MTG Salvation

So, I decided that instead of land control with Child of Alara, board wipes and winning with Maze's End, I wanted to try a more sideways approach. So here's a deck list I've put together, that I'd love feedback for.



I would love some feedback, whether to speed up the plays or replace cards out, I'm open to ideas on improvement.

Always like a different approach

My suggestion is that the "Genju of the.." enchant land cards are going to be very awkward in a deck with only one target each or needing Prismatic Omen. The number of times they'll be sitting in your hand never played will likely be more than you actually get to play them out. So either I would remove them or have a few more basic land fixers, like Burnished Hart, Solemn Simulacrum, Farseek.

The thing with your strategy is that you are really trying to beat them down with the lands. I feel like you'll find it much harder than you think trying to do damage with activating lands costing between 1-4 mana, then you actually having to tap the creature land itself. Realistically you'll only have enough mana to attack with 2-3 land creatures, each only doing 1-4 damage. You do have Earth Surge to speed up the clock, but I have some more suggestions:

Sylvan Advocate is awesome in your deck, the type of card you don't play until you're setup.
Collective Blessing is a bomb that can really help you speed up the clock.
Gavony Township is expensive at essentially 5 mana to activate, but if you do the math over turns, you'll find its better to activate one less man land to give the others +1/+1 counters.

If you can add Phyrexian Tower and/or High Market to the deck as lands that can sacrifice Child of Alara this is important to be able to control the timing of blowing up the board. On this note you can probably afford to take out some of the sweepers like Day of Judgment as your Commander is the source of sweeping. Put in Volrath's Stronghold to get repetitive value from your commander when needed.
Tolaria west would be a good addition as it can get you any land you need.

With a several of on top of library cards in Druidic Satchel, Oracle of Mul Daya and Nissa, Sage Animist you could put in Sensei Divining Top, always an all star. My only reason to suggest this is that Into The Wilds is another land accelerator seen in land decks.

The Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and Prismatic Omen combo is a lot worse in your deck without Scapeshift. I feel like Scapeshift is so powerful in this type of deck that you'll want to splash out the cash to get it. You can turn all your lands into your man lands, utility, etc. Then you can even get them all back with Splendid Reclamation. Double your mana, sounds pretty broken to me.

On this same note, I feel that Creeping Renaissance is a must with Praetor's Counsel being a possibility. The reason Creeping Renaissance is so good is that with flashback, if goes to your graveyard via a Life from the Loam dredge or opponents mill strategy or even countered the first time, its still available. Extra good in your deck as the "Genju of the.." still have the lands going to the graveyard, so you'll be able to fetch them back later with this card.

Nissa, Vital Force seems awesome in this deck. Also Nissa, Worldwaker seems good and in theme. Obviously playing multiple Nissa planeswalkers can be awkward with only allowed one in play, but you'll probably find that this isn't much of an issue. You probably get a few turns of value before opponents deal with them, before you draw the other ones.

Less in theme with your deck and more just trying to keep it competitive I'd take out Teferi's Response for a straight up Counterspell. Arcane Denial or Swan Song or Pact of Negation. Get a Demonic Tutor, affordable, and so good to get what you need in a pinch.

Another card if you want to go deep is actually Humility. With your man lands not exactly being overwhelming in power and toughness or abilities, this can make a really even/uneven the playing field, when you get your Earth Surge and/or Collective Blessing. Turns off some of your utility creatures, but such a beating to many other players Commander strategies.

With Nissa, Vastwood Seer and the fact that you're Green heavy I'd play one more Snow-Covered Forest.

If you wanted to go really deep then Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper is more of a fun card you could add.

Make sure you put Burgeoning back in. In conjunction with Life from the Loam or Creeping Renaissance you get great value.

Sacred Ground seems like a must.

I like the Nature's Will in this deck, and I'm thinking the Sword of Feast and Famine would also be good to double up and being able to sink all your mana into making the attacks, then being able to cast some spells second main. Seems important to progressing your game.

Cards that you can take out are Æther Snap, more like a sideboard card, and anti to Gavony Township.
Ghostway is going to be hard to use, as activating man lands is so mana intensive that then leaving up a further 3 mana for this card is hard. On top of this doesn't help with your "Genjus".
Remove some combination of the mass creature removals, as I say this is what your Commander is for. Maybe keep in the best two, Wrath of God and Martial Coup, although I'd be tempted to just take all of them out and go hard with your Commander.
Manabond might not be that good in a 43 land deck. If you look at a more classic land decks in Commander they run like 57 lands. You might just find that you never want to use it? Also Summer Bloom probably underwhelming with number of lands?
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth can come out, having a graveyard is a good thing.

I decided to do a pseudo build based off my above suggestions and this is what my version of the deck would look like:



The things I have included to make it a little bit more specialized is that there are actually quite a few enchantments, so I've included Argothian Enchantress and Eidolon of Blossoms as extra draw engines. The main reason is that I like the idea that if the Genjus bounce back to hand, you can get value in recasting them again with either of the draw creatures in play. Added Sylvan Library, great for draw and manipulating top of library for use with those I've already mentioned.

Also going very deep is the inclusion of Jeskai Ascendancy. You can get a reasonable amount of comboing off with activating your man lands, and tapping them for mana, casting non-creatures spells, which there are 45 (quite high) and able to not only generate extra mana, filter through cards, but also getting your man lands big for the turn. Probably the plan is to draw and discard a land each time, as aiming for Splendid Reclamation or Creeping Renaissance to get them back. I didn't include Humilty as suggested in original post, as it turns off the lands ability to tap for mana (if activated), which you don't want.

Replenish as an amazing bounce back card, especially in this deck as Child of Alara will likely be a cause of the enchantments going to graveyard.

This is just my take on the deck. Looks like it could be a lot of fun.

I saw that in your pseudo build you took out Nissa, Vastwood Seer. Any reason why?

I like all of your suggestions and they all make sense. I was going off a primer for Child of Alara to try and build this off another theme, and as it turns out, I did miss some very important items. One of the biggest things I noticed when I was play testing was the lack of mana to activate the lands via their ability. I was either just doing damage with one land or I was doing nothing as I had a lot of {1} mana.

I am going to write down all of your cards, and your list, and compare to re-think my deck. It's a good thing it's just on paper as of right now.

I am also open to more suggestions to fit with the theme.

The one thing I am worried about, is destruction to my lands upon cards that turn them into manlands, without their use of ability. Cards like: Sylvan Advocate. However, I guess that's where the other enchantments come into play, right?

What's your thoughts on Amulet of Vigor?

I am happy to hear someone else thinks a ManLand theme is a fun build off of a Rainbow Legendary, esp a board wiper.

I saw that in your pseudo build you took out Nissa, Vastwood Seer. Any reason why?

No, I'd include her for sure, must have not copy and pasted

One of the biggest things I noticed when I was play testing was the lack of mana to activate the lands via their ability. I was either just doing damage with one land or I was doing nothing as I had a lot of {1} mana.

Yeah to be honest you're a trying to make a 5 color mana intensive deck with budget lands. Its all a bit too much. I play magic online, so all the duel lands, etc are cheap, so my actual land base would be completely different.

If I was to make this deck a bit more competitive then I'd cut red and black spells altogether, but keeping the man lands in those colors. Then re-access the mana base from this.

The one thing I am worried about, is destruction to my lands upon cards that turn them into manlands, without their use of ability. Cards like: Sylvan Advocate. However, I guess that's where the other enchantments come into play, right?

Umm, Sylvan Advocate doesn't actually turn your lands into creatures, but Nissa, Vital Force, Nissa, Worldwaker and Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper do.

I guess the thing is that you got to be a bit fearless about lands getting killed right? The idea is that Life from the Loam, Crucible of the Worlds, Splendid Reclamation, Creeping Renaissance in conjunction with being able to play out multiple lands each turn is kind of the backbone of the deck.

What's your thoughts on Amulet of Vigor?

Obviously with lands coming into play tapped it can help with speeding up turns, but honestly I'd prefer to put in Sword of Feast and Famine over this. You get a similar result with second main with these enter the battlefield tapped lands becoming untapped. Sword of Feast and Famine is just more powerful in general.

I was tempted to construct the deck online, but actually a lot of the cards are expensive. I'd need to be a bit more serious about it before I forked out for some of the cards