Prossh, the Combo Hungry [Primer]

Commander / EDH Aggro BRG (Jund) Competitive Dragons Infinite Combo Primer

TheDracogenius

Combo (15)

• 1x Assault Strobe
• 1x Atarka, World Render
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Falkenrath Noble
• 1x Food Chain
• 1x Goblin Bombardment
• 1x Impact Tremors
• 1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• 1x Ogre Battledriver
• 1x Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1x Tainted Strike
• 1x Tooth and Nail
• 1x Xenagos, God of Revels
• 1x Zealous Conscripts
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Draw (5)

• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Smothering Abomination
• 1x Sylvan Library

Land (34)

• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cinder Glade
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 3x Forest
• 1x Karplusan Forest
• 1x Kessig Wolf Run
• 1x Khalni Garden
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 2x Mountain
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Rootbound Crag
• 1x Savage Lands
• 1x Smoldering Marsh
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Sulfurous Springs
• 3x Swamp
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Westvale Abbey  ^Flip
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Woodland Cemetery

Ramp (18)

• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Explosive Vegetation
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Joraga Treespeaker
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Nissa, Vastwood Seer  ^Flip
• 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Skyshroud Claim
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Somberwald Sage
• 1x Sylvan Caryatid

Removal (9)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Butcher of Malakir
• 1x Crux of Fate
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Putrefy
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Tutor (9)

• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Eldritch Evolution
• 1x Fauna Shaman
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Pattern of Rebirth
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Utility (6)

• 1x Courser of Kruphix
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Garruk Wildspeaker
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Xenagos, the Reveler

WinCondition (3)

• 1x Avenger of Zendikar
• 1x Beastmaster Ascension
• 1x Craterhoof Behemoth

Commander (1)

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Prossh, the Combo Hungry

This is my take on one of the most powerful generals to ever see the light of day!!!

Prossh is both, my first and favourite general to build a deck around. Since the release of the Commander 2013 product I refined and tuned the deck to haunt the dreams of those who oppose it. Well known for his power you can see opponents shudder in fear before he even enters the battlefield!

== Disclaimer! ==

First:

I am not a native English speaker and still a student who learns to speak the language, so feel free to point out the mistakes I make, that would really help me out.

Second:

Please do not start a discussion about the use infinite combos in EDH! This is not a deck to play against someone who is new to the format and uses a preconstructed deck, but rather a build to be the archenemy at the table against three other strong commander decks.

Third:

I am just a human being and susceptible to personal bias, so please take everything you read with a grain of salt and feel free to try and change my opinion in the comments below if you do not agree with my evaluations :D

== The Story behind Prossh ==

Unfortunately the Wizards Story Department did not give out much information regarding the storyline of Prossh, but there still are some things we know.

Although everything about his card screams for him to be native to the shard of Jund on Alara, he actually resides on a different plane. He dominates the mountains known as the Kher Ridges on Dominaria, which is where his title Prossh, Skyraider of Kher derives from. Since Prossh is determined to protect his terretory and hunting grounds, he punishes everyone who tries to compete with him or hunt on the land he claims to be his by burning them alive with his powerful dragonfire. If one person hunts in his area, the whole village will have to suffer for that mistake! Just his shadow on the horizon or the sound of his wings are enough to make every living creature seek a fireproof shelter that can withstand his outrage.

But his reputation is actually useful to a special type of creatures, the Kobolds of Kher Keep. These pathetic midgets worship Prossh for his power and sometimes even sacrifice themselves to their dragon god in the hope that he spares their kin in return, which is clearly displayed on his card. For that reason Prossh protects their castle Kher Keep from other potential threads with his mere presence. Prossh and the kobolds coexist and profit off each other: Prossh recieves little snacks from time to time and the kobolds get a chance to build up a society far far away from any potential danger other than Prossh himself.

These little guys seem like the perfect meal for a dragon, right?

== Personal Thoughts ==

When I first decided to buy a preconstructed commander deck to try out the format, Prossh was only my third choice. I had seen the early spoilers of the cards in Commander 2013 and decided to buy the Mindseize deck with Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge as commander. When I arrived at my local game store to pick up the deck I found that all copies of the deck had been bought already because the deck contained Baleful Strix and True-Name Nemesis. My second choice, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician was also nowhere to be found. Since I did not want to leave with empty hands, I bought the Power Hungry deck with Prossh as the main option to use as the general for the deck. Little did I know that he was one of the most powerful if not the most powerful general to ever be printed! I figured that I would try out the format and if I found it to be fun, I would build a Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind deck and play with that instead. The first time I played with Prossh was against some random person at the store and I instantly fell in love with the deck. EDH quickly became my favorite format to play and I began to tinker with the deck. I swapped out underperforming cards from the Power Hungry deck for better cards from my collection, then I continued to trade for cards that I thought would perform well in the deck. After intodrucing my father and my step brother to the format, I really started to beef up the deck, since I now had competition. Before that I was the only one I really knew who played EDH. I went for a token and sacrifice theme, including cards like Doubling Season and Parallel Lives aswell as many token creators. I figured that spawning 16 tokens to sacrifice to Prossh for a lethal attack via commander damage was a good strategy. But after a while I dipped my toe into other strategies and moved the focus around to dragon tribal, Overrun effects or midrage-attrition, but it never felt quite right to me. Then I finally received my copy of Food Chain in the mail. I adjusted a huge part of the deck to fit the combo in, almost entirely removing the token aspect of the deck. Since then I always tried to make the deck more efficient and even more powerful and I think it turned out pretty well.

Now, two years of testing and deck construction later, my deck, Prossh, the Combo Hungry, is a serious contender for the title deadliest deck at my LGS!

== Introduction ==

Why Prossh?

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Why Jund?

