That's a fair point. Also outside of the Tower I pretty much have the same manabase and was wondering what would you take out for a Bayou ? My LGS recently got one in and I bought it and I was thinking that taking out a forest for it would be a good idea.

OptimalGreen: Almost certainly Blooming Marsh . I wouldn't want to reduce my basic count due to Earthcraft .

I completely forgot about Earthcraft. Also what do you think of Abrupt Decay ? I'm guessing there's no room for it with Splendid Agony and Grim Affliction taking up removal slots. I put one in my Kadena deck thinking it wouldn't be that relevant but I've blown up a lot of Swords, Greaves, Sylvan Libraries, low cmc Commanders, and so on with it. I'm not sure if there's room in Hapatra though unless you take out like Unearth maybe.

OptimalGreen: I REALLY need to run Abrupt Decay , someday I will find a slot for it... It might indeed be the replacement for Unearth.

Yeah I was thinking that Unearth could get the axe considering you're running Volrath's Stronghold , Phyrexian Reclamation , Victimize , Animate Dead , and Reanimate

OptimalGreen: Done.

Cut Fume Spitter for Living Plane so you can laugh like a madman! Do it! May the salt be with you!

One sided MLD never felt so good <3

What else did you cut besides Urborg to add the two new fetch lands?

ahh man living plane in nasty good call Peofet93

Profet93 it's not one sided...

Pabs4444

While living planes effect is symmetrical, given his rapid abuse and proliferation of "Hapatra's Toxic Relationship on the Rocks" (all the -1/-1 counters in the deck), he could more easily abuse living plane than another commander. Moreover, I'm assuming this would be done at instant speed and there are few instant speed cards I can think of that can interact with lands effectively.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician + commander + snake = GG everyone else's lands. I'm sure there are other variations of this. Living plane alone also helps stop land matters decks, not allowing them to tap for cradle the turn it comes down, which ironically, synergizes with living plane.

Profet93: I need to test with Living Plane before committing to it -- while it would allow a lot of powerful synergies, I'm also concerned for several reasons.

First, the number of things that place global -1 counters in this list is a bit limited: Yawgmoth, BSZ, Soul Snuffers. And honestly, once Yawgmoth is on the field, I usually win anyway.

Second, this means Hapatra can always be blocked. And while blocking her would eat lands, in decks like your Azusa list, you'd rather kill two lands of your choice than let me kill one land of mine (and thus you'd block and kill my commander). Maybe I can politic a solution: "if you let me hit you with Hapatra, I'll kill someone else's land".

Third, if someone else board wipes with this down, I am unbelievably screwed. Other players run more artifact ramp than I do, meaning that a Wrath of God essentially says "the player with the most mana rocks wins".

And fourth, of course, Living Plane costs a LOT of money :(

Living Plane sounds way too narrow especially for something that costs $120 if you ask me. In theory it sounds neat but in practice I'm willing to bet it's not as good as it seems.

ya know, I have a similar build along with almost every card in this decklist. I may just have to switch builds to bring something new to the table. And NO I don't have a living plane

I know you've said you want to keep your basic land count up for Earthcraft but I think taking out one swamp for Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth would be a good idea. Thirteen basics is a good enough amount to make sure you can benefit from Earthcraft especially when you have as many fetch lands as you do. I've had a lot of games where my opening hand was Urborg and two forests which was pretty much like having two Bayous in my opening hand.

Could you possibly give me a step by step on how the first combo works please. I’m fairly new to Commander and I’m having a difficult time understanding the interaction(s). Thank you

OptimalGreen

Taking urborg out is a meta call due to someone's deck being built around it, and providing nonbasics that normally don't tap for black mana such as Workshop, tabernacle, or even a boseju. The slight benefit of being to cast Necro more easily is outweighed the cost, correct me if I am wrong.

WarSpaniel

Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician + any one spare creature work together as follows (correct me if I am wrong)....

