History of the Deck
I was on the verge of making a commander out of Thassa, God of the Sea when the news came around that Wizards would be releasing dual colored gods in BNG—I decided to wait and I’m so glad that I did. When the spoilers finally came around and I saw Karametra, God of Harvests for the first time, something in me clicked. I just knew I had to do something with her, despite having no idea yet what that was going to be. What followed was a rapid succession of discovery; involving coincidental syngergies and interactions that happened to work specifically with this god, in these colors—forming a unique strategy that cannot be achieved in any other combination of colors and/or commanders, and a decked packed with flavor. I still have yet to find an explanation as to how things ended up fitting together so nicely.
It was clear to me from the start that I wanted to avoid the obvious strategies that come to mind when looking at the general (ramp abuse, landfall, etc), I knew that decks made around these strategies would be one dimensional, inconsistent and gimmicky. After picking the general apart and hours of scouring Gatherer for potential synergies, I decided that an indestructibility/sweeper strategy had legs—and the first draft of the current list was born. The deck has evolved to include a shroud/hexproof and enchantment subthemes, an answer package for potential weaknesses, and has gone through vigorous testing in a varied meta. It is now tuned and balanced to be a consistent, resilient, defensive machine.
Why Karametra?
Having played a lot of proactive, aggressive decks myself (Maelstrom Wanderer, Isamaru, Mimeoplasm, Riku), a part of me always wanted to be that guy sitting there, quietly building up his board position. Conversely, I hate fluffy decks and games where everyone is passive and overly nice to each other. What I wanted was a defensive deck that could protect itself rather than rely on 'appearing useless' for half the game and then pulling out a win condition once everyone else had half killed each other.
This build of Karametra allows for a very steady, resilient and transparent road to victory. Your opponents will be in full view while you build your board presence and lay down threats—they just won’t be able to do anything about it! Imagine playing a Defense of the Heart into your board with Karametra, God of Harvests, Sterling Grove and/or Greater Auramancy and watching your opponents helplessly squirm as it triggers, allowing you to tutor into play an Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Archetype of Endurance. Then following it up with one of the ten Wrath of God effects in the deck while its card text tickles the ‘I’ in ‘Hexproof Indestructible'. These scenarios are not difficult to pull off in this deck, and it can do it with relative consistency.
You’ll enjoy playing Karametra if:
You want a defensive deck that isn’t also a pillow-fort deck.
You like the idea of having an ‘Hexproof Indestructible’ board.
Notes on composition
The deck has a lot of redundancy for consistency’s sake because there aren’t a lot of good card draw engines that fit with this theme—we’re working with the constraint that we plan to use a lot of sweepers, which means that the creatures we run need to either be: Indestructible, have an ETB effect, or have a LTB effect. There also needs to be a critical mass of creatures in order for the ramp from Karametra to trigger enough for the deck to run consistently (even though the main strategy is to cheat our finishers into play; this is usually done from the library so once the cards are in our hands we need to be able to hard cast them). The deck initially ran the set of green ramp creatures such as Wood Elves and Yavimaya Dryads but I quickly found the deck to ramp into unnecessary amounts of mana only to run out of steam. These have been replaced by cantrip creatures who take advantage of the ramp trigger from Karametra but also replace themselves.
Note that all of our hexproof/shroud as well as tutor/cheat cards only affect creatures and/or enchantments. Therefore it’s important that the deck be mainly composed of creatures and enchantments as otherwise we won’t be able to access or protect them when we need to. This is the reason that Pariah is run but Pariah’s Shield is not. While they essentially do the same thing, Pariah is much stronger for us due to our hexproof/shroud enablers and enchantment tutors. Similar things can be said about Dueling Grounds and Silent Arbiter etc.
The reason that the only creature spot removal in the deck are Oblation and Condemn is simply due to the large amount of Wrath of God effects we have access to, we simply don’t need much creature removal because of this. We do however need a lot of enchantment/artifact removal, which you will see many of!
There are a number of lines that the deck can take depending on the flow of the game, what you draw and the commanders that your opponents are playing. I will try to cover the common scenarios as succintly as possible.
General Strategy
If you haven’t already caught on, the three key words for this deck are Indestructible, Hexproof, Wrath. There are 10 wrath effects in total in this deck (one of them being a recurring wrath). So don’t be shy about clearing the board of potential threats whenever you feel the need to, there are plenty more! All of your important creatures are indestructible so there shouldn’t be anything holding you back. The wraths are what will buy you time to get to your end game in a systematic and steady way, so be patient and take your time. Once you’re there you can then use your remaining wraths to clear the way for your fatties to swing away!
Bread and Butter
Your go to strategy when you aren’t looking for a more specific line of play is the combination of Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Archetype of Endurance—it should be pretty evident by now how these two cards interact. There are a number of ways to make this happen:
Hard Cast: As a rule of thumb, it’s generally safer to try to cheat these guys in rather than try to hard cast them—and ideally they would come in together rather than separately. If one of them ends up in your hand, it’s better to wait and try and cheat the other one in before trying to cast the first. If both end up in your hand, the order in which you cast them is important: if you are anticipating board wipes, Avacyn should be cast first. If you are anticipating exile or tuck based spot removal, then the Archetype should be cast first. Generally I find archetype is the better lead given that the only way to answer him is a sorcery speed board wipe—Yavimaya Hollow can be a nasty surprise for people that aren’t paying attention to your lands.
Defense of the Heart: If you trigger an early Defense, the game is not far from being over. Most of the time I will wait for one or two of either Sterling Grove, Greater Auramancy or Privileged Position (deeper explanation of these cards later) before I try to resolve this as it does have to go through 2-3 of your opponents turns before it can trigger. However you would be surprised at how often a rambo turn 4 Defense slips through the cracks!
Academy Rector + Pattern of Rebirth: Here is where the beauty of the deck starts to shine through. Pattern of Rebirth searches up Avacyn, Angel of Hope, and Academy Rector searches up Archetype of Endurance because lo and behold, he’s also an Enchantment. If you can get access to these cards early (it’s not hard with so many tutors), this is a stunning way of getting out your combo and by far my favourite. The individual pieces don’t pose much threat so they rarely get answered (no one wants to kill your Rector anyway), but by the time they are out there together it’s too late. Setting these two up and following up with a Wrath of God to trigger them, clear the board and cheat my Untouchables into play is one of the funnest things I’ve ever done in magic.
Once you have this set up, there are a number of defensive answers you can try to get to protect you from your opponents. Dueling Grounds protects you from swarms and most creatures, Pariah protects you from any form of damage including any damage/creature based infinite combos! since your indestructible creatures/commander will happily sit there and absorb 999,999,999,999 damage from blasting station for you, Blazing Archon protects you from creatures, and Constant Mists is just ridiculous in Karametra. The enchantment protection will also allow Planar Collapse to resolve freely.
Situational Card Combinations
While our Avacyn and Archetype combo is our bread and butter, many other combinations of creatures and enchantments can be established using the same methods described in the Bread and Butter section. These are typically less robust, but can be devastating if you have indentified a situation where can you capitalize on them.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre + Archetype of Endurance: Once these two are out on the board, the only way to deal with Ulamog is to first Wrath to kill the Archetype, and then use an exile, bounce or tuck to answer the Ulamog. Usually by the time this can happen Ulamog has already smashed a whole bunch of face. This is fantastic when there aren’t many White players in the game, as most Wrath and Exile/Tuck effects belong to white. Even with a white player on the board this is incredibly hard to deal with. Made more consistent if you have Yavimaya Hollow in play to protect your Archetype.
Blightsteel Colossus + Novablast Wurm: This is typically a finishing combo to bring in when you already have something to protect your Novablast Wurm. The Wurm will kill everything apart from Blightsteel as soon as it attacks, clearing a path for the lethal blow to hit whichever poor sucker you want to snipe.
Blightsteel Colossus + Any Wrath: Same as above but with our Wrath of God spells instead. Every Wrath will snipe one to two players (people don't always have chump blockers in their hand).
Novablast Wurm + Avacyn, Angel of Hope: Great to bring in if you identify a situation where there might not be much exile/tuck/bounce based spot removal. Basically provides a one-sided wrath every turn.
Novablast Wurm + Deathless Angel: Same as above but with an inferior version of Avacyn. Most of the time you won’t have anything important that isn’t already indestructible already so the Deathless Angel is really just there to help protect the Wurm.
Archetype of Endurance + Deathless Angel: Poor mans Bread and Butter, once again most important things are already indestructible so it’s just there to protect the Archetype from Wraths.
Chord of Calling + Archon of Justice: No one ever sees this one coming, but can easily be a two for one. Easy way to block and then exile something that's bothering you.
Angel of Serenity + High Market: High Market in response to the Angel of Serenity trigger and the 3 creatures stay exiled forever!
Catastrophe + Avacyn, Angel of Hope: Although I opted not to include Armageddon in the deck (currently in contention because I feel it’s too situational in this deck). Catastrophe happens to have a second mode that is a mass land destruction. Pretty gross but pretty spectacular. Use if your in a cranky mood and it will make you feel better
3+ Card Combinations
The combinations I have listed above are all two card combinations which are easily cheated/tutored into play. They are all very powerful by themselves, but given the level of protection your threats enjoy, and the compounding and incremental nature of the deck. There will be plenty of situations where you have 3 or more of these cards in play. Words cannot describe what it feels like to have Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Archetype of Endurance and any combination of Novablast Wurm, Blazing Archon, Pariah, Blightsteel Colossus or Ulamog, the Infite Gyre in play at the same time! Enjoy.
BONUS! http://youtu.be/Io4fxdBEApc
Something that probably wouldn’t occur to people immediately about Karametra, is that she’s really good at shuffling. I probably wouldn’t have noticed this if I weren’t an avid Delver of Secrets player, but Karametra, God of Harvests allows you to use cards like Lurking Predators, Oracle of Mul Daya, Sylvan Library, and Sensei’s Divining Top to strategically shuffle(or not shuffle) the [smelly poo] out of your deck. I don’t know about you but to me the worst feeling in the world is Topping to see 3 lands for your next three draws when all you want are spells (in Karametra, most spells == lands), but with her you can just shuffle all your sorrows away!
Timing and Threat Assessment are the two most important concepts in this deck.
Timing: I have removed all the graveyard recursion from this deck because most games I find my graveyard to be empty (either I’ve set up my combo and my things don’t die, or if they do they would usually be exiled—making cards like Eternal Witness to be a little too situational. Therefore you only have a couple of shots to get in your enchantment protection combo (two of them need to be in play at the same time) onto the board. This is not a very difficult thing to do so long as your Greater Auramancy or Privileged Position aren’t sitting out in the open turn after turn. If you need some short term protection for one of your enchantments: Sterling Grove is by far your best option. No one will want to kill it, buying you time to get the second piece into play—but if they do try, you can sacrifice it to tutor for a replacement. This is why it’s incredibly important to always leave an open mana when your Sterling Grove is in play. Patience! Your creature combos are more forgiving since there are many more options as detailed above in the Strategy section.
Threat Assessment: We are very vulnerable to certain players but very resilient to others—you want to be making friends with the people who you aren’t worried about and trying to remove the players that you are worried about. The deck is very weak to mass bounce, mass exile or mass sacrifice, so you don’t want to over-extend too far until players that have a lot of these effects have been dealt with. Alternately you could just try to kill them before those cards come online (Karametra, God of Harvests swings for 6/7 general damage so you’re actually pretty good at sniping someone in the mid game). The most common blowout is Cyclonic Rift, but the good news about this card is that if it resolves then the player who cast it tends to draw all the aggro on the table. Hopefully leaving you some time to rebuild. Even in the late game your primary objective is to kill the players that have the potential to break your defensive soft-lock.
Opening Hand
Because we’ve removed most of the early game ramp, your first goal is to cast Karametra, God of Harvests on turn 5, and occasionally earlier if you pull a Sol Ring, Lotus Cobra or Knight of the Reliquary. Once we have Karametra in play our manabase tends to explode and we ramp very quickly, so it’s very important that we get her out on turn 5. Therefore my preference is for 3-4 land hands and I will mulligan pretty aggressively to get there. I throw away any and all Bombs or Wraths, preferring Ramp, Draw and Tutor.
Early Game
The early game is focused on getting our commander out. As a general rule of thumb, if I’m missing a land for turn 5 Karametra, I’ll generally burn my cantrip creatures in order to make sure I get there. But if I have all the lands I need in my hand, I’ll save them for Karametra’s ramp trigger. Most of the time, any enchantment tutors will be fetching up Sterling Grove at this point in the game—given that it’s cheap and by far the most versatile. Some situations will call for other enchantments though, so read the gamestate carefully. This is also a good time to be using your tutors or setting up your infrastructure because turns 5, 6, and 7 tend to be pretty mana intensive.
Mid Game
Once you have your Karametra out, it’s time to ramp and accelerate into the moon. Your cantrip creatures are absolute all-stars here as they build devotion while fueling your ramp triggers. Now is also a good time to play your creature based spot removal to remove any threats and continue to ramp. The middle game will usually take one of three directions and they are largely dictated by what you draw. Sometimes you will be in a position to get your enchantment soft-lock on the board and you will spend your time trying to craft a situation where you can pull it off. Sometimes you’ll be in a position to pull a creature combo out of the hat. Sometimes you’ll get all the wraths or spot removal and you’ll spend time being defensive waiting for the right draw. Every now and then you’ll get either one of Mind’s Eye, Seer’s Sundial or Inheritance and now is not a bad time to make the most of them because card draw is at a premium in this deck. There are a lot of tutors in the deck though which does help to make it more versatile.
Also don't forget that the deck has 3 instant speed wraths in Rout, Fated Retribution and Myojin of Cleansing Fire, use them politically and wisely—just becomes one of your opponents is getting out of control doesn't mean you need to blow these wraths straight away, only use them when creatures are directly threatening you!
Late Game
The difference between Mid Game and Late Game for this deck is usually the casting of one card, either a cheat like Tooth and Nail or a bomb that suddenly turns you into a giant threat. This tends to be pretty early so you’ll be entering Late Game while your opponents are still in their Mid Game (Green FTW!). Your opponents won’t notice you too much during the Mid Game because you’ll be playing a lot of defensive spells; it’s only when they see the bomb that those spells were intended to defend that they realise how much of a threat you are, but by then it’s a little too late. This is the most crucial stage of the game because you’ll have a big fat target on your head. You want to be sniping anyone who has the potential to cast mass exile, bounce or sacrifice. You’re other main weakness at this point is just being killed, so your next order of business is either digging up cards like Dueling Grounds, Blazing Archon and Pariah or trying to draw into your Wraths or Constant Mists. If there are two targets that you want to snipe, a good idea is to direct all your fatties to one, and Karametra, God of Harvests to the other. Don’t forget that Karametra kills in 3/4 swings!
Karametra, God of Harvests: Indestructible. Enchantment Creature. Ramps. Shuffles. Swings for 6/7 general damage.
Blightsteel Colossus: With all the wrath effects in this deck, this guy usually just snipes people like nobody's business.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre: All of the Eldrazi are beasts, but this one happens to be indestructible too which allows it to fit in this deck. Annihilator 4? What more needs to be said haha.
Myojin of Cleansing Fire: One of three instant speed wrath options in the deck. It's a pity that you can't tutor her into play but you usually have better options anyway. The best thing about instant speed wraths is that you can let your opponents kill each other, and then pull the trigger when they decide to attack you.
Avacyn, Angel of Hope: Probably the most important card in the deck. Forms our combo, flying beater, protects all of our permanents. A more detailed description can be found in the Strategy section of the guide.
Deathless Angel: She may seem like a far inferior version of Avacyn (which she obviously is); but she's a lot better than she looks in this deck. Most of our important creatures have indestructible already, so you only really need her ability to protect herself and maybe one other creature (eg. Archetype of Endurance or Novablast Wurm).
