MTG Salvation

I need some help with my Marath deck. Budget isn't that big of an issue, but I most likely can't afford any single card worth more than 50$ This is my first post ever so any advice on like formatting or anything would be appreciated.




The basic strategy is to ramp into value dudes. I am thinking about taking the ravnica bounce lands out, they slow the deck down too much. I feel like I don't have enough removal in the deck. The basic strategy is to land conjurer closet or warstorm surge and then just ETB trigger people to death, but the deck should hold its own without ever hitting either of those cards.

It performed amazingly underwhelming during deck testing against Maelstrom Wanderer EDH.

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=24627
This may help with formatting.

What exactly are you looking for in the deck? You seem to be pulled in quite a few directions. What kind of theme are you looking to Run with Marath?

I like playing battleship magic. Ramp into big fatties, remove things that get in the way, stomp over everyone. As for Marath, he seems like a good outlet for single target removal and saproling spam, I generally see myself making a crap ton of saprolings with doubling season out, or just removing and placing a crap ton of counters on himself and then fireballing something to death.

I am going to be putting all of the older versions of my marath deck in this post!

Marath Version 1.1

Marath Version 1.0

All right. I went more of a token theme so I may not know too many relevant suggestions off of the top of my head, but I'll try to be of some help. ^.^

For removal spells, I would consider things like Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Return to Dust, Chaos Warp, Beast Within, and Comet Storm. The more types of cards you can hit (and especially exile), the better.

Aura Shards would be another big one. It turns Marath himself into instant speed artifact and enchantment removal.

More ramp will also help you get your fatties out earlier. I personally like Farseek, Oracle of Mul Daya, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Ranger's Path, and Krosan Verge, but there are tons of choices for these.

Even though we're still missing one of ours, the new Temples could be an alternative to the bounce lands. They still come in tapped, but they don't set you back quite as badly and the scry trigger can help to filter through some bad top decks.

My last suggestion is to maybe take out Mayael. It seems like she could too easily be a wasted six mana without a deck built around her ability.

Yeah, I just kind of threw her in there because shes a really popular commander and she was naya. I ordered aura shards its on its way.

I definitely don't want to do tokens, I would probably play the other naya dragon guy that dumps saprolings into play if I was going that route.

Im also adding Elesh Norn, Godsire, and a few other fatties like that. Do you think I should take out all of my small value cards like huntmaster of the fells/thragtusk/thundermaw hellkite and just go with bigger cards? or replace all that with efficient ramp spells and removal? How many big bombs should I run? I was thinking around 35 creatures with about half of them being 6 mana or more.

I wasn't suggesting that you go for a token strategry. ^.^ Just noting that this isn't quite my expertise, even though I also run Marath.

To start with, have you considered simply running Mayel the Anima as your commander? It seems that she fits the theme that you're going for better than Marath would. Don't get me wrong, Marath is very good. But he is more of a support creature, rather than actively furthering your board state.

You have this tagged as competitive, and I don't know how competitively geared you want this to be, but competitive lists tend to want consistancy above all else. In our colors, that means some tutors and card draw, and lots of running large amounts of certain types of cards.

Ramp is probably our biggest strength is Naya. I personally prefer cards that put land directly onto the battlefield, rather than into my hand. The cards meantioned in the above post are my recommendations for that. Wood Elves is also fantastic, and is recurrable through Sun Titan. You already have Cultivate and Kodama's Reach, which are also good. I wouldn't nessesarily go out of my way to include all of these in addition to the ramp spells that you already have, but adding one or two more and maybe replacing some of the current ones could be beneficial.

The biggest assets for card draw and tutors that I know of in our colors are Tooth and Nail, Green Sun's Zenith, Worldly Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, Greater Good, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth (he is also a large body himself, and very good with Greater Good if needed), and Survival of the Fittest. If you go the Survival route, I would also include Genesis, maybe Brawn and Anger (maybe in place of Fires of Yavimaya).

Value in 60 card formats is not nessesarily the same as value in EDH. I love Huntmaster of the Fells but in a multiplayer format, he is very hard to flip, which causes him to lose that value. The same goes for Thragtusk. In a format where we will willingly give other people 3/3 creatures through removal spells, his replacement effect isn't as relevant. I would also include Pelakka Wurm in this. One of the Eldrazi could make a very nice replacement for him, however. Trostani, Selesnya's Voice is also a very good card, but without a token strategy, you aren't getting quite enough out of either of her abilities.

Some cheaper and more versatile options for cards you have listed:
Spellbreaker Behemoth ---> Vexing Shusher
Craterhoof Behemoth ---> Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
They both have the downside of requiring you to dump mana into them, but neither are as creature dependent as the two I named. Craterhoof pretty much demands that you have a very strong board state to use; Kamahl on the other hand, can make his own board state. He can also discourage board wipes from your opponents. They won't want to loose their lands. It can also be used with Elesh Norn, if you're particularly cutthroat (be careful, those two on the board together make you a large target). Vexing Shusher can make any spell uncounterable, not just creature spells.

Speaking of Elesh Norn, remember that if you want to recast Marath while she's out, you'll need to remove the last two counters to deal damage to himself.

Of the seven planeswalkers that you've listed, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Sarkhan Vol, and Domri Rade are probably the best for what you want to do. The others aren't very synergystic with your deck.

Other notable good stuff with Marath: Basilisk Collar either turns Marath into a machine gun or when combined with trample, makes one of your bigger creatures hit that much harder. Seedbornn Muse and Winding Canyons help fix the problem of tapping out to cast Marath later I the game, which will happen when you're the one killing your commander. Privileged Position is an extremely strong protection card in out colors. It forces your opponents to either use a board wipe when they may not want to, or use two removal spells to get to the permanent they actually want dead.

And lastly, 35 lands seems a bit low, even with ramp. I'd maybe think about adding one or two more in.

Definately don't make changes just because I suggested it, but these could be helpful.

Ill update this list when I have some time. I managed to take 3rd out of a 8 man pod with the deck, I took a lot of your suggestions and it made the deck flow more, I had like 12 lands by turn 6. I just had issues keeping my own creatures so I am probably gonna throw in a homeward path.

Homeward Pathis fantastic. Asceticism is another way of protecting your creatures, if you need. Pretty much anything with Hexproof is good.

Glad I could be of some help though!

Alright, I added a few cards and moved some things around, I really want to cut 2 things but everything just seems like it is so much fun to play. However, I think that 37 lands would be more ideal and make the deck operate a lot smoother, I play tested it against Damia Control and it got absolutely obliterated, just not enough answers, and absolutely everything I did got answered. I want to pick up an oracle of mul daya for the deck, but I haven't had the time or money, and no one at my local shop has one, so I will have to buy one online.

I made some changes again, will update the main list later.