The Wurminator *PRIMER*

Commander / EDH Aggro Arena Casual Mono-Green Multiplayer Voltron

NV_1980

Artifact (22)

• 1x Basilisk Collar
• 1x Blackblade Reforged
• 1x Champion's Helm
• 1x Commander's Plate
• 1x Emerald Medallion
• 1x Erratic Portal
• 1x Hammer of Nazahn
• 1x Library of Leng
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Loxodon Warhammer
• 1x Magebane Armor
• 1x Mithril Coat
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Scythe of the Wretched
• 1x Shadowspear
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Sword of Truth and Justice
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Trailblazer's Boots
• 1x Umezawa's Jitte
• 1x Whispersilk Cloak

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Exponential Growth
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Rampant Growth
• 1x Rishkar's Expertise
• 1x Spinning Wheel Kick
• 1x Tempt with Discovery
• 1x Traverse the Outlands

Creature (18)

• 1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking
• 1x Broodhatch Nantuko
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fanatic of Rhonas
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Llanowar Tribe
• 1x Mossbridge Troll
• 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1x Pathbreaker Ibex
• 1x Psychosis Crawler
• 1x Saber Ants
• 1x Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
• 1x Stonehoof Chieftain
• 1x Stuffy Doll
• 1x Temur Sabertooth
• 1x Ulvenwald Tracker
• 1x Vigor
• 1x Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus

Enchantment (10)

• 1x Burgeoning
• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Concordant Crossroads
• 1x Druid's Call
• 1x Exploration
• 1x Greater Good
• 1x Lignify
• 1x Mirri's Guile
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Unnatural Growth

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Garruk, Primal Hunter

Commander (1)

Land (35)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Command Beacon
• 20x Forest
• 1x Homeward Path
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Opal Palace
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x War Room
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Witch's Clinic
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Yavimaya Hollow

Instant (5)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Berserk
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Worldly Tutor

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Welcome to The Wurminator{G}

Hi there! Welcome to the primer of this mono-green, Voltron deck, commanded by Grothama, All-Devouring. There be a worm here! A giant example that consumes equipment and integrates the magical power of such baubles into her body, allowing her to shatter opponents in short order. Be careful young planeswalker; do not venture too deep into the forests of Alara, for she will find you, open up her gigantic maw and swallow you whole before you can blink. This deck is meant to be played in casual formats. It’s not meant to be used in a competitive fashion, but of course anyone is welcome to try! Feel free to comment on anything you (dis)like throughout this primer; hopefully you will enjoy it!

Why Grothama?

Because sending a magically empowered worm into battle is funny. Joking aside, Grothama’s power- and toughness scores are impressive for a CMC5 legendary creature. This advantage, comes with a catch though; a big bulls-eye on her ass with the words ‘kill for card-draw’ stitched to it. Bit of a bummer, but protecting her becomes slightly easier in a deck filled with equipment. Also, let’s not forget, creatures on the deck’s side can benefit from her ability too. This allows for the use of Grothama in three ways; each a possible path to victory. Either opposing commanders are killed with massive quantities of commander-damage OR Grothama fights the deck’s creatures for massive boons OR the deck’s creatures kill Grothama and her wielder benefits from the draw she generates. Win-win-win!

Strengths and Weaknesses

The following ten parameters have been used to determine the strength of the deck. For each, a score of 5 (very good), 4 (good), 3 (mediocre), 2 (bad) or 1 (very bad) has been allocated; when totalized this score represents the power rating of the deck (maximum score is 50 points).

• Mana: indicates the availability of mana sources within the deck.
• Ramp: indicates the speed at which mana sources within the deck can be made available.
• Card Advantage: indicates availability of filter- and draw resources represented within the deck.
• Overall speed: indicates the deck’s potential for pace, based on resource availability and mana curve.
• Combo: indicates the measure of combo-orientation of the deck.
• Army: indicates the deck’s creature-army strength.
• Commander: indicates how much the deck is commander-oriented/dependent (less dependency is better).
• Interaction: indicates how much this deck can mess with opponents’ board states and turn-phases.
• Resilience: indicates whether the deck can prevent and take punches.
• Spellpower: indicates the availability and strength of high-impact spells.

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Mana: 3

For the generation of raw energy, a total of eight direct mana generators (three creatures, four artifacts (uncharacteristic for a green deck) and one enchantment) are included, aside from lands. Also a few ways have been included to cheapen the casting of green spells.

Ramp: 3

Ramping is featured in the form of creatures and sorceries (eight in total) that allow for additional land drops (some of which will allow for more than one additional land-drop per turn).

