(Updated during Theros Beyond Death spoilers)
This Azusa deck is focused on winning through land-based and land-fall strategies, eschewing the typical 75%+ green wincons like Craterhoof or infinite loops with Selvala.
My meta consists of popular commanders (Muldrotha, Golos, Derevi, Niv Mizzet, etc) within the 70-90% range. If building for the lower end on that spectrum, I'd suggest swapping out some of the more powerful cards with weaker counterparts in the maybe board.
TIPS ON PLAYING THE DECK
-
Don't always play all your lands on the turn you play Azusa, esp if you have some sort of landfall synergy that you can cast next turn. This will lessen the target off your back as you'll be seen to be playing her "fair" the turn you summon her. It's sometimes even worth holding back extra land drops for 2-3 turns to foster this attitude.
-
Early game, I usually dig/tutor for a draw engine or GY land recursion + fetches, depending on what pieces I already have in hand.
-
Your removal is limited, so use it very wisely, only on game-altering/winning plays. This will also make you seem like less of a threat while the rest of the table tries to topple the king of the hill.
-
Once you have stabalized with enough lands (which is usually 5-10 more than any other opponent), you can start laying threat after threat. Stagger them with the "bland fat" first, so people burn removal, before laying down the true game enders and combo pieces.
Card choices below.
Draw
Azusa comes down early and empties your hand relatively quickly, begetting a greater concentration of draw cards (12-14) than usual (10). You'll want a mixture of consistent draw over turns as well as explosive draw to refill quickly.:
Horn of Greed: only play if you have at least one land in hand. You should usually break symmetry with this due to your higher land density (~42) and Azusa. It's often chains lands into more lands. Remember that it's technically not a landfall trigger, but it does trigger off of Crucible/Ramunap Excavator.
Nissa, Vital Force: She ultimates 1 turn after putting her down. If she does early or mid game, you're very likely to win the game as your draw plus mana engines will drown out everyone else in value.
Momentous Fall: Great to sacrifice Genesis or any of our land-based power fatties. The lifegain is not irrelevant either.
Krosan Tusker/Yavimaya Elder: pay 3 or 5 mana for a green divination (two of them lands). Ensures consistent land drops. With Azusa, lands to hand is actually more efficient than lands to battlefield as you can play all of them untapped and the rate is usually better. Recurrable with genesis late game when you have too much mana and need to dig for gas.
Tireless Tracker: Self-explanatory. If you have him in opening hand, delay putting any lands down with Azusa until you play him to get the clues.
Memory Jar/Mind's Eye: I swap these out for each other often. The jar offers burst mana and is great the turn after you cast it, emptying the hand you just drew usually. Be careful activating it around reactive decks with mana open. Mind's eye is slower but more consistent, usually drawing you 3 the turn after you cast it by the time it gets back to you.
Life from the Loam: effectively draw with any of the cycling lands, plus amazing utility in general getting back utility lands that get stripmined.
Garruk, Primal Hunter: His minus is another momentous fall effect, while his ultimate is a land-based wincon (albeit slow and win-more)
Harmonize: One of green's only unconditional draw cards.
Seer's Sundial: This is actually pretty slow. You only effectively have the mana to trigger it mid-late game. I kept it in as it synergizes with the repeated land-fall triggers, but is cuttable for faster metas.
Sandstone Oracle/Regal Force/Kozilek, Butcher of Truth: The expensive draw cards. Each comes with their own strengths and weaknesses. Kozilek serves as a threat and is an unconditional draw 4. Regal Force is variable but the ceiling is much higher than the other two in terms of max draw. Oracle serves as a good blocker and refils the hand. I frequently swap with one another depending on meta/power level.
Nissa, Vastwood Seer
/Lifecrafter's Bestiary/Endless Atlas: our incrimental draw. I suggest running all three, especially Nissa who essentially ramps us too.
Arch of Orazca/Throne of the High City: Land-based forms of draw. Expensive but useful late game (you can keep replaying from yard and saccing to regain monarch in case you can't defend it)
RAMP
As Azusa is our primary ramp engine, you can eschew running extraneous ramp. I still run 10-12 (instead of my norm, 15), as some cards particularly synergize with her land playing ability.
