MTG Salvation

Updated Decklist Link



This deck started out as the Commander 2013 "Power Hungry" B/R/G with Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper & Shattergang Brothers. I stuck with Prossh and took out the others. Prosshy Prossh and the Funky Bunch matched with Primal Vigor can really inflate. But then I took that out for Doubling Season which, in turn, supercharges planes walkers, and then you Xenagos, the Reveler into Genesis Wave, into Craterhoof and then you win on turn 5-7.

This deck can be competitive in a 1-on-1 match up but it's not bad in multiways. Once it wins against a couple of people, then they team up, which you can still deal with.

I'm trying to make this deck more efficient and faster, basically more competitive Any suggestions are welcome.

Xenagos, God of Revels can be really nasty with Prossh. Drop him the turn before Prossh play Prossh and sac all six tokens to make him an 11/5 and then double it to 22/16 with haste and someone is gone.

Necrogenesis is better then Night Soil.

Snuff Out or Slaughter Pact can easily replace Go for the Throat. Being able to use them when tapped out is nice and they are no more restrictive.

Burnished Hart has no place in a green deck. Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Explosive Vegetation, and Hunting Wilds will net you the same effect at a lesser mana investment.

PROSSH WANTS MOAR RAMP!

You can check out my list for more info (link in sig), but in summary, creatures like Birds of Paradise, Elvish Mystic, and Llanawar Elves can do a lot for this deck. They can be sacrificed and pumped up later for value.

The land fetchers, aka Yavimaya Dryad, Wood Elves, and Farhaven Elf, are also quite good for similar reasons.


Something that took me a long time to realize is that Prossh really doesn't need much in the way of token production backup. Nearly all of your non-Prossh token produces can be cut for ramp or tutors or card draw. I would include Avenger of Zendikar and Chancellor of the Forge though because they are both amazing.

Quote from Bthepanda »

Necrogenesis is better then Night Soil.

Snuff Out or Slaughter Pact can easily replace Go for the Throat. Being able to use them when tapped out is nice and they are no more restrictive.

Burnished Hart has no place in a green deck. Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Explosive Vegetation, and Hunting Wilds will net you the same effect at a lesser mana investment.

Quote from Rowan »

PROSSH WANTS MOAR RAMP!

You can check out my list for more info (link in sig), but in summary, creatures like Birds of Paradise, Elvish Mystic, and Llanawar Elves can do a lot for this deck. They can be sacrificed and pumped up later for value.



The land fetchers, aka Yavimaya Dryad, Wood Elves, and Farhaven Elf, are also quite good for similar reasons.


Something that took me a long time to realize is that Prossh really doesn't need much in the way of token production backup. Nearly all of your non-Prossh token produces can be cut for ramp or tutors or card draw. I would include Avenger of Zendikar and Chancellor of the Forge though because they are both amazing.

BthePanda: It's "than" and I would agree with you, in early game, because it only requires two colourless and it can lock out retrieval effects, but I've never really gotten Night Soil out in games. The removal I understand but, for me non-black is more restrictive, against Damia decks that run tons of black. I like the Slaughter Pact idea though. I also agree with your ramping suggestion.

Rowan: My only issue with ramp is that they're really only vital if you get them early, not that I don't agree with your points, it's just that I would need need many more than 3 to get the desired effect, and even then, I wouldn't know what to take out for that much ramp. Chancellor and Avenger are solid options that I completely missed.

In any case, thanks for the suggestions guys.

Your reply confuses me. In your original post you said you wanted the deck to be faster, more efficient, and more competitive.

Let me do a translation for you:

Speed = Ramp or cheater cards (Defense of the Heart or Natural Order)
Efficiency = Low average casting cost - the majority of your cards should cost between 1 and 3 mana
Consistency = Tutors and card draw - absolutely necessary to be competitive.

One of green's greatest strengths is ramp, another is creature tutors. It only makes sense to play to your colors' strengths.

Ramp isn't only good early. One reason that ramp is good late is that you always need more resources. If you have the card draw, you are going to have cards to put onto the battlefield. Another good thing about ramp is that it helps you recover after an Armageddon. Lastly, the advantage over using something like Birds of Paradise over a Rampant Growth in this deck is that creatures can be sacced or buffed - therefore useful lategame.

But regardless, I would much rather something be good early and useless late, than unplayable early, which a lot of your current cards are, especially if they really don't justify the mana cost (I'm looking at you Spearbreaker Behemoth and Woodfall Primus). How do you plan on casting your higher cost cards without ramp? Against any deck using ramp, you WILL lose the resources race.

