I just found out that Primeval Titan is legal in Modern. Where have I been? I really wanted to use him in a Commander deck, but I was very excited to build a Mono-Green Ramp deck that does a lot of things very quickly.
You may or may not be familiar with a deck called "Chant of the Mul Daya" that I first discovered when playing Magic Duels of the Planeswalkers on Steam. It ramped into some crazy Eldrazi shenanigans, but I didn't want to just recreate the same deck. With a little reading it appears there were many variations of this deck that were created years ago that excluded Eldrazi and that was more the style I wanted to go. I kept some of the original build, but went in other directions that have proven to be crazy powerful in a multiplayer setting, which is where I hope to unleash this beast.
First of all, when you are playing with Primeval Titan you have to have a huge land base. Not too big, you don't want the floods, but 20-22 isn't going to cut it. You could probably play with a little more than the 25 that I have chosen, but I found a way to ensure that those drops can keep happening even after you run out.
For example, a single copy of Life from the Loam lets you redraw your fetch lands three at a time. This build doesn't really want to stall out by allowing more than two land drops from your hand in a turn, so doing this every other turn or so is just fine. The other fun way that gets lands back into your library for searching is Bow of Nylea. Two mana lets you put up to any four cards back on the bottom of your library. Put whatever you want down there as long as you keep Loam and at least one fetch land and you'll be able to replay the fetch, search for the basic, and then shuffle your library. This is interesting recursion that led me to want to play not just one but three copies of Terastodon.
Sure, Terastodon can be used to take down up to three things other than creatures that are in your way at the expense of giving your opponent a 3/3 Elephant for each one, but it's way better to kill off three of your own land for those 3 Elephants instead which alongside that 9/9 Terastodon gives you 18 power and toughness at the expense of land you will be getting back one way or another. Three copies seems extensive/expensive but Life from the Loam and Bow of Nylea give you plenty of ways to get land back into your hand to replay or library to cheat out. Big plays.
One other noticeable change is
Jaddi Offshoot
instead of
Grazing Gladehart
. It's less gain but for two less mana and one extra toughness makes a big difference. You also do not have a lot of other turn one plays that you actually want to play on turn one, so it's definitely an upgrade in my book. It also helps that you have to gain the life instead of "may" gain it so you can't forget and short yourself.
I also opted for more fetch lands like
Blighted Woodland
, Evolving Wilds, and Terramorphic Expanse over search cards like Explore and Rampant Growth. There's several reasons for this.
Khalni Heart Expedition
also fits this strategy which is to allow the flexibility of getting land drops during your opponent's turn. This is huge to drop surprise blockers with Rampaging Baloths and
Zendikar's Roil
, especially if Vigor is on the table since it would make those chumpers survive and become even bigger. Seriously, Vigor is stupid good. Is it a Viking Helmet with a giant mustache covered in moss? A Bull with a turtle shell? An Ox that lives under a rock like Patrick Star? WHAT ARE YOU!?!?
Nylea, God of the Hunt gives all of my creatures Trample which is mostly for all of the tokens since most of the actual creatures already have Trample, but she also has a nice mana sink to give a little extra damage. It's an Indestructible 6/6 for 4 mana too which is nothing to sneeze at. Scute Mob also approves heavily of her.
Pelakka Wurm is a fantastic creature. A 7/7 Trample for 7 that gains you 7 life and then draws a card when it dies. Wonderful. With the slow presence in the early game that can be huge.
Ulvenwald Hydra is mostly there for Reach and shear size since it will likely come in as a 7/7 or 8/8 and then grow into anything up to 25/25. Nylea giving this guy Trample and her Bow giving Deathtouch when attacking make this guy a fatty worth having on your team.
Nemesis Mask
was an obvious pickup after playtesting.
Lure
but movable and much harder to remove. Bow can shoot it back into your library if it gets destroyed as well. Vigor approves heavily of this card.
Speaking of Bow of Nylea, this thing has all kinds of utility to it from shooting down Flyers to gaining life to digging cards back into your library from your graveyard. The attacking with Deathtouch is wonderful when you have dozens of 2/2 and 4/4 tokens. Block me bro.
Tooth and Nail is the best reason to only have 2 of each creature. You'll have no problem ramping into this for 9 mana and grabbing whatever you need. In most cases this will be a Vigor and an Avenger of Zendikar. If you don't have a Titan than the Avenger pairs stupidly good with that. Basically have the Avenger ETB first and you'll get something like 7-9 1/1 Plant Tokens. Then when the Titan falls you get two more land which puts two +1/+1 counters on ALL of those plant tokens. Next turn those tokens will get at least two more counters, but potentially a hell of a lot more than that. It's stupid.
Quest for Renewal pretty much sits there and gives all of your creatures Vigilance. Untap everything every upkeep? Sweet! If only I could attack during other people's turns...
Overrun is to end the game. Put everyone else out of their misery with one GIGANTIC attack at every other living player.
I replaced Overrun with Garruk Wildspeaker because it helps in more ways, and for one less mana can also give everything +3/+3 and Trample. Garruk, Caller of Beasts makes the cut for refilling your hand with creatures and being able to drop them for free. With Doubling Season you can use his ultimate immediately which turns things up a notch...
Doubling Season is insane with the token drops, but also Avenger of Zendikar puts counters on plants like nobody's business so it makes sense. It also doesn't hurt that it helps Garruk with loyalty counters. Solid card.
Harmonize draws three cards for four mana. In this deck it might as well cost one mana. Very nice.
Ghost Quarter has interesting utility. First of all it can destroy ANY land, not just non-basic. This can disrupt things your opponent wants to do, but what if you don't have anything to meddle with? Well, just blow up one of your own Forest and replace it for another free landfall trigger this turn. Don't worry, you'll get it back :)
And that about does it. Extreme ramp/landfall but without any temporary effects. This deck goes big and wide and doesn't look back. Playtests have shown 25-45 permanents on your own field within 10 turns or so very consistently. Of course this is all subject to what your opponents will be doing about it, and of course board wipes will suck. However, I've found when playing decks like this that I can recover from board wipes better than most. It really helps being able to add cards back into my library four at a time with Bow of Nylea. That card really is clutch.