1. Sacrifice spare creature to Yawgmoth, Thran Physician 's ability, placing a -1/-1 counter on an opponents creature and drawing a card.
2. Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons reads "Whenever you put one or more -1/-1 counters on a creature, create a 1/1 green Snake creature token with deathtouch," so as a result, you make a 1/1 snake
3. Use Yawgmoth, Thran Physician 's ability sacrificing the snake you just made, to place a -1/-1 counter on an opponents creature and draw a card.
4. This will trigger #2 again. Each iteration of this will draw you 1 card, lose 1 life, and place one -1/-1 counter on an opponents creature.

Rinse and repeat until you destroy all of their creatures, or as your life total allows.

Profet93 wait are you a different person or are you Daedalus19876? My notifications said you both mentioned me.

OptimalGreen

I apologize for commenting so much over Daedalus19876's deck. I am a different person from him who plays against his deck in person and I fear for my life every time I do. Tappedout notifications are probably just glitching.

Profet93 Ah okay. Also if you have someone with a really good deck running Cabal Coffers I could understand taking it out. We've got someone with a mono-b deck running Coffers but his deck isn't nearly strong enough for me to consider taking out Urborg.

OptimalGreen: Yes, the issue here is Profet93's 100% Coffers-centric deck in my meta. Frequently I literally can't play Urborg without losing the game immediately, so out it goes. In an average meta, I would still run Urborg.

WarSpaniel: I hope that Profet93's answer was in enough detail for you :) The only thing to add is that executing this loop causes you to draw absurd numbers of cards (often twenty or more), but costs 1 life per -1 counter placed and card drawn. To not run out of life, it's important to draw until you find Zulaport Cutthroat or Obelisk Spider (or a way to find them) so you can gain one life each time, which allows you to not lose the game by life loss.

The other problem is that you can't do this infinitely. You can only keep going as long as you have creatures to put -1 counters on. But if you have Nest of Scarabs or Ivy Lane Denizen , this isn't a problem. Nest makes it so that with each creature you sacrifice, you make TWO tokens, so you can sacrifice an Insect to place a -1 counter on a Snake and repeat forever. With Ivy Lane Denizen, because the Snakes are green, you get to play a +1 counter each time you place a -1 counter, so you can place them on your own creatures and never go down in toughness. I hope that helps!

OptimalGreen: Profet is not me XD I've been super busy, though, and Profet plays against this deck IRL a lot, so he knows how it works. Still, we have different opinions on certain card additions, etc.

Daedalus19876

Thoughts on Yavimaya Hollow ? Or are you trying to keep your nonbasics to a minimum for Hapatra?

Thank you for fast response. Could you please explain how sacrificing a creature with nest of scarabs out makes two tokens please? I really appreciate your help. Also, is this deck pretty straightforward in play style?

Profet93: For that land, it's more that I want to keep colorless-producing lands to an absolute minimum. I always want to have GB available on T2 for Hapatra.

WarSpaniel: Sure! So you have Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons , Nest of Scarabs , and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician on the battlefield. You sacrifice any creature to Yawgmoth's ability, to lose 1 life and draw a card and place a -1 counter on something. When you place a -1 counter on anything, you make a 1/1 Snake from Hapatra and a 1/1 Insect from Nest of Scarabs. So you sacrificed one creature, then created two tokens. From this point on, you can sacrifice the Snake, put a -1 counter on the Insect, get two more tokens, etc: you never run out of things to place the counters on :)

To answer your other question, this is not a particularly straightforward deck? It tends to involve a lot of tutoring, and sometimes it's hard to know the right thing to search for or the right combo to try and win with. But there's no better way to learn than trying something a little complex, and if you have any questions you can always tag me here :D

What do you think of Vivien, Champion of the Wilds ? Flash speed for creatures helps protects the combos and having a snake token with reach isn't bad for defenders, nor is being able to dig three cards to find a creature when most of the deck combos with creatures.

I was also considering Spidersilk Armor . Not only for the reach on deathtouch but because it combos with Yawgmoth and Hapatra the same way Nest of Scarabs would.