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[PRIMER] (not) A Windgrace Deck

Commander / EDH* BRG (Jund) Loam Multiplayer Ramp Tokens TurboFog

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Land (42)

Creature (20)

Enchantment (9)

Instant (5)

Commander (1)

Commander: Shattergang Brothers

Sorcery (15)

Artifact (5)

Planeswalker (3)

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Sorcery (3)

Artifact (1)

Creature (2)

Planeswalker (1)

Jund lands. We've wanted it for so long! Angry Omnath and Gitrog in the same deck has been the dream of many for years, and with C18 we finally have a Jund lands commander. On the surface Lord Windgrace seems like a great commander, he's got oodles of land synergy and card advantage and a seriously threatening ultimate. He's an engine unto himself. He's the total package, right?

Not so fast.

Windgrace is a great card and all but as a commander in a lands deck he lacks one very important element: the ability to interact with the board on a reliable basis. I've been piloting this deck for about 6 months now (yep, pre C18 spoilers) and I've noticed something about lands decks. They durdle. Hard. Windgrace doesn't do much that doesn't durdle shy of his ultimate and while the card advantage is real, you need reliable ways to not lose the game too.

When I brewed this deck my goal was pretty much in line with what most people wanted out of a Jund lands deck: Angry Omnath + Gitrog. I didn't much care who the commander was and messed around with a few different generals until I settled on one who surprised me in big way and turned out to be (IMHO) the best possible leader of a Jund lands deck, even considering Windgrace as an option.

Without further adieu, I bring you THE Shattergang Brothers .

Why Shattergang? Show

Why Play This Deck? Show

Why Avoid This Deck? Show

Win Conditons Show

There is a ton of synergy packed into this list and I've designed it to be flexible in-game and be able to pursue diverse paths to victory. There are SO many cards that I couldn't fit into the final 100. Running over 40 lands really makes it difficult to fit everything in and nonland slots are at a premium.

Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions. Commander decks are never "complete" and I'm always evaluating ways to improve my lists.

