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Oh no. It's a snake! Thank you everyone for making this the most popular Snake Tribal EDH deck on TappedOut!

I'm a Snake

This is my main EDH deck. I started playing magic with this tribe in a casual 60-card deck. I eventually got more and more into magic to where I put that deck aside. But, as with all great things, it came back even better. Turning snakes into an EDH deck was very natural, and despite it being a lesser-known tribe, it is surprisingly strong. When this deck wins, it is usually through the strength of Seshiro as a general. However, there are a smattering of good and fun cards that make this deck a blast to play.

Ramp cards for the deck are chosen based on mana cost. Lowering the ramp cards from >4cmc to <=4cmc, allows you to be more aggressive.

Rampant Growth, Three Visits, Cultivate, Kodama's Reach: Your basic green ramp spells. Typically, I don't favor cards like Rampant Growth, but in this deck you want to ramp as quickly as possible in order to start building your board. Even the 4 cmc ramp cards are considerations to cut, though they are nice.

Sakura-Tribe Elder: What? One of the best ramp spells in EDH is also a snake? Ramp early and a attacker late with some pump on board.

Emerald Medallion: This card has been very strong at multiple stages in the game. Dropping this early game allows you to play spells quicker or play multiple spells in a turn. Late game, this allow you to play out several things in your hand after you've drawn several cards off Seshiro. I've cut this recently as a trial, but it may find its way back in.

Caged Sun, Gauntlet of Power: Cards that double your mana should also synergize with the aggro strategy. That is why you see doublers that are also anthems, but not Extraplanar Lens.

Garruk, the Wildspeaker: The OG Green planeswalker, and it doesn't get much better than this. He's listed in the ramp category, because he usually untaps some lands then soaks some damage and dies. However, it only takes two activations for his ultimate, which is just Overrun, and you can't really argue with ramp that pumps every once in awhile.

There are several great snakes in the game and this is just a deck composed of the best ones. I'll go into detail on a few here.

Seshiro the Anointed: The daddy of all snakes. He slices, he dices, he pumps your team, he draws you cards. Honestly he's everything you wanted from a commander in an aggro deck.

Prowling Serpopard: A recent addition to the deck. Making most of your creatures un-counterable is pretty nice.

Stonecoil Serpent: A nice mana-sink if you have a lot of land on board. Relevant keywords, some evasion. Is it just me or are creatures getting better and better?

Lotus Cobra:

Mold Adder: This little guy is really un-assuming. A one drop that just grows and grows. Because let's face it, when aren't you playing against blue or black. Also, Snake Pit is very similar that just keeps cranking out snakes.

Cavern of Souls: Protection for your best creatures against countermagic.

Heroic Intervention, Wrap in Vigor: Great, cheap, board-wide protection at instant speed.

Steely Resolve: This replaced Asceticism and while I love the latter's regen effect, I found that I wasn't able to leave mana up to regen too many things per turn. Steely resolve still packs a punch against targeted removal, is cheaper, and doesn't have too much downside with being shroud.

Eldrazi Monument: This card is great once you have a full board or a Sosuke's Summons online. Other than that, its mediocre early and mid-game. It may get cut at some point for something else with a similar effect. I've already cut the sacrifice outlet of Shisato, Whispering Hunger and stuck him in another deck for similar reasons.

Yavimaya Hollow: A nice little inconspicuous land that people tend to forget about. Has saved a creature more times than it should have.

The way that this deck operates is to build up a board, then drop a finisher, swing to take out one or more players, and refill to do it again.

Craterhoof Behemoth, Overrun, Return of the Wildspeaker, Beastmaster Ascension, Coat of Arms: These are your basic team pump and swing for billions of damage cards.

Triumph of the Hordes: Infect is great for quick kills or to fight against lifegain.

Akroma's Memorial: All the keywords! This is great at pushing damage through against a variety of decks. While it doesn't pump, it is still great at giving evasion.

