Grove of the Guardian
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Grove of the Guardian

Land

: Add .

, , Tap two untapped creatures you control, Sacrifice Grove of the Guardian: Create an 8/8 green and white Elemental creature token with vigilance.

rckclimber777 on Build a Deck with Me …

6 days ago

First a quick introduction. I've been playing magic off and on for years. When this site first started out, I was super active and then I stopped playing. I recently got back into it and plunged deep into the Commander format. I love building decks around interesting concepts and often trying to break cards.

My slightly ambitious goal is to create a series of threads that show my thought process as I build a commander deck. I figure it will serve two purposes: First, it will aid newer players who have some precon decks and perhaps are looking to upgrade them or they see a commander and want to build it, but aren't sure how. The second is purely self-motivated in that more experienced players can fine tune my own logic and make suggestions for my own improvement.

So with that, the first commander deck I'm going to build here is Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds. This is a card that begs to be broken and creates for interesting and powerful decks. There are also several different lines you can choose to go with. You can make it go infinite if you like degeneracy or don't like the people in your playgroup, or you can decide to go the way of building lots of tokens quickly and then turning them sideways and swinging. (Spoiler alert we are going infinite)

So first things first, we need to think about what the commander actually does and what it is going to need to do that effectively. First, it allows all nontoken creatures to tap and create tokens that I control that entered the battlefield this turn. So a couple things to point out: First is that it is tokens not creature tokens specifically, so treasures, clues, food, etc. are fair game. Secondly, it doesn't have to be my turn that the tokens came in, you can activate the ability at instant speed if you create a token on your opponent's turn. Now Ghired also is only 3 mana in Naya colors with Haste which means he's going to come down early in the game, so we'll want some other creatures out there when he comes down to start building up tokens right away.

With his abilities in mind, there are a couple things that we want to think about: Cards that create tokens, cards that double tokens, cards that untap things, and cards that do interesting things when they're tapped, example Wylie Duke, Atiin Hero, who comes down early as well, and when she is tapped I gain life and draw a card. We will obviously need to consider interaction, ramp, and card draw, but those are secondary in my thoughts. Every deck needs those, but what items you add often depends on what your deck is trying to do. In this case, we want to make tokens, tap creatures, make more tokens.

Token Generators

So a couple really good token generators here to start would be things that keep making them rather than one offs. In my playtesting Oltec Matterweaver is hard to beat. It comes in early (turn 2 if you can get a sol ring). When you cast a creature spell you can copy a target artifact or bring out a 1/1 gnome. Turn 1 you play a plains and a sol ring. Turn 2 you bring this out, turn 3 you bring out Ghired, creating a copy of sol ring, tap your Oltec Matterweaver and create another sol ring. You now have 3 sol rings on the field on turn 3... You are now the archenemy, congrats? EDIT: So as it was pointed out in the comments Oltec only creates copies of TOKEN artifacts. We could use Molten Duplication to create a copy of an artifact, but still Oltec still does great at producing consistent tokens.

Some other standouts are Emmara, Soul of the Accord who when tapped creates a 1/1 soldier with lifelink. So tapping will actually create two tokens. Also if you need a token for Sunstrike Legionnaire to go infinite you can tap her down (she's only 2 mana) create your 1/1 soldier, untap sunstrike, with Ghired on the field, tap Sunstrike to create infinite lifelink 1/1 soldiers. (actually happened in playtesting)

Generous Plunderer deserves a mention as you really need consistent tokens every turn and this does that. It gives you treasure tokens which is great and is likely to stick around since your opponents like the possibility of getting a treasure token as well. Dockside Extortionist can take the deck to new levels of degeneracy depending on when you play it/number of times you copy it with things like kiki jiki and jaxis.

Selvala, Eager Trailblazer is also great as you get 1/1 creatures every time you cast a creature spell. Her ramp also goes surprisingly well in the deck. I highly recommend it.

Thousand Moons Smithy  Flip is another beast of a card. It comes down turn 4, Ghired is already out along with any other low cost creatures. Let's say you have a Birds of Paradise and Ghired when this comes down and maybe a mana rock. You create a 5/5 Gnome (2 creatures, 2 artifacts, and the gnome itself). Now you tap the bird and Ghired and create two more Gnomes. You now have 3 7/7s, on turn 4...

