Nature's Uprising
Here's my hand at a
Trostani, Selesnya's Voice
Commander deck with a heavy focus on mana ramp into huge creatures/tokens. Selesnya, along with Azorius are my favorite MTG color combinations and this deck encapsulates everything I love with Selesnya. That being said, here's a little about the deck and how I intended for it to be played.
This deck has three main focuses:
1) Huge creatures.
2) Land/mana-ramp.
3) Really good enchantments.
Tokens and life-gain are two "sub-focuses" for this deck which just happens to make this deck even better. I'll give a breakdown on all 5 of these so that you get a sense of how it works.
Huge creatures:
If you look through the creature list and you'll notice tons of already big creatures like
Armada Wurm
,
Giant Adephage
,
Sun Titan
,
Sigarda, Host of Herons
, etc. On top of all of that, there are also cards that make huge creatures like
Phyrexian Processor
and
Luminarch Ascension
. These guys will be your main ways of dealing damage since Trostani isn't that strong and there aren't really burn spells in G/W.
Land/mana-ramp:
To cast big creatures, we need lots of mana! Although you could cheat out creatures with
Quicksilver Amulet
or
Elvish Piper
, I don't like depending on those cards in particular (even with tutors) and would rather go the old-fashioned route of ramp. Cards like
Cultivate
,
Kodama's Reach
,
Sol Ring
,
Karametra, God of Harvests
,
Oracle of Mul Daya
and many others ensure that you should be able to cast what you want when you want.
Enchantments:
This deck almost depends on you getting good enchantments. Enchantments in this deck are both your answer to big threats as well as your power spikes in this deck.
Aura Shards
,
Privileged Position
,
Rest in Peace
,
Doubling Season
,
Parallel Lives
,
Primeval Bounty
, and probably a few that I'm missing are cards that give you a significant spike in defensive/offensive capability. Because of this, I have
Sterling Grove
and
Plea for Guidance
in here to help you get those enchantments easier, and I may even add more enchantment tutors as time goes on.
Life-gain:
As I'm sure you know by now, life isn't that important in commander. You have a lot more of it and rarely die to losing it all. At least in my experience, you either lose to voltron/aggro commanders through commander damage or you lose to some crazy combo that allows for infinite damage or destroys all of your lands or something of that nature. Because of this, I don't have a strong focus on life-gain in this deck, but it's not completely forgotten.
Rhox Faithmender
and
Angelic Accord
help make sure your life total is at a comfortable amount while pumping out 4/4 flying angel tokens as well.
Tokens:
While the token theme in this deck might not be as prevalent as it is in other decks, I still can't deny the value possible from
Parallel Lives
,
Doubling Season
, and populate effects through things like Trostani or
Sundering Growth
. Even though I don't have the token generating capabilities of
Rhys the Redeemed
I like to play off of Trostani's strength of making one HUGE token rather than using her ability to make a copy of a 2/2 or something like that. So, for huge tokens, I have cards like
Phyrexian Processor
,
Armada Wurm
,
Advent of the Wurm
,
Luminarch Ascension
,
Angelic Accord
,
Rampaging Baloths
,
Mimic Vat
,
Phyrexian Rebirth
, and
Hydra Broodmaster
.
Yeah sure, that's all fine and dandy, but how do you win?
To be honest, it's good-ole'-fashioned-beat-down. Essentially you develop a strong land base through your ramp spells, a strong creature base, and then enchantments to help protect your creatures and control your opponents. After that it's a matter of getting evasion cards like
Nylea, God of the Hunt
or
Champion of Lambholt
so that you can swing in for the win. That's the ideal scenario. The REALISTIC scenario is that 99% of your wins are going to be coming from one card.
Craterhoof Behemoth
.
This card, especially when tutored up with
Tooth and Nail
in conjunction with
Avenger of Zendikar
absolutely wrecks your opponents if they don't have a counter to it. While I feel like this deck will work fine without it, I don't really know because I draw this card and it's just basically game over.
Cards to Consider:
On that note, there are two cards that I've intentionally left out of this deck due to my playgroup's style of play.
Test of Endurance
and
Felidar Sovereign
. Naturally these cards are perfect for this kind of deck, but my friends aren't fan of straight-up "you win" cards. They're fine with being trampled over with
Craterhoof Behemoth
but not a hexproof
Felidar Sovereign
. If your playgroup is fine with these cards, I would suggest finding a place for at least one!
You might like this deck if...
I feel like this deck encapsulates that same feeling you get when played mono-green for the first time. That feeling of having more land than your opponents, having stronger creatures than your opponents, and just overall being this massive force to be reckoned with.
If you like to play more combo-based decks than this one probably isn't for you. However if you like the idea of gaining massive amounts of life and getting huge creatures on the field, I'd check this deck out.