Card Choice Discussion

  • Fetch Lands: Fetch lands are the true bread and butter of this deck bring so much synergy beyond simple mana fixing. Each one represents 2 landfall triggers, causes a land to “die”, and puts a land in the graveyard. These are pretty much the three main things we want to be doing with our lands at any given point during the game. In a 3 color deck we can run 9 fetches, all of them except Flooded Strand . I’ve chosen to run 8 fetches so I can fit in more fun utility lands and leave Scalding Tarn on the bench. Fetches are expensive and hard to find… but if you have them, run them.
  • Shock Lands: Stomping Ground , Overgrown Tomb , and Blood Crypt are the core color fixers and usually the best targets for early fetch lands. Of course, I’d run ABU duals if I had them but one can’t have everything one wants.
  • Command Tower : Duh.
  • Cycling Lands: Tranquil Thicket , Canyon Slough , and Sheltered Thicket . I wish I could run more lands that cycle but there are only so many slots. The fetchable cycling duals are a godsend for this deck and I hope they complete the cycle so we can get a Forest/Swamp version soon! There are strong arguments to be made for running more cycling lands but these three feel pretty good for me. If I were to increase my land count I’d probably add more.
  • Big Mana Lands: Cabal Coffers + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is a classic but often can’t reliably function in 3 color decks. This list has so many ways to tutor out non-basic lands that Urborg/Coffers works almost as well as if we were playing mono black and is our most reliable path to stupid big mana. Shattergang’s creature-pact ability needs black mana too making double digit black mana will rarely go to waste. I recently acquired a Gaea's Cradle (yay!), and we all know how good that land in a deck that makes tokens.
  • Marit Lage: Dark Depths + Thespian's Stage = 20/20 indestructible flying token. In a multiplayer game this isn’t a sure fire way to take town the table but it’s a super strong trick to have up your sleeve and, if used with proper timing, can easily score some KO’s. Just don’t be an idiot and try to run this out on turn 3 or something or you will be Public Enemy #1 for the rest of the game and most likely lose. If you pull these two lands in your opening hand… mulligan.
    • li>LD Lands: If card:Strip Mind is an staple in the overall commander meta, it’s an absolute all-star in a lands deck. The synergies are so powerful and obvious I don’t feel the need to elaborate. Dust Bowl is basically a repeatable Stone Rain brings all sorts of synergy along with it. Be careful when using these lands that you don’t become the table “bully.” Kill someone’s Cradle, Coffers, or Reliquary Tower and the other players will love you. Start nuking basics and you just might be biting off more than you can chew.
  • Dryad Arbor :This land pulls double duty in this deck as both a land (duh) and a creature that can be sacrificed to the Bros or Skullclamp ed and recurred for endless value. It’s also tutorable with Green Sun's Zenith on turn one and can be fetched. The fact that it dies to sweepers is barely a bother.
  • Ravnica Bounce Lands: The Ravnica bounce lands have a long history of success in commander and they are WAY better than average in a deck that cares about landfall. Gruul Turf and Golgari Rot Farm are the two I run (get that green!) and they are about as close as you can get to having a land read “when this land enters the battlefield, draw a card.” One of my favorite plays is tutoring out both of these lands with Hour of Promise and an Exploration or something in play. You bounce two lands, and replay them for a total of 4 landfall triggers in a single turn, and then you get to untap next turn +4 mana. So good.
  • Creature Recursion Lands: We can’t really afford to devote deck slots to creature recursion, but the good news is we don’t have to! Volrath's Stronghold is an oldschool staple and does good work keeping our threats in play. Atzal, Cave of Eternity starts as an enchantment ( Journey to Eternity   but once you get land mode online you can keep your Avenger of Zendikar s and Titania, Protector of Argoth s coming back for days and days.
  • Dryad Arbor : This land pulls double duty in this deck as both a land (duh) and a creature that can be sacrificed to the Bros or Skullclamp ed and recurred for endless value. It’s also tutorable with Green Sun's Zenith on turn one and can be fetched. The fact that it dies to sweepers is barely a bother.
  • Dryad Arbor : This land pulls double duty in this deck as both a land (duh) and a creature that can be sacrificed to the Bros or Skullclamp ed and recurred for endless value. It’s also tutorable with Green Sun's Zenith on turn one and can be fetched. The fact that it dies to sweepers is barely a bother.
