Master of My Domain

Commander / EDH RGW (Naya)

spellshaper.quixote

Creature (27)

• 1x Admonition Angel
• 1x Ancient Greenwarden
• 1x Ashaya, Soul of the Wild
• 1x Avenger of Zendikar
• 1x Cavalier of Dawn
• 1x Cavalier of Flame
• 1x Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
• 1x Emeria Angel
• 1x Emeria Shepherd
• 1x Fertilid
• 1x Flamekin Harbinger
• 1x Knight of the Reliquary
• 1x Lotus Cobra
• 1x Mentor of the Meek
• 1x Mina and Denn, Wildborn
• 1x Moraug, Fury of Akoum
• 1x Nesting Dragon
• 1x Obsidian Fireheart
• 1x Omnath, Locus of Rage
• 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1x Realm Razer
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Shinewend
• 1x Solitude
• 1x Stingmoggie
• 1x Sylvan Safekeeper
• 1x Zirda, the Dawnwaker

Instant (6)

• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Master Warcraft
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Rite of Harmony
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

Land (37)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Blast Zone
• 1x Blighted Woodland
• 1x Bonders' Enclave
• 1x Canopy Vista
• 1x Cinder Glade
• 1x Crawling Barrens
• 1x Drownyard Temple
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 6x Forest
• 1x Lotus Field
• 6x Mountain
• 6x Plains
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Sunbaked Canyon
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Thespian's Stage
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Cleansing Nova
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Mizzium Mortars
• 1x Nahiri's Lithoforming
• 1x Splendid Reclamation
• 1x Vandalblast
• 1x Winds of Abandon

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Wrenn and Six

Commander (1)

Enchantment (17)

• 1x Aura Fracture
• 1x Court of Grace
• 1x Court of Ire
• 1x Doubling Season
• 1x Earthcraft
• 1x Exploration
• 1x Felidar Retreat
• 1x Glare of Subdual
• 1x Hoofprints of the Stag
• 1x Impact Tremors
• 1x Mana Echoes
• 1x Perilous Forays
• 1x Seismic Assault
• 1x Showdown of the Skalds
• 1x Song of the Dryads
• 1x Tectonic Reformation
• 1x Valakut Exploration

Artifact (4)

• 1x Amulet of Vigor
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Horn of Greed
• 1x Illusionist's Bracers

---

Master of My Domain

Queen of the Castle

Unsurprisingly, the deck built around lands wants to focus its first few turns on ramping. Exploration and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove are both excellent ways to get ahead of the rest of the table early on, though it can sometimes be better to save Fertilid until Marath can put extra counters on it. While it can be tempting to drop Wrenn and Six in the early game, especially if there’s a fetchland to synergize with, the viability of such a play depends on how aggressive opponents’ decks are. Knight of the Reliquary is one of the few consistent ways to fetch nonbasic lands out of the library, and it comes with the added advantage of putting lands into the graveyard for later retrieval with Wrenn and Six, Crucible of Worlds, or Splendid Reclamation.

Once a solid mana base has been established, it’s time to start converting lands into game state advancement. While Horn of Greed technically benefits all players, Marath’s access to extra land drops means that it will often draw significantly more cards off of the effect than opponents will, and Valakut Exploration provides a more one-sided version of the effect. Numerous permanents, such as Emeria Angel and Nesting Dragon generate creature tokens as landfall triggers, which can serve to rapidly develop Marath’s board state. Turning land cards directly into card draw or burn through Tectonic Reformation or Seismic Assault can also be crucial, as can sacrificing lands for effects like Aura Fracture or Sylvan Safekeeper. And, with access to multiple ways to get lands out of the graveyard, these effects rarely mean giving up long-term resources.

In the early stages of the game, Marath itself serves primarily as a form of board control, making use of its damage ability to pick off utility creatures and, eventually, meaningful threats. As the deck is largely focused on lands and ramp, an increasing tax on successive castings of Marath is rarely an insurmountable hurdle, so the correct play can often be to dump all of Marath’s counters into some permutation of its ability on the end step before its turn in order to make a larger Marath accessible sooner. It can also sometimes be critical to empty Marath’s tank in order to protect it from theft or transformation effects—though the deck’s access to multiple land sacrifice outlets means that effects like Song of the Dryads can have a hard time sticking to Marath.

