Zacama Lands Control

Commander / EDH

skyburial

Ramp (22)

• 1x Bear Umbra
• 1x Burgeoning
• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip
• 1x Exploration
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Harrow
• 1x Hour of Promise
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Mirari's Wake
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1x Regal Behemoth
• 1x Search for Tomorrow
• 1x Seedborn Muse
• 1x Skyshroud Claim
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1x Utopia Sprawl
• 1x Veteran Explorer
• 1x Wood Elves
• 1x Zendikar Resurgent

Equipment Package (11)

• 1x Basilisk Collar
• 1x Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip
• 1x Godo, Bandit Warlord
• 1x Grafted Exoskeleton
• 1x Illusionist's Bracers
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Puresteel Paladin
• 1x Stoneforge Mystic
• 1x Sunforger
• 1x Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1x Umezawa's Jitte

Political Cards (4)

• 1x Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip
• 1x Regal Behemoth
• 1x Veteran Explorer
• 1x Wheel of Fate

Essential Commander Staple (2)

• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Vedalken Orrery

Targeted Removal (1)

• 1x Swords to Plowshares

Utility Lands (14)

• 1x Arch of Orazca
• 1x Desert of the Fervent
• 1x Desert of the Indomitable
• 1x Desert of the True
• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 1x Hanweir Battlements  ^{Flip  Meld}
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Slayers' Stronghold
• 1x Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Winding Canyons

Card Draw (12)

• 1x Arch of Orazca
• 1x Greater Good
• 1x Lifecrafter's Bestiary
• 1x Life's Legacy
• 1x Momentous Fall
• 1x Puresteel Paladin
• 1x Reforge the Soul
• 1x Regal Behemoth
• 1x Rishkar's Expertise
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Tireless Tracker
• 1x Wheel of Fate

Win Conditions (8)

• 1x Aurelia's Fury
• 1x Godo, Bandit Warlord
• 1x Grafted Exoskeleton
• 1x Naya Charm
• 1x Omnath, Locus of Rage
• 1x Seedborn Muse
• 1x Temur Sabertooth
• 1x Triumph of the Hordes

Recursion (3)

• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Naya Charm
• 1x Riftsweeper

Landfall (2)

• 1x Omnath, Locus of Rage
• 1x Tireless Tracker

Commander (1)

Lands (24)

• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Canopy Vista
• 1x Cinder Glade
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 6x Forest
• 4x Mountain
• 4x Plains
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Sunforger (10)

• 1x Boros Charm
• 1x Congregation at Dawn
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Lapse of Certainty
• 1x Naya Charm
• 1x Settle the Wreckage
• 1x Sunforger
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Teferi's Protection
• 1x Wild Ricochet

Board Wipes (3)

• 1x Divine Reckoning
• 1x Hour of Revelation
• 1x Settle the Wreckage

Offhand Synergy (2)

• 1x Archangel of Thune
• 1x Vigor

---

Maybeboard

Other (11)

• 1x Bonds of Mortality
• 1x Boundless Realms
• 1x Comet Storm
• 1x Deserted Temple
• 1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1x Garruk, Primal Hunter
• 1x Grow from the Ashes
• 1x Kessig Wolf Run
• 1x Leonin Shikari
• 1x Master Warcraft
• 1x Vorinclex, Voice of HungerGC

---

Naya Control. Some people scoff at the concept. Control without Blue. How do you deny permission? How do you maintain card advantage?

When Zacama was spoiled on Episode 192 of the Command Zone, I needed a triple-take. This was the Naya commander I'd been waiting for since my days of envying Mirari's Wake in the driver's seat of Maelstrom Wanderer. A supreme payoff for all the ramp these colors have to offer, a resilient threat that can use its effects patiently and responsively.

I did not realize I was building a control deck until everyone at the table started asking for permission to play permanents. The reality is that Zacama strong-arms an entire table and scales with the game remarkably well. Because of this, you get room to do things that a Voltron deck would normally struggle to achieve, as Voltron normally plays like an aggro deck, but Zacama is an all-in-one finisher, and the only help he requires is an occasional boost to remove a particularly threatening player from the game (this is the primary reason we play Infect). Having your equipment destroyed is avoidable in many ways, as the looming threat of your Elder Dinosaur's activated abilities is a considerable reciprocity. Welcome to permission on a stick.

