[primer] Tana and Reyhan. Fungi and Saprolings.

Commander / EDH BRG (Jund) Combo Primer Tokens

BalorOneEye

Win-Con (4)

Combo (14)

Draw (10)

Land (35)

Outlet (12)

Ramp (12)

Token (4)

Tutor (7)

Utility (17)

Commanders (2)

Commander: foil Reyhan, Last of the Abzan

Welcome to my primer about the partner commanders Tana, the Bloodsower and Reyhan, Last of the Abzan . Feel free to check out my list and read about my choices.

I've been putting a lot of time into tweaking this list. But like any deck it is never ready. So the list will probably change constantly over time. So is the primer, I'm still experimenting with the lay out and working on my writing. Suggestions and questions are always welcome.

Let's talk about decks, baby.

The Primer Show

About the deck. Show

This deck is one of my many brews. I've been playing Magic for longer than I can remember, And I've always loved brewing decks. The introduction of Commander rekindled my love for the game when I first heard about it. I build a terrible deck around Arcades Sabboth and never looked back. I was appealed by the casual nature of it, the long games and the chance to use suboptimal cards. Especially since I really disliked being forced to spend lots' of money on expensive cards to be able to play.

Something Must have went wrong somewhere. Or at least it changed. I started tuning decks. Tried to find out obscure cards and weird synergies. Started to trade for (and even buy) cards that seemed really strong to me. I picked up the Derevi Precon and switched out Arcades Sabboth. Got a birthing Pod, and just went nuts. Then I found mimeoplasm And fell in love with the weird shape-shifting Dino ooze. I started to dominate my LGS's tournaments by stomping beginners with Cyclonic Rift into Memory Jar. This deck started out with the goal to be less like that and force myself to go tribal. I didn't really work out that way. How? Read on...

Goal of the deck.

Meta consideration and initial goal.

At first I just wanted to build a deck that was fun to play, highly synergistic and not be inherently oppressive. That could be played at my LGS or with more Casual friends. I've started with a lot of cute cards and a strong Saproling Tribal feel. After a few games I realized how much fun the deck is, and felt bad whenever it's potential just did not show strongly and I would just be dead in the water after a board wipe. So I decide to increase it's power level.

I've included highly synergistic cards and cards with a high inherent strength. After a few games I realized it turned into a versatile combo deck that's too strong for casual tables. But I feel more comfortable with it as a semi-competitive build that I have now, and keep other decks as low-powered decks.

I've played Prossh, Skyraider of Kher for a while, but it never really felt right for me. I couldn't find the right brew for it. When Tana, the Bloodsower was released into the wild I thought it would be an interesting card to build around. and to exploit her ability.

Game Plan.

A early aggro token strategy that uses reyhan to buff Tana and create lot's of Saprolings. The Saprolings will be used to generate large amounts of mana and card draw to finally pull of a combo with Reyhan's ability.

Why Should I play this Deck?

You should play this deck if you;

Like to generate lot's of small guys and use them as resources.
Like to swing with huge armies.
Think Fungus and Spore Counters are great flavor wins.
Love the Glorious Golgari Clan. 'Wait' you say 'isn't this a Jund deck?'. No, At the moment there are only two Red mana symbols in the 98. (not counting hybrid). This deck is Golgari RecyCo. (and a goblin bombardment) We eat what you throw out.

You shouldn't play this deck if you;

Like to play straightforward, there are a lot of not so obvious lines to take.
Don't like to sacrifice stuff. Creatures in this deck are mostly resources. Don't get attached to them.
Like to sit back with a hand full of cards. I've dumped my hand out early game often enough.
Don't like aggro. You have to swing out to start generating value asap.
Want to win a lot. This deck is not competitive. It is strong but still creature reliant.
Want to play Blue. We're only playing on of the two best colors in commander in this deck. there's not a lot of control, instant speed tricks and some awkward card draw.
Don't want to be the enemy. People will see you as a threat.

About the Individual Commanders.

Most people reacted underwhelmed when the partner mechanics and commanders were spoiled. And most seemed weak for their use as commanders. I think the upside of having two different commanders that can come in in different situations is a strong benefit that can negate the downside of the weaker effect of the individual partner. Especially when you can build a deck where they benefit from each others abilities.

I must have spend a week thinking about all the different partner combinations and color pairs that were possible.

The partners that I decided on.

Tana, the Bloodsower.

Locals whisper of a forest spirit whose thirst for the blood of travelers knows no bounds. Search parties return empty-handed if at all, babbling of soil soaked in blood. They're actually speaking of Tana, an elf abandoned in the woods as a child. For unknown reasons, a pod of fungal saprolings took her in and protected her from the wild. Tana has since grown into a feral prowler, viciously hunting trespassers to feed her saproling caretakers.

