Karona, False Friend (Commander / EDH MTG Deck)

Karona, False Friend

Commander / EDH* Five Color Multiplayer Pillow Fort Theme/Gimmick Tokens

DashJovis1

Land (36)

Artifact (5)

Enchantment (22)

Creature (12)

Commander (1)

Instant (15)

Sorcery (9)

Karona, False God is a dangerous double-edged sword. Karona is wild and untamable; on the one hand, she potentially gets an extra attack each turn for each opponent you face; on the other, those opponents control her during those turns. The plan is simple; secure your mana base to repeatably cast Karona, place defensive wards to protect yourself, and then grind out an aggro victory with help from your allies.

Karona potentially hits for a power of 8 on the charge, meaning three direct swings on an open opponent will kill them from general damage. When players decide to gang up on somebody at a table with Karona, she puts an incredible amount of pressure on them. She can also buff voltron commanders or tribal aggro decks on the swing. Karona rewards players for attacking, but also punishes them for staying open, changing combat in a way that forces adjustments. Karona also rewards players for blocking her in ways that don't destroy her... depending on where they are sitting at the table and what they are playing. A player who is denied Karona is at a disadvantage.

This deck is for you if you enjoy playing politics, like aggro and general damage victories, want to have fun, and want to play five colours. It's not for you if you want to combo off, and its probably not for you if you really want to consistently win. Don't get me wrong, always try your best to win, but Karona is sort of aiming to define the game and win second place (and might work better if she does, since she'll draw less ire from your playgroup).

The Shield

One of the most important parts of summoning the False God is creating structures to insulate yourself from her. I run the following defensive wards:

At 1 green mana, Elephant Grass is the ideal pillowfort spell for Karona. The upkeep cost does wear on you quickly, but the deck pays it reasonably well, depending on how often Karona dies. Preventing black creatures from attacking you is super relevant, and works on Karona, and the tax sets a precedent.

Propaganda , Ghostly Prison , and Windborn Muse all have the same taxing effect on attackers. Stacking these effects on makes you an annoying target to attack. Windborn Muse is a creature, which is relevant for tutors. Archon of Absolution is an upgrade on Windborn Muse in Karnona, since it blocks Karona while still taxing attackers. But I'm running both so I can still tutor for the more effective card.

Collective Restraint has the same effect for basic land types, which is usually 5. (No LD no LD no LD)

Sphere of Safety is an enchantment lord, which is relevant. This card can become a large tax in a library which is over 1/5 enchantments. Sometimes SoS only costs 1 or 2, which is unfortunate, but it also scales up really well, and earns its spot.

Teferi's Moat is another color hoser. It doesn't stop flyers... so keep that in mind before you pick your color. Black, or Red or Green could all be good choices. White or Blue can be, but not really. White weenies I guess. Whatever you pick it stops Karona.

Mystic Barrier changes the way you play the game. If you can put a wall up against one opponent, the barrier can be an excellent piece to lock enemies out. karona already requires that you be hyper-cognizant of turn-order, and control combats all across the board. That makes a Barrier to your advantage to deploy. It just gives you more of what Karona does with some of what she needs. It's a good card.

A Curse of Disturbance on the person across from you in a barrier is huge. If you can get a functional alliance up, it just gives you and your ally an advantage to curse your enemy. Also, any player that doesn't take advantage of a curse is at a disadvantage, but if every player does you end up with a large advantage.

The vows are amazing enchantments to place on Karona. Vow of Flight gives +2/+2 and flying, while Vow of Wildness gives +3/+3 and trample. Both prevent the enchanted creature from attacking you, the enchantment owner. These buff Karona up while containing her and making her evasive. However, the secondary effects of the other vows aren't relevant, so we're only using the best of the best here. Can enchant an opposing creature to defend yourself, in a pinch.

Crawlspace is our artifact pick for our fort. It stops opponents from going wide, and makes it easier to block Karona or other creatures you have tokens.

