MTG Salvation

Omnath rage, rage against the dying of the life (totals). He will not go gentle into that good night. Pardon me, I've watched Interstellar a few too many times.

The strategy of this deck is to ramp up, play Omnath, keep ramping for value (tokens, damage triggers, card draw), and win via vast globs of damage delivered from triggers or from combat. We also employ a token-sac theme for further damage from Omnath's second trigger. Stay tuned in coming days for further elaboration on card choices.



That's the deck thus far. I just sleeved it up yesterday and am very excited to play it. Suggestions are appreciated!

For more on Omnath, Xaios has a thread full of discussion on the deck's options here: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/multiplayer-commander-decklists/628066-omnath-elemental-roid-rage

I'd replace either Life's Legacy or Momentous Fall with Greater Good.

• parallel lives
  
• primal vigor
  
• fires of yamivaya
  

Thank you for your suggestions, Groovelord and AdamM, sorry I didn't address them sooner, but I'll cover them in here.

Report: I finally got around to playing a few games with Omnath and I've got to say, I'm a big fan of this deck. Some things I noticed: It's easy to stall out without a source of card advantage. As such, my next goal for it is to find a Greater Good for the deck, which will also operate as a decent sac outlet. I'm always a little wary of Greater Good thanks to the discard part, you can't well sac off a ton of 1/1s or 2/2s to it without completely emptying your hand.
Additionally, I am very pleased with the inclusion of Stalking Vengeance and Soulblast in this deck. Stalking Vengeance's damage output was enough to seriously affect a couple games, and in another, I was able to Soulblast my board at someone as they were killing me and caused them to lose the game on the next turn.
Going with a heavier amount of lands is better than not - part of the stalling problem came from ramping up, then running out of things to do at 5 or 6 mana, then not drawing into any lands to get the deck back on track. As such, I'm going to slowly introduce more lands into the deck with each update until we hit a sweet spot.
Homura, Human Ascendant is flipping nuts when unanswered.

Cuts:

• Seedborn Muse - I really only included this for the dream of comboing it with Elemental Mastery. If the deck becomes more controlly, it could be reincluded.
• Chaos Warp - Just making room, might reinclude later on.
• Cinder Elemental - It was included for when we had a surplus of mana, because it can sac itself and because it's an elemental. Other than that, it's not furthering our game plan at all.

Adds:

• Parallel Lives - The more tokens, the better.
• Xenagos, the Reveler - He can put bodies on the field when we don't have any or he can make mana to keep the engine chugging when we do have board presence.
• Gaea's Cradle - I got my hands on a gold-bordered version of this (much cheaper), just hoping people agree in allowing me to run it.

Considerations:

• Greater Good - See 'Report' above.
• Deserted Temple - Because it's the nuts with Gaea's Cradle. However, it doesn't work super well with much else in the deck, at least not yet.
• Command Beacon - Omnath gets killed a lot and racks up a pretty significant tax. I'm pretty sure I got him to 17 mana one game. This one's a no-brainer.
• Bloodspore Thrinax - What's better than getting a 5/5 on Landfall? 10/10s are better.
• Ezuri's Predation - Could be fun with all of the triggers that could go off, I just wish they were elementals and not beasts.
• Mizzix's Mastery - If included, this would probably more often be used in its ordinary form to nab a Boundless Realms or draw spell from the 'yard.
• Primeval Bounty - Value.
• Pathbreaker Ibex - Another no-brainer. I'll gladly take an Overwhelming Stampede every turn I attack.
• Rite of the Raging Storm - Sets off our triggers, makes elementals, fun for politics, makes the game go a little faster.

If you've got any ideas, recommendations, similar stories or anything you want to share, please do!

Report: I got two excellent games in yesterday with Omnath. In the first game, I had an excellent board state (Omnath, 5/5 tokens, Exploration, Gaea's Cradle) on which I played Mana Echoes, followed up by three Landfall triggers, putting more Elementals onto the field and making lots of mana, which I then put into a Tempt with Vengeance for eighteen. All three of my opponents took the tempting offer and I got 72 1/1s with haste and made a gazillion mana. With that mana, I Banefired my most dangerous opponent's face for 5,544 damage and then attacked my last two opponents with the overwhelming amount of tokens I had. I did the math and had more than enough damage on board to win right then and there, buuuut I got Fogged. One opponent then swung in and dropped my already low life total to zero while I was tapped out. Moral of the story: play your Fog variants.

Whereas the first game was defined by an explosive mana combo, my second game yesterday was defined by the value I reaped from two specific cards and from smart plays. Elemental Bond and Where Ancients Tread provided value for each and every Omnath token I made, keeping the cards flowing and the damage blasting. I won the second game through slow card advantage and by using the damage triggers to both control the creatures on board and to wean down my opponents' life totals.

