Once upon a time (I think it was a Wednesday), I decided that I wanted to do something different. I had two EDH decks at this point, and I decided they were too similar. They were both focused around taking heavy advantage of ETB value effects, with a reasonable control package, and they largely just felt like different coloured variations of each other. So I went looking. I had no idea what I wanted to be doing, I just knew I wanted it to be different, and I wanted it to not be Blue. One day, while perusing, I came across Ghave, Guru of Spores. I'd seen him, of course, in the first Commander precons when they'd been released, but I'd never really taken the time to think about him much. I decided right then that I wanted to make too many tokens and throw them at people.
This deck started off very straight forward. A bunch of token makers, a bunch of anthems, and a bunch of Overruns. I'd originally decided to intentionally go no infinite combo, since at that time I wanted a lower power level deck to play against newer players and whatnot. After a time, I started to like the deck more and more, and decided I wanted to make it better. Since then, the deck has gone through a large number of changes. I decided I wanted a reasonable amount of attrition as a sub theme and added a number of cards to that effect, and finally made the decision to add in a few infinite combos. It is important to note, though, that unlike many other Ghave lists, this one is not focused on combo, it's just there as backup. The main plan for the deck is to make a bunch of tokens and windmill slam something like a Craterhoof Behemoth, then laugh at people, all while trying to keep their boards and hands empty with things like Grave Pact, Aura Shards, and Sadistic Hypnotist. It's fun, it's powerful, and it gets the job done.
This deck is a lot of fun to play, largely because of how threat-dense it tends to be. Obviously when making armies people are going to want to keep wrathing the board, but this deck plays so many army-in-a-can cards that it can bounce back almost every time. I can even vividly recall a game where an opponent wiped the board four turns in a row, because after each time I would just untap and threaten to kill him again if he didn't.
After a lot of time spent tweaking, tuning, and playing, I've come to a point where I'm generally very happy with the deck, and it's one of my main three decks that I play on a regular basis with friends. Maybe I can inspire some of you to throw tokens at your friends, too!
Why play Ghave?
Short answer: he's awesome. Long answer: Ghave is a very powerful general, allowing for really tight builds focusing on tokens, combos, attrition, or some combination of the three. This is very largely because he not only makes tokens, but has his own built in sac outlet, which is an incredibly powerful thing to have around on a general. He flourishes in a deck built with his abilities in mind. Beyond that, he's in three fantastic colours for a lot of powerful cards, with access to all the best removal, ramp, and tutors.
Marath, Will of the Wild - It's very easy to compare Marath to Ghave. They share two colours, both enter with counters, and have somewhat similar abilities, both allowing for moving counters onto other creatures and creating tokens. They can be played very similarly, with Marath swapping out access to Black for access to Red. But there are some big differences:
Marath has a lower initial cost, and his counters scale with his mana cost, benefiting from the additional cost on recasts, while Ghave gets no extra benefit, and has a higher cost
Marath's token creation can be versatile, creating tokens of varying sizes, while Ghave always creates 1/1s
Marath offers built in removal and direct damage, while Ghave instead offers a built in sac outlet
Marath can only use his own counters, while Ghave can move counters anywhere among your creatures, or use counters from other creatures to create tokens
Conclusions: While their token potentials are quite similar, Ghave's abilities lend themselves much better toward attrition and combos. Ghave's higher cost can be prohibitive sometimes, but that can be overcome with additional ramp and big mana.
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher - Prossh also has a lot in common with Ghave, but in different ways. Just like Marath, he gives access to Red, but keeps the Black and instead trades off White. He too makes tokens, but that's about where his similarities end. In contrast:
Prossh has a higher initial cost, but his power scales with his cost, while Ghave's doesn't
Prossh creates all of his tokens on cast, while Ghave requires additional mana to generate tokens
Prossh also has a built in sac outlet, which has the benefit of costing no mana, but can only affect himself, while Ghave's sac outlet is much more versatile
Prossh comes with evasion and built in pump, making him very good at just outright killing opponents with general damage, while Ghave can also pump himself but lacks the evasion
Conclusions: Once again, Ghave's abilities lend themselves much better to attrition and combo, while they have fairly equivalent token creation potential. Prossh has some big benefits, like scaling value and instant token generation, but taking advantage of his built in sac outlet to pump and swing for general damage kills can often lead to blowouts, with opponents killing Prossh before damage.
Rhys the Redeemed - Rhys is much more different from Ghave than Prossh or Marath, but can still offer a very powerful deck. Losing the third colour and having less versatile abilities tends to make his strategy much more linear. He also creates tokens, and shares two colours. As for big differences:
Rhys has a significantly lower initial cost, allowing him to always come down very early, while Ghave is much more mana hungry
Rhys can only initially create one token at a time, and requires tapping to do so, while Ghave can pump out multiple per turn starting from the turn he's cast
Rhys's second ability, once it becomes relevant, doubles all our tokens, allowing for very quickly creating massive armies, while Ghave doesn't have that ability to change gears
Rhys loses out on a lot of added utility that Ghave offers, with much more linear abilities and nothing but pure token generation
Conclusions: With his very low mana cost, Rhys can come down very early and get out of hand quickly, but casting him in the later game can be much worse. Also, he's much easier for opponents to shut down due to his linear strategy, and doesn't offer the same sort of utility and resilience that Ghave offers. Playing Ghave, however, allows us to play Rhys in the deck, so we can still take advantage of him.
Each of those generals definitely offers some benefits over Ghave, and they are all fantastic choices. However, Ghave continues to offer the highest amount of utility, and has a higher synergy with a much larger card pool, with his abilities lending themselves very well to combos and attrition, while maintaining roughly equivalent token generation potential. Also notable, Ghave sits at something of a cost sweet spot, where he's not super fast, but not so high as to be unmanageable.
Other Abzan Generals
Anafenza, the Foremost - She gives built in graveyard hate, which is the kind of utility that's nice to have on a general. She seems best for a "good stuff" type of deck, and doesn't really offer much for a token deck.
Daghatar the Adamant - This guy is almost just a strictly worse Ghave. He costs one less, but comes down with one fewer counter, and Ghave can move counters around for 2.
Doran, the Siege Tower - Another general that works really well for a "good stuff" deck, with a focus on large toughness creatures. Not great for tokens, though.
Karador, Ghost Chieftain - Karador is a fantastic choice for a reanimator deck or creature toolbox deck, but doesn't do much here.
Teneb, the Harvester - Fills all the same rolls as Karador, but no replacement for Ghave.
The selection of Abzan generals is somewhat slim, and none of them do much for us here. Ghave is the only one that offers what we want, as far as a token and attrition deck goes.
Reasons you may enjoy playing Ghave
You enjoy making armies of tokens
You enjoy grinding out your opponents with attrition
You enjoy playing a threat dense deck that takes over in the later game
You enjoy being able to go from no board presence to a win very quickly in the late game
You like playing with big numbers and a lot of creature and combat math
Reasons you may not enjoy playing Ghave
You prefer playing a heavy permission control strategy
You prefer to play super fast decks that explode in the early game
You prefer playing a few large creatures instead of a lot of small ones
You prefer winning without the use of the combat step
You dislike combat math and dealing with large numbers
Strengths
Enchantment/Artifact Strategies - Against these decks we can just tutor up Aura Shards as soon as possible, and completely ruin their day. Ghave himself, not to mention many other cards in the deck, gives us an easy way to repeatedly trigger it to just keep blowing up whatever they put down.
Control Decks - Between a combination of our attrition pieces, being very threat dense, and our ability to bounce back from a board wipe, many control decks will have an issue keeping us under control.
Creature Decks - We can beat most "normal" creature decks purely on the fact that we make more creatures than them, and can frequently just chump all their threads until we just go bigger and overwhelm them. On top of that, attrition really hurts midrangy creature type decks.
Weaknesses
Stax/MLD - Ghave is very mana hungry. He wants a lot of mana, and so do many of the cards in the deck. If our mana sources are constantly being destroyed it can put us in a very bad spot. Against these kinds of decks we really want to ramp as much as possible and try to keep them on the defensive.
Direct Damage/Life Drain - Taking advantage of a number of the cards in this deck can eat away at our own life quite a bit. Things like Necropotence and Sylvan Library are prime examples of this. As a result, we can end up at a relatively love life total before we end up going to find some massive life gain (Trostani, Selesnya's Voice, Vault of the Archangel, etc), and this can put us dangerously close to being Fireballed or Exsanguinated out. It's not a massive weakness, but it can get us out of nowhere if we don't pay attention.
Dedicated Combo Decks - Aside from the times when we combo off pretty early, this deck is not particularly fast. It spends most of the early game on setup, and sometimes a very fast deck will just get away from us before we're really even ready to play. This can be mitigated by trying to mull into/hang onto some of our good removal and slowing them down as best we can, or just going for the straight combo game, which this deck is perfectly capable of doing.
Unlike many of the Ghave decks out there, while this one can combo off, it's not plan A and the deck isn't built to focus on it. Instead, what we really want to be doing here is pretty simple. We want to make an army of tokens, pump them in some way, and kill people. The easiest way to do this is with something like White Sun's Zenith at the end of an opponent's turn, untap and play Craterhoof Behemoth. This method will steal wins out of nowhere quite frequently. Beyond that, there's are tons of somewhat slower ways of building an army, and those other ways also lead very well into the sub theme of this deck.
That sub theme is attrition. We play with hateful cards like Grave Pact, Sadistic Hypnotist, and Aura Shards, all of which allow us to play a grindy game, disrupting our opponents and keeping their boards clear until we're ready to overwhelm them with a token army and take the win. Playing Ghave himself allows us to easily abuse all of those attrition cards, as he creates tokens to trigger Aura Shards, can eat them to trigger Grave Pact, or those tokens can be eaten by a Sadistic Hypnotist to empty opponents' hands. On top of that, we can do dirty things like repeated Woodfall Primus triggers, or Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite + Kamahl, Fist of Krosa (giving us "G: Destroy target land") to really hurt people's feelings.
One of the crazy things about Ghave is that he's like the MacGyver of combos. People joke about how one can have Ghave and three or four other cards on the table and have access to an infinite combo without even realizing it, and it's really true. However, since we don't want to be playing convoluted combos, and we don't want to focus fully on combo, instead what we have are a number of redundant combo pieces that can be swapped out for one another and still enable the loop to function. The biggest benefit of keeping it trimmed this way is that every combo piece card is still very good by itself, and is not a dead draw when not using it to combo.
With this loop, we can obviously just win in combat, by attacking with an arbitrary number of arbitrarily large tokens. However, sometimes that isn't an option, and so we have other things to accomplish with this loop:
+ Aura Shards = destroy all artifacts and enchantments
+ Woodfall Primus = destroy all noncreature permanents
+ Grave Pact = kill all creatures
+ Spike Weaver = infinite Fogs
+ Blood Artist = infinite life drain
That's just a small sample, as there are many other cards that can be added to the loop for extra effects. It's also important to note that each of those additional cards, just like the core combo pieces, is a fantastic card to play outside of the combo, and very abusable with just Ghave himself.
It's worth noting here that the "Mike + Trike" combo is intentionally excluded. With any desire to make the deck more competitive this should almost certainly be added in. However, it's important to keep in mind that, even in more competitive play groups, this sort of thing will frequently be frowned upon.
This deck wants Ghave to always be on the battlefield. Generally speaking, it's almost always best to cast him as soon as we can. As soon as he's on the table everything else we do gets better. With the amount of ramp and big mana this deck offers, recasting him the first, or even second, time is usually not much of a problem at all, so it's perfectly okay to play him early and let him eat a removal. There will be many times when it's even most beneficial to play him early, end up eating all of his counters for tokens, and then just recast him for a fresh set.
While there are certainly plenty more to be aware of, these are some of the key ones. Luckily, we get to play a very healthy and diverse suite of removal cards. We have heavily repeatable effects like Aura Shards and Woodfall Primus, as well as purely diverse removal like Vindicate and Utter End. Any time we're matched up against a deck that we expect to play these sorts of cards, it's a great idea to try to hang onto a piece of removal or two so that we can try to clear them away as soon as we want/need to.
Opening Hands and Early Game
There are two things we really, really want to see in an opening hand:
1) Ramp. Lots and lots of ramp. The more the better. It's incredibly powerful to be able to curve either Sol Ring or Farseek into an early Skyshroud Claim
2) Early game setup cards. Things like Bitterblossom, Awakening Zone, Sylvan Library, and Phyrexian Arena are all fantastic examples of that.
Ideally what we want is some amount of both of those things. We want to be spending most of the early game on ramping. Ghave is very mana hungry, and we want to ramp as much as we can. We want to hit lands drops and use any early tutors on ramp. Enlightened Tutor or Vampiric Tutor in the opening hand should always be used to go get Sol Ring or Mana Crypt. In between ramping and playing lands, we want to drop any early game setup we have. Bitterblossom, Awakening Zone, Phyrexian Arena, etc. These cards will all help us to go into the mid game strong.