Mystic Remora , Rhystic Study , and Heartwood Storyteller are sort of a tax on opponents, when it comes to casting spells. While giving opponents cards can be dangerous, Storyteller makes the cut for punishing combo and control players by rewarding aggro more, and increasing the deck's redundancy.

Taurean Mauler and Forgotten Ancient continue this trend of taxing opponents for casting. Ancient doesn't have great targets, but he can grow big and he can buff Karona. He can also buff an ally's creatures, which is notable. The Mauler is neat, because with the changeling ability he always gets buffed when Karona charges, and like the ancient, he scales off quickly. Redundancy!

Teferi's Protection is cool. If Karona is on another part of the field she gets passed around; if not she phases out. Super cool stuff. Fun in combo with field wipes; great protection from them. We're talking about a solid defensive spell made better by Karona. A good piece for defending your enchantments from board wipes. This is probably the only deck that ever wants to cast Protection slowly!

Sterling Grove , Greater Auramancy , and Privileged Position create a solid defensive wall against spot removal. Sterling Grove is great, since it can find any enchantment you need. So long as you hold one mana open, you can respond to its removal by securing access to any enchantment in your deck. That instant speed tutoring effect is good, since it lets you psuedo protect your grove, or use if to find a part of your fort if you need. It also grabs removal, in the form of Imprisoned in the Moon , Song of the Dryads , and Pernicious Deed , or mana from Mirari's Wake . Auramancy is less impressive in this deck, since in the rare circumstance Karona is enchanted she can still be targeted on anybody else's turn, when you don't control her. However, the two together protect all of your enchantments from spot removal, and auramancy creates redundancy and lets the Grove search for a replacement. Privileged Position is the rich man's version of this enchantment, protecting all of your assets, and if protected by either only board wipes bother you.

False Prophet is an honorable mention, since his primary goal is actually to dissuade attackers. Pernicious Deed is primarily a board wipe, but also works as a political piece, which allows you to make a threat. The Deed is questionable since it can destroy your pillowfort, but it's also a good catch-all enchantment.

Maze of Ith only counts as mana under certain conditions, but its an amazing card in Karona. It can help deflect her if needed, protect you in a pinch, subtly direct people away from you, and even mess with other people's combats. Homeward Path is somewhat similar in Karona - you can steal her mid-combat to protect her, or steal her from an opponent on their upkeep to deny them their turn with her. Very valuable in this build. Kor Haven is only colorless mana, but the two cost for a Maze type effect is worth paying for that.

Glacial Chasm will buy you turns. The deck doesn't really try and gain life, and the costs will quickly scale out of control, but it can be a crucial stopgap when your fort starts falling apart. This card will win games - it will define games that it loses.

The Sword

Utilizing all five colors of mana gives you access to a suite of the best removal in the game.

Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares are white staples you have to run. Plow is the best piece of instant speed creature removal in the game, and Path is a close second.

Anguished Unmaking does the same job, and is super flavourful when used to remove Karona. It's just a good flexible answer to most permanents that is instant speed.

Song of the Dryads and Imprisoned in the Moon are useful, primarily as commander removal. They are one of the best ways to deny an opponent their commander, since once they hit the table certain conditions need to be met for that player to get their commander back. They're also both nice and flexible, Dryads moreso, and I can see myself using them on lands of planeswalkers sometimes, or using Song of the Dryads on a combo piece, and enchantments matter. But this is a spell that CAN be really disruptive. Don't cast this on Karona... And if you have to cast it on your stuff to generate mana, well, do it, but good luck with that. Yeesh....

Dropped Deglamer for Assassin's Trophy . It removes anything with only a small downside, and is a better use of our colors.

Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast have really grown on me, and the extra utility of being able to use them to destroy an out of control Karona makes them even more valuable in the build. 1 mana counterspells.

Swan Song is a one mana hard counterspell, that hits a really diverse set of targets, and is like a saving grace against big effect. Its downside is pretty minimal, but super flavorful.

