only does he double your mana, but he shuts down your opponents plays for as long as he's in play.

Eternal Witness and Skullwinder are really great recursion effects.

Realm Seekers often comes down with 15+ +1/+1 counters and can single-handedly set up any land combo you want.

Magus of the Moon and Blood Moon are great for stalling out opponents. They have the side effect of turning off Valakut though. I run them in my R/G Borborygmos deck and they pay off more often than they mess you up.

Yavimaya Hollow is a great land to have in your toolbox. Lotus Vale too

Petrified Field + Realms Uncharted forces the opponent to make bad choices, and almost always nets you your Valakut combo, or something just as beneficial.

Wheel of Fortune is pretty great in here if you can get your hands on one. Tooth and Nail and Insurrection win games all on their own.

Sylvan Safekeeper can help you keep your permanents safe while throwing lands in the yard for later use.

Decimate and Gleeful Sabotage are amazing pieces of removal in these colors.

The main reason to run Boundless Realms is as a win-con once Valakut is in play. It can often give you enough bolts to take out all of your opponents.

Wow, lots of tips Saljen. First of all: Thanks a lot for taking the time to leave some feedback! I think I’ve considered most of your mentions though and ended up not including them due to certain preferences. Lots of cards to respond to, so here goes:

• I used to run Hour of Promise and I like the card. However, I ended up cutting it when other land tutors were printed. I think it was Pir's Whim that has taken its place.
• Constant Mists I also used to run, but I found that I did not run enough cards that synergize with it. I would probably put it back if I ever change the list to be more graveyard-oriented (similar story for Sylvan Safekeeper), or if my meta starts playing more aggro. It is a card I really like though, so I would like to run it again.
• I’m aware of the Abundance Sylvan Library combo, but that situation will occur very rarely (especially as I run no ways to tutor for enchantments). So most of the time Abundance will see play on its own. And as a stand-alone card, I do not think it warrants a spot in the deck. Same story with Prismatic Omen, which only other synergy is it makes Dark Depths and Glacial Chasm tap for mana. These cards are great when they combo, but mediocre when they don’t imo. Gratuitous Violence only works when creatures deal damage, so I don’t see how that helps with valakut…
• Eternal Witness and Skullwinder are indeed great recursion cards! However, I run witness in so many decks already so I wanted to focus on lands in this list for my recursion cards for some variety. I prefer those recursion cards over witness and skullwinder.
• I never really read Realm Seekers well enough it seems :). Will reconsider that card!
• I’ve built this deck to make the lands shine! Magus of the Moon and Blood Moon turn the stars of my deck into mountains… I agree they are great cards for stalling opponents, but it goes against what I want to do with this deck. Also, I tend to steer away from cards that mess with my opponents' lands (already cut Jokulhaups for that reason). That’s also why I’m also not running Vorinclex.
• Yavimaya Hollow is useful, but not necessary in this list I think. I never really considered it for this deck however. So I will do that :)!
• I did not include Realms Uncharted in this list as I’m not focusing on graveyard synergy. But I never considered it in combination with Petrified Field, so maybe that will change things ^.^. However, I do really like the land tutors that are already in the deck.
• Wheel of Fortune is awesome. However, I only have one of them, and I put that one in a Daretti deck, where it is more valuable for the deck strategy. Here I can run other carddraw and not feel bad about it ;). I don’t think it makes a big enough difference here to warrant that price tag.
• T&N I am already considering in this deck, but haven’t decided on it yet :). Insurrection is nice, but does not have any synergy here with the strategy or themes (I do run it in another deck where I think it is more at home).
• I agree Decimate and Gleeful Sabotage are decent removal options, but I prefer the removal pieces I ended up selecting for this list.
• You did see I only run 5 mountains right? I don’t see how Boundless Realms is going to kill all opponents with Valakut unless I have valakut copied a bunch of times and if I have a bunch of other cards in play as well that I don’t run. I actually wrote quite extensively about why I do not run Boundless Realms in my description and I stand by those arguments.

Thanks a lot for dropping by. I will consider realms uncharted, petrified field, yavimaya hollow and realm seekers ;).

Cheers,

Beebles

Awesome build, and an equally awesome primer! +1 from me!

Thanks AngelicOverseer88!! Glad you like it :)

Is there a reason why cards like Dragonmaster Outcast and Scute Mob aren't being run??

Hey Ryanh12, thanks for your question.

The short answer is that they are opposite to what I want with this deck: unpredictability. Scute Mob and Dragonmaster Outcast are both build-up type cards that telegraph your intentions to the table and increase your threat level before you receive value from them. You can read more about it under “build considerations” in the primer section.

Cheers,

Beebles

QUESTION : sorry but, what u mean "ramp in the command zone" ?

Hey. No need to apologize ;). What I mean with that is that Mina and Denn, Wildborn is a ramp card that sits in the command zone. So they provide your deck with easy access to ramp.

If you have Tatyova, Benthic Druid as your commander you could say they are card-draw in the command zone. Meaning they provide easy access to card-draw if you build that deck.

