I recently found an article talking about epic spells Kruphix on EDHREC, but I like creature based strategies, and so I chose Tishana. She is also just better because she synergises with the green epic spell in a way kruphix just doesn't. She is also excellent with blinking effects, which can be done without casting spells, such as drowning Thassa, and rotten-eye mapmaker.
I am currently deciding whether to run keruga, which would synergise with the blink theme, and card draw theme, but would make it hard to run mana-dorks.
Now I am thinking of a hand-size matters. Some of the easiest cards to put into your hand are basic lands, which would go well with moonfolk, and also other hand-size matter cards. Lands in hand could lead to a land-discard theme, with cards like nantuko cultivator. Another bonus of this is that most land-into hand spells are 3-cmc or greater. Unfortunately, Tishana cares about creatures, while this deck now cares about lands. So, the new commander is Kruphix, God of Horizons. He gives infinite hand size, has the same colours, is harder to remove and stores mana from lands. A kruphix, keruga combo.
Unfortunaetly, there are only a handful of cards that put large amounts of lands into your hand, the best of them being seek the horizon, and nylea's intervention. However, hand size matters is still an excellent theme for the deck, and there are still plenty of options for other hand-size matter cards. Kruphix is still the better option because tishana works best with mana-dorks and keruga doesn't allow that.
The toss-up is between Krupix and keruga hand-size matters, and Tishana Hand-size matters with a tokens subtheme. Both options, of course, will be running both epic spells. I will add more once I decide which commander is better.
Another opponent has entered the ring: Prime speaker zegana. Prime speaker zegana works really well with cards that change their power based on the cards in your hand (Including Tishana). It can be used in conjuction with keruga, and can fill a deck, which was a worry I was having with kruphix. I was worried it would just be all ramp in the deck, because there wasn't a specific direction for the deck. However, with Zegana, I get things to put in the deck, keruga, I get to run that Thassa, deep dwelling that I pulled, and I get hand-size matters. It's a slam-dunk.
The commander with be Prime Speaker Zegana, with a Keruga companion, hand size matters.
While assembling the deck, I noticed that there were a significant amount of cards that returned lands to your hand from the battlefield. These certainly increased hand size, some even wanting large hand sizes, like kefnet. However, this puts you very behind on lands, and one of the only ways to catch up is through playing additional lands. All of these options are 1 or 2 cmc, so Keruga would have to go. Now, Zegana doesnt fit the lands theme, the maro's are done away with and Kruphix becomes the commander. No, I think I should stay away from the lands theme, mostly for budget reasons, (playing extra lands is $, apparently) and also because I like the idea of maro's. I will run the land-bouncers sparingly.
Upon further thought, I realized that no maximum hand size is very important. Extremely so, in fact. If I were playing with zegana, I would need multiple tutors to find reliquary tower or kruphix for the deck to work. If the maro's were 5/5 and I cast zegana, I would draw six, then discard a bunch. 6+5>7. So, the commander is Kruphix, and the theme is back to lands, specifically returning them to hand. Keruga is lost, so that I can run walking atlas variants. Playing additional lands is expensive, but putting lands from hand onto battlefield is cheap. Strange. There will obviously be less maro's, but hand size tribal will still be there, with all the lands added to hand.
I have reached a dilemma. My entire land ramp, card draw ect package has been based around 3cmc or greater. To remove Keruga would be to start again on everything I have done, so I will leave him in, and hope that the colourless given by kruphix is enough to go on while I play lands back a normal speed.
Playing lands back at a normal speed is not acceptable because I need to bounce those lands back to hand. I think the land hand players are necessary for this deck to function, so Keruga is gone, and I am reworking the draw ect.
Without Keruga, this deck just loses it's appeal. It's gone completely off topic, off the rails, and I'm just not interested in whatever it has become, which is close to goodstuff. If I wanted to run return land to hand tribal, my commander should just be patron of the moon. This deck has just crammed synergy into every corner, so much so that it has too many themes to understand. Just look at this essay I wrote while making it!
It has been removed.