Jund has the ability to get rid of any permanent type in the entire game reliably. In addition to that this color combination has access to a wide variety of black and green tutor effects, which means that you have those covered. It has access to the green ramp spells that focus on cheating out extra lands rather than using artifacts, which are way easier to destroy. Red might be reduced to a splash color in most decks since all noteworthy red cards you want to run either require Jund mana to cast them, are better artifact destruction or just haste enablers. But even those can be valuable. Jund plays out very similar to a pure Golgari () deck, but way more violent, so the added red is definatly an upside over using only two colours, especially for the token decks. Jund supports mostly token, sacrifice themed and reanimator decks. Most of the Jund decks will embody all these aspects, just to a different extend. If you want to build a strong commander deck, you have a long list of generals to choose from. Excluded are Xira Arien, Adun Oakenshield, Vaevictis Asmadi, Darigaaz, the Igniter and Bartel Runeaxe. These generals are underperformers in my opinion and it is despite them being at the helm that their decks work well, but rather because Jund is an inherently powerful color combination.

Choices are:

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher

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1. Prossh is one of the few generals that work with sacrificing and also create their own fodder, so he is essentially self contained and brings everything with him that you need to win the game, while other generals need setup cards to make them powerful.

2. Prossh is a sacrifice outlet, which means that you do not have to struggle finding as many other free sacrifice outlets as in other decks with this theme.

3. Prossh grows stronger every time you cast him, which means that it does not hurt as much if he gets removed from the board. Killing him intentionally can even have strategic value!

4. Prossh can easily deal 21 commander damage in one swing since his sacrifice ability is not conditional or restricted and granting him double strike or infect or doubling his power makes an attack lethal against a single player already. On top of that he has evasion in the form of flying, which makes him extra hard to block!

5. Prossh is a critical piece for many infinite combos revolving around him, most notably the Food Chain combo. This means that you have multiple ways to win just with Prossh, so that your opponents can never be sure which angle you will strike them from.

6. Prossh has a huge impact on the board state. If you ever need to get some time to recover you can just cast Prossh and fill up the ground with 0/1 chump blockers to block and preserve your life total. They can even turn into a win condition of their own in conjunction with Beastmaster Ascension, and similar cards.

Kresh the Bloodbraided

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Kresh has a lot of upside, especially that he does not only benefit from your creatures dying but rather whenever a creature on the whole table dies, which makes him really strong. Like Prossh he has the ability to reach gigantic stats in the blink of an eye, but there are two crippling flaws that I found while I played him.If you cast Kresh on an empty board he is essentially a 3/3 vanilla creature for five mana, which is way below average. Kresh is not entirely dependent on an ideal board state when you cast him to unlock his full potential, but he needs the right setup to be powerful and does not have an immediate effect when you cast him, which makes it even more painful when he gets killed immediatly.Kresh has no evasion whatsoever. You could use other cards to give him flying or trample, but in the mean time he can easily be chump blocked by your opponents utility creatures, which makes it hard for him to actually get any damage across regardless of his size. He is a sitting duck.

Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper

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While Prossh and Kresh want to win through commander damage, Sek Kuar lends himself to a more controlling strategy. Repeatingly sacrificing little creatures like Reassembling Skeleton or Nether Traitor to produce a giant amount of 3/1 hasty graveborn tokens is just one trick that Sek Kuar has up his sleeve. Sek Kuar follows a much more grindy and value strategy and needs a lot of other key components to be effective. Since he does not trigger when your opponents creatures or tokens die, assembling a circle of sacrificing little creatures and reanimating them is key to win with Sek Kuar. While he is pretty strong, I still settled for Prossh over Sek Kuar for two reasons.As I said, Sek Kuar has the ability to be really explosive, but he needs a huge amount of other cards to make him useful. He is pretty slow, which means that you will spend a lot of time building up your board state before doing anything meaningful with Sek Kuar. A lot of 3/1 hasty creatures will probably not be enough to ensure your victory, since they are not particulary huge and you will need to create a lot of them before they even start to have an impact. Due to his relatively small size Sek Kuar will most likely have to stay back rather than join the fight, which means that winning through commander damage is rarely an option.

Shattergang Brothers

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These guys are very powerful! You can destroy any bothering enchantment, painful artifact or giant creature whenever you want if the deck is built correctly! Their effect hits every opponent, which makes them even stronger the more opponents you have to face and is often times strict card advantage. They are the best way to play an attrition strategy in the Jund color identity. Board control is the typical strategy for a deck around the three brothers, cards like Rancor and Myr Retriever are reusable machine guns in their deck, but in my opinion there are yet again two major problems that hold them back.The Brothers always require you to have a card of the needed type that you want to sacrifice on the board. If you do not meet this criteria, they are as useless as the colors red and blue on the French flag. Their ability gives your opponents the option to choose which card they want to sacrifice, so you will probably not hit the targets you want with their abilities all the time. While this is a pretty uncommon scenario and will not happen often, it is necessary to consider the worst case scenario. But I guess I should mention that they can commit suicide with their first ability to blow up other creatures, if that is good or bad is up for you to decide.They are really mana hungry. Using your machine gun ability to sacrifice a permanent to make your opponents sacrifice something and then recasting the thing you sacrificed will most likely be a huge part of the actions for your turn, so they are really clunky to use.

Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund

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If you like dragon tribal, go nuts with Karrthus, but decks like these are really not my cup of tea. Even if you decide to build a dragon tribal deck that is not about Scion of the Ur-Dragon, it is worth it to consider the risk that if any of your opponents casts a Clone effect and copies Karrthus, you are completely f***ed.

Conclusion

I do not want say that any of these generals are bad or inferior, but they were not exactly what I looked for in a general. I wanted to build a very fast deck that could attack from many different angles and was really hard to disrupt, so Prossh was the perfect canidate to be the head of my deck.

