MTG Salvation

Play Sydri then, there's constantly new and stupid artifact synergies to mess around with, many probably not even explored yet. I mean, you can Booby Trap someone then spam them with a 6/6 lifelink, deathtouch next turn or turn your Erratic Portal into a creature and bounce it back to your hand, how cool is that.

Thing From The Deep

Thanks for the edits.

I'm going to try to dig up Idyllic Tutor if I can save up enough aluminum cans and pennies to get one soon. I agree 'cause Plea sat in my hand almost all game when I tried it, you'd think 6 mana should be cake but it pretty much takes up most my turn. I feel like I can never seem to play fast enough even with all the lands.

YES, Bear Umbra NEEDS a spot! Actually remember considering that a while back and totally forgot about that, I'm thinking of throwing in Woodland Guidance in for the exact kind of reason, I think the untap ability is just so powerful, especially if I can keep Garruk out a couple turns. Like I said, always so much to play so little time

Oh yeah, the other 2 lands I'd really love to fit in are Emeria & Sejeri Steppes (good with Crop Rotation)... I'm not sure what to cut or where, but I'll give it some thought. I might just play with 102 cards at this point, I literally don't care lol I'm loving the deck so far, the more the merrier.

Introduction

It's been many years since "Legacy Bears" took the world by storm, swept into the Legacy format and turned the world upside down with over 10,000+ top 8 finishes. (note: has not been proven)
However, with the rise of Commander many have wondered if BEARS can really hold its weight in such a powercreep driven format? Short answer, yes it most certainly can. Due to its history and Memes, many player have mistaken BEARS as some kind of joke deck... well, jokes on all of you: Bears are not born with any known sense of humor, it's about to get real.

Ever since Karametra, God of Harvests was released, "G/W Bears" have been popping up all over the country with impressive showings at local tournaments. Considering my background and expertise piloting G/W Bears over the last decade, Sheldon contacted me to write a Primer for "G/W Bearametra" (note: may or may not have ever happened).
My first response was a bold "No, sry" and I hung up in his face... but after considering the impact this deck will have in Commander I reconsidered. And now I present to you, G/W Bearametra...





Gameplay & Synergies

All right, so how the deck plays out is Early-Mid Game you basically just want to turtle and play defensive. The ideal start would be keeping a slightly mana heavy hand and/or hand with Sylvan Library, or some ramp with Kodama's Reach, Krosan Verge, or Skyshroud Claim. Your goal is to try establish any helpful Enchantments/Artifacts like Lifecrafter's Bestiary or Survival then get to 5 mana to get Karametra out ASAP. Then you can start dropping some creatures to proliferate your land drops.

Outside the "bear" creatures and a few utility creatures you probably notice there are not a lot of creatures in the deck. This is intentional, because then we get to the main synergy of the deck which is Drop of Honey/Porphyry Nodes + Karametra. These enchantments along with Smokestack's intention are to keep the board clear, along with Wrath of God and Fumigate. As long as Karametra's devotion is 7, which isn't too difficult with the number enchantments we run, she's indestructible which allows us to sit under Drop of Honey effect for as long as it can be maintained. Note: Drop and Porphyry Nodes affects destroy and do not target, which works to our benefit.

The deck doesn't need a ton of card draw, outside Harmonize since it has so much build in CA from cantrip spells, cantrip bears, and a mini-Enchantress package that I couldn't pass up. Argothian Enchantress is friend of all bears despite not being a bear-- her and Witness are good candidates to get with Woodland Bellower early on if you need some card draw, we play 16 Enchantments and you can get a lot of potential value with her and cards like Rancor. Speaking of which, Razorclaw Bear + Rancor has excellent synergy as well, especially later on when you can get some ticks on Door of Destinies, it can take something seemingly harmless into something players just don't want to block (ie. Lets say a 8/6 Razorclaw that's been overrun by Garruk attacks a player with 10x 1/1 Soldier tokens, if that player blocks with all of them, BAM, it's become a massive 28/26 beast of a Bear and tramples over the top of his soldiers crushing his hopes and dreams. Yeah, I know).

Angel of Flight Alabaster seems like an odd choice in a Bear deck, but her ability is very useful, she works as another Genesis in this deck. Along with the 3 changeling creatures in the deck that act as Spirits as well as Bears, there's also Crib Swap as removal to recur, and Spectral Bear/Ursine Fylgia that act as 'Bear Spirits'... yeah, I know.


Late Game Finishers

The game plan is pretty straightforward, no surprise, trample over and kill your opponent. This requires generating Bears, Beasts, etc and pumping them up. This can be accomplished in several ways:

Sylvan Library + Words of Wilding is one way to generate cheap numbers once you have enough card advantage. Grizzly Fate is probably my favorite, 'cause it can generate up to 8 Bears very quick after a board sweep late game with its Flashback ability. Hybernation's End works as a steady birthing pod that can let you get out your MOM, Enchantress and some of the utility stuff to setup your combos. Primeval Bounty is an amazing enchantment and pumping out beasts, that and Zendikar Resurgence together are like the "swiss army knife" for your deck, you get card advantage, creatures, life, lands, etc. it's an amazing feeling. Once you have a good 8+ Bears on board then cards like Overrun, Garruk, and Mirror Entity can come down as finishers, especially if you can flash in Mirror Entity in at the end of someone's turn to alpha strike players with a bunch of 15/15 bears out of nowhere.

