Ballet Bears: 2-mana Tribal EDH

Commander / EDH*

tntturtle5

Land (30)

• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Forest
• 1x Frontier Bivouac
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Island
• 1x Jungle Shrine
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Murmuring Bosk
• 1x Opulent Palace
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Savage Lands
• 1x Seaside Citadel
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Arguel's Blood Fast  ^Flip
• 1x Blind Obedience
• 1x Cindervines
• 1x Dance of the Dead
• 1x Metamorphic Alteration
• 1x Sylvan Library

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Nissa, Steward of Elements

Instant (24)

• 1x Anticipate
• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Azorius Charm
• 1x Boomerang
• 1x Boros Charm
• 1x Comet Storm
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Everdream
• 1x Growth Spiral
• 1x Hallowed Moonlight
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Impulse
• 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Pull from Tomorrow
• 1x Rakdos Charm
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Sanguine Sacrament
• 1x Telling Time
• 1x Terminate
• 1x Twincast

Artifact (12)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Golgari Signet
• 1x Gruul Signet
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Mindcrank
• 1x Selesnya Signet
• 1x Simic Signet
• 1x Sword of the Meek
• 1x Thopter Foundry
• 1x Torpor Orb

Commander (1)

Creature (16)

• 1x Dimir Guildmage
• 1x Duskmantle Guildmage
• 1x Fauna Shaman
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Harsh Mentor
• 1x House Guildmage
• 1x Kiora's Follower
• 1x Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
• 1x Leonin Arbiter
• 1x Magus of the Balance
• 1x Qasali Pridemage
• 1x Radha, Heir to Keld
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Senate Guildmage
• 1x Vexing Shusher
• 1x Voice of Resurgence

Sorcery (9)

• 1x Black Sun's Zenith
• 1x Dance of the Manse
• 1x Dreadbore
• 1x Explore
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Rampant Growth
• 1x Return to the Ranks
• 1x Torment of Hailfire

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TL;DR: Made a deck where everything has CMC 2, and wanted to see if anyone had thoughts on it.
The deck is built to be a proof of concept, the goal is to play an interactive game with the restrictions set on the deck.
Budget isn't really a concern, but let's just say it's <$50/card.
In terms of power level of the playgroup, it ranges from about 60% to 90%, so I'm not necessarily looking to crush, just bring something interesting to the table.
Here's the decklist: Ballet Bears

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Here's the story:

A fellow player at my LGS found a Grizzly Bears on the counter of the game store, and started recollecting some funny stories of a casual bears deck he made for the kitchen table. He then comments, "Haha, wouldn't it be funny if someone made a bear tribal deck for EDH? Where all the creatures were 'bears' in the sense that they were 2-mana 2/2's?" We had some laughs, joked about who the Commander would be (unanimously agreed it would be Progenitus, because 5x2=10), then I got to thinking about what some 2 mana creatures would be.

After some digging I found some gems: Voice of Resurgence , Scavenging Ooze , Grand Abolisher and Leonin Arbiter among others. So I started looking into it further. Then it occurred to me how many quality 2 drops there were, and how many non-creatures spells were also 2 cost, but were powerful in their own rights, like Sylvan Library and Cyclonic Rift . So I set to making a deck, but not before I set some ground rules:

Rules:
- Each creature (except the commander) must be a 2 mana 2/2. That is I must be able to pay exactly 2 mana, and get a base P/T 2 and 2 creature. Hydras don't cut it, since their base P/T is 0/0, and any creature with star/star is also not eligible, like Boneyard Wurm.
- All non-creature spells must have a CMC of 2. In other words, I must be able to transmute Muddle the Mixture for them. Doesn't matter if there is an X in the cost, as long as the CMC is 2 if X=0.

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Looks like a funny deck. Got plenty of interaction, got plenty of quality creatures, and all the mana fixing I can get. But alas, it's a 5-color deck that can only play 2 CMC spells, so the options are limited.

I won't do a full decklist run down, but I'll note some inclusions:
Thopter Foundry + Sword of the Meek is conveniently a combo I can run, as well as Duskmantle Guildmage + Mindcrank .
Muddle the Mixture finds me any card in my deck.
Current win cons are Torment of Hailfire , Comet Storm , and Progenitus is also ways a plan the first time it's cast.
Unfortunately I couldn't play Endless Servitude, but Return to the Ranks hits every single creature I need it to while being CMC 2.
* Yes, Nissa, Steward of Elements is a 2 CMC planeswalker. No, I'm not playing Tibalt. But who knows, I might give him a chance.

++++++++++++++

So I haven't done too many games with the deck yet, and it's already gone through 2~3 minor changes after those games. Turns out Duskmantle+Mindcrank combo gets there when people aren't expecting anything from the 2-mana deck, and colored mana management is just as difficult as I imagined it would be.

Now I throw it to you /r/EDH, what say you on the 2-mana tribal deck?
And just in case anyone missed it, heres the decklist again: Ballet Bears

Date added	6 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 47 - 0 Rares 22 - 0 Uncommons 21 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.11
Tokens	Elemental */* GW, Manifest 2/2 C, Thopter 1/1 U
Folders	Magic as Richard Garfield intended, SillyDecks, hell yeah