Why I like this Deck

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You can build a Prossh deck in many different ways, but the main roads to go down are either a deck that really focuses on token creation with cards like Doubling Season and Overrun, a voltron type deck that purely focuses on beatdown or a combo centric build. Reanimator is possible, but card:meren of clan ne toth or Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper are probably better equiped for that particular strategy. The token version is very strong, but much slower and more of a midrange strategy. The beatdown and reanimator versions are usually just a typical Prossh build but without the need of any infinite combos, which offers the ability to include cards that improve the attrition and control qualities of the deck to win the long game by using Prossh as a pure value engine. I chose to build the combo version that focuses on the card Food Chain, because I think that this is the strongest option to build the deck around. I do not want to intentionally weaken my decks by excluding certain cards, so I construct them to be as strong as possible, as long as it is still reasonable. I really like assembling infinite combos, so the last version gave me everything I could ever want out of a commander deck. I built this deck in such a way that it is very strong in 1 vs.1 aswell as multiplayer commander games. Many cards like Grave Pact punish every opponent, but are strong with only one opponent aswell. The Food Chain combo hits every player, which means that you can assemble it in two player and multiplayer games for the win.

You should play this deck if:

• you want to have a very explosive early game.

• you want to play a commander centric deck.

• you want to smash face with a huge dragon.

• you want to be "that guy".

• you are a combofile.

• you think that EDH has room for competitive decks.

• you want to play JUND!

• you like the face people make when they see Craterhoof Behemoth

You should not play this deck if:

• you need counterspells to play magic.

• you enjoy to be the underdog.

• your playgroup is very casual.

Strenghts and Weaknesses

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Strenghts

1. The deck is really fast and can sometimes win out of nowhere, topdecking and assembling different infinite combos that are really hard to disrupt is a common occurrence. Even if Prossh gets countered you sill get the tokens he brings with him, which makes it way more easy to recover.

2. The deck is very flexible, since you have multiple ways to win. If your opponents focus on removing your combo pieces, just smash them into the ground with a lethal Prossh attack. If they focus on removing your commander, you search up your Tooth and Nail and kill them with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Zealous Conscripts.

3. You can often build up a lethal board state before your opponents decks even set up their gameplan! The deck is very fast, so you might already start to take out players while they are still running out mana rocks or sculpting their hands.

4. Prossh uses many powerful and game changing enchantments, which is the second hardest permanent type to remove, making it extremly safe to run them out. You rely on land based ramp rather than artifacts, and we all know that land destruction is a big no go in most playgroups, so your mana is pretty safe.

5. All of your cards have great synergy with each other, but are also very strong on their own. You almost have no dead cards in the deck, since even the cards that are mostly there for a combo like Zealous Conscripts or Blood Artist are still very strong even without the other pieces.

6. The deck has many ways to searcg for the cards you need, so you always have a way to awnser the problems your opponents might present.

Weaknesses

1. The most painful weakness of the deck is a bad opening hand. You just cannot mess around until turn six without doing anything! If you cannot search for the cards you need and do not have any reusable sources of card advantage in a slow hand, you are most likely not able to keep up with your opponents. Either take the role of the aggressor as the one to threaten the other players or take the defensive role to disrupr your opponents and set up card advantage engines until you can take over the game.

2. There is not much draw power spread across the deck. Cards like Skullclamp, Smothering Abomination and Necropotence let you draw huge chunks of cards, but those are only three cards. You mostly rely on tutors to find what you need, so your opponents can sometimes just beat you with pure card advantage.

3. If someone gets to resolve Humility while you do not have Krosan Grip available to you, you will have a hard time doing anything meaningful at all.

Combos

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Xenagos and Atarka

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher + Assault Strobe

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher + Tainted Strike

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher + Xenagos, God of Revels

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher + Atarka, World Render

Since Prossh is a 5/5 flying beatstick with at least six Kobolds to devour you can pump up his power to eleven, thus one swing is lethal with 21 commander damage if he gains double strike via Atarka, World Render or a little help from Xenagos, God of Revels. You can also grant him infect or double strike with Tainted Strike or Assault Strobe. Both of these can only be used once, but you are going to take at least one player out of the game.

Kiki-Jiki and Zealous Conscripts

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts

Tooth and Nail => Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts

By now everyone who plays Magic for some time should have seen this combo. You tap Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker to make a copy of Zealous Conscripts. With the Threaten trigger from the copied Conscripts you take control of Kiki, which causes him to untap. You can loop this interaction an infinite amount of time to create infinite 3/3 hasty beaters to kill every opponent at once. You can search up the combo with the totally fair card Tooth and Nail to have a one card kill condition.

Food Chain

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher + Food Chain + Blood Artist

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher + Food Chain + Zulaport Cutthroat

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher + Food Chain + Falkenrath Noble

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher + Food Chain + Impact Tremors

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher + Food Chain + Purphoros, God of the Forge

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher + Food Chain + Goblin Bombardment

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher + Food Chain + Ogre Battledriver

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher + Food Chain + Smothering Abomination => Combo Piece

Food Chain is a card that was created to be abused. In this deck it works because of the nature of the command zone. You play Food Chain and then cast Prossh, Skyraider of Kher who will bring a number of kobolds with him equal to the amount of mana you spent to cast him. Due to the wording on Food Chain you can exile these tokens for one mana of any colour. You exile Prossh to make 6 mana of any colour and recast him with the mana in your pool, creating even more tokens every time you cast him due to his interaction with commander tax, which will result into an infinite loop generating infinite mana to spend on creatures and infinite 0/1 kobolds.If you have Purphoros, God of the Forge or Impact Tremors out on the battlefield, this play will result into infinite damage due to enter the battlefield triggers against all opponents. Since Prossh is also a sacrifice outlet you can then sacrifice an infinite amount of kobolds to cause infinite loss of life with Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat and Falkenrath Noble or sacrifice all of them to Goblin Bombardment. With Ogre Battledriver on the battlefield all the kobolds turn into 2/1 hasty creatures, which should be enough to win the game. If you have Smothering Abomination and infinite tokens, you can just sacrifice some tokens to draw your entire deck to find and cast the combo pieces, then execute the combo again. Once Food Chain is in play you can get all the resources:

• infinite cards

• infinite creatures

• infinite life

• infinite damage

• infinite mana

Everything at once!

