How do you build Karametra?
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on March 22, 2022, 3:51 p.m. by Ashdust
Out of all the Theros gods, Karametra is by far my favorite. There's just a certain appeal to her. I've wanted to build with her for a while now, but I just don't know what direction to take. What are some of the ways you can build her?
Karametra does not combo off with Maja as she requires you to cast a creature. There are several ways to build her. Landfall is viable and the most common. I made her as a big creature beatdown. Cards like Whitemane Lion can be abused by bouncing the lion back to your hand repeatedly. Another hilarious card to use is Panglacial Wurm, when you search for a land off Karametra’s trigger pay the mana cost and suddenly you have a 9/5 wurm with trample. I retired my deck but can post it to give you some ideas. It was fun but not competitive but I did win with it quite a bit.
March 22, 2022 4:43 p.m.
Karametra, Goddess of Terra
Commander / EDH*
SCORE: 7 | 32 COMMENTS | 1519 VIEWS | IN 3 FOLDERS
Hopefully this will give you some direction. I break everything down in the description.
March 22, 2022 4:47 p.m.
Oh forgot to mention, there is an infinite combo you can use with Karametra. Aluren + Whitemane Lion will get all your basics out. Aluren is a double-edged sword though so beware if you use it or simply Naturalize it away after you’re done.
March 22, 2022 4:58 p.m.
I like Karametra as an elf tribal commander with landfall mixed in. I want to build her that way but I need another elf tribal deck like I need another hole in my head. Maybe one day when I'm bored with my elf decks...
March 22, 2022 8:11 p.m.
TypicalTimmy says... #8
I had built my Karametra, God of Harvests with two main facets: The Landfall mechanic, and very massive creatures to put those lands to good use.
One clever trick you can do is loop Jeskai Barricade and Stonecloaker back and forth, bouncing each other. If you have an appropriate means of cost reduction, it becomes very efficient. For example, Oketra's Monument and Cloud Key would reduce their individual costs to a mere .
Each time one of these ETB, you bounce the other and tutor a Plains. If you have a means to have that Plains ETB untapped, or able to untap it, you can filter all of them from your library that turn. One method is Stone-Seeder Hierophant. Another is Amulet of Vigor.
These, in effect, allow you to cast Jeskai Barricade for just . Upon cast, you tutor a Plains. It ETB tapped and you either untap it with Amulet of Vigor or with Stone-Seeder Hierophant. From here, Jeskai Barricade ETB and you bounce Stonecloaker. Now, that Plains you just had ETB and got to untap can be tapped to add , allowing you to cast the Stonecloaker from your hand thanks to the cost reduction of Oketra's Monument and Cloud Key. From here, you tutor another Plains and repeat the whole process over again.
If you want lands that have , you can do this one of two ways:
- Use lands that have both subtypes, such as Arctic Treeline, Canopy Vista, Savannah, Scattered Groves or Temple Garden.
- You can also use mana filtering, such as Chromatic Lantern or Chromatic Orrery. There's also Joiner Adept, Mystic Monstrosity Flip and a few others. There's Overlaid Terrain if you can get it out quick enough with artifact sources, as to not damage your land base.
Filtering into will assist you in getting green mana, but it won't allow you to tutor Forests.
However, what this will do is you can tutor Forest, and use the Forest to pay for to continue the combo mentioned above. If you do this, you can tutor every single land in your entire library in one single turn.
Unfortunately, Selesnya doesn't exactly have a means to give global haste. You'd want to rely on something such as Akroma's Memorial or something else. It gets pretty tricky and difficult and you're better off to try and secure the win via alt-wincon.
But, this whole setup is extremely flimsy. Just one piece being removed blows the entire combo up. Your table may not see what's going on the first one or two times, but they will catch on and the moment Jeskai Barricade drops for the first time, it'll be hit with a furious wave of removal. Once this happens, your entire deck is dead in the water.
That's why I no longer play Karametra. She definitely is a Timmy deck because she absolutely wants tons and tons of creatures slamming the field as quickly as possible... but she becomes super flimsy. Imagine getting 9 or 10 lands out by Turn 6 or 7. You drop something massive like a Desolation Twin and it gets hit with the first wave of removal. What happens is you become the biggest threat at the table, even when you have literally nothing. The reason this mentality sinks in is because your Commander has Indestructible, so most players are unequipped to handle her. Since her removal isn't an option, they hit your boardstate, instead.
You become a magnet for removal and hate, and you spend the rest of the game "catching up" and "doing nothing".
In my personal experience, she isn't fun to play because of this very reason. But... if you'd want to build her, that's how I did.
- Landfall + that combo
...so Stonecloaker can bounce itself. No need to even have Jeskai Barricade. Jfc I am the biggest of dumb.
Still, you need cost reduction + filtering + land untapping... it's still a cumbersome problem and, like I said, one piece of removal blows the entire combo apart.
March 23, 2022 2:06 a.m. Edited.
I used to run a Karametra, God of Harvests combo deck ages ago when Paradox Engine was legal. I updated it last summer, but it's still kind of mediocre and I would definitely redo it again if I had any interest in the deck. Regardless, if you're interested - my decklist is here:
[EDH][PRIMER] Karametra's Garden of Eden
Commander / EDH*
SCORE: 10 | 9 COMMENTS | 1737 VIEWS | IN 4 FOLDERS
I did not go with the landfall mechanic as I'm not particularly a fan of it outside of Lotus Cobra. IMO she's best built abusing ETB triggers with cards like Aluren and Cloudstone Curio.
Cards like Whitemane Lion, Kor Skyfisher, and Emancipation Angel are absolutely phenomenal in Karametra. They bounce themselves, allowing you to play them again and get more lands. With Aluren out, you can get every single Forest/Plains out of your deck in a single turn.
Cards like Wall of Blossoms and Wall of Omens are great with Aluren + Cloudstone Curio because you could essentially draw your entire deck in one go. Albeit you'd need to be careful and specify how far you should go with this otherwise you'd deck yourself, but that's beyond the point - still a powerful draw effect.
With Aluren, Cards like Sandsteppe Outcast and Hanged Executioner are awesome for getting an arbitrarily large number of tokens, as the token on the ETB effect can bounce the creature that generated it with Cloudstone Curio. This can pay out in several different ways - mainly infinite mana with Ashnod's Altar and/or Phyrexian Altar through sacing the token, and infinite damage/winning the game on the spot with Blasting Station and sacing the token. You could also create infinite tokens with Oketra's Monument and any of the self-bounce creatures if you just have Aluren out.
I also really liked cards like Reveillark, Renegade Rallier, Destiny Spinner, Eternal Witness, Aura Shards, Bygone Bishop, Temur Sabertooth, and Rhonas's Monument.
Personally, if you wanted to play a straight-up ETB combo deck, I think Trostani, Selesnya's Voice is a better general due to having far easier access to using Aetherflux Reservoir, (generate a ton of life with Aluren + Whitemane Lion, shoot people with the Death Star). Karametra, God of Harvests is nice for land filtering, but you only run so many lands in the deck she becomes kind of useless later on in the game - hence why I've kind of lost interest in her. In addition, what TypicalTimmy said is very true - if you rush out to an early lead in lands with her, you often become a target. IF you wanted to build Karametra, God of Harvests still, I would highly recommend going combo and including a myriad of methods to win - such as combat damage, Walking Ballista combos, and Blasting Station combos.
Ashdust says... #2
Also, does she combo off infinitely with Maja, Bretagard Protector?
March 22, 2022 3:52 p.m.