Lord of the Manor

As the game develops, token generation from effects like Omnath, Locus of Rage and Felidar Retreat becomes increasingly crucial. A growing board can mean advancing opponents’ clocks with Impact Tremors, drawing cards off Mentor of the Meek or Rite of Harmony, board control through Glare of Subdual, additional ramp through Earthcraft or Perilous Forays, or even just swinging for lethal when boosted by Cavalier of Flame. Perilous Forays in specific can generate a surprising amount of value, since the tokens from Nesting Dragon generate new tokens when they die, Omnath bolts a target whenever an elemental dies, and the resolution of the ability then generates new tokens through landfall triggers.

In addition to Marath’s early-game role as board police, the deck packs a healthy removal suite, including multiple reusable effects. Shinewend and Stingmoggie can be fueled with additional counters from Marath’s activated ability, while Aura Fracture and Seismic Assault have already been mentioned as a reasonable way of cashing in excess lands. While it may not be the most popular play, Strip Mine is an excellent way to manage problematic lands, especially when combined with Crucible of Worlds or Ancient Greenwarden and additional land drops. Admonition Angel also ties in to the deck’s main land-related themes, utilizing extra land drops to exile major threats on the board. While opponents may be tempted to remove the angel, they can often be dissuaded with a Realm Razer followed by a land drop to exile the Razer to the angel’s ability. Not only will Realm Razer leaving the battlefield mean a number of additional landfall triggers to exile additional threats, but opponents will also have to weigh whether recovering their threats from the angel is worth losing all their lands again.

While the deck is primarily focused on lands, the number of relevant creatures with the elemental type has made some minor tribal payoffs worthwhile. Mana Echoes, already a solid inclusion for its synergy with Marath’s token generation ability, becomes even more valuable when most of the creatures on board already share a creature type. In addition, Flamekin Harbinger’s ability to grab ramp, removal, token generators, sources of burn, or combo pieces makes it an incredibly versatile 1-drop that can be useful at nearly any stage of the game. With so many elemental pieces, Omnath, Locus of Rage also becomes more valuable, with cards like Shinewend, Stingmoggie, and Fertilid generating an additional bolt when their last counters are used.

King of the Country

The sheer number of tokens generated by the deck means that combat wins are far from off the table, but Marath can also serve as a game-ending combo piece if necessary. Either Doubling Season or Illusionist's Bracers combined with either Earthcraft or Mana Echoes is enough for Marath to go infinite, either generating an arbitrarily large number of 1/1 Elemental tokens or burning each opponent for an arbitrarily large value of X. Marath being a combo piece isn’t exactly the main focus of the deck, however, and these options serve more as safety valves than as the primary strategy.

Zirda, the Dawnwaker, in addition to making Marath’s activations more efficient, also fuels a few combos of its own. Unlike most effects, Zirda’s cost reduction ability affects all activated abilities, not just those of permanents on the battlefield. As a result, Zirda allows Drownyard Temple to be returned to the battefield for only one mana. When combined with a mana-free land sacrifice outlet like Sylvan Safekeeper or Aura Fracture, Zirda and Drownyard Temple can be used to trigger landfall abilities an absurd number of times, going truly infinite if combined with Amulet of Vigor, Lotus Cobra, or a landfall token generator and either Earthcraft or Mana Echoes. There are a number of ways in which this state can lead to victory, especially if Valakut Exploration is available to draw the remainder of the deck. While the abilities of both Sylvan Safekeeper and Aura Fracture prevent their targets from being targeted again—either by giving the target shroud or simply destroying it—the lack of timing restriction on Drownyard Temple’s recursion ability means that it can be activated while those abilities are still on the stack, allowing a single target to be sufficient for the combo as long as none of the activations are actually allowed to resolve.

Date added	4 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	18 - 0 Mythic Rares 52 - 0 Rares 5 - 0 Uncommons 5 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.43
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, Bird 1/1 W, Cat Beast 2/2 W, Dragon 2/2 R, Dragon Egg 0/2 R, Elemental 4/4 W, Elemental 5/5 RG, Elemental X/X G, Elephant 3-3 G, Emblem Wrenn and Six, Golem 3/3 C, Plant 0/1 G, Spirit 1/1 W, Monarch Emblem