Honorable mentions here are things like Smothering Tithe who will create treasures each opponent's turn, tap a creature and create another. Rain of Riches, create some treasures, copy them, cast something, and get cascade.

Also, populate is a thing, I like Growing Ranks and Nesting Dovehawk for that.

Doublers

Ok, so doublers is a pretty easy topic, there are quite a few out there, they are expensive and honestly for this deck you don't need much. I chose a couple that I particularly like for this and by like I mean I own them and didn't have to go out and spend $50-60. Examples are Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation  Flip, Mondrak, Glory Dominus, Primal Vigor (careful as this one applies to everyone not just you).

I ended up starting out with 3 of these and then cut it down to just the two creatures mondrak and ojer taq. Both are still great and can quickly overwhelm the opponent. I found myself holding onto the enchantments in preference to playing token creators and creatures.

Untapping Abilities

Untapping abilites can make it even worse as time goes on. If you have a Seedborn Muse you untap each upkeep so they draw a card, Smothering Tithe creates a treasure, during their end step you tap your creatures creating more treasures. Untap on the next opponent's untap step, rinse and repeat.

This is also where infinite combos begin to happen. Sunstrike Legionnaire untaps everytime a creature enters the battlefield. Make a creature token, tap sunstrike legionnaire, create another creature token, sunstrike legionnaire untaps, rinse and repeat, gg. Midnight Guard works too for one more mana. Other options include making copies of your own creatures that untap creatures when they enter the battlefield like Hyrax Tower Scout, Zealous Conscripts, Sparring Mummy. Mix that with notable salty cards like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Molten Duplication, Splinter Twin, Jaxis, the Troublemaker and you're off to infinite again. (Jaxis uses his ability targeting sparring mummy, sparring mummy comes in untaps him, now Jaxis just taps to make a copy of the sparring mummy token (from Ghired) which has haste, it comes in untaps Jaxis, rinse and repeat, swing with a legion of sparring mummies)

Don't got too heavy on these or you won't have enough tokens to copy.

Cards that do cool things when tapped aren't super plentiful, but the two I've mentioned already are great for this deck. (Wylie and Emmara).

Interaction, ramp, card draw

Now for the ramp, interaction, and card draw. Ramp is fairly straightforward, since we have the Oltec Matterweaver, I opted to put in some signets, but left some other stones out. Normally when I'm in green I go heavy on green ramp. I opted for cheap ramp spells like Rampant Growth, Farseek, Three Visits and Birds of Paradise (could maybe use more mana dorks since having a body later will help in producing larger tokens).

Interaction is super important in this one. Board wipes are coming, targeted removal is coming, so need to prepare, but we also need to be flexible in taking out our opponents. So to save us from board wipes, we have Heroic Intervention, the ubiquitous and hopefully soon to be reprinted (one can dream) Teferi's Protection, Boros Charm, and Smuggler's Surprise (which is heroic intervention in disguise).

Getting rid of threats is crucial, so Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares are useful, but not as useful as Beast Within, Generous Gift, and Stroke of Midnight. These obviously target more than just creatures, but also produce tokens. There are situations where a well-timed beast within on your own treasure token to create a 3/3 beast that you can copy a bunch of times is the right play. That make it not just removal, but also a token generator.

Finally, we come to card draw. Since we are producing tokens (hopefully most turns) we can include things like Bennie Bracks, Zoologist and Idol of Oblivion. I also like Welcoming Vampire for this deck. It is creature heavy so Guardian Project is great, so is Beast Whisperer and Garruk's Uprising. Esper Sentinel is always good. We already have Wylie from earlier. Getting card draw is vital to the survival of any deck and particularly this one as we need to be producing tokens regularly and you need cards to produce them. I chose to run about 11 card draw engines in the deck to ensure I'm drawing regularly.

Lands... I mean... make sure you have dual lands in the deck and triomes if you can. One noteworthy utility land is Grove of the Guardian which can have a nice payoff when you create an 8/8 with a few creatures out along with Ghired.