  • Phyrexian Tower : Sometimes you just need a creature to die. Maybe it has a Skullclamp and you want to draw some cards, maybe you want to reanimate it STAT with Atzal, Cave of Eternity , or maybe you have an Omnath, Locus of Rage token that really wants to become a Lightning Bolt , or you just want your Solemn Simulacrum to dodge an exile effect. Phyrexian Tower has you covered. It’s also a sweet source of techy ramp.
  • Bojuka Bog : Every deck needs some grave hate. Ours is pretty unexciting, but reliable and easy to find in a pinch if we need it. Scavenger Grounds is another good option but I’ve opted to go with the Bog because it’s another black source.
  • Maze of Ith : You can’t NOT play this land in a lands deck. MoI is a known quantity for a reason.
  • Tree of Tales : Land/Artifact is pretty excellent typing for our deck and is pretty much only in here for the Shattergang synergy. Sacrificing a single land to take out 2-3 artifacts can be an extremely powerful play, especially early game when everyone is relying on their Sol Ring s to turn the corner.
  • Glacial Chasm : This may be the single best card in the deck, and it is certainly the most impactful land we run. Chasm lets us go “SHIELDS UP!” and have effective immunity from any damage based threat. If things are getting spicy on the field and you can’t clear away your opponent’s massive army, no worries. If you are playing against a Neheb, the Eternal player that likes to do Neheby things, no worries. The life loss can become prohibitive fast, but this isn’t a huge deal as we can recur lands easily in this deck. If you have a Crucible of Worlds or a Ramunap Excavator on the field you can pretty much stay immune to damage as long as you want with minimal or zero life loss. Glacial Chasm single handedly gives us all the breathing room we want and the ability to durdle indefinitely so long as we aren’t facing down a combo player or something. If you start playing Chasm on the reg your meta will likely need to shift because so many decks literally have zero way to get past the damage prevention. Bonus points for getting monarch with Regal Behemoth and then dropping Chasm.
  • Kessig Wolf Run : This land serves as a win con and a way to close out games if you have a billion mana and not much else. It's hilarious attacking someone with a 35/1 Dryad Arbor with trample!
  • Hissing Quagmire : The single "manland" in the deck and chosen mostly for colors, this land is a nice surprise blocker if you have forgetful opponents and is a nice way to close out games if you have Kessig and the board was just wiped.
  • Exploration : Simple. Elegant. Highly desirable for the opening hand.
  • Sol Ring : This card needs no introduction but I thought it was important to note that I’ve seriously contemplated cutting it to squeeze in another land. Ultimately, the best mana ramp of all time remains the best mana ramp of all time and being able to cast a 4 CMC card on turn 2 is too strong to pass up. There’s a reason Sol Ring is in every deck ever and this one is no exception.
  • Cheap Sorcery Ramp: Nature's Lore and Farseek serve the purpose of cheaply searching for shock lands on turn 2. This deck has a lot of good 4 drops and being able to ramp early is important.
  • Sakura-Tribe Elder : Basically just a rampant growth that can be reanimated and sacrificed if drawn late game. Turns out that’s insanely strong. One of the best possible opening hands this deck can have is Sakura-Tribe Elder and Journey to Eternity  . With no turn one ramp you are untapping with 6 lands on turn four and a very hard to deal with recursion engine in Atzal, Cave of Eternity .
  • Cultivate : One of the best ramp spells ever is one of the best ramp spells in this deck. One into play and one into hand is so big, especially when you have an extra land drop effect on the field.
  • Wayward Swordtooth : A poor man’s Azusa is that is no slouch. I should probably go get me an Azusa instead but it’s very rare that you can sustain dropping 3 lands per turn with Azusa on the field as you just run out of lands to drop. This deck doesn’t run 55+ lands like many Azusa decks do so I don’t think the list suffers much for having this rebellious little dino in her place. Swordtooth definitely doesn’t draw the same lightning rod attention Azusa does so he usually survives a few turns. Also, bashing for 5 is kind of nice and sometimes people forget you’ve achieved the City’s Blessing and get surprise blocked.
  • Pir's Whim : Recent addition over Tempt with Discovery . My play group wised up to the fact that it is ALWAYS a bad idea to give me more land drops so I pretty much only ever got one land w/ Tempt. Pir's Whim gets only one land but it also does a super good Shattergang impression while at it. It feels so good to take out a few Sol Ring s while ramping. Have you noticed that I like blowing up Sol Ring s?
  • Solemn Simulacrum : Sad Robot isn’t the most efficient ramp option out there but he does provide real card advantage and his dual typing is great with Shattergang.