Arcane Denial is a splashable two mana hard counter that cantrips. The downside? The person you shut down cantrips twice. Ouch. Still, splashable cheap hard counter, that flexes as "discard one - draw three" at instant speed. In a deck that already gives people stuff, Denial seems reasonable. Shut down their Flash and give them two cards to your one? Score. You've just got to be careful about how you use your limited countermagic.

Ertai's Meddling may be a sign that my judgment is damaged. But it just does everything! Counters uncounterables! Wins counterspell wars! Makes people have to make weird choices about when they get their commander back! Puts off board wipes so you can prep for them! So weird and cool. Great tempo play in the early game, strong answer in the late game. It also has a bunch of weird interactions thanks to errata. So yeah, this spell ended up in another one of my libraries.

Cyclonic Rift is a blue staple that's, wait for it... Synergistic with Karona! In that you actually can use it to protect Karona on anybody else's turn. There's not much else to say, mass bounce is huge, and this is one sides and instant speed. If you want to keep Karona on the field, cast it at sorcery speed for once. Just try it, see how it feels.

Dropping Decimate for Casualties of War . It should just be a bigger version of the same effect, and the deck definitely has the mana for it. Haven't adjusted the mana to this, so keep in mind this deck isn't properly balanced anymore. I'll fix the mana later.

Supreme Verdict and Merciless Eviction are our true board wipes. Verdict is uncounterable, and that's super handy. Eviction exiles, and also is very flexible. Usually, you want to hit creatures. However, with superfriends in the format Planeswalkers is super relevant, and so is artifacts. Enchantments is one you won't usually want to use, but thankfully some of your defensive pieces aren't enchantments.

Pernicious Deed is a cool board wipe. You can sort of tailor it to eliminate what you want, and its a super useful, super powerful card. It gives you a board wipe on an enchantment, and one that you can lay down as a threat. Kills tokens, kills 1 drop armies like goblins, or can kill big things, at instant speed for one mana, plus its political like Larry Nevin's Disco.

False Prophet sort of counts as a board wipe, provided at least one opponent wants to wipe the board. If your ally goes right after you and you cast Karona BOOM. Or if anybody has a destroy spell.

The Army

So, to close out the game I'm thinking "tribal token army". We've already talked about how Curse of Disturbance can add up black tokens, which the fort can protect us from.

Plague of Vermin is very similar, giving players a huge army of rat tokens. Really good under Elephant Grass , but tough if you're paying too much life. It does create a neat balancing act with Karona, and how people make rats could decide the game. You can cast your fort spell afterwards to mislead, or cast it first for security. I'd say cast your fort first, unless you have a reason not to.

Tempt with Vengeance is great. X 1/1s with haste is huge when you factor in ramp and a doubler. It can be okay in the early game, where you may convince allies to take you up on it to catch you up. In the end game it might be hard to tempt somebody, but it will often be a spell that can close out the duel.

Mirari's Wake deserves a mention here, for the way its anthem effect synergizes with tokens.

Take all the mana you have. Add three. That is now the power of every creature you control. Mirror Entity is an INSANE piece, which synergizes very well with Karona. It can be trickier to play than it looks on the face, but its a great tool for closing out the game.

Sakashima the Impostor is run as an additional copy of Karona. Run over Spark Double because it can copy opponent's creatures. I'd love to find room for Spark Double too, for redundancy, but right now I'm having trouble.

Intellect and Treasure

Mana Ramp

Since I'm five colors, the mana base is absolutely essential if I want the deck to work. However, it's very easy for a five-color mana base to get extremely expensive. I decided to place as much focus on basic lands as possible, and take advantage of green's mana ramp. This helps improve odds vs Blood Moon / Back to Basics , while also saving my wallet. It also puts me in a good position to take advantage of land type. I also included a few of the best mana rocks available, some creatures that secure my mana, and a couple of mana doublers.

Ramping starts with the lands. Blighted Woodland is Explosive Vegetation on a land, which helps hedge my bets on mana and secure my colors and land types. Cultivate and Kodama's Reach are green staples which ramp you and secure a land drop. Burnished Hart also finds two lands. While it is slow, it doubles as a blocker, which does matter vs Karona, and in the early game it really helps find the mana you need. Skyshroud Claim replaced Journey of Discovery once I realized it did the same thing, but better and for 2 less mana.