Card Advantage: 3

Aside from Grothama being a fantastic potential draw engine by herself, the deck also features four direct draw options, two card filtering mechanisms, two tutors and two means for recursion (both repeatable in the right circumstances).

Overall speed: 4

In ideal conditions, Grothama can be summoned on turn 1, which is pretty frightening. However, on average this deck can muster a very decent speed based on the combination of decently available mana-, ramp- and card-advantage options.

Combo: 3

Not an especially combo-heavy deck, but there are definitely a few doozies in here to elicit a laugh or two (as well as some serious opposition-smackdown of course!). All of these combo’s are centralized around the presence of Grothama and mostly feature the dealing of outrageous damage amounts.

Army: 3

Unlike most green decks, this one features relatively few creatures. Those that have been included can be sub-categorized under resources (six), commander-support (five), army-creators (two) and pure damage (five). All creatures within the latter three categories ought to be combined with the deck’s commander for maximum effect.

Commander: 1

Without Grothama present, this deck cannot use its most important synergies and combos, making the effort to win extremely difficult indeed. Therefore, the deck contains several fail-safes to keep her around.

Interaction: 1

This deck is just about pure Voltron, so there’s not much interaction with the other side. There are a few options for removal and a way to steal opposing creatures.

Resilience: 3

It’s very important to keep Grothama alive to remain effective. The deck contains ten options to grant her indestructibility, hexproof or a gigantic power/toughness boost. The life-gain can also be used to protect.

Spellpower: 2

There are some significant draw-casts to be used in this deck, along with several spells that really help to increase the overall board-advantage in both mana and draw options.

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Total power score: 26

Due to the deck’s lack of versatility, its power score is not particularly high. However, if not inhibited, this deck can cause some serious damage to its opposition within the span of very few turns. Overall, it has a good speed, more than enough resources, some heavy hitters and decent combo/synergy potential.

General strategy

The key to victory with this deck is to have Grothama, All-Devouring available anywhere between turns 2 and 4, so that she can attack at the earliest opportunity. Her primary goal is to go after the commanders of decks that are strongest against her (most notably, those that are good at army building and stealing). Dependent on how strong Grothama can be made, as well her durability on the field, one can then decide to either keep sniping opponents with commander damage OR use her fight ability to fuel one of the other available win-conditions within the deck.

Starting hand

At least three cards in the starting hand ought to be lands (or two lands and a CMC0 or CMC1 mana rock). It is recommended not to start a game without this hand (even if one has to mulligan down to three cards). The ideal hand would also contain some acceleration in the form of additional land-drop options or filter options.

Early game

Victory will depend on Grothama’s first appearance being as fast as one can make it. Hence, the resources to cast her onto the field are required asap. During turns 1 and 2 try for additional land-drops through Burgeoning or Exploration. If those are unavailable, opt for mana rocks like Sol Ring. Ancient Tomb or Carpet of Flowers in the starting hand can work too. Should none of these options be available to us, either go for a ramping spell like Nature's Lore or Rampant Growth OR go for early draw/filtering through the use of Mirri's Guile, Scroll Rack, Sensei's Divining Top or Sylvan Library.

By turn 3 or 4, enough resources should be available to summon card:Grothama, All-Devourer. From this point forward, she should attack every turn. Primary targets are opponents with army-building decks OR decks that steal/copy. Secondary targets are opponents without creature defenses to stop Grothama from rampaging through. Tertiary targets are decks wielding creatures that one wants to force into blocking Grothama (few players will let 10 commander damage slip by). In order to make her attacks more impactful, equip her to the best of your ability, giving priority to anything that either gives Grothama trample (Shadowspear, Loxodon Warhammer or landwalk/protection from a color used by opponents (Commander's Plate, Trailblazer's Boots or Sword of Truth and Justice). The early game should end with dispatching at least one of them.

Mid game

When the mid-game starts, it’s important to decide whether it is feasible to keep sniping opponents, or whether it more win-conditions need to be displayed. For the first option, one wants to increase Grothama’s power in order to kill-off opposing commanders as effortlessly as possible (one-shot would be nice). So, equipment like Blackblade Reforged or Umezawa's Jitte is needed. Another option would be to have Pathbreaker Ibex enter the battlefield and attack, in order to provide tremendous bonus to Grothama’s power. Or cast Berserk for such a purpose. One can also summon Vigor and make anyone fighting Grothama leave a lasting impression on her power.

For the second option, help from other creatures is needed. Broodhatch Nantuko and Saber Ants for instance, can attack and fight Grothama, thereby instantly generating a large army. This combines particularly well with Vigor on the field, or with Nantuko/Ants being made indestructible with things like Darksteel Plate, Hammer of Nazahn or Stonehoof Chieftain (so that one can keep generating a larger army). One can also use Mossbridge Troll to kill Grothama, after which a quarter of the deck can be drawn. Or maybe have Stuffy Doll fight Grothama, after which the damage done to her can be bounced to an opponent.