Here are some examples of early games with great hands:
At this point, we're in an absolutely beautiful position. We've got a really nice mana supply going on, and we're ready to untap and either play something cool that we've drawn, or start Skullclamping our Saprolings to draw a ton of cards. We're probably way, way ahead here.
This hand represents a much slower start, but still a great hand. From here, we have Rhys the Redeemed on the table and can start dumping mana into him as soon as we have nothing better to do. We also have Academy Rector in hand, with Phyrexian Tower on the table. We can use this to go find something like Mirari's Wake and just start going to town with Rhys. We've also drawn a few cards at this point, still have Solemn Simulacrum to sac to Phyrexian Tower for a little extra mana and a card, and we still have Ghave to play and start having fun with!
Mid Game
This is where we ideally want to be playing any of the bigger setup cards that we couldn't play in the early game (Doubling Season, Mirari's Wake, etc), and things to slow down our opponents. Usually if we're going to use our few board wipes, this is where we want to do it. This is also a great time to find Sadistic Hypnotist, Aura Shards, and other cards to grind down on our opponents and hold them back.
Late Game
Sometimes we'll manage it in the mid game, but in most cases this is where we're going to win. We want to flood the board as much as we can and just straight up overrun people. Sometimes we'll do this quickly and easily, with things like Secure the Wastes and Decree of Justice, and follow it up with a Craterhoof Behemoth. That's a pretty ideal scenario. But a lot of the time we'll need to do it a little more slowly. We can even just play out Ghave and keep making tokens, with fuel to keep going.
Obviously there are many cards that we could play, but not every card makes the cut. 100 cards seems like a lot until we find ourselves sitting at 115 trying to make cuts.
So, with that in mind, here is a list of cards. Bold names indicate that the card is in the current incarnation of this list. This is certainly not a complete list of every card that could be in this deck, but more accurately a list of all the cards that are in this list, have been in this list, or have been considered for this list. Any and all suggestion for other cards to be added here are more than welcome.
On Colour Fetchlands - Marsh Flats, Verdant Catacomb, and Windswept Heath. These are at their best when we've got the dual lands and shocklands to go with them. Great for making sure we get the colours we need, and they help thin out the deck for us.
Off Colour Fetchlands - This one really comes down to a matter of preference. That being said, they're only worth running with the full set of duals and shocks, otherwise they're just not worth it. Having the extra fetchlands gives you some extra deck thinning, which is especially helpful when a build has a higher land count.
Core Duals/Check Lands - Isolated Chapel, Woodland Cemetery, and Sunpetal Grove. Sometimes they come into play tapped, but they're still solid lands. They're especially good alongside the shocklands and original duals, since those have the basic land types these look for.
Battle Duals - Canopy Vista is the only one currently available. Basic types duals are great.
Any Colour Painlands - City of Brass, Mana Confluence, and Grand Coliseum. While the Coliseum can tap for mana without hurting, coming in tapped makes it by far the worst of the three. Most of the time the pain is worth the fixing.
Filter Lands - Fetid Heath, Twilight Mire, and Wooded Bastion. These are fine lands to play, especially when lacking duals and/or fetches. They can really help with the colour fixing.
Basic Lands - Plains, Swamp, and Forest. Always a good idea to play at least 2 of each to find off of Path to Exile or Ghost Quarter, and to grab off of the fetchlands when need be.
Ancient Tomb - Hurts every time we use it (excluding times with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth on the table), but it also ramps for free. All around solid card.
Bojuka Bog - Fantastic piece of graveyard hate. Comes into play tapped, which can be unfortunate sometimes, but after that it taps for B, and even if it didn't, having this ability "for free" often makes up for the downside.
Cabal Coffers - Sometimes this card won't do a whole lot, but once you've got an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth on the table it does a whole bunch. Can't really go wrong with big mana.
Command Tower - The essential land for every multi-colour deck. Printed specifically for the format, it needs no introduction.
Gaea's Cradle - This land is absolutely fantastic. A must have for any token deck. The amount of mana it produces is insane.
Gavony Township - While it's not the cheapest effect, what it does for us is really big. Putting counters on all of our creatures gives us unending fuel for Ghave.
Grim Backwoods - This card makes for a really solid spot filler. It's great for when we start to run out of resources, as we often have plenty of tokens to feed into it.
Mosswort Bridge - Same idea as Windbrisk Heights, but the condition on this one isn't nearly as easy to satisfy in this deck, usually.
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood - This comes in tapped and has to be used the turn the creatures come in, and only hits green creatures. While costing more, Gavony Township is just way, way better.
Phyrexian Tower - This can give us an extra little bit of ramp when we need it, and we often have many tokens to feed into it. It's also great for sacrificing Academy Rector.
Reflecting Pool - Most of the time this will just be a second Command Tower.
Reliquary Tower - Staple card, should be in just about every EDH deck. Especially good with Necropotence and other big draw.
Sandsteppe Citadel - Unfortunate that it comes into play tapped, but it makes all of our colours with no other downside. Strictly worse than Command Tower, but still well worth having.
Wasteland - This card is just a strictly worse Strip Mine, but it's much better than the other options, and it's nice to have backup.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - A black staple land. Does good things on its own, giving us plenty of black mana, and it does wonderful things with Cabal Coffers.
Vault of the Archangel - Just like with Gavony Township, the effect isn't cheap, but it's huge. The amount of life gain it can give us is obscene, and giving everything deathtouch means that combat almost always goes in our favour.
Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree - Just like with Grim Backwoods, this is another great slot filler, and another card that gives us something to do when we're low on resources.
Volrath's Stronghold - This card is handy for when we really need/want a creature out of the graveyard.
Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim - Her second ability might not happen all that often, but when it does it's fantastic. Her first ability helps get you there, and it's nice to have more instant speed sac outlets, especially for responding to things like Massacre Wurm.
Blood Artist - Playing this guy early will offer a lot of life drain as the game progresses, as we're constantly sacrificing things to Ghave. He's also an instant win with the combo loop on the table.
Scavenging Ooze - Another green staple. Not only does he offer some fantastic graveyard hate, but he also gets counters that we can use as fuel for Ghave.
Zulaport Cutthroat - Having a second Blood Artist is pretty sweet. He's actually simultaneously a little better and a little worse. He doesn't trigger for opponents' creatures dying, but he does hit all opponents when he triggers, and he's a 1/1 instead of a 0/1. Great inclusion.
Champion of Lambholt - This card has a cool effect, and the potential to get very big very fast. However, because of the large number of creatures we're usually dealing with, making our entire team unblockable is often just not something we really need.
Fertilid - This card has the potential to very quickly pull all of the basic lands out of the deck. He can be a bit slow, but with a high enough basic land count he's definitely worth it. He also offers more counter fodder for Ghave, when the lands aren't needed.
Geralf's Messenger - A staple for combo centric lists, he combos very easily with Ghave and large number of other cards, just like any cards with Undying generally do. The biggest benefit of this one is that looping him gives an instant win.
Academy Rector - This is a great card anyway, but having a sac outlet right on our general makes it even better. We play a decent number of enchantments that we just always want on the field, and this can go get us whichever one is best suited at the time.
Creakwood Liege - The anthem can be very powerful, and he's reasonably costed. Getting a token (3/3 as long as he remains on the table) on every upkeep is very good, but a little slow. Generally a worse option than Bitterblossom for that sort of effect.
Oracle of Mul Daya - A common green staple. Performs best in decks with high land counts and/or a lot of top deck manipulation.
Sigil Captain - This guy works best in lists that aren't running anthem effects. Also commonly found in combo lists, as he's another replacement combo piece.
Smothering Abomination - There is a ton of draw potential here. His mandatory sacrifice can hurt sometimes, every once in a while causing the loss of a relevant/valuable creature, but the majority of the time, with this guy and a Ghave on the table, it's just all the cards.
Solemn Simulacrum - This guy should be in almost every single EDH deck. He ramps, he costs only colourless, and he draws a card when he dies. Just like with Academy Rector, having a sac outlet on our general makes this guy even better.
Spike Weaver - Having access to essentially unending Fogs is really, really powerful. Especially great against hyper aggressive decks, certain combo decks, and Voltron decks. On top of that, the counters are more fuel for Ghave when the ability isn't needed.
Trostani, Selesnya's Voice - The populate ability on this is fine, but not the main reason for playing it. Sometimes a lot of life gain is needed, and this can provide silly amounts, especially with any anthems on the table.
Acidic Slime - A green staple, he's great to have around when we're already playing Green Sun's Zenith and Chord of Calling. He's a little expensive, though, and not as good as our other options for destroying those permanents.
Juniper Order Ranger - This guy is fantastic for more combo focused builds. He can be a little bit underwhelming outside of combo, though. He servers as another replacement piece for Doubling Season/Cathars' Crusade/etc.
Mycoloth - A great army-in-a-can card for removal light metas. With even just a few creatures for him to devour, his ability will flood the board very quickly.
Sadistic Hypnotist - This is one of the key attrition cards in the deck. In many cases, we'll be able to take out all opponents' entire hands the turn we play it, and make sure they can't hold onto any cards going forward.
Seedborn Muse - This card has been heavily drowned out by Prophet of Kruphix, but it's still a green staple. It allows us to tap out on our turn, and then have mana to use on Ghave's abilities abilities on opponents' turns, which is really powerful.
Grave Titan - An absolutely solid card and always a good choice. Another great army-in-a-can.
Kamahl, Fist of Krosa - This card can be a bit mana heavy, but he serves two really great purposes here. First, he gives us a repeatable Overrun effect, which is fantastic for actually killing people. Second, he has a really, really mean interaction with Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, giving us "G: Destroy target land".
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed - This card is all around solid, giving an anthem effect as well as allowing us to have Ghave eat our non-token creatures and have them come back with a counter to fuel Ghave, letting us abuse any ETB effects. More combo focused lists are where he really shines, though.
Realm Seekers - This card is a little slow, but when it can be kept around for a few turns it does a lot, grabbing all the sweet effect lands and big mana lands out of the deck.
Sun Titan - Should be in almost every white deck. Gives us a ton of extra value from a lot of our cards, and a great way to get back some of our key cards, like Ashnod's Altar and Aura Shards.
Tolsimir Wolfblood - This card tends to be too expensive for what he does, and his single token creation isn't particularly valuable.
Avenger of Zendikar - While not the green staple that he once was, he's still phenomenal in this deck. He's one of our best army-in-a-can cards, and a great Tooth and Nail target, as getting him with Craterhoof Behemoth will often win the game, even with only a few creatures on the board able to attack.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - Easily one of the best anthem effects in the deck, as it also gives a huge debuff to our opponents' creatures and will keep their field clear of chump blockers and small utility creatures. Also, she's absolutely dirty with Kamahl, Fist of Krosa.
Hornet Queen - Another fantastic army-in-a-can card. Doesn't give as many tokens as Avenger of Zendikar, but the tokens have flying and deathtouch, which is incredibly powerful.
Pentavus - Commonly found in combo centric Ghave decks. He can serve as a replacement for Ghave in many of the combo loops in a pinch.
Craterhoof Behemoth - One of the all-stars in the deck, and the primary source of 90% of the game wins. He wins so easily out of nowhere, and is a cool guy.
Woodfall Primus - While he may seem a little expensive for the effect, being able to repeat that effect indefinitely with Ghave pushes him over the top. The small amount of added value with Murmuring Bosk is nice, too.
Mana Crypt - One of the best mana rocks ever printed, great card that helps get up in mana quickly.
Orochi Hatchery - This card requires a fairly hefty mana investment before it becomes really crazy, but it has the potential to make massive armies very quickly.
Nihil Spellbomb - A fantastic option for graveyard hate in any black deck. Being able to draw a card off of it is fantastic, and it's recurrable with Sun Titan.
Sensei's Divining Top - A general EDH staple. Great for top deck manipulation, smoothing out draws, and drawing in a pinch. Even better with shuffle effects.
Skullclamp - The number of cards we draw from this thing is just silly. It should always be included.
Sol Ring - Another of the best mana rocks ever printed, this card should be in every EDH deck ever.
Ashnod's Altar - One of the core combo pieces for any Ghave deck, and it offers some great ramp on top of that.
Coalition Relic - Easily one of the better mana rocks in existence. The fact that it has the potential to add two mana, of any two colours, when we need it to is really powerful.
Phyrexian Altar - Very similar to Ashnod's Altar, also functions as a combo piece, but provides one mana of any colour instead of two colourless. One of the better combo piece inclusions.
Eldrazi Monument - This card is really solid as it works as both an anthem and protection from most board wipes. It's much better in lists with a lower threat density, where a board wipe is a bigger problem.
