The Great Forest Spirit

Commander / EDH* BGW (Abzan, Junk) Combo Hatebears Reanimator

n0bunga

Type Subtype Rarity Color Latest set Latest block Name Board Converted cost Keyword Price Custom

Type Subtype Rarity Name Converted cost Price

Creature (37)

• 1x Academy Rector
• 1x Acidic Slime
• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Boonweaver Giant
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Containment Priest
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fiend Hunter
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Gaddock Teeg
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x Hokori, Dust Drinker
• 1x Karmic Guide
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Loyal Retainers
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Mindslicer
• 1x Peacekeeper
• 1x Phyrexian Delver
• 1x Protean Hulk
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Recruiter of the Guard
• 1x Reveillark
• 1x Saffi Eriksdotter
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Triskelion
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Vryn Wingmare
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Land (30)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Canopy Vista
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 6x Forest
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Krosan Verge
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Murmuring Bosk
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 4x Plains
• 1x Sandsteppe Citadel
• 1x Scattered Groves
• 5x Swamp
• 1x Temple Garden

Enchantment (8)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Authority of the Consuls
• 1x Blind Obedience
• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Growing Rites of Itlimoc  ^Flip
• 1x Journey to Eternity  ^Flip
• 1x Pattern of Rebirth
• 1x Sylvan Library

Unknown (1)

• 1x Life/Death

Commander (1)

Instant (8)

• 1x Autumn's Veil
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Teferi's Protection
• 1x Utter End
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Eldritch Evolution
• 1x Footsteps of the Goryo
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Victimize
• 1x Vindicate

Artifact (7)

• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Golgari Signet
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Unity
• 1x Winter Orb

Maybeboard

Creature (3)

• 1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
• 1x Fauna Shaman
• 1x Leonin Relic-Warder

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Survival of the Fittest

---

The Forest Spirit gives life and takes life away. Life and death are his alone.

In Ancient Times...

the land lay covered in forests, where, from ages long past, dwelt the spirits of the gods. Back then, man and beast lived in harmony, but as time went by, most of the great forests were destroyed. Those that remained were guarded by gigantic beasts who owed their allegiances to the Great Forest Spirit. For those were the days of gods and of demons...

The Deck

How fitting of a character who walks through the forest, but does not always take an active role in the happenings around him.

The same can be said of our Commander, Karador, Ghost Chieftan|Karador - in a way. I won't beat around the bush; Karador Boonweaver is about as commonplace as competitive EDH can get, it was and still is a very potent deck, designed around the Boonweaver/Pattern of Rebirth combo. Karador himself, is more of an insurance policy. While you don't necessarily need him, his ability to return a card to hand is useful if/when you do need it.

To keep the theme, our deck operates under the marriage of life and death, and the cyclical patterns that come about from it in Magic: The Gathering.

I've always been fond of manipulating a graveyard and reanimation, and yet I've never found myself curious enough to want to build Karador. This idea, and the on-point theme of one of my favourite anime Princess Mononoke, have been in my head for about as long as I've learned about EDH - and I am certain I'm not the only one who has thought of this. But here I am, terribly late to the party and still adamant to build this if anything, for peace of mind.

For those who may be unaware of the gist of the combo we're looking to find and cast Boonweaver Giant (or reanimate him, when that happens:

• Boonweaver enters play, find Pattern of Rebirth
• Sac Boonweaver to find Karmic Guide which returns Boonweaver and Pattern.
• Sac Boonweaver again to find Fiend Hunter, who exiles Karmic Guide.
• Sac Fiend Hunter to return Karmic Guide, who then returns Boonweaver and Pattern.
• Sac Boonweaver again to find Reveillark.
• Sac Karmic and then Reveillark to return Karmic and Fiend Hunter.
• Karmic returns Boonweaver and Fiend Hunter, which exiles Karmic.
• Sac Boonweaver to go get anything.
• Sac Fiend Hunter to return Karmic, which returns Reveillark.
• Repeat ad infinitum

The general gist of this to abuse ETB triggers like Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat, or destroy boardstates with Acidic Slime.

With the release of the Partner Commanders, a lot of the Tri-Colour Commanders lost a bit of potency. Kaalia best reflects that as she's dipped quite a bit from how she used to be. The same could be said of Karador as well, albeit it still retains an impressive degree of speed. However, to compensate with some of these new strategies we're going to have to incorporate some hatebears or taxing creatures and effects to slow the tempo of other decks.

Hatebears, Prison Effects, and Taxers

Authority of the Consuls - Another Blind Obedience effect with a dash of lifegain.

Blind Obedience - stalls just about every deck and has a nice extort bonus.

Aven Mindcensor - curbstomps decks that aggressively dig for their pieces or to simply ramp for lands.

Containment Priest - powerful against token decks.

Deathrite Shaman - not necessarily a Hatebear per se, but it can mess around with an opponent's graveyard - stripping them of things they could potentially reanimate or recur.

Gaddock Teeg - the big baddie himself. There are quite a large number of deck strategies that this is just a pain to deal with.

Hokori, Dust Drinker - Winter Orb, Personified

Mindslicer - First off, Odyssey had some sweet art. Second, this is just painful for a lot of decks to dump their hand, and fueling our gameplan.

Peacekeeper - for aggro decks this just says 'No'

Thalia, Heretic Cathar - again, having things come into play tapped can cripple an opposing strategy.

Thorn of Amethyst - Redundancy of ensuring your opponent's spells are impossible to cast.

Vryn Wingmare - Another Thalia effect for redundancy.

Winter Orb - needs no further introduction.

Hulk Lines

The deck has recently added Protean Hulk as another combo outlet. Assuming we have a sac outlet in play, we can assemble something as follows:- Sacrifice Protean Hulk, grabbing Mikaeus, the Unhallowed- Cast Phyrexian Delver, get back Protean Hulk- Sac Protean Hulk, grabbing Triskelion- Ping the table by repeatedly removing counters, ensuring one of those counters kills Triskelion so it can return with Mikaeus.

Another method is to abuse ETB triggers:- Sac the Hulk to grab Karmic Guide or Phyrexian Delver and Viscera Seer. - Karmic Guide brings back the Hulk; sac to find Saffi Eriksdotter, Blood Artist and Grand Abolisher- Sac Saffi to return either Karmic Guide/Delver.- You can create a loop here as the Guide/Delver ETBs to return Saffi, which can be sacrificed to return them back, all triggering Blood Artist.

OST

Date added	1 year
Last updated	11 months
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal. Highlight illegal cards
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.61
Folders	Uncategorized, PM Decks, Favorable Fodder, Deck Ideas, Uncategorized, Interesting Commander Decks, Awesome Decks!, saved, deck ideas
Top rank	#3 on 2018-02-04