Veteran Explorer is amazing. Its a group hug ramp, which finds two lands for one. While this ramp is something of a double-edged sword, it plays into Karona's political aggro focused game very well, and 1 for 2 is pure value. Collective Voyage is a bomb - you can use it early to secure your colors, or late to pull all the lands out of people's decks. It helps players who run basics more than players with more expensive mana bases - valuable for Karona, since Tribal and Aggro focused decks are obvious allies. You can also wait for your opponents to tap out, in order to ensure you only ramp everyone the little bit you need, or go whole hog and let people empty their hands.

Balancing the mana, I ended up cutting a land. Not sure if this is correct, but I haven't been having mana problems, and it made room for Wood Elves . The deck can find all five colors of mana off of forests, and Wood Elves puts it into play untapped, plus gives us a blocker.

I cut Curse of Opulence and replaced it with Smothering Tithe . It might not play to the theme of controlling other players attacks quite as well, but it will create a lot more treasure tokens, and is worth paying more mana for. It's still slightly on the taxation theme at least. Having mana to actually cast Karona over and over is important.

Zendikar Resurgent and Mirari's Wake are five color one sided mana doublers. What more could you want? Yes, they are expensive, but they aid in the recasting of Karona.

Sol Ring is... Sol Ring. Coalition Relic takes you from 3 to 6, and gives you mana in two colours. Very awesome. Chromatic Lantern makes non-mana lands into mana lands, and color fixes while providing mana. Seat of the Synod is technically a rock, right? ;) Fellwar Stone will always hit something you want, and usually hits several things you want. How many all red tables have you sat at?

Tutoring and Library Structure

Enlightened Tutor is an amazing 1 drop tutor. For mana, it can grab any of your rocks, the Hart, or Seat of Synod in a pinch, which means you can secure blue mana with one white. It can grab any piece of your fort you need. For removal, it can grab Song, Seal or Deed. Also, I when in doubt Mirari's Wake .

For card draw it can grab Arguel's Blood Fast , which combos nicely with top deck tutors. With the deck's big mana mid-game and host of top deck tutors, a repeatable draw effect was preferable to Phyrexian Arena . However, be careful with your life - you don't have any life gain, life is a limited resource.

Mystic Remora , Rhystic Study , and Heartwood Storyteller are amazing as card draw, and fit right into everything the deck is doing. The fish and the study are great enlightened tutor targets.

Worldly Tutor can secure your land drop by grabbing Dryad Arbor. Burnished Hart or Veteran Explorer may be better options when you need two mana and have lands in hand. It can grab Windborn Muse if you need a shield, or Sakashima the Impostor if you need a clone or a second Karona. Heartwood Storyteller is another good option. Pick Storyteller if you don't have an alliance, pick Defector if you do. Grab Mirror Entity as a game closer.

For card draw, grab Humble Defector . It's repeatable card draw for you and an ally, which combos really nicely with Homeward Path . You need to be very political to make this card work, but 2 for 2, the combo, and the advantage it can grant an alliance are really big factors. Plus its pure flavour.

Mystical Tutor isn't super impressive in this deck, but it can grab your mana ramp or find you an answer for any permanent. It can also grab you the right tutor for your situation.

Vampiric Tutor is a bomb. A five color deck may as well take advantage of the best tutors in the game.

Five Colour Mana Base

I've built a couple versions of this deck. I tried a build that was largely cheap tri-lands and gold producers; I looked at how it would look with a full set of fetches and hard duals; but ultimately I ultimately settled on heavy basic base, to take advantage of green ramp, protect me from nonbasic hate, and save me a ton of money. I put the mana base last, because it was what I tinkered with in the end. The mana is nearly balanced, with a focus on white and green, the blue, then a split between red and black as our final splash(ish) colors.

Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds are five colour fetches, so sure. Right move are real fetches and a well planned dual stack, but... Fetches are expensive.