If you have enough resources, you won't mind losing prossh to non-tuck removal, in fact, you want him to go back to the command zone so you can get more kobolds the next time you cast him. I've included a lot of sac outlets in my own build such as Greater Good, Disciple of Bolas, Shivan Harvest, Ashnod's Altar, and Helm of Possession. The primary target for some of these cards is Prossh himself. I wouldn't be able to reliably re-cast him unless I had the resources to do it, that's where the ramp comes in. The instant speed sac outlets prevent tucking which is something you do NOT want to happen. Thankfully, a competitive build will also be running a lot of tutors so losing him to your deck isn't quite so bad as it could be.

I would be happy to completely tear your list apart, but if you want me to do that, please list your deck by function and in order of converted mana cost. If you have trouble finding a category for a card, that's a good indication it needs to be cut.

Quote from Rowan »

I would be happy to completely tear your list apart, but if you want me to do that, please list your deck by function and in order of converted mana cost. If you have trouble finding a category for a card, that's a good indication it needs to be cut.

So true. If you can't specify your purpose for a card you probably don't need it. Sorting cards by function also helps you see what you have to much or to little of.

I was just voicing my opinion, I don't think that the level of condescension was necessary.

Haha! ...listen man, I'm trying to help you, trying have an intelligent discussion. I tend to be pretty convicted about this game and that can come off as being a bit over-zealous, so my apologies. Sometimes I forget that we don't have the luxury of imparting vocal tonalities or facial expressions here. Just know that what my words are always accompanied by a :).

I will say this though. If you aren't open to personally stepping away from your build (that means not being offended when someone says it sucks) and tearing it apart, there's nothing else I can say. I wouldn't put this much effort into an attack, this is trying to be constructive criticism which requires you to be open to improvement, which is what you implied when you created this thread.

Yeah no worries, I swiped some ideas from your build, and I'll have a 'by function' decklist up shortly.

Hornet Nest and Hornet Queen seem like an interesting investment. Nest might buy you some time while you build. Then again, my version runs cards like Furystoke Giant, Butcher of Malakir, etc. Might not be your thing here.

Hornet Queen is pretty good, however, like I said above, Prossh doesn't really need any backup token producers if you build around him, for the same reason that Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind doesn't need Psychosis Crawler. One of the primary reasons for this is that you get the kobold tokens when you cast Prossh, so it doesn't matter if he's countered. In fact it's downright foolish to counter Prossh, because you're being done a favor of not having to sac him yourself. This is absolutely beautiful I think, and a big reason why I consider Prossh to be top tier. But you NEED the ramp to make this work how it should.

I would say the requirements for "building around Prossh" are these: Sac outlets for Prossh (Greater Good is one of the best but I also use Ashnod's Altar, Shivan Harvest, and Phyrexian Tower among many others) and a ton of ramp so you can reliably recast him. You'll have no shortage of tokens. The Food Chain + Prossh combo is the ideal expression of this in action.

I do run Avenger of Zendikar and Chancellor of the Forge though because Birthing Pod allows you to put either one of these directly into play by saccing Prossh himself. Try it, it's fun! If you've got Purphoros, God of the Forge in play, that should pretty much be game over. Or you can follow up with a Craterhoof Behemoth. Fun, fun times I wouldn't say either of these are really necessary for the reasons I stated before and they are bad early topdecks, but it IS fun and flavorful while still being quite strong.

If I really wanted to take Prossh full throttle balls to the wall I would just copy MCR's list here. But I like to a play a longer more controllish game with several methods of winning.

Basically the Fringe list are cards that have value and are useful, that I'm giving the benefit of the doubt. But there are definitely others that will make the deck more efficient, making cards on this list easy subtractions to improve the deck.

Out/Additions list should be self-explanatory.

I was looking at other decklists and suggestions that I've found on this site. I have to give credit to Rowan, for the realization of Birthing Pod as it was in this deck when I started making it, and took it out. I also passed by my dollar rare binder and never thought about Chancellor of the Forge in this deck but works well with the pod. And Phyrexian Tower was in a mono black deck that wasn't going anywhere, which I saw in his build.

I'll have my breakdown for my cuts and thoughts about substitutions in a couple of days.

I'll say that your fringe list is pretty much spot on, so I'll start with those:

Go For the Throat - as has been said before, there are better options. In commander you either want highly versatile removal like Chaos Warp or Maelstrom Pulse, selective board wipes such as Toxic Deluge or Pernicious Deed, extremely efficient like Vandalblast or Dismember, and the last acceptable category is repeatable removal like Sheoldred, Whispering One and Helm of Possession. There really are a ton of removal options in these colors

Banefire - this is a lot better in 1v1. Comet Storm would be the better option in Commander since it gives you the ability to take out multiple things, however I think we've got better options for player damage and removal here anyway. I would simply cut this for another tutor. Fierce Empath is a great one since it goes straight to hand and works well with Birthing Pod and other "creatures matter" cards.