Akroma's Memorial - While expensive, it's one of the few haste giving cards we can play in Abzan colours. Having one of these on the field very, very heavily moves the game in our favour.
Concordant Crossroads - One of the few haste giving effects that we have access to in Abzan colours. It's a very cheap enchantment, but has the huge downside of being symmetrical, which leads to us frequently not wanting to cast it.
Hardened Scales - For Ghave, this functions like half of a Doubling Season for a very much lower cost, and is an absolutely fantastic combo piece of that reason. Even without trying to combo, the extra counters are really nice and this is worth consideration.
Bitterblossom - Costs us a little life, but it comes down super early and it gives us a steady stream of tokens. Gives us a little more early game play, which is really nice, since this deck tends to be all about the late game.
Earthcraft - One of the better combo pieces in the deck, and it offers a lot of ramp with the number of tokens we create. This one allows us to play Ghave and immediately make all of his tokens, giving a lot of mana for the next turn, or a lot of creatures for Gaea's Cradle.
Luminarch Ascension - This is a solid card, but it's only great in certain metas. With a lot of aggressive decks sometimes we'll never even get to turn it on, and with removal heavy decks it will often just get blown up as soon as it goes active. If we can get it on and keep it, though, it can quickly take over a game.
Sterling Grove - With the number of sweet enchantments we play, being able to protect them and/or tutor up one we want or need is really desirable.
Sylvan Library - Absolute green staple. This should be in every green deck. Also, real men take 8.
Attrition - Despite the name sounding like exactly what we want to be doing, this card just never ends up being as useful as it looks. Grave Pact is almost always just way better.
Aura Shards - This is one of the best enchantments in the deck, and tends to garner a lot of hate as soon as it hits the table. This allows us to constantly keep all opponents' fields clear of artifacts and enchantments forever.
Awakening Zone - Just like with Bitterblossom, this card gives us some early game and a steady stream of tokens. And on top of that, the tokens even ramp.
Beastmaster Ascension - This is a huge pump for the team when it's active. The biggest issue is that it doesn't always do something the turn it comes down.
Fecundity - There's no arguing that this is a very powerful card, but it has one very huge drawback in the form of symmetry. Giving our opponents cards is definitely not something we ever want to be doing, especially when we're trying to fight a war of attrition. Giving them extra resources is not good.
Mobilization - The biggest issue with this card is that it's slow. We don't focus enough on Soldiers for the Vigilance to be all that helpful, and unless we're making infinite mana in some way, 2W is just too expensive for a single 1/1 Soldier.
Necropotence - While this eats at our life, and bites us sometimes by exiling anything discarded, and it is a nonbo with Sylvan Library, the insane amount of card draw it offers is beyond worth it. Being able to refill our hand at the end of every turn can get us way ahead. The value of this card can't be overstated.
Phyrexian Arena - Another great early game play. This gives us continued gas as we progress into the later game and start the attrition war. Having the edge in resources is a huge advantage.
Sacred Mesa - Just like with Mobilization, this has the same issue of being slow, and on top of that it has to be used right away or else it dies.
Grave Pact - One of the best attrition cards we have available to us. With the number of creatures we are constantly sacrificing, this allows us to continuously keep our opponents' fields clear of creatures.
Parallel Lives - Doubling tokens is great, and it's yet another combo piece. Casting this one, however, always feel so much worse than casting either Doubling Season or Cathars' Crusade, and it's much better in list that are always trying to combo off.
Cathars' Crusade - This card is absolutely nuts, and is a must answer threat. Being able to not only have infinite fuel for Ghave, but also making the entire team huge is insanely powerful. It's also one of the best combo pieces for the loop.
Dictate of Erebos - Slightly more expensive than Grave Pact, with the addition of Flash. Much better than Martyr's Bond here, since we are only ever sacrificing creatures anyway.
Dictate of Heliod - While the flash aspect is really cool and can cause some huge combo blowouts, Collective Blessing is usually the better choice. The extra +1/+1 may not seem like much, but it's pretty huge.
Doubling Season - Just like with Cathars' Crusade, this card is a must answer threat. It still gives us infinite fuel for Ghave, but doesn't make our team huge on its own. It does, however, make our planeswalkers way, way better, and is one of the best combo pieces.
Mirari's Wake - Doubling mana in a very mana hungry deck is incredibly powerful, and the anthem is not irrelevant when attacking with armies of tokens.
Primal Vigor - This is just a much, much worse Doubling Season. Not only does it not help with any counters other than +1/+1 counters, losing us the added planeswalker bonus, it's also symmetrical. While we're most certainly taking more advantage of it than opponents will be, we still don't want to take the risk if we can avoid it. This would be a fine option, however, for a deck that is focused very heavily on combo, as another redundant effect.
Privileged Position - This is a fantastic card, and works very well for protecting our important permanents. It can be tutored into play by sacrificing Academy Rector in response for a blowout play.
Mana Reflection - Costs more than Mirari's Wake but also does a whole lot more with things like Gaea's Cradle and Cabal Coffers. Loses out on the added value of the anthem, though, and that little extra cost is very relevant with this sort of card.
Collective Blessing - Having a +3/+3 static pump is absolutely huge. This will frequently win games, as it's almost like a static Overrun. It also gives huge added value to Trostani, Selesnya's Voice and Shamanic Revelation. However, it is a large up front cost for a card that does nothing by itself.
Nissa, Voice of Zendikar - Everything she does is good for this deck. She makes tokens, she makes +1/+1 counters, and she draws cards. On top of that, she comes down early and is recurrable with Sun Titan.
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad - While his tokens are good, the best thing we get from Sorin is the permanent anthem effect. Having multiples gets out of hand. Every once in a while his ultimate will just take over a game, too.
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury - Her primary use here is to just tick up, creating ramping tokens, until we're ready to use her ultimate to refill our hand. Her built in Naturalize is also very relevant, though, and comes in handy quite frequently.
Liliana Vess - A black staple, should be in almost every black deck. She adds to our attrition plan, as well as giving us more tutor. Just like with many other planeswalkers, every once in a while her ultimate will just take over a game for us.
Elspeth, Sun's Champion - Making three tokens as a +1 ability is absolutely insane. Just like with Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury, we almost always just want t tick her up until we can use her ultimate.
Enlightened Tutor - We play a lot of artifacts and enchantments here that we always want to have, and this helps us find them. It's also incredibly useful for turn 1 tutoring up Sol Ring.
Path to Exile - One of the best creature removal cards out there. Being able to exile a creature for a single white mana is always good. Should be an auto-include in any white deck.
Secure the Wastes - Being able to make a large number of tokens at instant speed (such as on an opponent's end step), is incredibly powerful. Following up a card like this with Craterhoof Behemoth will generally always win the game.
Vampiric Tutor - One of the best tutors printed. Should often be an auto-include in any black deck.
Abzan Charm - This is one of the better three colour charms that has been printed. The Night's Whisper mode is very handy, as is the creature exile. The +1/+1 counters will rarely be used, but they're still very handy in a pinch for winning combat, or for fuel for Ghave.
Beast Within - This is a fantastic, versatile piece of removal. Being able to destroy any permanent at instant speed is very powerful, and we rarely care if they get a beast token.
Chord of Calling - Quite frankly, the main reason this card is even here is to tutor up Craterhoof Behemoth. That being said, there are plenty of other creatures we want to go get, in various situations, and we frequently have a lot of tokens to feed into the Convoke.
Hero's Downfall - Not as versatile as some of the other removal we have here, but still a really solid card.
White Sun's Zenith - This one is a little worse than Secure the Wastes, because it costs more and has a higher colour requirement. Also, having more 1/1s is generally more useful for us than having fewer 2/2s.
Utter End - This is a fantastic piece of removal. It's versatile and instant speed, and it exiles, getting rid of things permanently.
Demonic Tutor - This is the best tutor there is. Should be in every single black deck.
Diabolic Intent - For us, this card is almost as good as Demonic Tutor. We generally have plenty of tokens and sacrificing one to it won't matter much to us.
Farseek - This is fantastic, cheap ramp, that can go find us duals and shocklands. Given that much of our other ramp looks specifically for Forests, it's usually best to go get Godless Shrine or Scrubland with this one.
Martial Coup - It doesn't have the surprise factor of our other X token creators, but it gives us the added value of a Wrath effect when we need/want it.
Nature's Lore - This is even better than Farseek, purely on the merit that it finds the land untapped. With Mirari's Wake on the table, this is essentially free.
Regrowth - It doesn't do anything big and fancy, but it can return any one card from the graveyard, and that's often enough.
Three Visits - This is just the Portal version of Nature's Lore. A great addition when a little more ramp is desired.
Entreat the Angels - Unfortunately, this card is only good when we get to Miracle it, and even then, it's usually not as good as our other X token creation options.
Maelstrom Pulse - This isn't quite as good as Vindicate, but almost. Always a solid removal option.
Vindicate - One of the best removal spells ever printed. It's cheap and it hits any permanent. The only downside to this is that it's a sorcery, but the power level of this is worth it.
Decree of Justice - This is the best X token creator we have. Many people look at this card and see a worse Entreat the Angels, but that's really just not the case. The correct way to look at this is as an uncounterable Secure the Wastes that also draws a card. We will essentially never, ever cast this for it's normal cost and effect.
Hunting Wilds - This is just a strictly better Ranger's Path. The Kicker may not be relevant often, but it's better than not having it at all.
Austere Command - The second best Command. Incredibly versatile, and a staple for any white deck.
Hour of Reckoning - Whenever an extra board wipe is desired this is a great option. Most of the time it will hurt us very little while hurting everyone else a lot.
Decree of Pain - Sometimes we really just need to wipe the board, and if we must, then we might as well get a ton of cards for it, right? The cost can be very prohibitive on this, though.
Praetor's Counsel - This card is incredibly powerful, especially late game, in a meta with little graveyard hate. However, it is very high cost, and in a meta that does have a lot of graveyard hate it frequently won't do as much as it could.
2013-07-22 Juniper Order Ranger ➝ Liliana Vess - I've come to feel that Juniper Order Ranger is much better in decks that are much more focused on combo, as he serves as another redundant combo piece, and Liliana gives a ton of added value. Forest ➝ Murmuring Bosk - Not entirely sure why it wasn't there to begin with.
2013-07-23 Tolsimir Wolfblood ➝ Woodfall Primus - Never really needed/wanted that one extra anthem all that often, and making the single token wasn't super relevant. Also, I appreciate the very small amount of added value between Woodfall Primus and Murmuring Bosk, and I like the idea of, having a repeatable Bramblecrush all the time (assuming Ghave is on the field).
2015-03-16
Huge changes to the deck. These changes have actually happened over time, but I forgot this thread even existed until just now, so it looks like a pretty huge overhaul. Elspeth Tirel ➝ Elspeth, Sun's Champion - Almost a strict upgrade. Sun's Champion is just so much better in so many ways. Garruk Relentless ➝ Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury - I like the fact that she ramps while making tokens, and having -2 Naturalize is pretty legit, too. Beyond that, her ultimate is incredibly useful in this deck, and I gotten sick of having dead a dead Garruk in my hand with the other on the field. Ranger's Path ➝ Hunting Wilds - Strict upgrade. Decree of Pain ➝ Shamanic Revelation - I came to the realize that I generally just never needed the extra Wrath effect, and Shamanic Revelation draws nearly as many cards, without nuking my board, and with incidental lifegain. Hour of Reckoning ➝ Crop Rotation - Same as with Decree of Pain, I just decided I didn't need the Wrath, and being able to tutor up Gaea's Cradle onto the field makes me pretty happy. Entreat the Angels ➝ Praetor's Counsel - Because Praetor's Counsel is insane and I'm sad I wasn't playing it before. I can't even remember a time I got to Miracle Entreat. Mortify ➝ Utter End - Costs a little more, but much more versatile. Putrefy ➝ Abzan Charm - Exiles most relevant creature threats, card draw in a pinch, and counters for the random combat blowout from time to time. Increasing Devotion ➝ Diabolic Intent - While Increasing Devotion is certainly a great card, I really like having the extra tutor, and I almost always have creatures to feed into it. And using Diabolic Intent on an Academy Rector is one of my favourite things. Coalition Relic ➝ Ashnod's Altar - I decided to scrap my previous decision to make this a comboless deck, and Altar enables that while still giving me ramp most of the time. Concordant Crossroads ➝ Earthcraft - I found that overall I just wasn't super happy with it, since it's symmetrical and I just held on to it most of the time. Earthcraft gives me some ramp, and more potential to combo off. Parallel Lives ➝ Awakening Zone - Most of the time I wasn't happy to see Parallel Lives. I just felt like it didn't do enough. This is another card that is way better in combo focused lists. Awakening Zone, yet again, gives me more ramp, as well as adding to my early game, which I felt was pretty weak before. Creakwood Liege ➝ Bitterblossom - I felt like Liege was just a little too slow. Bitterblossom is more resilient and comes down sooner. Oracle of Mul Daya ➝ Spike Weaver - While I love Oracle, I came to the realization that I had been seriously undervaluing Spike Weaver. Since adding it, it's become one of my favourite cards in the deck. I haven't missed Oracle so much, since I've added other ramp that doesn't also show my opponents all of my draws. Acidic Slime ➝ Sadistic Hypnotist. I found that most of the time I didn't need the Acidic Slime backup, with Utter End and Vindicate and Aura Shards. I've been loving Sadistic Hypnotist. Don't think it even needs explaining. Mycoloth ➝ Seedborn Muse - Way too many times did I cast a Mycoloth, practically Wrathing my own board, only to have it killed before getting any value off of it. Seedborn Muse is sweet, 'nuff said. Grave Titan ➝ Hornet Queen. Hornet Queen is another card I feel like I previously undervalued, and I feel like I was a bit weak to flying things before. This helps there. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed ➝ Sun Titan - Different recursion, I've liked it better. Does a lot of things. Oran-Rief, the Vastwood ➝ Bojuka Bog. Found I wanted a bit more graveyard hate, and Oran-Rief often just did nothing. Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree ➝ Boseiju, Who Shelters All. Vitu-Ghazi was mostly a spot filler, and making my big spells uncounterable makes me very happy. Volrath's Stronghold ➝ Sandsteppe Citadel. I wasn't unhappy with Stronhold in here, but I needed it for another deck and didn't want to buy another, and having another triple land is nice.