One of my favorite changelings and bears of all time is Chameleon Colossus, as a finisher. I love him because with enough lands he turns into an absolute monster: Throw down Rancor on him and he's a seemingly innocent 6/4 trampler-- till you have 16 mana free and he quickly becomes a 96/94 trampler!! DAAAMN SON.

The other way of finishing the game comes from just locking down the board. Ritual of Subdual is one of those diamonds in the ruff, most players aren't going to see a card like this coming, especially in a deck like this. It works a lot like a "Contamination" lockdown, if you get a large enough amount of lands and can create a strong board state, catch everyone off guard with this card and it essentially will lock many decks out playing buying you a few turns to end it. If they have answers it can backfire, but it works strong under your stacks affects too, allowing them to work the board for a bit.


Anyways, that's it for the guide. Let me know what you think about the build, and give some feedback if you have any other cool synergies or finishers I'm missing that'd work well with this style of G/W control deck.
Of course, none of this could've happened if it weren't for the help of a lot of individuals who helped me through the years, so I'd like to thank the following below:


Thanks,
JARY

The only pet peeve I have are players that clearly have an agenda to just go after one player in particular for whatever reason. I think in EDH everyone's time is valuable, you gotta' think most ppl probably only play 1-2 times a week, so I like to see players who can win while maintaining a good experience for everyone at the table, I respect ppl most who can do that.

I've never had an issue with taking an L, I usually don't expect to win; I have very little expectations outside being able to play my deck out and have a good experience. However the one thing I have almost no tolerance toward now are the bad apples that simply can't take any personal accountability to the things that happen in game, it's the ridiculous people who blame you for them not winning based on something you destroyed like 8 turns ago. Constructive criticism and some mild guidance if someone didn't think something through is always welcome, but players way too often overstep when their egos make them take offense to every single play they don't approve (which is 99% anything done to them).

Green, Black, Blue.

Ramp, tutor, time walk. Win.

I hate it but it's the truth, otherwise you have Tooth Nail, Bribery, Spelljack, Rise Dark Rhealms and stuff like that that can just win on own.

I've wondered this for a while, but with the Magic the Gathering Lore and vast characters pre-mending and post-mending available, it seems like there'd be so much potential for Wizards to create some kind of RPG or action-RPG open world game. Has Wizards ever discussed or considered going this direction in the future with its storyline? I think players would love to choose a green, blue, red, etc. Mage and run around being able to see their spells come to life, like you could on Battlegrounds

I feel like people's responses are gonna' be subjective based on the style of decks they play. I play a lot of "Mid range" EDH decks, ie. Flametongue Kavu creatures and such, and I absolutely frickin hate Group Hug because it throws off my tempo advantage. The problem is that if you're playing more of a mid range aggro deck then tempo and hitting your creatures on curve is very important, Group Hug really screws you over bad because it accelerates everyone to the late game which always throws the game to the Control player/s. Lets say someone New Frontiers us all on Turn 4 to 8 mana, I'm stuck with 3-5 cmc cards in hand playing tempo and my opponents have 6-8 cmc cards in hand... hmm.. wonder who's gonna win this one? I simply don't believe in making decks that do anything but precisely for the benefit of my deck alone, I don't like the "lets just accelerate everything and see what happens" philosophy-- oh yeah, and Group Hug players always get so sore if you attack them, I've played many different players over the years and they always get pissed and play it off like they're doing me a favor.

Quote from Ertai Planeswalker »

I hate non-interactive wincons, so both infinite combo as well as total lockdown are unfun to me.

What I want from a commander game is my deck doing it's thing and my opponent's deck doing their thing and whoever is able to do their thing the best despites the opponent's interference wins.

^
agreed

1) People's time is important, you might only have time for 2-3 games. I'd prefer games not drawn out by winter orb, stasis, etc. especially when its almost universal nobody thinks they're fun to play against.

2) As far as combo, I'd just want someone to be upfront if they're combo so I can play a different deck or ask them to switch. EDH is more about the experience for me, there's a million ways to win if you're just gunning for the W, so I'd rather have everyone playing combatible. If someone wants to play combo, cool, I'll grab my tryhard deck. If 3 people are playing creature decks I don't want someone to cheese us with a combo win on turn 10 when everyone has creatures out battling and having fun. Bringing a tryhard combo deck to a casual creature-deck playgroup is like mixing business & pleasure, don't f over everyone else's experience just to win.

