Marath is an elusive, powerful beast who roams the untamed regions of his shaman-ruled world. Although many try, few have glimpsed this majestic creature. Some believe he was one of this world's progenitors and has been around since before the dawn of time. Vines twine out of the earth as he passes. Green mist rises around his feet. Some of the mist takes on animalistic forms, and new life is created as he passes by.
Genesis and Anger could be a part of your Survival of the Fittest package. It gives your something to sump into your graveyard (you can also cast them and kill them with Marath), while giving you recursion and haste, respectively.
Glare of Subdual is another strong control card for Marath to use. It's not as strong as Oppression, as you can't tap down their lands, but you can still hit mana rocks and ruin combat for them.
Lastly, I would also recommend Cathars' Crusade. It has a really strong synergy with Marath, can give your combat step a boost as another wincon, and it also gives you another combo with Earthcraft.
I've always thought Marath to be more of an Elegant Elk than a Majestic Moose.
You aren't running enough creatures to reliably use Survival of the Fittest. Bumping up your creature count to somewhere around 25-30 will make for a more reliable Survival of the Fittest or Fauna Shaman.
If you're running Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon than you should play fetchlands. Beyond their basic goodness the white and green fetches can actively look basics when trying to play around Blood Moon and the red ones can always look for duals for fixing without Blood Moon present and superior mountains when it is not. Cut a couple Mountains for some more Plains and Forests. You have very few red cards and only two of them cost more than a single red mana. Swap Contested Cliffs out for Gavony Township. Contested Cliff's only target is Marath and he will frequently be losing power and toughness. Gavony Township is a better spell land with Marath anyway as it replenishes Marath's counter and buffs the army he produces. You might want to add Mistveil Plains as it can recycle spells for Sunforger.
Swap Day of Judgment for Rout. It only costs one more but it can be cast at instant speed making it a functional Day of Judgment and Time Walk against creature based strategies.
Faithless Looting and Gamble are bad. Faithless Looting is card disadvantage disguised as a draw spell - something you don't want in a midrange-y control style deck. Gamble should only ever be used in a combo deck that's trying to assemble something broken or a mono red deck otherwise it's entirely outclassed.
In a Sunforger deck any sorcery you are running has a functionally similar card as an instant should be replaced. Not saying that all of your sorceries have instant equivalents but sorceries should only be ran if the effect is truly irreplaceable. Instants that you are not running but may be interested in are: Path to Exile which is strictly better than Lightning Bolt in a Sunforger list; Tithe as it can search up Mistveil Plains if you choose to run it; Eladamri's Call which is a fantastic tutor in a Sunforger Package; Wear // Tear is virtually the same as Hull Breach when cast from the hand and can be Sunforgered as a Disenchant; Condemn for creature tucking goodness; and Oblation is another cath all Sunforger target. Additionally I don't think Aurelia's Fury and Unexpectedly Absent are good instants to run in a Sunforger deck since you can't pay for X when cheated with Sunforger. Unless I'm wrong about X spells and Sunforger.
You should add Basilisk Collar and Nightshade Peddler. They turn Marath into a machine and at worst make any creature a Sedge Scorpion. Also, play Karmic Guide. That angel allows you to Kiki combo out of nowhere with Survival of the Fittest and is a good value creature in general.
You also may wish to consider Cathars' Crusade and Mana Echoes. Mana Echoes is infinite tokens with Cathars' Crusade and instant win with Doubling Season. Mana Echoes will also produce absurd amounts of mana with Marath alone. It will allow to to remove all the tokens off of Marath and then functionally recast him for RGW. You can also use all of the mana Marath and Mana Echoes produce to fuel a gigantic X spell of choice should you desire. Cathars' Crusade is still a solid effect with just Marath. Creating an army of elementals of constantly increasing size is very threatening and since the Crusade will also put a token on Marath the amount of tokens you can produce is limited only to the mana you have available. If you wish to add Cathar's Crusade and/or Mana Echoes than you may want to consider Sterling Grove as well. It will protect and search up any combo piece and Blood Moon. If the enchantment centric combo is something you're interested in than Academy Rector will also be a good addition.
I also just noticed you're only running 33 lands. That's not a lot of lands for any deck and is disturbingly low for a commander as mana hungry as Marath. I'd recommend running 40 lands but at the very least increase you land count. There's nothing you want more than mana when playing with Marath
Not sure how concerned you are about it, but I kept away from non +1/+1 counter pump effects such as Mirari's wake. Some games, I cast Marathe a number of times per turn and if she is getting pumped, she doesn't die when all her counters are removed. Just a thought.
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Art by Tyler Jacobson
Marath is an elusive, powerful beast who roams the untamed regions of his shaman-ruled world. Although many try, few have glimpsed this majestic creature. Some believe he was one of this world's progenitors and has been around since before the dawn of time. Vines twine out of the earth as he passes. Green mist rises around his feet. Some of the mist takes on animalistic forms, and new life is created as he passes by.
Hi everyone. I've been playing Magic since Innistrad, and I consider myself a skilled player and competent deckbuilder. This is a competitive Marath, Will of the Wild decklist. The goal is to be somewhat controlling with Marath, Sunforger and/or Survival of the Fittest until I can combo out with Doubling Season/Earthcraft or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker/Zealous Conscripts. I'm not yet accustomed to the deck, so suggestions are welcome!