2015-05-05 Crop Rotation ➝ Secure the Wastes - Having another instant speed X token creator is awesome, and I with all the other tutoring in the deck I don't think I'll miss Crop Rotation too much.
2015-05-10 Hunting Wilds ➝ Mana Crypt - Hunting Wilds is great, but decided to swap it out for some cheaper/faster ramp. Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury ➝ Blood Artist - Freya was pretty good here, but this change helps to bring down the curve a bit and adds some extra threat potential.
2015-07-28 Collective Blessing ➝ Mentor of the Meek - I decided I wanted some more cheap/early draw available in the deck, as well as bringing down the curve some. I still love Collective Blessing, and I will likely try to find a slot to put it back in at some point. Praetor's Counsel ➝ Regrowth - This change was largely to bring down the curve some more, but also graveyard hate has become significantly more prominent in my meta than it once had been, making this card rarely worth the mana investment.
2016-01-29 City of Brass ➝ Canopy Vista - I wanted to add the new dual, and this seemed like the best cut. Mana Confluence ➝ Forest - With the new dual, I wanted an extra basic. Trostani, Selesnya's Voice ➝ Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim - Ayli comes down earlier, has an easier cost, is a sac outlet, and has a conditional removal ability. She's very similar to what Trostani does, but I think she'll be better here. Phyrexian Arena ➝ Nissa, Voice of Zendikar - This one isn't quite as straight forward of a swap, and it may turn out that it'll be something else cut to put Arena back in. I just know I wanted to get Nissa in here, and Arena was an easy cut for her.
This is a hopeful primer for my own flavour of Ghave, Guru of Spores.
I would really appreciate any comments/feedback/etc on both the thread and the deck itself.
Awesome decklist, but why aren't you running Luminarch Ascension? Given all your great Sun Titan targets and Seedborn Muse it seems like it would work out great.
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That's a pretty fair question. Luminarch Ascension definitely has the potential to take over a game once it goes active.
I think the main reason I don't play it is that it takes time to even turn on, and then it's 1W per token. After that, once it's actually active and relevant, it draws a lot of hate and attention, which can be a bit unfortunate.
While the cost isn't awful, the wait is the main detriment here. Sometimes it will never even get the chance to go active at all. Generally I want all of my token makers to be able to come down and immediately affect the board. Now, comparing that to things like Bitterblossom and Awakening Zone, while those also don't actually do anything the turn they come down, they're great early game setup cards that can just be played and forgotten about, essentially, and they give incremental value in really solid ways.
At the very least, I'm definitely going to add Luminarch Ascension to the card options list.
Hrmmmm, that makes a lot of sense. I hope Bitterblossom's prices takes a hit with it's MM2015 reprint so I can pick one up. In the mean time, whats the best non-main deck replacement? Creakwood Liege? Utopia Mycon?
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I run a Ghave list and flip flop between combo and swarm. In my experience if you play swarm people still fear the combo and you draw a lot of hate anyway.
Sometimes people will still fear the combo and play accordingly, but frequently if they're focusing on worrying about combo, they end up being vulnerable to a full on creature swarm.
You'll find that if you replace other cards with creature cards that do the same thing your deck will become a lot more consistent. Offering up more interactions with your general, aura shards, skullclamp, tutors, etc.
You'll find that if you replace other cards with creature cards that do the same thing your deck will become a lot more consistent. Offering up more interactions with your general, aura shards, skullclamp, tutors, etc.
While I love Wood Elves, in this case I'd rather have the cheaper ramp offered by Nature's Lore and Farseek.
With Ghave himself (not to mention a number of other token generators), the extra creature is in no way needed to take advantage of Aura Shards, Skull Clamp, etc. The creature tutors are there almost exclusively for the purpose of finding Craterhoof Behemoth, but on the rare occasions when I want to ramp off of them, I have Sakura-Tribe Elder and Solemn Simulacrum.
Lastly, this deck doesn't generally suffer from consistency issues. It suffers from speed issues. Replacing a 2 mana ramp spell for a 3 mana ramp spell would not be helping matters.
Great write up! Ghave is a commander I put on the shelf but always come back to, because there are just so many ways to victory with him, it's not always linear. Your point about the deck suffering from speed issues is a good one, it's very mana hungry and durdly in the opening turns...vulnerable to something like Kaalia or Rafiq that gets off the ground quickly and targets you. This is the main reason I dedicate a huge portion of my list to ramp. I'm running Sol Ring, Selesnya Signet, Orzhov Signet, Golgari Signet, Chromatic Lantern, Farseek, Nature's Lore, Skyshroud Claim, Cultivate, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Wood Elves, Farhaven Elf, Yavimaya Dryad(Love this card, finished off a game against an Esper deck once by giving them a forest, loading her with +1/+1 counters, and going to town) and Solemn Simulacrum, and I'm considering Burnished Hart as well. Since you tend to win via the red zone, maybe consider a Rogue's Passage in your manabase. Sometimes it's just what you need to 1-shot someone with a 22/22 Ghave that's being stonewalled by opposing tokens. I don't think I'd remove it from my list for anything, it's a viable backup plan. Having instant-speed , zero cost, repeatable sac outlets is important too I think, even if you're not comboing off, to avoid getting nailed by Netherborn Phalanx and the like...well, it comes up in my meta sometimes. That's why I run Carrion Feeder in addition to Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar. Viscera Seer works very well in this role as well. These things also get you activations of Smothering Abomination, who as you have also found out, is a very nice addition to Ghave. I've also been moderately happy with Catacomb Sifter. I had a game where I had the Abomination and Sifter on the field (along with Elspeth, Sun's Champion) And getting to scry 1, then draw 1, every upkeep was just fantastic. I'd like to present you a few cards I've run, or am running currently, that are at least worthy of consideration.
Deranged Hermit - he's probably too much of an investment, mana-wise, but he bears thinking about for the army he brings with him. Plus, squirrels. Hangarback Walker - This does everything and synergizes with things like Hardened Scales, Cathars' Crusade, Doubling Season, etc..very, very well. The tokens are evasive, which can end games in a hurry. Hooded Hydra - I like it for the simple fact that you can morph it later and get 5 from it... also that the more you load it up, the more you get out of it when you offer it to your Smothering Abomination for your upkeep tribute. It's also cheaper than Hangarback on the front end if you have tons of mana to throw at it. Spawning Bed - I cut Vitu-Ghazi, The City-Tree for this and haven't looked back. Tokens that can sacrifice themselves and give you value are just priceless in this deck. I understand your love for Awakening Zone (From Beyond probably deserves a mention too) for just this reason, though I found them to be too slow for me, and they wound up in the Mobilization - Sacred Mesa pile. Bitterblossom, on the other hand, is perfect, better offensive tokens and a lower cost.
Now that I've read your list, I feel like I should add Craterhoof Behemoth back into my list. I cut Tooth and Nail just because casting it just felt so... anticlimatic and un-fun to me, but I did so love the big green beasty in Unburial Rites standard.
Which reminds me, since you're playing such a grindy style, why not Twilight Drover? He's slow but I've found him to be remarkably efficient at what he does. And he's probably the best creature to slap Illusionist's Bracers on outside of Rhys the Redeemed or Ghave himself.
Mikaeus, the Lunarch is also a consideration for a swarm-style of play, and Requiem Angel is a mana-free on-death trigger for all those Saprolings that die.
Anyways, great list, thanks for the write up and the inspirations (Craterhoof and maybe Akroma's Memorial I'm gonna find room for)
Rather than putting in extra ramp, I went the route of drawing my curve with more low drops, and I've been much happier.
I haven't really found too much of a need for more sac outlets. I do with that Sadistic Hypnotist could sac at instant speed, but it's still solid regardless. It's possible I'll consider adding more at some point, especially with Smothering Abomination having become a common tutor target for me. Been really liking that card.
Deranged Hermit, Hooded Hydra, Spawning Bed - these are all cards I kinda feel just aren't good enough to be worth the mana investment. They just don't do that much. Hangarback Walker, though! That's actually a card I was already thinking about and really want to put in here. I need to figure a slot for it, and I'm also waiting for it to drop in price. It's definitely not worth the price tag that Standard is giving it. Definitely want one, though.
Yep, Smothering Abomination is a real house. I love it too. While we're waiting on the 2015 Commander product to come out (the Golgari deck looks like it has LOTS of goodies for Ghave), and since you like Awakening Zone, From Beyond is the perfect thing for you. I mean, it gives you a better token that can actually swing, and you can use it to tutor for your Abomination as well. Multi-purpose cards are really great in a deck like this, with a commander that can do multi-purpose things! I kind of agree with you on Deranged Hermit, I cut it a LONG time ago. Hooded Hydra, I haven't had a chance to use in a game yet, I suspect it'll pull its weight, though, if there's a sac outlet for it.... I don't like cards that NEED a sac outlet right off the bat (so many exile effects out there) so it'll probably have a short stay in my list once the 2015 product is available. Seriously, there are at least four cards in there I'm gonna be trying out. Spawning Bed has been fantastic, though. The fact that it's on a land is what sells it for me, though, a three color list can only afford so many colorless lands. I guess that's the benefit of adding ramp, I can generally find the lands I need to fix my colors quickly, and the utility lands I draw are just a bonus. It might not be viable if you're dedicated to curving out to run those lands. Viscera Seer is such a huge help when you're trying to curve out, and you have extra tokens (like Awakening Zone durdles that you don't need the mana from) , he smooths out your draws a lot.
I actually thought long and hard about From Beyond when it was first spoiled, and even picked one up during prerelease and was going to find a spot for it. When it came down to it, though, I came to the realization that I'd just rather have the cheaper of the two effects. Having 1/1s instead of 0/1s is sort of nice, but rarely relevant. Most of the time they're either getting sacrificed or pumped up. And with only the single Eldrazi in the deck, paying the extra mana for the ability to tutor up that one card doesn't really feel good enough. Right now, I'd rather have the lower cost card, but if I ever add more Eldrazi into the deck, there's a solid chance I'll swap it. In any case, I definitely don't want ANOTHER of that sort of effect. Bitterblossom and Awakening Zone is already plenty.
Also, as far as Hydras go, I'd be much more inclined to try out Lifeblood Hydra. I think that card could have a lot of potential here.
Lastly, yeah, the new Golgari deck has some things I'm going to want to try, or at least consider. First and foremost is Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest. That card looks sweet.
Yeah, removing Phyrexian Arena was a somewhat difficult choice, but I came to realize that the card wasn't doing as much as I wanted it to for this deck. I've been pretty happy so far with Nissa, Voice of Zendikar in its place.
Probably not. There aren't that many creatures here, and even fewer that I want to be throwing away. I feel like I'd be a lot more likely to try to play Evolutionary Leap here, as turning tokens into useful creatures is probably pretty good.
Token Armies and Attrition
This deck started off very straight forward. A bunch of token makers, a bunch of anthems, and a bunch of Overruns. I'd originally decided to intentionally go no infinite combo, since at that time I wanted a lower power level deck to play against newer players and whatnot. After a time, I started to like the deck more and more, and decided I wanted to make it better. Since then, the deck has gone through a large number of changes. I decided I wanted a reasonable amount of attrition as a sub theme and added a number of cards to that effect, and finally made the decision to add in a few infinite combos. It is important to note, though, that unlike many other Ghave lists, this one is not focused on combo, it's just there as backup. The main plan for the deck is to make a bunch of tokens and windmill slam something like a Craterhoof Behemoth, then laugh at people, all while trying to keep their boards and hands empty with things like Grave Pact, Aura Shards, and Sadistic Hypnotist. It's fun, it's powerful, and it gets the job done.
