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Ghave, a Real Fun-Guy (Tokens/Counters EDH)

Commander / EDH* BGW (Abzan, Junk) Counters Infinite Combo Tokens Tribal

Yosituna

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Creature (34)

Land (34)

Instant (9)

Sorcery (3)

Commander (1)

Commander: Ghave, Guru of Spores

Enchantment (16)

Artifact (6)

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Creature (57)

Enchantment (22)

Instant (11)

Planeswalker (2)

Artifact (16)

Land (15)

Sorcery (11)

Are you prepared for the counter attack?

This is a Ghave, Guru of Spores EDH deck centering around Saprolings and +1/+1 counter shenanigans. As such, this deck's best friends are the token/counter doublers: Doubling Season, Parallel Lives, Primal Vigor, and Corpsejack Menace. Coat of Arms takes care of the tribal part, boosting your horde of Saprolings beyond recognition. Tons of Saproling producers, lots of cards that produce or use +1/+1 counters, persist creatures (since a +1/+1 counter will cancel out their -1/-1 counter upon returning) and other cards that assist these purposes fill out the deck.

Main win condition is overwhelming the enemy with hordes of Saprolings, boosted with counters and tribal enablers. The most notable strategy to do so is the Sporemound + Life and Limb infinite combo (end it with an enchantment- or creature-destroying instant once you're up to 85 million Saprolings/mana, then swamp your opponents in waves of attacking Saprolings), but there are tons of other ways to manage this. (Fungal Sprouting once you have an enormous Juniper Order Ranger is another, or you can alpha strike with the Ranger itself.) I'm also fairly certain that, given how many cards in this deck allow you to trade counters for tokens and vice versa - Ghave himself first and foremost - having Doubling Season/etc. in play allows for some degenerate combos that I have yet to discover.

Which cards here are substandard? Which ones would help improve the deck? Notice any combos here that I am missing? One thing I am definitely looking seriously at is adding some Abzan cards once Khans of Tarkir launches, since they are not only in the right colors but also the clan mechanic centers around +1/+1 counters...how much more perfect can they get?

Key combos/synergies:

  • Life and Limb + Sporemound : Infinite combo unless ended by destroying the enchantment or the creature at instant speed once you have the requisite number of Saproforests. For the former, use Sundering Growth, Naturalize, or Aura Shards; for the latter, Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, or spend 1 mana to sac it to Ghave.

  • Ajani, Mentor of Heroes + Corpsejack Menace + Ghave, Guru of Spores : You can replace Corpsejack with anything else that doubles +1/+1 counters, such as Primal Vigor or Doubling Season. Ajani's +1 puts three +1/+1 counters divided however you want among creatures; with any of those in play, this becomes distributing six counters (in pairs). All three of those doublers, and each of those three counters becomes eight, for a total of 24. (Not bad for a +1, eh?) The result: lots of counters to create a swole Ghave and to remove every turn for your Saproling army. Alternately, have Ajani put some of those counters on a Gyre Sage and you can use the mana she produces to pay for Ghave's sac costs, allowing you to grow your army even faster.

  • Doubling Season + Rhys the Redeemed , Primal Vigor + Rhys the Redeemed , Parallel Lives + Rhys the Redeemed : Rhys, for six mana, can double your tokens over again. With one of these enchantments out, he'll triple them. With two, he'll quintuple them. With all three, he'll...whatever nine times is. (Nintuple?) There's very little that feels as good as going from 6 Saprolings to 54 in a single turn. If you start out with a genuine token army of, say, 20 Saprolings - not that hard to do with this deck - you're looking at having 180 Saprolings in the end.

  • Ghave, Guru of Spores + Juniper Order Ranger + Woodfall Primus : Sac Primus to Ghave for a counter, he returns with a -1/-1 counter thanks to persist, Ranger cancels that out with a +1/+1 counter. Rinse and repeat. Replace the Ranger with anything that gives +1/+1 counters to creatures that enter the battlefield (such as Oran-Rief, the Vastwood), Ghave with any sac outlet, and Woodfall Primus with any persist creature for infinitely repeatable sac benefits and ETB/LTB effects of whatever the persist creature is. That's what I call value! (Persist creatures here also include Aerie Ouphes, for anti-flying tech, and Twilight Shepherd, to help discourage boardwipes. Also remember that with Cauldron of Souls, any creature with a useful ETB/LTB effect can be your persist creature!)

  • Ghave, Guru of Spores + Illusionist's Bracers , Illusionist's Bracers + Trostani, Selesnya's Voice , Illusionist's Bracers + Rhys the Redeemed : The Bracers will automatically double any activated abilities used by the creature it's attached to. Create double the Saprolings, Elf Warriors, or +1/+1 counters! Populate twice instead of once (and your target can be different) for each activation! And best of all, double your tokens not once, but twice! Note that this stacks with the doubling enchantments; activating Rhys' second ability with the Bracers equipped and with all three token doublers in play, for example, will turn a single token into 81.

Suggestions

Updates Add

Major update — Sept. 7, 2014
Edit

Got rid of most of the Fungus cards, as they weren't really carrying their weight. Now just Saproling tribal, rather than Saproling and Fungus; the only Funguses left are ones that are useful with the Saprolings (i.e., sac for mana, life, card draw).

Also greatly enhanced the +1/+1 counter focus and added some persist shenanigans.

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Date added 10 years
Last updated 6 years
Key combos
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

8 - 0 Mythic Rares

42 - 0 Rares

21 - 0 Uncommons

16 - 0 Commons
Cards 103
Avg. CMC 3.70
Tokens Copy Clone, Elf Warrior 1/1 GW, Saproling 1/1 G, Spirit 1/1 W
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