How to Play

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General Plan

Your gameplan obviously depends on your opening hand and which type of kill you want to go for. The deck can technically achieve kills against the whole table as early as turn two, although you are more likely to win a game of poker with a royal flush after the first three cards are revealed than drawing that godly opening hand. A combo kill around turn 4 to 6 is the mist likely scenario. The deck can be fairly resiliant in the long game by building up a draw engine and often just straight up topdecking a win.

Early GameRAMP! RAMP! RAMP!

Ideally you have some elves or Cultivate like effects to exalerate your mana and essentially timewalk your opponents. Setting up your mana in the early turns is essential to get ahead of your opponents. Remember, you want to outrace your opponents, so do not wait to pay life or cast mana dorks. Try however to hold your tutor effects until you are sure which combo you want to go for! If you do not have either combo piece for the Food Chain combo in your hand, you might want to go for the Tooth and Nail combo, at which point all you try to do is ramp until you can resolve it with entwine. If you have Xenagos, God of Revels in your opening hand, you may choose to go for the beatdown plan. So only search for a card if you are actually sure that you need it to win. Also it lets you appear as less of a thread if you do not cast Demonic Tutor on turn 2! Just focus on ramping an figureing out which combo, if any, you want to go for.

Building your Gameplan

Disrupt your opponents and slow them down. To assemble your engines and search them out can take some turns, so try to keep your opponents from killing you in the mean time! Kill your opponents key cards with your collection of different removal spells, everything that sets them back grants you more time to assemble your combo.

If you want to win via Food Chain, do not hesitate to run out cards like Blood Artist to set up the combo. You have many other cards that can replace it, however you should really try to run out Food Chain as late as possible so you can surprise your opponents with a win out of nowhere. You do not want Food Chain to be removed, since that would probably set you back several turns. If you are on the beatdown plan, try to ramp out Prossh and go to town. You do not really care if he gets killed once, because the kobolds remain on the battlefield and he only gets stronger every time you cast him again. Just try not to let this happen too often, since you want to be able to cast him reliably.

Winning the Game

Either you combo off, which would be the favoured outcome, or your opponents destroy the combo and you need to refocus. This phase can be really tough because you probably wasted your entire last turn, also the target is now definetly on you! Either clearing the board with Crux of Fate and Toxic Deluge or Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos and Butcher of Malakir can help. If you cannot find another combo you can play a decent fair game and try to win with Atarka, World Render or Avenger of Zendikar in combination with Beastmaster Ascension or Craterhoof Behemoth.If you still have a combo piece left, you can try to assemble it again. If your Food Chain got destroyed, search up Eternal Witness and cast it again. For the other part of the combo there are likely many more pieces left in your deck, so you can either search them up with your tutor effects or try to draw them naturally. You are very flexible with your win conditions, so evaluate the situation and figure out the most efficient way to swing the game back in your favor.

Mulligans

As I said earlier, you either need to have a way to win or enough removal to control the board to get some time to find a combo. Due to all the ramp in the deck it is not unreasonable to keep a hand with two lands, Llanowar Elves and some other cheap cards. Mulligans are only necessary if you have no way to ramp or no spells to cast for the first turns of the game in your hand. A hand with only ramp spells and lands is keepable, because casting Prossh early has a big impact on the board. Just expensive cards without any ramp is the worst case scenario. But even if you need to take a mulligan, the deck can win very fast and compensate for card disatvantage by searching up key cards with its various tutors. You do not need to mulligan very aggressively, but never keep a really bad hand ever!

The perfect Hand

Win turn 2

Forest

Forest

Sol Ring

Mana Vault / Grim Monolith

Tooth and Nail

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

Zealous Conscripts

1. PLay a Forest, then use that mana to cast your Sol Ring. Use the Ring to cast Mana Vault / Grim Monolith.

2. Play out your second Forest, then cast Tooth and Nail for its second mode without entwine and choose to put Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Zealous Conscripts into play, then create infinite hasty 3/3 tokens and kill your opponents.

Win turn 3

Forest

Forest

Swamp / Mountain

Sol Ring

Food Chain / Vampiric Tutor

Somberwald Sage / Vampiric Tutor / Worldly Tutor

Zulaport Cutthroat / Blood Artist / Purphoros, God of the Forge / Falkenrath Aristocrat / Ogre Battledriver / Smothering Abomination / Worldly Tutor / Vampiric Tutor

1. Play out an untapped land, then use that mana to cast Sol Ring. Alternatively you cast Vampiric Tutor or Worldly Tutor to search up any piece that your hand missed and cast the Ring next turn.

2. Play out your second land and use the mana and the Sol Ring to cast Somberwald Sage.

3. Play out your third land and use it and the Sol Ring to cast Food Chain. Then tap your Somberwald Sage for three mana of any colour, then exile it with Food Chain for four mana of a different colour. Then use one of your lands to pay for the missing colour and cast Prossh with two mana to use on creatures floating. Then execute the combo. At the point that you have enough mana floating during this process, cast your last combo piece and execute the combo for the win. Since the mana can only be used on creatures, but you also need the mana from your lands to get the third colour to pay for Prossh, this does not work with Goblin Bombardment and Impact Tremors. If you want to use these, you need to cast either Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, Elves of Deep Shadow, Elvish Mystic or Orcish Lumberjack on turn one instead of a tutor or Sol Ring to get the extra unconditional mana to cast these two combo pieces.

Conclusion

Getting one these hands is very rare, especially with the new mulligan rule, but if you draw them as your opening hand or draw them over the first three turns, you will probably win.

There are probably many more combinations of cards that allow early wins, but those are the ones I already pulled of. If you find other possible hands that win on turn 2 or 3, feel free to post them in the comments !