Heliod, God of the Sun: Cheap, and gives all our creatures vigilance, Enchantment Creature, beats face reasonably well when activated. He's mainly there for vigilance, which is really powerful in this deck.
Nylea, God of the Hunt: Cheap, and gives all our creatures trample, Enchantment Creature, beats face well. She is stronger than Heliod because Trample is extremely relevant in this deck (a lot of our creatures are easy to chump). She's also a great mana sink that let's our Karametra kill much faster given how much we have ramped by late game.
Archetype of Endurance: Probably the second most important card in the deck. Avacyn's brother, once you have a way of granting him Indestructibility you have a huge defensive soft-lock on your hands Enchantment Creature.
Sigarda, Host of Herons: Has built-in hexproof which is nice, and prevents us from being blown out by mass sacrifice. The best thing about decks that run mass sacrifice combos is that you can see them coming and have some time to respond. You can use this time to tutor for her.
Blazing Archon: This card has saved me so many times, it is absolutely amazing—especially when coupled with protection. Once he's out, creature based decks are not only useless against you, but will then attack your enemies for you—do not underestimate the power of this guy because he will win you games.
Novablast Wurm: He can be a little tricky to get value out of because you have to untap with him alive. But if you can protect him he becomes pretty damn ridiculous in this deck.
Angel of Serenity: The deck has a lot of creature tutors and cheats so removal on a body is always gonna be really accessible. 3 Exiled creatures is absolutely amazing, especially for killing the creatures that won't die to all your wraths. High Market or ask other players to kill her in response to her trigger to keep the 3 creatures exiled forever.
Duplicant: Same as above, exile effect on a tutorable body.
Archon of Justice: On the surface this guy is a conditional removal. But in reality this will basically stop people from attacking you with anything with 4 power or more. You may only be able to exile one permanent with him, but no one will want that permanent to be theirs so they just won't attack you. Great political card. Big surprise when you bring him out with Chord of Calling.
Stonecloaker: Repeatedly triggers Karametra, hates graveyards on demand, saves our creatures from being tucked, stolen or exiled, blocks flying. This is a great fit in the deck and I'm currently trying to find him a spot.
Soltari Visionary: I'm always surprised that not many white decks run this guy? I absolutely love him. Enchantments form some of the most powerful cards in EDH and are generally the hardest permanents to deal with and his guy just eats them up like soup.
Harmonic Sliver: GW Staple. Blows things up and triggers Karametra. Two devotion is nice as well.
Qasali Pridemage: Also a GW Stable, but has the hidden bonus of turning your Karametra from a 4 swing lethal general to a 3 swing lethal general.
Academy Rector: Ridiculous in an enchantment based deck like this one.
Fierce Empath: Will tutor for whatever we want most of the time (most of the things we'll want to be tutoring for have a power greater than 6.
Oracle of Mul Daya: Together with Karametra, we can ramp into the moon. But the main reason he's here is actually for card advantage—specifically for the filtering ability. Top decking lands is one of the worst things in this deck because we usually have plenty, and also because creatures === lands for us. The fact that he can filter out two lands off the top per turn is AMAZING. The other hidden but equally amazing synergy with Karametra is that he reveals our top card, if we like it, we can choose not to trigger the ramp from Karametra when we play a creature, and if we don't? Shuffle the deck. And if it shuffles into a land? Filter it into play! A+++
Solumn Simulacrum: Staple. I took out all the other ramp creatures as explained in the decklist section, but this guy replaces himself—big difference for us.
Lotus Cobra: Everytime I draw this card he does a tonne of work, so I just haven't been able to take him out. He just makes us so much faster when he's on the board. He and Karametra are a match made in heaven.
Eidolon of Blossoms Cantrips, two devotion, triggers Karametra, allows us to draw a card for all of our many enchantments. Beast.
Mana Reflection: Even though Karametra ramps hard, there's just nothing quite like doubling your mana, especially if you already have a lot of lands in play. I've found this card to be pretty overkill in a lot of decks, but the mana from this has rarely ever been wasted in this deck. There are enough sinks to make it worthwhile. Don't forget that this includes ALL mana sources (including Sol Ring etc).
Mirari's Wake: This is a better version of Mana Reflection. Costs 1 less, and bumps your Karametra to the magical 7 General Damage mark.
Lurking Predators: The main purpose of this card is for card advantage and filtering. It's absolutely fine if we don't hit any bombs with it, because being able to put cards into play for free (effectively drawing cards), and putting cards we don't need to the bottom (especially lands), is amazing. Every now and then this might hit an Ulamog or Blazing Archon and it will be amazeballs.
Privileged Position: This card is amazing, it protects EVERYTHING, if you have a Sterling Grove or Greater Auramancy, it will make your entire board completely untouchable. Karametra is pretty much always on when this is in play too since it gives a wondrous THREE devotion.
Defense of the Heart: I originally had this in decks that didn't have any enchantment protection and it resolved and triggered much more often than you would think it would. Now that it can couple with protection it's just a beating—especially since this deck relies on a lot of different two creature combos. It's so versatile as well since you can fetch which ever combo is best for your situation. Check the strategy section for some suggestions.
Pattern of Rebirth: This is obviously a weaker version of Defense, but it's still amazing. My favorite part about cheat effects is that the card you bring in is uncounterable. It's so interesting in that because you conceal your intentions behind it, people will be less likely to counter the Pattern itself even though it will bring out something ridiculous if it's left to resolve. Easy to trigger with so many wrath effects in the deck.
Aura Shards: Staple. Artifacts and Enchantments form some of the most broken cards in the format so why not just gun them down? Pew Pew Pew. You can often judge the power of a card at how quickly it dies after it resolves. I rarely see Aura Shards see the light of day for very long; luckily we can make it untargettable!
Dueling Grounds: One of the main weaknesses of this deck is simply dying (if you are the main threat, people will simple swing at you since they can't interact with your board). It's important to have cards like this to slow that down.
Sterling Grove: One of the most important cards in the deck. Provides protection but also with the ability to replace itself. The most interesting thing about this card is that since people know you can just sac it to search for a replacement, they just won't kill it. Having this early will really give you the time to set up your soft-lock because as soon as you have two of these cards in play, all your enchantments will be safe for the rest of the game. This card allows you to set this up aggressively while having a fall-back. ALWAYS leave up the one mana to activate this. ALWAYS.
Greater Auramancy: It's no sterling grove but it's so important to have as many of these as possible so that if one gets blown up, you have another to play with.
Aspect of Mongoose: Sometimes you just won't draw into the pieces of the puzzle (but your bombs still need protection). This card allows you to play your Ulamogs and Blightsteels when you don't have your combos up, and if somehow they die, you get the Mongoose back to use on another bomb!
Pariah: If you put this on an indestructible creature while your enchantment soft-lock is up. You almost just can't be killed. It almost makes you invulnerable (including damage based infinite combos). Sometimes the token player will play their Craterhoof Behemoth and represent 9345725245924352524 damage, but if you have Pariah up, everyone will die except you. It's a rather awesome and interesting feeling to survive something like that unscathed.
Planar Collapse: Sometimes you won't have a wrath when you really need one (we have no way of tutoring for sorceries and instants). The reason this card is in there is because it's tutorable. Synergizes with the enchantment protection which will make it easier to trigger. Also does a decent job of being a very early wrath if you need it, and even if it gets killed before it triggers, it helps burn peoples removal.
Sylvan Library: Staple in any green deck. Being able to rig your top three is amazing enough. But paying 4 life for a card is amazing and will often get you to your combos before your opponents can react. This card is made better by the fact that Karametra is so good at shuffling the deck, if there are some bad topdecks coming up, shuffle them away! The fact that you can take any number of the cards prior to shuffling is magnificent.
Inheritance: An easy to set-up source of card draw. Works nicely as a mana sink for when you have too much mana, spending mana to draw into cards which then you can spend your mana on. Mana?
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Instants
Fated Retribution: Instant speed board-wipe is amazing. It allows you to play a political game in that you can leave your opponents alone (even if they are turning into a big threat) for as long as they are killing each other and not you. Then when and if they turn on you, you have the board wipe in hand to play in response to whatever they are trying to do.
Return to Dust: White staple, can't get past exiling two artifacts and enchantments at instant speed!
Eladamri's Call: For one more mana, you convert a Worldly Tutor from 'On top of the library', to 'Into your hand'. Pretty awesome.
Constant Mists: This card in this deck is basically "Infinite Fogs". You can fog so much. So. Much.
Enlightened Tutor: Makes sense in an enchantment deck right? This is also the only card that can tutor for artifacts in this deck, and sometimes having that Mind's Eye when you need it will make a huge difference. Don't forget to use it at end of turn to conceal your plans.
Worldly Tutor: There are many creature based answers in this deck so this is an important card to have. Also helps you set up your combos if you have one in hand and are missing the second piece.
Tooth and Nail: This card is broken. Check the strategy section for suggestions, but this let's you setup whichever creature combos you like. One of the problems of tutor based cheats is that they don't work if you have it in your hand—not a problem for TnN! Awesomesauce.
Phrexian Rebirth: Wiping the board and having a fattie spawn on an empty board is pretty damn fun. This card becomes hilarious if you're playing against a token deck. Almost always over 10 power and often 20+ power.
Catastrophe: Sometimes you will draw this while you have Avacyn, Angel of Hope in play and you can just win the game by blowing up everyone's lands. Most of the time this is just a solid board wipe.
Rout: This is really just another Fated Retribution but I put it here to because the card text reads 'Sorcery'. Instant speed board wipes are amazing.
Wrath of God: Happy days. When was the first of these printed?
Natural Order: So if you are very clever you would have noticed that there aren't that many good targets for this card (you can only tutor for 'Green' creatures). But being able to tutor either an Archetype of Endurance or Novablast Wurm into play was reason enough to include this card in the mix. There are a few other targets that might be relevant in certain situations, but the above two are the main reason this card is in the deck.
Harmonize: This card should be blue. I don't know why it's green. Yay.
Idyllic Tutor: Enchantment tutor in an enchantment deck!
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Artifacts
Mind's Eye: The deck needs card draw and mana sinks, this fills the role beautifully. By default — for 3 mana per set of turns, you draw 3 cards. Pretty awesome. Get's even better if your opponents are drawing even more.
Sensei's Divining Top: Such a beautiful card. Let's you rig the top three cards in your deck. This card is made better by the fact that Karametra is so good at shuffling the deck, if there are some bad topdecks coming up, shuffle them away! Or if you are playing a creature each turn you can simply pick the best of each three card group each time and shuffle the rest away. Shuffle away! Don't forget to abuse this card when you are mana-screwed. Rig top land to top -> swap it for top -> play the land -> draw the top next turn -> rinse and repeat. Never miss a land drop again!
Ajani, Mentor of Heroes: All of this guys abilities are relevant in this deck. The first +1 turns our Karametra into a 2 swing kill (9+12 = 21). The second +1 let's us draw/filter cards which this deck really needs, the best part is that the left overs remain in our library for tutorability. The ultimate is actually really good because our life totals can sometimes get whittled down over the course of the game (especially by little flyers). All-star.
Garruk, Primal Hunter: Beats Soul's Majesty simply because it doesn't need to target (we have a few shroud effects). But also adds THREE devotion to Karametra and is potentially re-usable. Trying to find some space for this card right now as I've found Karametra to be online much more often than initially anticipated.
Lands
Serra's Sanctum: I've had this card in my binder since 2001 and have never found a good home for it. I'M SO HAPPY THAT IT FITS PERFECTLY IN THIS DECK. Haha. This is almost never a 0 mana land, and consistently produces 2+ mana. Sometimes it produces 4, 5, 6 mana. It's no Gaea's Cradle but it's still pretty awesome <3.
Kor Haven: Shuting down voltron monsters since the year 2000. Get's around protection and unblockable, only thing that stops it are hexproof and shroud.
Yavimaya Hollow: This card is surprisingly good in this deck given that we have so many indestructible. Let's you run cards like Archetype of Endurance, Novablast Wurm or Blazing Archon a little more bravely. Also saves some of your weenies to preserve devotion.
High Market: Saves creatures from being stolen, tucked or exiled.
Cavern of Souls: I rarely ever name "God" with this cause people aren't really interested in countering Karametra anyway. Oftentimes this will name "Angel" for Avacyn, or "Boar" for Archetype.
Emeria, the Sky Ruin: The idea is that Karametra makes it easy to turn this on and then it's amazeballs. Reality is that even with Karametra this card has never been all that relevant in this deck. Might cut it soon.
Stirring Wildwood: Ambushes flying utility creatures when your opponents aren't paying attention. Saves your important creatures from cards like Fleshbag Marauder. Does more work than it appears on the surface.
Dust Bowl: With access to so many lands, Dust Bowl becomes a house — don't let your opponents have those pesky utility lands!
Forest: This card is extremely important. There are 47 green mana symbols in this deck, and without this card it would be incredibly difficult to play many cards. The amazing thing about this card is that it's one of the few cards in commander that you can play more than one of. Load up on these and you won't regret it.
Plains: This card is extremely important. There are 64 white mana symbols in this deck, and without this card it would be incredibly difficult to play many cards. The amazing thing about this card is that it's one of the few cards in commander that you can play more than one of. Load up on these and you won't regret it.
Konda, Lord of Eiganjo: I love the concept and the flavor of this card, fits in perfectly with the deck. But I just found it to be too weak and low impact in EDH.
Darksteel Gargoyle: If you're really struggling with flyers this can be an answer, but it's very over-priced and is really only a blocker.
Thornling: This card has potential, I can see it being really good in certain situations and can be very useful for pressuring opponents. Couldn't really make it work though.
Predator Ooze / Fleecemane Lion: Once again, love the concept, flavor and fit in the deck, but it's just too slow.
Stuffy Doll: Brilliant Troll card. Could work really well defensively if your playgroup plays a lot of fatties.
Yosei, the Morning Star: Also a great card if you're struggling with flyers and does a lot to deter people from attacking you. The effect is great from stopping someone who's targeting you or snowballing out of control. Has a lot of potential.
Penumbra Spider: Great chumper if you're struggling with flyers.
Eternal Dragon: A self recurring dragon is pretty great, but I feel it's over-costed and requires so much investment for not enough return.
Glory: Great card if your creatures are getting targeted down, but I find in this deck it doesn't happen often enough.
Fountain Watch / Eight-and-a-half-tails / Devoted Caretaker: If you find that you're enchantments are being targeted down before you have a chance to get your combos out, these cards could go a long way to protecting them. The fox and caretaker both have the added bonus of being able to protect your creatures too. I've found this to be unnecessary with this deck.
Sunblast Angel: I really like this card, it's a wrath that fills a lot of gaps in the deck. Currently trying to find a space for her right now.
Wood Elves: This explanation applies him him and all of his friends. I originally had ramp creatures in the deck but found them to ramp into unnecessary amounts of mana only to run out of steam. These have been replaced with cantrip creatures.
Planar Guide: The only reason I don't run these effects is my playground doesn't play much mass exile, sacrifice or tuck. If your playground does then this is a great addition!
Eternal Witness / Reveillark / Karmic Guide: Because of the nature of the deck, most cards in this deck end up exiled or tucked, so these cards become a little too situational.
Spirit En-Dal: This was in earlier versions of the deck and can be great if you see many opportunities to kill your opponents early if you're creatures were unblockable. Great card if you want some evasion.
Asceticism: This was in earlier versions of the deck but I just found it to be unnecessary. If you're struggling with spot removal on your creatures this can help a lot!
Survival of the Fittest: I just didn't find this card useful enough, we don't have a huge creature density and not that many weenie cards to pitch to it that we don't already need. Not great here.
Abundance: I see some potential for this card but I opted for Lurking Predators over it. In this deck creatures = lands so being able to filter out all the lands could smooth the deck a lot.
Instants
Krosan Grip: I kinda wish this was in the deck, it stops a lot of infinite combos in their tracks. But I opted for the creature based spot removal for the sake of ramp and devotion. Maybe one day there will be a spot open for this great card!