Is Lotus Field worth putting in? :)

Hey blacksh1ft,

A good question :). I wasn’t sure at first, but I think it is not worth the include. It’s OK if you have land recursion, but I’d rather have a fetch in that situation.

I think this card is a lot better if you can also combine it with lands like Flagstones of Trokair or with land aura’s + an untapper like Deserted Temple . It doesn’t seem to shine in my M&D list.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Diviner's Lockbox ?

That seems like a more expensive and incidental Harmonize . Not a contender for this deck or any edh deck I reckon. There are way better draw options.

Just wanted to say that I really enjoy playing this deck, too much that I'm in the process of foiling most of the parts. :D Thank you so much for this :)

Thanks blacksh1ft :D!

Yeah! We did it :). 100 upvotes! Thanks everyone for showing your support.

You may want to include Field of the Dead into the "tokens" column, increasing the number of token generators from 9-10.

Hey theninja97.

I tried adding lands to categories before, but I personally prefer to not do that. It allows me to see all the non-land spots at a glance, as well as the balance between them. That overview is quite nice to have when deciding on including new cards. Besides Field of the Dead there are a lot of lands that ramp, or that could be considered a hate card. So adding all of those to categories would mess up that overview quite a bit.

HeyBeebles awesome deck and primer I thoroughly enjoyed reading it!

I was thinking if the goal of the deck is to be unassuming would Tendershoot Dryad be a better fit than Omnath, Locus of Rage or Rampaging Baloths (I know blasphemous right) which are traditionally kill on sight targets for any land deck opponent. In addition the lack of haste or sac outlet enablers it feels like omnath is a sitting duck.

Another question would be why isn’t Elvish Reclaimer in the main board, yes it takes a turn to get going but a Crop Rotation effect is invaluable to up the consistency of the deck (especially during draw go turns)

Is Myriad Landscape and Nissa's Pilgrimage too restrictive for the deck’s colours?

Is there an argument to add Castle Garenbrig green ramp since most of your creatures are green, Living Twister a commander deck should be able to function without its commander and this mirrors M&D’s bounce ability, Tempt with Discovery vs Traverse the Outlands any land into play seems huge, Kessig Wolf Run Gives the deck late game staying power when even Dryad Arbor can swing for lethal

I’ve got an edited version on your list on my profile if you’re interested in taking a look

Thanks for the awesome deck!

Hey ThaneGarrus.

Thanks for checking out the deck and for giving me some the tips! I gladly answer your questions:

• Tendershoot Dryad has been on the maybeboard for a long time, and I agree it would fit the deck perfectly. I really tried to add it, but I couldn’t find a good spot for it in the end :/. I kind of stopped trying after Field of the Dead satisfied my desire to add another token maker :).
• It is true that the deck wants to keep a low profile. However, that’s only until we are ready for a big explosive play! Omnath and baloth both provide that ability for explosiveness that I want with this deck. On average you should be able to get 2 lands out the turn you bring them out, which is already decent value if someone should indeed take it out. But their ceiling is pretty high combined with something like Scapeshift or Traverse the Outlands. So those 2 landfall creatures are not going anywhere :).
• I wrote about why I did not include Elvish Reclaimer in my M20 update. Short answer: it takes 3 turns before you can use the land you want, and that is too slow for what I want with this deck. I don’t think it compares that well with crop rotation, which gives you any land right now, untapped.
• Nissa's Pilgrimage is a bit too taxing for this deck as I only run 9 basics, and I don’t like that it doesn’t fix. In a similar vein, I valued Blighted Woodland over Myriad Landscape in this build, and there are no lands I want to cut for it atm.
• Castle Garenbrig is useful, but not necessary in this build. And unlike most other decks, every landslot here is super contested, so “useful” isn’t good enough to make the cut unfortunately :). Also, I don’t run that many creatures here.
• I don’t think Living Twister is all that good tbh. I agree that a commander deck should also function well without the commander, but that doesn’t mean it should always be able to do what the commander does. This deck has many paths to victory that do not require Mina and Denn.
• I got asked about Tempt with Discovery before. It is a fun card, but I personally don’t like that it is not reliable. Sometimes you might get lucky and get 4 lands, but most of the time I would get only one, ór my opponents do what they shóuld do and search for a strip mine and destroy the one land I actually wanted to get. The point is that there is no way to tell what you will get and I prefer reliability in my tutors.
• I used to run Kessig Wolf Run for a long time, but I removed it to test other lands. I assure you, the deck has plenty of staying power late game ;), but I agree it is a strong card to have access to. Maybe it will find it’s way back someday.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts! I’ve been thinking to add a section to the primer to talk about cards that I did not include. Maybe I will start that soon :). I will also have a look at your modified deck list at a later time.

This was a journey to read. XD

But far more detailed than I could even imagine. I run Lord Windgrace as my commander for a theme like this and it turned into an aristolands (aristocrats but with lands) build due to Korvold. I run counters in the deck due to blue being the primary color of the meta I'm in but it's otherwise all about lands as well.

Cool primer!

Hey JohnMichaelBushman, thanks for your kind comment. I must have missed the notification for it at the time :).

I like the idea of aristocrats but with lands. I run a little bit of that in my mazirek deck. Will have a look at your list soon :).