End Game

Dependent on which path chosen during the mid-game, one either reaches a point where Grothama becomes too powerful to stop through the equipment she absorbs, meaning everything is taken care off through commander damage, or one manages to use one the deck’s game-winning combos (described in a separate section) to pull out the win.

Combos and synergies

• Grothama, All-Devouring + Broodhatch Nantuko/Saber Ants/creature enchanted with Druid's Call + Darksteel Plate/Hammer of Nazahn:
  1. Equip the Plate/Hammer to Nantuko/Ants/Creature with Call.
  2. Attack an opponent with Nantuko/Ants/Creature with Call and have them fight Grothama.
  3. This results in the generation of at least ten insects/ants/squirrels.
  Due to Nantuko/Ants/Creature not dying during the fight, this process can be repeated during the next attack.
• Grothama, All-Devouring + Basilisk Collar/Loxodon Warhammer/Shadowspear + insects/ants/squirrels from first combo:
  1. Equip Collar/Warhammer/Shadowspear to Grothama.
  2. Attack with the army of creatures and as a result have them fight Grothama.
  This will net at least 100 life (at the cost of my critter-army).
• Grothama, All-Devouring + Vigor + insects/ants/squirrels from first combo:
  1. Attack with insects/ants/squirrels and have them fight Grothama.
  2. The first insect/ant/squirrel deals 1 damage to Grothama, and Grothama deals 10 damage to insect/ant/squirrel.
  3. Vigor turns the damage to +1/+1 counters in both cases.
  4. Grothama is now 11/9, while the insect/ant/squirrel is now an 11/11 creature.
  Repeat for the other nine insects/ants/squirrels. Then laugh heartily as an invincible army wipes the floor with all opponents.
• Grothama, All-Devouring + Mossbridge Troll + Concordant Crossroads/Swiftfoot Boots/Lightning Greaves:
  1. With Grothama on the board, cast Troll.
  2. Equip Boots/Greaves to Troll and attack.
  3. As a result, Troll fights Grothama and draw a quarter of the deck.
  Even more fun when one includes a casting of Berserk on Troll to instead draw half one’s deck. Even more fun when one also includes Psychosis Crawler to deal 50 damage to all opponents.
• Grothama, All-Devouring + Mossbridge Troll + Vigor:
  1. Tap Grothama to make Troll 25/25.
  2. Attack with Troll and have it fight Grothama.
  3. Vigor turns all damage to +1/+1 counters, resulting in Grothama becoming 35/33, while the Troll (in its un-empowered state) has become 15/15.
  Grothama is now strong enough to one-shot opponents with commander damage.
• Grothama, All-Devouring + Selvala, Heart of the Wilds + Erratic Portal/Temur Sabertooth + Swiftfoot Boots/Lightning Greaves/Concordant Crossroads:
  1. This combo needs at least 5 available mana to kick off.
  2. With Grothama on the board, cast Selvala and equip her with Boots/Greaves.
  3. Pay {G} to use Selvala’s ability to generate ten {G}.
  4. Use two of that mana to have Sabertooth bounce her back to hand.
  5. Use three mana to re-summon Selvala and one mana to equip her again with Boots.
  This nets four {G} per cycle. Repeat as often as necessary to generate as much mana as necessary. In case Grothama is the biggest thing on the field (which she often is), use the mana generated by Selvala to keep bouncing Grothama with Sabertooth, each time triggering Selvala’s first ability to draw a card. Keep repeating until the deck has been drawn and now cast everything to close out the game.
• Grothama, All-Devouring (or another strong creature) + Darksteel Plate/Hammer of Nazahn/Magebane Armor + Ulvenwald Tracker:
  1. Equip Plate/Hammer/Armor to Grothama.
  2. Use Tracker to have any opposing creature weaker than Grothama fight her; thereby assassinating it.
  Want to make this even more fun? Equip Grothama/strong creature with Scythe of the Wretched and reap souls that have haplessly fallen to strengthen the deck’s team.
• Grothama, All-Devouring + Stuffy Doll: Attack with Doll and have it fight Grothama to deal at least 10 damage to the opponent targeted with Doll. Add Temur Sabertooth to return Doll to your hand once opponent is dead and then resummon Doll to target a new opponent.