Congregation at Dawn: I'm at odds with this card, on one hand it can set up your next few turns perfectly for a combo. But on the other hand it non-bo's with Karametra shuffling the deck. Not sure.
Ghostway: Once again the only reason this isn't in my deck is because my playgroup don't play much mass exile, tuck or sacrifice — making this card really inconsistent and situational. Otherwise this would be an auto-include as it addresses a major weakness of the deck.
Sorceries
Martial Coup: Another wrath option that doesn't interfere with the deck if you need it.
Replenish: Might be good if your enchantments are getting blown up a lot. I've found it to be unnecessary
Genesis Wave: I think this would be great in a ramp based Karametra deck. Otherwise I've always found this card to be kinda inconsistent and win-more.
Artifacts
Akroma's Memorial: Might be really good if you're looking for more offense, for me this card has either been win-more or a dead draw. We also only have one artifact tutor option.
Pariah's Shield: Pariah is one of the best cards in the deck. But this is significantly worse because it's harder to tutor for and we don't have any protection for it.
Seer's Sundial: I've found this card to be pretty clunky and requiring too much investment.
World Slayer: This is like a strap-on Novablast Wurm. But once again the lack of tutor and protection options for artifacts turned me off including this card.
Planeswalkers
Lands
Rogue's Passage: Great if you want to be more offensive, I might consider putting this back in depending on how my mana fixing performs. Gaea's Cradle: If I had this I would put it in. Too expensive for my taste though Savannah: Same as above!
Explanation: BFZ Brought us some really nice upgrades! Really looking forward to the rest of this block as a lot of the mechanics are on theme with this deck
Deathless Angel - I found this irrelevant most of the time. Planar Collapse - Most of the time this was unnecessary, and also slow and clunky. Return to Dust - This was more of a metagame change, my meta has shifted away from artifact/enchantment reliant strategies, into more creature heavy strategies. Harmonize - I'm not 100% sure of this one yet, but I wasn't that excited to see this card so I figured I'd see how I would do without it. Exotic Orchard - Another metagame change. Pattern of Rebirth - This card would never work out for me. Too slow and clunky I suppose.
Ulamog, the Ceaceless Hunger - Indestructible and awesome. Hoping the block will introduce more tasty indestructible eldrazi Grasp of Fate + Quarantine Field - I'm finding the need for exile effects more and more in my meta, and what better than high value exile removal that also add 2 devotion each? Angel of Serenity - I loved Luminate Primordial so much I decided I wanted 2. Canopy Vista - Why not. Emeria Shepherd - This card is ridiculous with Karametra. Everytime you play a creature, you get to ramp a land and recur ANY nonland permanent to the battlefield. Wowzers
Explanation:Condemn and Oblation removed due to recent Commander rules update stating that creatures that are tucked can now be put in the command zone. Condemn is situational and Oblation has a huge downside so they no longer make the cut after these changes. Myojin of Cleansing Fire this card stayed in the deck for as long as it did purely out of flavor/theme; this card is useless when cheated in and expensive/not worth it when hard casted, just not useful enough to remain in the deck.
Angel of Serenity and Duplicant: Very often I would be looking through my deck after a Defense of the Heart trigger or after casting any other creature tutor and be in need of creature removal. The deck didn't have any of it! How stupid of me not to include creature based removal when the deck is so heavy with tutors and cheats. Serenity is amazing (3 target creatures, really?) especially with all the protection that the deck offers her and both her and Duplicant have exile effects; meaning we can deal with those pesky creatures that don't die to our wraths this way. As an added bonus, if you can High Market or convince another player to kill your Serenity in response to her trigger, the 3 exiled creatures will be exiled forever!
I've been looking for a space for Stonecloaker for the LONGEST time, and there's finally space! This guy is an all star in this deck. Ramps us, triggers Karametra, targeted graveyard hate, and saves our dudes from being tucked, stolen or exiled.
Explanation: Garruk, Primal Hunter is a pretty significant boost to the deck. I had originally considered including Souls Majesty first, and when I saw Garruk I made the mistake of immediately assuming that he was functionally the same card. There are two main subtle but very important differences, the first is that Garruk is a permanent with GGG in it's cost — one of the main things that turned me off Souls Majesty was potentially not having a decent target if Karametra is not active. But Garruk provides a whopping three devotion to the board, 99% of the time this will wake Karametra up as soon as it hits the board. The second is that Garruk does not target — sometimes Karametra will have shroud which would make Majesty completely useless, this isn't the case with the planeswalker. There are also edge cases where we might be able to trigger him twice or we leave him up to keep Karametra active but I see this as being very rare because this card for us basically reads "pay 2GGG, draw six cards". I'm not sure I'll ever be greedy enough to think that I'll untap with him after going around the table when the immediate payoff is so massive. He's miles ahead of Inheritance which can be a bit clunky so this was an easy switch when I realised how good Garruk was.
Emeria, the Sky Ruin has not been relevant once in the MANY games I've played. Firstly because hardly any creatures end up in my graveyard and the ones that do aren't worth recurring, secondly because even in a deck where we can tutor all the plains — it rarely becomes active and the small chance for it to be both active AND have targets to recur seems simply not to be worth the "Enters the battlefield tapped" tag. I've replaced it with Mistveil Plains, which while also an ETBT land — is technically a "Plains" meaning that we can tutor it up with Karametra for no consequence. I also really like that it can put ANY card back into the deck which means that we can continually tutor and re-use our enchantments (especially ones like Defense of the Heart) and this would be a very consistent interaction given that we can grab the land with our general ASAP in every game.
Cavern of Souls was never relevant enough in my meta to be worth the colorless land — I've replaced it with Reflecting Pool which is a very interesting card. I find that Reflecting Pool has the potential to be worse than a basic land in the early stages of the game in situations where you are color screwed it doesn't help and can make it worse (this doesn't affect us much because we don't have very demanding mana requirements in the early game and Karametra closes the gaps in the mid game. What it does well though is help you get to those GGG and WWW casting costs in the mid and late game once you most likely have all of your colors. This is perfect for us especially given that we just added Garruk, Primal Hunter to the deck and there are a few other GGG and WWW costed cards.
Other than that I just made a few tweaks to the mana base. Brushland will rarely shock us since it provides colorless without a downside and will help us fix our mana. I felt free to add Flagstones of Trokair because it has virtually no down-side now that Emeria has hit the bin. It'll only be relevant once in a blue moon after a Ruination or Armageddon — but that's enough reason to run it over a Plains. We do also have Catastrophe in the deck so if we ever need to cast it for its land destruction it would be helpful.
Moving forward I will continue testing Stonecloaker, Sunblast Angel and Krosan Grip. To be honest the first two cards aren't performing very well so I'm not sure if I'll be able to find a cut for them. I'm still trying desperately to find a space for the Krosan Grip simply because stopping infinite combos is amazing. But finding the cut for it has been very hard. Prison Term is a cute thought given how much enchantment protection we have but I'm not entirely sure where it will fit in the list.
Explanation: I have been finding Weathered Wayfarer to be really hit and miss (he's a bad opening draw if you're going first, he's a bad mid/late game draw, and he becomes useless once Karametra has been online for a couple of turns). Knight of the Reliquary should be a much more consistent addition plus giving us the option to accelerate.
As much as I love the concept of Myojin of Life's Web he has been way too situational and his ability has almost never been relevant in my games, so sadly he will go. I have taken the advice of many of the replies on this thread and added Sigarda, Host of Herons in his place. I've been in quite a few situations now where the sac protection would have been really useful, she has hexproof which is great, is very aggressively costed for what she does, and I'm always glad to be adding more flyers to the deck.
Moving forward I'm gonna be trying to find some space for Sunblast Angel. Will also be looking at how often she would be relevant in my current games given that it's a conditional wrath.
Explanation:Seer's Sundial has been clunky (as pointed out by Volango), and even at it's best only draws around 2 cards per turn. Ajani, Mentor of Heroes is the perfect fit in this deck; his first ability turns Karametra into a 2 swing kill (9+12 dmg). His second ability digs 4 and draws a card every turn for free (plus the added advantage of leaving the other cards in the deck for tutors/cheats) and his ult keeps us alive.
Eidolon of Blossoms is easily better than Masked Admirers in this deck, it will draw more cards for less effort. I might still try and get Masked Admirers back in there but not sure what to take out yet.
Moving forward, I'm gonna try and find some room for Knight of the Reliquary as the points that Volango made are really valid, not too keen on taking Weathered Wayfarer out just yet though so some thought and testing needs to go into this.
Personal Bio
I still remember my very first experience with magic to be buying this Kavu themed pre-constructed deck from Planeshift all the way back in 2001. I can't believe it's been 13 years and look how far Magic has come! I used to think Serra Avatar was the most amazing card in the world and would play game after game trying to string together my one-of Congregate and one-of Serra Avatar together in my 86 card deck. Since then I would say I've developed a pretty even balance between all the player archetypes; my competitive streak comes out in standard where my all time favourite deck was "The Aristocrats" and modern where I am a huge fan of Delver of Secrets. In EDH I would consider myself semi-competitive in that I like powerful decks but with the condition that they are both fun to play with as well as fun to play against — I feel like playing broken un-fun interactions in EDH defeats the purpose of the format. I love interesting and subtle interactions between cards and have huge respect for the people who uncover them. I think Sam Black is a boss.
Meta
I play this deck in both a local paper based playgroup as well as the diverse meta that is Cockatrice. Here are some of the decks I play against regularly in my local meta:
Being my first time writing and formatting anything on this forum I was a bit overwhelmed at the start. Mad props to gelf and his amazing Animar Primer from which I have shamelessly copied the formatting and layout from. Many thanks also to the people who’ve written the formatting guides around the forum which can be found here and here.
Selesnya was always my favourite guild and this is a particularly awesome idea. It's obviously a very well thought out list and most of it seems really solid but here are a few suggestions:
Spearbreaker Behemoth seems better than Deathless Angel because it's already indestructible itself and the ability to protect other stuff costs half. The restriction that it can only target creatures with power 5 or higher seems pretty irrelevant to me because nearly every creature you really want to protect fullfills this condition.
I know Condemn can tuck opposing commanders but the "needs to be attacking" clause make it much worse than Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares in my experience.
Knight of the Reliquary seems much better than Weathered Wayfarer in this deck of yours. While it doesn't create card advantage he actually accelerates, you can always use his ability and you can get the lands at instant speed which is nice with cards like Sejiri Steppe. If you include Mistveil Plains you can also start recycling your lands via Karametra.
Since this deck is awesome at protecting him, I think Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger is better than Mana Reflection since he also punishes your opponets and is a huge beater on top of that.
I would also play Garruk, Primal Hunter for carddraw instead of Seer's Sundial. I know that Sundial is very synergistic with your deck but imo it's still a terribly slow and inefficient way to draw cards.
Sorry for the delay in reply guys! I've been in Japan, will try to reply, update the list for Journey to Nyx and then work on finishing the guide in the next couple of weeks
Any changes/additions you would make with Journey getting legal?
Journey to Nyx Review
Ajani, Mentor of Heroes is a no brainer, I almost cried when I saw the spoiler for him cause he does everything we need and fills a lot of gaps. The first +1 can potentially turn Karametra into a 2 swing lethal (9+12 dmg). His second +1 is selective card advantage that digs four and as a bonus the other cards are put to the bottom of library instead of in the graveyard—this is actually a big deal since we have a lot of tutors and no recursion—card advantage is something that this deck struggles a little with sometimes so this is a welcome addition! His -8 is actually pretty relevant in this deck if the opponent gets too trigger happy and forgets to kill him (sometimes if we get unlucky and draw none of our flyers we can just die to flyer damage). It'll also allow us to survive situations like Purphoros, God of the Forge with a token generator or some of the orzhov life gain/loss tickers which has killed my playgroup a few times. [5/5]
Eidolon of Blossoms I'll be testing this card to see how many cards it draws on average, I have a good feeling about this card! It's an Enchantment Creature, cantrips, triggers Karametra, and can potentially draw a lot of cards. [4/5]
Aegis of the Gods can be run if you face a lot of targeting based infinite combos, it's both an enchantment and a creature so it's extremely tutorable and hard to kill in this deck, also triggers Karametra. Depending on your playground this could be an amazing card! [Situational]
Armament of Nyx has some potential depending on your playground, if you find a lot of situations where Karametra connects with peoples faces a lot this can really speed up the process. Also could save you from flyers/unblockables in edge cases. (I doubt I'll find any room for this though). [Situational]
Godsend not strong enough in EDH, it's an artifact so hard for us to tutor or protect (not that anyone would really want to kill it anyway). [1/5]
Selesnya was always my favourite guild and this is a particularly awesome idea. It's obviously a very well thought out list and most of it seems really solid but here are a few suggestions:
Spearbreaker Behemoth seems better than Deathless Angel because it's already indestructible itself and the ability to protect other stuff costs half. The restriction that it can only target creatures with power 5 or higher seems pretty irrelevant to me because nearly every creature you really want to protect fullfills this condition.
I know Condemn can tuck opposing commanders but the "needs to be attacking" clause make it much worse than Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares in my experience.
Knight of the Reliquary seems much better than Weathered Wayfarer in this deck of yours. While it doesn't create card advantage he actually accelerates, you can always use his ability and you can get the lands at instant speed which is nice with cards like Sejiri Steppe. If you include Mistveil Plains you can also start recycling your lands via Karametra.
Since this deck is awesome at protecting him, I think Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger is better than Mana Reflection since he also punishes your opponets and is a huge beater on top of that.
I would also play Garruk, Primal Hunter for carddraw instead of Seer's Sundial. I know that Sundial is very synergistic with your deck but imo it's still a terribly slow and inefficient way to draw cards.
Anyway I hope some of this wall of text is helpful
One of the main reasons that I run Deathless Angel is because the deck doesn't have much flying defense. This is actually a pretty significant weakness of the deck so I don't think I'll be taking her out any time soon. Also, the deck actually doesn't need much indestructibility enablers because all the important cards are already indestructible, I usually only use her ability to target herself.
I think the choice between Condemn and Swords/Path is more determined by the playgroup, my group generally plays a lot of general reliant strategies (specifically, ones that attack) so I prefer the Condemn here, but I can definitely see that in some meta's the Path/Swords option would be better!
I'm so silly to have missed that Knight of the Reliquary accelerates, I'm currently experimenting with him and trying to find him a home. After reading your ideas about him I definitely think he will make it into the deck soon Thanks!
I used to run a lot of powerhouse creatures without indestructibility but I found it really conflicts with all the Wrath effects in the deck. I was constantly being put into situations where Wrath would have been a good play if I didn't have a fatty without indestructible on the board, so I moved away from that. I do think that I will try Vorinclex though, simply because once he's in play you have a severe advantage until he's dealt with.
Garruk, Primal Hunter has temporarily been surpassed by Ajani, Mentor of Heroes cause that card is all kinds of awesome. The reason I didn't run Garruk from the start was because I was concerned I wouldn't always have a target for him, but since playing the deck I've found that Karametra is active much more often than I initially expected so I'll definitely test Garruk again
The reason I don't run Ghostway is simply cause my playground don't play any of those spells. The only one that gets me is Cyclonic Rift but that card alone isn't enough to justify Ghostway simply cause it's a sorcery (I have no way of access instants and sorceries in this deck other than to draw them, which means that I won't always have it when I need it and I'll also have it a lot of the time when I don't need it — ie. too situational). But yes if my playground ran more of the spells you mentioned Ghostway would be definitely be a great answer!
UPDATE: Knight of the Reliquary has been added to the deck Thanks for the suggestion! I'm now having a look at where I might be able to fit in the Garruk.
What prevented Sigarda, Host of Herons from entering the deck? She's a fatty who can lay down the law. I think it would be a great fit to prevent your strategy from getting railed by sacrifice effects, which seems like one of the few ways an opponent could stop your hexproof/indestructible duo.
