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Dina, Soul Ramper

Commander / EDH* BG (Golgari)

TinOmen

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Lands (35)

Draw (15)

Gravehate (4)

Ramp (23)

STR (16)

Recur (6)

Other (1)

Commander (1)

Commander: Dina, Soul Steeper

Lands Matter (20)

LandTutor (9)

Wipes (5)

Bane of Progress -> Elemental Bond

Disciple of Bolas -> Beseech the Queen

Woodland Chasm -> Bonder's Enclave

???? -> Archdruid's Charm

Dina, Soul Ramper

See that first line of text on Dina? About the dealing damage when we gain life? We don't care about that here. Not even a little bit. Instead, our goal is to use her sacrifice ability to give her a HUGE amount of attack and swing in for lethal via commander damage. So what are we sacrificing to give her 20+ power? Demons? Ha! Eldrazi? Please, that's 15 max. Instead, we are going to ramp out like you've never seen and then use cards that care about the number of swamps or forests in play. Let's break things down...

Gameplan

The basic gameplan is as follows: first, we ramp. Yes, we have the normal Rampant Growth and Farseek style cards, but we are also running seven cards which tutor for specific lands. Which lands first? Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth. This way, all our lands are forests and swamps, which means cards like Nightmare and Kalonian Twingrove start working just like Ulvenwald Hydra. Then we start ramping for just lands in general, and eventually swing in with Dina after making her unblockable via something like Shizo, Death's Storehouse or Filth, sac one of our monstrosities (or give her a Lashwrithe or Blackblade Reforged, and win!

If we can't connect with Dina for some reason, we then have a few backup plans. Vorpal Sword lets us use our unblockable package to turn anything into lethal, Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord can do huge damage (and with Sorin Markov we can make it easy lethal even against infinite life), and if the game goes long enough Vraska, Golgari Queen can ult to turn everything we have into a vorpal sword, basically. And then, if all goes badly, we can still just turn our "lands matter" creatures sideways and hope that's enough to grind a few players down.

So how do we make a Nightmare an actually nightmare for our opponents? Well we ramp as fast as we can. Sol Ring and Golgari Signet are our only cards that ramp without getting us actual lands. We want to avoid artifact ramp as much as possible since it has anti-synergy with our gameplan, but Sol Ring is too good and Golgari Signet lets us keep hands with lands that produce colorless.

Beyond that, most of our turn 2 plays are land ramp. Budoka Gardener  , Farseek, Nature's Lore, Rampant Growth, Sakura-Tribe Elder (save the sac for turn 3 if you have a Journey to Eternity   to plop on it), Venture Forth and Thaumatic Compass   all help us get our lands into play fast. On turn 3 we can instead play Cultivate, Nissa, Vastwood Seer  , Tireless Provisioner, or Wood Elves, with the latter two great sacrifice fodder for cards like Vraska, Golgari Queen. On later turns, we can then ramp with Solemn Simulacrum, Boseiju Reaches Skyward  , Binding the Old Gods, which respectively serve as ramp, a late-game threat, and removal.

But our goal isn't just to ramp, it's to ramp out specific cards. We need minimally Urborg and Yavimaya to make everything a swampforest, but cards like Shizo, Cabal Coffers, Bojuka Bog, and many others are also great to have on the field. So how do we do that? Well with seven tutors: Expedition Map, Nylea's Intervention and Pir's Whim (both double as removal if necessary), Sylvan Scrying, Hour of Promise, Ulvenwald Hydra, and - our favorite for making the whole deck explode - Reshape the Earth.

So what aren't we running? Well, Crop Rotation puts us up 0 lands, so it's not really good here. Druid Class almost made the cut, the ult is especially good and the lifegain works with the commander, but we ramp so fast that we rarely have two lands in hand! Budoka Gardener   just does everything but the lifegain effect better, as we can keep making huge tokens. And while I suppose you could slot in things like Three Visits, there just aren't enough swampforests out there to make it worth it. We don't want too many cards that only get basic lands, as they end up not being able to do anything if we ramp too hard.

We can't JUST ramp though, we've also got to make sure we have a constant draw engine. Our lands like Castle Locthwain and Grim Backwoods give some draw, but are more a bonus than anything we can count on. Nissa, Vastwood Seer   flips into a constant draw engine, and Tireless Tracker and Dread Presence are right on our land-based gameplan. Even Nissa, Vital Force is great here, although we do have to protect her for one turn. Erebos, God of the Dead helps us keep lifegain decks from getting out of Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord range, and with Cabal Coffers lets us draw as much as we can. We also have some stuff like Syphon Mind to ensure we can draw without conditions.