This deck is a lot of fun to play, largely because of how threat-dense it tends to be. Obviously when making armies people are going to want to keep wrathing the board, but this deck plays so many army-in-a-can cards that it can bounce back almost every time. I can even vividly recall a game where an opponent wiped the board four turns in a row, because after each time I would just untap and threaten to kill him again if he didn't.
After a lot of time spent tweaking, tuning, and playing, I've come to a point where I'm generally very happy with the deck, and it's one of my main three decks that I play on a regular basis with friends. Maybe I can inspire some of you to throw tokens at your friends, too!
Short answer: he's awesome. Long answer: Ghave is a very powerful general, allowing for really tight builds focusing on tokens, combos, attrition, or some combination of the three. This is very largely because he not only makes tokens, but has his own built in sac outlet, which is an incredibly powerful thing to have around on a general. He flourishes in a deck built with his abilities in mind. Beyond that, he's in three fantastic colours for a lot of powerful cards, with access to all the best removal, ramp, and tutors.
Let's compare Ghave with some of his top competitors for token deck generals. There are many great token generals, but here we'll focus on Marath, Will of the Wild, Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, and Rhys the Redeemed.
Marath, Will of the Wild - It's very easy to compare Marath to Ghave. They share two colours, both enter with counters, and have somewhat similar abilities, both allowing for moving counters onto other creatures and creating tokens. They can be played very similarly, with Marath swapping out access to Black for access to Red. But there are some big differences:
- Marath has a lower initial cost, and his counters scale with his mana cost, benefiting from the additional cost on recasts, while Ghave gets no extra benefit, and has a higher cost
- Marath's token creation can be versatile, creating tokens of varying sizes, while Ghave always creates 1/1s
- Marath offers built in removal and direct damage, while Ghave instead offers a built in sac outlet
- Marath can only use his own counters, while Ghave can move counters anywhere among your creatures, or use counters from other creatures to create tokens
Conclusions: While their token potentials are quite similar, Ghave's abilities lend themselves much better toward attrition and combos. Ghave's higher cost can be prohibitive sometimes, but that can be overcome with additional ramp and big mana.Prossh, Skyraider of Kher - Prossh also has a lot in common with Ghave, but in different ways. Just like Marath, he gives access to Red, but keeps the Black and instead trades off White. He too makes tokens, but that's about where his similarities end. In contrast:
- Prossh has a higher initial cost, but his power scales with his cost, while Ghave's doesn't
- Prossh creates all of his tokens on cast, while Ghave requires additional mana to generate tokens
- Prossh also has a built in sac outlet, which has the benefit of costing no mana, but can only affect himself, while Ghave's sac outlet is much more versatile
- Prossh comes with evasion and built in pump, making him very good at just outright killing opponents with general damage, while Ghave can also pump himself but lacks the evasion
Conclusions: Once again, Ghave's abilities lend themselves much better to attrition and combo, while they have fairly equivalent token creation potential. Prossh has some big benefits, like scaling value and instant token generation, but taking advantage of his built in sac outlet to pump and swing for general damage kills can often lead to blowouts, with opponents killing Prossh before damage.Rhys the Redeemed - Rhys is much more different from Ghave than Prossh or Marath, but can still offer a very powerful deck. Losing the third colour and having less versatile abilities tends to make his strategy much more linear. He also creates tokens, and shares two colours. As for big differences:
- Rhys has a significantly lower initial cost, allowing him to always come down very early, while Ghave is much more mana hungry
- Rhys can only initially create one token at a time, and requires tapping to do so, while Ghave can pump out multiple per turn starting from the turn he's cast
- Rhys's second ability, once it becomes relevant, doubles all our tokens, allowing for very quickly creating massive armies, while Ghave doesn't have that ability to change gears
- Rhys loses out on a lot of added utility that Ghave offers, with much more linear abilities and nothing but pure token generation
Conclusions: With his very low mana cost, Rhys can come down very early and get out of hand quickly, but casting him in the later game can be much worse. Also, he's much easier for opponents to shut down due to his linear strategy, and doesn't offer the same sort of utility and resilience that Ghave offers. Playing Ghave, however, allows us to play Rhys in the deck, so we can still take advantage of him.Each of those generals definitely offers some benefits over Ghave, and they are all fantastic choices. However, Ghave continues to offer the highest amount of utility, and has a higher synergy with a much larger card pool, with his abilities lending themselves very well to combos and attrition, while maintaining roughly equivalent token generation potential. Also notable, Ghave sits at something of a cost sweet spot, where he's not super fast, but not so high as to be unmanageable.
Other Abzan Generals
- Anafenza, the Foremost - She gives built in graveyard hate, which is the kind of utility that's nice to have on a general. She seems best for a "good stuff" type of deck, and doesn't really offer much for a token deck.
- Daghatar the Adamant - This guy is almost just a strictly worse Ghave. He costs one less, but comes down with one fewer counter, and Ghave can move counters around for 2.
- Doran, the Siege Tower - Another general that works really well for a "good stuff" deck, with a focus on large toughness creatures. Not great for tokens, though.
- Karador, Ghost Chieftain - Karador is a fantastic choice for a reanimator deck or creature toolbox deck, but doesn't do much here.
- Teneb, the Harvester - Fills all the same rolls as Karador, but no replacement for Ghave.
The selection of Abzan generals is somewhat slim, and none of them do much for us here. Ghave is the only one that offers what we want, as far as a token and attrition deck goes.Reasons you may enjoy playing Ghave
- You enjoy making armies of tokens
- You enjoy grinding out your opponents with attrition
- You enjoy playing a threat dense deck that takes over in the later game
- You enjoy being able to go from no board presence to a win very quickly in the late game
- You like playing with big numbers and a lot of creature and combat math
Reasons you may not enjoy playing GhaveStrengths
- Enchantment/Artifact Strategies - Against these decks we can just tutor up Aura Shards as soon as possible, and completely ruin their day. Ghave himself, not to mention many other cards in the deck, gives us an easy way to repeatedly trigger it to just keep blowing up whatever they put down.
- Control Decks - Between a combination of our attrition pieces, being very threat dense, and our ability to bounce back from a board wipe, many control decks will have an issue keeping us under control.
- Creature Decks - We can beat most "normal" creature decks purely on the fact that we make more creatures than them, and can frequently just chump all their threads until we just go bigger and overwhelm them. On top of that, attrition really hurts midrangy creature type decks.
Weaknesses1 Ghave, Guru of Spores
Lands (36)
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Canopy Vista
1 Command Tower
1 Fetid Heath
3 Forest
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Gavony Township
1 Godless Shrine
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Marsh Flats
1 Murmuring Bosk
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Phyrexian Tower
2 Plains
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Sandsteppe Citadel
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Strip Mine
1 Sunpetal Grove
2 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windbrisk Heights
1 Windswept Heath
1 Woodland Cemetery
1 Rhys the Redeemed
1 Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
1 Blood Artist
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Zulaport Cutthroat
1 Eternal Witness
1 Mentor of the Meek
1 Academy Rector
1 Smothering Abomination
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Spike Weaver
1 Sadistic Hypnotist
1 Seedborn Muse
1 Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
1 Sun Titan
1 Avenger of Zendikar
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Hornet Queen
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Woodfall Primus
Artifacts (7)
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Illusionist's Bracers
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Akroma's Memorial
Enchantments (10)
1 Bitterblossom
1 Earthcraft
1 Sylvan Library
1 Aura Shards
1 Awakening Zone
1 Necropotence
1 Grave Pact
1 Cathars' Crusade
1 Doubling Season
1 Mirari's Wake
1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Liliana Vess
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Instants (9)
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Path to Exile
1 Secure the Wastes
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Abzan Charm
1 Chord of Calling
1 White Sun's Zenith
1 Utter End
Sorceries (12)
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Farseek
1 Martial Coup
1 Nature's Lore
1 Regrowth
1 Vindicate
1 Decree of Justice
1 Skyshroud Claim
1 Austere Command
1 Tooth and Nail
That sub theme is attrition. We play with hateful cards like Grave Pact, Sadistic Hypnotist, and Aura Shards, all of which allow us to play a grindy game, disrupting our opponents and keeping their boards clear until we're ready to overwhelm them with a token army and take the win. Playing Ghave himself allows us to easily abuse all of those attrition cards, as he creates tokens to trigger Aura Shards, can eat them to trigger Grave Pact, or those tokens can be eaten by a Sadistic Hypnotist to empty opponents' hands. On top of that, we can do dirty things like repeated Woodfall Primus triggers, or Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite + Kamahl, Fist of Krosa (giving us "G: Destroy target land") to really hurt people's feelings.
There are a number of things to accomplish with this combo, but they all revolve around this loop (with redundant pieces):
Ghave, Guru of Spores + Doubling Season/Cathars' Crusade/Illusionist's Bracers + Ashnod's Altar/Earthcraft = infinite tokens, with an infinite number of +1/+1 counters, and infinite mana
With this loop, we can obviously just win in combat, by attacking with an arbitrary number of arbitrarily large tokens. However, sometimes that isn't an option, and so we have other things to accomplish with this loop:
+ Aura Shards = destroy all artifacts and enchantments
+ Woodfall Primus = destroy all noncreature permanents
+ Grave Pact = kill all creatures
+ Spike Weaver = infinite Fogs
+ Blood Artist = infinite life drain
That's just a small sample, as there are many other cards that can be added to the loop for extra effects. It's also important to note that each of those additional cards, just like the core combo pieces, is a fantastic card to play outside of the combo, and very abusable with just Ghave himself.
It's worth noting here that the "Mike + Trike" combo is intentionally excluded. With any desire to make the deck more competitive this should almost certainly be added in. However, it's important to keep in mind that, even in more competitive play groups, this sort of thing will frequently be frowned upon.
- Pillow Forts - Ghostly Prison, Sphere of Safety, Propaganda, Dueling Grounds, etc
- Army Hate - Blood Seeker, Suture Priest, Portcullis, Tainted Æther, etc
- Debuffs - Curse of Death's Hold, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Illness in the Ranks, Virulent Plague, etc
While there are certainly plenty more to be aware of, these are some of the key ones. Luckily, we get to play a very healthy and diverse suite of removal cards. We have heavily repeatable effects like Aura Shards and Woodfall Primus, as well as purely diverse removal like Vindicate and Utter End. Any time we're matched up against a deck that we expect to play these sorts of cards, it's a great idea to try to hang onto a piece of removal or two so that we can try to clear them away as soon as we want/need to.There are two things we really, really want to see in an opening hand:
1) Ramp. Lots and lots of ramp. The more the better. It's incredibly powerful to be able to curve either Sol Ring or Farseek into an early Skyshroud Claim
2) Early game setup cards. Things like Bitterblossom, Awakening Zone, Sylvan Library, and Phyrexian Arena are all fantastic examples of that.
Ideally what we want is some amount of both of those things. We want to be spending most of the early game on ramping. Ghave is very mana hungry, and we want to ramp as much as we can. We want to hit lands drops and use any early tutors on ramp. Enlightened Tutor or Vampiric Tutor in the opening hand should always be used to go get Sol Ring or Mana Crypt. In between ramping and playing lands, we want to drop any early game setup we have. Bitterblossom, Awakening Zone, Phyrexian Arena, etc. These cards will all help us to go into the mid game strong.
Here are some examples of early games with great hands:
Turn 1: Verdant Catacomb, fetch Scrubland, cast Skullclamp
Turn 2: Wooded Bastion, cast Demonic Tutor finding Sol Ring
Turn 3: Overgrown Tomb untapped, cast Sol Ring, Skyshroud Claim fetching Bayou and Savannah, cast Nature's Lore finding Murmuring Bosk
Turn 4: Cast Ghave, Guru of Spores, make three Saprolings at EOT before our next turn
At this point, we're in an absolutely beautiful position. We've got a really nice mana supply going on, and we're ready to untap and either play something cool that we've drawn, or start Skullclamping our Saprolings to draw a ton of cards. We're probably way, way ahead here.