Your meta might frown on this, but have you considered running Kamahl, Fist of Krosa? Entwine every wrath effect with a one-sided Armageddon?
I love the idea but I think this might become active a little too late in the game. It's very mana intensive to make it worth it and kill enough lands (plus he costs 6 by himself and dies to the wrath). I will keep an eye out when I cast wrath to see how much open mana I have, but I think the investment is just a little too heavy for the return.
I already stated that I really like your list and it inspired me to make my own Karametra build.
Here are some cards I found really awesome: Stoneclaoker: This does just so many different things in this deck. Even though I only played a couple of games with this deck people at my LGS already watch out for this card. At worst you can repeatedly trigger Karametra for 2W. The fact that it is gravehate that will just sit safely in your hand until you need it and than jumps back there again makes it a nightmare for any GY based strategy because it's extremely difficult to disrupt. He can safe important creatures in face of exile or tuck removal and is generally a way to interact with the stack which typically is a weakness of GW. Bottom line: Absolute all-Star for this deck!
Mistveil Plains: This is basically a second ability of Karametra, since you can have it in every game from the first Karametra trigger on. It's very easy to find a cut for it and the drawback of ETB tapped is negligable since it will almost always come in via Karametra.
Now the effect doesn't look like too much but can be very relevant, especially in a list like yours that has so many tutors but no recursion because it will turn any tutor into a recursion spell. So this will give your list the ability to recur stuff without sacrificing any deckspace probably making it even more resilient.
Krosan Verge: Of course this can be a bit slow but on the other hand it's ramp and cardadvantage in a land slot allowing for a turn 4 Karametra, again with very little dedication regarding deckspace.
Mosswort Bridge: I wont have to tell you that getting this online in this deck is laughably easy and it's not only CA from a land slot but also another way to allow instant speed shenanigens with protective permanents.
So those are the ones that I'd really urge you to try and here are some more that could be nice depending on your meta and if you find cuts: Crop Rotation is a really fine trick and very versatile with the amounts of utility lands in your manabase.
Sejiri Steppe: I already mentioned this in an earlier post. It's really awesome with Knight of the Reliquary because it gives him the ability to protect creatures from spot removal (also works with Crop Rotation) but it's a bit sucky when you have it in your opening hand. If you draw into it, it still might be a way to push some lethal damage through. You can also sac it with Dustbowl and recycle via Mistveil Plains.
Enlisted Wurm: Is just a whole lot of value with Karametra out and the perfect turn six play. (Altough I might be a bit biased because I just love the cascade mechanic :))
It is more creature centered than your list and I chose to include an equipment package.
I'm still making a lot of changes and I'm also missing a few cards, most notably:
I already stated that I really like your list and it inspired me to make my own Karametra build.
Here are some cards I found really awesome: Stoneclaoker: This does just so many different things in this deck. Even though I only played a couple of games with this deck people at my LGS already watch out for this card. At worst you can repeatedly trigger Karametra for 2W. The fact that it is gravehate that will just sit safely in your hand until you need it and than jumps back there again makes it a nightmare for any GY based strategy because it's extremely difficult to disrupt. He can safe important creatures in face of exile or tuck removal and is generally a way to interact with the stack which typically is a weakness of GW. Bottom line: Absolute all-Star for this deck!
Mistveil Plains: This is basically a second ability of Karametra, since you can have it in every game from the first Karametra trigger on. It's very easy to find a cut for it and the drawback of ETB tapped is negligable since it will almost always come in via Karametra.
Now the effect doesn't look like too much but can be very relevant, especially in a list like yours that has so many tutors but no recursion because it will turn any tutor into a recursion spell. So this will give your list the ability to recur stuff without sacrificing any deckspace probably making it even more resilient.
Krosan Verge: Of course this can be a bit slow but on the other hand it's ramp and cardadvantage in a land slot allowing for a turn 4 Karametra, again with very little dedication regarding deckspace.
Mosswort Bridge: I wont have to tell you that getting this online in this deck is laughably easy and it's not only CA from a land slot but also another way to allow instant speed shenanigens with protective permanents.
So those are the ones that I'd really urge you to try and here are some more that could be nice depending on your meta and if you find cuts: Crop Rotation is a really fine trick and very versatile with the amounts of utility lands in your manabase.
Sejiri Steppe: I already mentioned this in an earlier post. It's really awesome with Knight of the Reliquary because it gives him the ability to protect creatures from spot removal (also works with Crop Rotation) but it's a bit sucky when you have it in your opening hand. If you draw into it, it still might be a way to push some lethal damage through. You can also sac it with Dustbowl and recycle via Mistveil Plains.
Enlisted Wurm: Is just a whole lot of value with Karametra out and the perfect turn six play. (Altough I might be a bit biased because I just love the cascade mechanic :))
It is more creature centered than your list and I chose to include an equipment package.
I'm still making a lot of changes and I'm also missing a few cards, most notably:
I've actually been looking for a replacement for Emeria, the Sky Ruin because even with Karametra, I've not yet seen it come online and it's just hasn't been worth the enter the battlefield tapped restriction. I think Mistveil Plains will fit that slot perfectly so that will probably make the next round of changes! I hadn't realised that it was a plains so the tutorability is awesome!
My meta is actually starting to play a lot more recursion now so Stonecloaker seems amazing! I'm definitely gonna be looking for a place to fit him in as a recurrable 3 mana ramp that has targeted grave hate is amazing! The edge case of protecting a naked Avacyn from tuck or exile excites me, but I've found that protecting my creatures from spot removal is rarely necessary in this deck.
In terms of Seijiri Steppe, Krosan Verge and Mosswort Bridge, I'm always really wary of adding too many Enters the battlefield tapped lands. It's my opinion that the drawback is much worse than people think, especially if the playgroup is relatively competitive. I would only play them if my meta all had very slow, casual decks. Unfortunately that's not the case in my meta and every turn really counts. For me these two lands don't do enough to justify an addition. The idea of using Reliquary to tutor out a Steppe is nice but it's going to be too rare for it to be relevant enough to add given that the card is pretty bad by itself.
I haven't actually had a chance to see Inheritance in action yet... I think once I manage to draw it and play with it a few times I'll be able to judge whether Garruk would be better.
Anyway I'm really happy my list inspired you to make your own! I can see that it's very different to mine but has some of my ideas in there which is really cool to see! I actually just cut Myojin of Life's Web before I even had a chance to use his ability because it just wasn't good enough in my list and that made me really sad. But looking at your list there should be many more opportunities to use him! Let me know how it goes and if your list uncovers any awesome interactions!
I love the idea of the deck, what are some budget options available for the higher priced cards and what are the essentials.
Hey mate, unfortunately I haven't put much consideration into a budget version...yet! I promise once I finish the guide I'll do more investigation to see what budget options could work. But given that the deck revolves around a very specific strategy (as opposed to a general 'Goodstuff' deck), I can predict the options will be limited. Nonetheless, here are a few considerations I can come up with off the top of my head:
Low impact expensive cards: Natural Order - This typically only tutors for Archetype of Endurance and Novablast Wurm given it's 'Green' limitation. Easy budget cut. Chord of Calling - This is a tough cut just cause CoC is so amazing, but it isn't necessary for the deck to function. Lurking Predators - Good but not AMAZING Pattern of Rebirth - Good but not AMAZING Mana Reflection - Not that important Sylvan Library - Makes the deck more consistent but replaceable. Sensei's Divining Top - Same as Sylvan Library Serra's Sanctum - Is on theme, usually provides 2-3 mana up until we have heaps of mana and it isn't much of an issue anymore. Luxury card. Cavern of Souls - *Shrug* Yavimaya Hollow - *Shrug* Ancient Tomb - *Shrug*
**Basically any of the utility lands you don't see as being very useful to you can be shrugged off**
***A lot of my dual lands, especially Horizon Canopy, Windswept Heath, and Wooded Bastion are overkill, I just tuned the deck as best as it could be just because I could. I would keep the cheaper ones though, and add more cheaper ones like the pain land***
****Taking out some of the colorless utility lands will also complement the removal of dual lands****
UPDATE: Had a little more time to think about it so I've adjusted my comments on the direction you can go (you have three main options):
Level 1 (Light cuts, big cost reduction, low impact): Cut the expensive dual-lands as well as any utility lands you don't need and replace them with cheaper versions or basics. Cut a small number of low-impact expensive cards like Natural Order.
Level 2 (Mild cuts, slows the deck down): The first option is to keep the creature base together and try to replace the expensive support cards with cheaper versions of them. This could include the card draw engines, tutors, cheats and ramp. The idea is to keep the composition of the deck the same, but to replace the expensive cards with cheaper ones that do similar, albeit weaker, things.
Level 3 (Heavy cuts, new direction): Remove any cards that are too expensive for your budget with the exception of the 7 Untouchables. Move into a heavy indestructible/wrath theme, adding in more wraths and more indestructible and LTB creatures (there are some decent ones in the list above). This strategy would be more linear in that you slowly build your board of indestructibles while constantly playing wrath spells. This deck would not do very well in a competitive or semi-competitive environment—but I actually think it would shine in a budget/casual environment where people play a lot of fatties, creatures, tokens and play less broken interactions, combos and cutt-throat tactics.
Hope that helps! Like I said I will eventually put out better info for people wanting a budget version but that will probably be a while away! Good luck
I guess the higher creature density makes it that it's fairly easy to get Emeria online with my list. Myojin is just one of my favourite cards and again the higher creature density is what makes him viable. It's particularly awesome to have him out and then Worldslayer the board.
I generally agree with you on ETBT lands but the ones I mentioned have proven to be really great. Especially the Mosswort Bridge because it's nearly always online. I think you could maybe play it over Stirring Wildwood.
Glad that you like Stonecloaker
I guess the higher creature density makes it that it's fairly easy to get Emeria online with my list. Myojin is just one of my favourite cards and again the higher creature density is what makes him viable. It's particularly awesome to have him out and then Worldslayer the board.
I generally agree with you on ETBT lands but the ones I mentioned have proven to be really great. Especially the Mosswort Bridge because it's nearly always online. I think you could maybe play it over Stirring Wildwood.
Glad that you like Stonecloaker
Haha I guess looking at it now Stirring Wildwood does seem to be a strange choice! But I really like it and it has been useful for me, it ambushes utility creatures and flyers really well, especially the ones that have triggers on combat damage. It's also saved a lot of my important creatures from cards like Fleshbag Marauder. I guess for me this deck is all about consistency and I'd rather have the consistency from the Wildwood than the luck and explosive potential of Mosswort bridge. The majority of my support cards are picked around building and maintaining my primary strategy, and in this deck I prefer that over off-theme goodstuff.
And man I remember when I first saw the effect for World Slayer I really wished I could include it, but I've tried a few equipment in this deck and they are just so inaccessible and hard to protect compared to creatures and enchantments. If it were an enchantment it would be an auto-include. The problem is my meta runs quite a lot of spot removal nowadays, and a lot of it is repeatable spot removal, so I'm pretty sure I would invest 10 mana in it just for it to die haha :(.
I finally found time to post my own list with a decent explanation here.
One card I found is Planar Guide. I don't like that he exiles himself but he is very easy to tutor for and the W casting cost means that he's a very cheap land of Karametra.
I finally found time to post my own list with a decent explanation here.
One card I found is Planar Guide. I don't like that he exiles himself but he is very easy to tutor for and the W casting cost means that he's a very cheap land of Karametra.
You can use Riftsweeper to bring him back and use him again. There's a white card that can bring him back, too, but I can't remember the name of it.
The other card is Pull from Eternity
I currently try Riftsweeper in my Karador deck because with that deck stuff gets exiled on a very regular basis, but in Karametra I don't want to support a situational card by something even more situational.
I finally found time to post my own list with a decent explanation here.
One card I found is Planar Guide. I don't like that he exiles himself but he is very easy to tutor for and the W casting cost means that he's a very cheap land of Karametra.
Awesome man Congrats and I'll definitely check it out!
Planar Guide Looks like a lovely second copy of Ghostway. I've added both to my "Notable Exceptions" section. I won't personally run them because my meta don't play that much mass exile or tuck but if they did these cards would be auto-include!.
— Completed the "Individual Card Discussion" section of the guide with all the cards in the list.
— Added a "Notable Exceptions" section to the guide for all cards that I don't personally run but might be useful for others and in different metas.
— Added a "Currently Testing" section in the "Changelog" to show cards that I'm currently trying to work into the deck.
— Added a "Decklist by Card Type" list in a spoiler below the main decklist.
— Added an "Extras" section with personal bio information and some of the decks I play against in my local meta.
Moving forward I'll be looking at adding more card options to the "Notable Exceptions" section so keep the card suggestions coming! Greatly appreciated
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"Your god teaches you only how to kill. Karametra teaches me to defend what I hold dear. That is why I will prevail."
—Setessan Battle Priest
_______________________________________________________________________
History of the Deck
I was on the verge of making a commander out of Thassa, God of the Sea when the news came around that Wizards would be releasing dual colored gods in BNG—I decided to wait and I’m so glad that I did. When the spoilers finally came around and I saw Karametra, God of Harvests for the first time, something in me clicked. I just knew I had to do something with her, despite having no idea yet what that was going to be. What followed was a rapid succession of discovery; involving coincidental syngergies and interactions that happened to work specifically with this god, in these colors—forming a unique strategy that cannot be achieved in any other combination of colors and/or commanders, and a decked packed with flavor. I still have yet to find an explanation as to how things ended up fitting together so nicely.
It was clear to me from the start that I wanted to avoid the obvious strategies that come to mind when looking at the general (ramp abuse, landfall, etc), I knew that decks made around these strategies would be one dimensional, inconsistent and gimmicky. After picking the general apart and hours of scouring Gatherer for potential synergies, I decided that an indestructibility/sweeper strategy had legs—and the first draft of the current list was born. The deck has evolved to include a shroud/hexproof and enchantment subthemes, an answer package for potential weaknesses, and has gone through vigorous testing in a varied meta. It is now tuned and balanced to be a consistent, resilient, defensive machine.
Why Karametra?
Having played a lot of proactive, aggressive decks myself (Maelstrom Wanderer, Isamaru, Mimeoplasm, Riku), a part of me always wanted to be that guy sitting there, quietly building up his board position. Conversely, I hate fluffy decks and games where everyone is passive and overly nice to each other. What I wanted was a defensive deck that could protect itself rather than rely on 'appearing useless' for half the game and then pulling out a win condition once everyone else had half killed each other.
This build of Karametra allows for a very steady, resilient and transparent road to victory. Your opponents will be in full view while you build your board presence and lay down threats—they just won’t be able to do anything about it! Imagine playing a Defense of the Heart into your board with Karametra, God of Harvests, Sterling Grove and/or Greater Auramancy and watching your opponents helplessly squirm as it triggers, allowing you to tutor into play an Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Archetype of Endurance. Then following it up with one of the ten Wrath of God effects in the deck while its card text tickles the ‘I’ in ‘Hexproof Indestructible'. These scenarios are not difficult to pull off in this deck, and it can do it with relative consistency.
You’ll enjoy playing Karametra if:
Notes on composition
The deck has a lot of redundancy for consistency’s sake because there aren’t a lot of good card draw engines that fit with this theme—we’re working with the constraint that we plan to use a lot of sweepers, which means that the creatures we run need to either be: Indestructible, have an ETB effect, or have a LTB effect. There also needs to be a critical mass of creatures in order for the ramp from Karametra to trigger enough for the deck to run consistently (even though the main strategy is to cheat our finishers into play; this is usually done from the library so once the cards are in our hands we need to be able to hard cast them). The deck initially ran the set of green ramp creatures such as Wood Elves and Yavimaya Dryads but I quickly found the deck to ramp into unnecessary amounts of mana only to run out of steam. These have been replaced by cantrip creatures who take advantage of the ramp trigger from Karametra but also replace themselves.
