[Primer] – Amareth's Beautiful Baubles

Commander / EDH Combo Competitive GWU (Bant) Infinite Combo Midrange Primer

Feiryn

Land (30)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Emergence Zone
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Gaea's Cradle
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Rejuvenating Springs
• 1x Savannah
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Snow-Covered Forest
• 2x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Tarnished Citadel
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Yavimaya Coast

Draw (8)

• 1x Esper Sentinel
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Thrasios, Triton Hero
• 1x Timetwister
• 1x Verity Circle
• 1x Windfall

Ramp (20)

• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Bloom Tender
• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Faeburrow Elder
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Jeweled Lotus
• 1x Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Noble Hierarch
• 1x Priest of Titania
• 1x Sol Ring

Tutor (11)

• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Finale of Devastation
• 1x Intuition
• 1x Long-Term Plans
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Neoform
• 1x Sylvan Tutor
• 1x Whir of Invention
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Removal (4)

• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Gilded Drake
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

Commander (1)

Permission (12)

• 1x Delay
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Silence
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Veil of Summer

Utility (10)

• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Etherium Sculptor
• 1x Freed from the Real
• 1x Helm of Awakening
• 1x Mirri's Guile
• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Riftsweeper
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Thassa's Oracle

Stax (4)

• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Drannith Magistrate
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Lavinia, Azorius Renegade

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Introduction

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Preface

{U}  A match for every bauble.  {G}

Welcome! This here is a combo deck headed by the recently announced Bant commander Amareth, taking advantage of her ability for both card advantage and to go infinite for the win. Despite being in Bant colours we forgo most stax pieces in order to pack more protection for Amareth and our combos, resulting in the deck playing much more as a midrange strategy rather than control.

At first glance Amareth simply comes off as a worse Chulane, Teller of Tales, and honestly I was feeling the same way as I first started brewing this deck. Amareth has the benefit of hitting any permanents but in Bant this primarily means creatures anyways, while Chulane nets you an unconditional draw as well as a free land drop. I mainly had the deck tuned towards a flicker strategy similar to Brago, King Eternal but then I came across a few posts on Commander Legends leak threads. These talked about the potential of Sensei's Divining Top as not just a topdeck filter but also a combo piece alongside cost reducers, allowing you to draw your entire deck and going from there. Now with a compact combo unique to Amareth at the forefront, I set off to tune this list around it as one would any other competitive commander.

Amareth's biggest benefit is being a draw engine from the command zone. While her ability can certainly whiff, topdeck manipulators such as Sensei's Divining Top, Sylvan Library, and Mirri's Guile can help mitigate the chance of this happening. Despite her whopping 6cmc cost she isn't too difficult to get out as we have Green, allowing us to convert early-game ramp into card advantage within the first few turns.

Without further ado, our newest viable dragon commander Amareth, the Lustrous!

Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths

Compact – This deck only runs one 'dead' card being Thassa's Oracle. All other cards have some sort of purpose beyond just their win potential.

Consistent – We run a huge amount of ramp, plenty of tutors, and a bunch of passive card draw to top things off. So far in testing this deck has suffered from RNG less than various other commanders I run.

Explosive – Despite Amareth's cost the deck tends to win out of nowhere due to its cheap combo pieces. Our main combo costs a measily two mana aside from Amareth, and with our massive ramp we can win even off of expensive tutors such as Whir of Invention.

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Weaknesses

6cmc Commander – Amareth's biggest weakness by far is her casting cost. While our ramp definitely helps mitigate this it's still her core downside.

Stax – Many stax pieces out there shut the deck down completely. Effects such as Null Rod, Rule of Law, and taxes kill off our main wincon.

Best in Blind Metas – Most opponents won't find Sensei's Divining Top and our other combo pieces much of a threat at all. If others know what we're trying to do though, our main combo line can be shut down easily due to the amount of artifact hate players typically run.

Updates

Update 1.1 – December 16, 2020

• Minor Tweaks!

I haven't had very many chances to play EDH in the past month as my playgroup has been super busy with life, university, and other various things. As such these tweaks are the first of many to come (even though they're pretty late themselves) but I thought I might as well slap them here to start while I figure other things out.