Sample Hand 2: Bayou, Woodland Cemetery, Phyrexian Tower, Academy Rector, Solemn Simulacrum, Green Sun's Zenith, Rhys the Redeemed
Turn 1: Bayou, Rhys the Redeemed
Turn 2: Woodland Cemetery, attack with Rhys
Turn 3: Phyrexian Tower, cast Green Sun's Zenith for X = 2, finding Sakura-Tribe Elder, sacrifice him to fetch a Plains, attack with Rhys
Turn 4: Solemn Simulacrum fetching another Plains, attack with Rhys
This hand represents a much slower start, but still a great hand. From here, we have Rhys the Redeemed on the table and can start dumping mana into him as soon as we have nothing better to do. We also have Academy Rector in hand, with Phyrexian Tower on the table. We can use this to go find something like Mirari's Wake and just start going to town with Rhys. We've also drawn a few cards at this point, still have Solemn Simulacrum to sac to Phyrexian Tower for a little extra mana and a card, and we still have Ghave to play and start having fun with!
Mid Game
This is where we ideally want to be playing any of the bigger setup cards that we couldn't play in the early game (Doubling Season, Mirari's Wake, etc), and things to slow down our opponents. Usually if we're going to use our few board wipes, this is where we want to do it. This is also a great time to find Sadistic Hypnotist, Aura Shards, and other cards to grind down on our opponents and hold them back.
Late Game
Sometimes we'll manage it in the mid game, but in most cases this is where we're going to win. We want to flood the board as much as we can and just straight up overrun people. Sometimes we'll do this quickly and easily, with things like Secure the Wastes and Decree of Justice, and follow it up with a Craterhoof Behemoth. That's a pretty ideal scenario. But a lot of the time we'll need to do it a little more slowly. We can even just play out Ghave and keep making tokens, with fuel to keep going.
So, with that in mind, here is a list of cards. Bold names indicate that the card is in the current incarnation of this list. This is certainly not a complete list of every card that could be in this deck, but more accurately a list of all the cards that are in this list, have been in this list, or have been considered for this list. Any and all suggestion for other cards to be added here are more than welcome.
Lands
Shocklands - Godless Shrine, Overgrown Tomb, and Temple Garden. Almost as good as the original duals.
On Colour Fetchlands - Marsh Flats, Verdant Catacomb, and Windswept Heath. These are at their best when we've got the dual lands and shocklands to go with them. Great for making sure we get the colours we need, and they help thin out the deck for us.
Off Colour Fetchlands - This one really comes down to a matter of preference. That being said, they're only worth running with the full set of duals and shocks, otherwise they're just not worth it. Having the extra fetchlands gives you some extra deck thinning, which is especially helpful when a build has a higher land count.
Core Duals/Check Lands - Isolated Chapel, Woodland Cemetery, and Sunpetal Grove. Sometimes they come into play tapped, but they're still solid lands. They're especially good alongside the shocklands and original duals, since those have the basic land types these look for.
Battle Duals - Canopy Vista is the only one currently available. Basic types duals are great.
Any Colour Painlands - City of Brass, Mana Confluence, and Grand Coliseum. While the Coliseum can tap for mana without hurting, coming in tapped makes it by far the worst of the three. Most of the time the pain is worth the fixing.
Filter Lands - Fetid Heath, Twilight Mire, and Wooded Bastion. These are fine lands to play, especially when lacking duals and/or fetches. They can really help with the colour fixing.
Basic Lands - Plains, Swamp, and Forest. Always a good idea to play at least 2 of each to find off of Path to Exile or Ghost Quarter, and to grab off of the fetchlands when need be.
Ancient Tomb - Hurts every time we use it (excluding times with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth on the table), but it also ramps for free. All around solid card.
Bojuka Bog - Fantastic piece of graveyard hate. Comes into play tapped, which can be unfortunate sometimes, but after that it taps for B, and even if it didn't, having this ability "for free" often makes up for the downside.
Boseiju, Who Shelters All - This is a great land and very nice to have in metas with a lot of counter magic, and helps us to resolve our big instants and sorceries, like Green Sun's Zenith and Chord of Calling.
Cabal Coffers - Sometimes this card won't do a whole lot, but once you've got an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth on the table it does a whole bunch. Can't really go wrong with big mana.
Command Tower - The essential land for every multi-colour deck. Printed specifically for the format, it needs no introduction.
Deserted Temple - This card generally acts as a second Gaea's Cradle or Cabal Coffers, as long as one of those others is in play. It can also be used to untap a Windbrisk Heights on the turn we play it.
Gaea's Cradle - This land is absolutely fantastic. A must have for any token deck. The amount of mana it produces is insane.
Gavony Township - While it's not the cheapest effect, what it does for us is really big. Putting counters on all of our creatures gives us unending fuel for Ghave.
Grim Backwoods - This card makes for a really solid spot filler. It's great for when we start to run out of resources, as we often have plenty of tokens to feed into it.
Mosswort Bridge - Same idea as Windbrisk Heights, but the condition on this one isn't nearly as easy to satisfy in this deck, usually.
Murmuring Bosk - The best part of this card is the fact that it has the Forest type, allowing us to find it off of Nature's Lore, Skyshroud Claim, and Hunting Wilds.
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood - This comes in tapped and has to be used the turn the creatures come in, and only hits green creatures. While costing more, Gavony Township is just way, way better.
Phyrexian Tower - This can give us an extra little bit of ramp when we need it, and we often have many tokens to feed into it. It's also great for sacrificing Academy Rector.
Reflecting Pool - Most of the time this will just be a second Command Tower.
Reliquary Tower - Staple card, should be in just about every EDH deck. Especially good with Necropotence and other big draw.
Sandsteppe Citadel - Unfortunate that it comes into play tapped, but it makes all of our colours with no other downside. Strictly worse than Command Tower, but still well worth having.
Strip Mine - Every now and then an opponent has a land that just needs to go. Often this will be things like Reliquary Tower, opposing Gaea's Cradle, and opposing Cabal Coffers.
Wasteland - This card is just a strictly worse Strip Mine, but it's much better than the other options, and it's nice to have backup.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - A black staple land. Does good things on its own, giving us plenty of black mana, and it does wonderful things with Cabal Coffers.
Vault of the Archangel - Just like with Gavony Township, the effect isn't cheap, but it's huge. The amount of life gain it can give us is obscene, and giving everything deathtouch means that combat almost always goes in our favour.
Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree - Just like with Grim Backwoods, this is another great slot filler, and another card that gives us something to do when we're low on resources.
Volrath's Stronghold - This card is handy for when we really need/want a creature out of the graveyard.
Windbrisk Heights - Sometimes this will whiff, putting something mediocre underneath it. However, there will be times when we get to alpha strike and mid-combat play a Craterhoof Behemoth, or Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, or Collective Blessing. Those times are awesome.
Utopia Mycon - This card is fantastic for combo purposes, as it's another replacement for Ashnod's Altar, Phyrexian Altar, or Earthcraft, and it can be easily found with Green Sun's Zenith or Chord of Calling. Just like those other pieces, even without the combo it still offers some decent ramp potential.
Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim - Her second ability might not happen all that often, but when it does it's fantastic. Her first ability helps get you there, and it's nice to have more instant speed sac outlets, especially for responding to things like Massacre Wurm.
Blood Artist - Playing this guy early will offer a lot of life drain as the game progresses, as we're constantly sacrificing things to Ghave. He's also an instant win with the combo loop on the table.
Sakura-Tribe Elder - Generally a green staple. Great ramp card, works great with Sun Titan, and can be found easily with Green Sun's Zenith.
Scavenging Ooze - Another green staple. Not only does he offer some fantastic graveyard hate, but he also gets counters that we can use as fuel for Ghave.
Zulaport Cutthroat - Having a second Blood Artist is pretty sweet. He's actually simultaneously a little better and a little worse. He doesn't trigger for opponents' creatures dying, but he does hit all opponents when he triggers, and he's a 1/1 instead of a 0/1. Great inclusion.
Champion of Lambholt - This card has a cool effect, and the potential to get very big very fast. However, because of the large number of creatures we're usually dealing with, making our entire team unblockable is often just not something we really need.
Eternal Witness - Yet another green staple. It's Regrowth except we can abuse it with Skullclamp or Ghave + Sun Titan.
Fertilid - This card has the potential to very quickly pull all of the basic lands out of the deck. He can be a bit slow, but with a high enough basic land count he's definitely worth it. He also offers more counter fodder for Ghave, when the lands aren't needed.
Geralf's Messenger - A staple for combo centric lists, he combos very easily with Ghave and large number of other cards, just like any cards with Undying generally do. The biggest benefit of this one is that looping him gives an instant win.
Mentor of the Meek - There is a ton of potential card draw here. The deck can be very mana hungry, so drawing may not always be viable, but it's nice to have around. Worth noting, there's a nonbo here with any bigger anthem effects (Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Collective Blessing, Dictate of Heliod, etc).
Academy Rector - This is a great card anyway, but having a sac outlet right on our general makes it even better. We play a decent number of enchantments that we just always want on the field, and this can go get us whichever one is best suited at the time.
Corpsejack Menace - Half of a Doubling Season on a creature. Another combo piece replacement option.
Creakwood Liege - The anthem can be very powerful, and he's reasonably costed. Getting a token (3/3 as long as he remains on the table) on every upkeep is very good, but a little slow. Generally a worse option than Bitterblossom for that sort of effect.
Falkenrath Noble - He's literally just a bigger, flying Blood Artist. Usually worse because of the higher cost.
Oracle of Mul Daya - A common green staple. Performs best in decks with high land counts and/or a lot of top deck manipulation.
Sigil Captain - This guy works best in lists that aren't running anthem effects. Also commonly found in combo lists, as he's another replacement combo piece.
Smothering Abomination - There is a ton of draw potential here. His mandatory sacrifice can hurt sometimes, every once in a while causing the loss of a relevant/valuable creature, but the majority of the time, with this guy and a Ghave on the table, it's just all the cards.
Solemn Simulacrum - This guy should be in almost every single EDH deck. He ramps, he costs only colourless, and he draws a card when he dies. Just like with Academy Rector, having a sac outlet on our general makes this guy even better.
Spike Weaver - Having access to essentially unending Fogs is really, really powerful. Especially great against hyper aggressive decks, certain combo decks, and Voltron decks. On top of that, the counters are more fuel for Ghave when the ability isn't needed.
Trostani, Selesnya's Voice - The populate ability on this is fine, but not the main reason for playing it. Sometimes a lot of life gain is needed, and this can provide silly amounts, especially with any anthems on the table.
Acidic Slime - A green staple, he's great to have around when we're already playing Green Sun's Zenith and Chord of Calling. He's a little expensive, though, and not as good as our other options for destroying those permanents.
Juniper Order Ranger - This guy is fantastic for more combo focused builds. He can be a little bit underwhelming outside of combo, though. He servers as another replacement piece for Doubling Season/Cathars' Crusade/etc.
Mycoloth - A great army-in-a-can card for removal light metas. With even just a few creatures for him to devour, his ability will flood the board very quickly.
Sadistic Hypnotist - This is one of the key attrition cards in the deck. In many cases, we'll be able to take out all opponents' entire hands the turn we play it, and make sure they can't hold onto any cards going forward.
Seedborn Muse - This card has been heavily drowned out by Prophet of Kruphix, but it's still a green staple. It allows us to tap out on our turn, and then have mana to use on Ghave's abilities abilities on opponents' turns, which is really powerful.
Grave Titan - An absolutely solid card and always a good choice. Another great army-in-a-can.
Kamahl, Fist of Krosa - This card can be a bit mana heavy, but he serves two really great purposes here. First, he gives us a repeatable Overrun effect, which is fantastic for actually killing people. Second, he has a really, really mean interaction with Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, giving us "G: Destroy target land".
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed - This card is all around solid, giving an anthem effect as well as allowing us to have Ghave eat our non-token creatures and have them come back with a counter to fuel Ghave, letting us abuse any ETB effects. More combo focused lists are where he really shines, though.
Realm Seekers - This card is a little slow, but when it can be kept around for a few turns it does a lot, grabbing all the sweet effect lands and big mana lands out of the deck.
Sun Titan - Should be in almost every white deck. Gives us a ton of extra value from a lot of our cards, and a great way to get back some of our key cards, like Ashnod's Altar and Aura Shards.
Tolsimir Wolfblood - This card tends to be too expensive for what he does, and his single token creation isn't particularly valuable.
Avenger of Zendikar - While not the green staple that he once was, he's still phenomenal in this deck. He's one of our best army-in-a-can cards, and a great Tooth and Nail target, as getting him with Craterhoof Behemoth will often win the game, even with only a few creatures on the board able to attack.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - Easily one of the best anthem effects in the deck, as it also gives a huge debuff to our opponents' creatures and will keep their field clear of chump blockers and small utility creatures. Also, she's absolutely dirty with Kamahl, Fist of Krosa.
Hornet Queen - Another fantastic army-in-a-can card. Doesn't give as many tokens as Avenger of Zendikar, but the tokens have flying and deathtouch, which is incredibly powerful.
Pentavus - Commonly found in combo centric Ghave decks. He can serve as a replacement for Ghave in many of the combo loops in a pinch.