  • Oracle of Mul Daya : Major ramp, minor card advantage. This little elf can create some seriously explosive plays and is one of the main reasons I run both Sylvan Library and Sensei's Divining Top .
  • Garruk Wildspeaker : Hailed by many as the "perfectly designed'' planeswalker, Garruk is perfectly at home in this deck. All three of his modes are on game plan for us and he is often involved in winning plays by untapping our big mana lands or giving our Angry Omnath tokens trample.
  • Hour of Promise : For those of us that have been playing commander for a while, this is my poor man’s imitation of Primeval Titan . There’s a reason that creature was banned. Getting any two lands onto the field at the same time is absurdly strong. Urborg + Coffers, Stage + Depths, Cradle + Arbor, two bounce lands, ect. This card can help you turn the corner like few others can.
  • Regal Behemoth : +1 mana on lands, and card draw. This is exactly what a lands deck wants to be doing. This dinosaur is not afraid of the ice age and is best friends with Glacial Chasm .
  • Ulvenwald Hydra : Another nerfed Primeval Titan that is still plenty good enough. The reach is relevant this deck has few on board ways to deal with fliers. Tutor up Kessig Wolf Run if you want to scare people.
  • Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger : The third meanest card in the deck and one of the strongest plays possible mid-game. V-clex sets you up for big plays while your opponents scramble to figure out who will be the one to take care of this massive monster.
  • Titania, Protector of Argoth : An inspiration for the deck, Titania turns lands into beefy tokens all over the place. Usually you have a land in the yard when you cast her and usually it’s a fetch land. So for 5 mana you often get 10 power on the board, ramp one mana, and 2 landfall triggers. Spicey. If she has enough other creatures supporting her she can completely destroy the symmetry of Death Cloud . Let me run you through a simple scenario. Titania is on the field with one of many additional land drop effects and a Ramunap Excavator … that’s 2 lands out of the yard and 10 power per turn, for no additional mana investment. That’s the kind of value that wins games. Don’t be afraid to sacrifice a bunch of lands to Squandered Resources or Greater Gargadon if your opponent is tapped out and you can score a kill. Best interaction: Scapeshift .
  • Omnath, Locus of Rage : Om nom! The second inspiration for this deck and one of it’s best finishers. Landfall happens all over the place in this deck so if you can stick Omnath for even one turn you can dominate the board. The entire deck is built around landfall, so it’s not uncommon to untap with Om nom and promptly get 30 power in tokens. He also has great synergy with Shattergang, Greater Gargadon , and Phyrexian Tower
  • Avenger of Zendikar : Avenger is a premier threat across the format in many different strategies. In a deck designed to maximize landfall and abuse creature tokens he’s absolutely busted. No further comment.
  • Rampaging Baloths : Omnath Lite is still plenty scary. Of all my landfall creatures, he’s the closest to the chopping block as he feels the least unique but the Baloths are safe for now. They are good with everything that makes Omnath good. Just not quite as good.
  • Nesting Dragon : Mommy dargon seems very interesting and I believe she will be a strong addition to the deck. Each token represents two sacrifice triggers from Shattergang and they provide nice wrath insurance. She’s the only flier currently in the deck so that’s nice too. I think I prefer the Dragon to the Baloth’s as her tokens have some real staying power, but I don’t think either of them are even close to the edge.
  • Zendikar's Roil : This enchantment may not seem like much, but getting a card:Grizzy Bears for every landfall trigger is just fine. Enchantments almost always outlive creatures and often times people will overlook this “derpy” uncommon from Magic Origins. Also, the tokens are Elementals so they love it when big daddy Omnath joins the party.
  • Torment of Hailfire : Torment is the 2nd meanest card in the deck and by far the quickest and most reliable way to end games in a hurry. It's not all the interesting to Torment for X=30+ but it is effective. My favorite way to use Torment is in the mid game where X = 10-15 and everyone has to think REALLY hard about how to respond. Decks like this need finishers and I expect Torment will be a common choice for many Jundy lands decks. It's just supper good and while it's not a techy play, it's WAY more interesting than Exsanguinate .