Quote from MRdown2urth »

"Hey, I'm going to remove Hazezon after all the tokens come into play."
"Oh, well...I still have my Oracle of Mul Daya."
"Yeah, not for much longer."

Hazezon is one of the easiest token generators to disrupt (sure, you can build the deck to mess around with bounce shenanigans as "protection," but I always thought that that whole package just ate up space--someone at the table will find a way to excise Hazezon).

Look, the eternal pump is nice. I do not think it's he best move at that four cmc spot in the deck, but I understand its merit.

Well that's unfortunate, went through all that work to rip on me and completely misses the point entirely how Haz decks function. You wasted 2 paragraphs explaining something that will never happen, grats.

While I do think a permanent Anthem is powerful it was more of a side note, the issue is Wizards pushing permanent effects now for free that cannot be answered, it's not just the power level it's bad game design.

Yeah, the problem with it isn't just the power level, but that you have no way of interacting with the emblem. Same issue with exp counters. An Indestructible "anthem"... sure, it's at least there and you can bounce it, Return to Dust, or Chaos Warp it away. Things that lack an ability to counter are bad game design how I see it.

I think you guys are also underestimating the impact. If someone emblems in a Hazezon deck, that's doubling the total power of sand tokens every time they recast and it will never go away. i.e. It's a diff of 14/14 vs 28/28 power. Same with Trostani and token decks, 8 1/1's is pretty harmless but 8 2/2's are a threat. Again, the main issue is no counter play.

Now I know this guy just came out, but before he could even hit the countertop on Commander... something about him immediately triggered me, and although I don't know what the future is going to be for this guy something just seems inherently wrong having him in a format like EDH.

FYI

Planeswalker Gideon
+1: zzz
0: zzz
-4: You get an emblem with "Creatures you control get +1/+1.

So basically he hits the table, for the rest of the game your creatures (not even just "white" creatures) get a permanent +1/+1. Now there's a lot of anthems in the game, so you're probably thinking whats the big deal (?), the problem I have is that just about any deck that splashes white is almost guaranteed to run this guy now till the end of time. And with decks with green that run regrowth/witness I could see them getting him back and replaying him even once or twice.

I really don't like the direction that this game is going with emblems and permanent experience counters, especially if they're pushing Commander as a big thing, if they plan on pushing more cards like these. I'm an oldschool fan of Enchantments and the risk/reward of trying to sneak in a Crusade/Glorious Anthem/Mirari's Wake to see if they stick... there's no risk in playing a card that you just cast and permanently bolster your guys the rest of the game, it's completely stupid and bad game design IMO.

Let me know what you think. btw I'm not so much bothered of those cards in the other faster formats, but I dont think they belong in big team multiplayer format.

I'll put Peek & Clairvoyance down for my favorite pet cards.

For Instants that cost only U and replace themselves I'm surprised more decks don't use them. Peek is generally better early on if you need to throw it away to find a land, but I actually like holding onto Clair later in case someone Wheels or Time Spirals so I get +1 card next upkeep. The advantage of knowing someones hand is really strong, and I like the dynamic that it can sometimes bring, if they have a god hand everyone at the table might immediately prepare to deal with his broken cards, otherwise if they know their hand is harmless sometimes the player will just go "sure, here's my hand" and show everyone.

Now, there's the Spikes here that have a survival of the fittest "any means necessary to win" attitude, and on the extreme opposite are the players who just plain suck and would just about call anything that kills them OP and unfair, yet they wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger on anyone the moment they get "their Tooth & Nail" in their deck, I've seen the hypocrisy before.

But there should be a happy median. The way you used Mindslaver in this overly drawn out was completely harmless and you shouldn't worry. It just as well could've been one of 10+ other cards that'd of just ended the game right then anyways, right. Not to get too deep into the politics, but the thing I hate about cards like Mindslaver are that they take away from players being able to interact, its one thing just to get Tooth & Nailed and die, but Mindslaver is such an unfun, slow grindy way to die, its not fun to lose to from experience which is why most players scoop to it. Obviously someone could Door to Nothingness and win games, it's accomplishing essentially the same thing right, but its more the manner of how your dying, Mindslaver doesn't allow the player to play their own deck and its kind of a cocky way to win, your making them lose to their self which puts a bad taste in peoples mouths. You can't not expect people to hate this card, the day people like getting Mindslavered is the day they like getting Identity Crisis'd.

You'd nominate a can tripping wall, over actual power creatures like World Queller or Soltari Visionary.

The problem with the list is that deck "constant reliables" whose power are more in cheap efficiency like Wall of Omens and Brainstorm get in the way. For example, nobody's going to ever tell you to remove coiling oracle because its too efficient for its cost. The problem is, it takes up a spot on list that other good 5-7 cmc will never see.
5/30/2014 3:58:48 PM
I have a new proposal:

What if we divide the Lists further and have an "upper" and "lower" mana cost limit for each? It would also be helpful for players in deck development, determining the right creatures for their deck. Thoughts?