In

Tutor:

• Intuition
• Long-Term Plans

Out

Tutor:

• Trinket Mage

Utility:

• Pemmin's Aura

#1 Overall! – November 11, 2020

Thank you guys a tonne for liking Amareth so much! With the final leaks of Commander Legends coming to a close and new universal sets on the horizon I'm sure there will be updates to the deck soon. Stay tuned for those!

Update 1.0 – November 4, 2020

• Deck and primer released!

One of my favourite commanders by far is Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, so when I saw we were getting a new Bant commander I knew I had to build a deck for them! It took a while to figure out a strategy for Amareth but once I did she's been a lot of fun to work with and tune around. While I don't think she's the most competitive Bant commander by any means, she's done surprisingly well in my games so far and hope that others will enjoy her too!

Next up for primers is Tayam, Luminous Enigma! She's one of my core decks and I already have a primer for her in the works, but I took a break from it to get one out for Amareth. Will have it done soon though!

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Deck Piloting

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General Strategy

Mulligans

We're generally looking for two things in our starting hand; ramp and a draw engine. As such, our ideal hand tends to look like this:

• 2-3 Lands
• 2-3 Dorks/Rocks
• 1 Draw Engine (Rhystic Study, Sylvan Library, etc.)

Tutors are fairly good in our starting hand as well, though they tend to be less useful than a draw engine as we can't combo off without Amareth in play.

Having a potent early-game counterspell such as Mental Misstep or Swan Song can be useful to slow down opponents.

Avoid taking hands with nothing but ramp. No point having so much mana if you have nothing to use it with!

Early Game

Our early game is all about ramp, ramp, ramp. We need to get Amareth out as soon as possible to start generating value from her ability.

Keep an eye out for opponent strategies. As we'll most likely have excess mana within the first few turns, we'll want to throw counters out against tutors and early combo pieces.

Similar to above we'll often have enough mana for us to leave Blue generators open, allowing us to bluff counters even if we have none in hand. We want to slow opponents down even slightly so that we can ramp hard enough to cast Amareth and then go for one of our combos.

Once Amareth is in play, we're able to churn through our deck fast enough for us to find our combo pieces and win.

Winning

First and foremost, our primary way to win revolves around drawing our entire deck and casting Thassa's Oracle. However, we have two ways of doing this along with one tertiary wincon:

• Drawing with Sensei's Divining Top loops.
• Generating infinite mana and using Thrasios, Triton Hero's ability to draw.
• Generating infinite mana and casting Finale of Devastation for X equals a million to beat face.

The mechanics of our Sensei's Divining Top and Thrasios, Triton Hero wincons are covered below in the Combo Explanations part of this primer.

Our core strategy is to draw into or tutor out Sensei's Divining Top and a cost reducer. We pack a bunch of artifact tutors to help with this plan alongside multiple draw engines and Amareth herself.

Utilizing mana dorks that produce multiple colours per tap such as Bloom Tender, we're able to generate infinite mana when pairing them with something that untaps them for Blue. While the mana in general is useful especially to cast Amareth, our primary use for it is to use Thrasios, Triton Hero as an outlet in place of our Sensei's Divining Top combo.

If all else fails we can always pair our infinite mana with Finale of Devastation. No one knows true fear until they get one-shot by the beefiest Birds of Paradise imaginable.

Tips & Tricks

Artifact tutors hit Etherium Sculptor.

Only cast Amareth when it's as absolutely safe as possible. We really don't want to recast her for 8cmc.

With Amareth in play you can save fetchlands on the field, then use them as shuffles when the top of your deck is unfavourable.

If you have enough mana to cast Amareth and you haven't played a land on the same turn, it can be beneficial to cast her first and then drop your land to proc her ability. Doubly goes for fetchlands.

We have no use for our life pool like Black decks do. Allow as much damage through as possible if it means keeping our dorks and such in play.

Removal primarily acts as a way to deal with stax pieces which stop our combos. While it can be useful to slow an opponent down, typically we want to save our removal for cards such as Null Rod.

Enlightened Tutor, Sylvan Tutor, and Worldly Tutor can all take advantage of Amareth's ability. As they tutor to the top of our library, we can simply play a card that matches the tutored card's type (artifact/enchantment/creature) to draw the fetched card immediately.

Combo Explanations

Amareth, the Lustrous + Sensei's Divining Top + Etherium Sculptor / Helm of Awakening

Our main wincon. Allows us to draw our entire deck and cast Thassa's Oracle for the win.