At first Tana seems like a 'fixed' Prossh, Skyraider of Kher. If such a thing is possible. And one that isn't very strong for it's cost. It's biggest downsides are that it needs to hit for it's effect, and even than it only generates two tokens. As she grows bigger she can get very scary.

Tana was my inspiration to build this deck. I wanted to find out how I could (ab)use her ability the best. She can be considered the primary commander for the deck.

She is the gas for the deck that provides early aggro and value from creating tokens.

Reyhan, Last of the Abzan .

Over a thousand years ago, the khan of the Abzan surrendered to the dragonlord Dromoka as Reyhan watched. That act of supplication was meant to end the Abzan clan, but Reyhan refused to kneel to a dragon. A gifted military commander in her own right, Reyhan rallied the remnants of her shattered clan and became its final khan. During the khanfall, the last battle against the dragons, Reyhan died protecting her fellow khans.

After considering different partners for Tana I finally went with Reyhan, Last of the Abzan. This Card is amazing support for Tana. Early game it can be sacrificed to grow Tana and in the late game it interacts with all the token sacrificing and +1/+1 counter tricks. If you have him out with a bunch of tokens, a sacrifice outlet and Hardened Scales you can generate extra counters every time you sacrifice a creature.

Reyhan is a bit of a 'fixed' Ghave, Guru of Spores. That is a combo generator with +1/+1 counters that move between creatures. He provides the late game value and combo wincon.

The other partners I considered.

Tymna the Weaver and Ravos, Soultender.

These were my initial choice combined with Tana. Since they provide the best colors for a token strategy. And both also seem to synergies well enough with her for a token strategy. Tymna provides card draw and is aggressively costed. unfortunately she relies not only on hitting opponents but she also has no evasion and protection. Ravos provides a anthem effect for the team and incidental reanimate value. neither provides enough advantage and don't pump up Tana. The deck was very reliant on cards that made tana bigger like Pennon Blade , Fallen Ideal and Might of the Masses. It was a cute trick, but as soon as my opponents figured it out I just never really got to play them out.Since Red is a splash in these colors, if we really wanted to build an Abzan colored Sparoling deck, Ghave would be the superior commander.

Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder or Sidar Konda of Jamuraa.

These provide the Naya wedge and seem to be the most prevalent partners to Tana. I already don't really like them since they cut me out of black. And Bruse Tarl only provides two extra tokens when you're already hitting. Sidar seems great since it makes both the tokens and Tana semi-unblocakble, but it is undone as soon as you pump them up, and foiled by flying or reach creatures. Mediocre.

Silas Renn, Seeker Adept

Great colors. Does nothing for the deck.

Step 1: Find your cousin.

Step 2: Get your cousin in the cannon.

Step 3: Find another cousin.

General Strategy Show

Ramp out with your lands out.

One bone broken for every twig snapped underfoot.

Llanowar penalty for trespassing

We want to get Tana out Early.

If you can get her out turn three we will have a better chance of connecting. One you have a bunch of tokens out generating mana is a lot easier. But before that we have to rely on our Ramp package.

Green is the ramp color, and we want to take advantage of that. You can either go with spell ramp. (like Nature's Lore) or Creature ramp (dorks like Llanowar Elves).

The upside of creatures is that it increases our bodies on the forest floors and they can turn into threats. the advantage of spell ramp is that there are a lot less land board wipes than creature board wipes. It can be really bad news bears when a set back to our board-state from a wrath also halves our mana. At the moment I have a healthy mix of both. But am not sure which is preferable.

Swing with Tana, The Bloodsower.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Attack with Tana.

Play out Tana as early as you can and hopefully with a haste enabler out.Try to swing with her at a player with no or few blocks.

This will generate lots' of tokens. Which we will need later.

Make her Big.

Getting Counters on her with Reyhan is optimal, but not necessary. Try to get a feel for when you can sacrifice him, and when you're setting yourself up to get 2-for-1-ed by spot removal. Getting her up to 5/5 is probably enough to create a critical mass of tokens.

Sacrifice tokens.

Let the bodies hit the floor.

Saproling Resources

Tokens can not be permitted to just sit around and do nothing. Unless we are getting out Beastmaster Ascension or Craterhoof Behemoth for the the win, 1/1's are not very impressive.

Luckily we have other uses for them;

We have plenty of ways to turn tokens into actual cards, mana or damage. BE aggressive with these options. Tokens are just resources. It's not hard to get a value train going.

Win, hopefully.