  • Death Cloud : This is the single meanest card in the deck and one that must be played carefully, both for gameplay reasons and political/friendship reasons. A deathcloud for 3 can seriously slow people down, and you can knock your opponents out of the running in a hurry. 10+ and it's usually a sure thing. The issue with Death Cloud is that you need to be able to break the synergy so you come out ahead. Titania, Gitrog, Avenger of Zendikar , and World Breaker are the best ways to do this but there are many ways this deck can bounce back faster than your opponents. Try not to just blow everything up 2 hours into a game and put everyone in topdeck mode with 2 lands. Your friends will not like you for this. If you can't play this card in a way that allows you to win in a couple turns, it's probably best to not play it at all. Disclaimers aside, if ever there was a commander deck built for breaking Death Cloud , this is it. Not many people have seen it in action and scoring a victory by sculpting the perfect board state and dropping a skillfull and perfectly timed Death Cloud is very rewarding and one of my favorite ways to win.
  • The Gitrog Monster : One of Shattergan’s lieutenants and an inspiration for the deck. He turns every fetch land into a cantrip, every cycling land into a Divination , turns Strip Mine and Dust Bowl into card advantage engines, allows your Dryad Arbor to bravely block without fear of losing resources, and (like Titania) completely breaks Death Cloud wide open if you have enough other creatures on the field that he can live through the plague. He’s absurd with Squandered Resources and Greater Gargadon , and I’m sure there are more degenerate interactions I’m not even thinking of right now. Oh, and he also gives us an extra land drop each turn. This deck was built to abuse every single one of his abilities and it’s very rare that he hits the field without shaking up the game. Long live Gitrog.
  • Sylvan Library : Cheap, repeatable card selection and the ability to stack your deck for Courser of Kruphix and Oracle of Mul Daya . A perfect fit for this deck.
  • Sensei's Divining Top : See above. We shuffle so much during a game that it’s not uncommon to see 3 new cards every turn with both of these.
  • Phyrexian Arena : A classic staple that does good work and can be sacrificed to Shattergang if needed. Slow and grindy card advantage is just fine for slow and grindy decks.
  • Tireless Tracker : Don’t underestimate the clues. The card advantage Tracker can provide is no joke. The clue tokens are great with Shattergang too.
  • Wheel of Fortune : When you have lots of mana it’s easy to empty your hand. When you empty your hand it’s super nice to get a new hand.
  • Nissa, Vital Force : If you can protect Nissa for a turn after playing her and using her +1 ability she can emblem. Her emblem is the best card draw this deck could ever hope for and easily takes your game into hyperdrive. Constant Mists is my favorite way to keep Nissa safe, but if you get her down early enough sometimes the 5/5 from her +1/+1 is enough. Pro tip, Glacial Chasm does NOT protect your plansewalkers, though sometimes people assume it does. I’ll leave it up to your conscience to decide if you want to remind them.
  • Lord Windgrace : The walker that will undoubtedly be the most common lands commander from now until forever is still and excellent choice in the 99. Both his + and – abilities fit right into our game plan and his ultimate is br00tal if you can hide behind a Constant Mists long enough to get him there.
  • Spot Removal: Jund colors provide some of the best removal in the format, but we need to be selective because so many of our deck slots are devoted to land shenanigans . We only run three pieces of targeted removal, but they are good ones. Song of the Dryads is super on theme and pretty much is a better version of O-ring in this format because you can imprison opposing commanders. Maelstrom Pulse is as close to Vindicate as we can get and does a great job taking out token swarms. Windgrace's Judgment is three Pulses for 5 mana at instant speed… wuuuuut?! 3 pieces of spot removal may not seem like much but with Shattergang it’s worked out well.
  • Sweepers: Damnation is classic, cheap (from a cmc perspective), and works every time. Blasphemous Act usually costs 1-3 mana and is one of the most efficient sweepers in the game. Pernicious Deed blows up everything and is a great rattlesnake. Honorable mention goes to card: Deathcloud, though you rarely want to play that spell when you are super far behind on the board.