1. Have Amareth and Etherium Sculptor or Helm of Awakening in play.
2. Cast Sensei's Divining Top for 0cmc, putting Amareth's ability on the stack searching for Artifact.
3. Activate Sensei's Divining Top's tap ability, drawing a card and putting Top on top of your library.
4. Resolve Amareth's ability trigger, revealing Sensei's Divining Top and drawing it back into your hand.
5. Repeat steps 2 to 4 until your entire deck is drawn, then cast Thassa's Oracle to win.

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Bloom Tender / Faeburrow Elder + Freed from the Real

Generates infinite Green (and potentially White) mana.

1. Have Bloom Tender / Faeburrow Elder in play and untapped.
2. Cast Freed from the Real on Tender/Elder, then tap them for UG(W).
3. Spend U on Freed to untap Tender/Elder, then tap them again netting G(W) each loop.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you have enough mana to win the game.

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Infinite Mana + Thrasios, Triton Hero / Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy

Our backup wincon. Takes more setup than our Sensei's Divining Top combo but is useful for when we have to play around stax effects or if Top gets exiled.

1. Set up an infinite mana generator from the combo above.
2. If Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy is in play but not Thrasios, Triton Hero, generate an extra Blue mana each loop and search via Kinnan's ability until you find Thrasios.
3. Play Thrasios, Triton Hero and activate his ability until you have drawn your whole library, then cast Thassa's Oracle to win.

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Card Selection

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Deck Breakdown

Stax

Aven Mindcensor – Shuts down opponent tutoring and fetchlands.

Drannith Magistrate – Says no to opponents playing their commanders and utilizing Underworld Breach lines.

Grand Abolisher – Protects our combos and is especially important for resolving Amareth.

Hullbreacher – Literally just a cheaper Notion Thief that generates us ramp rather than draw.

Lavinia, Azorius Renegade – Prevents opponents from utilizing their ramp, makes 0 drop mana rocks useless, and protects us from free counterspells such as Force of Will.

Tutor

Eladamri's Call – Staple.

Enlightened Tutor – Most importantly hits Sensei's Divining Top, Etherium Sculptor, and Helm of Awakening while also fetching us Freed from the Real.

Fabricate – Fetches Sensei's Divining Top, Etherium Sculptor, and Helm of Awakening.

Finale of Devastation – Staple.

Intuition – Staple.

Long-Term Plans – Universal tutor that works well with Sylvan Library, Mirri's Guile, and other various effects.

Mystical Tutor – Fetches other tutors, extra protection, or removal to deal with something problematic.

Neoform – Turns any of our mana dorks into combo pieces as well as other useful creatures such as Gilded Drake.

Sylvan Tutor – Though typically one of the worst tutors, Sylvan becomes a lot more useful with Amareth in play as you can simply cast another creature to draw what it fetched.

Whir of Invention – Instant-speed Fabricate.

Worldly Tutor – Staple.

Draw

Mystic Remora – Staple.

Rhystic Study – Staple.

Sylvan Library – Staple.

Thrasios, Triton Hero – Decent draw engine for excess mana but more importantly part of our backup wincon.

Timetwister – Staple.

Verity Circle – Meta-dependant. Green and thus dorks are common in my meta, making Verity a great draw engine.

Windfall – Staple.

Utility

Crop Rotation – Turns any of our lands in Gaea's Cradle.

Eternal Witness – Gives us some recursion.

Etherium Sculptor – Part of our main wincon. When paired with Sensei's Divining Top it lets us draw our entire deck due to Amareth's ability.

Freed from the Real – Generates infinite mana alongside Bloom Tender or Faeburrow Elder.

Helm of Awakening – See Etherium Sculptor.

Mirri's Guile – Passive topdeck manipulation for getting more value from Amareth's effect.

Noxious Revival – See Eternal Witness.

Riftsweeper – Allows us to retrieve important combo pieces such as Sensei's Divining Top or Thassa's Oracle from exile.

Sensei's Divining Top – Part of our main wincon. With Etherium Sculptor or Helm of Awakening it costs nothing to play, allowing us to draw our deck with Amareth's ability. Also gives us a substantial amount of topdeck manipulation for even more value from Amareth.