How your opponents will react when they realize what you just did:

== Card Choices ==

Reading the Decklist

I sorted the cards in custom sections:

• Combo: cards you need to activate game winnig combos

• Win Conditions: cards that can finish the game on their own

• Tutor: cards that search up specific cards from your library

• Draw: cards that generate card advantage by filling up your hand with fresh cards

• Removal: cards that let you interact with your opponents cards

• Ramp: cards that generate additional mana

• Utility: special cards that fit into many or neither section

• Land: the manabase and utility lands

If you want to look up the more extensive reasons for the inclusion of specific cards, you can find any card and a short explaination about why I included it below.

Creatures

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Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, Elves of Deep Shadow, Elvish Mystic

Turn 1 Time Walk. To drop one of these on turn one is ideal, to draw them late in the game not so much. I am still not sure about what the right number to run of these in the deck is, but right now I am happy with these four.

Deathrite Shaman

This card is pretty reliable, at least for my metagame, since a huge amount of players use fetchlands or selfmill strategies, which turns on the mana producing ability of Deathrite. Sadly I do not have the 9:3:3 mana base yet. His other two abilities are very relevant, not for the loss of life or lifegain, but as graveyard check. A lot of people I play against take advantage of very specific cards in their graveyard, like recuring Mindslicer every turn or casting Turnabout multiple times, so I want to stop them in their tracks!

Joraga Treespeaker

A green version of Sol Ring. It can produce on the next turn if you level it up when you play it. If you drop it turn one and level it up on turn two, it feels a lot like Sol Ring. The other levels do not really matter though.

Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat

With creatures to sacrifice left and right these can grant you a fair amount of value. You might need to compensate for some loss of life from cards like City of Brass or Necropotence, so incidental life gain does not hurt (no pun intended). In addition to this they can cause infinite loss of life in combination with the before mentioned Food Chain combo.

Sakura-Tribe Elder

This guy is just a synergistic Rampant Growth. He sets up your mana nicely and can be used with cards like Smothering Abomination or Grave Pact to great effect.

Sylvan Caryatid

Because of its hexproof ability it is an untargetable mana producer and can also stop early aggression due to its 0/3 stats. This thing is just a stronger but more expensive version of Birds of Paradise.

Fauna Shaman

This elf is a reusable creature tutor that can cycle a creature card in your hand for a card you need every turn? Whats not to love about this card? It might be a little worse than Survival of the Fittest, but it is very strong nontheless.

Reclamation Sage

Aside from the beautiful artwork this shaman can destroy problematic artifacts or enchantments while he adds another body to the board. The upside it has in comparison to other removal spells in the deck is that it is a creature, which means that it can be searched up with the various creature tutors like Worldly Tutor and Fauna Shaman if you need it.

Nissa, Vastwood Seer  

She works almost like a Spellskite. People just target her with their removal spells because she has the word planeswalker written on her back. She is also a really nice value engine later in the game, draws cards, ramps ahead and spitts out 4/4 elementals. The forest she gets is nice as it ensures that you hit your landdrops.

Somberwald Sage

Second only to Ancestral Recall Black Lotus is the most powerful card ever printed. Now you get one every turn if you have Somberwald Sage. This thing allows for some really broken plays and is one of the reasons that this deck can win so fast.

Eternal Witness

The Witness will most certainly draw you a card that you actually want. She is a nice ensurance to get back Food Chain if it gets destroyed. Is there any green deck that does not have Eternal Witness?

Courser of Kruphix

This may be a worse version of Oracle of Mul Daya, but filtering the lands from the top of your deck means that you do not have to waste draw steps on them. Incidental livegain is pretty great in a deck that has cards like Necropotence, Phyrexian Arena and similar cards in it. It even has synergies with the fetchlands in the deck!

Falkenrath Noble

A more expensive version of Blood Artist, but still a fairly strong card. It can go infinite with the before mentioned Food Chain combo.

Smothering Abomination

When this card works, it is the single best draw spell in the entire deck. If it does not, it can fling right back in your face. But even with that risk remaining the Abomination is too good not to run. Since Prossh generates many tokens you always have some creatures to sacrifice so you can draw a card with the Abomination. I you really need to keep your creatures on the board, you can just sacrifice it to itself to get rid of it.

Purphoros, God of the Forge

What if I tell you that there is a Theros god that deals 14 damage to every opponent whenever you cast your commander and even more damage whenever you cast it again? In addition to that Purphoros can cause infinite damage in combination with the before mentioned Food Chain combo. It pairs really well with Avenger of Zendikar.

Ogre Battledriver

This is the best haste effect in the entire deck! But not only does he grant haste, he gives a +2/+0 bonus to every creature that enters the battlefield! This thing is like a mini version of Overrun. Cast Prossh and go nuts!

Oracle of Mul Daya

An elf that ramps you several turns ahead and ensures that you always draw into gas has to be great. It gets rid of lands on top of your library and is amazing with fetchlands.

Sidisi, Undead Vizier

An undead naga that serves as a Demonic Tutor on a stick that also adds a 4/6 body with deathtouch to the board and has synergy with sacrifice effects? You can even sacrifice it to itself if you have no other creature to sacrifice on the board! This card has a sure place in this deck!

Zealous Conscripts

Its main purpouse is to go infinite with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker but it is also able to steal a creature for one turn which will then be sacrificed to one of our outlets after hitting its original owner.

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

The wet dream of every combofile!

Xenagos, God of Revels

Aside from making Prossh a lethal thread he can pump up any other creature in the deck if you are on the beatdown plan. An indestructible enchantment is virtually impossible to get rid off, so Xenagos will probably stick once he hits the board. If your opponents have cards like Path to Exile, be aware of his devotion and make sure that it does not reach 7 to keep safe.

Butcher of Malakir

A Grave Pact on a stick! This card just takes the boardstates of your opponents and flushes them down the toilet. A 5/4 bodt that swings in the air can do some serious work. Search this up at instant speed with Chord of Calling for extra fun!

Avenger of Zendikar

A nice backup win condition in case our combos do not work out. This angry elemental will unleash an army of plants against your opponents that will only grow as the game goes on.It basically is your second impression of Prossh in the deck.