Swing with a critical amount of pumped up tokens, a big enough general to win with commander damage or get enough guys to load up your Goblin Bombardment. There are even some infinite win combos with Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest, Ivy Lane Denizen combined with Devoted Druid or Murderous Redcap. This deck was not meant to combo out. But this has been my primary win-con in most games.

"You want to know your enemy? Look at your feet while you trample him."

_ -Tahngarth of the Weatherlight._

Squee: "What's that?"

Ertai: "It's a magical book."

Squee: "Am I smart enough ta use it?"

Ertai: "You could say that."

Playing The Deck Show

What does this deck lose too?

Board wipes. Ugh. - Itself. Low Land count, high CMC and low amount of card draw.

Targeted removal. I was counting to hit with Tana, and some one used spot removal? bad times. Recasting Tana gets expensive (and old) quick.
Table politics and threat assessment. When opponents make bad threat calls and target you while another player wins generally it's just as much your fault. You didn't 'play' the table enough and might just have pointed yourself bulls-eye red. There's a whole world of things going on at the table that are not just related to the cards. This is a whole different topic though, and you should probably read 'The Art of War' and 'The Prince'.Meanwhile though, this deck is not very subtle. Most of your tricks and threats are on the board while the combo or control player can just sit back with a grip of slimy scary Blue tricks, just bidding its time with a false smile and ready to pull the trigger at the right time.

how to migrate weaknesses.

Kill the combo player first, you can't go off when you're dead.
attrition. Keep combo pieces from the table. Make them use resources to stay alive.Most people leave opponents alone when they threaten a board-wipe out of fear. Fear is the mind killer. The sooner you force them to use it the less value you lost.
Getting value from creatures dying. At least you used all your resources. A board wipe hurts less when you have Fecundity out.
Brute force. Losing everything isn't the worst when you can Avenger of Zendikar into Craterhoof Behemoth the next turn.
Rattlesnakes. If you play a Wrath you can be sure I will rain a Goblin Bombardment of Saprolings and other dudes at you.
Greed. Greed is good. We don't fear. Fear is the mind killer. Paying 10 or even 20 life is a small price to pay at the altar of Necropotence, Sylvan Library or a well timed Hatred. Hatred is good too. Our own well being is just as expendable as all those lazy Saprolings. You will get another 40 life to expend next gamy anyway.
Image. Keep your boardstate looking less dangerous than it is. Use a die and a single token card instead of a whole stack of tokens. And use small dice to keep track of counters. Putting a huge d20 on your guy when adding a few counters you signal that you're planning to add a lot more.

What could be better.

More Answers. This deck is low on spot removal and artifact/enchantment hate. Troublesome cards are hard to get rid of. there's very few spots left over for controlling the board a bit. One troublesome spell or permanent could be the end.
Blue card draw would be nice. :(
more recursion and good-stuff. For the longer grindy games. Could use one or two big token generators like Avenger more.

The Match ups.

Sometime in a game you will notice there are other players as well. Most of the time they will also be playing a deck of magic cards. Mostly they will just be the nuisance that we trample over with our mighty hordes. But let's just look at what kind of decks they can be playing, in what we they can stand in the way of our glorious bloody victory and how we deal with them.

Stax and Pillowfort.

These archetypes do very different things but I grouped them together because they attack our deck on the same axis. They will deny our mana and lock the game out. They will try to slow down the game to a crawl and break parity in their own advantage. I feel we have a good matchup against these type of decks. We have enough other ways to achieve victory than swinging with creatures and the ability to create either a huge horde of guys or one giant trampling fatty. So cards like Propaganda are less of a problem than you would think.Our ability to create guys for free and turn them into mana break the stax harder than the stax deck do themselves.This deck is probably our best friend on the table since they also prohibit our opponents from dealing with us.

Traditional control.

these decks play out their lands and keep their mana open for massive draw spells, counterspells and wraths. We seems not as weak to this deck as I initially thought. With Recursion, sacrifice based card draw and strong tutors we can recover fast from board wipes. We should watch out for the control player countering on of our combo pieces. They can't really interact with most of our instant speed combos, unless they have a split second card.With a player like this at the table I would try to play conservatively until another player creates a boardstate that forces the control player to deal with it, and go off after that.

Other Aggro decks.

I guess we're pretty even here. Just try to keep enough defense up to not be the target, and not enough on oard to be a threat to the rest of the table.

Fast Combo decks.

This is a hard one. They can probably go of before we can. We want to deal with this deck first probably. Or get the rest of the table to do it. More interaction would help us combat these deck. Hull Breach or Nature's Claim would be good.

Other Commanders.

What other commanders are the available and why am I not playing them.

In the same colors:

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher.