Note that all of our hexproof/shroud as well as tutor/cheat cards only affect creatures and/or enchantments. Therefore it’s important that the deck be mainly composed of creatures and enchantments as otherwise we won’t be able to access or protect them when we need to. This is the reason that Pariah is run but Pariah’s Shield is not. While they essentially do the same thing, Pariah is much stronger for us due to our hexproof/shroud enablers and enchantment tutors. Similar things can be said about Dueling Grounds and Silent Arbiter etc.
The reason that the only creature spot removal in the deck are Oblation and Condemn is simply due to the large amount of Wrath of God effects we have access to, we simply don’t need much creature removal because of this. We do however need a lot of enchantment/artifact removal, which you will see many of!
The Untouchables (6)
12 Blightsteel Colossus
11 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
10 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
8 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
4 Heliod, God of the Sun
4 Nylea, God of the Hunt
An Impenetrable Defense (6)
8 Archetype of Endurance
5 Sigarda, Host of Herons
5 Privileged Position
2 Sterling Grove
2 Greater Auramancy
2 Aspect of Mongoose
You Shall Not Pass (4)
9 Blazing Archon
3 Dueling Grounds
2 Pariah
2 Constant Mists
Wrath of the Gods (8)
7 Novablast Wurm
7 Fated Retribution
6 Austere Command
6 Phyrexian Rebirth
6 Catastrophe
5 Rout
4 Wrath of God
4 Day of Judgment
Tactical Extraction (11)
X Quarantine Field
7 Angel of Serenity
7 Luminate Primordial
6 Duplicant
5 Archon of Justice
3 Grasp of Fate
3 Aura Shards
3 Stonecloaker
3 Soltari Visionary
3 Harmonic Sliver
2 Qasali Pridemage
7 Tooth and Nail
6 Lurking Predators
4 Defense of the Heart
4 Natural Order
3x Chord of Calling
3 Fierce Empath
2 Eladamri's Call
1 Worldly Tutor
4 Academy Rector
3 Idyllic Tutor
1 Enlightened Tutor
We Built a Ramp (7)
6 Mana Reflection
5 Mirari's Wake
4 Oracle of Mul Daya
4 Solemn Simulacrum
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Lotus Cobra
1 Sol Ring
Administrative Staff (10)
7 Emeria Shepherd
5 Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
5 Garruk, Primal Hunter
5 Mind's Eye
2 Sylvan Library
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Eidolon of Blossoms
2 Wall of Blossoms
2 Wall of Omens
2 Elvish Visionary
1 Serra's Sanctum
1 Kor Haven
1 Yavimaya Hollow
1 High Market
1 Homeward Path
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Mistveil Plains
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Dust Bowl
1 Strip Mine
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Command Tower
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Windswept Heath
1 Temple Garden
1 Sungrass Prairie
1 Wooded Bastion
1 Sunpetal Grove
1 Brushland
1 Canopy Vista
9 Forest
6 Plains
Creatures (29)
12 Blightsteel Colossus
11 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
10 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
9 Blazing Archon
8 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
8 Archetype of Endurance
7 Angel of Serenity
7 Luminate Primordial
7 Emeria Shepherd
7 Novablast Wurm
6 Duplicant
5 Sigarda, Host of Herons
5 Archon of Justice
4 Heliod, God of the Sun
4 Nylea, God of the Hunt
4 Academy Rector
4 Oracle of Mul Daya
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Eidolon of Blossoms
3 Stonecloaker
3 Soltari Visionary
3 Harmonic Sliver
3 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Fierce Empath
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Lotus Cobra
2 Elvish Visionary
2 Wall of Blossoms
2 Wall of Omens
7 Tooth and Nail
6 Austere Command
6 Phyrexian Rebirth
6 Catastrophe
5 Rout
4 Wrath of God
4 Day of Judgment
4 Natural Order
3 Idyllic Tutor
Instants (7)
7 Fated Retribution
4 Return to Dust
3x Chord of Calling
2 Eladamri's Call
2 Constant Mists
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Worldly Tutor
Enchantments (15)
X Quarantine Field
6 Mana Reflection
6 Lurking Predators
5 Mirari's Wake
5 Privileged Position
4 Defense of the Heart
3 Grasp of Fate
3 Aura Shards
3 Dueling Grounds
2 Sterling Grove
2 Greater Auramancy
2 Aspect of Mongoose
2 Pariah
2 Planar Collapse
2 Sylvan Library
5 Mind's Eye
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
Planeswalkers (2)
5 Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
5 Garruk, Primal Hunter
Lands (36)
1 Serra's Sanctum
1 Kor Haven
1 Yavimaya Hollow
1 High Market
1 Homeward Path
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Mistveil Plains
1 Dust Bowl
1 Strip Mine
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Command Tower
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Windswept Heath
1 Temple Garden
1 Sungrass Prairie
1 Wooded Bastion
1 Sunpetal Grove
1 Brushland
1 Canopy Vista
9 Forest
6 Plains
General Strategy
If you haven’t already caught on, the three key words for this deck are Indestructible, Hexproof, Wrath. There are 10 wrath effects in total in this deck (one of them being a recurring wrath). So don’t be shy about clearing the board of potential threats whenever you feel the need to, there are plenty more! All of your important creatures are indestructible so there shouldn’t be anything holding you back. The wraths are what will buy you time to get to your end game in a systematic and steady way, so be patient and take your time. Once you’re there you can then use your remaining wraths to clear the way for your fatties to swing away!
Bread and Butter
Your go to strategy when you aren’t looking for a more specific line of play is the combination of Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Archetype of Endurance—it should be pretty evident by now how these two cards interact. There are a number of ways to make this happen:
Hard Cast: As a rule of thumb, it’s generally safer to try to cheat these guys in rather than try to hard cast them—and ideally they would come in together rather than separately. If one of them ends up in your hand, it’s better to wait and try and cheat the other one in before trying to cast the first. If both end up in your hand, the order in which you cast them is important: if you are anticipating board wipes, Avacyn should be cast first. If you are anticipating exile or tuck based spot removal, then the Archetype should be cast first. Generally I find archetype is the better lead given that the only way to answer him is a sorcery speed board wipe—Yavimaya Hollow can be a nasty surprise for people that aren’t paying attention to your lands.
Defense of the Heart: If you trigger an early Defense, the game is not far from being over. Most of the time I will wait for one or two of either Sterling Grove, Greater Auramancy or Privileged Position (deeper explanation of these cards later) before I try to resolve this as it does have to go through 2-3 of your opponents turns before it can trigger. However you would be surprised at how often a rambo turn 4 Defense slips through the cracks!
Academy Rector + Pattern of Rebirth: Here is where the beauty of the deck starts to shine through. Pattern of Rebirth searches up Avacyn, Angel of Hope, and Academy Rector searches up Archetype of Endurance because lo and behold, he’s also an Enchantment. If you can get access to these cards early (it’s not hard with so many tutors), this is a stunning way of getting out your combo and by far my favourite. The individual pieces don’t pose much threat so they rarely get answered (no one wants to kill your Rector anyway), but by the time they are out there together it’s too late. Setting these two up and following up with a Wrath of God to trigger them, clear the board and cheat my Untouchables into play is one of the funnest things I’ve ever done in magic.
Tooth and Nail: 9 Mana, Pretty simple. Does not discriminate between your hand and library—in fact if you already have one of the pieces in your hand, you can replace it with something like Blazing Archon, Novablast Wurm or Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre ready for next turn!
Cheat in the first, Hard cast the second: As previously mentioned, you can also cheat one and cast the second. Cards that will allow you to do this include: Lurking Predators, Pattern of Rebirth, Natural Order, Chord of Calling and Academy Rector. Cards like Fierce Empath, Eladamri’s Call, Worldly Tutor, Idyllic Tutor and Enlightened tutor can help get the second piece into your hand for cast.
Enchantment Defense
If you end up needing to play a more defensive game, there’s a way to barricade yourself in to buy you some time. Two of either Sterling Grove, Greater Auramancy and Privileged Position will make all of your enchantments completely untouchable, including your enchantment creatures Karametra, God of Harvests, Nylea, God of the Hunt, Heliod, God of the Sun, Eidolon of Blossoms. The best part about Sterling Grove is that if you end up with all three (redundant), you can sacrifice it to tutor for a replacement.
Once you have this set up, there are a number of defensive answers you can try to get to protect you from your opponents. Dueling Grounds protects you from swarms and most creatures, Pariah protects you from any form of damage including any damage/creature based infinite combos! since your indestructible creatures/commander will happily sit there and absorb 999,999,999,999 damage from blasting station for you, Blazing Archon protects you from creatures, and Constant Mists is just ridiculous in Karametra. The enchantment protection will also allow Planar Collapse to resolve freely.
If you don’t need these answers you can try to set up a more offensive position. What people seem to forget is that Karametra, God of Harvests is a 6/7 indestructible beater herself. Cards like Mirari’s Wake or Qasali Pridemage will boost her to the magical 7 power, which will kill in 3 swings (general damage), and Ajani, Mentor of Heroes will turn her into a 2 swing killer. You can also try for one or both of the other two gods Nylea, God of the Hunt and Heliod, God of the Sun or the two powerhouse enchantments Defense of the Heart and Lurking Predators, all of which will be protected by your enchantments.
Situational Card Combinations
While our Avacyn and Archetype combo is our bread and butter, many other combinations of creatures and enchantments can be established using the same methods described in the Bread and Butter section. These are typically less robust, but can be devastating if you have indentified a situation where can you capitalize on them.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre + Archetype of Endurance: Once these two are out on the board, the only way to deal with Ulamog is to first Wrath to kill the Archetype, and then use an exile, bounce or tuck to answer the Ulamog. Usually by the time this can happen Ulamog has already smashed a whole bunch of face. This is fantastic when there aren’t many White players in the game, as most Wrath and Exile/Tuck effects belong to white. Even with a white player on the board this is incredibly hard to deal with. Made more consistent if you have Yavimaya Hollow in play to protect your Archetype.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre + Aspect of Mongoose: Same as above but with the Mongoose. Made ridiculous by one or more of Sterling Grove, Greater Auramancer and Privileged Position.
Blightsteel Colossus + Novablast Wurm: This is typically a finishing combo to bring in when you already have something to protect your Novablast Wurm. The Wurm will kill everything apart from Blightsteel as soon as it attacks, clearing a path for the lethal blow to hit whichever poor sucker you want to snipe.
Blightsteel Colossus + Any Wrath: Same as above but with our Wrath of God spells instead. Every Wrath will snipe one to two players (people don't always have chump blockers in their hand).
Novablast Wurm + Avacyn, Angel of Hope: Great to bring in if you identify a situation where there might not be much exile/tuck/bounce based spot removal. Basically provides a one-sided wrath every turn.
Novablast Wurm + Deathless Angel: Same as above but with an inferior version of Avacyn. Most of the time you won’t have anything important that isn’t already indestructible already so the Deathless Angel is really just there to help protect the Wurm.
Karametra, God of Harvests + Novablast Wurm: Similar to above, this time clearing the way for your commander to swing in for general damage. Great when you have Mirari’s Wake in play.
Archetype of Endurance + Deathless Angel: Poor mans Bread and Butter, once again most important things are already indestructible so it’s just there to protect the Archetype from Wraths.
Karametra, God of Harvests + Pariah: Basically reads “Prevent all damage that would be dealt to you”. Can be used with any indestructible creature and made ridiculous by one or more of Sterling Grove, Greater Auramancer and Privileged Position.
Chord of Calling + Archetype of Endurance: Since CoC is instant speed, you can make opponents waste their spot removal by timing the Archetype tutor.
Chord of Calling + Archon of Justice: No one ever sees this one coming, but can easily be a two for one. Easy way to block and then exile something that's bothering you.
Chord of Calling + Sigarda, Host of Herons: Instant speed protection from sacrifice effects, surprise blocker.
Angel of Serenity + High Market: High Market in response to the Angel of Serenity trigger and the 3 creatures stay exiled forever!
Catastrophe + Avacyn, Angel of Hope: Although I opted not to include Armageddon in the deck (currently in contention because I feel it’s too situational in this deck). Catastrophe happens to have a second mode that is a mass land destruction. Pretty gross but pretty spectacular. Use if your in a cranky mood and it will make you feel better
3+ Card Combinations
The combinations I have listed above are all two card combinations which are easily cheated/tutored into play. They are all very powerful by themselves, but given the level of protection your threats enjoy, and the compounding and incremental nature of the deck. There will be plenty of situations where you have 3 or more of these cards in play. Words cannot describe what it feels like to have Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Archetype of Endurance and any combination of Novablast Wurm, Blazing Archon, Pariah, Blightsteel Colossus or Ulamog, the Infite Gyre in play at the same time! Enjoy.
BONUS! http://youtu.be/Io4fxdBEApc
Something that probably wouldn’t occur to people immediately about Karametra, is that she’s really good at shuffling. I probably wouldn’t have noticed this if I weren’t an avid Delver of Secrets player, but Karametra, God of Harvests allows you to use cards like Lurking Predators, Oracle of Mul Daya, Sylvan Library, and Sensei’s Divining Top to strategically shuffle(or not shuffle) the [smelly poo] out of your deck. I don’t know about you but to me the worst feeling in the world is Topping to see 3 lands for your next three draws when all you want are spells (in Karametra, most spells == lands), but with her you can just shuffle all your sorrows away!
Timing: I have removed all the graveyard recursion from this deck because most games I find my graveyard to be empty (either I’ve set up my combo and my things don’t die, or if they do they would usually be exiled—making cards like Eternal Witness to be a little too situational. Therefore you only have a couple of shots to get in your enchantment protection combo (two of them need to be in play at the same time) onto the board. This is not a very difficult thing to do so long as your Greater Auramancy or Privileged Position aren’t sitting out in the open turn after turn. If you need some short term protection for one of your enchantments: Sterling Grove is by far your best option. No one will want to kill it, buying you time to get the second piece into play—but if they do try, you can sacrifice it to tutor for a replacement. This is why it’s incredibly important to always leave an open mana when your Sterling Grove is in play. Patience! Your creature combos are more forgiving since there are many more options as detailed above in the Strategy section.
Threat Assessment: We are very vulnerable to certain players but very resilient to others—you want to be making friends with the people who you aren’t worried about and trying to remove the players that you are worried about. The deck is very weak to mass bounce, mass exile or mass sacrifice, so you don’t want to over-extend too far until players that have a lot of these effects have been dealt with. Alternately you could just try to kill them before those cards come online (Karametra, God of Harvests swings for 6/7 general damage so you’re actually pretty good at sniping someone in the mid game). The most common blowout is Cyclonic Rift, but the good news about this card is that if it resolves then the player who cast it tends to draw all the aggro on the table. Hopefully leaving you some time to rebuild. Even in the late game your primary objective is to kill the players that have the potential to break your defensive soft-lock.
Opening Hand
Because we’ve removed most of the early game ramp, your first goal is to cast Karametra, God of Harvests on turn 5, and occasionally earlier if you pull a Sol Ring, Lotus Cobra or Knight of the Reliquary. Once we have Karametra in play our manabase tends to explode and we ramp very quickly, so it’s very important that we get her out on turn 5. Therefore my preference is for 3-4 land hands and I will mulligan pretty aggressively to get there. I throw away any and all Bombs or Wraths, preferring Ramp, Draw and Tutor.
Early Game
The early game is focused on getting our commander out. As a general rule of thumb, if I’m missing a land for turn 5 Karametra, I’ll generally burn my cantrip creatures in order to make sure I get there. But if I have all the lands I need in my hand, I’ll save them for Karametra’s ramp trigger. Most of the time, any enchantment tutors will be fetching up Sterling Grove at this point in the game—given that it’s cheap and by far the most versatile. Some situations will call for other enchantments though, so read the gamestate carefully. This is also a good time to be using your tutors or setting up your infrastructure because turns 5, 6, and 7 tend to be pretty mana intensive.