Thassa's Oracle – How we close out games. After milling ourselves out with Sensei's Divining Top or Thrasios, Triton Hero we play Oracle and win.

Ramp

Arbor Elf – Staple.

Avacyn's Pilgrim – Staple.

Birds of Paradise – Staple.

Bloom Tender – Goes infinite with Freed from the Real or Pemmin's Aura.

Carpet of Flowers – Staple.

Chrome Mox – We need all the free ramp we can get with a 6cmc commander and at least we have a lot of redundant cards.

Elvish Mystic – Staple.

Faeburrow Elder – See Bloom Tender.

Fyndhorn Elves – Staple.

Jeweled Lotus – Because Wizards thought this was a good idea. Also because it's insanely useful with Amareth's casting cost.

Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy – Massively increases the ramp from our dorks and rocks, as well as being an optional part of our secondary wincon.

Llanowar Elves – Staple.

Lotus Petal – Sometimes we just need that extra bit of mana in this deck.

Mana Crypt – Staple.

Mana Vault – Great for getting Amareth out early.

Mox Diamond – Staple.

Mox Opal – We have enough artifacts and artifact tutors that we're typically able to proc Metalcraft.

Noble Hierarch – Staple.

Priest of Titania – Staple.

Sol Ring – Staple.

Removal

Cyclonic Rift – Staple, especially with our ramp.

Gilded Drake – Staple.

Nature's Claim – Mainly taken to deal with Null Rod and Stony Silence but also just useful in general.

Swords to Plowshares – Gets rid of Collector Ouphe and hits other various annoyances.

Permission

Delay – Great counter in 3+ colour decks due to not costing UU and prevents graveyard recursion strategies.

Dispel – Staple.

Dovin's Veto – Staple.

Flusterstorm – Staple.

Force of Will – Staple.

Mana Drain – Staple.

Mental Misstep – Staple.

Muddle the Mixture – Decent counter that also acts as a tutor for cards such as Etherium Sculptor.

Pact of Negation – Staple.

Silence – We have to resolve a lot of casts to win which makes Silence very useful.

Swan Song – Staple.

Veil of Summer – Staple.

Card Considerations

Chord of Calling – Basically just Whir of Invention but only for creatures. Definitely still has its uses but I'd rather run more artifact tutors since they hit all of our core combo pieces.

Eldritch Evolution – Outside of Amareth herself we don't have a single creature above 3cmc. Considering all of our combo creatures are 2cmc it isn't very necessary, though it has potential in general.

Force of Vigor – Meta pick, great if your pod runs a lot of Null Rod effects.

Recruiter of the Guard – Decent tutor that hits many of our creatures though suffers from its 3cmc cost and only tutoring to hand. Since we're not running flicker or bounce effects it's not as useful as it could be but still could make the list.

Scroll Rack – Fairly good topdeck manipulator for Amareth's ability, needs more testing to see if it's worth taking.

Transmute Artifact – Overall stellar artifact tutor though unsure of its inclusion in this list due to only running 11 artifacts. Needs testing.

Notable Exclusions

Brago, King Eternal / Emiel the Blessed / Deadeye Navigator – While flicker effects work great with Amareth in general they're not effective enough in a more competitive build.

Cloudstone Curio – Similar to flicker effects we don't plan on bouncing our own things to proc Amareth's ability.

Deafening Silence – All Rule of Law effects don't work well with this deck due to our main combo line revolving around casting Sensei's Divining Top multiple times to win.

Fierce Guardianship – With Amareth being 6cmc we won't always have her out for the free casting cost. While Fierce Guardianship is great once she resolves, I'd much rather run something like Spell Pierce or Miscast instead.

Linvala, Keeper of Silence – This deck aims at being more of a midrange combo deck rather than a stax one. Linvala is most likely the hatebear I'd next add to the list but for now I don't find her necessary.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben – Taxes ruin our main combo line similar to how Rule of Law effects do.

Yisan, the Wanderer Bard – We don't have enough important creatures to take proper advantage of Yisan, and as our combo creatures are all 2cmc his main usefulness stops after two tutors.

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Don't forget to +1 if you enjoyed Amareth!

I appreciate feedback, so feel free to comment below if you have any thoughts, questions, or suggestions!

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position overall 4 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 52 - 0 Rares 20 - 0 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.67
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U
Folders	Dream decks, Cool Decks, Wish list