It started with a simple idea: Ramp into Omnath and abuse fetch lands to get more than one landfall trigger per turn. Then I read the second part of Omnath's text, about damage when an elemental leaves play. Ok, so I want elementals also. It's EDH, so I wanted card advantage. I want landfall triggers because of the excessive amount of land and ability to re-use land drops in the deck. And last, I got it in my head that any token was good, not just elementals.
The Landfall Trigger game
While this is generally a budget deck, I did have a Crucible of Worlds on hand, and then the release of
Ramunap Excavator
only made it easier to use the trick of playing land from my GY. With those, the stage was set for me to crack fetch lands to get a landfall trigger, then replay the fetch land on my next turn for two more triggers. I also have Ghost Quarter if I want to get into land destruction or targeting one of my own lands for another landfall trigger, plus Command Beacon, and Haunted Fengraf for more utilitarian ways to abuse the Crucible and Excavator. Gruul Turf offers bouncing a land to my hand for an extra landfall trigger, as well.
The Elemental Package
Soul of the Harvest gives me card draw, Tempt with Vengeance and Young Pyromancer give me 1/1 tokens, Titania, Protector of Argoth gives me large tokens and helps cycle my lands for more landfall triggers. Avenger of Zendikar is an obvious add for any deck with this much land, and adds (non-elemental) tokens, and Bane of Progress offers removal.
Beasts? Why?
The Beast package initially came as a result of the landfall trigger on Rampaging Baloths offering me more fatty tokens than Omnath can supply on his own. From there it snowballed thanks to Thunderfoot Baloth being a nice boost for my creatures and Garruk's Packleader offering up some of that card draw I wanted. Galvanoth offered a bad version of card advantage, and once you have that many beasts and are talking card draw, Wirewood Savage starts looking good. Add in Indrik Stomphowler for removal and Gurzigost for cycling my graveyard back to my library (there are a few mill decks in my meta) and the Beast component is largely set.
More Tokens
Obviously, R/G Elementals/Beasts is a bit lacking on flying. Enter Dragonmaster Outcast to up my number of flying creatures, and Dragonlair Spider for Reach and yet more 1/1 tokens. When given a chance, I opted for cards that would give more tokens, like choosing Artifact Mutation as part of my removal package, and rather than adding a Reiterate or Reverberate, I have Wort, the Raidmother to add a pair of tokens and copy all sorts of ramp spells.
Card Advantage
This deck maintains a full hand pretty easily. Things move like a machine if you get both Garruk's Packleader and Elemental Bond out at the same time, since between the draw power of the two of them and the volume of land in the deck, you are probably getting an Omnath token every single turn. Even without that pair, Drumhunter does work, as can Soul of the Harvest, Wirewood Savage, and the various land fetches. Shamanic Revelation can load my hand with a dozen cards easily.
What I've seen so far
The deck had virtually no life gain, and was therefore very susceptible to decks that started with small hits early and never let up. In particular, Nekusar, the Mindrazer caused me problems. So I went back and added minimal lifegain in the form of Pristine Talisman, Molder, Natural End, and Grazing Gladehart. I'm not sure it will be enough to do the trick, but I'm hopeful. All I needed to do was slow the bleed, not stop it.
I have also moved toward two things: First, card draw needs to be triggered and no mana cost, so Seer's Sundial got pushed out while Garruk's Packleader stayed behind. Second, land fetches had to place the land onto the battlefield rather than my hand, so Sylvan Ranger left and Khalni Heart Expedition came in.
I have attempted to keep this "budget" in that I have bought exactly one card for it, the Zendikar's Roil. Crucible of Worlds is expensive, but I already had one on hand. An obvious add is Parallel Lives, you could make the deck more budget by replacing the Crucible with it, or more expensive/"competitive" by replacing the Roil with it.
Maybeboard cards are primarily cards that will shatter my budget for this deck but should be here if I had the cash.