Atarka, World Render

In the case you need to rend some worlds, Atarka is ready to do what Gruul does best:
SMASH FACE !!!

Craterhoof Behemoth

This card is often times the last card played whenever it hits the battlefield, since the game is most likely over shortly after. Its boost usually exceeds lethal amounts and even a couple of tokens can end the game when this monstrosity stomps onto the battlefield. With only eight mana casting cost it is not unreasonable to assume that you can hardcast it reliably, but you can also cheat it out with cards like Pattern of Rebirth for even more ridiculousness.

Artifacts

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Skullclamp

This is definatly one of the most powerful cards in the deck! With this thing on the board you can turn every elf or kobold into two cards and dig deep into the deck to find whatever card you need. It is very hard to lose a game with this card on the battlefield.

Sensei's Divining Top

Just a solid card and an auto include for most EDH decks. It is really good because the deck has many different shuffle effects to shuffle away bad cards on the top of your deck. To get this on the battlefield in combination with Oracle of Mul Daya is the dream!

Sol Ring

This card does not need any further explaination about why it is absolutely broken.

Mana Vault

Prossh is a broken card. A Prossh on turn 3 is just unbeatable in most scenarios.

Grim Monolith

Prossh is a broken card. A Prossh on turn 3 is just unbeatable in most scenarios.

Lightning Greaves

These magic boots grant two of the most powerful abilities for a voltron commander, haste and shroud, on the turn he comes into play due to an equip cost of . Making Prossh untargetable is great, for he is probably the biggest removal target on the table as soon as he hits the battlefield.

Enchantments

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Goblin Bombardment

This card can turn any of your creatures into 1 damage. It makes it so that board wipes are not as drastic anymore. It can act as an for removal spell if you are really desperate. It is a combo piece to the main win condition of the deck.

Impact Tremors

This might only be half a Purphoros, God of the Forge, but is still very good in this deck, since it hits all opponents. It is a piece of the Food Chain combo to cause infinite damage against all opponents.

Sylvan Library

This is a free Brainstorm every turn! It helps you to dig through your deck and find the pieces you need. Resolving this on turn 2 puts you way ahead of everyone else. Do not hesitate to pay 4 - 8 life to draw bad cards if you cannot shuffle them away. You cannot waste several draw steps if you have the power to avoid it.

Phyrexian Arena

To pay three mana once and one life every turn to get a constant flow of new gas is a pretty good deal. If the game goes long this card alone can put you way ahead and get you a full grip of cards.

Necropotence

I think we can all agree that this is one of the most broken cards ever printed. With this in play you never have an empty hand and with 40 life to play with you can draw half your deck on the search for your combo pieces.

Beastmaster Ascension

The Ascension represents a win condition on its own. Getting all seven quest counters is very easy with this deck because casting Prossh already generates seven creatures to attack with and immediatly reach the +5/+5 boost to all your creatures when they attack.

Food Chain

This card is literaly the main combo of the deck. I already explained its use earlier in the combo section. But you can just exile your other creatures to ramp big beaters like Prossh or Atarka, World Render out early, since that is the scenario the card was initially designed for by Wizards.

Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos

They both serve the same purpouse of keeping the board clear from opposing creatures. With all the tokens and sacrifice effects on our side these get out of hand fast. Dictate can also be used as a combat trick in response to a removal spell or an attack against you.

Pattern of Rebirth

This card is really similar to Natural Order, but has the advantage that we can use nongreen creatures to get the effect. We are able to sacrafice the enchanted creature in response to something our opponents might do which makes this card much more versatile. The main targets to get with this are Xenagos, God of Revels, Atarka, World Render and Avenger of Zendikar. Any of these on turn 3-4 can mean lights out for at least one or two of your opponents.

Planeswalkers

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Garruk Wildspeaker

Garruk is just a great ramp / value card. He is not a big threat, so he will most likely not be targeted as much as other planeswalkers. The ramp aswell as his ability to make 3/3 beasts are very relevant. His ultimate is easy to reach and very deadly with a big number of kobold tokens on the battlefield.

Xenagos, the Reveler

Xenagos +1 ability is broken after you cast Prossh and can shine by creating insane amounts of mana most of the time. His ability to create hasty 2/2 creature tokens can be relevant to preserve your life total or his loyalty but can be uses with the various sacrifice outlets in the deck to generate value.

Instants

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Vampiric Tutor

Vampiric is either the best or second best tutor in EDH. This card can search up anything you need as early as turn one at instant speed! Since this deck has many tutors that can only fetch creatures, an unconditional tutor that can search up Food Chain is even more valuable.

Tainted Strike

This card makes a single Prossh attack lethal with 10 poison counters if you sacrifice at least 4 creatures to him! You can even cast it at instant speed, which means after blockers are declared, so your opponents might be surprised and regret that they did not block him!

Worldly Tutor

Slightly more restrictive than Vampiric but still very powerful. This deck has a bunch of utility creatures to get with this, which means that with this card in hand you can most likely handle any situation.

Krosan Grip

For the times you need to make sure you get rid of whatever enchantments or artifacts your opponents have. An uncounterable way to destroy Humility or other similar cards can be the deciding factor between victory or loss. Destroy your opponents mana rocks to set them back, anything you do to buy you the time you need to assemble your various combos takes you one step further to victory.

Beast Within

The perfect removal spell for this deck! You do not care about the 3/3 beast! Neither is it going to kill you nor break your combo and it cannot block Prossh. A fantastic removal spell in almost any situation!

Putrefy

This very flavorful removal spell is good for the same reasons as the ones above. It destroys stuff that needs to be removed at instant speed. What more could you ask for?

Chord of Calling

An instant speed creature tutor that works great with all the little creatures this deck generates. It can be used as a combat trick with creatures like Reclamation Sage or Butcher of Malakir to surprise your opponents. Pair this with Avenger of Zendikar to get the maximum effect.