Mid Game
Once you have your Karametra out, it’s time to ramp and accelerate into the moon. Your cantrip creatures are absolute all-stars here as they build devotion while fueling your ramp triggers. Now is also a good time to play your creature based spot removal to remove any threats and continue to ramp. The middle game will usually take one of three directions and they are largely dictated by what you draw. Sometimes you will be in a position to get your enchantment soft-lock on the board and you will spend your time trying to craft a situation where you can pull it off. Sometimes you’ll be in a position to pull a creature combo out of the hat. Sometimes you’ll get all the wraths or spot removal and you’ll spend time being defensive waiting for the right draw. Every now and then you’ll get either one of Mind’s Eye, Seer’s Sundial or Inheritance and now is not a bad time to make the most of them because card draw is at a premium in this deck. There are a lot of tutors in the deck though which does help to make it more versatile.
Also don't forget that the deck has 3 instant speed wraths in Rout, Fated Retribution and Myojin of Cleansing Fire, use them politically and wisely—just becomes one of your opponents is getting out of control doesn't mean you need to blow these wraths straight away, only use them when creatures are directly threatening you!
Late Game
The difference between Mid Game and Late Game for this deck is usually the casting of one card, either a cheat like Tooth and Nail or a bomb that suddenly turns you into a giant threat. This tends to be pretty early so you’ll be entering Late Game while your opponents are still in their Mid Game (Green FTW!). Your opponents won’t notice you too much during the Mid Game because you’ll be playing a lot of defensive spells; it’s only when they see the bomb that those spells were intended to defend that they realise how much of a threat you are, but by then it’s a little too late. This is the most crucial stage of the game because you’ll have a big fat target on your head. You want to be sniping anyone who has the potential to cast mass exile, bounce or sacrifice. You’re other main weakness at this point is just being killed, so your next order of business is either digging up cards like Dueling Grounds, Blazing Archon and Pariah or trying to draw into your Wraths or Constant Mists. If there are two targets that you want to snipe, a good idea is to direct all your fatties to one, and Karametra, God of Harvests to the other. Don’t forget that Karametra kills in 3/4 swings!
Creatures
Blightsteel Colossus: With all the wrath effects in this deck, this guy usually just snipes people like nobody's business.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre: All of the Eldrazi are beasts, but this one happens to be indestructible too which allows it to fit in this deck. Annihilator 4? What more needs to be said haha.
Myojin of Cleansing Fire: One of three instant speed wrath options in the deck. It's a pity that you can't tutor her into play but you usually have better options anyway. The best thing about instant speed wraths is that you can let your opponents kill each other, and then pull the trigger when they decide to attack you.
Avacyn, Angel of Hope: Probably the most important card in the deck. Forms our combo, flying beater, protects all of our permanents. A more detailed description can be found in the Strategy section of the guide.
Deathless Angel: She may seem like a far inferior version of Avacyn (which she obviously is); but she's a lot better than she looks in this deck. Most of our important creatures have indestructible already, so you only really need her ability to protect herself and maybe one other creature (eg. Archetype of Endurance or Novablast Wurm).
Heliod, God of the Sun: Cheap, and gives all our creatures vigilance, Enchantment Creature, beats face reasonably well when activated. He's mainly there for vigilance, which is really powerful in this deck.
Nylea, God of the Hunt: Cheap, and gives all our creatures trample, Enchantment Creature, beats face well. She is stronger than Heliod because Trample is extremely relevant in this deck (a lot of our creatures are easy to chump). She's also a great mana sink that let's our Karametra kill much faster given how much we have ramped by late game.
Archetype of Endurance: Probably the second most important card in the deck. Avacyn's brother, once you have a way of granting him Indestructibility you have a huge defensive soft-lock on your hands Enchantment Creature.
Sigarda, Host of Herons: Has built-in hexproof which is nice, and prevents us from being blown out by mass sacrifice. The best thing about decks that run mass sacrifice combos is that you can see them coming and have some time to respond. You can use this time to tutor for her.
Blazing Archon: This card has saved me so many times, it is absolutely amazing—especially when coupled with protection. Once he's out, creature based decks are not only useless against you, but will then attack your enemies for you—do not underestimate the power of this guy because he will win you games.
Novablast Wurm: He can be a little tricky to get value out of because you have to untap with him alive. But if you can protect him he becomes pretty damn ridiculous in this deck.
Angel of Serenity: The deck has a lot of creature tutors and cheats so removal on a body is always gonna be really accessible. 3 Exiled creatures is absolutely amazing, especially for killing the creatures that won't die to all your wraths. High Market or ask other players to kill her in response to her trigger to keep the 3 creatures exiled forever.
Duplicant: Same as above, exile effect on a tutorable body.
Archon of Justice: On the surface this guy is a conditional removal. But in reality this will basically stop people from attacking you with anything with 4 power or more. You may only be able to exile one permanent with him, but no one will want that permanent to be theirs so they just won't attack you. Great political card. Big surprise when you bring him out with Chord of Calling.
Stonecloaker: Repeatedly triggers Karametra, hates graveyards on demand, saves our creatures from being tucked, stolen or exiled, blocks flying. This is a great fit in the deck and I'm currently trying to find him a spot.
Soltari Visionary: I'm always surprised that not many white decks run this guy? I absolutely love him. Enchantments form some of the most powerful cards in EDH and are generally the hardest permanents to deal with and his guy just eats them up like soup.
Harmonic Sliver: GW Staple. Blows things up and triggers Karametra. Two devotion is nice as well.
Qasali Pridemage: Also a GW Stable, but has the hidden bonus of turning your Karametra from a 4 swing lethal general to a 3 swing lethal general.
Academy Rector: Ridiculous in an enchantment based deck like this one.
Fierce Empath: Will tutor for whatever we want most of the time (most of the things we'll want to be tutoring for have a power greater than 6.
Oracle of Mul Daya: Together with Karametra, we can ramp into the moon. But the main reason he's here is actually for card advantage—specifically for the filtering ability. Top decking lands is one of the worst things in this deck because we usually have plenty, and also because creatures === lands for us. The fact that he can filter out two lands off the top per turn is AMAZING. The other hidden but equally amazing synergy with Karametra is that he reveals our top card, if we like it, we can choose not to trigger the ramp from Karametra when we play a creature, and if we don't? Shuffle the deck. And if it shuffles into a land? Filter it into play! A+++
Solumn Simulacrum: Staple. I took out all the other ramp creatures as explained in the decklist section, but this guy replaces himself—big difference for us.
Knight of the Reliquary: Don't forget that you can accelerate with him because you can float mana before sacrificing the land. Searches up our Yavimaya Hollow, Serra's Sanctum, Kor Haven, Ancient Tomb and any of the other utility lands whenever we want.
Lotus Cobra: Everytime I draw this card he does a tonne of work, so I just haven't been able to take him out. He just makes us so much faster when he's on the board. He and Karametra are a match made in heaven.
Eidolon of Blossoms Cantrips, two devotion, triggers Karametra, allows us to draw a card for all of our many enchantments. Beast.
Wall of Blossoms, Wall of Omens, Elvish Visionary: Cantrips, builds devotion, triggers Karametra. These cards help our deck run smoothly and consistently.
Mirari's Wake: This is a better version of Mana Reflection. Costs 1 less, and bumps your Karametra to the magical 7 General Damage mark.
Lurking Predators: The main purpose of this card is for card advantage and filtering. It's absolutely fine if we don't hit any bombs with it, because being able to put cards into play for free (effectively drawing cards), and putting cards we don't need to the bottom (especially lands), is amazing. Every now and then this might hit an Ulamog or Blazing Archon and it will be amazeballs.
Privileged Position: This card is amazing, it protects EVERYTHING, if you have a Sterling Grove or Greater Auramancy, it will make your entire board completely untouchable. Karametra is pretty much always on when this is in play too since it gives a wondrous THREE devotion.
Defense of the Heart: I originally had this in decks that didn't have any enchantment protection and it resolved and triggered much more often than you would think it would. Now that it can couple with protection it's just a beating—especially since this deck relies on a lot of different two creature combos. It's so versatile as well since you can fetch which ever combo is best for your situation. Check the strategy section for some suggestions.
Pattern of Rebirth: This is obviously a weaker version of Defense, but it's still amazing. My favorite part about cheat effects is that the card you bring in is uncounterable. It's so interesting in that because you conceal your intentions behind it, people will be less likely to counter the Pattern itself even though it will bring out something ridiculous if it's left to resolve. Easy to trigger with so many wrath effects in the deck.
Aura Shards: Staple. Artifacts and Enchantments form some of the most broken cards in the format so why not just gun them down? Pew Pew Pew. You can often judge the power of a card at how quickly it dies after it resolves. I rarely see Aura Shards see the light of day for very long; luckily we can make it untargettable!
Dueling Grounds: One of the main weaknesses of this deck is simply dying (if you are the main threat, people will simple swing at you since they can't interact with your board). It's important to have cards like this to slow that down.
Sterling Grove: One of the most important cards in the deck. Provides protection but also with the ability to replace itself. The most interesting thing about this card is that since people know you can just sac it to search for a replacement, they just won't kill it. Having this early will really give you the time to set up your soft-lock because as soon as you have two of these cards in play, all your enchantments will be safe for the rest of the game. This card allows you to set this up aggressively while having a fall-back. ALWAYS leave up the one mana to activate this. ALWAYS.
Greater Auramancy: It's no sterling grove but it's so important to have as many of these as possible so that if one gets blown up, you have another to play with.
Aspect of Mongoose: Sometimes you just won't draw into the pieces of the puzzle (but your bombs still need protection). This card allows you to play your Ulamogs and Blightsteels when you don't have your combos up, and if somehow they die, you get the Mongoose back to use on another bomb!
Pariah: If you put this on an indestructible creature while your enchantment soft-lock is up. You almost just can't be killed. It almost makes you invulnerable (including damage based infinite combos). Sometimes the token player will play their Craterhoof Behemoth and represent 9345725245924352524 damage, but if you have Pariah up, everyone will die except you. It's a rather awesome and interesting feeling to survive something like that unscathed.
Planar Collapse: Sometimes you won't have a wrath when you really need one (we have no way of tutoring for sorceries and instants). The reason this card is in there is because it's tutorable. Synergizes with the enchantment protection which will make it easier to trigger. Also does a decent job of being a very early wrath if you need it, and even if it gets killed before it triggers, it helps burn peoples removal.
Sylvan Library: Staple in any green deck. Being able to rig your top three is amazing enough. But paying 4 life for a card is amazing and will often get you to your combos before your opponents can react. This card is made better by the fact that Karametra is so good at shuffling the deck, if there are some bad topdecks coming up, shuffle them away! The fact that you can take any number of the cards prior to shuffling is magnificent.
Inheritance: An easy to set-up source of card draw. Works nicely as a mana sink for when you have too much mana, spending mana to draw into cards which then you can spend your mana on. Mana?
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Instants
Return to Dust: White staple, can't get past exiling two artifacts and enchantments at instant speed!
Chord of Calling: Holy Moley is this card good. Tutoring a creature into play at instant speed is ridiculous, and turns a lot of your creatures into instant speed answers. Prime targets are: Blazing Archon, Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Archetype of Endurance, Deathless Angel, Sigarda, Host of Herons, Archon of Justice, Harmonic Sliver, and Novablast Wurm at the end of your opponents turn.
Oblation: Tuck all the generals!
Eladamri's Call: For one more mana, you convert a Worldly Tutor from 'On top of the library', to 'Into your hand'. Pretty awesome.
Constant Mists: This card in this deck is basically "Infinite Fogs". You can fog so much. So. Much.
Enlightened Tutor: Makes sense in an enchantment deck right? This is also the only card that can tutor for artifacts in this deck, and sometimes having that Mind's Eye when you need it will make a huge difference. Don't forget to use it at end of turn to conceal your plans.
Worldly Tutor: There are many creature based answers in this deck so this is an important card to have. Also helps you set up your combos if you have one in hand and are missing the second piece.
Condemn: Tuck all the attacking generals!
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Sorceries
Austere Command: Oozing with versatlity.
Phrexian Rebirth: Wiping the board and having a fattie spawn on an empty board is pretty damn fun. This card becomes hilarious if you're playing against a token deck. Almost always over 10 power and often 20+ power.
Catastrophe: Sometimes you will draw this while you have Avacyn, Angel of Hope in play and you can just win the game by blowing up everyone's lands. Most of the time this is just a solid board wipe.
Rout: This is really just another Fated Retribution but I put it here to because the card text reads 'Sorcery'. Instant speed board wipes are amazing.
Wrath of God: Happy days. When was the first of these printed?
Day of Judgement: Happy days reprinted.
Natural Order: So if you are very clever you would have noticed that there aren't that many good targets for this card (you can only tutor for 'Green' creatures). But being able to tutor either an Archetype of Endurance or Novablast Wurm into play was reason enough to include this card in the mix. There are a few other targets that might be relevant in certain situations, but the above two are the main reason this card is in the deck.
Harmonize: This card should be blue. I don't know why it's green. Yay.
Idyllic Tutor: Enchantment tutor in an enchantment deck!
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Artifacts
Sensei's Divining Top: Such a beautiful card. Let's you rig the top three cards in your deck. This card is made better by the fact that Karametra is so good at shuffling the deck, if there are some bad topdecks coming up, shuffle them away! Or if you are playing a creature each turn you can simply pick the best of each three card group each time and shuffle the rest away. Shuffle away! Don't forget to abuse this card when you are mana-screwed. Rig top land to top -> swap it for top -> play the land -> draw the top next turn -> rinse and repeat. Never miss a land drop again!
Sol Ring: Haha.
Planeswalkers
Garruk, Primal Hunter: Beats Soul's Majesty simply because it doesn't need to target (we have a few shroud effects). But also adds THREE devotion to Karametra and is potentially re-usable. Trying to find some space for this card right now as I've found Karametra to be online much more often than initially anticipated.
Lands
Kor Haven: Shuting down voltron monsters since the year 2000. Get's around protection and unblockable, only thing that stops it are hexproof and shroud.
Yavimaya Hollow: This card is surprisingly good in this deck given that we have so many indestructible. Let's you run cards like Archetype of Endurance, Novablast Wurm or Blazing Archon a little more bravely. Also saves some of your weenies to preserve devotion.
High Market: Saves creatures from being stolen, tucked or exiled.
Homeward Path: Saves creatures from being stolen.
Cavern of Souls: I rarely ever name "God" with this cause people aren't really interested in countering Karametra anyway. Oftentimes this will name "Angel" for Avacyn, or "Boar" for Archetype.
Emeria, the Sky Ruin: The idea is that Karametra makes it easy to turn this on and then it's amazeballs. Reality is that even with Karametra this card has never been all that relevant in this deck. Might cut it soon.
Stirring Wildwood: Ambushes flying utility creatures when your opponents aren't paying attention. Saves your important creatures from cards like Fleshbag Marauder. Does more work than it appears on the surface.
Dust Bowl: With access to so many lands, Dust Bowl becomes a house — don't let your opponents have those pesky utility lands!
Ancient Tomb: Turn 4 Karametra.
Forest: This card is extremely important. There are 47 green mana symbols in this deck, and without this card it would be incredibly difficult to play many cards. The amazing thing about this card is that it's one of the few cards in commander that you can play more than one of. Load up on these and you won't regret it.
Plains: This card is extremely important. There are 64 white mana symbols in this deck, and without this card it would be incredibly difficult to play many cards. The amazing thing about this card is that it's one of the few cards in commander that you can play more than one of. Load up on these and you won't regret it.
Creatures
Darksteel Colossus / Colossus of Akros: Similar reason to Konda, just doesn't do enough.
Darksteel Gargoyle: If you're really struggling with flyers this can be an answer, but it's very over-priced and is really only a blocker.
Thornling: This card has potential, I can see it being really good in certain situations and can be very useful for pressuring opponents. Couldn't really make it work though.
Predator Ooze / Fleecemane Lion: Once again, love the concept, flavor and fit in the deck, but it's just too slow.