Oracle of Mul Daya: This doubles up as pseudo draw and is more likely to trigger due to our increased land density.
Nissa's Triumph//Nylea's Intervention/Nissa's Pilgrimage/Seek the Horizon: Azusa is usually out (no one ever wastes removal after the first time she's cast as she's effectively done her damage already, ramping you 2 extra lands, effectively paying for her commander tax), so lands-to-hand ramp is actually more effective than lands to battlefield as the rate is better. Intervention doubles up as flying removal so that's nice.
Mana Crypt/Sol Ring/Mox Diamond/Wild Growth/Utopia Sprawl/Ancient Tomb: self explanatory. Turn 2 Azusa is only possible with the 0-1 mana costing ramp and I find dorks too much of a liability as my meta is healthy on the wraths. The land enchants are better anyway as I have ways of untapping lands and they can be used the turn they are cast, unlike dorks. Adjust this category of ramp to your meta's power level. It's perfectly acceptable to play Azusa on turn 3 and just ramp with her.
Garruk Wildspeaker/Voyaging Satyr/Stone-Seeder Hierophant: We play many lands that tap for 2-4 mana so unconditional land untappers are high-risk/high reward (unlike basic mana dorks). Garruk doubles up as a mini overrun when we are flooded with tokens or lack trample, while Stone-seeder can make obscene amounts of mana with Azusa and/or fetchlands out (untapping cradle 6 times...)
Emerald Medallion: A personal pet card. Can usually net you 2-3 mana per turn due to our curve, which is very efficient for a 2 mana rock.
Lotus Cobra/Nissa, Worldwaker: Big land based ramp. This deck runs lots of ways to protect planeswalkers as our creature density is usually pretty high, and Nissa upticking to ramp is fantastic. She effectively costs you 1 mana the turn she's cast, or less if you have a land enchant. Her ultimate usually wins you the game (albeit slowly). The Cobra is just insane value, especially with fetch lands, allowing for obscene plays like turn 3-5 eldrazi.
Castle Garenbrig/Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx/Gaea's Cradle/Lotus Field/Lotus Vale/Scorched Ruins: we have many ways to get our lands back to the battlefield from the GY so sacrificing lands is not considered a downside in this deck. The rest are just mono-green land ramp staples. Note, I don't normally run Temple of the False God but the risk is minimized in this deck due to the land density, so it's worth considering.
REMOVAL
Being in mono-green, we have to get creative with our removal suite. In higher power metas, it's best to slow down/destroy people's ramp/combo pieces (usually artifacts and enchantments), which this deck does well.
Duplicant: recurrable with Genesis and temur sabertooth.
Ezuri's Predation: a janky green "board wipe" that leaves you with lots of beasts to mop up a player next turn. Don't run in go-tall creature-heavy metas.
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger: exile 2 permanents for 10 mana, recurrable with Genesis and Temur Sabertooth that also serves as a threat? Sign me up.
All Is Dust/Oblivion Stone: when the board state is just too cluttered. We, being a land based deck, can usually recover the fastest, especially if we played smart and sandbagged cards in hand before wiping. We also have some graveyard recursion.
Beast Within/Mouth of Ronom: more single target removal.
Scavenging Ooze: graveyard hate and incidental life gain. Every deck needs at least 1-2 tutorable GY hate card considering how much WOTC seems to be pushing that zone lately.
Return to Nature: versatile artifact/enchant/GY hate at instant speed.
World Breaker: I chose this over Acidic Slime due to the exile clause and easy recurrability. He usually makes a fat enough blocker anyway and the exile is needed to deal with problematic permanents (Gods, Darksteel Forge, etc.)
Bane of Progress: This sets our opponents back to the stone age, leaving us well ahead.
UTILITY AND TUTORS
Consistency is important in 75% and above metas, so we leverage green's strengths (regrowing from GY, tutoring lands and creatures) to acheive this.
Scapeshift/Reap and Sow/Crop Rotation/Ulvenwald Hydra/Realms Uncharted/Pir's Whim: our land tutors. Each serve additional utility, doubling up as removal or fatty blockers or combo enablers or instant speed tricks. We run a lot of important utility, ramp, and removal lands so this package is a must.