I'll post the deck that I built from this thought process on my page in case you want to see the final product. And if you made it this far thanks for joining me on this, I hope it was helpful. Feel free to comment on how you would do it differently or cards that should have been mentioned. Also feel free to mention commanders you want to see built. I have a couple in mind to start but want to see suggestions as well.

eliakimras on A Upgraded Primal Genesis Deck

1 year ago

I was browsing through some Ghired decks similar to mine and found yours. My two cents on the questions in the description:

  • You might take out Doomed Artisan for Idol of Oblivion. The Sculptures created can't even attack while the Artisan is on the field, and the rate it creates is painfully slow. The Idol can draw you cards every turn of yours, and also serves as a second Grove of the Guardian if your tokens are wiped out.

  • Talking about the Grove, how is Myriad Landscape working for you? Can it regularly get the lands you need to cast Ghired the next turn? I'm asking you because I've tried to make it and Mirrorpool work in my deck, but the strain colorless taplands made on the deck was mind-taxing to me. I decided to only run Krosan Verge, Kessig Wolf Run and Grove of the Guardian as colorless utility lands, and it's working wonders.

If you desire, you can check my decklist: I've made a breakdown of some suggestions in the description. Particularly, the clone stuff red is getting is crazy bonkers in Ghired.

DemonDragonJ on All Creatures Great and Small

2 years ago

I was contemplating replacing Gavony Township with either Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree or Grove of the Guardian, as lands that can generate tokens are nice, but I ultimately felt that this deck already had a sufficient number of cards that generate tokens, so it would be better to have a land that makes my creatures more powerful.

Some other cards that would have been nice in this deck are Craterhoof Behemoth and Timeless Witness, but, again, there was no room for them, unfortunately.

spectre3353 on Rhys's pieces

2 years ago

Some recommendations:

I've got a similar list over here if you want other ideas: https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/rhys-selesnya-tokens-3/

Cmi1103 on Rhys the Redeemed (Shell)

3 years ago

Grove of the Guardian is a good land you could throw in, gives you a big token that can be copied. Cryptolith Rite is insane ramp. Illusionist's Bracers to copy Rhys's copy abillity, working very similarly to Doubling Season and crew. Crashing Drawbridge is a good budget way to give all your tokens haste which can be very valuable. Throne of the God-Pharaoh and Altar of the Brood are good wincons if you're not able to attack for whatever reason. Huatli, Radiant Champion, Mentor of the Meek, and Runic Armasaur are all pretty consistent card draw options throughout the entire game. And Aura Shards is a huge defensive piece, keeping opponents' games out of sync with their key artifacts and enchantments. A few tutors to get out creatures and enchantments help as well... a few are Idyllic Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, Eladamri's Call, and Green Sun's Zenith. That should be a pretty good list to get you started, you can check out my Rhys deck if you would like for any other inspiration you may find: 0-60 in 3.5! (Rhys tokens). Rhys is such a fun commander! Make a big emphasis on ramp and quick token generation and watch it fly out of control! If you would like any help with cuts or any questions let me know!

Forkbeard on Rhys the Redeemed: Power in Numbers

3 years ago

You know, I've always dismissed Grove of the Guardian as garbage. Taking another look at it though, in magical EDH Christmas land I have all of the token doubling enchantments out + haste enablers and crush my enemies with a fleet of massive elementals. Colour fixing isn't a huge challenge in a dual colour deck and it doesn't enter tapped. Good call HannahBarbera, adding it for fun!

HannahBarbera on Rhys the Redeemed: Power in Numbers

3 years ago

I've run many Selesnya token decks over the year, and I constantly find Grove of the Guardian to be a good land to include for big, splashy tokens during the mid and late game.

Cmi1103 on Rhys The Redeemed

3 years ago

Awesome deck! This is a very fun take on Rhys, I like the few cards added for protection against board wipes! I think you might enjoy adding Champion of Lambholt or Odric, Master Tactician who can both help make your creatures unblockable. I also enjoy Huatli, Radiant Champion if you find you need more card draw in here. Grove of the Guardian can also be extremely fun creating some bigger token creatures! Here's my personal take on Rhys if you're interested: 0-60 in 3.5! (Rhys tokens).

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