Craterhoof Behemoth - One of the all-stars in the deck, and the primary source of 90% of the game wins. He wins so easily out of nowhere, and is a cool guy.
Woodfall Primus - While he may seem a little expensive for the effect, being able to repeat that effect indefinitely with Ghave pushes him over the top. The small amount of added value with Murmuring Bosk is nice, too.
Orochi Hatchery - This card requires a fairly hefty mana investment before it becomes really crazy, but it has the potential to make massive armies very quickly.
Nihil Spellbomb - A fantastic option for graveyard hate in any black deck. Being able to draw a card off of it is fantastic, and it's recurrable with Sun Titan.
Sensei's Divining Top - A general EDH staple. Great for top deck manipulation, smoothing out draws, and drawing in a pinch. Even better with shuffle effects.
Skullclamp - The number of cards we draw from this thing is just silly. It should always be included.
Sol Ring - Another of the best mana rocks ever printed, this card should be in every EDH deck ever.
Illusionist's Bracers - There are many sweet creatures to equip this to, but when it's on Ghave it serves as just being a second Doubling Season. Great card, and works really well on many of our other creatures as well, like Sakura-Tribe Elder, Kamahl, Fist of Krosa, Sadistic Hypnotist, etc.
Ashnod's Altar - One of the core combo pieces for any Ghave deck, and it offers some great ramp on top of that.
Coalition Relic - Easily one of the better mana rocks in existence. The fact that it has the potential to add two mana, of any two colours, when we need it to is really powerful.
Phyrexian Altar - Very similar to Ashnod's Altar, also functions as a combo piece, but provides one mana of any colour instead of two colourless. One of the better combo piece inclusions.
Eldrazi Monument - This card is really solid as it works as both an anthem and protection from most board wipes. It's much better in lists with a lower threat density, where a board wipe is a bigger problem.
Akroma's Memorial - While expensive, it's one of the few haste giving cards we can play in Abzan colours. Having one of these on the field very, very heavily moves the game in our favour.
Hardened Scales - For Ghave, this functions like half of a Doubling Season for a very much lower cost, and is an absolutely fantastic combo piece of that reason. Even without trying to combo, the extra counters are really nice and this is worth consideration.
Bitterblossom - Costs us a little life, but it comes down super early and it gives us a steady stream of tokens. Gives us a little more early game play, which is really nice, since this deck tends to be all about the late game.
Earthcraft - One of the better combo pieces in the deck, and it offers a lot of ramp with the number of tokens we create. This one allows us to play Ghave and immediately make all of his tokens, giving a lot of mana for the next turn, or a lot of creatures for Gaea's Cradle.
Luminarch Ascension - This is a solid card, but it's only great in certain metas. With a lot of aggressive decks sometimes we'll never even get to turn it on, and with removal heavy decks it will often just get blown up as soon as it goes active. If we can get it on and keep it, though, it can quickly take over a game.
Sterling Grove - With the number of sweet enchantments we play, being able to protect them and/or tutor up one we want or need is really desirable.
Sylvan Library - Absolute green staple. This should be in every green deck. Also, real men take 8.
Attrition - Despite the name sounding like exactly what we want to be doing, this card just never ends up being as useful as it looks. Grave Pact is almost always just way better.
Aura Shards - This is one of the best enchantments in the deck, and tends to garner a lot of hate as soon as it hits the table. This allows us to constantly keep all opponents' fields clear of artifacts and enchantments forever.
Awakening Zone - Just like with Bitterblossom, this card gives us some early game and a steady stream of tokens. And on top of that, the tokens even ramp.
Beastmaster Ascension - This is a huge pump for the team when it's active. The biggest issue is that it doesn't always do something the turn it comes down.
Fecundity - There's no arguing that this is a very powerful card, but it has one very huge drawback in the form of symmetry. Giving our opponents cards is definitely not something we ever want to be doing, especially when we're trying to fight a war of attrition. Giving them extra resources is not good.
Mobilization - The biggest issue with this card is that it's slow. We don't focus enough on Soldiers for the Vigilance to be all that helpful, and unless we're making infinite mana in some way, 2W is just too expensive for a single 1/1 Soldier.
Necropotence - While this eats at our life, and bites us sometimes by exiling anything discarded, and it is a nonbo with Sylvan Library, the insane amount of card draw it offers is beyond worth it. Being able to refill our hand at the end of every turn can get us way ahead. The value of this card can't be overstated.
Phyrexian Arena - Another great early game play. This gives us continued gas as we progress into the later game and start the attrition war. Having the edge in resources is a huge advantage.
Sacred Mesa - Just like with Mobilization, this has the same issue of being slow, and on top of that it has to be used right away or else it dies.
Grave Pact - One of the best attrition cards we have available to us. With the number of creatures we are constantly sacrificing, this allows us to continuously keep our opponents' fields clear of creatures.
Parallel Lives - Doubling tokens is great, and it's yet another combo piece. Casting this one, however, always feel so much worse than casting either Doubling Season or Cathars' Crusade, and it's much better in list that are always trying to combo off.
Cathars' Crusade - This card is absolutely nuts, and is a must answer threat. Being able to not only have infinite fuel for Ghave, but also making the entire team huge is insanely powerful. It's also one of the best combo pieces for the loop.
Dictate of Erebos - Slightly more expensive than Grave Pact, with the addition of Flash. Much better than Martyr's Bond here, since we are only ever sacrificing creatures anyway.
Dictate of Heliod - While the flash aspect is really cool and can cause some huge combo blowouts, Collective Blessing is usually the better choice. The extra +1/+1 may not seem like much, but it's pretty huge.
Doubling Season - Just like with Cathars' Crusade, this card is a must answer threat. It still gives us infinite fuel for Ghave, but doesn't make our team huge on its own. It does, however, make our planeswalkers way, way better, and is one of the best combo pieces.
Mirari's Wake - Doubling mana in a very mana hungry deck is incredibly powerful, and the anthem is not irrelevant when attacking with armies of tokens.
Primal Vigor - This is just a much, much worse Doubling Season. Not only does it not help with any counters other than +1/+1 counters, losing us the added planeswalker bonus, it's also symmetrical. While we're most certainly taking more advantage of it than opponents will be, we still don't want to take the risk if we can avoid it. This would be a fine option, however, for a deck that is focused very heavily on combo, as another redundant effect.
Privileged Position - This is a fantastic card, and works very well for protecting our important permanents. It can be tutored into play by sacrificing Academy Rector in response for a blowout play.
Mana Reflection - Costs more than Mirari's Wake but also does a whole lot more with things like Gaea's Cradle and Cabal Coffers. Loses out on the added value of the anthem, though, and that little extra cost is very relevant with this sort of card.
Collective Blessing - Having a +3/+3 static pump is absolutely huge. This will frequently win games, as it's almost like a static Overrun. It also gives huge added value to Trostani, Selesnya's Voice and Shamanic Revelation. However, it is a large up front cost for a card that does nothing by itself.
Martyr's Bond - This was previously always the auto inclusion whenever a second Grave Pact effect was desired, but now Dictate of Erebos exists.
Garruk Relentless/Garruk, the Veil-Cursed - Not the best Garruk, but still really solid. He makes tokens and gives us some light removal. Once he's flipped, he has an Overrun, or the ability to go tutor up a Craterhoof Behemoth.
Garruk Wildspeaker - All of his abilities are relevant and fantastic here. Untapping Gaea's Cradle or Cabal Coffers, making tokens, and giving us an Overrun.
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad - While his tokens are good, the best thing we get from Sorin is the permanent anthem effect. Having multiples gets out of hand. Every once in a while his ultimate will just take over a game, too.
Elspeth Tirel - She's still really solid, but has been completely replaced by Elspeth, Sun's Champion, which is just better in so many ways.
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury - Her primary use here is to just tick up, creating ramping tokens, until we're ready to use her ultimate to refill our hand. Her built in Naturalize is also very relevant, though, and comes in handy quite frequently.
Liliana Vess - A black staple, should be in almost every black deck. She adds to our attrition plan, as well as giving us more tutor. Just like with many other planeswalkers, every once in a while her ultimate will just take over a game for us.
Elspeth, Sun's Champion - Making three tokens as a +1 ability is absolutely insane. Just like with Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury, we almost always just want t tick her up until we can use her ultimate.
Enlightened Tutor - We play a lot of artifacts and enchantments here that we always want to have, and this helps us find them. It's also incredibly useful for turn 1 tutoring up Sol Ring.
Path to Exile - One of the best creature removal cards out there. Being able to exile a creature for a single white mana is always good. Should be an auto-include in any white deck.
Secure the Wastes - Being able to make a large number of tokens at instant speed (such as on an opponent's end step), is incredibly powerful. Following up a card like this with Craterhoof Behemoth will generally always win the game.
Swords to Plowshares - Even better than Path to Exile.
Vampiric Tutor - One of the best tutors printed. Should often be an auto-include in any black deck.
Abzan Charm - This is one of the better three colour charms that has been printed. The Night's Whisper mode is very handy, as is the creature exile. The +1/+1 counters will rarely be used, but they're still very handy in a pinch for winning combat, or for fuel for Ghave.
Beast Within - This is a fantastic, versatile piece of removal. Being able to destroy any permanent at instant speed is very powerful, and we rarely care if they get a beast token.
Chord of Calling - Quite frankly, the main reason this card is even here is to tutor up Craterhoof Behemoth. That being said, there are plenty of other creatures we want to go get, in various situations, and we frequently have a lot of tokens to feed into the Convoke.
Hero's Downfall - Not as versatile as some of the other removal we have here, but still a really solid card.
Mortify - Same as above.
Putrefy - Same as above.
White Sun's Zenith - This one is a little worse than Secure the Wastes, because it costs more and has a higher colour requirement. Also, having more 1/1s is generally more useful for us than having fewer 2/2s.
Utter End - This is a fantastic piece of removal. It's versatile and instant speed, and it exiles, getting rid of things permanently.
Demonic Tutor - This is the best tutor there is. Should be in every single black deck.
Diabolic Intent - For us, this card is almost as good as Demonic Tutor. We generally have plenty of tokens and sacrificing one to it won't matter much to us.
Farseek - This is fantastic, cheap ramp, that can go find us duals and shocklands. Given that much of our other ramp looks specifically for Forests, it's usually best to go get Godless Shrine or Scrubland with this one.
Martial Coup - It doesn't have the surprise factor of our other X token creators, but it gives us the added value of a Wrath effect when we need/want it.
Nature's Lore - This is even better than Farseek, purely on the merit that it finds the land untapped. With Mirari's Wake on the table, this is essentially free.
Regrowth - It doesn't do anything big and fancy, but it can return any one card from the graveyard, and that's often enough.
Three Visits - This is just the Portal version of Nature's Lore. A great addition when a little more ramp is desired.
Entreat the Angels - Unfortunately, this card is only good when we get to Miracle it, and even then, it's usually not as good as our other X token creation options.
Maelstrom Pulse - This isn't quite as good as Vindicate, but almost. Always a solid removal option.
Vindicate - One of the best removal spells ever printed. It's cheap and it hits any permanent. The only downside to this is that it's a sorcery, but the power level of this is worth it.
Decree of Justice - This is the best X token creator we have. Many people look at this card and see a worse Entreat the Angels, but that's really just not the case. The correct way to look at this is as an uncounterable Secure the Wastes that also draws a card. We will essentially never, ever cast this for it's normal cost and effect.
Hunting Wilds - This is just a strictly better Ranger's Path. The Kicker may not be relevant often, but it's better than not having it at all.
Ranger's Path - By no means a bad card, but it's overshadowed by Hunting Wilds and Skyshroud Claim.
Skyshroud Claim - Basically a double Nature's Lore, and absolutely fantastic.
Increasing Devotion - This is a really solid army-in-a-can card, and offers us extra value for later with Flashback.
Shamanic Revelation - Much, much better version of Collective Unconscious. This will almost always draw us a ton of cards, and the incidental life gain is very useful, especially with a Collective Blessing on the field.
Austere Command - The second best Command. Incredibly versatile, and a staple for any white deck.
Hour of Reckoning - Whenever an extra board wipe is desired this is a great option. Most of the time it will hurt us very little while hurting everyone else a lot.
Tooth and Nail - While we're not actually playing any ways to instantly win with this, we have a lot of plays that will more or less end a game anyway, such as Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite + Kamahl, Fist of Krosa, or Craterhoof Behemoth + anything.
Decree of Pain - Sometimes we really just need to wipe the board, and if we must, then we might as well get a ton of cards for it, right? The cost can be very prohibitive on this, though.
Praetor's Counsel - This card is incredibly powerful, especially late game, in a meta with little graveyard hate. However, it is very high cost, and in a meta that does have a lot of graveyard hate it frequently won't do as much as it could.