Constant Mists/Glacial Chasm: for the aggro decks on the table. We don't have an effective answer to go wide or very fast aggro strategies so this buys us time to set up and win. I'm of the opinion that more players overall should be running fogs as they seem to be far and wide the most consistent eventual win-con in 60-80% metas.
Life from the Loam/Crucible of Worlds/Ramunap Excavator: Very important to get our engine going. With any of these and fetch lands, we can achieve up to 6 landfall triggers per turn.
Genesis/Eternal Witness/The Mending of Dominaria: the creature/permanent regrowth effects. We usually have more mana than cards in hand to spend on, so Genesis is a value engine that keeps giving. EWit is recurrable with Temur Sabertooth, and Mending is just house, letting us eventually get back 2 creatures and all lands in GY (after milling 4 cards deep!)
Sylvan Safekeeper: Repeated protection for any creature. Usually disuades removal as they know we can just sac another land to repeat the process and we usually have lands to spare/a regrow engine.
Survival of the Fittest/Fauna Shaman/Fierce Empath/Natural Order/Finale of Devastation/Woodland Bellower: Our creature tutors. Survival and shaman synergize well with Genesis, while Finale regrows as well as serves as its own win con with enough mana and a decent boardstate.
THREATS AND WIN CONS
Conifer Wurm: we run 20 snow lands and usually enough mana to activate him 4-7 times. Can easily smash in for 20-40 trample damage alone.
Dark Depths + Thespian's Stage: easily tutorable with our land tutors. Even without, I've often had enough mana over 1-2 turns to remove all counters of depths naturally.
Wakeroot Elemental + Cradle (6+ creatures)/Nykthos (7+ devotion). Makes infinite mana. Use this to turn all our lands into 5/5s and swing away. Usually we have 20+ lands by the mid/late game so this is easily enough power to take out at least 2 players.
Rampaging Brontodon/Crash of Rhino Beetles/Worldspine Wurm/Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar: Our boring fat. Each hits like a truck (15+ trample damage). These are usually there to distract and eat removal. Multani is useful here due to his self-regrowth (plus allowing for 2 additional landfall triggers!) and his reach, along with the Wurm, leaving 15 more power when dying.
baloth woodcrashers: Hit for 30 trample damage if you hit all 6 landfall triggers using fetches.
Ulamog, Kozilek, and Emrakul, the Promised End. I've elaborated on the ulamog and kozi, but Emrakul serves a special utility. Due to our relative deck distribution, you usually have 4-5 card types in the GY by the time you can cast him. (lands, PW who get targeted, creatures, instant and sorc ramp). But he serves an incredible utility in emptying opponents' hands of removal/threats and is a recurrable effect with Temur Sabertooth. Hits for 13 flample too, and is a pain to remove. So much work for only 7-9 mana!
Blackblade Reforged: slap this onto any of our many tramplers and oof, it's usually a 1HKO. Even Azusa's a threat with commander damage if they are open.
Rampaging Baloths/Avenger of Zendikar/Titania, Protector of Argoth: our go wide land-based token makers. If they persist long enough on the field, they usually win us the game, so they are our wrath bait. Treat as such and don't get too attached. We run enough green regrowth and a density of threats to continue threatening wins in the mid/late game. Try not to play more than 1 at any time. They almost always bait the wraths so you can plan accordingly and start sandbagging threats.
UTILITY LANDS
4 off-colour fetch lands/Fabled Passage/Prismatic Vista: integral for getting the most landfall triggers and consistent land drops with Ramunap and crucible.
Thespian's Stage/Winding Canyons/Petrified Field/Deserted Temple: utility lands. Please note, I do NOT run land destruction in the form of strip mine, wasteland, dustbowl, etc. This deck pretty brazenly abuses the implied social rule that MLD is off limits. I don't see how my repeatedly using strip mine on someone's landbase really differs. If anything, it's even more feel-bads than hard stax and MLD as it just cripples that one specific player at the expense of denying my land drops (which need to consistently happen for this deck to hum).
Slippery Karst/Desert of the Indomitable/Tranquil Thicket/Blasted Landscape: card draw, esp with Life from the Loam. Tapped land drops if i'm desparate.