Card Choices – mainboard

Lands

Reliable sources of mana, and some utility:

• Ancient Tomb: want to make Grothama available early; this enables that beautifully.
• Cavern of Souls: just a nice way to make Grothama uncounterable.
• Command Beacon: Grothama will face removal; this will get her back a little cheaper.
• Homeward Path: it’s harmful to the Voltron strategy if someone manages to steal Grothama. This has been added to get her back.
• Misty Rainforest/Verdant Catacombs/Windswept Heath/Wooded Foothills: the deck’s filter lands.
• Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx: staple land in a single-color, permanent-rich deck.
• Opal Palace: allows re-summoning Grothama a little stronger.
• Reliquary Tower: in here because the amount of draw this deck can generate gets pretty ludicrous.
• Rogue's Passage: can make Grothama unblockable, which is useful when going for kills by commander damage.
• Yavimaya Hollow: have creatures fight Grothama and get killed; then regenerate them with this land.
• War Room: a nice additional resource for some more draw.
• Witch's Clinic: an additional option to grant Grothama lifelink.

Mana

The cards used to accelerate mana-availability:

• Azusa, Lost but Seeking: with the card-draw options presented by Grothama (in case she’s used in this fashion), two extra land drops per turn is a great way to quickly deploy resources.
• Burgeoning: in a multiplayer setting, this is one of the best cards to have in a starting-hand, especially accompanied by 3-4 lands. Having all these lands available by turn 2 is just insane. Also good when not in a starting hand.
• Carpet of Flowers: most playgroups will feature someone playing blue. Lots of counterspells and draw seem appealing. So one might as well use their islands for one’s own benefit.
• Emerald Medallion: everything that’s green is cast at a discount!
• Exploration: one of best ramp cards in an opening hand, as it accelerates its owner quickly to speeds beyond their opponents’ capabilities.
• Fanatic of Rhonas: together with Grothama, this is one hell of a dork!
• Llanowar Elves: a mana dork; useful to accelerate stuff in the early stages of the game.
• Llanowar Tribe: provides {G}{G}{G} on tapping; very decent. Also survives a bit better than the average dork due to having a midrange toughness.
• Nature's Lore/Rampant Growth: two fantastic ramp spells that can be used early.
• Oracle of Mul Daya: a living Exploration that also acts as a filter; one of the best self-sufficient accelerators ever made and key to making this deck go faster.
• Sol Ring: a CMC1 artifact that comes into play untapped and grants 2 colorless when tapped; almost the best turn 1 start-up card anyone could wish for.
• Tempt with Discovery: a ramp spell that can prove to be very beneficial.
• Thought Vessel: fits very well with Grothama’s huge card-draw potential.
• Traverse the Outlands: combined with Grothama (or another of the deck’s strong creatures), both the best filtering and resource-deployment card in this deck.

Draw, Scry and Tutor

The mechanisms that provide card advantage:

• Garruk, Primal Hunter: hell of planeswalker that can help me in a number of ways, but in this deck his primary utilization is what he can do in terms of draw.
• Greater Good: this is so much fun, as it has the potential to completely deny any opposing player from drawing based on Grothama’s leaving the battlefield. It also acts as sort of an insurance system, in case someone still manages to get rid of her.
• Green Sun's Zenith/Worldly Tutor: superb, cheap-to-use tutors for any creature in the deck.
• Library of Leng: not card advantage in the form of draw or filtering; but an immunity to discarding (in any way).
• Mirri's Guile: free filtering during every upkeep of the deck’s controller.
• Rishkar's Expertise: lots of draw and a 'free' summon in one.
• Scroll Rack: in essence, for just a single mana and a tap, this card increases the hand-size by as many cards as there were in one’s hand to begin with.
• Sylvan Library: additional draw at the cost of some life; great in a pinch, especially since it’s allowed to look at what one draws first.

Boosts and Equipment

Boosts, companions and artifact food for the lovely worm:

• Basilisk Collar: this serves multiple purposes. On Grothama, this will ensure everything that decides to fight her dies; most notably useful in cases the opposition tries to be cute and get rid of her. This way, the artifact also guarantees some massive life-gain. On any other creatures, this will help kill Grothama (for sure), should one need some card-draw.
• Berserk: turns anything (and especially the commander) into a frothing, maniacal force of absolute destruction.
• Blackblade Reforged: the ancient sword of Dakkon Blackblade. Including his trusty weapon seemed like a great idea, considering its potential, and it looks awesome too.
• Champion's Helm: fits Grothama neatly when she goes full Voltron (usually during the early stages of a game). It can be very useful on Temur Sabertooth as well in later stages, as people often fear it more than Grothama once games reach a mid-/late game phase.
• Colossus Hammer: one hell of a power/toughness booster, mostly meant for Grothama as it doubles her in size. Useful, as the deck aims to go for massive commander damage.
• Commander's Plate: protection from almost all opposing colors; that makes dealing commander damage a whole lot easier!
• Concordant Crossroads: cornerstone of some of the deck’s combos, as well as just great to have when something large hits the field early; gives a bit of that additional shock-and-awe.
• Exponential Growth: a second berserk than can be made even more ridiculous; in here for the lulz.
• God-Eternal Rhonas: boosting Grothama to double-damage (in her vanilla state) is almost enough to insta-pop an opponent.
• Hammer of Nazahn: fulfills a similar purpose as Brass Squire; though the bonus to damage and its ability to make something indestructible are nice.
• Heroic Intervention: in case someone feels like taking out the deck’s creatures without approval.
• Lightning Greaves/Swiftfoot Boots: useful for some combos and just aces should the need arise to protect the commander.
• Loxodon Warhammer: in here to provide Grothama with trample primary, life-link secondary and a power bonus tertiary.
• Magebane Armor: turns Grothama into a 12/12 that can’t be destroyed in a fight; makes her a lot less feasible target for assassination.
• Mithril Coat: Bilbo’s attire will look nice on her; not to mention it will make her last.
• Scythe of the Wretched: very useful on Grothama; especially when one can make her impervious to harm and force creatures to fight her.
• Shadowspear: this has been included to make sure Grothama can kill everything; even those that seem impervious to such harm at first. The enabling of trample (and life-link) are useful too.
• Stonehoof Chieftain: bad-ass than can also grant attacking creatures indestructible. Helps the deck’s creatures to survive; even when facing off against Grothama.
• Sword of Truth and Justice: protection and +1/+1 counters for Grothama; wonderful.
• Trailblazer's Boots: as just about all EDH decks use unorthodox lands, this is the best way to guarantee an unblockable Grothama.
• Umezawa's Jitte: a very powerful piece of equipment that can be used to assassinate something, gain life or empower the creature that equips it.
• Unnatural Growth: double critters' power (and toughness) reliably every turn (including the opponents' turns).
• Vigor: the ultimate booster and really useful in a deck that features Grothama. It makes her (and any army she brings as company) impervious to damage from any source. More importantly, damage actually makes her stronger.
• Whispersilk Cloak: making Grothama unblockable is an excellent way to get in commander kills.
• Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus: the power, … THE POWERRRR!!

Disruption and Utility

Some destruction, some recursion and some options that provide wins when combined with Grothama:

• Beast Within: very versatile and cheap spell in terms of destruction; its consequence can easily be dealt with.
• Broodhatch Nantuko/Druid's Call/Saber Ants: combined with Grothama, these are all fantastic army creators.
• Eternal Witness: great way to retrieve many of the one-hit-high-damage cards in this deck; can be made repeatable when combined with Erratic Portal/Temur Sabertooth.
• Krosan Grip: wipes out an enchantment/artifact without a chance for the opponent to counter.
• Lignify: beautiful way to disable commanders.
• Mossbridge Troll: can be made ridiculously large by Grothama and have it out against her for some massive draw. Its regenerative ability that does not require any mana, makes it particularly impressive as it makes the Troll immune to just about all damage.
• Psychosis Crawler: has the potential to deal some massive damage when combined with the draw potential that Grothama offers.
• Spinning Wheel Kick: a strong creature- AND planeswalker removal option (fun to combine with a life-link option on Grothama).
• Stuffy Doll: it attacks, fights Grothama, and then deals the most important enemy a ton of damage. Can be repeated again the following turn, as Doll is nicely indestructible.
• Ulvenwald Tracker: this becomes so strong when combined with an equipped Grothama; especially when she has been given Scythe of the Wretched or something that provides lifelink.

Card Choices – Sideboard

Some cards that occasionally make the cut, when the situation calls for it:

• Spearbreaker Behemoth: indestructibility for a little mana, so not bad. Has occasionally been exchanged with Stonehoof Chieftain for it, as against decks with lots of creature removal indestructibility on demand (and not just in combat) can work miracles.
• Tooth and Nail: included sometimes just because it’s fun to enjoy the looks of dread on people’s faces when one casts this.

Thank you for reading!

Appreciate the time you took to read this primer. Hopefully it was entertaining and useful to you. If so, feel free to leave a +1 and/or feedback of any kind in the comments below. Thanks again!

Date added	6 years
Last updated	1 day
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 0 Mythic Rares 45 - 0 Rares 19 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.88
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Fanatic of Rhonas 4/4 B, Insect 1/1 G, Morph 2/2 C, Squirrel 1/1 G, Wurm 6/6 G
Folders	favourite