No Adds or Cuts today. I recently picked up a Bloodspore Thrinax and a Rite of the Raging Storm from the new Commander product but I'm only considering adding these for right now. I edging away from the Thrinax now as it's fantastic in ideal situations but won't pull its weight in a more difficult scenario. Rite has tribal synergy with Omnath and synergy with 'power matters' cards in the deck and it could be a fun way to force the game to be more aggressive.

Have you considered Atarka's Command? Seems like it would be great to power out an extra land and reach a bit further with your damage by bolting each opponent.

Quote from KrackShott »

Have you considered Atarka's Command? Seems like it would be great to power out an extra land and reach a bit further with your damage by bolting each opponent.

Thanks for the suggestion!

I haven't, and I can see where it can be good, but the situations where it comes in the clutch feel few and far between. An extra land is great, but spending an entire card just for that one extra land won't cut it in Commander. Exploration and Oracle of Mul Daya can put out more lands each turn. Bolting each opponent doesn't exactly do a lot for us. Yes, we win through doing lots of damage and all, but this is a 40 life format, spending one card to do just three damage to each opponent without some alternate benefit just isn't with the card slot. If you could repeat that damage over and over, it becomes much better, but Atarka's Command is just a one-shot go. Now the +1/+1 and Reach mode could work well if we're being attacked by a horde of flying fatties, but that happens to me maybe once every couple of games.

I might consider it once the price goes down, but Atarka's Command just doesn't do as much as I'd want it to in this format.

Quote from skorchdnite »

Quote from KrackShott »

Have you considered Atarka's Command? Seems like it would be great to power out an extra land and reach a bit further with your damage by bolting each opponent.

Thanks for the suggestion!

I haven't, and I can see where it can be good, but the situations where it comes in the clutch feel few and far between. An extra land is great, but spending an entire card just for that one extra land won't cut it in Commander. Exploration and Oracle of Mul Daya can put out more lands each turn. Bolting each opponent doesn't exactly do a lot for us. Yes, we win through doing lots of damage and all, but this is a 40 life format, spending one card to do just three damage to each opponent without some alternate benefit just isn't with the card slot. If you could repeat that damage over and over, it becomes much better, but Atarka's Command is just a one-shot go. Now the +1/+1 and Reach mode could work well if we're being attacked by a horde of flying fatties, but that happens to me maybe once every couple of games.

I might consider it once the price goes down, but Atarka's Command just doesn't do as much as I'd want it to in this format.

You're right. It's barely playable. Explore does more for this deck than that card does, because at least it replaces itself. I also recommend adding in Greater Good, possibly other sacrifice outlets like Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod's Altar or Goblin Bombardment as ways to quickly toss things. Spawning Pit would be worthwhile in your list if it made elementals, but sadly it does not. Evolutionary Leap might also be a good, cheap replacement for spawning pit to help find your other utility fatties.

Ghost Town and Undiscovered Paradise can be repeated sources of landfall.

Quote from gromgrom »

You're right. It's barely playable. Explore does more for this deck than that card does, because at least it replaces itself. I also recommend adding in Greater Good, possibly other sacrifice outlets like Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod's Altar or Goblin Bombardment as ways to quickly toss things. Spawning Pit would be worthwhile in your list if it made elementals, but sadly it does not. Evolutionary Leap might also be a good, cheap replacement for spawning pit to help find your other utility fatties.

Ghost Town and Undiscovered Paradise can be repeated sources of landfall.

Actually, I'm already running Goblin Bombardment, Ashnod's Altar and Spawning Pit. I've thought about Evolutionary Leap before but have ended up always leaving it out in favor of something else. Once I feel like spending $15 on it, I'll probably get a Phyrexian Altar. I'll also definitely consider putting in Ghost Town and Undiscovered Paradise, I'm just concerned that they'd be next to useless if I have plenty of lands in hand.

Quote from skorchdnite »

Quote from gromgrom »

You're right. It's barely playable. Explore does more for this deck than that card does, because at least it replaces itself. I also recommend adding in Greater Good, possibly other sacrifice outlets like Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod's Altar or Goblin Bombardment as ways to quickly toss things. Spawning Pit would be worthwhile in your list if it made elementals, but sadly it does not. Evolutionary Leap might also be a good, cheap replacement for spawning pit to help find your other utility fatties.

Ghost Town and Undiscovered Paradise can be repeated sources of landfall.

Actually, I'm already running Goblin Bombardment, Ashnod's Altar and Spawning Pit. I've thought about Evolutionary Leap before but have ended up always leaving it out in favor of something else. Once I feel like spending $15 on it, I'll probably get a Phyrexian Altar. I'll also definitely consider putting in Ghost Town and Undiscovered Paradise, I'm just concerned that they'd be next to useless if I have plenty of lands in hand.

I meant that spawning pit isnt worthwhile since it doesnt make elementals. There are just better outlets. Culling Dias comes to mind, if you need another past those.

Im gonna test town because its cheap. I own paradises from dredge, so ill give them a shot too. Mostly as a way to keep the tokens coming even if i run out of gas.