Sorceries

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Green Sun's Zenith

A nice creature tutor that can hit almost any creature in the deck. It shuffles itself back into your library to eventually be used again. But the best thing about it is that you can pay = to go and get Dryad Arbor for just a , making it the best Rampant Growth ever!

Assault Strobe

Double strike is the perfect ability to give to Prossh. It might be a little risky to cast this before combat, since you open yourself for a 2 for 1, but the upside is that you might take out an opponent with 21 commander damage!

Demonic Tutor

This is the best tutor ever printed. For only you can draw every card in the deck! How could this card not be broken?

Toxic Deluge

For the times your opponents have a faster start than you or build up a rediculous board state you have a cheap way to clean the board. This even gets around indestructible creatures such as Avacyn, Angel of Hope or the Theros gods if their devotion is high enough. You can adjust its strength, if need be, so your big creatures live while your opponents small mana dorks and utility creatures die!

Cultivate and Kodama's Reach

These do everything you want. They cheat you an extra land into play and ensure that you hit your next landdrop.

Eldritch Evolution

This card is just amazing and works a lot like Birthing Pod. While Pod is reusable, Evolution is way more flexible since you do not have to go up the exact chain like with Pod. It is a sacrifice outlet and puts creatures from your deck directly into play, so it has a place in this deck.

Skyshroud Claim

Teo two forests are nice. Untapped they are better. Search up some shocklands, put them into play, set up your mana in the best way possible. This spell essentially costs because you can use the lands you get right away!

Explosive Vegetation

While this card is no match for Skyshroud Claim, a double Rampant Growth is still a very good deal and ramps you directly into Prossh terretory.

Crux of Fate

To destroy everything but your commander after you sacrificed your whole board to make him a lethal thread seems sweet!

Tooth and Nail

This card can get the instant win of Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Zealous Conscripts directly into play, but is still good if you search up big beaters like Atarka, World Render to finish your opponents.

Lands

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Command Tower

This is the single best land in any multicolored EDH deck.

Savage Lands

A good turn 1 drop. It generates all the colors you need and is infinitely better than any guildgate.

Mana Confluence and City of Brass

They generate all your colours and the 1 life per use is negledgible.

Windswept Heath, Polluted Delta, Bloodstained Mire and Wooded Foothills

These fetchlands can search up your shocklands and grant you shuffle triggers, making them exellent in combination with Oracle of Mul Daya and Sensei's Divining Top.

Blood Crypt , Overgrown Tomb and Stomping Ground

The second best cycle of lands to fix your mana. You can search them up with varios cards in the deck.

Smoldering Marsh and Cinder Glade

There are many cards in this deck that get one or more basic lands, so their downside is almost negledgible. You can get them with fetchlands and they set up your mana base very well. I really hope that Wizards prints the whole cycle soon.

Dragonskull Summit , Woodland Cemetery and Rootbound Crag

Very solid lands to fix your mana. Because of the multiple ways to get basic lands into play in this deck these are almost never going to enter the battlefield tapped.

Sulfurous Springs , Llanowar Wastes and Karplusan Forest

While they are certainly not the best lands they still are a solid option for a manabase. They will eventualy get replaced by a better cycle of lands.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

This makes all the black mana you could ever want and lets your utility lands tap for . Great if you want to cast cards with in their mana cost like Necropotence reliably.

Bojuka Bog

The opportunity cost of running this in your 99 is low enough that I could fit it in my deck. In the case that you face a reanimator strategy this is easily the best land in the deck, especially because I lack mainboard graveyard hate.

Khalni Garden

Generating a 0/1 plant for free that can later be used as sacrifice fodder for various cards is just additional value I do not want to give up.

Dryad Arbor

Searchable with Green Sun's Zenith and various fetchlands the Arbor operates as a normal Forest but also has other synergies due to it also being a creature.

Strip Mine

For the times you need to get rid of opposing Cabal Coffers or Gaea's Cradle Strip Mine is there to save the day!

Westvale Abbey  

As a token generator it is pretty underwhelming, but look at it like at Dark Depths. We are not using it in a fair way, instead we sacrifice five of our many kobolds to transform it into a nearly impossible to remove hasty indestructible 18 point life swing every turn. Ormendahl is super powerful, even by EDH standarts. A nearly unbreakable defense and a great offense, this card has both.

Kessig Wolf Run

In the late game you possibly have lots of mana.This card turns your access mana into damage.

3 X Swamp , 2 X Mountain and 3 X Forest

These are the foundation of every deck.

== Questions and Awnsers ==

Why I do not run certain cards

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Cards I would run that are too expensive :

• Gaea's Cradle
• Taiga , Badlands and Bayou
• Mana Crypt
• Damnation

Cards that do not fit into the deck :

Doubling Season and similar effects

The impact they have is just to low, because the deck is not a real token deck, but a combo deck. You can build a token version of Prossh that is reasonably strong, but I think that this version of the deck better suits my playstyle. The Season just had too little impact on the board and potentially did nothing at all when I did cast it after landing Prossh.

Reanimate and similar effects

A secondary win condition of reanimating back the stuff you sacrificed / getting value of your graveyard is also a valid option, but I think that it destracts too much from the main purpouse of the deck. I do not have any way to get specific cards into my graveyard, so right now I do not focus on my graveyard.

Eternal Scourge

At first glance this card seems perfect. It can go infinite with Food Chain, since you can cast it from exile and it is way cheaper to cast than Prossh. But when you really think about it, it is actually way worse and completely unnecessary. Most of the time when I cast Food Chain I just exile my board to it and cast Prossh and a combo piece. It does not matter, you will win anyway. The Scourge is cheaper, but cost does not matter and I have access to Prossh at any point in the game. Even if I should not be able to access him, I have enough other win conditions to turn the game around. The Scourge only works with Purphoros, God of the Forge an Impact Tremors , since the exile effect does not count as dying and you can only recast the Scourge after exiling it with Food Chain, which means that it does not activate any of the death trigger or sacrifice effects like Prossh or the kobolds would.