The Deck's Main Game Plan

30% of this deck can be leveraged to ramp the player, which is far more than the average EDH deck commits to the act. The reasoning for this is twofold:

• Our commander is incredibly expensive, flashy, and threatening. We will often have to (or want to) recast it 3 or 4 times throughout the game. For this reason, it is critical that we maintain mana advantage over most other players, as almost any interaction imaginable is a trade up for a 9-drop, and thus our opponents can make miniscule tempo sacrifices to prevent the powerful combination of ETB trigger and activated abilities.
• These activated abilities are the primary means our deck maintains board control, and leaving as many instances of them open as possible keeps a soft lock on not one, but all players at the table.

Additionally, it's more important than usual that we commit our ramp package to lands rather than artifacts or mana dorks in Zacama, because his ETB trigger does not untap either of them. Because of this, I've done my best to maintain a do-it-with-lands philosophy on the deck when possible. Our graveyard hate, some of our ramp, and even card draw are all possible through a Crop Rotation or Hour of Promise.

It's possible to get our general out by turn 4 on average. Your opening lines should be committed to sticking as many lands to the table as possible. An early Stoneforge Mystic should be searching up a Dowsing Dagger   unless you have another means in hand to get Zacama down in the next turn or two. It should be noted that Lost Veil is by and large an overperformer.

Sidebar: My playgroup is enthusiastic about Veteran Explorer, and he is a bit of a darling at our tables. If your playgroup or LGS is not as receptive to the dynamic Veteran provides, I suggest running another Rampant Growth effect in that slot.

Expect your commander to be interacted with on first cast, especially if this is not your first time introducing Zacama to the table. In the best-case scenario, you were able to float additional mana before untapping all your lands. If possible, use this to cast Sunforger, Seedborn Muse, or a ramp spell. If you can do none of the above or if you are on your back foot, it is fine to remove a key threat instead. If you have a haste effect available, swinging at an opponent is hardly a risk here as our Elder Dinosaur has Reach and Vigilance, as well as removal for go-wide strategies.

Make sure to leave 6 mana up if you can before passing. This will allow you to not only level with the player who's farthest ahead at the table, but also anyone who is trying to leverage your focus on them to sneak under a tapped-out Zacama.

Untapping the turn after you have cast Zacama is where the game really lights up, because all of the sudden you have a plethora of Naturalizes and Lightning Bolts at your fingertips. Remember to ramp. Tutor for one of your wincons if you have the resources to do so. Particularly, this will be the turn you can start closing out the game if you landed a Temur Sabertooth, as that will generate infinite mana for you to start doing crazy things.

Whatever you do, the only time you should be tapping out on your turn is to cast your general or remove a problematic player from the game. If you're concerned your remaining opponents will respond to you in kind, this is the point where you politic. Try not to mention the possibility of infect damage in the mix if possible, as many EDH players have a hard time swallowing that pill.

The Sunforger Package

Sunforger is a card that I've always wanted to find a shell for. It felt really awkward in my previous Naya deck, which was more of a tokens + goodstuff creatures build that struggled to use it. However, this deck plays much more reactively and the ETB trigger of its general plays supremely into the mana-intensiveness of this equipment. Make no mistake, this is the target you want to be searching for most often with Stoneforge Mystic and friends, as having it on the battlefield can snowball into putting all of your more powerful equipment into play very quickly. It also gives Zacama much more reach as to what he can respond to. Responding to someone's Time Warp with a Wild Ricochet can often mean the game, Settle the Wreckage promises to punish someone for swinging out at you, and you can even use it when you're not the attacked player to exile a recursive threat. You will not find a better home for Teferi's Protection, which has been rightfully called the White Cyclonic Rift and gets the caster out of numerous sticky situations. Lapse of Certainty seems silly but has come into play more than once, as many players will underestimate the capability of a blueless control deck and tap out to make very brash plays that demand a counter spell as a result.

More proactively, we can manipulate the top of our deck with Enlightened Tutor and Congregation at Dawn, which can be very important as executing Green card draw engine takes careful sequencing.

Tying this all together are the reasons I assembled the package in the first place: Boros Charm and Naya Charm. Boros charm should be an obvious include as it gives our commander resilience and reach, protects our additional win conditions, and is at worst a kill shot when we need it. Naya Charm is a criminally underrated card and I run it in any deck that can do so. Having an instant that can pull a chase card out of your graveyard, tap down an opponent's squad (either on their winning turn or to clear the way for your killing blow), and once again, at worst case a removal spell for smaller commanders and creatures, I'm of the mind that this is comparable to Cryptic Command when it comes to versatility of application.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	6 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 0 Mythic Rares 50 - 0 Rares 17 - 0 Uncommons 15 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.31
Tokens	City's Blessing, Clue, Eldrazi Horror 3/2 C, Elemental 5/5 RG, Plant 0/2 G, The Monarch, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Interesting Decks (copied), Decks I'm Looking At, Interesting decks, immediate make, commander decks