An awesome creature and probably the best Jund Commander and a strong token Commander. I have played this deck as a mindrange style reanimator deck with Sire Of Insanity and Mindslicer it was fine. But we never had a real spark between us. If I would return to him I would try to build the Great Aurora Storm deck (not my list)

Kresh the Bloodbraided.

I really like this guy. Would be better suited for a Voltron strategy or a sacrifice, +1/+1 counter Combo deck.

Adun Oakenshield , Bartel Runeaxe , Xira Arien .

Crappy old Legends from Legends are crappy.

Darigaz, the igniter.

Just the worst in a multiplayer 40 life format.

Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund.

7 mana dragon tribal. Thanks, but no thanks.

Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper.

Fun with Gravecrawler. Not very exiting otherwise.

Shattergang Brothers.

I build this deck once upon a time. Even as a build around it was just better with Prossh. It's a cool card, but always the little engine that couldn't.

Vaevictis Asmadi

Thankfully we moved from EDH to commander.

The Ones not in these colors, but worth a mention:

Ghave, Guru of Spores.

This commander is great for both tokens and combo builds. But it feels a bit solved, and I wanted to try to brew a new version. The advantage this deck has is that it can attack from different angles. Each of our commanders allows a slightly different strategy that synergies with the other.

C - C - C - Combo!

There are a lot of different combos in this deck that have a lot of overlapping pieces, making plenty of different permutations of combos possible. Here's a few of the possibilities. It is always a fun challenge to try to assemble any of these combos from scratch during the game.

Murderous Redcap + Any sac outlet + Mikaeus, the Unhallowed or Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest or Bloodspore Thrinax = infinite damage.
Ulasht, the HateSeed + ( Ivy Lane Denizen or Parallel Lives or Hardened Scales or Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest or Bloodspore Thrinax or Corpsejack Menace ) + Reyhan, Last of the Abzan + anything that creates mana from tokens. Earthcraft, Phyrexian Altar etc. = infinite creatures, mana and damage to creatures.
Devoted Druid + mikeaus, the unhallowed + haste enabler or Earthcraft = infinite mana.
mikeaus, the unhallowed + Reyhan, Last of the Abzan or any other creature and a way to sac it.
Korozda Guildmage + anyway to turn tokens into mana + Reyhan, Last of the Abzan + anything that adds enough counters when Reyhan enters = infinite casting Reyhan.

Card Choices. Show

Suggestions

Updates Add

New Toys! — Jan. 2, 2017

Edit

http://mythicspoiler.com/aer/cards/windingconstrictor.html

Looks like Aether Revolt is giving some great commander card, and we just got one that would be very nice for this deck!

Tweaking and New pickups. — Dec. 16, 2016

Edit

overhaul — Dec. 15, 2016

Edit

Spoiler Timeline

Card Odds v1 Draw hand

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Top Ranked	Achieved #49 position overall 7 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	9 - 0 Mythic Rares 54 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.83
Tokens	Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Plant 0/1 G, Saproling 1/1 G
Folders	Commander Decks, A EDH Playtest, Decks of interest, Build potential, 3 - Inspirations, Other People's Decks, *buildupon, edh ideas, Decks I want
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[primer] Tana and Reyhan. Fungi and Saprolings.

Win-Con (4)

Combo (14)

Draw (10)

Land (35)

Outlet (12)

Ramp (12)

Token (4)

Tutor (7)

Utility (17)

Commanders (2)

The Primer Show

About the deck. Show

Meta consideration and initial goal.

Game Plan.

You should play this deck if you;

You shouldn't play this deck if you;

The partners that I decided on.

Tana, the Bloodsower.

Reyhan, Last of the Abzan .

The other partners I considered.

Tymna the Weaver and Ravos, Soultender.

Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder or Sidar Konda of Jamuraa.

General Strategy Show

Attack with Tana.

Make her Big.

Saproling Resources

Playing The Deck Show

Stax and Pillowfort.

Traditional control.

Other Aggro decks.

Fast Combo decks.

In the same colors:

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher.

Kresh the Bloodbraided.

Adun Oakenshield , Bartel Runeaxe , Xira Arien .

Darigaz, the igniter.

Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund.

Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper.

Shattergang Brothers.

The Ones not in these colors, but worth a mention:

Ghave, Guru of Spores.

Card Choices. Show

Ramp.

Feed the Molloch. (token sac outlets).

Other card draw.

Recursion.

Tutors.

You want tokens? cause this is how you get tokens! (Token Generators).

Abacus Cadabre. ( +1/+1 Counter shennanigans).

Made for Walking (hasty hexproofy stuff).

Lands.

Suggestions

Updates Add

Comments

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