More Attrition or Removal

I think that the amount of interaction this deck has is right where I want it to be. Certain cards need to be removed and I want to have a possible out for every situation, but with the huge array of tutors I run I do not need to run as many board wipes or spot removal cards, as I can just search them up when I am really desperate. This way I have way more room to make the deck even more consistant.

Graveyard Removal

I just do not think that it is a must have. In 1 vs. 1 you need to plan ahead for every situation, but in multiplayer someone else will likely have an answer if things get out of hand. The problem is that these cards do not do anything if your opponent does not use his or her graveyard, while permanent removal spells will always find a target. This is the same reason as to why I hate catds like Red Elemental Blast in commamder. They would usually reside in the sideboard, which is a mechanic that does not exist in EDH. Granted, with four players the probability that these cards shut off a strategy your opponents are on goes up, but if you just cannot find a tatget for them it is the worst feeling ever. For now I am fine with Deathrite Shaman and Bojuka Bog. Also I have never experienced bad beats from a dredge deck, so maybe I am just a bit short sighted on this matter.

Survival of the Fittest

If I had this card, I would run it in the deck and probably take out Fauna Shaman, but right now the Shaman is good enough for me. If I ever get the chance to pick one up for cheap, I will add it to the deck for sure.

Dark Ritual and Ad Nauseam

I built this deck to be a resiliant deck that can fire its combos very fast. But I also want to play Magic rather than drawing my whole deck on turn 2 with Ad Nauseam. I want this deck to have a long game, otherwise it would be a pure glass cannon. My local metagame is not competetive enough that I would need to win that early or be desperate to win before turn 4 every time. I want my deck to just be really good, but not completely broken. I would have to adjust a big chunk of my deck, and I do not want to do that.

My Metagame

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My playgroup is not a highly competetive one, but most of these decks are really strong and close to completion. None of these are a really fancy or strange builds, so these decks consist mostly of what you would expect from them. Even though I did not build my deck to defeat certain archtypes and I do not really have any major problems to defeat either of these, you can make some suggestions on how to beat these decks or share your experience.

Popular Generals

Olivia Voldaren (my father)

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker (my father)

Sliver Overlord (my father)

Tasigur, the Golden Fang (my father)

Avacyn, Angel of Hope (my step brother)

Nahiri, the Lithomancer (LGS)

Zur the Enchanter (LGS)

The Gitrog Monster (LGS)

Mizzix of the Izmagnus (LGS)

Karlov of the Ghost Council (LGS)

Sen Triplets (LGS)

Muzzio, Visionary Architect (LGS)

Teferi, Temporal Archmage (LGS)

Narset, Enlightened Master (LGS)

Meren of Clan Nel Toth (LGS)

Kruphix, God of Horizons (LGS)

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (LGS)

Surrak Dragonclaw (LGS)

Alesha, Who Smiles at Death (LGS)

Tournaments

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I have never played this deck in an EDH tournament. This is parshly because of the lack of such events in my area, but also because I do not think that multiplayer EDH is the right format for this. The one store in reach for me that hosts EDH tournaments once per month has a strange custom banlist and an oppressive point system that requires you to build a deck that abuses these new rules if you want to stand a chance, which just does not seem fun to me. If I ever attend a commander event other than casual play, I will certainly describe how the deck did in the tournament.

Possible Cuts

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Putrefy

This thing might get replaced with Maelstrom Pulse, but right now I am not sure if I need this card at all. I own the full art promo version of Putrefy, which is probably the reason I find it hard to cut it from the deck.

Courser of Kruphix

This is just the net best card for this deck that I currently own, but will be the first to remove when I get my hands on the cards from my acquire board.

Phyrexian Arena

Is great card advantage, but kind of slow in comparison the the rest of the deck. I will probably replace it with a more efficient draw spell.

Possible Inclusions

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Next on my list of cards to acquire are:

• Verdant Catacombs

• Ancient Tomb

• Shizo, Death's Storehouse

• Diabolic Intent

• Berserk

• Earthcraft

• Squirrel Nest

• Maelstrom Pulse

It is very likely that I will fit the infinite combo of Earthcraft and Squirrel Nest into the deck since beating up opponents with an endless stream of squirrels is just funny. In addition to that both cards have great synergy with the deck as a whole and the opportunity cost of including them both is very low.

Cards I might add:

I am not sure yet wether I want to run these cards in the future, but right now they are not in the deck.

• Goblin Sharpshooter

• Evolutionary Leap

• Dismember

• Phyresis

I might swap my 3 X Forest, 2 X Mountain and 3 X Swamp for the same amount of Snow-Covered Forest, Snow-Covered Mountain and Snow-Covered Swamp, as there are some mana doublers like Extraplanar Lens prominent at my LGS. In addition to that I really like the artwork on these lands!

Closing Thoughts

Thanks for reading the description to my Prossh EDH deck! If you want to recommend a card or ask something about the deck feel free to do so! I did put much time and effort into this deck and would appreciate your advice!

Please consider to

+1 UPVOTE

the deck if you enjoyed my review!

JUND EM OUT !!!!!

Check out my other project:

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Always 99 cards in hand! [Primer]

Commander / EDH TheDracogenius

SCORE: 37 | 10 COMMENTS | 6218 VIEWS | IN 17 FOLDERS

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Top Ranked	Achieved #3 position overall 8 years ago
Date added	10 years
Last updated	7 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 52 - 0 Rares 20 - 0 Uncommons 12 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.09
Tokens	Ashaya, the Awoken World, Beast 3/3 G, Copy Clone, Human Cleric 1/1 BW, Kobolds of Kher Keep 0/1 R, Plant 0/1 G, Satyr 2/2 GR
Folders	Decks to make, edh, Commander Decks, Good ideas, EDH, Decks to build, commander , Bookmarked, Possibly Build, Interesting decks