Stuffy Doll: Brilliant Troll card. Could work really well defensively if your playgroup plays a lot of fatties.
Yosei, the Morning Star: Also a great card if you're struggling with flyers and does a lot to deter people from attacking you. The effect is great from stopping someone who's targeting you or snowballing out of control. Has a lot of potential.
Penumbra Spider: Great chumper if you're struggling with flyers.
Eternal Dragon: A self recurring dragon is pretty great, but I feel it's over-costed and requires so much investment for not enough return.
Glory: Great card if your creatures are getting targeted down, but I find in this deck it doesn't happen often enough.
Fountain Watch / Eight-and-a-half-tails / Devoted Caretaker: If you find that you're enchantments are being targeted down before you have a chance to get your combos out, these cards could go a long way to protecting them. The fox and caretaker both have the added bonus of being able to protect your creatures too. I've found this to be unnecessary with this deck.
Weathered Wayferer: I originally had this in the deck but just found him to be a dead card way too often. Was replaced with Knight of the Reliquary
Sunblast Angel: I really like this card, it's a wrath that fills a lot of gaps in the deck. Currently trying to find a space for her right now.
Wood Elves: This explanation applies him him and all of his friends. I originally had ramp creatures in the deck but found them to ramp into unnecessary amounts of mana only to run out of steam. These have been replaced with cantrip creatures.
Planar Guide: The only reason I don't run these effects is my playground doesn't play much mass exile, sacrifice or tuck. If your playground does then this is a great addition!
Eternal Witness / Reveillark / Karmic Guide: Because of the nature of the deck, most cards in this deck end up exiled or tucked, so these cards become a little too situational.
Spirit En-Dal: This was in earlier versions of the deck and can be great if you see many opportunities to kill your opponents early if you're creatures were unblockable. Great card if you want some evasion.
Liege of the Tangle / Avenger of Zendikar / Rampaging Baloths: These cards are a non-bo with all of our wrath effects. These would be auto-include in landfall strategies but not for this deck.
Survival of the Fittest: I just didn't find this card useful enough, we don't have a huge creature density and not that many weenie cards to pitch to it that we don't already need. Not great here.
Abundance: I see some potential for this card but I opted for Lurking Predators over it. In this deck creatures = lands so being able to filter out all the lands could smooth the deck a lot.
Instants
Congregation at Dawn: I'm at odds with this card, on one hand it can set up your next few turns perfectly for a combo. But on the other hand it non-bo's with Karametra shuffling the deck. Not sure.
Ghostway: Once again the only reason this isn't in my deck is because my playgroup don't play much mass exile, tuck or sacrifice — making this card really inconsistent and situational. Otherwise this would be an auto-include as it addresses a major weakness of the deck.
Sorceries
Kirtar's Wrath: And another.
Replenish: Might be good if your enchantments are getting blown up a lot. I've found it to be unnecessary
Genesis Wave: I think this would be great in a ramp based Karametra deck. Otherwise I've always found this card to be kinda inconsistent and win-more.
Artifacts
Pariah's Shield: Pariah is one of the best cards in the deck. But this is significantly worse because it's harder to tutor for and we don't have any protection for it.
Seer's Sundial: I've found this card to be pretty clunky and requiring too much investment.
World Slayer: This is like a strap-on Novablast Wurm. But once again the lack of tutor and protection options for artifacts turned me off including this card.
Planeswalkers
Lands
Gaea's Cradle: If I had this I would put it in. Too expensive for my taste though
Savannah: Same as above!
— Deathless Angel
— Planar Collapse
— Return to Dust
— Harmonize
— Exotic Orchard
- Pattern of Rebirth
+ Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
+ Grasp of Fate
+ Quarantine Field
+ Angel of Serenity
+ Canopy Vista
+ Emeria Shepherd
Explanation: BFZ Brought us some really nice upgrades! Really looking forward to the rest of this block as a lot of the mechanics are on theme with this deck
Deathless Angel - I found this irrelevant most of the time.
Planar Collapse - Most of the time this was unnecessary, and also slow and clunky.
Return to Dust - This was more of a metagame change, my meta has shifted away from artifact/enchantment reliant strategies, into more creature heavy strategies.
Harmonize - I'm not 100% sure of this one yet, but I wasn't that excited to see this card so I figured I'd see how I would do without it.
Exotic Orchard - Another metagame change.
Pattern of Rebirth - This card would never work out for me. Too slow and clunky I suppose.
Ulamog, the Ceaceless Hunger - Indestructible and awesome. Hoping the block will introduce more tasty indestructible eldrazi
Grasp of Fate + Quarantine Field - I'm finding the need for exile effects more and more in my meta, and what better than high value exile removal that also add 2 devotion each?
Angel of Serenity - I loved Luminate Primordial so much I decided I wanted 2.
Canopy Vista - Why not.
Emeria Shepherd - This card is ridiculous with Karametra. Everytime you play a creature, you get to ramp a land and recur ANY nonland permanent to the battlefield. Wowzers
— Angel of Serenity
— Forest
+ Luminate Primordial
+ Gaea's Cradle
Explanation: Angel of Serenity > Luminate Primordial: Don't need both and I've found the Primordial to be the better and more permanent answer.
Forest > Gaea's Cradle: lol yay.
PS: I know this only updated to DTK, updates on new sets coming soon!
— Myojin of Cleansing Fire
— Condemn
— Oblation
+ Angel of Serenity
+ Duplicant
+ Stonecloaker
Explanation: Condemn and Oblation removed due to recent Commander rules update stating that creatures that are tucked can now be put in the command zone. Condemn is situational and Oblation has a huge downside so they no longer make the cut after these changes. Myojin of Cleansing Fire this card stayed in the deck for as long as it did purely out of flavor/theme; this card is useless when cheated in and expensive/not worth it when hard casted, just not useful enough to remain in the deck.
Angel of Serenity and Duplicant: Very often I would be looking through my deck after a Defense of the Heart trigger or after casting any other creature tutor and be in need of creature removal. The deck didn't have any of it! How stupid of me not to include creature based removal when the deck is so heavy with tutors and cheats. Serenity is amazing (3 target creatures, really?) especially with all the protection that the deck offers her and both her and Duplicant have exile effects; meaning we can deal with those pesky creatures that don't die to our wraths this way. As an added bonus, if you can High Market or convince another player to kill your Serenity in response to her trigger, the 3 exiled creatures will be exiled forever!
I've been looking for a space for Stonecloaker for the LONGEST time, and there's finally space! This guy is an all star in this deck. Ramps us, triggers Karametra, targeted graveyard hate, and saves our dudes from being tucked, stolen or exiled.
+ Garruk, Primal Hunter
— Inheritance
+ Mistveil Plains
— Emeria, the Sky Ruin
+ Reflecting Pool
— Cavern of Souls
+ Brushland
+ Flagstones of Trokair
— Plains x 2
Explanation: Garruk, Primal Hunter is a pretty significant boost to the deck. I had originally considered including Souls Majesty first, and when I saw Garruk I made the mistake of immediately assuming that he was functionally the same card. There are two main subtle but very important differences, the first is that Garruk is a permanent with GGG in it's cost — one of the main things that turned me off Souls Majesty was potentially not having a decent target if Karametra is not active. But Garruk provides a whopping three devotion to the board, 99% of the time this will wake Karametra up as soon as it hits the board. The second is that Garruk does not target — sometimes Karametra will have shroud which would make Majesty completely useless, this isn't the case with the planeswalker. There are also edge cases where we might be able to trigger him twice or we leave him up to keep Karametra active but I see this as being very rare because this card for us basically reads "pay 2GGG, draw six cards". I'm not sure I'll ever be greedy enough to think that I'll untap with him after going around the table when the immediate payoff is so massive. He's miles ahead of Inheritance which can be a bit clunky so this was an easy switch when I realised how good Garruk was.
Emeria, the Sky Ruin has not been relevant once in the MANY games I've played. Firstly because hardly any creatures end up in my graveyard and the ones that do aren't worth recurring, secondly because even in a deck where we can tutor all the plains — it rarely becomes active and the small chance for it to be both active AND have targets to recur seems simply not to be worth the "Enters the battlefield tapped" tag. I've replaced it with Mistveil Plains, which while also an ETBT land — is technically a "Plains" meaning that we can tutor it up with Karametra for no consequence. I also really like that it can put ANY card back into the deck which means that we can continually tutor and re-use our enchantments (especially ones like Defense of the Heart) and this would be a very consistent interaction given that we can grab the land with our general ASAP in every game.
Cavern of Souls was never relevant enough in my meta to be worth the colorless land — I've replaced it with Reflecting Pool which is a very interesting card. I find that Reflecting Pool has the potential to be worse than a basic land in the early stages of the game in situations where you are color screwed it doesn't help and can make it worse (this doesn't affect us much because we don't have very demanding mana requirements in the early game and Karametra closes the gaps in the mid game. What it does well though is help you get to those GGG and WWW casting costs in the mid and late game once you most likely have all of your colors. This is perfect for us especially given that we just added Garruk, Primal Hunter to the deck and there are a few other GGG and WWW costed cards.
Other than that I just made a few tweaks to the mana base. Brushland will rarely shock us since it provides colorless without a downside and will help us fix our mana. I felt free to add Flagstones of Trokair because it has virtually no down-side now that Emeria has hit the bin. It'll only be relevant once in a blue moon after a Ruination or Armageddon — but that's enough reason to run it over a Plains. We do also have Catastrophe in the deck so if we ever need to cast it for its land destruction it would be helpful.
Moving forward I will continue testing Stonecloaker, Sunblast Angel and Krosan Grip. To be honest the first two cards aren't performing very well so I'm not sure if I'll be able to find a cut for them. I'm still trying desperately to find a space for the Krosan Grip simply because stopping infinite combos is amazing. But finding the cut for it has been very hard. Prison Term is a cute thought given how much enchantment protection we have but I'm not entirely sure where it will fit in the list.
+ Knight of the Reliquary
— Weathered Wayfarer
+ Sigarda, Host of Herons
— Myojin of Life's Web
Explanation: I have been finding Weathered Wayfarer to be really hit and miss (he's a bad opening draw if you're going first, he's a bad mid/late game draw, and he becomes useless once Karametra has been online for a couple of turns). Knight of the Reliquary should be a much more consistent addition plus giving us the option to accelerate.
As much as I love the concept of Myojin of Life's Web he has been way too situational and his ability has almost never been relevant in my games, so sadly he will go. I have taken the advice of many of the replies on this thread and added Sigarda, Host of Herons in his place. I've been in quite a few situations now where the sac protection would have been really useful, she has hexproof which is great, is very aggressively costed for what she does, and I'm always glad to be adding more flyers to the deck.
Moving forward I'm gonna be trying to find some space for Sunblast Angel. Will also be looking at how often she would be relevant in my current games given that it's a conditional wrath.
+ Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
— Seer's Sundial
+ Eidolon of Blossoms
— Masked Admirers
Explanation: Seer's Sundial has been clunky (as pointed out by Volango), and even at it's best only draws around 2 cards per turn. Ajani, Mentor of Heroes is the perfect fit in this deck; his first ability turns Karametra into a 2 swing kill (9+12 dmg). His second ability digs 4 and draws a card every turn for free (plus the added advantage of leaving the other cards in the deck for tutors/cheats) and his ult keeps us alive.
Eidolon of Blossoms is easily better than Masked Admirers in this deck, it will draw more cards for less effort. I might still try and get Masked Admirers back in there but not sure what to take out yet.
Moving forward, I'm gonna try and find some room for Knight of the Reliquary as the points that Volango made are really valid, not too keen on taking Weathered Wayfarer out just yet though so some thought and testing needs to go into this.
Prison Term
Stonecloaker
Sunblast Angel
Krosan Grip
Personal Bio
I still remember my very first experience with magic to be buying this Kavu themed pre-constructed deck from Planeshift all the way back in 2001. I can't believe it's been 13 years and look how far Magic has come! I used to think Serra Avatar was the most amazing card in the world and would play game after game trying to string together my one-of Congregate and one-of Serra Avatar together in my 86 card deck. Since then I would say I've developed a pretty even balance between all the player archetypes; my competitive streak comes out in standard where my all time favourite deck was "The Aristocrats" and modern where I am a huge fan of Delver of Secrets. In EDH I would consider myself semi-competitive in that I like powerful decks but with the condition that they are both fun to play with as well as fun to play against — I feel like playing broken un-fun interactions in EDH defeats the purpose of the format. I love interesting and subtle interactions between cards and have huge respect for the people who uncover them. I think Sam Black is a boss.
Meta
I play this deck in both a local paper based playgroup as well as the diverse meta that is Cockatrice. Here are some of the decks I play against regularly in my local meta:
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Norin the Wary
Kaalia of the Vast
Ghost Council of Orzhova
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
Roon of the Hidden Realm
Lazav, Dimir Mastermind
Bruuna, Light of Alabaster
Rhys the Redeemed
Karador, Ghost Chieftan
Jhoira of the Ghitu
Obzedat, Ghost Council
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave
The Mimeoplasm
Sygg, River Guide
Being my first time writing and formatting anything on this forum I was a bit overwhelmed at the start. Mad props to gelf and his amazing Animar Primer from which I have shamelessly copied the formatting and layout from. Many thanks also to the people who’ve written the formatting guides around the forum which can be found here and here.
Thanks! And really good idea, if I can find a cut for her I'll definitely throw her in
UPDATE: She has been added Thanks for the suggestion!
Feel free to Any ideas in your Sigarda deck that may come in handy in Karametra?
Spearbreaker Behemoth seems better than Deathless Angel because it's already indestructible itself and the ability to protect other stuff costs half. The restriction that it can only target creatures with power 5 or higher seems pretty irrelevant to me because nearly every creature you really want to protect fullfills this condition.
I know Condemn can tuck opposing commanders but the "needs to be attacking" clause make it much worse than Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares in my experience.
Knight of the Reliquary seems much better than Weathered Wayfarer in this deck of yours. While it doesn't create card advantage he actually accelerates, you can always use his ability and you can get the lands at instant speed which is nice with cards like Sejiri Steppe. If you include Mistveil Plains you can also start recycling your lands via Karametra.
Since this deck is awesome at protecting him, I think Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger is better than Mana Reflection since he also punishes your opponets and is a huge beater on top of that.
I would also play Garruk, Primal Hunter for carddraw instead of Seer's Sundial. I know that Sundial is very synergistic with your deck but imo it's still a terribly slow and inefficient way to draw cards.
One last question: There are quite a few wipes that don't care about indestructability (Hallowed Burial, Terminus, Final Judgement, Black Sun's Zenith, Merciless Eviction, False Prophet). Do you have any plan against those? Maybe add Ghostway?
Anyway I hope some of this wall of text is helpful
GWKarametra - The MistveiledGW
GWR Marath - The Egg-laying Wool-Milk-Pig GWR
RBGrenzo - Restrained RakdosRB
UWRGBHorde of NotionsUWRGB
Retired: Karador, Ghost Chieftain | Rafiq of the Many | Animar, Soul of Elements | Maelstrom Wanderer
Journey to Nyx Review
Ajani, Mentor of Heroes is a no brainer, I almost cried when I saw the spoiler for him cause he does everything we need and fills a lot of gaps. The first +1 can potentially turn Karametra into a 2 swing lethal (9+12 dmg). His second +1 is selective card advantage that digs four and as a bonus the other cards are put to the bottom of library instead of in the graveyard—this is actually a big deal since we have a lot of tutors and no recursion—card advantage is something that this deck struggles a little with sometimes so this is a welcome addition! His -8 is actually pretty relevant in this deck if the opponent gets too trigger happy and forgets to kill him (sometimes if we get unlucky and draw none of our flyers we can just die to flyer damage). It'll also allow us to survive situations like Purphoros, God of the Forge with a token generator or some of the orzhov life gain/loss tickers which has killed my playgroup a few times. [5/5]
Eidolon of Blossoms I'll be testing this card to see how many cards it draws on average, I have a good feeling about this card! It's an Enchantment Creature, cantrips, triggers Karametra, and can potentially draw a lot of cards. [4/5]
Aegis of the Gods can be run if you face a lot of targeting based infinite combos, it's both an enchantment and a creature so it's extremely tutorable and hard to kill in this deck, also triggers Karametra. Depending on your playground this could be an amazing card! [Situational]
Armament of Nyx has some potential depending on your playground, if you find a lot of situations where Karametra connects with peoples faces a lot this can really speed up the process. Also could save you from flyers/unblockables in edge cases. (I doubt I'll find any room for this though). [Situational]
Godsend not strong enough in EDH, it's an artifact so hard for us to tutor or protect (not that anyone would really want to kill it anyway). [1/5]
+ Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
— Seer's Sundial
+ Eidolon of Blossoms
— Masked Admirers
Explanations can be found in the Changelog section of the guide.
One of the main reasons that I run Deathless Angel is because the deck doesn't have much flying defense. This is actually a pretty significant weakness of the deck so I don't think I'll be taking her out any time soon. Also, the deck actually doesn't need much indestructibility enablers because all the important cards are already indestructible, I usually only use her ability to target herself.
I think the choice between Condemn and Swords/Path is more determined by the playgroup, my group generally plays a lot of general reliant strategies (specifically, ones that attack) so I prefer the Condemn here, but I can definitely see that in some meta's the Path/Swords option would be better!
I'm so silly to have missed that Knight of the Reliquary accelerates, I'm currently experimenting with him and trying to find him a home. After reading your ideas about him I definitely think he will make it into the deck soon Thanks!
I used to run a lot of powerhouse creatures without indestructibility but I found it really conflicts with all the Wrath effects in the deck. I was constantly being put into situations where Wrath would have been a good play if I didn't have a fatty without indestructible on the board, so I moved away from that. I do think that I will try Vorinclex though, simply because once he's in play you have a severe advantage until he's dealt with.
Garruk, Primal Hunter has temporarily been surpassed by Ajani, Mentor of Heroes cause that card is all kinds of awesome. The reason I didn't run Garruk from the start was because I was concerned I wouldn't always have a target for him, but since playing the deck I've found that Karametra is active much more often than I initially expected so I'll definitely test Garruk again
The reason I don't run Ghostway is simply cause my playground don't play any of those spells. The only one that gets me is Cyclonic Rift but that card alone isn't enough to justify Ghostway simply cause it's a sorcery (I have no way of access instants and sorceries in this deck other than to draw them, which means that I won't always have it when I need it and I'll also have it a lot of the time when I don't need it — ie. too situational). But yes if my playground ran more of the spells you mentioned Ghostway would be definitely be a great answer!
UPDATE: Knight of the Reliquary has been added to the deck Thanks for the suggestion! I'm now having a look at where I might be able to fit in the Garruk.
Here are the changes:
+Sigarda, Host of Herons, —Myojin of Life's Web
+Knight of the Reliquary, —Weathered Wayfarer
Full explanation can be found in the Changelog section of the guide.
Thanks for all the feedback and keep it up! Really helpful
I love the idea but I think this might become active a little too late in the game. It's very mana intensive to make it worth it and kill enough lands (plus he costs 6 by himself and dies to the wrath). I will keep an eye out when I cast wrath to see how much open mana I have, but I think the investment is just a little too heavy for the return.
Oh and instead of Khamal, use living plane.
Here are some cards I found really awesome:
Stoneclaoker: This does just so many different things in this deck. Even though I only played a couple of games with this deck people at my LGS already watch out for this card. At worst you can repeatedly trigger Karametra for 2W. The fact that it is gravehate that will just sit safely in your hand until you need it and than jumps back there again makes it a nightmare for any GY based strategy because it's extremely difficult to disrupt. He can safe important creatures in face of exile or tuck removal and is generally a way to interact with the stack which typically is a weakness of GW. Bottom line: Absolute all-Star for this deck!
Mistveil Plains: This is basically a second ability of Karametra, since you can have it in every game from the first Karametra trigger on. It's very easy to find a cut for it and the drawback of ETB tapped is negligable since it will almost always come in via Karametra.
Now the effect doesn't look like too much but can be very relevant, especially in a list like yours that has so many tutors but no recursion because it will turn any tutor into a recursion spell. So this will give your list the ability to recur stuff without sacrificing any deckspace probably making it even more resilient.
Krosan Verge: Of course this can be a bit slow but on the other hand it's ramp and cardadvantage in a land slot allowing for a turn 4 Karametra, again with very little dedication regarding deckspace.
Mosswort Bridge: I wont have to tell you that getting this online in this deck is laughably easy and it's not only CA from a land slot but also another way to allow instant speed shenanigens with protective permanents.
So those are the ones that I'd really urge you to try and here are some more that could be nice depending on your meta and if you find cuts:
Crop Rotation is a really fine trick and very versatile with the amounts of utility lands in your manabase.
Sejiri Steppe: I already mentioned this in an earlier post. It's really awesome with Knight of the Reliquary because it gives him the ability to protect creatures from spot removal (also works with Crop Rotation) but it's a bit sucky when you have it in your opening hand. If you draw into it, it still might be a way to push some lethal damage through. You can also sac it with Dustbowl and recycle via Mistveil Plains.
Enlisted Wurm: Is just a whole lot of value with Karametra out and the perfect turn six play. (Altough I might be a bit biased because I just love the cascade mechanic :))
The cut for Garruk, Primal Hunter should be either Inheritance or Harmonize.
If you are interested: Here is my own decklist:
5 Karametra, God of the Harvest
Creatures
1 Joraga Treespeaker
2 Stonforge Mystic
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Fleecemane Lion
2 Grand Abolisher
2 Wall of Blossom
2 Elvish Visionary
3 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Eternal Witness
3 Harmonic Sliver
3 Flickerwisp
3 Stonecloaker
3 Fierce Empath
3 Carven Caryatid
3 Yavimaya Dryad
4 Heliod, God of the Sun
4 Nylea, God of thr Hunt
4 Oracle of Mul-Daya
5 Sigarda, Host of Herons
5 Stonehewer Giant
6 Twilight Shepherd
6 Sun Titan
6 Enlisted Wurm
6 Admonition Angel
6 Sunblast Angel
7 Regal Force
7 Spearbreaker Behemoth
7 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
7 Avenger of Zendikar
7 Angel of Serenity
7 Novablast Wurm
8 Craterhoof Behemoth
8 Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
8 Woodfall Primus
8 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
8 Myojin of Cleansing Fire
8 Archetype of Endurance
9 Myojin o Life's Web
12 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Sol Ring
1 Skullclamp
2 Lightening Greaves
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Behemoth Sledge
5 Worldslayer
Enchantments
2 Sterling Grove
3 Aura Shards
4 Marshal's Anthem
6 Wild Pair
Planeswalkers
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Elspeth, Knight Errant
5 Garruk, Primal Hunter
Instants
1 Path to Exile
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Crop Rotation
2 Eladamris Call
4 Wrath of God
6 Austere Command
7 Tooth and Nail
I'm still making a lot of changes and I'm also missing a few cards, most notably:
GWKarametra - The MistveiledGW
GWR Marath - The Egg-laying Wool-Milk-Pig GWR
RBGrenzo - Restrained RakdosRB
UWRGBHorde of NotionsUWRGB
Retired: Karador, Ghost Chieftain | Rafiq of the Many | Animar, Soul of Elements | Maelstrom Wanderer
I've actually been looking for a replacement for Emeria, the Sky Ruin because even with Karametra, I've not yet seen it come online and it's just hasn't been worth the enter the battlefield tapped restriction. I think Mistveil Plains will fit that slot perfectly so that will probably make the next round of changes! I hadn't realised that it was a plains so the tutorability is awesome!
My meta is actually starting to play a lot more recursion now so Stonecloaker seems amazing! I'm definitely gonna be looking for a place to fit him in as a recurrable 3 mana ramp that has targeted grave hate is amazing! The edge case of protecting a naked Avacyn from tuck or exile excites me, but I've found that protecting my creatures from spot removal is rarely necessary in this deck.
In terms of Seijiri Steppe, Krosan Verge and Mosswort Bridge, I'm always really wary of adding too many Enters the battlefield tapped lands. It's my opinion that the drawback is much worse than people think, especially if the playgroup is relatively competitive. I would only play them if my meta all had very slow, casual decks. Unfortunately that's not the case in my meta and every turn really counts. For me these two lands don't do enough to justify an addition. The idea of using Reliquary to tutor out a Steppe is nice but it's going to be too rare for it to be relevant enough to add given that the card is pretty bad by itself.
I haven't actually had a chance to see Inheritance in action yet... I think once I manage to draw it and play with it a few times I'll be able to judge whether Garruk would be better.
Anyway I'm really happy my list inspired you to make your own! I can see that it's very different to mine but has some of my ideas in there which is really cool to see! I actually just cut Myojin of Life's Web before I even had a chance to use his ability because it just wasn't good enough in my list and that made me really sad. But looking at your list there should be many more opportunities to use him! Let me know how it goes and if your list uncovers any awesome interactions!
Hey mate, unfortunately I haven't put much consideration into a budget version...yet! I promise once I finish the guide I'll do more investigation to see what budget options could work. But given that the deck revolves around a very specific strategy (as opposed to a general 'Goodstuff' deck), I can predict the options will be limited. Nonetheless, here are a few considerations I can come up with off the top of my head:
Low impact expensive cards:
Natural Order - This typically only tutors for Archetype of Endurance and Novablast Wurm given it's 'Green' limitation. Easy budget cut.
Chord of Calling - This is a tough cut just cause CoC is so amazing, but it isn't necessary for the deck to function.
Lurking Predators - Good but not AMAZING
Pattern of Rebirth - Good but not AMAZING
Mana Reflection - Not that important
Sylvan Library - Makes the deck more consistent but replaceable.
Sensei's Divining Top - Same as Sylvan Library
Serra's Sanctum - Is on theme, usually provides 2-3 mana up until we have heaps of mana and it isn't much of an issue anymore. Luxury card.
Cavern of Souls - *Shrug*
Yavimaya Hollow - *Shrug*
Ancient Tomb - *Shrug*
**Basically any of the utility lands you don't see as being very useful to you can be shrugged off**
***A lot of my dual lands, especially Horizon Canopy, Windswept Heath, and Wooded Bastion are overkill, I just tuned the deck as best as it could be just because I could. I would keep the cheaper ones though, and add more cheaper ones like the pain land***
****Taking out some of the colorless utility lands will also complement the removal of dual lands****
Some cards I had considered but didn't make the cut (mostly cheap I think):
Konda, Lord of Eiganjo
Darksteel Colossus
Thornling
Predator Ooze
Fleecemane Lion
Manor Gargoyle
Akroan Colossus
Frontline Medic
Dauntless Escort
Devoted Caretaker
Mother of Runes
Jugan, the Rising Star
Yosei, the Morning Star
Penumbra Spider
Eternal Dragon
Sunblast Angel
Pariah's Shield
Silent Arbiter
Krosan Grip
Aura of Silence
Acidic Slime
Congregation at Dawn
Carven Caryatid
Spirit en-Dal
Avenger of Zendikar
Rampaging Baloths
Liege of the Tangle
*** Plus and of the cards others have mentioned on this thread, you can also check out Volangos deck which is very different but seems relatively cheaper ***
UPDATE: Had a little more time to think about it so I've adjusted my comments on the direction you can go (you have three main options):
Level 1 (Light cuts, big cost reduction, low impact): Cut the expensive dual-lands as well as any utility lands you don't need and replace them with cheaper versions or basics. Cut a small number of low-impact expensive cards like Natural Order.
Level 2 (Mild cuts, slows the deck down): The first option is to keep the creature base together and try to replace the expensive support cards with cheaper versions of them. This could include the card draw engines, tutors, cheats and ramp. The idea is to keep the composition of the deck the same, but to replace the expensive cards with cheaper ones that do similar, albeit weaker, things.
Level 3 (Heavy cuts, new direction): Remove any cards that are too expensive for your budget with the exception of the 7 Untouchables. Move into a heavy indestructible/wrath theme, adding in more wraths and more indestructible and LTB creatures (there are some decent ones in the list above). This strategy would be more linear in that you slowly build your board of indestructibles while constantly playing wrath spells. This deck would not do very well in a competitive or semi-competitive environment—but I actually think it would shine in a budget/casual environment where people play a lot of fatties, creatures, tokens and play less broken interactions, combos and cutt-throat tactics.
Hope that helps! Like I said I will eventually put out better info for people wanting a budget version but that will probably be a while away! Good luck
I generally agree with you on ETBT lands but the ones I mentioned have proven to be really great. Especially the Mosswort Bridge because it's nearly always online. I think you could maybe play it over Stirring Wildwood.
Glad that you like Stonecloaker
GWKarametra - The MistveiledGW
GWR Marath - The Egg-laying Wool-Milk-Pig GWR
RBGrenzo - Restrained RakdosRB
UWRGBHorde of NotionsUWRGB
Retired: Karador, Ghost Chieftain | Rafiq of the Many | Animar, Soul of Elements | Maelstrom Wanderer
Haha I guess looking at it now Stirring Wildwood does seem to be a strange choice! But I really like it and it has been useful for me, it ambushes utility creatures and flyers really well, especially the ones that have triggers on combat damage. It's also saved a lot of my important creatures from cards like Fleshbag Marauder. I guess for me this deck is all about consistency and I'd rather have the consistency from the Wildwood than the luck and explosive potential of Mosswort bridge. The majority of my support cards are picked around building and maintaining my primary strategy, and in this deck I prefer that over off-theme goodstuff.
And man I remember when I first saw the effect for World Slayer I really wished I could include it, but I've tried a few equipment in this deck and they are just so inaccessible and hard to protect compared to creatures and enchantments. If it were an enchantment it would be an auto-include. The problem is my meta runs quite a lot of spot removal nowadays, and a lot of it is repeatable spot removal, so I'm pretty sure I would invest 10 mana in it just for it to die haha :(.
One card I found is Planar Guide. I don't like that he exiles himself but he is very easy to tutor for and the W casting cost means that he's a very cheap land of Karametra.
GWKarametra - The MistveiledGW
GWR Marath - The Egg-laying Wool-Milk-Pig GWR
RBGrenzo - Restrained RakdosRB
UWRGBHorde of NotionsUWRGB
Retired: Karador, Ghost Chieftain | Rafiq of the Many | Animar, Soul of Elements | Maelstrom Wanderer
You can use Riftsweeper to bring him back and use him again. There's a white card that can bring him back, too, but I can't remember the name of it.
I currently try Riftsweeper in my Karador deck because with that deck stuff gets exiled on a very regular basis, but in Karametra I don't want to support a situational card by something even more situational.
GWKarametra - The MistveiledGW
GWR Marath - The Egg-laying Wool-Milk-Pig GWR
RBGrenzo - Restrained RakdosRB
UWRGBHorde of NotionsUWRGB
Retired: Karador, Ghost Chieftain | Rafiq of the Many | Animar, Soul of Elements | Maelstrom Wanderer
Awesome man Congrats and I'll definitely check it out!
Planar Guide Looks like a lovely second copy of Ghostway. I've added both to my "Notable Exceptions" section. I won't personally run them because my meta don't play that much mass exile or tuck but if they did these cards would be auto-include!.
— Completed the "Individual Card Discussion" section of the guide with all the cards in the list.
— Added a "Notable Exceptions" section to the guide for all cards that I don't personally run but might be useful for others and in different metas.
— Added a "Currently Testing" section in the "Changelog" to show cards that I'm currently trying to work into the deck.
— Added a "Decklist by Card Type" list in a spoiler below the main decklist.
— Added an "Extras" section with personal bio information and some of the decks I play against in my local meta.
Moving forward I'll be looking at adding more card options to the "Notable Exceptions" section so keep the card suggestions coming! Greatly appreciated