Grasslands can find any color of land, if I want it to. The right choice is the real fetch but... budget. Murmuring Bosk is the coolest tri-land. It counts for white and green, our primary colors, and also provides black at the same time, and best of all its a forest. It almost always enters tapped, but I consider that a minor downside.

Prairie Stream can grab your blue off Grasslands, and can enter untapped. Irrigated Farmland could also work to grab your blue, while the other cycle land Sheltered Thicket can grab your red. Horizon Canopy is card draw on a land in our main two colors. Lack of landtype is a minor inconvenience, as it the fact its a pain land. These lands are nice, since they let you filter through your deck in the lategame, but help fix your mana in the early game.

Command Tower is... duh.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth fixes for black, which is important for Blood Fast Its also kind of a group play sometimes since swampwalk, and it makes non-mana lands like your chasm or maze into mana. Redundancy with the rock is a good thing.

Treva's Ruins is kind of obnoxious, since it can set you back, but it also fixes you for your three colors, and you can make up for the lost mana by ramping, which is cool. It enters untapped, so at least you're not behind the turn you play it.

Temple of the False God is a sol land, and since your early game is green ramp, it can be really handy. Its also super flavourful, and the life loss from Ancient Tomb isn't palatable in a deck with Chasm, Blood Fast, and no life gain.

Temple Garden : Two land types. Both my main colors. Helps take my green and white mana just slightly over capacity rather than under, which is actually important for ramp and Privileged Position . Steam vents also made the cut, helping balance my red with my blue.

These decisions, while highly effective at securing my mana left me with fewer basics than I'd like. I don't find the deck runs out of basics to tutor for, but it's only running a single Mountain, a single Swamp, and two Islands. The blue mana is reasonably secure in most circumstances, but you should keep it in mind to protect yourself from Armageddon . The black and red are particularly insecure after your basics have been tutored for - unless you need the land type or the mana, it's often a good idea to leave them in the library. When you can. It also helps to play in a way that doesn't emphasize that weakness so much, though a clever opponent can figure that weakness out. Thankfully, most LD doesn't hit basics, and often opponents will have better targets for it anyways.

The Politics of Karona

Karona is tricky to utilize. Everything is important; Where are people sitting? What colors they are playing? Who is playing aggro? Who is playing tribal? Is anyone playing voltron? Combo, control, both are important to recognize. Your ideal ally is a green or red player; black and blue are obvious enemies.

One of the people sitting beside you gets Karona first - hope they are an aggro player, or a deck with an aggro mode. The other gets Karona last, but also has the best shot of hitting you in the back; they could be bad to antagonize. That means the ideal curse target would usually be the person across from you, especially in a Mystic Barrier .

On the other hand, if they're the ideal ally you probably want to curse the player counterclockwise from you. When possible try avoiding giving cards to a combo player. Sometimes a control player can actually be the ideal ally, since they can be the fun police and contain the madness Karona causes (or even protect her). However be careful giving them cards too; most control players definitely want to win through some combo, even if it isn't infinite. They're also the ones most like to tear your fort right down, if you give them too many resources. On the other hand, they're often the easiest opponent to pick off in a 1v1 with Karona.

This library has the real power to antagonize people, despite its actual goals being something of the opposite. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you must, or that you should. Weigh your decisions carefully; do you REALLY want to imprison their general in the moon? If you cast Storyteller now, will he combo off? Will Pernicious Deed be enough to discourage an attack? When should you pop it? When do you cast False Prophet ? You have to remember that he's there from that point on. Talk to your opponents before you cast him; if they have removal its a friendly field wipe that costs an opponent a card; he can be a great deterrent, but for how long? For style points, sac him at the Temple of Aclazotz ... Mmmm... Cultists.

Karona, False God is a very tricky general to summon; you must read, and play, your opponents, and you need allies, or at the very least opponents you can direct with the carrot... or the stick.

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Date added	6 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 0 Mythic Rares 50 - 0 Rares 24 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.95
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Elemental 1/1 R w/ Haste, Rat 1/1 B, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Neat Commanders to try, Karona False God
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