Goblin Bombardment - this one is actually decent and I see it often in Prossh builds. If you go infinite with Food Chain, it's a good way to kill everyone the same turn if you can't give your tokens haste. I think that I'm running Shivan Harvest here instead though since it can really shut down certain decks with very little resources on my part.

Grave Pact - I actually decided to run this over Dictate of Erebos recently for the simple reason that it costs one less. However, unless you can reliably get BBB, Dictate will serve you better. Pact is also not very budget friendly.

Night Soil - I view this as being a grave hate spot. I like Scavenging Ooze, Shred Memory, Tormod's Crypt, or Deathrite Shaman

Basilisk Collar - yes this one can definitely get cut. Lifelink is pretty win more unless you have something to do with the life but that isn't Jund's specialty.

Spearbreaker Behemoth - yup, not good enough

Woodfall Primus - costs too much. I would swap for another creature tutor like Summoner's Pact, Chord of Calling, or Worldy Tutor. Creature tutors are one of green's specialties. They allow us to get our best creatures into play reliably.

Hellkite Charger - yup, this has no place here. Extra combat phases can be good, but this costs too much. I'd use Breath of Fury or Sieze the Day if you want this effect, but I question its usefulness. Prossh is really a combo deck, and with combo you don't so much do incremental damage but deal all the damage at once - at least that's what we're trying to do.

Grave Titan - the 2/2s aren't killable by Skullclamp, one of our primary draw engines, so that cuts him out for me.

Wurmcoil Engine - a fun card, but doesn't really help focus the deck. If you want something big and scary I'd go with Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger. If unanswered, he WILL win us the game. He can also be cheated out very early in my build. As early as turn 2 using Faithless Looting and Life // Death or Reanimate.

Genesis - this is decent but idealy we want our recurred creatures to go straight to the battlefield. I run Dread Return, Sheoldred, Whispering One, and Life // Death which I feel is really necessary in a creature based build, especially when your focusing on only a few really pivotal creatures. You can also try out Living Death which requires a bit of building around.

Creakwood Liege - focus on Prossh for token production, you will thank me later. Liege also makes our tokens unkillable by Skullclamp, which is no bueno.



Other things I don't like in your current list:


Genesis Wave - I too thought this would be good to run, but it's really not, mostly because it's only great late game when you can really pour a lot of mana into it. Really, I just don't like the randomness. By the time we have enough mana for this to be good, we should have already assembled the means to win through tutors and card draw. Taking this out for card draw or tutors will help focus your deck.


Liliana Vess - I don't like walkers that don't have immediately efficient abilities, because it's not guaranteed that they are going to stay alive. For example, it's hard to justify spending 3BB for a Vampiric Tutor or one random discard. I would swap her for something like Tooth and Nail or Defense of the Heart which both tutor for not just one, but TWO creatures and cheats them directly into play.

Blood Artist - inferior to Purphoros. I'd swap for a creature tutor.

Eldrazi Monument, Beastmaster Ascension - both inferior to Craterhoof. I'd swap for creature tutors. Craterhoof can be tutored for reliably. He can also be reanimated or sacced. Neither monument or ascension can say the same.

Swiftfoot Boots, Lightning Greaves - we really want global haste enablers here, preferably creature based. I use Ogre Battledriver and Sarkhan Vol. But Anger is also playable since he can be reliably sacced and we can fetch Mountains to enable the ability. It's just more situational than the former two.

Golgari Rot Farm - all of these lands are really terrible. I would actually run a basic land over them any day. Reason being is that they are so easily Strip Mined or Boomeranged or Vindicated. You can pretty much concede if this happens on turn 2-3.


You are currently running 39 lands. I would swap out four of these for ramp spells. Personally I would choose Llanowar Elves, Birds of Paradise, Fyndhorn Elves, and Elvish Mystic. I find 35 to be a pretty safe number.


Generally speaking, the way I approach Commander deck building is this:

Pick your win conditions - they should be at least associated with your commander. You need at least 1, but no more than 3 primary win cons. Any more will blunt the deck. Ideally the win conditions should synergize somewhat with each other in that the pieces are good on their own and help bring you closer to the other win conditions. For my Prossh build the win cons are Purphoros, God of the Forge, Craterhoof Behemoth, and Food Chain (+ something to get damage through). Prossh can also go voltron in a pinch using something like Kessig Wolf Run and Earthcraft.