3 Marath, Will of the Wild
Creature (18)
1 Arbor Elf
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Serra Ascendant
1 Weathered Wayfarer
2 Grand Abolisher
2 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Dwarven Blastminer
3 Eternal Witness
3 Magus of the Moon
3 Mentor of the Meek
3 Prophetic Flamespeaker
3 Wood Elves
4 Oracle of Mul Daya
4 Purphoros, God of the Forge
5 Acidic Slime
5 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
5 Zealous Conscripts
6 Sun Titan
Artifact (6)
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
2 Lightning Greaves
3 Sunforger
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
Sorcery (12)
1 Faithless Looting
1 Gamble
1 Steelshaper's Gift
1 Vandalblast
2 Hull Breach
3 Fiery Justice
3 Idyllic Tutor
4 Armageddon
4 Harmonize
4 Past in Flames
4 Wrath of God
6 Austere Command
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Boros Charm
2x Aurelia's Fury
2x Unexpectedly Absent
3 Beast Within
3 Chaos Warp
4 Return to Dust
Enchantment (14)
1 Burgeoning
1 Exploration
1 Land Tax
2 Earthcraft
2 Luminarch Ascension
2 Survival of the Fittest
2 Sylvan Library
3 Aura Shards
3 Blood Moon
3 Curse of Predation
4 Purphoros, God of the Forge
4 Stranglehold
5 Doubling Season
5 Mirari's Wake
Planeswalker (4)
4 Ajani Vengeant
4 Chandra, Pyromaster
4 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Xenagos, the Reveler
Lands (33)
Colorless (3)
1 Contested Cliffs
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Slayers' Stronghold
1 Arid Mesa
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
Mono color (14)
4 Mountain
5 Forest
5 Plains
Dual color (6)
1 Taiga
1 Savannah
1 Plateau
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Sacred Foundry
Tri colored (1)
1 Command Tower
cEDH: [G(U/R) Animar] - [(U/B)(G/W) Redless Wheels] - [(G/U)(W/B) Redless Pod] - [(B/G)W Ghave Metapod]
Genesis and Anger could be a part of your Survival of the Fittest package. It gives your something to sump into your graveyard (you can also cast them and kill them with Marath), while giving you recursion and haste, respectively.
Glare of Subdual is another strong control card for Marath to use. It's not as strong as Oppression, as you can't tap down their lands, but you can still hit mana rocks and ruin combat for them.
Lastly, I would also recommend Cathars' Crusade. It has a really strong synergy with Marath, can give your combat step a boost as another wincon, and it also gives you another combo with Earthcraft.
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[Pr] Marath | [Pr] Lovisa | Jodah | Saskia | Najeela | Yisan | Lord Windgrace | Atraxa | Meren | Gisa and Geralf
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You aren't running enough creatures to reliably use Survival of the Fittest. Bumping up your creature count to somewhere around 25-30 will make for a more reliable Survival of the Fittest or Fauna Shaman.
If you're running Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon than you should play fetchlands. Beyond their basic goodness the white and green fetches can actively look basics when trying to play around Blood Moon and the red ones can always look for duals for fixing without Blood Moon present and superior mountains when it is not. Cut a couple Mountains for some more Plains and Forests. You have very few red cards and only two of them cost more than a single red mana. Swap Contested Cliffs out for Gavony Township. Contested Cliff's only target is Marath and he will frequently be losing power and toughness. Gavony Township is a better spell land with Marath anyway as it replenishes Marath's counter and buffs the army he produces. You might want to add Mistveil Plains as it can recycle spells for Sunforger.
Swap Day of Judgment for Rout. It only costs one more but it can be cast at instant speed making it a functional Day of Judgment and Time Walk against creature based strategies.
Faithless Looting and Gamble are bad. Faithless Looting is card disadvantage disguised as a draw spell - something you don't want in a midrange-y control style deck. Gamble should only ever be used in a combo deck that's trying to assemble something broken or a mono red deck otherwise it's entirely outclassed.
In a Sunforger deck any sorcery you are running has a functionally similar card as an instant should be replaced. Not saying that all of your sorceries have instant equivalents but sorceries should only be ran if the effect is truly irreplaceable. Instants that you are not running but may be interested in are: Path to Exile which is strictly better than Lightning Bolt in a Sunforger list; Tithe as it can search up Mistveil Plains if you choose to run it; Eladamri's Call which is a fantastic tutor in a Sunforger Package; Wear // Tear is virtually the same as Hull Breach when cast from the hand and can be Sunforgered as a Disenchant; Condemn for creature tucking goodness; and Oblation is another cath all Sunforger target. Additionally I don't think Aurelia's Fury and Unexpectedly Absent are good instants to run in a Sunforger deck since you can't pay for X when cheated with Sunforger. Unless I'm wrong about X spells and Sunforger.
You should add Basilisk Collar and Nightshade Peddler. They turn Marath into a machine and at worst make any creature a Sedge Scorpion. Also, play Karmic Guide. That angel allows you to Kiki combo out of nowhere with Survival of the Fittest and is a good value creature in general.
You also may wish to consider Cathars' Crusade and Mana Echoes. Mana Echoes is infinite tokens with Cathars' Crusade and instant win with Doubling Season. Mana Echoes will also produce absurd amounts of mana with Marath alone. It will allow to to remove all the tokens off of Marath and then functionally recast him for RGW. You can also use all of the mana Marath and Mana Echoes produce to fuel a gigantic X spell of choice should you desire. Cathars' Crusade is still a solid effect with just Marath. Creating an army of elementals of constantly increasing size is very threatening and since the Crusade will also put a token on Marath the amount of tokens you can produce is limited only to the mana you have available. If you wish to add Cathar's Crusade and/or Mana Echoes than you may want to consider Sterling Grove as well. It will protect and search up any combo piece and Blood Moon. If the enchantment centric combo is something you're interested in than Academy Rector will also be a good addition.
I also just noticed you're only running 33 lands. That's not a lot of lands for any deck and is disturbingly low for a commander as mana hungry as Marath. I'd recommend running 40 lands but at the very least increase you land count. There's nothing you want more than mana when playing with Marath