Champion of Lambholt, Bellowing Tanglewurm: These guys are just fantastic at giving your team ways to avoid being blocked. More attacks to the face = more damage = more cards = more wins.

Yeva, Nature's Herald:

Kamahl, Fist of Krosa:

These are cards suggestions that I see merit in including in the deck. Once obtained, they will likely find a spot in the deck, at least to playtest.

Gaea's Cradle: You'd better believe this would be great. Now...if only I can get my hands on one.

Tribal Unity: A great instant speed finisher for pretty much any tribal deck.

The Immortal Sun: An anthem that doesn't have much downside to shutting off the deck while having card draw if Seshiro gets shut out. Worth a playtest.

Tribute to the Wild: A nice symmetrical hate card with the disadvantage of not being able to target certain problem permanents.

Ramunap Hydra and Feiyi Snake: Reach snakes are good in a meta with more troublesome flyers. The hydra will probably find a spot if more deserts are included.

These are card suggestions that I have chosen not to include either due to prohibitive price or deckbuilding reasons. If you do have a further argument for them, please post below.

Parallel Lives: Several people have suggested this card. The token generation in this deck is very minimal and not a main focus. This card only ends up buffing up a handful of cards in the deck, and chances are, if those cards are doing their job, you're in a good spot already.

Door of Destinies: Typically the strategy of the deck involves dropping your finisher on an already large board when safe to do so. Door having to stay out multiple turns to get incremental benefit doesn't seem to work as well as the other anthems. Still a fine card, just there are better ones for what the deck is doing.

Metallic Mimic: This is a fine card as well, but suffers from similar problems as Door above. Another problem is that it is another creature in an already creature-heavy deck, making wraths even worse then they already are.

Chameleon Colossus: This is a very good snake. The only reason I do not include it is to stay more on theme.

Boundless Realms: I love this card as much as the next person, but with an aggro deck like this, lower cmc ramp is where you really want to be.

Make sure to check out my other EDH decks as well!
*For more fun with the snake tribe with widely different takes, check out Kaeseto Voltron EDH, Xyris Snake EDH, and Hapatra EDH.

Suggestions

Updates Add

5/4/14: Won a 3-player against Gahiji, Honored One and Obzedat, Ghost Council. Had a turn 6 Lurking Predators that got destroyed before it could do anything, but finally used big Garruk for the first time. He was mediocre. But a Seshiro that wasn't answered ran away with the game.

6/21/14: Won a 4-player against Sliver Legion, Child of Alara, and Obzedat, Ghost Council. Took quick control of the game with a curve of Elder->Shizuko->Akroma's memorial with help from Nykthos. Kept adding to the board with Natures Will and Seshiro. While I drew hate with a tideholow sculler, blind obediance(no more haste attacks), and finally a Child board wipe, I was able to still flash in my Seshiro, rebuild very easily, and stomp my way to victory.

9/18/14: Crushed a 1v1 vs. Prossh, Skyraider of Kher. A few low drops into Seshiro created an early lead. An Akroma's Memorial cemented the win.

10/29/14: Got demolished in a 5-player game. Every other player at the table attacked me first and let a Khalia player run rampant. I was out a good half an hour before another player got eliminated. I may have been a little salty after this game.

8/1/15 Gencon: Won a couple games vs. a handful of decks including Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury, Obzedat, Ghost Council, Trostani, Selesnya's Voice, and lost some as well. One memorable one was getting down to the wire against a Kaalia of the Vast in which a timely akroma's memorial dug me out against an Angelic Arbiter and an Avacyn, Angel of Hope.

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Top Ranked
Date added 10 years
Last updated 1 year
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

7 - 0 Mythic Rares

32 - 0 Rares

16 - 0 Uncommons

17 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.30
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, Honored Hydra 6/6 W, Morph 2/2 C, Snake 1/1 G
Folders EDH, COMMANDER!, Commander, Deck I'd Like to Playtest, Others decks, EDH Green Decks, highscoringedh, Commander, EDH Ideas, commander decks of interest
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