That's it! That's all the deck really does. EVERYTHING ELSE is ramp, card draw, tutors, removal, and a bit of reanimation. There's the two backup token producers, and a couple of haste enablers. It's really simple, and therefore super consistent and competitive. Yes, Jester's Cap hurts but still won't cripple the deck, it just makes it a bit less convenient to win.



Some cards that I really like:

Lotus Cobra - can be downright explosive early game. Especially in combination with stuff like Oracle of Mul Daya, Sakura-Tribe Scout, and Harrow that let you put multiple lands into play per turn.

Somberwald Sage - if saccing Prossh and recasting him is our goal, this is a great card to have on the battlefield. It also makes it a lot easier to hard cast stuff like Chancellor of the Forge and Craterhoof Behemoth with triple color costs.

Primal Growth - another very solid ramp spell for a creature focused deck.

Forbidden Orchard and Defense of the Heart is a nice little combo. Both of these are great on their own though.

Dryad Arbor - this is fetchable by Green Sun's Zenith on turn 1

Natural Order - this card is just crazy good. It's also about $35

Decree of Pain, Skullmulcher, Disciple of Bolas, Greater Good - all of these accomplish the same thing. In combination with Prossh and his kobolds we draw an insane number of cards, and it can often be done multiple times since we've got recursion. Overwhelming card draw is one of the surest paths to victory.

Helm of Possession - this is a recent addition to my build but it does something awesome. It lets Prossh NOM NOM our opponent's creatures! But of course we can use any of our other sac outlets. Steal-sac is awesome and evil! Remember that repeatable removal is great in Commander.

Dimir Machinations - once you get a copy of Food Chain, this is a great tutor for it, but it can also grab a lot of other useful things in the deck, namely removal.

Eternal Witness - this is no brainer I would think for any creature based green deck. Recursion is very very powerful, especially when it can be done repeatedly (sac outlet - Sheoldred, Whispering One).

I agree with pretty much everything that you posted, I know that Liliana is pretty slow but I just love planeswalkers and I'm not going to get a Vampiric Tutor yet when I can get: Food Chain Tooth and Nail Defense of the Heart for roughly the same money.

I picked up a Deathrite Shaman and another Chord of Calling today when I was in T.O. which should be pretty solid additions.

I'm looking into more creature tutors as per your suggestions, which I'll be able to easily make room for, such as Summoner's Pact and Worldly Tutor

Oh, good call on Creakwood. Kobolds aren't safe from Skullclamp. Still, I don't think it really helps us that much. I like Ogre Battledriver a lot more as a buffer since he's also a haste enabler, and the buff is more consistent.

I haven't been up to date with this deck but it has been optimized for almost a year and it is in my top 3 EDH decks, probably tied for 1st with my WUBRG Superfriends deck. My Prossh deck is also over 98% foil.

Updated Decklist

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I need to find a Vampiric Tutor to swap out for Worldly Tutor.

Many new BFZ cards are gonna be fantastic here:

Catacomb Sifter - Remoal
Brood Butcher - Crazy Scry madness

Call of the Scions - Bodies and Ramp

Smothering Abomination - Cards Galore

Quote from TheSquirrelLord »

Many new BFZ cards are gonna be fantastic here:

Catacomb Sifter - Remoal
Brood Butcher - Crazy Scry madness

Call the Scions - Bodies and Ramp

Smothering Abomination - Cards Galore

I think you got the butcher and the sifter reversed. However, The only ones that I'm interested in are: the Catacomb Sifter and the Smothering Abomination. I'm not too concerned with more token generation (Call the Scions) and removal (Brood Butcher) in my deck.

See Above, I have added in some of the new BFZ cards. Mainly because some of the cards are super hard to find foil and in many ways cards I don't really enjoy using. (Primarily net-decked cards)

More recently I have taken into account some of the newer cards from BFZ. Some cards, namely Food Chain are just boring for me to play. I noticed that I didn't actively use/tutor/play the card whenever the time came so I viewed that as an open slot for new things.

I found with the Deathrite Shaman, the ability to sift cards out of the game requires tapping, which is usually only a once a turn mechanic. I wanted to add either Scavenging Ooze or Withered Wretch, because they can be activated several times or just a good mana sink before your turn starts.

Almost all Foil, I need that stupid Demonic Tutor Judge Promo...

Foil Toxic Deluge and Ashnod's Altar are coming in the mail, can't wait.