Juniper Order Ranger ➝ Liliana Vess - I've come to feel that Juniper Order Ranger is much better in decks that are much more focused on combo, as he serves as another redundant combo piece, and Liliana gives a ton of added value.
Forest ➝ Murmuring Bosk - Not entirely sure why it wasn't there to begin with.
2013-07-23
Tolsimir Wolfblood ➝ Woodfall Primus - Never really needed/wanted that one extra anthem all that often, and making the single token wasn't super relevant. Also, I appreciate the very small amount of added value between Woodfall Primus and Murmuring Bosk, and I like the idea of, having a repeatable Bramblecrush all the time (assuming Ghave is on the field).
2015-03-16
Huge changes to the deck. These changes have actually happened over time, but I forgot this thread even existed until just now, so it looks like a pretty huge overhaul.
Elspeth Tirel ➝ Elspeth, Sun's Champion - Almost a strict upgrade. Sun's Champion is just so much better in so many ways.
Garruk Relentless ➝ Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury - I like the fact that she ramps while making tokens, and having -2 Naturalize is pretty legit, too. Beyond that, her ultimate is incredibly useful in this deck, and I gotten sick of having dead a dead Garruk in my hand with the other on the field.
Ranger's Path ➝ Hunting Wilds - Strict upgrade.
Decree of Pain ➝ Shamanic Revelation - I came to the realize that I generally just never needed the extra Wrath effect, and Shamanic Revelation draws nearly as many cards, without nuking my board, and with incidental lifegain.
Hour of Reckoning ➝ Crop Rotation - Same as with Decree of Pain, I just decided I didn't need the Wrath, and being able to tutor up Gaea's Cradle onto the field makes me pretty happy.
Entreat the Angels ➝ Praetor's Counsel - Because Praetor's Counsel is insane and I'm sad I wasn't playing it before. I can't even remember a time I got to Miracle Entreat.
Mortify ➝ Utter End - Costs a little more, but much more versatile.
Putrefy ➝ Abzan Charm - Exiles most relevant creature threats, card draw in a pinch, and counters for the random combat blowout from time to time.
Increasing Devotion ➝ Diabolic Intent - While Increasing Devotion is certainly a great card, I really like having the extra tutor, and I almost always have creatures to feed into it. And using Diabolic Intent on an Academy Rector is one of my favourite things.
Coalition Relic ➝ Ashnod's Altar - I decided to scrap my previous decision to make this a comboless deck, and Altar enables that while still giving me ramp most of the time.
Concordant Crossroads ➝ Earthcraft - I found that overall I just wasn't super happy with it, since it's symmetrical and I just held on to it most of the time. Earthcraft gives me some ramp, and more potential to combo off.
Parallel Lives ➝ Awakening Zone - Most of the time I wasn't happy to see Parallel Lives. I just felt like it didn't do enough. This is another card that is way better in combo focused lists. Awakening Zone, yet again, gives me more ramp, as well as adding to my early game, which I felt was pretty weak before.
Creakwood Liege ➝ Bitterblossom - I felt like Liege was just a little too slow. Bitterblossom is more resilient and comes down sooner.
Oracle of Mul Daya ➝ Spike Weaver - While I love Oracle, I came to the realization that I had been seriously undervaluing Spike Weaver. Since adding it, it's become one of my favourite cards in the deck. I haven't missed Oracle so much, since I've added other ramp that doesn't also show my opponents all of my draws.
Acidic Slime ➝ Sadistic Hypnotist. I found that most of the time I didn't need the Acidic Slime backup, with Utter End and Vindicate and Aura Shards. I've been loving Sadistic Hypnotist. Don't think it even needs explaining.
Mycoloth ➝ Seedborn Muse - Way too many times did I cast a Mycoloth, practically Wrathing my own board, only to have it killed before getting any value off of it. Seedborn Muse is sweet, 'nuff said.
Grave Titan ➝ Hornet Queen. Hornet Queen is another card I feel like I previously undervalued, and I feel like I was a bit weak to flying things before. This helps there.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed ➝ Sun Titan - Different recursion, I've liked it better. Does a lot of things.
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood ➝ Bojuka Bog. Found I wanted a bit more graveyard hate, and Oran-Rief often just did nothing.
Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree ➝ Boseiju, Who Shelters All. Vitu-Ghazi was mostly a spot filler, and making my big spells uncounterable makes me very happy.
Volrath's Stronghold ➝ Sandsteppe Citadel. I wasn't unhappy with Stronhold in here, but I needed it for another deck and didn't want to buy another, and having another triple land is nice.
2015-03-26
Wooded Bastion ➝ City of Brass - Should have made this swap before, just getting around to it now.
Fetid Heath ➝ Mana Confluence - Same as above.
Twilight Mire ➝ Ancient Tomb - Certainly don't want just one filter land without the others, and Ancient Tomb gives us a little added ramp.
2015-05-05
Crop Rotation ➝ Secure the Wastes - Having another instant speed X token creator is awesome, and I with all the other tutoring in the deck I don't think I'll miss Crop Rotation too much.
2015-05-10
Hunting Wilds ➝ Mana Crypt - Hunting Wilds is great, but decided to swap it out for some cheaper/faster ramp.
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury ➝ Blood Artist - Freya was pretty good here, but this change helps to bring down the curve a bit and adds some extra threat potential.
2015-07-28
Collective Blessing ➝ Mentor of the Meek - I decided I wanted some more cheap/early draw available in the deck, as well as bringing down the curve some. I still love Collective Blessing, and I will likely try to find a slot to put it back in at some point.
Praetor's Counsel ➝ Regrowth - This change was largely to bring down the curve some more, but also graveyard hate has become significantly more prominent in my meta than it once had been, making this card rarely worth the mana investment.
2015-10-02
Shamanic Revelation ➝ Smothering Abomination - Soon as this thing got spoiled I knew I wanted it. I've played it a few times so far and been super happy with it. Revelation is a little worse with Collective Blessing gone now, also.
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad ➝ Zulaport Cutthroat - While Sorin is sweet, I've been a little underwhelmed with him lately, as he's been just a little too slow, and having a second Blood Artist is super good times.
2016-01-29
City of Brass ➝ Canopy Vista - I wanted to add the new dual, and this seemed like the best cut.
Mana Confluence ➝ Forest - With the new dual, I wanted an extra basic.
Trostani, Selesnya's Voice ➝ Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim - Ayli comes down earlier, has an easier cost, is a sac outlet, and has a conditional removal ability. She's very similar to what Trostani does, but I think she'll be better here.
Phyrexian Arena ➝ Nissa, Voice of Zendikar - This one isn't quite as straight forward of a swap, and it may turn out that it'll be something else cut to put Arena back in. I just know I wanted to get Nissa in here, and Arena was an easy cut for her.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
This is a hopeful primer for my own flavour of Ghave, Guru of Spores.
I would really appreciate any comments/feedback/etc on both the thread and the deck itself.
Thanks!
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
I think the main reason I don't play it is that it takes time to even turn on, and then it's 1W per token. After that, once it's actually active and relevant, it draws a lot of hate and attention, which can be a bit unfortunate.
While the cost isn't awful, the wait is the main detriment here. Sometimes it will never even get the chance to go active at all. Generally I want all of my token makers to be able to come down and immediately affect the board. Now, comparing that to things like Bitterblossom and Awakening Zone, while those also don't actually do anything the turn they come down, they're great early game setup cards that can just be played and forgotten about, essentially, and they give incremental value in really solid ways.
At the very least, I'm definitely going to add Luminarch Ascension to the card options list.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
I added Luminarch Ascension and Mobilization to the card options.
I also expanded the strategy section a bit.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Have you considered Beastmaster Ascension, Champion of Lambholt, Mentor of the Meek, Sacred Mesa, Puppeteer Clique, Maelstrom Pulse, and Eldrazi Monument? When you are attacking with infinite tokens most of these wont matter but if you are working with a more normal sized number of tokens I think they are worth consideration.
Also Beast Within and Abrupt Decay seem like great answers you're missing.
Retired Lists: Ghave - Hanna - Thrun - Zur
Pauper: Crypt Rats
I HAVE considered Beastmaster Ascension, and just forgot to add it to the options list, I'll have to do that. Same goes for Champion of Lambholt, Mentor of the Meek, Sacred Mesa, and Eldrazi Monument.
Maelstrom Pulse and Beast Within are both already in the options. I'll add those others I forgot when I get the chance.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Also expanded the strategy section.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Out: Collective Blessing, Praetor's Counsel
In: Mentor of the Meek, Regrowth
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
You'll find that if you replace other cards with creature cards that do the same thing your deck will become a lot more consistent. Offering up more interactions with your general, aura shards, skullclamp, tutors, etc.
While I love Wood Elves, in this case I'd rather have the cheaper ramp offered by Nature's Lore and Farseek.
With Ghave himself (not to mention a number of other token generators), the extra creature is in no way needed to take advantage of Aura Shards, Skull Clamp, etc. The creature tutors are there almost exclusively for the purpose of finding Craterhoof Behemoth, but on the rare occasions when I want to ramp off of them, I have Sakura-Tribe Elder and Solemn Simulacrum.
Also, this deck has a ton of things I'd much rather be casting with three mana, like Phyrexian Arena, Awakening Zone, Necropotence, Ashnod's Altar, etc.
Lastly, this deck doesn't generally suffer from consistency issues. It suffers from speed issues. Replacing a 2 mana ramp spell for a 3 mana ramp spell would not be helping matters.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Out: Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, Shamanic Revelation
In: Smothering Abomination, Zulaport Cutthroat
So far very happy with these changes. Brings down the curve a bit more, give more reach a more abusable draw effect. Good stuff.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Deranged Hermit - he's probably too much of an investment, mana-wise, but he bears thinking about for the army he brings with him. Plus, squirrels.
Hangarback Walker - This does everything and synergizes with things like Hardened Scales, Cathars' Crusade, Doubling Season, etc..very, very well. The tokens are evasive, which can end games in a hurry.
Hooded Hydra - I like it for the simple fact that you can morph it later and get 5 from it... also that the more you load it up, the more you get out of it when you offer it to your Smothering Abomination for your upkeep tribute. It's also cheaper than Hangarback on the front end if you have tons of mana to throw at it.
Spawning Bed - I cut Vitu-Ghazi, The City-Tree for this and haven't looked back. Tokens that can sacrifice themselves and give you value are just priceless in this deck. I understand your love for Awakening Zone (From Beyond probably deserves a mention too) for just this reason, though I found them to be too slow for me, and they wound up in the Mobilization - Sacred Mesa pile. Bitterblossom, on the other hand, is perfect, better offensive tokens and a lower cost.
Now that I've read your list, I feel like I should add Craterhoof Behemoth back into my list. I cut Tooth and Nail just because casting it just felt so... anticlimatic and un-fun to me, but I did so love the big green beasty in Unburial Rites standard.
Which reminds me, since you're playing such a grindy style, why not Twilight Drover? He's slow but I've found him to be remarkably efficient at what he does. And he's probably the best creature to slap Illusionist's Bracers on outside of Rhys the Redeemed or Ghave himself.
Other cards deserving a mention are Blade of the Bloodchief, though that's probably more for combo style lists, it takes Ghave to the "next level"...there are certain cards in any Ghave list with that potential.
Doubling Season, Cathars' Crusade, Juniper Order Ranger, Corpsejack Menace, Parallel Lives, Illusionist's Bracers and Hardened Scales are the ones I'm using.
Mikaeus, the Lunarch is also a consideration for a swarm-style of play, and Requiem Angel is a mana-free on-death trigger for all those Saprolings that die.
Anyways, great list, thanks for the write up and the inspirations (Craterhoof and maybe Akroma's Memorial I'm gonna find room for)
Rather than putting in extra ramp, I went the route of drawing my curve with more low drops, and I've been much happier.
I haven't really found too much of a need for more sac outlets. I do with that Sadistic Hypnotist could sac at instant speed, but it's still solid regardless. It's possible I'll consider adding more at some point, especially with Smothering Abomination having become a common tutor target for me. Been really liking that card.
Deranged Hermit, Hooded Hydra, Spawning Bed - these are all cards I kinda feel just aren't good enough to be worth the mana investment. They just don't do that much.
Hangarback Walker, though! That's actually a card I was already thinking about and really want to put in here. I need to figure a slot for it, and I'm also waiting for it to drop in price. It's definitely not worth the price tag that Standard is giving it. Definitely want one, though.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Also, as far as Hydras go, I'd be much more inclined to try out Lifeblood Hydra. I think that card could have a lot of potential here.
Lastly, yeah, the new Golgari deck has some things I'm going to want to try, or at least consider. First and foremost is Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest. That card looks sweet.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Most notably I've added Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim and Nissa, Voice of Zendikar. I'm pretty excited about both of those cards.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Retired Lists: Ghave - Hanna - Thrun - Zur
Pauper: Crypt Rats
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius