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OMNATH IS FUCKING PISSED [[Primer 1.2]]

Commander / EDH Burn Primer Ramp RG (Gruul) Scapeshift Tokens

Jensei


Sideboard


Maybeboard


aww

Introduction

This Omnath deck was originally inspired by my old Titania, Protector of Argoth deck, which can be found below.


Titania, Land Destruction

Commander / EDH* Jensei

SCORE: 21 | 23 COMMENTS | 9878 VIEWS | IN 16 FOLDERS


I believe Omnath is more powerful than Titania with the addition of the color red. Red allows a lot more interaction and adds a lot more powerful cards like Purphoros and non-universal haste outlets, which decks like these need. I personally enjoy land synergies and Landfall is my favorite mechanic. When Omnath was spoiled I immediately built him and here we are. Ive done a lot of testing to get to the list that I currently play, and a lot more testing has to be done.

Why Play Omnath?

Koolaid man

Omnath is a very strong general. Seven mana is no problem when youre in green with the amount of ramp you possess. With Omnaths Landfall ability, you make a 5/5 when a land enters play. This is very strong with Exploration-type effects, ramp spells/creatures, and fetchlands. His second ability is where his true power lies. When an Elemental creature you control dies when hes in play, Omnath deals 3 damage to target creature or player. This allows you to control the board or to just outright kill people without many ways to be stopped.

How to Play Omnath?

Burn

  • Besides Omnaths natural burn potential, this deck runs Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, and a bunch of lands that become Valakuts, and Scapeshift. A good Scapeshift can obliterate people out of nowhere and is incredibly powerful combo thats played in Modern that also works in EDH.

  • Goblin Bombardment is decent burn when youre creating a lot of fodder. You can ping creatures and planeswalkers, and you can finish players off late game. Goblin Bombardments primary use is a free sac outlet, with the bonus of 1 damage per creature that you sacrifice.

  • Warstorm Surge is one of the more powerful enchantments in this deck. If this card sticks to the board, you pretty much win. The amount of damage you deal with tokens that you generate off of Omnath and Rampaging Baloths is enormous and you can just run away with the game I originally ran Where Ancients Treat and Vicious Shadows, but I cut them because they were redundant and expensive.

Token Generation

  • Omnath can make tokens very easily. You use the basic function of the game, playing lands, to make 5/5s, and its not all that uncommon to be playing more than one land a turn.
  • Avenger of Zendikar is a no-brainer and is pretty much auto-include. Hes an Elemental that produces a lot of fodder for your sac outlets, but can also just kill people with the help of Craterhoof Behemoth (original, I know), and just a lot of Landfall triggers to make them big. Also synergizes with Purphoros too (No way!).
  • Rampaging Baloths is also an excellent token generator. It doesnt produce Elementals, but that doesnt matter at all.
  • Zendikar's Roil is neat because it makes Elementals, which is pretty much the reason why I havent cut it yet, and the more fodder, the better.
  • Titania is one of my favorite token generators (if she sticks around). When I took her apart to build this deck, she was pretty much auto-include. Shes an Elemental that makes Elementals that also ETBs a land back into play, which is a lot of value. In certain situations, she can get very out of hand by herself. Primary synergy with Scapeshift and fetch lands and Strip Mine.
  • Hammer of Purphoros can produce tokens for that extra push. It can also save lands from being exiled, or allows you to cycle Mountains to keep triggering Valakut via Life from the Loam and/or Crucible of Worlds.
  • Xenagos, the Reveler and Garruk Wildspeaker do produce tokens, but I dont normally use those modes. Mana production/untapping lands is more relevant than the 2/2 and 3/3.
  • Parallel Lives, I feel, is the only token doubler that is needed (if any at all). I already feel like its win-more, but it can help the deck a lot and produce a disgusting board state, and it only costs . Doubling Season is not relevant because I dont need the counter mode, and it costs . I deem Primal Vigor unplayable because it helps your opponents and we dont want that.

Interaction

  • Omnath is actually very interactive when it wants to be. He can control the board really well if you have Elementals to sac and a sac outlet.
  • Common cards most green and red decks use to interact are as follows: Reclamation Sage, Beast Within, Krosan Grip, Chaos Warp, Wild Ricochet , Hull Breach, Decimate, Blasphemous Act, and Scavenging Ooze against decks that use their graveyard as a resource (which are most of the decks that I play against).
  • Cards like Chord of Calling, Green Sun's Zenith, Natural Order, and Worldly Tutor allow you to tutor for some of these cards as well, keep in mind.
  • Crop Rotation is actually a great line of play that many people wont see coming. Grabbing Maze of Ith, Strip Mine, or even getting your Valakut going is all valid.
  • Cards mentioned earlier like Valakut, Warstorm Surge and Goblin Bombardment are excellent cards to kill things with, if you dont have enough to kill people, that is.
  • Wild Ricochet might seem odd to you. Let me explain. Have you ever wanted to punish someone so hard for targeting you with a spell, or casting a stupid spell that might win them the game? Boy I have news for you. YOURS RESOLVES FIRST! Tooth and Nail? Sure Ill take that. Fireball me? Nah. Fireball yourself twice. Someone casts a removal spell that kills something that you dont want to die, or just want to copy it? Go for it. You cast Chord for X? Copy it and get two dudes. This card can be very versatile and it has won me many games.

Card Draw/Advantage

  • Elemental Bond is amazing, but dangerous. The trigger isnt a may trigger, so you cannot omit from drawing the cards. This can be dangerous because you can mill yourself out. Otherwise, this card is amazing. You draw off of Omnath, Baloths, Titania, their tokens, as well as Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof.
  • Greater Good is pretty insane. Sometimes playing this allows you to win out of nowhere, drawing all the pieces you need to really go for it. The main synergy is discarding Anger for haste on all of your creatures, but also to fill your graveyard with Crucible of Worlds and Titania targets. Sacking an Elemental is pretty common, netting two cards for each creature.
  • Sylvan Library is common in most green decks. Alongside fetches, you can filter your draws pretty nicely, and this card works well with Oracle of Mul Daya.
  • I would consider Nissa, Vastwood Seer   a mini engine of sorts. Her +1 is her most relevant ability. You either get a Landfall trigger, or draw a card. You can use Worldly Tutor as a tutor if you wish for techy plays.
  • Evolutionary Leap is great card advantage. The deck doesnt run many creatures, so you use your tokens to essentially dig for relevant creatures. Every creature in this list does something that you want to be doing, so its never bad to do. Its also just a sac outlet if you need it.

Recursion

  • Eternal Witness is the staple green recursion card. Use it to get something back that you want to reuse.
  • Regrowth is in the same boat as Eternal Witness.
  • Greenwarden of Murasa is another Eternal Witness, but allows you to recur something when it dies if you exile it. Its also an Elemental, so if you choose for it to go to the graveyard, youll get the Omnath trigger (if hes on board).
  • Titania for obvious reasons that I listed above.
  • Crucible of Worlds also for obvious reasons. This allows you to reuse fetch lands and to also recur important lands that you have lost to people actually interaction with you (weird, I know).
  • Restore is the newest addition to the deck. It allows you to get whatever land you wish from any graveyard. Its helpful if you have Crucible or not. Strip Mine their land and take it as your own. The world is yours.
  • Life from the Loam allows you to recover after a Scapeshift, and lets you omit from drawing off of Elemental Bond. Another cute interaction is using Worldly Tutor to tutor up Anger to the top of your deck so you can Dredge it. The main use is to recur Mountains for Valakut, or fetchlands to get a lot of Landfall triggers.

Tutoring

  • Expedition Map allows you access to any land from your deck. I usually get Valakut, but if I want to apply pressure to the board, depending on what I have on board.
  • Crop Rotation allows you to get any land from your deck at instant speed. Using it to get Glacial Ghasm is great. Also, you can get Maze of Ith if theres someone you dont want to get hit by. Ive done this on turn 1 to stop Serra Ascendant from hitting me (or anyone, as Maze of Ith is rather political).
  • Chord of Calling is great. You can use the tokens produced by your creatures to help cast it. This card is pretty straight-forward. Tutor up a card you need when you need it.
  • Worldly Tutor is great because if you need a creature, you can guarantee it for the next turn (or that turn with a draw engine). You can tutor up an answer, or to just wipe people out.
  • Natural Order, is a one-time Green Suns Zenith that allows you to get any green creature for 2GG and the low price of one green creature. This is usually used to close out games, but dont be afraid to get out Wood Elves or Titania if you need lands. You can always recur it later if nobody exiles it out of your graveyard.
  • Sylvan Scrying, like Expedition Map, allows you to look into your deck to find any land you want. Again, I usually go for Valakut if I dont already have it, but it depends on the situation.
  • Scapeshift can be used just to tutor for some lands, or to fill your graveyard for Crucible value. But you usually use Scapeshift to finish people off, if not everyone off.
  • Green Sun's Zenith is a great, re-usable tutor. You can use it on turn 1 to grab Dryad Arbor, which is cute. Otherwise, it gets any creature from the deck besides Solemn, Burnished Hart, Anger, and Purphoros.
  • Tempt with Discovery is amazing. People shouldnt take the tempt, but theres always going to be that one person that is missing land drop that really needs it, or people will greed out and get the good land out of your deck. Use this opportunity to trick them into playing a good land and strip it away from them using Strip Mine. Also, you can just get Valakut, Vesuva, Thespian's Stage if you dont already have them. They got Strip Mine from it to destroy your lands? Dang. How will you ever recur them?

Synergies and Combos

Sacrifice the creature to Perilous Forays > Grab the basic out of your deck > Lotus Cobras Landfall Trigger > Repeat until you have no basics in your deck.

  • If Omnath is on board, you deal a massive amount of damage. If you have Valakut out, you tutor all of your Mountains, dealing a bunch of damage to whatever you want.
    • This combo shouldnt happen literally ever. Its cool when it happens, though.
  • Dryad Arbor + Yavimaya Hollow and Dryad Arbor + Evolutionary Leap are both very cute. You use the mana produced by the Dryad Arbor to activate the effect of the other card. With Hollow, you just block everything forever (unless it has flying, protection from green, trample, etc).
  • You might question why Birthing Pod is still in this deck, when I dont have a good curve for it. I think its pretty decent.
  • Omnath pods into Craterhoof. Avenger pods into Craterhoof, Solemn Simulacrum and Anger pod into Titania you get the picture. Birthing Pod presents a lot more lines of play and makes the deck a lot more flexible.
  • Crucible of Worlds + Glacial Chasm is a neat loop. On your upkeep, you can choose to not pay the cost, sacrifice it, and just play it again. This is helpful when it starts costing a lot of life to maintain the fortress.
  • Crop Rotation + Glacial Chasm pretty much says Youre attack me for lethal/fireballing me? Nah.
  • Scapeshift + Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle is very powerful. I mentioned earlier how you can produce a massive amount of damage while doing this. If you dont have the damage to kill people, you can always clear the board of anything you dont like.
  • Azusa, Lost but Seeking + Crucible of Worlds + Strip Mine is classic. Players annoying you? Get rid of the color they barely have any of. Its mono-colored? Well every deck needs mana, right? I dont normally go through with this line unless absolutely necessary.
  • Pretty much if someone is super far ahead Ill try and strip them and get them back down to my level. Also, if I know they need their lands for something important, or if they have a land that affects me in any way.
  • Avenger of Zendikar + Purphoros, God of the Forge is the most original play Ive ever seen. But you gotta work for it in this deck, somewhat. You cannot pay to get it out of your deck with a Tooth and Nail. You gotta jump through some hoops to get this one. By the time this resolves though, you should win the game, if it resolves.
  • Ashnod's Altar + Parallel Lives + Perilous Forays is also very cute with a Landfall token generator.
  • Kozilek, Butcher of Truth + The Great Aurora is probably the only way you can truly reset the game. Someties, you draw al of your lands and you ramp really hard, and you never see Valakut or some of the normal stuff you see. It's a good way to reset everyone (but moreso yourself) and to set people up for a boppin'.
  • Evolutionary Leap + Worldly Tutor allows you to basically draw any creature you want from your deck. It's a similar idea to Solemn Simulacrum + Worldly Tutor .

Weaknesses

  • An early Aven Mindcensor: Stops you from ramping early game, as well as bricking all of your tutors unless you get lucky. The good news is most people would want this dead anyways. If you have the answer, go for it. If not, pray that someone else answers it or youre going to be doing a whole lot of nothing for a while.
  • Decks that inflict loss of life:
  • Decks with Lifegain: Since you're a burst burn/aggressive deck, you need to reduce their life to 0. The deck doesn't run anything with infect like Triumph of the Hordes, so if they have a truckload of life, you can't really do much to them besides stay alive long enough for someone else to deal with them.
  • Lack of Lifegain: The deck doesn't really have anything to gain you life besides Scavenging Ooze. Long games are your worst nightmare because some people might be able to heal, while you might be struggling to stay alive. If you're abusing Glacial Ghasm, it's even worse.
  • Control: If the game is long and you're getting answered every step of the way, things probably won't work out well. I've had some games where I would do a lot, get answered, draw like garbage, and pretty much get countered out of this dimension. Naturally with the right tools, you tell Cyclonic Rift to suck it, when you sac all your dudes in response and tell them to eat X amount of damage. Also you can establish a pretty sweet boardstate out of nowhere. And don't forget that Wild Ricochet can be a counterspell in the right situations.

Cards on the Watchlist

Cards I'm Testing

  • Altar of Dementia: It's another cheap sac outlet, almost identical to Goblin Bombardment. Making people mill on average five cards at a time can actually add up, even though we aren't really using the card for the effect, rather than just getting Omnath triggers and value off of our tokens. Who knows, you can mill the combo piece they need, hit the Eldrazi that shuffles their library, or help the graveyard player hit their combo a lot faster!
  • Kozilek, Butcher of Truth: It's card draw, it's a threat, and it can cycle my graveyard into my library after a long game, or to avoid it from being exiled. Good with sac outlets to prevent it from being exiled itself, always getting the shuffle trigger.
  • Ancient Grudge: Artifacts are pretty strong. Yeah Hull Breach hits enchantments, but artifacts are more relevant in my meta. It's early removal and the Flashback is pretty powerful for . I might change it back to being Hull Breach if I find that enchantments are becoming more difficult to deal with.

Potential Additions

  • Basilisk Collar: Seems like a neat concept. Equip it to Omnath for tons of lifegain and essentially ping creatures once and they die unless they're indestructible.
  • Woodfall Primus: More interaction. Works well with my sac outlets to get maximum value. It's another 8 drop for Birthing Pod besides Craterhoof.
  • Commune with Lava: Another Genesis Wave-like effect. Allows you to see more cards and it's a fantastic top-deck.
  • Harmonize: The deck can run out of steam without a draw engine, so adding the best draw spell in green doesn't seem too bad.

Cards I Cut

  • Asceticism: I'll remember the reason someday.
  • Kessig Wolf Run: This card seemed to be an obvious choice when I was making the deck, but after playing so many games, I realized that I was never using it, and I was using it to just cast spells that did something that won me the game. If I'm passing the turn with open mana, it's pretty much to save it for an instant speed spell or ability. It's neat with Crop Rotation, to just get trample and a lot of damage out of nowhere, but it was still kind of lackluster.
  • Garruk's Packleader: to me is a lot for a sub-par draw engine. I never really wanted to pod into it and I never really wanted to cast it. Whenever I did it died and most of the time I already had another draw engine out, so it wasn't even needed.
  • Lightning Greaves: It didn't do enough. I'd rather have Hammer of Purphoros or something than this. I just think it was redundant because I didn't really care much for the protection aspect of the card.
  • Animist's Awakening: I'd rather run Boundless Realms, most of the time. This card can brick randomly, and Boundless Realms is more consistent. I might change my mind later, but for now, it's out. I've bricked way too many times on this card.
  • Boundless Realms: Never play this if you're thinking that you're going to be able to safely cast this with Omnath on board. It's a fine ramp spell, but I have enough of that.

Budget Options

  • Evolving Wilds/Terramorphic Expanse instead of Wooded Foothills/Windswept Heath/Bloodstained Mire: They pretty much do the same thing, except they search for basics and not Stomping Ground/Cinder Glade. They still provide the Landfall triggers that Omnath wants, and they give you Mountains for Valakut to trigger. The only downside is that you're losing mana so you're going to be a little bit slower, but speed comes with a price.

Non-Budget Options

  • Gaea's Cradle: For obvious reasons, this card is insane and provides a huge power-spike for Omnath. One land that can potentially net one mana MINIMUM is disgusting. If you have the money, go ahead. Tutor for it every game and style all over your opponents.

Cards I Wont Play

  • Tooth and Nail: I used to abuse this card all the time. It was the only way I won games because when I drew it I windmill-slammed it and pretty much won the game. Yeah it's an amazing card in the deck and would make this deck disgusting. Play it if you want, but if you want to play honest, real Magic, don't play it.
  • Rites of Flourishing: I was never one for helping my opponents, and the argument that "You'll abuse it better than them" is very weak. Since I'm in green, I naturally ramp faster than any other non-green player, so why should I give them that same advantage? Giving your opponents card draw and ramp will allow them to answer you and potentially get there faster than you. I personally wouldn't want to give the combo player extra cards and lands to work with, but that's just me.
  • Command Tower/Reflecting Pool: Do I really have to say it? So many of the cards in this deck tutor for basics and Forests/Mountains, so why would you waste slots on these cards?

Oath of the Gatewatch Update Coming Soon!

Suggestions

Updates Add

So if you want to Scapeshift or Tempt with Discovery into Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and Vesuva and you want two Valakuts, there better already be one in play.

Unfortunately I've been doing it wrong. Scapeshift into double Valakut is not possible, as the Valakut has to be in play in order to Vesuva to copy it as it cannot copy something that is not in play yet (if you're playing them both at the same time, as with Scapeshift and Tempt with Discovery).

It's unfortunate, I know, but we'll all move on with our lives.

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