  • Land Recursion: Crucible of Worlds is the perfect card in this deck. It’s cheap and can keep us in lands forever and ever. It’s best friends with all of our fetch lands, LD lands, and Squandered Resources . I was lucky enough to pick one up back in the day when it was <$10, but the recent core set reprint has brought this staple back down to a reasonable price point. Ramunap Excavator is Crucible #2 and can also be sacrificed to Shattergang. I’d run 5 of these effects if I could. Careful about abusing Strip Mine with these these recursion effects, you don’t want people to hate you before you have a chance to obliterate them with Death Cloud . World Shaper is a relative newcomer to the party and loves getting sacrificed to Shattergang, Phyrexian Tower , Greater Gargadon , and (most of all) Death Cloud . Sylvan Reclamation is pretty much a sorcery version of World Shaper that is harder to abuse, but easier to pull off. Life from the Loam is a repeatable recursion engine that can also be turned into a card draw powerhouse if you can get a couple of your cycling lands in the yard. And don’t forget about Lord Windgrace !
  • Other Recursion: Eternal Witness gets back every card in the deck and is super abuseable with our recursion lands (card:Volrath’s Stonghold & Atzal, Cave of Eternity ). Yawgmoth's Will is pretty much an X spell version of E-wit and can set you so far ahead that victory is a foregone conclusion. Don’t be trapped by the “live the dream” mentality with Will though. Sometimes dropping it on turn 4 to get back two lands and a Skullclamp is what you need to stay in the game.
  • Squandered Resources : This cute little land sac outlet does so much for us. It can ramp mana in a pinch, go crazy with Titania or Gitrog, or just keep us in a steady flow of landfall triggers with cards like Crucible of Worlds and Lord Windgrace . It can also be used to blow the game wide by extending your mana for your X spells or putting all your lands in the yard so you can recur them all with Sylvan Reclamation in order to make an army of landfall tokens or turn your Avenger of Zendikar tokens into 15/16 monsters. So much synergy in such a small package.
  • Crop Rotation : The hardest working card in the deck, Crop Rot can do SO many different things and is an insane trick because it’s an instant. Instant speed Glacial Chasm to blank an alpha strike is one of my favorite plays. Instant speed Marit Lage token? Sure. Don’t forget that the land enters the battlefield untapped, so you can surprise people with big mana out of nowhere by grabbing Cradle or Coffers or something. I’m never sad to draw this card and I can’t imagine not playing it in a lands deck.
  • Scapeshift : Crop Rot’s big brother does ridiculous things in commander. Scapeshift does double duty by tutoring the lands we need and giving us nice chunk of landfall and land death triggers. I could write a research paper on all the different plays that Scapeshift makes possible. Titania, Omnath, and Gitrog go into hyperdrive. It sets us up for huge mass recursions from World Shaper , and Sylvan Reclamation . Ect. Ect. Ect. Play this card. Note that I don’t run Valakut because I don’t want to devote 3 deck slots to an effect that, at best, will knock out one player.
  • Tutors: Green Sun's Zenith is a toolbox tutor that finds all of our best threats and can also ramp us with Dryad Arbor on turn one. Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor are the single best tutors in the format and we play black, so yay! So much of the power in this deck is synergy based and unlocked by having two or three different pieces on the field at once. These tutors help us assemble the interactions we need.
  • Constant Mists : A repeatable fog effect made stronger by the fact that we usually want to sacrifice lands. This card keeps us alive when we need more time to durdle into a winning board state and is pretty much the only way to ever achieve a Lord Windgrace ultimate. With Gitrog or Titania on the field it also becomes a 2 mana cantrip or a two mana 5/3, at instant speed. Tech!

3/1/18:

  • Garruk Wildspeaker in over Keldon Firebombers . Every mode of Garruk's is on gameplan for this deck and while the Firebombers are awesome, I've found they instantly make me the enemy of the table and tend to piss people off and make games take longer than they otherwise would. Been wanting to give Garruk a test run anyway.
  • Sensei's Divining Top in over Dakmor Salvage . I couldn't find a nonland cut for Top and I feel like this deck needs more topdeck manipulation given the fact that I shuffle all the time and want to rip lands off the top of my library with Oracle of Mul Daya and Courser of Kruphix . Salvage is a nice land with some cool synergies but I feel like Top will have a bigger impact on most games.

8/10/18:

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Revision 25 See all

(3 years ago)

Date added 6 years
Last updated 3 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

17 - 0 Mythic Rares

56 - 0 Rares

10 - 0 Uncommons

8 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.52
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, Cat Warrior 2/2 G, City's Blessing, Clue, Elemental 2/2 G, Elemental 5/3 G, Elemental 5/5 RG, Emblem Nissa, Vital Force, Plant 0/1 G, The Monarch, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders EDH Ideas, Interesting, Interesting, Jund ideas
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