Strength-based draw is then the second major focus, as with enough lands these cards explode beyond most decks' wildest power-based dreams. Garruk, Primal Hunter, Return of the Wildspeaker, and Riskar's Expertise are all amazing in this deck. We can then use Pattern of Rebirth and Protean Hulk to tutor up creatures - remember that our commander is a 1 cost sac-outlet at all times.

So if that is our gameplan, how do we stop other people from beating us? Some cards, like Thaumatic Compass   (once flipped), Binding the Old Gods, Vraska, Golgari Queen, and Pir's Whim I've already talked about, and work with our plan. Even Dread Presence can kill some weaker cards in a pinch, and if Dina is out they happen to nuke the whole table! So why not? To get rid of nastier cards, we have stuff like Defile (bummer early game but Path of Exile-level good after some ramp), Assassin's Trophy, Druid of Purification, The Eldest Reborn, and Sheoldred, Whispering One. The latter two serve as great recursion too.

Furthermore, since we have so much mana after ramping, we can make do with some strong X-spells. Pest Infestation's XX cost doesn't matter if we have 10+ lands and a Cabal Coffers, and those little tokens synergize with our commander, cards like Vraska, and just keep us with enough blockers for days. Finale of Eternity is STR and recursion all in one, which we need since we sacrifice our threats to win, and Dregs of Sorrow is insane once mana is no option.

If we need to get rid of EVERYTHING, well we are running six solutions. Damnation and Mutilate are classic black wipes. Toxic Deluge isn't a bad addition here, but its not as one-sided as you might think since while it will certainly spare our big creatures it easily removes our commander - and therefore primary wincon. Don't put in a Black Sun's Zenith as it non-bos with our strategy hard. Culling Ritual often hits nothing we play early game since we are just ramping out lands. Nylea's Intervention is mostly used to tutor lands, but, hey, it can take out some angels and dragons in a pinch. Finally, just need to bunker down? Well with 30 lands in play Constant Mists will keep us safe until we can draw a better answer or turn the game around.

Finally, since Dina is sacking our big threats we need to bring them back. Three opponents means our main strategy minimally takes three turns to pull off, and each time we do it we lose our main way to pump to lethal (Lashwrithe and Blackblade Reforged aside). So while I've mentioned big recursion bursts like Finale of Eternity and threat+recursion combos like Sheoldred, Whispering One, we also have the green staples Eternal Witness and Bala Ged Recovery  , as well as lands like Witch's Cottage. The Mending of Dominaria has a lot of synergy overall too, despite being slow, and helps out if we end up facing land destruction - our scariest threat.

We've also got Whip of Erebos, which is kinda unideal as what we recur is gone forever, but does give us enough life to survive a lot of threats (and fuel Erebos, God of the Dead. Can't win the game yet? Well smacking someone with a 30/30 Nightmare that has lifelink will give us time to do so. Along with the various pests and Food we can make, we also do have some minor synergy with the first line of text on Dina, so any incidental lifegain also serves as drain, which is nice!

All in all, this deck is quite strong for my decks, but does require a bit of luck on the draw. Too much removal combined with too much gravehate slows us down hard, and the right decks can make it really tricky for Dina to connect. Still, if you can stay in the game, you can often grind your way to a win, with enough recursion, big threats, and removal to stall game plans, disrupt combos, and eventually find a way to victory. I'd call the deck a lightly strong build within my collection, somewhere around a 7-8 across the decks I own. As always, this is not a 7-8 compared to any deck, but as in a 10 being the strongest deck I own regardless of its strength in the greater commanderverse. In terms of fun, its definitely up there too imo, as you're always doing SOMETHING - be it ramping our hard or disrupting threats and opposing gameplans.

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92% Casual

Competitive

Revision 47 See all

(1 month ago)

+1 Flourishing Bloom-Kin main
-1 Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose main
Top Ranked
Date added 2 years
Last updated 1 month
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

18 - 0 Mythic Rares

46 - 0 Rares

17 - 0 Uncommons

9 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.78
Tokens A Mysterious Creature, Badger 3/3 G, Bear 2/2 G, Beast 3/3 G, Clue, Elemental X/X G, Emblem Nissa, Vital Force, Emblem Vraska, Golgari Queen, Food, Forest Dryad 1/1 G, Phyrexian Germ 0/0 B, Phyrexian Horror X/X G, Spirit */* G, Treefolk Warrior */* G, Wurm 6/6 G, Zombie 2/2 B
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